Boot Camp Assistant thinks I'm booting from an external (not the case!)

OK, long story short, I had Vista installed via boot camp, I'm going back to XP now. Problems arose and Boot Camp refused to let me restore the partition in order to start over.
Here's what I did. I completely wiped the three drives I have installed in the Mac Pro — Completely: zeroed them out. RAIDed the two 500GB drives together like I've always had them. The 250GB (which has been in the past, and will be again, my boot camp drive) is left blank for the time being. I installed 10.5 onto the RAID pair. No problems so far. The moment I got to my desktop after installation I open Boot Camp Assistant. I click continue and it gives me the message I got before:
"*You cannot partition an external disk drive.*
Restart your computer using your computer's internal startup disk."
Awesome. I don't even have any external drives attached.
Any idea why I'm getting this? I've been struggling for the last week trying to figure this out.
Here's a shot of the message along with a system profiler window with my hard drive details:
http://homepage.mac.com/ltcarter47/images/bootcampfrustrations.png
Thanks for your insight,
Sean

I almost never use BootCamp Assistant and don't find it that useful.
I will say that I would never, ever, RAID un-like drives and it seems you have Maxtor and Samsung for your RAID.
I would only use Seagate if it was OEM, maybe, or a .11 new series.
I assume you have 10.5.1+ and while I can't claim to have read even 10% or the threads in the Leopard forum, I can't recall hearing of the error you have with repair permissions, though I would always do so while booted from your boot drive, not from the DVD and 10.5.0 (I wasn't going to buy Leopard until it came out on a later version DVD, 10.5.0 is just "too early" for me).
I always had to pull OS X system when I installed Vista x64.
Not sure why, I don't think zeroing the drives was necessary to remove any and all partitions, though.

Similar Messages

  • Will the late 2013 Mac Pro boot from an external drive (4Tb, USB 3) with a cloned Win7 x64 partition on it?

    Hello all,
    I ordered a CTO Mac Pro for heavy rendering and animating work, and I am planning on using bootcamp to install a windows partition (for 3DsMax). As I am now using a HP Elitebook 8770W that has several valuable files and projects on it, I have bought a Seagate 4Tb external Desktop Drive that uses USB 3.0 to use as a backup drive. Now, as I saw that Bootcamp Assistant only supports installing a x64 version of Windows 8, my question is:
    Will a late 2013 Mac Pro using bootcamp assistant boot from an external USB drive with a cloned partition running x64 win7? Or do I really have to buy Windows 8 and install that to my internal SSD, and then use the migration assistant to copy over my projects?
    Thanks!

    Posted? or found in new builds?
    BCA should really just pull whatever the latest drivers are when run. 
    If it is with how it partitions and sets up nMP and its partition for Windows that is another matter and makes sense.
    Some people want UEFI native booting in Windows, and my experieince with that on PCs has been that it boots faster and runs well, but has different partitions that it wants. For one thing, there is now a backup "system reserved" partition, just as Apple GUID has some volume information blocks and backup and areas that were once optional (and if format erase was not able to, it would not create one) are now mandatory.
    Windows 8.1 is req'd, reason a backup should be a big must - is it might overwrite and use another OS's  partition table entries.  Especially when doing UEFI install.
    There was something about which linux OS was safe and how they would each add entries in the table, but one would not place nice.  That one had to be done first or not at all.

  • How can I boot from an external drive?

    I am unsuccessful trying to have the external backup drive to boot the Powerbook. I tried first a USB Lacie Mobile Disk, then thinking USB was the problem I got a FireWire Little Disk of the same brand. None will boot even if the disk appears in the startup disk control panel. When I boot with option key, the choice is no longer there. Maybe they require a power supply other than the USB power lead? Any experience?

    USB drives are not bootable for PowerBooks. FireWire drive usually needs to be used with the power supply since it consumes more power than the USB
    Right! So there is no way to boot from an external without a power source.
    Thanks Arnie.

  • 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.

  • Portege 244OCT - Is it possible to boot from a external CD-ROOM

    Hi,
    I've just got an old Toshiba Portege 344OCT laptop with an HD of 6 GB and with an intel Pentium III processor 500 MHz and 128 MB RAM. At the moment i have it under Windows XP Home Edition. I would like to revert it to Windows 98SE but the computer does not have an floppy drive or an internal cdrom. It does have an usb port, though. I am trying to boot the windows 98 cd from an external usb cdrom drive (EZ-DUB) but it doesn't work. I don't seem to find an option to boot it from an USB device either. My bios is from 27 June 2001.
    Is there something that I can do in order to manage to boot my computer from my EZ-BUB? and how could I update my bios to the v1.6 without the floppy drive?
    Thanks,
    grdoming

    Hello
    Im not sure but I think an external FDD should work but I doubt that the external CD drive will work.
    What you can do? In your case I would copy the win98 folder on the HDD. Therefore remove the HDD and connect it to an other notebook or PC as external HDD. Format it with FAT32 and copy the win98 folder from the CD on it.
    Put the HDD back in the notebook and start the installation if you boot from an external FDD and a Windows 98 boot disk.
    Greets

  • Problem Booting from an External Hardrive

    Hi All,
    I have a problem trying to boot from an external firewire hardrive. I have a iBook G4 running 10.4.8. and I'm trying to boot from an external firewire hardrive running 10.3.9. It will not boot. I get a grey screen with the international "No" sign (the circle with a diagonal line through it). But yet, I can take that same external firewire hardrive and hook it up to my iMac G4 running 10.4.8., and it boots up with no problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
    iBook G4 1.33 1.25GB RAM  iMac G4 1.25 2GB  iMac G4 800 1GB  iMac G3 600 1GB   Mac OS X (10.4.8)

    Here's an update. I think I figured it out. In the "get info" box of the external HDD, there is a checkbox at the bottom that reads, "Ignore ownership on this volume" and it was checked. So, I unchecked it, and rebooted, and now it boots up correctly. I'm not exactly sure what that checkbox means, but it's working now. Thanks to everyone for your input.

  • FV2 and booting from an external drive

    Hi,
    When Lion came out I decided to enable filevault as I take my laptop everywhere.
    Periodically I take a full SuperDuper backup of my hard drive just in case the worst happens.
    I have read that its best to remove the FileVault protection before entertaining an upgrade so I have removed FV and took another full superduper backup.
    Part of my upgrade plan is to test the backup by booting my MBP from the external drive so that I know I can get back to my old machine but I am finding that I can reboot my MBP and select the backup drive from the bootable selection and I get the apple logo and the spinning cog but it doesnt go any further.
    I think this has happened since enabling FV as I have never had an issue before booting from an external drive.
    I have formatted the drive and started a fresh SuperDuper backup and this hasnt made a difference either.
    Any help would be appreciated.
    Thanks
    Gavin

    They all are formatted Extended and with Guid partition map.  So I am good that way. I will have to experiment I suppose.  Thanks for your response.

  • How can i install snow leopard on my mac G5 using a command line and booting from an external usb rom, since my disk i have is not a bootable media

    How can i install snow leopard on my mac G5 using a command line and booting from an external usb rom, since my disk i have is not a bootable media

    Hi.
    You simply can't. Snow Leopard is compiled in Intel binary only.
    Good Luck.

  • G4 that will not boot from any disc EXCEPT the Apple Hardware Test CD

    We have a DP 1ghz Quicksilver PowerMac G4 that will not boot from any disc EXCEPT the Apple Hardware Test CD that came with the machine.
    We were in the process of installing 10.4 Tiger before placing it for sale.
    The Mac was originally OSX Server 10.1 that we later converted to a worksation running 10.3 Panther.
    It has 1 GB of memory, 80GB hardrive, 250MB Zip Drive and a Radeon 7500 video card.
    Since this machine only has a CD-R drive and not a DVD-R, we installed Tiger using another Mac via Target Disk Mode. The installation process went well, but when I tried to reboot I got a Kernel Panic right after startup screen with the grey Apple logo.
    On some reboots we get to the blue startup screen, others it stops at the grey Apple logo, others a black box like the a Kernel Panic - but with no text. Twice it went directly into Open Firmware.
    We have done the following during our troubleshooting:
    - Reseat RAM, Video Card, Hard Drive, Zip & CD-R connections
    - Remove RAM 1 stick at a time and reboot
    - Replace RAM with RAM from another working Quicksilver
    - Replace Video Card with one from another working Quicksilver
    - Zap PRAM
    - Reset CUDA switch
    - Unplug the MAC and remove everything (RAM, Battery, etc) for 30 minutes and try to reboot
    - Tried booting from the Macintosh Server G4 Software Restore CD
    - Tried booting from Mac OS X Server CD
    - Tried booting from AppleCare Protection Plan CD with TechTool
    - Tried booting from Diskwarrior CD
    - Tried booting from an external FireWire drive with a disk image of Tiger OS Install
    - Tried booting with the hard drive disconnected
    The Mac WILL boot from the Apple Hardware Test CD and will pass ALL of the extended tests.

    Conventional wisdom says that any Mac that will not boot up from a System/Install CD OS 9 or an Install CD Mac OS X, has a Hardware problem.
    The diagnostic CD is a red herring because it uses a very primitive method of reading the CD, and so does not properly represent the machines general ability to read CDs.
    I would look at the CD drive cables, etc, and see if another drive gives different results.
    You have not mentioned using the Startup Manager (option key at Startup) to do any checking:
    HT1310- Startup Manager: How to select a startup volume

  • Booting from an external drive over usb

    Hey, has anyone else had any problems booting from an external? I have an external lacie drive that I keep a clone backup on (using superduper) and usually have it connected with firewire400. I know it works because i've accidently booted using it before, but recently the firewire port on it died so i've been using usb instead.
    Now the problem, holding option on my macbook starting, I get no options to choose from. If i have the mac osx dvd in, it pops up so I know it's not a problem with my macbook. It is possible to boot from usb correct? Everything i've read has said it's possible... I'm not sure why my external drive isn't coming up. I know it works over usb because I've used it alot since the firewire port died on it. I checked in the disk utility and it does say it's bootable, and afterall it's cloned using superduper like i said before...
    I have 2 partitions on the drive, is that a problem? It never was before, I've booted off it many times before using firewire though. Can someone help me out here? Very annoying as I'm replacing the HD in my macbook and neeeeeeed to get on my external.
    When I asked the guy at the genius bar awhile ago he just said it was probably a problem because my old internal HD died and he said sometimes it causes the macbook to not even be able to get as far as the point to boot from another source. Well now I have a new working drive in it, so I know that's not the problem. It just doesn't show up to boot from anymore, ugh.

    Sounds like your clone isn't bootable. Have you tried the following:
    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

  • Can I boot from an external ssd via thunderbolt?

    My MBP is super fast with an SSD second drive.
    in my Imac, can I get that same speed if I boot from an external SSD drive through thunderbolt port? or would the ssd have to be inside the imac? I guess I want to know if the thunderbolt connection is slower than if I had the SSD inside the Imac?

    Don't know if the Thunderbolt port is bootable but its speed exceeds the 6Gbs negotiated speed of SATA III drives.

  • BOOT FROM AN EXTERNAL USB DRIVE???

    I know apple has made it clear about booting from an external USB drive
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474
    but I know that there are people who are able to boot from an external drive, does anybody know how to do this?
    It's just that id like to work on final cut studio on an external drive for various reasons:
    1st: my powerbook's HD is small and slow (60gb)
    2nd: my external usb drive is big (160 gb) and fast (7200 RMPS!)
    so a little help would be apreciated
    best regards

    "Actually, USB II is faster than FW 400."
    In theory, probably. In real life Firewire 400 is much faster than USB2, not to speak of Firewire 800:
    "Wee Wiebetech" Portable FireWire/USB2 Drive Challenges The Fastest Competitors.

  • Will Mac allow you to boot from an external drive...specifically for windows programs?

    Will a new Mac allow you to boot from an external drive...specifically for windows programs?

    ps...I've read the threads on Bootcamp.

  • How do I boot from an external drive?

    I've just Carbon Cloned my 60GB drive to a firewire external drive. I'm about to replace the 60GB with a 160GB drive and the CCC instructions say boot from the external drive I'd just created once the new disk is installed. Then CCC the cloned drive back to the new hard drive.
    So, how do I boot from an external drive? Do I have load anything to the new drive? Will the macbook detect the external drive and boot from that? Or what??????
    Thanks
    Dick

    Thanks DWB. Being the rash impetuous guy I am I didn't wait for replies and just switched on the macbook after installing the new disk (which was so easy it was unbelievable - had to go and buy a a little torx bit though) to see what would happen.
    Blow me down with a feather if it didn't just boot off the external drive all by itself :-O It did come up with the disk was unverified and I could see it in FINDER and I was prseented with a screen to ERASE/RESTORE etc.
    When I went to CCC the external drive back to the new hard drive it didn't give show me the new hard drive so I guessed I'd have to do something to format (?) the hard drive.
    I don't know if I did the right thing but I went to disk utilities and chose ERASE in the vague hope it would maybe format the disk in some way.
    Seems to work now and the CCC replaced the system perfectly as far as I can see.
    Basically very impressive all round. Piece of proverbial to replace the disk and CCC made life so easy.
    Thanks again.
    Cheers
    Dick

  • How to Boot From an External HD

    I am still pondering getting a mini - I know that I will want a much larger hard drive (since I want to use it for media and will keep tons of video and music on it). I would like to know how to boot from an external hard drive. I've searched google, the forums, and apple support, and see people mention it all the time, but can't find out how to do it, etc. Is it just like running off my normal HD but all the files are kept on the external (so I could still access files thru itunes, etc.)?
    Also, I would like to get a 500GB+ drive to keep my files on, and was wondering if people had recomendations. Brands, USB 2.0 or Firewire, etc.
    Apologies if this is a novice question - but I can't seem to find answers anywhere.
    Thanks in advance.

    Firstly, it is certainly possible to boot from an external drive, so what you plan is not only feasible, but since the external would be faster than the internal drive, also rather beneficial to the efficient running of the mini - meaning, the system will be notably faster in use.
    In my view, the best option is an external firewire drive, not USB. The reason is that FW has it's own dedicated controller while USB doesn't. In effect, it means that FW data transfer speeds are stable and consistent, while USB rates vary widely, depending on what else the system is doing.
    Once you have your external drive connected, the easiest way to make it bootable is to copy your existing MacOS install from the internal drive using software such as Carbon Copy Cloner (downloadable from www.versiontracker.com). This will avoid having to do a lengthy reinstall. Once MacOS is copied, then open System Preferences, and the Startup Disk preference pane, and click on the external drive icon. The next restart will then be directed to the external.
    Once you have booted from the external drive, you use it just as you would an internal, and MacOS will treat it as the boot volume, including by default, placing your user account folders on it, including your documents, music etc.

Maybe you are looking for