Im pretty sure I can recall seeing other threads here on the topic of USB booting from Macs. Im assuming you have been able to successfully boot other USB based OS'es from your Mac?
Live USB on a Mac
Hullo,
I've created a live usb version of BackTrack 4 on my Mac (running 10.4) using diskutil. However, when I press option on startup, the USB doesn't display as a boot option. Am I doing something wrong with the live usb creation? Is there another way I can create a live usb on a mac?
Thanks!
Re: Live USB on a Mac
Im pretty sure I can recall seeing other threads here on the topic of USB booting from Macs. Im assuming you have been able to successfully boot other USB based OS'es from your Mac?
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Re: Live USB on a Mac
Well, I haven't tried. However, I'm fairly sure that there's nothing wrong with my computer, if that is what you're implying.
Re: Live USB on a Mac
The only thing I'm implying is that you should be following a proper troubleshooting process to narrow down the cause of this issue, and that would include trying to verify that your Mac does in fact boot from USB devices. This would confirm that your Mac supports booting from USB devices, that it is configured to do so and that the functionality is working correctly. I'm wondering what basis you have for assuming that there is nothing wrong with your computer if you haven't actually tested this...Originally Posted by openote
Capitalisation is important. It's the difference between "Helping your brother Jack off a horse" and "Helping your brother jack off a horse".
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Re: Live USB on a Mac
um theres a thread on this from a couple weeks ago, the general consensus was that macs fail and its easier to run bt4 from hdd on a cheap laptop instead
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Re: Live USB on a Mac
Hm. There really is no basis other than the fact that I've never had any problem running virtual machines on this, but that doesn't necessarily imply that I can boot from a USB. I guess I'll try Ubuntu or something later to test it out...
Just out of curiosity, according to the tutorial linked on the BackTrack homepage, using Unetbootin on a PC/Linux should create a working live USB. Can live USBs made by Unetbootin be run on a Mac that can boot live USBs?
And Macs don't fail. I just have an old one. and I don't have access to any PCs at the moment.
Re: Live USB on a Mac
Look before I close this thread, let me help you out here a bit more.
There is no need to worry about the capabilities of unetbootin until you have determined if your mac supports booting from a usb or whatever.
So in order to gain more info about this, try searching the internet and or your documentation.
If this fails (which I doubt it will) then you can grab a usb stick and make it bootable some way. This way is found in the tutorial and how-to section here.
Now please research the above and feel free to share your findings, then we can possibly help you further.
Re: Live USB on a Mac
Hm. Looking at some documentation for rEFIt, it looks like "booting Windows or Linux from an external disk is not well-supported by Apple’s firmware." And since rEFIt is just a slightly more graphical version of the normal Apple boot menu, I doubt that rEFIt will work.
It looks like it's possible from the "well-supported" part, but I'll probably have to do some tweaking around, which I'm not that good at. Worst comes to worst, I guess I can dig up an old PC somewhere and use that... or use a CD.
Thanks for your help!
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