After upgrade to mountain lion a hd with snow leopard will not boot and run the MBP

Upgraded MacBook Pro to 10.8.2. Works fine. Swapped out the internal hard drive with 10.8.2 on it, put in the old hard drive with 10.6.8 and booted up as per usual. Mac fires up but dos not finish the boot process and it leaves me with an on and off pulsating gray folder that has a question mark on it. I have tried a brand new drive with a new 10.6.8 installed and it misbehaves the same way.
Does the Apple store upgrade process alter the internal MacBook Pro or its software in any way? I was not, am not aware of such software. I want to be able to carry along two hard drives, swappable, with different OSX and applications when I go out to help people out of their problems. Something I have done successfully for the past 15 years - free of charge, I might add.
This is the first time that I am stumped. I am not a programmer btw.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Meanwhile I shall keep on muckng about.

Your problem is that your old HD is no longer blessed. if you can, connect both drives at the smae time, then
First, open the “Startup Disk” preference pane and select “Mac OS X” as the operating system to boot. This will re-bless your Mac OS X volume on the older install.
No need to delete or zero the drive at all.
What makes a volume bootable? / Frequently Asked Questions and ...

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Worth upgrading to Mountain Lion or stick with Snow Leopard?

A few weeks ago some of you helped me navigate the pros/cons of buying a spanking new Imac vs a mid 2011 (I decided the 2011 was plenty worthy). I thank you for that, and now I want to ask: if I were to get a mid 2011 Imac, is it worth to upgrade to the latest OS, or is sticking with Snow Leopard (my current OS) fine?
I'm using some older software like FCP 6 and its associated suite of programs, and probably plenty of other applications I'm not thinking of at the moment, that I got back in '08 or so when I got the Imac I have now. I think I've heard that Lion/Mountain is a total overhaul of the OS compared to Snow Leopard, and that makes me wonder if there are compatibility issues/problems associated with trying to use these older pieces of software with the new OS. What are the super amazing benefits of Lion or Mountain Lion vs Snow Leopard? Are they worth it? Do the aforementioned issues exist? Thanks.

Someone else will need to answer your Time Machine question because I do not use it. It may work because it should port over all the applications, settings, etc. I was going on the assumption that you would be reinstalling your apps from scratch (I guess I thought that because that is what I did - I wanted as clean an install as possible). Anyway, TM should just transfer things - just remember, if any of those transferred apps have PPC installers and you get rid of your Snow Leopard machine, you'll never be able to reinstall them.
You might want to check these links (and by doing a search here on the forums, there'll be more):
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18179294#18179294
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16964725#16964725
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17434537#17434537

After upgrading to Mountain Lion, my LaCie USB 3 drive will not mount

I just upgraded my OS to 10.8 and now my LaCie P'9230 USB 3.0 external drive will not mount. I have re-installed the USB driver and re-booted the computer and drive several times to no avail; any ideas/help?

mrfredmor_65 wrote:
I just upgraded my OS to 10.8 and now my LaCie P'9230 USB 3.0 external drive will not mount. I have re-installed the USB driver and re-booted the computer and drive several times to no avail; any ideas/help?
It's my understanding that LaCie hasn't released a Mountain Lion driver for their PCIe card yet. Sonnet uses a modified version of the LaCie driver and theirs is dead in the water too for that reason-they also warn that their driver won't work with 10.7.5 when it's released.
Indeed, yesterday I pulled the Sonnet USB 3.0 card from my Mac Pro and replaced it with a CalDigit card from OWC; CalDigit has separate drivers for 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 and I can say that the card works with all three, the first time in 1.5 years that I've had a reliable USB 3.0 connection.

MacPro with Snow Leopard will not boot

This morning, something odd is happening. Last night, when I sent to bed, my computer was fine, but this morning, when I tried to power it on, it tried to power up and then shut off. Does it every time. When booting from the normal start up disk, the startup chime is heard, then the apple logo appears for a few seconds, the machine clicks a few times and then shuts off.
When I hold down the option key on startup, I can see the boot drive options. So, I tried booting for a CD/DVD, but when I do, it just hangs and never boots. Disc drive spins for a second like it's trying to, but then winds down and hangs on the gray screen. However, I can boot from my Bootcamp drive (not a partition, but an actual, physical drive), and run Windows fine. Even when I try booting with Extensions off (holding Shift on boot up), it still hangs.
I've tried clearing PRAM, unplugging all USB accessories and even removing all non-essential PCI cards, and still nothing.
This is very bizarre. What would keep the Mac OS booting, but not the bootcamp stuff?
Any thoughts?
Russ

I have my system drive backed up. I tried pulling the system drive, inserting a new blank drive and booting from the Snow Leopard install disk to install the OS from scratch. It still won't boot from the DVD OSX install disk, even with the other system disk removed.
The problem seems to be that when booting from anything OSX, the system won't boot, but when booting from Bootcamp, it'll boot fine.
From the Windows side, I can see the Mac startup drive and all the files, so that disk is readable, at least. Just not bootable.
I talked to Apple tech support as well. They can't figure out either. Headed to the Genius bar this afternoon. Maybe they can figure out.
Russ

Is OSX Mountain Lion Server Compatible with Snow Leopard

Is Mountain Lion Server compatible with Clients running on Snow Leopard?

We haven't had any problems with Home Directories hosted on 10.8.2 on a small number ol 10.6 clients. The only issue is that you can't use Workgroup Manager 10.8 on the 10.6 machines to allow 10.6-only apps. If you have a mixture of 10.6, 10.8 or 10.7 clients the user's prefs for things like Mail get screwy due to the different schema.

After I install itunes my windows 7 - 64 bit machine will not boot and I have to use Restore to boot with a date before I installed itunes

After I install itunes on my windows 7 - 64 bit machine it will not reboot and I need to restore to a date before itunes was install. How do I fix this?

I'm having a very similar issue, paired with iTunes not being able to get online.
iTunes shows up in processes and then hangs at 17,000 K or so -- sometimes it will start up, but that (if it occurs) is a delay of literal hours.
Pretty meticulously went through all the 'cannot connect' trouble shooting, and have uninstalled, restarted, and then reinstalled every piece of apple software; issue is just as firm. Starting in safe mode or admin mode don't fix it; signing in as a different user doesn't fix it.

Snow Leopard will not boot after TM Restore

I had an email issue (lost 5 accounts) that has turned into a nightmare. Apple Support told me to restore my entire hard drive from my Time Machine. I booted to the DVD and selected a restore point and 12 hours later I get the Apple with the spinning wheel. I have tried two restore points - same result. It will not boot in safe mode either. I ran the Verify Drive utility and the drive checks out.
The drive is about 75% full after this TM restore operation so it appears it is pulling all of my data into the machine.
I have a number of backups of my system including a full one on ARQ plus all the TM backups. I am just not versed in the Apple OS enough to know how to recover from this point.
Q's:
1. Is it possible that the data and the Apps have been restored but the OS is simply corrupt on the TM?
2. Is there a Repair feature on the SnoL DVD or am I faced with a fresh install?
3. If I do a fresh install, can I simply copy the Apps folder back in the machine and my apps work correctly? (I realize a few may not that have to have components in browsers or whatever).
Suggestions on recovery approach...
Thanks, Uursa

uursamajor1 wrote:
1. Is it possible that the data and the Apps have been restored but the OS is simply corrupt on the TM?
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
That's possible. Once you can get it to boot you can explore that.
2. Is there a Repair feature on the SnoL DVD or am I faced with a fresh install?
Soon after booting from that DVD you should see a Utilities menu with Disk Utility under it. With Disk Utility you can perform a "Repair Disk" operation.
3. If I do a fresh install, can I simply copy the Apps folder back in the machine and my apps work correctly?
You could first try installing OS X 10.6 over what's already there. You might also learn more about what's wrong by doing a "verbose boot':
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492

Since my upgrade to mountain lion now my Italian language CDroms will not run, the message says PowerPC applications no longer supported.

So am I just screwed?

Here is a post that I assembled for another who needed to continue to run his PowerPC applications in Lion/Mt. Lion:
Unfortunately you got caught up in the minor miracle of Rosetta. Originally licensed by Apple when it migrated from the PowerPC CPU platform that it had used from the mid-1990's until the Intel CPU platform in 2006, Rosetta allowed Mac users to continue to use their library of PPC software transparently in emulation.
However, Apple's license to continue to use this technology expired with new releases of OS X commencing with Lion (and now Mountain Lion). While educational efforts have been made over the last 6 years, the fact is that Rosetta was SO successful that many users were caught unaware UNTIL they upgraded to Lion or Mountain Lion.
Workarounds:
1. If your Mac will support it, restore OS X Snow Leopard;
2. If your Mac will support it, partition your hard drive or add an external hard drive and install Snow Leopard into it and use the "dual-boot" method to choose between your PowerPC software or Lion/Mt. Lion;
3. Upgrade your software to Intel compatible versions, or find alternative software that will open your data files;
3. Install Snow Leopard (with Rosetta) into Parallels:
[click on image to enlarge]
Full Snow Leopard installation instructions here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439
NOTE: STEP ONE of the instructions must currently be completed on a Snow Leopard or Lion Mac and the resulting modified Snow Leopard.cdr install file can then be moved over to your Mountain Lion Mac for completion of the remaining steps.
NOTE 2: Computer games with complex, 3D or fast motion graphics make not work well or at all in virtualization.

Mountain Lion Update Doesn't Finish - Laptop will not boot

Hi,
Last night I saw that there was a Mountain Lion update available for my MacBook Pro. I've always updated my software as the updates became available. I had several other apps to update, so I chose "Update All".
I got a message at the end that the installation required a reboot, however, the MacBook Pro could not restart as it said that FireFox was canceling the restart. I looked and the FireFox add-in XMarks was stuck in some type of failed sync mode, and couldn't be stopped. I was also unable to force FireFox to quit.
After an hour of this, I finally just had to press the off button and power down. I assumed that the software update would still continue when I restarted my computer, but all that I have is just a grey screen with the Apple logo and a circular progress indicator that has been going in a circle for about 7 hours.
I guess my first question would be, "How do I actually boot into my MacBook Pro and get past this grey screen".
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I'd like to find some way to be able to boot up my MacBook and skip this grey screen. But, if I'm just in disaster recovery mode, how would I obtain a Mountain Lion install DVD? I've already paid for the update.
Thanks,
William

I found out how to get to the disk utilities. I also did a verbose log of the boot-up process, and it hung right after it said that the handshake with my internet connection was complete.
So, for others, Command-R at the boot tone got me to the Disk Utilities, and Command-V at the boot tone gave me verbose logging of the bootup process.
I repaired my disk and permissions, and nothing changed, so I decided to reinstall Mountain Lion.
Thanks,
William

Trying to install Mountain Lion on external USB drive. Will not boot!

Running mid-2010 MBP 15", OS X 10.8.5 (upgraded from orig. 10.6 Snow Leopard). I'm trying to create an external boot disk from scratch -- 500gb USB drive.
Working from instructions on this page:http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5911
1. Re-partitioned the hard drive with GUID partition table, 1 partition, formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled)
2. Downloaded the installer from the App Store. Ran the install. Installer runs without incident. So far so good...
When the installer is finished running, and the system tries to re-boot, it just hangs at the grey screen.
The drive mounts normally if I set the start disk to the original internal disk. I ran 'verify disk' from disk utilities and all appears to be okay.
Tried a different USB cable, I'm about to swap the drive into another USB enclosure to see if that's the issue.
Any suggestions on how to further troubleshoot?

Just swapped the drive out to another USB enclosure. It's booting. Who knew the enclosures could be so sensitive? Wondering if it's a power supply issue on the other enclosure?

Macbook pro (snow leopard) will not boot after software update

I helped my mom buy a Macbook Pro for herself for Christmas. Today, I connected it to her old eMac and used the migration assistant to transfer files over. It was unable to estimate migration time on the only user (after 45 minutes) so I didn't migrate the user. Then I tried to pair her macbook to her new bluetooth keyboard, but no magic happened, so I tried to use the bluetooth setup assistant, which crashed. So I ran a software update, hoping that this would fix whatever the bluetooth problem is. Despite having updated on the 23rd, there were 4 updates. None seemed applicable but I installed them anyway. Now the computer won't boot at all.
Software update said that I had to restart for the updates to take effect, so I restarted. The harddrive went whirrrrrr and the grey screen with the apple logo and the spinning circle displayed. Then the harddrive stopped going whirrrr and 10 minutes later, I started looking on the support site for what to do. I found this:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10564149&#10564149
Per the instructions in the last post, I fscked the drive (although -f, in accordance with the fsck help). This found no problems. The next suggestion was to boot from the OSX install disk. Only one problem-- there was a disk in the disk drive when the problem occurred and the disk eject button apparently only works while in the gui. I can't install from disk if I can't get the existing disk out of the drive.
So, any other ideas on what I can do to get this machine to boot?
Message was edited by: jenlarkin

Hi Jen:
Since it's new, you're entitled to 90 days of phone support (3 years if you buy AppleCare). It sounds to me like you may have some hardware issue(s) going on - you should not have the sorts of issues you're having with a new Mac. Apple will probably be much better and faster about getting you fixed than this board may be able to if that is the case.

My macbook (late 2009 with snow leopard) will not update it's software!

I got a macbook for Christmas (for writing and browsing the web), and I want to update it to Mavericks, and my stats are supposed to be compatible! Any ideas why it's not updating!?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
OS X Mavericks is an upgrade you have to download from the Mac App Store, so first open  > Software Update, and install the most recent Mac OS X Snow Leopard version.
Then, open the Mac App Store and download OS X Mavericks. Make a backup of your files with Time Machine before upgrading and check that your applications are compatible > http://www.roaringapps.com

After upgrading to mountain lion, contribute cs4 did not open

After upgrading to Mountain Lion, I found that Contribute CS4 did not open. In searching for an answer I found the following on the Adobe forum:
"Earlier versions of Adobe Photoshop (CS3 and CS4) software were also tested with Mountain Lion and there are currently no known issues."
So continuing to search, two days of frustration ensued as I "chatted" with 2 unhelpful Adobe customer support reps, searched unhelpful Apple and Adobe websites and posted my question in various places. Finally I found that the above statement was completely wrong when I received the following from an Adobe staffer:
Mountain LION is not a supported platform for Adobe Contribute CS4. The supported versions are Latest Adobe Contribute 6.5 and Adobe Contribute CS5.X.
And now I have to spend hundreds in order to maintain my website after upgrading to Mountain Lion. I don't even know to whom I should take my complaint, Apple or Adobe. Does this mean I have to research every piece of software I use before upgrading my Mac? At the very least, Mac owners should be forwarned of platform support failures for major 3rd party producers. I'm doing my bit here. How about you taking some responsibility?

I just baught a new imac from the apple store and loaded mountain lion when I got home due to the time it would take there. I then used migration assitant to load CS4 from my mac pro that is using snow lepord. This worked flawlessly. CS4 and Bridge work great. I then downloaded the mountain lion upgrade to my wifes mac pro that was also using snow lepord and once mountain lion was instaled it disabled CS4 compleatly. I will repost the results tomorrow. I believe that I can reinstall CS4 to her mac pro now that she has mountain lion installed using migration assistant from my mac pro since it worked this way with the new imac. I hope this works because I want to upgrade my mac pro to mountain lion but can't afford to lose CS4.

Upgrading to Mountain Lion... with a virus?

I would like to upgrade to Mountain Lion. I have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 currently. I think I have a virus though. If I upgrade, will the problems with the virus disappear? Or does that need to be remedied before I upgrade?
Also, what do I need to do before I update? Close all programs? Do I back everything up, then reinstall everything after the update? I have NO idea how this works...

As deggie asks, why do you think you have a virus? It's very unlikely that you have malware of any kind (see my Mac Malware Guide), but whatever problems you're having that lead you to blame a virus might cause an issue with upgrading. Let us know what's going on so we can better advise how to handle that problem. That problem should be eliminated prior to upgrading!
From a general perspective, when you upgrade, you need to do the following:
1) Check all your software for compatibility with the new system.
2) Repair the hard drive with Disk Utility.
3) Make a full backup of your whole system using Time Machine.
4) Ideally, make a second full backup of your whole system using something else, like Carbon Copy Cloner. (I consider two backups to be the minimum.)
5) Wait until you have time to deal with any possible problems that crop up.
6) Install the upgrade.
Some people recommend erasing your hard drive and installing the new system "cleanly." That certainly helps ensure that you don't have any problems with the new system, but is often unnecessary. I prefer to save clean installs for when they are actually necessary, but that is only an opinion. You can choose to do a clean install if you prefer.

Can't open iCal on IMac (early 2009) after upgrade to Mountain Lion

Can't open iCal on IMac (early 2009) after upgrade to Mountain Lion.
Tried opening it multiple ways.
Nothing works.

bfackler,
The iCal application in Mountain Lion has been replaced by "Calendar."
Can you open "Calendar?"

After upgrade to mountain lion a hd with snow leopard will not boot and run the MBP

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