Boot PPC PowerMac from USB

First, familiarize yourself with the following articles:

• Join Macintosh Repository so you only have to wait 2 minutes between downloads
• Mac OS 9.2.2 “boot kit” for booting your G3/G4 from an USB stick
• How to “burn” (or write or clone) a bootable PowerPC disk image onto an USB stick in Windows
• How to boot PPC PowerMacs (G3, G4, G5) from a USB stick or drive?

Now for the fun part:

1. Have a USB thumb drive handy (I successfully used 512MB, 1GB, 2GB drives)
2. Download and unzip the 9.2.2 Boot Kit (the resulting file will have a .toast file extension)
3. Download and unzip HDD Raw Copy Tool
4. Use HDD Raw Copy Tool to write the Toast file to the USB thumb drive
5. Turn on the Mac and immediately hold down <Command><Option><O><F> until you see the white Open Firmware screen
6. Type “boot usb0/disk@1:,\\:tbxi” (without the double-quotes) and press <Enter>

(Be aware you may need to change the port number of the USB device depending on the Mac model and which port the USB thumb drive is plugged into.)

7. Voila!

~ by bwsd on April 27, 2019.