Mac OS 9 Lives

Mac OS 9 Discussion => Hardware => Storage => Topic started by: Graveyard on May 19, 2014, 05:27:18 AM

Title: Booting from firewire 400 external dvd drive
Post by: Graveyard on May 19, 2014, 05:27:18 AM

A friend gave me a few months ago a ForMac FireWire 400 external enclosure. I don't know what kind of optical drive it originally had, but i have IDE LG dvd-rw in it right now.
The problem is that i haven't been able to boot from it on any of my Macs. I've tried on my dual usb iBook, PowerMac G3 B&W, iMac G3, iMac G5... None of them recognize the darn thing as a bootable drive. The discs i used are all perfect, they are bootable once inserted in the internal optical drive on each of the machines. But not a single machine was able to boot from this drive. Am i doing something wrong? I saw a few jumpers inside the enclosure on the controller. But i can't find any manuals to see what they do. More than that, seems like ForMac is long gone...
Any ideas?

Title: Re: Booting from firewire 400 external dvd drive
Post by: supernova777 on May 20, 2014, 08:50:18 AM

my friend just got a "Formac" Gallery ADC display
if it wasnt for that id be at a loss to understand what u meant by the word "formac"
and that it is actually a brand name of a 3rd party company who made apple compatible peripherals + Displays.

Title: Re: Booting from firewire 400 external dvd drive
Post by: Graveyard on May 20, 2014, 10:21:59 PM

I also have a 20" ForMac Gallery ADC display connected to my Quicksilver... It's still a great display despite its age.

Title: Re: Booting from firewire 400 external dvd drive
Post by: MacTron on May 22, 2014, 02:27:26 PM

Not all dvd drives are fully compatible with Mac.
Here you have one that is still on sale and is very cheap:

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=958.msg3523

But it is a SATA drive so it will need a SATA PCI card or a PATA/SATA adapter.

Title: Re: Booting from firewire 400 external dvd drive
Post by: Graveyard on May 22, 2014, 10:25:55 PM

So the optical drive i have inside the ForMac enclosure might be the culprit? Hmmm... I'm gonna try and see what other optical drives i have around here and check whether they'll be recognized as bootable drives or not. Thanks for the tip.
I don't need another optical drive in any of my Macs. My B&W and Quicksilver both have brand new Dvd-rw drives and they boot flawlessly. I just want to get a dvd drive in this enclosure and to be able to boot from it in case any of my portable or iMac G3 machines will decide not to boot from their own internal drives.

Title: Re: Booting from firewire 400 external dvd drive
Post by: IIO on May 27, 2014, 05:26:42 PM

that the drive is not fully supported by macs is your best bet. otherwise firewire enclosures are a very easy, safe way how to boot into OS9.