tyrion Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 I have an nForce4 based MB (joys!). I would like to use OSx86 so i figure i have two options. I'm not risking corrupting my data. 1) Get a PCI SATA controller. Could anyone recommend one? (I would prefer not to shell out if i don't have to.) 2) I have a USB HDD which I could use but its not bootable. Would it be possible to point a bootloader at a USB drive? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rammjet Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 1. No PCI SATA controller is known to work with OSX. OSX has limited SATA controller support. Just like there is no nForce4 support, there is no support for any of the controllers used in any PCI cards. And none of the manufacturers has seen fit to produce an OSX driver. 2. You can use an external USB drive if OSX doesn't have any problems with your USB system. If the USB drive is not bootable, how do you propose that OSX boot it? Why not find a nice unused PATA drive? Something of the order of 10 GB ought to be available for a song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrion Posted October 5, 2006 Author Share Posted October 5, 2006 2. You can use an external USB drive if OSX doesn't have any problems with your USB system. If the USB drive is not bootable, how do you propose that OSX boot it? Well, has it been done that the boot loader (maybe something like lilo) loads a small image, whos' only job is to load the partition from the USB system? Why not find a nice unused PATA drive? Something of the order of 10 GB ought to be available for a song. I dont have any room in my box for any more HDDs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rammjet Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 Well, has it been done that the boot loader (maybe something like lilo) loads a small image, whos' only job is to load the partition from the USB system? OSX has a bootloader. Windows has a bootloader, but you must add Chain0 and modify the boot.ini file to make it work with OSX. Linux has bootloaders like Grub. There is also WinGrub for Windows. And commercial bootloaders like Acronis. Using a Windows or Linux disk/partition utility to set a partition "active" makes it bootable whether there is a bootloader or not. But if there is a bootloader on the active partition, then it can be used to boot any other partition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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