Can you boot from a USB 2.0 drive?

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Anyone?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    Don't think so. Firewire is a definite yes. It might have something to do with the firmware.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    Didn't we just cover this in this thread ?
  • Reply 3 of 6
    That thread got it wrong. It is possible to boot off of USB (1, 1.1, or 2.... Ok... 1 would take forever, and 1.1 would be slow). The big thing is that the bridge chipset has to support booting, and since Windows does not really provide support for booting off external volumes (think activation), some of the manufacturers have been skipping this feature.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

    That thread got it wrong. It is possible to boot off of USB (1, 1.1, or 2.... Ok... 1 would take forever, and 1.1 would be slow). The big thing is that the bridge chipset has to support booting, and since Windows does not really provide support for booting off external volumes (think activation), some of the manufacturers have been skipping this feature.



    Ok, so what you're saying is that while it's technically feasible, most (almost all?) devices do not support it. Not one person participating in that thread was able to boot from a USB device (myself included).



    That's pretty much the same as saying it's not possible, is it not?
  • Reply 5 of 6
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Just jumped right in and didn't bother searching for previous threads!



    Sorry guys!



    A tiny little Freecom drive caught my eye at lunchtime. It uses the 1.8" drive format, and is teeny tiny. It has a cable/connector built in, and it draws its power from the USB 2.0 interface.



    At 40GB, it would make an ideal boot drive!
  • Reply 6 of 6
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by talksense101

    Don't think so. Firewire is a definite yes. It might have something to do with the firmware.



    I've just bought a hard drive (a LaCie Porsche 160 GB FW) and it wont start up! I copied over all the files from my mac using carbon copy cloner and it wouldn't work, my ipod would though when i did the same thing!
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