Bootable iPod

octaneoctane
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Is there a way I could install Win XP and OS X on a 3/4G iPod and boot Winblows via USB 2 or OS X via Firewire? (of course on their respective systems--not boot OS X on a pc or vice versa) If so, or one is possible and the other not, would someone be kind enough to explain it, please?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    It is certainly possible to boot from OSX on an iPod as a firewire device.





    Instructions



    In order to force the computer to seek external drives to boot from, you'll need to have the iPod already connected to the FW port and choose the iPod boot partition in Sys Prefs -> Startup Disk or hold down "Option-Command-Shift-Delete" during startup to bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk [or iPod]).





    Looks like there is discussion about boot Linux from iPod, so what you seek may be possible.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    octaneoctane Posts: 157member
    Sweet! Thanks!
  • Reply 3 of 6
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by octane

    Sweet! Thanks!



    just keep in mind that you're killing your iPod hard drive if you boot from it too much.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    octaneoctane Posts: 157member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    just keep in mind that you're killing your iPod hard drive if you boot from it too much.



    Yeah, after reading that article, I'm just going to buy a small external HDD (databank or something, or else a high capacity USB flash disk. But I may decide to just wait on this project all together. Thanks for the help. 8)
  • Reply 5 of 6
    indecisive pc userindecisive pc user Posts: 73member
    ooops - posted message twice by mistake, doh!

    -indy
  • Reply 6 of 6
    indecisive pc userindecisive pc user Posts: 73member
    As mentioned, you can certainly boot your Mac with an external firewire drive (or iPod) - i do it all the time with my external Lacie drive. However, you will have real trouble using the same drive (iPod) on both Mac & XP.



    To cut a long-story short:



    a) to boot your Mac from the external you need to have the drive formatted to the Mac's HFS file structure. This is unique to Mac, i.e. you won't be read the iPod on windows now unless you have some third party windows software like MacDrive.



    b) if you were to format the iPod for use with a PC, you could read the drive on both OS' but you wouldn't be able to boot the Mac with it because the Mac needs the HFS system.



    c) you might think you could just partition the drive up and have seperate Mac / Windows partitions but again you'll have trouble as both the OS' want to twiddle the master boot record / file allocation table. There is a work-around for this multi-partition solution but it's quite complicated and a little flakey \



    As you have pretty much concluded, you are better off getting an external firewire drive, formatting it for Mac and using that to boot from. In this instance, you can even put several Mac partitions on it and have several different Mac OS' on there (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger etc).



    -indy
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