Booting from a FireFly drive in OS X: SmartDisk says no
Booting from a FireFly drive in OS X: SmartDisk says no
Alex pointed out to SmartDisk that Apple in fact has stated the opposite, as in KB document 58606. [Ed. note: The KB document does not specifically cite OS X, which has been known to have problems not seen in OS 9. For example, see KB document 106473. However, KB document 60920 notes that the FireWire drive in an iPod can be a startup drive. And many users have reported success with OS X and FireWire drives. FWIW, Apple also has a promotion for getting a free FireFly drive.]
None-the-less, SmartDisk replied: "The proper documentation (for the FireFly) can be found here. [It states: 'Create a bootable backup image of your Mac: Replicate your entire Macintosh system (up to Mac OS 9.x)...'] For more information about Apple's stance regarding this issue, please contact Apple's technical support department."
Update: Bart Cable replies: "I purchased three of VST's 10 GB Graphite portable hard drives and, at the time of purchase, I asked VST/SmartDisk if these were bootable with OS 9 and X. Their reply was yes, and these drives do boot perfectly well in OS X. So what's changed in the Firefly?"
Dan Jahn adds: "The problem is purely a SmartDisk issue. The drive in the SmartDisk FireFly enclosure spins down while OS X is booting. What then happens is that OS X displays the broken system folder icon, because as far as it can tell, the drive from which it was booting has now vanished. If at this time you unplug and plug back in the FireFly, the computer will usually continue booting."
