Any problems running a 24inch iMac from an external hard drive.

Six weeks ago I cloned my almost full 250GB internal hard drive onto a 1TB external hard drive and started to run the system from the external drive.About a week ago the sytem started freezing up and the bootup/login times got longer. Two days ago at bootup the display just showed a purpleish glow with no desktop etc.I have tried reseting PRAM, SMC and reseating the memory all to no avail.Having searched on the internet the conclusion is either the display has gone faulty or the graphics card/chip is faulty(both not desirable).Is this mearly a coincidence or is it the result of running the system from an external drive which has 'possibly' caused overheating os some other fault ?????????
This system is a 2006/7 24-inch Intel iMac.

The difference between safe mode and normal is that in safe mode only the minimum number of kernel extensions are loaded. Since the display works properly in safe mode that strongly suggests that you have one or more corrupt kernel extensions. I would recommend one of two things. First if you have not already done so, reinstall the operating system - you can reinstall a new operating system right on top of the current. If that doesn't work or if you'd rather skip that step, the second thing would be a clean install. Of course to do this you would have to erase the entire hard drive so if you don't have a current backup you want to do that first.
However, since your original problems began after some crashing and freezing with the Extertal hard drive you might want to consider using a different drive if you choose the clean install route I suspect that your display problems go back to one of the early crashes which may have been caused by a hard drive issue. When the computer has issues but passes the extended hardware diagnostics I tend to suspect the hard drive. When the hard drive is an external drive my suspicion becomes even stronger. The weakest link of an external drive tends to be the electronics of the enclosure but since most external enclosures are in capable of passing on the SMART status of the drive mechanism itself it's hard to know which is the problem.

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I have two Mac computers: an iMac and a MacBook Air. My iMac has 1TB of storage space (plenty enough for my 200+gigs of music) but my MacBook Air only has 250gigs of storage space. I know I can access all of the music from my iMac on my MBA with HomeSharing. But that doesn't work when I take my MBA out of the house for work. I was going to switch over my iTunes library to an external HD but I don't know if I can access the library on the hard drive from my MBA, when the main library is on my iMac.
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I am confused as to what you had or have where and when. The bottom line is, your library (for the standard user) is everything in the iTunes folder. As far as iTunes' organization and display is concerned, your library is a file called "iTunes Library.itl" which points to all the other host of files and folders normally in the iTunes folder which all work together.
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More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
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(85288)

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Hi Tnarduzzi,
I just bought a new imac (after having my old G4 Mirror door finally give out), and I am looking to access my music folder from an external HD to this new computer.
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Message was edited by: rkaufmann87

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Hi...to all
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Are you referring to the files in Time Machine's backup directory on your hard drive? If so, and if what you are trying to do is to recover those from the backup to your working volume on the Macbook Pro (which is not what your title says you want to do but seems to be implied by the body of the question) then you need to have the computer name of the Macbook Pro the same as the computer name of the original Macbook (I think that step is required), then on the Macbook Pro choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" from the Time Machine menu in Dock. This will allow you to recover files or folder in the usual way.
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Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
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Hi there,
My itunes library is getting a little too large for my iMac to handle (nearing 500gb of my 1TB hard drive, leaving little space for all my other software and documents) and I'd like to move the itunes library and run it from an external hard drive.
I've read the following link and am clear on the procedure...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Sure, I can go through the process and see what happens, however, I thought I'd ask to see if anyone else has done something similar and am curious as to whether they encountered any issues / have any words of wisdom to impart?!
I have an Apple TV which syncs with my iTunes, as well as an iPad and an iPhone. The iPad and iPhone sync when connected, but the Apple TV syncs over WiFi...
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I plan to purchase a drive with FireWire 800. That said, I do have a 2TB TimeCapsule, but I cant seem to find any decent information on how to use it as an external hard drive...(even though, I believe, it says you can do so in the 'sales bumf' on the Apple store)
Your thoughts/advice/comments wold be appreciated!
Cheers,
D

MacFormat Issue 236 page 65.
Sorted!

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I used my time capsule (1st gen) as an external hard drive to store my iTunes files and my iTunes app is on my main iMac. Now, I've decided to move those iTunes files from my external hard drive (TC) back to my iMac where my iTunes app is located. What is the best way to do this?

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Not really, no.
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Any problems running a 24inch iMac from an external hard drive.

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