27" (Late 2012) iMac won't boot from any external drives.

I just got my 27" iMac (late 2012) with Fusion Drive. I can't get it to boot off any my external LaCie drive. I just get an "Ø" symbol. tried this so far:
Ensured the OS on my external drive is 10.8.2 - didn't help.
Updated (reinstalled) Mountain Lion on the external drive, using the Recovery HD that comes with the iMac, just in case it's a "special verision". - didn't help.
Connected via Thunderbolt-to-FireWire 800 adaptor - didn't help.
Connected via USB2 port on HDD to USB3 port on iMac - didn't help.
Used "Startup Disk" system prefs - didn't help.
Used "hold doen ALT key" after startup chime. Can see the drive but - didn't help.
So - has anyone had any luck booting a new iMac off an external device at all?
I might try a Carbon Copy Clone of the Fusion Drive - but I'm thinking it's a waste of time - instinct tells me it's a Firmware limitationin the machine that prevents booting from externals.

trying a clone after all due to this discussion https://discussions.apple.com/message/20938457#20938457

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Late 2012 Mini won't boot from ext HDD with 10.8

Having just replaced an early 2009 Mini with a later 2012 mini, I tried booting off an external HDD that is a backup with Mountain Lion 10.8 as the OS. I selected it to be the boot drive after holding down the option key, but the boot process never went beyond the white screen/Apple logo, even after waiting for minutes.
The external drive is in a Newer 3.5" enclosure with a FW800 port connected to the Mini via a FW800 cable. After booting from the internal drive I can view and change items in the 10.8 external drive. This drive previously booted fine from my old Mini.
[Note: This is not related to my earlier "Snow Leo won't boot" question.]
Thanks

The problem is the version on the external drive, if created
on the old Mini (infered from ""This drive previously booted
fine from my old Mini.") won't boot on the new Mini because
it lacks drivers that are not available on the general Mountain Lion
updates. Since the new Mini came out after 10.8.2, only the
version on it contains the proper drivers. Also, if the version
on the external drive is earlier than 10.8.2, it will never boot
as no Mac can boot to an OS older than it was shipped with.
Whenever 10.8.3 comes out, it will likely sync all current models again.

IMac won't boot from any HDD or install disc

Hi everybody.
This morning my iMac just didn't wanna boot up, it powers on and the start sound plays but nothing more, all white screen.
Tried holding OPT at start, my mouse cursor becomes visible and active but none of my startup drives show. Also tried booting from both SL and leopard install DVD, it reads the disc for a minute or two then spits it out, nothing on the screen, all white.
Tried resetting PRAM, holding down CMDOPT+PR, it reboots but same thing after that.
My internal HDD crashed recently so I've been booting from my external drive which has SL installed. This has worked fine unitl now, last night I shut the machine down it did take an extra two minutes to power off which was out of the ordinary.
All help appreciated which can avoid me from sending it in for repair.

Thanks for the reply.
Since my internal drive had been failing I guessed it had to be the culprit and right I was. After I swapped the HDD (plus swiped the interior clean) my iMac was like new again plus I didn't have to send it away.
But what I can't quite understand is why a bad internal drive which was not in use would hinder the mac from booting from the install DVD all of a sudden.

My PB G4 won't boot from any hard drive..stucked in apple icon..

At first, it didn't boot from the internal hard drive...
I could see the apple icon with grey background, but the little runing icon under apple icon didn't appear. There is no sound from the hard drive either...
I tried removing and replacing the RAM, didn't work either...
I have the powerbook CD with apple hardware test, I ran it. It went though a detail test and showed no errors or problems....
And then I tried to start up from the powerbook CD, it works and I was able to go to disk utility. However, I cannot complete verifying disk permission because of a lot of problem, sometimes it said "communication error with disk manager" and sometimes it got frozen and sometimes it just simply stop moving (not frozen, but just not moving, the disk is quite also too).
then I tried to boot from my USB external hard drive, I had my backup in it. However, it is the same as booting from internal drive, no running icon below the apple icon. Also, the external hard drive did not make any sound.
I have never experienced this problem... please help...

Have you added any hardware or new software recently?
Have you tried a safe boot? Hold the shift key while you boot - this does some disk maintenance and doesn't load login items. If this works, try booting normally.
If you can't run Disk Utility verify permissions from the OS X CD did you also try to verify or repair the disk? If this won't work due to errors, you may want to consider a program like Disk Warrior to attempt to repair the hard drive. You can find it at http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

Too bad mini server won't boot from an external drive

It won't. Enterprise TEch support confirmed this. I bought thew new mini server to get a good value fast machine with a quad i-7.
What's the purpose of Thuderbolt if my apps and doc folders have to reside on a SATA disk?
They really should have non server version with the i7 quad.
Even better Apple should make it clear that this is the case. Even the guy in the apple store said I coud boot it form an external drive!

Yes this will all take some time for sure.
If you want to keep lion server on your current machine, then yes, that is correct. It doesnt hurt to have a few spare 500gb+ hard drives to help the long process.
See there was previous controversy with the mac mini servers with the dual cores (the one I have) because we all wanted the better processors but to not run the server version and some also wanted to be able boot from other drives. Same as you..
In non lion versions of OSX you would normally put the SL Server DVD or SL DVD into your mac and instead of installing a fresh OS, you would select utilities , then restore from time machine backup. You could also obviously use an external drive or SD card with SL or SL server installer loaded on it to install the OS or perform the restore.
That being said
I personally only know how to use a Snow leopard Server or Regular snow leopard installer DVD (or disc imaged external hard drive partition as just mentioned) to use time machine to restore an OS. I personally dont have experience with the lion disc repair for using its utilities to restore from a backup. Im sure it works the same way though when you hold option and boot from it..
If you are looking to go NON server on your OS you must have a Snow leopard retail version DVD (not leopard upgrade version) to be installed on to an external drive.
So what you would do is Set up a partitioned external hard drive and load it up with Snow leopard, upgrade it in app store to lion ($29 ) , then update it with software update, back it up to another partition using time machine, then boot from the install dvd (or disc imaged partitioned installer of SL) , go to utilities, and select restore from backup, when its asks wher eto install choose the external you want to boot from (must be partitioned using GUID partition table) and install. When you want to boot from that drive, hold option right after you power up your machine until it gives you the option of the drive you want to boot from, select it and boot.
Unfortunately like I said you will have to have a snow leopard retail installer (no longer at the apple store only online or ebay for $30) and then would have to 'upgrade' to lion in order to NOT have lion server version on a mac mini set up for server.
If lion server version is good for you then yes do what you wrote in the reply would work. My experience with server snow leopard was that it was slower than snow leopard regular and it extremely interfered with my music production even though I was not running any of its server options..
I hope this helps..

My 24" intel white iMac won't boot from any source?

I've tried everything that every forum and youtube video has suggested. I've reset the PRAM, disconnected all external devices/cables (except USB keyboard), performed a power cord out reset, attempted reboots from several install disks, and a bootable thumb-drive. The only promising thing I can get the computer to do is while holding Option, it will show me my boot options, the are. Macintosh HD, Recovery HD, and Install DVD. Selecting any of them results in a white screen with grey apple logo, apple boot chime, and spinning gear icon. This state persists for about 90 seconds then a slight flicker/ flash to just a blank white screen.
Additionally, I have booted into Target disk mode using FireWire and another Mac, and was able to read the files on the HD no problem. I've also verified that all 4 diagnostic LEDs are lite while the machine is powered up. Just the #1 LED stays lite while powered off, yet plugged in.
Machine was upgraded to Lion, and current with all updates.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Pelu,
which model MacBook Pro do you have? Do you have Mac OS X 10.6.0 installed on it? If not, which version of OS X is installed? Do you also have the grey DVD for it that holds its Apple Hardware Test?

27" iMac won't boot from anything BUT the main drive

Hi all,
My lovely 27" iMac is in perfect working condition, but I thought I'd try to install a OS on a large SD card to see if I would gain any speed.
In the process of doing that (cause I never got that far) I discover that the iMac won't boot from the original install DVD. It simply spits out the DVD when I try to insert into the drive. I'v managed to make an image of the DVD (in a different mac) onto the SD card in order to try an boot from that. No luck. I've tried to insert a original install DVD from my Mac Pro into the iMac, which it reads fine and well, and when I tap the restart button it restarts, but stop with a white screen doing boot up.
If I try to hold down the option key during startup, the iMac WILL let me choose which OS to boot from, but if I choose anything else than the OS already installed it freezes.
I've even tried to boot my Mac Pro from the iMac install DVD - no problems.
I've even run a hardware test on the iMac - no problems.
I am running out of options fast! Please help a devoted Mac-friend.
Take care.
Peter

I WAS using the DVD that came with the machine, but I fear Apple may have sent me the wrong one?
In trying to solve the issues I'd tried other OS disc's (A Mac Pro install DVD and a OS X Leopard DVD) - but none of them would even boot, nor install of my iMac. I always end up with a white screen during boot up.
As I described, the original iMac install DVD would indeed boot my Mac Pro, do the disc seems ok?

Imac 24" 2.8GHz won't boot from any device

Have an Imac Intel Metal unit. 24" with 4GB Ram. Will not boot from anything. It chimes loudly, the grey apple appears, the gear spins and then freezes. Then nothing. tried booting from several external drives. Even pulled out the internal Hard Drive.

Hey MacMyDayTF,
Troubleshooting steps for those symptoms are outlined in the following document. I'd go through the steps within to see if that resolves the issue:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
Best,
Delgadoh

XServe won't boot from any drive, but recognizes them in OS X Installer

I know I have another post here but this is a different issue, and I've already fixed that one thanks to Camelot .
I just received an 2 used xserves for work. One booted into OS X Server fine, so I scrubbed it and reinstalled without issue.
The second however never booted into an install. That is, I never found it on my network when I started it up and when I pushed the power button it would turn off immediately, suggesting that there was no OS on the disk or that the xserve couldn't find it. I didn't have a spare monitor to plug into it (surprisingly) so I just chalked it up to the fact that it was a new disk and hadn't had OS X Server installed on it.
Now I have a spare monitor, I've gone and installed OS X Server on the xserve. It boots from the DVD just fine, runs through the installer, then when it goes to restart, it won't boot from the hard drive that it just installed OS X Server on, it'll just boot back from the DVD unless I pop it out. If I let it boot up without the DVD in it, I'll get the standard Folder with a ?.
At first I thought it was the drive, so I installed OS X Server on another drive. Still wouldn't boot to that drive, so I booted from the DVD and repaired the disks in Disk Utility. Still nothing. I booted to DVD again and when I went to Startup Disk, it actually did show my disks with their respective OS X Server installs.
When I boot the machine holding alt/option, the system doesn't show my drives, only the DVD if it's in the slot.
I figured ok, this has to be the drives, so I swapped them with those of the identical xserve in the rack below, but my top xserve wouldn't boot from those drives either. Somewhat expectedly however, the bottom xserve would boot the drives that I took out of the first one.
Now I'm just stumped. Any ideas?
PS, drives are unlocked.

MrHoffman wrote:
The EFI firmware, the SMC and possibly the disk I/O path seem good potential candidates for culprit.
Load and run the hardware diagnostics.
Reset the SMC, and reset the LOM.
I'm running the EFI diagnostic tool now. Firmware and disk I/O path came to mind, let's just hope it's not a major hardware issue
beatle20359 wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Do you have the specs of the xserve and the version of OSX server you are trying to install? Does the Xserve have the RAID card installed in it and what size are the drive modules.
All the best
Beatle
2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon
8GB RAM
OS X Server v 10.6.3 (the version I'm trying to install, that is)
No RAID card. The system drive is 80GB and a second storage drive is 1TB.

G5 gets grey screen with logo then goes black, won't boot from any disk

Won't boot from any disk, already changed VRAM battery, no success. tried hardware disk once and ran a full scan, said error with Video, but now won't boot at all with any disk. Screen is choppy also(have pic). Thinking video graphics card? Not sure. Need help!

Hi bribiel, and a warm welcome to the forums!
It certainly sounds like the Video card from the little info we have, & that can certainly cause it to fail to bootup.

MacBook won't boot from new hard drive.

I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive, but my macbook will not boot to the new hard drive. I have erased and cloned the hard drive about three times now, using both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. It won't boot while it is in the macbook and it won't boot from an external hard drive case. All I get to is the screen with the mac logo and the spinning wheel. I have made sure the drive is GUID formatted, but it still doesn't work. When I put the new drive in an external case and plug it into the USB port of my macbook I can see and access everything on the drive. Can somebody please tell what I am doing wrong?
By the way the new hard drive is a 500gb western digital Scorpio blue drive.

I got a new hard drive recently 500gb seagate. I followed the directions on this page http://www.ehow.com/how2063795format-hard-drive-mac-os.html , Mine was a little more complicated since i had 2 partitions windows and mac on mine. Initially the process took a day and it started getting to the same thing as yours where it would get to the mac logo and not find the hard drive. I reformatted several times before i got to the point where i could boot up.Eventually I just figured out all the info was there the drive was formatted i could boot into windows 7 but not mac. So i put old hard drive back in the computer booted up with that. Attached new hard drive via usb in external case i was trying to put in the mac. I was able not to boot up but it would show the drives that have been formatted into the new drive and i simply copied my existing Disk by dragging it onto the new hard drive. Than turn off your mac keep your hard drive plugged in. Press and hold the option key in start up and you should see the 2 seperate hard drives and be able to boot into the new one. Was a long process for me took several complete deletes of the new hard drive and reformatting before it would work. once you get to the mac logo and spinning wheel its just saying mac cant find your boot up disk though. Sorry its confusing a bit any questions email me.

Mac Mini i7 (Mavericks) will not boot from the external drive

Mac Mini i7 (Mavericks) will not boot from the external drive with Disk Warroir 4.4. or Drive Genius or Lion.
Not even from the external Firewire hard drive with Mavericks

Does the external HD have a GUID partition table?
Is the external drive formatted Mac OS X Extended (journaled)?
Is this a 2011 or late 2012 Mac?
How was Mavericks installed on the external drive?
Who is the builder of the drive mechanism in the external drive?
Who is the builder of the external enclosure?
What type of interface does the external drive have USB2, USB3, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, thunderbolt?
Is the external enclosure directly connected to the mini?
Have youtried a different interface cable?

Booting from an external drive when the internal has died

Hello, I have an older iMac mid 2007 2.4 GHz Intel model. Around 2009 my internal hard drive failed and for the last few years I had a nice work around using an external drive to boot into OSX. I was curious however if anyone knew of an official or well documented method of using this method because for what ever reason the drive is not being recognized. My method is a combination of trial and error until it booted properly but recently it has just stopped recognizing the disc or when installing the OS it will just fail near the end of the install. Tried to hold Option with the disc installed on boot to see if I could boot from CD but it never seems to show up as an option.
I thought that the drive was damaged but I was able to reformat and use it for a few months with my PC so I have confidence it is not that.
The other problem I was curious about is the format of the drive and how I can even go about reformatting to the mac journal. I cant seem to get into disk utility all I get is a white screen.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Original Information
OS: 10.4.x
Ram: 2g ddr2
I have been able to many time before reinstall using my leopard and snow leopard disks.

Okay just clarifying my INTERNAL hard drive is most likely dead, I am looking to install and boot from my external hard drive. According to this AHT article
Before you begin
Important: If your Mac was released after June 2013, you will use Apple Diagnostics rather than Apple Hardware Test (AHT). See Using Apple Diagnostics for instructions.
Consider doing some preliminary troubleshooting to determine if your issue is related to hardware. You can try to determine if the cause of your issue is related to hardware or software by following Isolating issues in Mac OS X. AHT can help determine which hardware component may be causing the issue.
Before starting AHT, be sure to disconnect all external devices except the keyboard, mouse, display, and Ethernet adapter. Also disconnect any external optical drives.
My goal is to find a way to boot from my external drive.
"Won't matter, as long as you have the Disc.
To make it botable, you will need to set the Partition Map Scheme (GUID Partition Table) and Format it (Mac OS Extended Journaled) before installing OS X."
The disc or the drive? I assume you mean the drive but according to the document that should be removed.

Can I boot from an external drive with a "Virtual CD"

I just purchased a Hitachi LifeStudio external hard drive for use as my Time Machine backup. When I plugged it in to my MacBook running 10.6.4, I realized that it had one of those "Virtual CDs" that contained the manufacturers crapware, similar to Western Digital's MyWare or whatever its called. It shows up in disk utility as an actual separate disk and not just another partition that can be wiped.
I reformatted the drive using GUID and and created 3 HFS+ Journaled partitions. One was going to be for the 10.6 installer, one for the 10.6 boot, and one for my time machine backup. I restored a 10.6 install dvd disk image I created using disk utility to the 10.6 installer partition (with erase destination checked) then option booted my mac and the partitions did not show up. The only thing I could see was my internal hard drive.
I have done this many times before and it has always worked so Im trying to figure out what Im doing wrong. The only thing I can think of is that the "Virtual CD" that Hitachi put on this external drive is stopping the Mac from seeing the bootable partitions I created. I even went into system preferences>startup disk and blessed the 10.6 install partition. That didn't work either, the computer just booted to my internal drive.
So my questions are. Is it because of this "Virtual CD" that I can't boot from my external drive? If so, is there a way around it? I already searched their web site and emailed their tech support asking for a firmware update to remove the virtual cd.
Thanks in advance.

Yes, it's a known issue. You've already referred to the issue with WD systems. WD has a long list of products that are either not compatible with Macs or won't boot a Mac.
There are practically no problems with bare drives, but once installed in an enclosure there is no guarantee that the package will function as a bootable device. This is especially the case if the manufacturer uses some sort of "virtual" scheme intended for using the device as a sort of one button backup device.
External drives don't have to specifically say anything about being Mac bootable or compatible. It's up to the consumer to verify compatibility and usability.

HP Pavilion 500-210 QE Can't boot from any hard drive.

Good Evening. As you can see from the subject, my computer just can't boot from any hard drive that I put on it. I tried swapping the power supply, the SATA cable, resetting the BIOS, enabling legacy boot, changing from AHCI to IDE and RAID...
When I get to the BIOS setup, I can see the hard drive and its specifications, but it just won't boot or show up when I'm trying to install a new OS. I'm not an expert, but I think the problem might be in the motherboard SATA ports, but I'm not sure. Just to make sure, I did try another hard drive and it didn't work aswell.
I was also thinking about buying an external hard drive and instaling my OS on that, but I don't even know if that's possible and I would really like to have my computer working again.
Thank you for your attention!
This question was solved.
View Solution.

What is the installed operating system?
Did you make a recovery disk set?
Did you happen to make a Windows 8.1 startup disk or USB recovery thumbdrive?
Have you tested the hard disk?
Press the power button and then immediately tap the Esc key. In the Startup menu, choose F2 for Diagnostics. In the HP Basic System Diagnostics menu choose hard disk. Run the test and post the results here.
The issue you are facing has nothing to do with the SATA ports. It is a configuration issue. Your PC is a modern one and its BIOS (UEFI) is far more advanced than what you may have seen before.
If you want to install a different operating system then you will have to make a few changes in the BIOS configuration. Secure Boot is turned on by default for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. If you try installing a different OS without turning this off then your system won't boot up. You may be running into this if you are trying to install another operating system.
The image below is what will be seen in the BIOS of your PC in the security tab --> . In the secure boot configuration options do not clear the secure boot keys! Those keys are your operating system license activation keys.
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

27" (Late 2012) iMac won't boot from any external drives.

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