HOW-TO use an iPod as a bootable drive
This week's HOW-TO is a handy one for the Mac folks out there who want to run multiple operating systems, but not install them to their hard drive, all using an iPod as a bootable FireWire drive. This HOW-TO is also helpful for trying out new software (on another OS), running developer versions of Mac OS (like Mac OS X Server or Tiger) as well as having a way to repair your Mac if for some reason it cannot boot on its own. At the end of this article, we also point to a way to simply back up your home directory (or anything else to your iPod) which can be handy too, and even used in conjunction with this HOW-TO).
Ingredients for this HOW-TO...
- iPod (most iPods should work, but the mini will not)
- Mac OS X 10.3.5 is what we're using for the target machine
- Operating System to install to iPod (we used Tiger and Mac OS X)
<>Before we get started, we should warn you that doing this can and will use your iPod in a way it was not
intended and may severely shorten the life of your iPod. The reason is that the little iPod hard drive wasn't
meant to be a full-time operating system drive. It's okay to boot from it from time to time, but the little drives are
rated to about 20,000 hours while desktop drives are usually rated to 750,000 hours or more. But, even with that said—
the biggest reason thus will eventually kill your iPod is—the heat that will be generated inside the iPod from this
much use isn't what the iPod was designed for, so at some point you can and will fry your iPod.
Preparing the iPod...
Also, to do this we're going to completely erase the iPod, making it useless for anything else beside booting in to
another operating system (until you restore it using the iPod update utility).
You may not need to erase the iPod completely, in our tests we found that it worked better (in most cases) and if
you're going to use a PC iPod then you need to format it to a Mac File system any way.
Now that's out of the way, let's get started.
For our example, we're going to use a 3G, 30GB iPod. The first thing we're going to need to do is erase the drive,
formatting it— in preparation to install the new OS to it.
Our OS is Mac OS 10.3.5
Plug the iPod into your Mac (for our example, an iMac).
Open Disk Utility, it's usually located in the Utilities folder.
In the left pane, click the iPod and select "erase" in menu to the right. Choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and
name the drive (we named ours booter).
Click erase. It will ask to confirm, click Erase.
The drive will be erased and partitioned. Quit Disk Utility.
Installing the new Operating System...
Pop the DVD/CD/or disc image in and start the install, choose the drive we just created on the iPod.
You may need to reboot prior to the install, just make sure you leave the iPod plugged in.
When you start the install, choose the drive "booter" or whatever you named it, this will install the operating system
to the iPod.
If for any reason the install hangs, reboot the Mac and start again. To reboot the iPod, press and hold the menu +
play buttons for 10 seconds. For the 4G iPod (click wheel) flip the hold switch, flip it back, then press and hold the
center button for 10 seconds.
It'll take about 40 minutes to install Mac OS X to the iPod, once it's finished— unplug the iPod and reboot the
Mac.
Without the iPod plugged in to the Mac, reboot in to your regular operating.
After you reboot and you've logged in, plug the iPod in. Feel free to inspect its contents as well as add any other
files you wish to use once you boot to it.
Booting up...
Open up System Preferences and click "Startup Disk".
In the list of disks, choose "booter" or whatever you called it.
Confirm, click restart.
After rebooting you'll be in the new operating system, running directly off your iPod! You might need to set up the
new system and transfer files from your other drive if you need them, but that's pretty much it.
Here we are in Mac OS X "Tiger" (10.4).
Search, Gadgets, RSS in Safari...
Keep in mind it'll be a bit slower than running off your regular hard drive and don't do this all the time as we
mentioned at the start of this article as it will shorten the iPod's life span quite a bit.
A couple last things...
Cloning...
Another easy way to do all this is to use "Carbon Copy Cloner"
with this utility you can make an exact copy of your system to the iPod, very handy for when you need to boot up in
case of emergencies.
The Future of iPod booting...
We're big fans of the bootable Linux CD we always carry around which has
KNOPPIX-STD — a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware
detection, utils and more— it doesn't install anything to the hard drive, very handy for lots of good things. We're
thinking of doing an OS X flavor (for our own use) with all our favorite tools, utils and more and have that in our bag
for when we want to boot in to a totally different system.
And with that said, we might try and see if we can install and boot from a
Linux distro on the iPod, we'll let you know if it works
out (it seems
possible).
Backing up to the iPod...
iPodBackup v1.1b3. is a Mac OS X utility
based on a shell script that allows you to backup your OS X "home" directory to your iPod. You'll need to follow the
instructions on this page, but it's pretty simple. If you extra space on your iPod this is really worth it, and you
don't need to erase/format like our HOW-TO. That said, you could make your iPod bootable like we showed here, then use
iPodBackup to backup to the bootable iPod with a fresh copy of your home directory, you'd always have a bootable
version of your Mac wherever you go.
Awhile back, there was a rumor of "Home on iPod" built in
to Mac OS X, from Apple, but so far it hasn't presented itself more than once, then it was pulled off the Apple
site.
Here's the text before it was pulled from Apple's site.
Home away from home
Ever thought you could carry your home in the palm of your hands or in your pocket? You can. Panther's Home on iPod
feature lets you store your home directory files, folders, apps on your iPod (or any FireWire hard drive) and
take it with you wherever you go. When you find yourself near a Panther-equipped Mac, just plug in the iPod, log in,
and you're home, no matter where you happen to be. And when you return to your home computer, you can synchronize any
changes you've made to your files by using File Sync, which automatically updates offline changes to your home
directory.
But, last week "YouPod" was released...
(Shareware, not Apple) so who knows what's going to happen; it might show up in the next version of the OS, or maybe
it'll only be a 3rd party app.
Well, that's it for now— good luck!
Phillip Torrone can be reached via his personal site, http://www.flashenabled.com or torrone@gmail.com
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Josh @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
10.4 Tiger...I'm jelous!
My friend did this with his 3G 20 & he used it for about a week until the hard drive completely bit it. It began to make this whirring sound with what sounded like scratching...keep in mind he had just kept it on his desk running the computer for about 5 days. Neat, but dangerous!
Adam Latham @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Carbon Copy Cloner will make an ipod a bootable disk of your current system and you will not need to erase the i-pod.
Makes a great saftey back-up and is very easy to use and free!
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
adam.
Sam Walker @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Why do you need to erase it? I in stalled the Panther developer preview when it came out back in the day on my iPod, and I didn't have to erase the contents of my iPod first I just plugged it in in Firewire Disk mode, and selected it in the installer. It just put a system folder in the root directory of my iPod and left everything else there.
Joshua Eckhardt @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
As was written above, this is a bad idea. Apple originally touted this as a feature until people began frittering their iPods. The drive doesn't dissipate heat well enough to take the sustained thrashing running an OS involves.
pt @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
adam, i had linked to carbon cloner in the article (at the end).
sam-- my ipod was pc formatted, so i erased it first, also--when it was mac formatted and as an ipod, i had a couple problems, so i erased it.
josh-- you're right, heat (and drive use) are the ipod killers. more so heat, i updated the article a bit, thanks.
cheers,
pt
Charles @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Can you run multiple partitions, and maybe still use one partition for iTunes music storage? It might be nice to have a quick bootable OS with Carbon Copy cloner, maybe a couple other partitions with cloned OSes. You boot from the iPod, run CCC, and restore your MacOS bootable image to any Mac. Maybe still have enough room left over for a music library. But it all depends on whether this works with more than one partition. Does the bootable partition or music library have any partition requirements (i..e first partition only)?
The Director @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
I don't understand this article.
I had no problem what so ever to install the Tiger preview directly onto my iPod Mini (which already held some 500+ songs) and then immediately boot from the iPod Mini.
Don't make things look harder than they are.
Jimmy Cederholm @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
I don't have an iPod, so I can not check this, but will the drive show up as an entry in fstab?
If so, adding the option 'noatime' will save the hard drive quite a bit, since that will prevent it from writing to disk on each file access.
Jimmy C
Elliot @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
I thought I'd be clever and make my brand-new 3rd generation iPod a bootable dedicated GarageBand volume, thus making it my all-in-one music production and listening device. I was pretty happy until about a week later when the display wouldn't work. It was then that I noticed how hot my iPod was.
The good news is, I brought it in to the Apple Store here in San Francisco, and they gave me a new one on the spot. I use it just for listening to music now.
Bob @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
How did you get Tiger?
Huh?
Rob @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
this may not be how he got it but Tiger is available on suprnova.org via Bit Torrent
http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/2070/tiger.dmg(1).torrent
Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
It wont download the file, it just downloads a reall small file.
Steven Schrab @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
You need to download a copy of Bit Torrent and open that file with it.
http://www.bittorrent.com/
Adam Zeldin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
My tip is to wrap your ipod in an ice pack to prevent over heating. I just installed tiger and it is awesome. Just a question, how do I get the widgets to come up.
Damon Blythe @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
okay, so you can boot from an ipod. neat trick. how about intalling an operating system from an ipod? the osx.3 disks i have are dvd. my wifes ibook doesn't have a dvd drive. see the problem? any suggestions?
thomas @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
here's what I'm doing as I type. I had a g4 tower die on me big-time. ever seen a mac blue screen of death? anyway, I used carbon copy cloner (CCC) to clone my panther install from a g4 powerbook onto my iPod (make sure you set the preference to make the cloned volume bootable). Next I copied CCC to the iPod this is kinda critical.
After plugging the iPod into the tower, I restarted the tower holding option this allows you choose a boot volume. holding "t" for target disc was not successful (for the curious). after booting from the pod, I used CCC on it to clone the OS on the pod to overwrite the bad OS on the tower. I'm still crossing my fingers, but I'll update you on how the process went.
thomas @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Damon After using carbon copy cloner to clone the Panther OS to my iPod and then from the iPod to a machine that would not recognize any other boot volume except the iPod, I do not recommend this an a means of installing a stable OS. It was beneficial for me in that it at least got my graphite g4 to boot SOMETHING, but many of the functions critical to the system didn't seem to carry over and I copied everything using CCC.
elamigo2004 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
That sounds kind of cool. I am thinking of getting an iPod this Christmas. Tacos are your friends. Yeah.
jgav @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
If heat dissipation is the only reason that using an iPod as an external HD will lead to premature HD death, then what about some of the aluminum iPod cases?
This reviewer of the iPod Armor case:
http://www.envynews.com/index.php?ID=481&page=3#start
states that the test iPod runs cooler in the aluminum case. Might this be the solution??
jgav
khalid @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
i have change the ipod bootsector(S) do any of u guys know how to get it back or if some one can it send
thankx
White Noise @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
The Ipod Updater software that came with the ipod (or from apple.com) can but im sorry, you will have to do a restore (format your ipod) and loost all music ect. good luck!
LePop @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Perhaps the way is to boot with the Pod into a "flexible refrigerator bag" you use to camp ?!!
http://www.auvieuxcampeur.fr/gp/asp/produit.asp?codprd=48613
(excellent shop for skiing stuffs !!)
Sorry.. I leave ! ;-)))
thomas @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
hi i got a windows xp laptop with a intel centrino processor could i install a mac os on my ipod and boot my windows laptop with an apple operating system - if not why not and is there a way. cos i really wanna use the apple operating system
gattaa @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
They are different system archetecture's. Kinda like if you wanted to make you gas powered car run off of diesel. You'd have to switch the engines.
You need an emulator.
Try this:
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
john @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Another use:
You can use your iPod for just installing an OS, as opposed to running the thing. If you have a disc image of the installer (because you backed up your legal copy, of course), "restore" that onto the iPod, then make the Pod your boot disc.
joseph @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Is there any way to remove the games on the
ipod photo?"
any help would be awsome
Eric Bana @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
I don't think this is gonna work. I tried to install tiger on my ipod on 6 Sept 2005. It said it couldn't install because you couldn't boot from the volume.