bonoedgey wrote:
hey koszer,

so I tried to boot from the usb.

I had a 1GB usb stick that I formatted to FAT32. I put the newly named "morphos.iso" and the boot.img (from the from the /mac_ppc64) on it.

Nothing more nothing less just those two files (worked out to be just under 300Mb I think)

so I went into OF

I ran the commands to find the usb:

I found that "dev usb2 ls" yielded me this:

ffa50d48: /disk@2 ok

(I went til there was no more USBs and didn't find a disk@1)

so I proceeded to put

" boot usb2/disk@2:,boot.img bi umsd0:morphos.iso "

I got the following

"Warning: sector size mismatch! can't OPEN: usb2/disk@2:,boot.img
Can't open device or file
ok "

soooooo two things this makes me wonder...

1. Does it have to be "disk@1" cause I couldn't find one... (when I did the "dev /aliases .properties" command I saw that there were a few variations of the USB like usb-2a,2b,2c none of which had disk@1... only usb2 has disk@2)

I noticed that the cd1 has disk@1 listed but that may be normal
wonder if there was a blotch up from me putting the boot.img file on .. I made sure it was from the correct directory and just outside on the root dir with the iso file.

2. wonder if that means my usb stick isn't really working properly.

I saw how my keyboard hooked up (also has a wireless usb mouse hooked to the power keyboard)


Also should note for jPV... I hooked up another monitor and same white screen..


so I wasn't yet successful booting from the usb.. and the monitors don't seem to matter.

*sigh* seems like square one again..

Sorry koszer for not being able to properly boot by usb..
I imagine I am doing something wrong

asapreta wrote:

so I proceeded to put

" boot usb2/disk@2:,boot.img bi umsd0:morphos.iso "

koszer wrote:
Quote:

Your boot command should look directly like:

boot usb2/disk@2:,\boot.img bi umsd0:morphos.iso

maybe you did use the backslash, but it got cut by the forum engine.
Are you sure your boot.img is from the mac_ppc64?
Are you sure your ISO file is named morphos.iso?

cyfm wrote:
You can also try to write the provided SD Card/USB Image as raw sector image to a USB stick and simply change the boot-device to ud in OpenFirmware. Also avoids to mess around with OpenFirmware each time. While it isn't immediately obvious on the downloads page, the image file also contains all the necessary data to be used as boot install option for Apple devices as well.
I've been using that method for years on several Apple devices by now. The only pitfall might be the USB stick itself, unfortunatly. Some are not properly recognized by Apple's OpenFirmware and booting from it won't work.
It also won't show up in the graphical boot menu, btw, but that might have been done on purpose by Apple back then.

asapreta wrote:
Please how would I boot from it as it won't show on the graphical menu?
I am very new to this PowerPC/Openfirmware stuff, despite having about 80 computers from the 80's.
Cheers!

setenv boot-device ud:,\:tbxi

asapreta wrote:
So I did what is meant to, format an usb flashdisk FAT32, copy the ISO and the ppc64 boot.img to its root.

The default boot command using ud as drive didn't worked and as the mentioned on this post, my USB flashdisk is on usb2/disk@1.

And I cant go far, the I get the same error messages.

koszer wrote:
Quote:

OK, first you need to download the 'hybrid' hdimage from MorphOS website. The one described as "SD Card / USB Image for Efika, Sam460, X5000".
Then you need to find a USB pendrive of low capacity (the best would be 2 or 4 GB, although I used a 8 GB one and it worked).
Then you need to save the hdimage to it. You can use the Raspberry Pi Imager for Windows. You need to select "other image" and force using the 'hybrid' hdimage you've downloaded earlier.
Then, the last thing you need to do is change the boot device in Open Firmware. To do this you use the command:

Code:

From this point on, when there's the (earlier prepared) pendrive plugged in - your system will boot from it.

jPV wrote:
Quote:

Before trying to boot the whole thing, I'd suggest you to check if you can list files on the drive from the OF prompt. Use the dir command for that, here are instructions: http://library.morph.zone/Open_Firmware#Listing_Files.

If you can't list the files, then maybe the USB stick or its formatting isn't compatible with OF and it's useless to try to execute any boot lines either, or you're using a wrong device after all and should search correct one better. But if you can list the files, it takes us a step forward in debugging. And remember that the disk must be connected before going into OF, it doesn't detect USB devices inserted while it's on already.

cyfm wrote:
You can also try to write the provided SD Card/USB Image as raw sector image to a USB stick and simply change the boot-device to ud in OpenFirmware. Also avoids to mess around with OpenFirmware each time. While it isn't immediately obvious on the downloads page, the image file also contains all the necessary data to be used as boot install option for Apple devices as well.
I've been using that method for years on several Apple devices by now. The only pitfall might be the USB stick itself, unfortunatly. Some are not properly recognized by Apple's OpenFirmware and booting from it won't work.
It also won't show up in the graphical boot menu, btw, but that might have been done on purpose by Apple back then.

So use

Code:

Edit:
Some older OF versions might require to specify the usb path directly as they don't offer the ud devalias. Use usb0/disk@1:\macofboot or alternatively usb0/disk@1:\macofboot as boot-device, depending on the USB port used,so:

Code:
or

Code:

[ Editiert durch cyfm 15.04.2026 - 10:08 ]

setenv boot-device ud:,\:tbxi

setenv boot-device usb2/disk@1:\macofboot

koszer wrote:
Quote:

OK, first you need to download the 'hybrid' hdimage from MorphOS website. The one described as "SD Card / USB Image for Efika, Sam460, X5000".
Then you need to find a USB pendrive of low capacity (the best would be 2 or 4 GB, although I used a 8 GB one and it worked).
Then you need to save the hdimage to it. You can use the Raspberry Pi Imager for Windows. You need to select "other image" and force using the 'hybrid' hdimage you've downloaded earlier.
Then, the last thing you need to do is change the boot device in Open Firmware. To do this you use the command:

Code:

From this point on, when there's the (earlier prepared) pendrive plugged in - your system will boot from it.

jPV wrote:
Quote:

Before trying to boot the whole thing, I'd suggest you to check if you can list files on the drive from the OF prompt. Use the dir command for that, here are instructions: http://library.morph.zone/Open_Firmware#Listing_Files.

If you can't list the files, then maybe the USB stick or its formatting isn't compatible with OF and it's useless to try to execute any boot lines either, or you're using a wrong device after all and should search correct one better. But if you can list the files, it takes us a step forward in debugging. And remember that the disk must be connected before going into OF, it doesn't detect USB devices inserted while it's on already.

jacadcaps wrote:
What keyboard are you using to type those OF commands? If it's non-US, you may be using a wrong character instead of the backslash.

See https://morphos-team.net/guide/usb-boot#section4 'There is no backslash on my keyboard. How do I type it?' for an explanation and hits on how to overcome this.

'boot ud:,\boot.img bi umsd0:morphos.iso' should definitely work on your PowerMac, unless it's unable to detect the drive at all. Make sure the drive is <=32GB since OpenFirmware has problems with larger FAT32 formatted drives. Use the USB ports at the back, not the one at the front for added certainty.