01-13-2009, 02:43 AM
yeoman wrote:
I'm not sure if this is what I was recalling about potential software update issues but, regardless, I just avoid any possibility of incompatibility by sticking to the appropriate format and b-u to sparse images:
Quote from the Apple link above...
"Note: Support for the very latest shipping Intel-based Macs may not immediately become available via Software Update, but may be picked up in the next Mac OS X 10.5.x update. Your external disk may not be able to start an Intel-based Mac that shipped with a version of Mac OS X later than what is on the external disk."
I think all that's referring to is that if you have a 10.5 on a drive (from either PPC or Intel), and update it with all the software updates, it still might not boot a very recently release new Mac.
This is because Apple sometimes has a special version of the OS that is being developed in parallel with the software update, but needs to ship on slightly different schedules to match hardware release schedules so even though their version number is the same, they are from different builds and are slightly different. Usually by the next OS update support for those newer Macs gets rolled in and everything is fine.
That really doesn't have anything to do with partition maps or PPC vs Intel. The only reason why it only applies to Intel Macs is because Apple isn't making new models of PowerPC Macs.