Booting separate computers from one drive

johnbaxterlists (apparently) - 06:45am Oct 29, 2007 PST
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Michael Logue asks

> Does anyone know if it is possible to install Leopard on an
> external firewire drive and then use that drive to boot a PPC Mac
> and an Intel Mac that reside at different locations. I assume the
> major problems would be installing the system and would software
> updates to one machine update the components for both processors. I
> am asking because if this is possible it would make keeping the
> computer at my retail store and the one at home in synch most
> painlessly. The software update problem is due to the fact that we
> have very fast broadband at the store and very slow dial-up at
> home, too slow to use software update at home.

I accidentally got a partial answer to a similar question.

A bootable clone (SuperDuper) of Leopard made from my MacBook did
boot on my early G4 Mini, and I was able to log into my normal-user
account and use Safari. (It's likely faster to make a bootable clone
than to do an install.)

So, superficially, the booting works. (Somewhat to my surprise.)
Note that you need to use the old-style partition map (and the
Leopard installer may or may not be willing to install on that while
running on Intel--another reason to prefer making a clone.

I certainly wouldn't count on all updaters forever keeping a drive's
installation usable on both Intel and PowerPC, though. I would think
your routine have to involve installing all updates from free-
standing updaters on the home machine.

This experiment was unintentional--what I was trying to do was
determine whether my (third) bootable clone of the Mini on a spindle
I connect to all of my machines as a clone target was actually
bootable (it was, as found later). But I forgot my naming convention
(which is hard to forget: backX is the clone of X).

That leaves me to wonder whether my Dual 533 will boot from a Leopard
bootable clone. That experiment will come (much) later (and whether
the old and rather generic video card driving the second monitor will
work). Unless I do that experiment accidentally, too.

There was also a question from someone about running Leopard on an
early Mini. The above accident leads me to say "yes"--at least for
my purposes on my 1.25 gigahertz Mini.

Off to erase and install and migrate from clone on the Mini


   --John (oh, look, what's that?--let's call it "rubber")