[Macworld.com]

Won't work. Not with Jaguar.Not with Panther.Not with the aid of Carbon Copy Cloner.It just won't work. [more]

[jwlussow]

I tried to do the OS install on my 5 and 15 GB iPods without any luck. I was able to boot from the iPods if I cloned an existing system onto them. Does the mini support a cloned OS? Like I said, I already have a 5 (only for booting and system repair) and a 15 (only for music) but I would love to switch to a mini for the system repair stuff if it could work. Using the iPod to boot and repair has been a great find for me. I've turned just about everybody I know onto Mac and I offer 24/7 tech support if they make the switch. Showing up at their house only armed with an iPod has made my life much easier.

[Chris Breen]

On bootable iPods: You can boot from an original iPod with little problem. The only hitch is installing Jaguar. As you've discovered, the only way to get it on there is by cloning a bootable drive. Thankfully, the Panther installer works as it should with an original iPod -- no need to clone for a 10.3 install.
I tried every way I could to make a bootable mini -- regular install from CD, regular install from DVD, clone from a bootable drive. Nothing worked. Everything was where it should have been but the mini never came up -- didn't boot and wasn't even recognized in the screen that appears when you hold down the Option key at startup (nope, not even after it spins up and you push the Rescan button).
When I wrote that entry I was half hoping that someone would reply "You idiot! All you have to do is..." but I've seen nothing so far.
Drat!
Chris

[Rick LePage]

Having the complete oeuvre of Gary Lewis at your beck and call is much more important than booting.
Seeing the transfer times for the mini posted on MacInTouch this morning, I'll keep it as a music player, thank you very much.
Rick

[Chris Breen]

In reply to:

---

Having the complete oeuvre of Gary Lewis at your beck and call is much more important than booting.

---

While we are of like minds, my mini would respectfully disagree. I had no idea the iPod carried a "Blechh!" icon until I forced the mini to play Gary's I'm on the Right Road Now (Featuring "Something is Wrong" -- and boy, is it ever).
Chris

[Schneb]

I am not into portable music, but I would buy 2 of them if I could plug it into my Firewire camera and record right to the little beauty!

[PBear]

if you want to record DV onto a portable hard drive, you need something like this:
ADS Pyro DV Drive
or like this:
MCE QuickStream DV

There's also an InsideMacRadio interview with a quy from ADS Tech describing their product:
interview
I think the problem is that, in addition to the hard drive and a firewire interface, you need a Compression/Decompression module (CODEC). None of the iPods (or other portable hard drives) have that capability (at least not any time soon...), so you'll need a specialized product, and they're not cheap.
PBear

[dcpics]

hey, just wondering: are you using the iPod only as a bootable drive or are you using it for music as well? I know you always have the option of using it only for music, but for less than the price of a 15gig iPod you can get a small firewire drive that's not much bigger in physical size but is 60-80 gig of storage.

[jbelkin800]

http://homepage.mac....0656/index.html

[airhog]

I installed Jaguar on my 20G iPod. It tried but couldnt boot up, it did get very hot though. Not hot enough to cook on but when they become outdated in a few years it will be great for keeping my coffee warm.

[jwlussow]

Before I got the 15 GB I used the 5GB for both some music and an OS. I like the iPod setup since it is bus powered and very small and portable. Are these other drives bus powered?

[jwlussow]

Apparently you need to clone an existing Jaguar drive to make the iPod bootable in 10.2. Chris Breen says you can install Panther directly but my Panther installation was cloned. The iPod does get hot but Panther seems a bit cooler than Jaguar.

[dcpics]

Some of the compact, portable firewire drives are bus powered. I've got a 60 gig FireLite model from Smartdisk that isn't much bigger than an iPod (it looks like a radar detector) that is bus powered and I've got it set up as a bootable disk. With it being so small and portable, I can carry it with me when I want and it makes a quick way to share large amounts of information without burning tons of CDs. I've seen these Smartdisk drives sold in the Apple Store for under $300 as well.

[Schneb]

Thanks PBear, I lost those links, but I think this would be a hot addition to what the iPod can do and will increase it's sales.