Here's what I've found so far:
1. Drives can be formatted as HFS+, using MacDrive. This worked in Parallels running XP. 2. Disk Utility on OS X can't erase or partition these drives at all. (It will look like it's doing something, then fail with an input/output error.) 3. The Macs can read and write to them using either FAT32 or HFS+. I didn't try NTFS or EXT2/3 (the other formats MXI had tested in addition to FAT/FAT32.) 4. You can't boot off of these drives.
I tried using Disk Utility to do a Restore of an existing Intel 10.4.9 image that I knew would boot my MacBook Pro (I unchecked the Erase option, as I knew that would fail.) Surprisingly, Disk Utility was able to do a full copy of the image onto the drive, and Startup Disk did recognize it as having a bootable OS. However, when I tried to boot, it failed (kernal panic one time, just died the next time.)
MXI's now aware of these issues, and their support team says they're working on them.
Thanks, Rich
On Apr 3, 2007, at 8:08 PM, Marko Kostyrko wrote: Interesting that this solution works. For what it's worth, Macs (as far as I have been able to determine) don't support booting from USB flash media
Intel macs will boot from USB
Yes, but will the all boot from USB *flash* media...?
Only intel macs will boot USB. Its the bus not the media that matters (they use the bulk storage device driver, as far as the OS concerned they are actually hard drives (or more specifically block formatted bulk storage devices). So... yes, flash media is fine, provided they are on the USB bus.
It sounds like that device is not properly supporting the bulk storage device standard, which is stopping it being accessed at root device level (probably related to some sort of encryption driver ?) An old trick we used to use is to kill the computer during a format process thus rendering it as "needing root level formatting". I cannot guarantee this process and of course accept no liability for doing so, but it has worked on some weird devices in the old days.
The following product will help that (full disclosure this product is produced by SubRosaSoft, but it is freeware so ... no guilt plug)
I'd seen that product before. Looks nifty. Have you encountered any flash media that it does not work with?
Not so far, but we had a lot of fun shopping at Fry's to find one that would fail, and a lot of time (thanks to our hosts, Apple) at the ADC compatibility labs testing them.
The critical factors for booting are the raw partition scheme (fdisk wont work, pdisk or gpt are required) and the volume file system (only hfs+ works).
If you would like me to investigate further, then plugin the device, then execute the following command "ioreg -c IOMedia -w 0" in the terminal and send it to me off list.
Marko Kostyrko CEO - SubRosaSoft.com Inc skype: markokostyrko Cell: +1 (510) 789 3187
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Rich Trouton (Contractor) LAN Support email@hidden ----------------------------------------------------------- National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health — Bethesda, MD
Office number: (240) 643-7816
NHGRI LAN Support number: (301) 402-7408
The best way to get in touch with me is through email.
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