Boot from internal Fusion or external SSD?

My wife surprised me with the base level 5K iMac. It has the 1TB Fusion drive. I wish it had been upgraded to an SSD but it's too late now, I'm stuck with it. I self-upgraded to 32Mb RAM already.
To get the best performance, would you recommend using an external SSD as a startup/boot disk, and running everything - OS X, apps, etc - from there?
Would I see meaningful performance benefits, or should I just stick with the Fusion Drive?

Fusion is SSD (at least in part).
It combines the SSD with a spinning HD. I think you can opt to divide it into 2 separate disks if you are willing to reinstall the OS (or do some major juggling).
I think the OS installer will try to force a fusion drive on supported Macs, but you may be able to clone or restore to each disk instead.
You could buy a large SSD & run it from Thunderbolt if you want, but fusion is intended to put the most used files on the SSD with the rest on the HD.
Some people don't like Fusion since it uses Core storage (& is new and confusing). Personally I'd give it a go to see if it performs well enough.

Similar Messages

2010 13" MBP Wont boot from internal. Will boot from external

This is fairly long winded, I will try to be as clear as i can.
Last week my 13" MBP refused to boot after running out of battery during sleep.
I have done the following to the original drive:
Booted from Lion Recovery, repaired, verified, and repaired/verified permissions.
Booted from Snow Leopard DVD, done the above.
Used Disk Utility on another Mac, done the above.
The drive still will not boot from the internal cable.
I can see the drive when attached internally, but cannot do any of the above actions as it is "unable to unmount"
I can boot from the drive if I use a USB external adaptor.
I bought a new hard drive....
I have done all the same on the new HDD with additionaly installing fresh Lion / Snow Leopard to the new drive whilst its in the internal position (Leopard from the DVD originating with my laptop, Lion from Lion Recovery whilst the other drive was on USB) but still having the same problem when it comes to booting - i.e. wont boot from internal. will boot from external USB.
Ideally I would like to end up with a lean install of lion, on the new hdd, booting from inside the laptop.
Please help, this is driving me mad.

I think you have solved your own problem. If you have two different HD's and they both do not work once connected, but do when placed in an external enclosure, then I would think it has something to do with the connection.
Slap the old drive back in the machine, and take it to the genius bar, and have them diagnose it. Hopefully they will have an answer for you. If not, bring the other drive too inside he external enclosure, and show them that it boots via the external.
Then, lay the whammy on them, and tell them that the original drive works inside the enclosure too.
Would be interesting to know what the actual issue is, and the resolution as well...

Why can't brand new MacBookPro9,1 (OEM Mountain-Lion) boot from Snow Leopard on external drive, or internal partition?

Why can't brand new MacBookPro9,1 (OEM Mountain-Lion) boot from Snow Leopard on external drive, or internal partition?
Is this because of hardware changes? Or firmware changes? Or is it just and Apple Inc. administrative fiat?

@Steve Holton: Sorry Steve, but you're wrong about that one . I'm using 10.8 (purchased and downloaded) on the internal HD of this MBP8,3 (2.2 GHz, 17"), and I am also able to boot into 10.7.4 and 10.6.8 from external FW800 partitions.
However, I DO have problems with my MBP9,1. It came with 10.7.4 installed and ran fine. Then I purchased and installed 10.8. It ran fine but could no longer boot from 10.7.4 on an external partition. I then reinstalled 10.7.4 on the internal HD and discovered that it is still unable to boot (even 10.7.4) from an external FW800 partition.
One of Apple's Senior Support Advisors has done some remote troubleshooting but the case is still open and unresolved. An earlier Apple Support case suggested that when, I installed the downloaded copy of 10.8, there had been a "firmware update" (behind the scenes) that is now causing the problems with booting from my external partition(s). This apparently is "a bug": it is not what is supposed to happen.
So - I believe - "the problem" really has nothing to do with hardware capability. It is strictly about Apple's strategy for "managing its future customer base". If you don't like it - use something else - I am seriously considering Ubuntu as an alternative.
If there's a hidden caveat in all this it's probably "Read Appple's Licence Agreement VERY Carefully".

How to migrate from internal hard drive to SSD (Solid State Drive)?

I just bought 128GB SSD. I want to replace my internal hard drive with SSD on MacBook Pro. My internal drive has only Mac OS installed (no dual boot with Windows/Linux). Going forward I want to boot my Mac OS from SSD and use internal drive for backup purposes only. I read many forums regarding this here, but each one talks about different methods of doing it.
* Carbon Copy Cloner for the Mac side (free)
* Casper 6.0 for the Windows side (not free)
* SuperDuper
Can some one provide me with simple steps to migrate Mac OS along with my personal data from internal hard drive to SSD?

Because Windows is not involved, you don't need Casper or anything else Windows-related.
Use Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair the directory on your internal hard drive. Buy an external SATA hard drive enclosure* and mount your SSD in it. Connect it to the MBP and use Disk Utility to create a single GUID partition on it, formatting the partition Mac OS Extended. Use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, it doesn't matter which, to make a bootable clone of the internal hard drive on the SSD in the external enclosure. Restart the computer holding down the Option key, and select the SSD to start up from; the purpose here is to verify that the SSD really is bootable. If that works OK, shut down, disconnect the external enclosure, and exchange the drives.
*I recommend a FireWire 800 enclosure, but they are much more expensive than USB-only enclosures, which will work OK — USB is just slow.

Won't boot from internal HD

Hi guys, my MacBook won't boot from internal HD. The boot up chimes without Apple Logo and ends in a question mark folder.
I'll explain how I ended up with this boot issue:
I deleted a folder called “usr” with many other folders like “x11” in it from Volume/Macintosh HD. I couldn't launch iTunes afterward so I shut down and stuck with the shut down wheel spinning screen, so I force shut down and restart.
The Apple Logo showed in boot up but froze with Kernal Panic (You have to force shut down the computer...). I tried to restart many times after Resetting PRAM but the same. I'm afraid it's a hardware issue so i removed each third party RAM one at a time, still the same.
Since the hardware test CD also checked with no problem, I decided to boot from Snow Leopard Installer DVD to Repair Permission & Disk. Nothing needed to be fixed so I reformat the internal HD and reinstall OS X 10.6. The installation finished in 40 minutes but won't boot from the HD.
This lead me to think that it could be a HD failure (but Target Disk Mode shows up perfectly fine, the HD is readable) so I replaced it with my previous 250GB 2.5“ HD and did a clean installation of OS X.
I'm still stuck with the same boot up without Apple Logo and ended up with a question mark folder. Both HD (500GB & 250GB) are fine and readable with OS X in it, but it just doesn't boot.
Does anyone experience this before and any feedback will be very much appreciated. I'm really worry and I have a deadline coming next week...

Although it's possible the hard drive has failed, it's more likely that system files have been damaged. The question mark means no bootable system was found. Before throwing in the towel you might try the following:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
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.) 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, then quit DU and return to the installer.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Windows partition wont' boot from internal secondary HDD? No bootable device error

Here is my scenario: I previously had a 500GB bootcamped HDD in my 2012 macbook pro. The boot camp partition was running windows 7 and the mac partition was running 10.9. I replaced my original HDD with a 250GB SSD, took out my optical drive, and replaced that (op drive) with my original HDD. When i boot from the main drive, the SSD, it successfully recognizes the HDD with the 2 different partitions on it. But when I try to boot into my windows partition(on the HDD) by holding option at startup and selecting the windows partition, I keep getting a black screen "No bootable device. Insert boot disk and hit any key". I tried installing rEFIt, but still no luck. Here is the output from partition inspector:
* Report for internal hard disk *
Current GPT partition table: # Start LBA End LBA Type 1 40 409639 EFI System (FAT) 2 409640 487127591 Mac OS X HFS+ 3 487127592 488397127 Mac OS X Boot
Current MBR partition table: # A Start LBA End LBA Type 1 1 488397167 ee EFI Protective
MBR contents: Boot Code: None
Partition at LBA 40: Boot Code: None (Non-system disk message) File System: FAT32 Listed in GPT as partition 1, type EFI System (FAT)
Partition at LBA 409640: Boot Code: None File System: HFS Extended (HFS+) Listed in GPT as partition 2, type Mac OS X HFS+
Partition at LBA 487127592: Boot Code: None File System: HFS Extended (HFS+) Listed in GPT as partition 3, type Mac OS X Boot
Ive seen similar post, but none specific to my scenario. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to preserve the contents of my original HDD as it contains important school files I will be needing.

Please download Gdisk from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/ . You do not have a valid MBR on disk1 so Windows will not boot, even though you can see the volume in OS X Finder on the HDD.
Use Gdisk to recreate a Hybrid MBR which includes GPT#4.
Here is an example. Please notice the spaces between 2,3 and 4.
sudo gdisk /dev/disk0
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.10
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
MBR: hybrid
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.
Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk0: 490234752 sectors, 233.8 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 59BDFEEB-1EB4-4529-94FE-3CBC2C3CD513
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 490234718
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2604 sectors (1.3 MiB)
Number Start (sector)    End (sector) Size       Code Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00 EF
   2          409640       401060383   191.0 GiB   AF05 Macintosh HD
   3       401060384       402329919   619.9 MiB   AB00 Re
   4       402331648       490233848   41.9 GiB    0700 Microsoft basic data
Command (? for help): r
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h
WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.
Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 2 3 4
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y
Creating entry for GPT partition #2 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AF): AF
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n
Creating entry for GPT partition #3 (MBR partition #3)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AB): AB
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n
Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #4)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 07): 07
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w
Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk0.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.
Now Reboot and verify the output of fdisk again.

HELP! How do I get rid of the volume noise that plays when I switch from internal speakers to external speakers?

How do I get rid of the volume noise that plays when I switch from internal speakers to external speakers? I'm trying to watch something on my TV through an HDMi cable (& apple adapter) and when I go to switch the sound control in preferences from internal speakers to SONY TV, the annoying "popping" noise occurs on my TV's speakers.

Go to Edit > Preferences > General > Import Settings and check the box for error correction, and then try one of the problem CDs again.

Yosemite doesn't boot from internal SSD, Mavericks does

Hey guys,
I've just wasted 2.5 days with this:
- I've had Yosemtie running fine on my Early-2011 MacBook Pro (upgraded 8GB RAM) but my HDD started to fail so I've bought an SSD.
- First one was Sandisk Ultra II 240GB but I've had massive lag problems (including super-long installation, a lot of beach balls etc.) so I've changed it for Crucial MX100 256GB SSD.
- Installation went super fast (i.e. under one hour) it has booted up for the first time just as it should and the write / read speeds were at 320 / 500 so just as advertised
- When I rebooted the system it froze on the Apple logo and the progress bar at about 50% - I've waited about 4 hours to no avail.
- I've done all the magic suggested on various forums (resetting PRAM, validating HDD, dealing with Printers after trying to use cloned version, etc.) - nothing.
- Yosemite boots fine from USB but it rarely (maybe once in a 20) from SATA - I thought it's down to crappy SATA cable but after using Time Capsule and restoring last version of Mavericks I've had it works and boots OK (bit slow for an SSD but I can live with that, it's few times faster than my HDD anyway).
So... what the **** Apple? I've seen that lots of people had similar issues with the boot freezing at 50%, doing all the voodoo stuff with no effect. Oh, weirdly - it still boots fine from the HDD that's soon to give up the ghost.
Any suggestions lads?

Bump

No Boot from Internal SSD RAID 0 ( partitioned )

6 Core Westmere MAc PRo 10.6.2
I have 2 OWC Exteme PRo RE SSD drives 200 Gig each -
one in lower optical bay , the other one in HD bay .
I made 2 exactly same partitons on each of those ( using Disk Utility )
and created Striped RAID on two pairs of those - using this workflow:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-HowToSetupRAID.html
( so I have 2 volumes Boot and Scratch )
Everything works fine - extremely fast .
I can do things on those volumes no problem .
So I made a Super Duper clone of my system
harddrive into "boot" SSD volume .
What I get is a " forbidden " sign while trying to boot from that .
I was able to boot from my SSD in JOBD setup ( before Raid O of partitions )
Any suggestions how to make my 400MB /S SSD raid0 volume bootable ?

Usually you do not want your scratch and system to be on the same hard drive, even if shared in RAID0.
6-core Westmere is Mid 2010 and comes with a later build of OS X than 10.6.4.
You'll also see SoftRAID recommended on MPG and what I prefer to use for arrays.
While you are experimenting, I would use the entire two SSDs in RAID0, formatted with 10.6.4 Disk Utility. And ask OWC what they think is up.

I'm booting from a new LaCie Thunderbolt SSD and it won't wake from sleep.

As my boot drive I have a new 1TB LaCie Thunderbolt SSD Disk. It's connected to a 27" 2.7 GHz Intel i5 iMac (mid 2011). I'm running OS X 10.8.2. Nothing else is connected on Thunderbolt.
Everything runs fine and very fast, with the one exception of not waking from sleep.
When I try to wake it up, the screen illuminates and the desktop is not completely frozen: I can drag windows around, but I can't open applications or do anything with the Finder. I get a spinning beachball if I move the cursor over the menu bar at the top. The only option is to restart.
I've contacted LaCie and they say their devices are "storage devices" and not "system drives". Yet I've been running my system from a 1TB LaCie D2 for at least a couple of years. I pointed out to LaCie support that nowhere on the box does it say their devices are for storage only.
Any suggestions?

@Kappy - not the most useful of replies mate to be honest.After all, there is a strong possibility that this has everything to do with the way OS X and the thunderbolt interface handle wake from sleep states.
@kbrine:
I am having exactly the same problem but with slightly different hardware:
iMac 27 (mid-2011) with Mountain Lion 10.8.2
Booting from a Crucial M4 SSD in an OWC SATA enclosure connected to a Lacie eSata thunderbolt hub (which is connected to the iMac).
In normal use the drive is super fast and works really well.
But my problem is exactly as you describe, put the machine into sleep, and on wake everything appears to come back ok however you can't open apps from the dock and the spinning beachball appears. You can't do anything else and you have to reboot.
Now the interesting thing is that if I put the machine to sleep and then wake it up again within 1 minute everything works perfectly. After a longer period of time - and I'm presuming when the energy saving profile moves to a deeper sleep state (I don't know for sure so speculation from me here) - I get the problem we are having and I have to reboot.
Here's what I've tried so far:
Updated my SSD to the latest firmware.
No firmware updates available for the OWC enclosure nor the Lacie eSata hub (at least, not that I could find)
Turned off bluetooth (others on this forum had a problem with BT interfering with Thunderbolt displays coming back on after sleep)
Turned off 'Automatic Brightness Adjust' (again, based on Thunderbolt Display problems that others have reported)
I've tried out AutoEJECT and Jettison apps that unmount all external drives and re-mount them when waking from sleep. They've made absolutely no difference. Save yourself a few $$ and don't bother buying them from the App Store.
I've tried unplugging and re-inserting the Thunderbolt cable connecting my eSata hub to the iMac. No effect.
And that's as far as I've got. There are only two things left for me to try:: disable 'Power Nap' which - apparently - can also cause problems with Thunderbolt devices during sleep. But I'm not confident with that being the solution. Turn the power off to the Crucial M4 when the problem occurs and then re-power it in the hope that it causes some sort of refresh of the connection to happen. Again, not sure that's a good solution either as I don't want to be powering down my SSD every time I bring the iMac out of sleep!!!
So I too am open to ideas and opinions on what might be causing these wake-from-sleep problems arising when Mac OS is booted from an external thunderbolt drive.

Problems booting from OSX DVD and External FW HDD

I've been trying recently to take a Dual-Bay Firewire Harddrive unit running a Oxford Semiconductor OXFW911 Chipset. I have two 250GB Hard drives and on one of these I have it Partitioned into 3 partitions. One is my Scratch Partition, one is the Restore of a DVD Install Disc and the last is a "Pre-Installed" version of OSX. I want to be able to boot from the Install DVD partition and the "Pre-Installed" Partition. I have successfully Imaged the Install DVD Partition and was able to boot from that partition once to install OSX on a computer without a DVD drive.
Problem now is that I can't boot from the partition, or I should say, I select it from the Sys Prefs and it will pass the grey screen to a the blue background and just get hung up. It never displays the dialog to select a language to begin the install.
I also can not boot from the Install DVD. It will show up in the Startup Disk in Sys Prefs but always ends up hanging.
I've tried booting using "Option" and it displays my Internal HD and then two icons for the Install DVD Partition on the External FW Drive. Neither one allows for me boot up.
Any ideas for what I may be missing?
Thanks,
Russ

It appears that if the Partition with OSX was installed from anything besides the Restore Disc, the Powerbook won't boot to it.
I think this is ridiculous, and if I've went wrong somewhere, someone please correct me.
Thanks.

Quicksilver G4 will not boot from a cloned firewire external drive.

Hi all,
Just as the subject line says. I know this is a problem for many PPC users. I simply want to erase the HD so I can sell this Mac. In order to do that, I need to boot from an external source. I do not have the original disks that came with this system long ago. I have Panther and Leopard disks (10.5 is the terminal OS for this non Intel based Mac)... but neither of them will boot this Mac... I've tried. I've used a WD firewire drive as well as a Maxtor, but no luck. I've cloned the entire internal drive using Super Duper, with the external HD first formatted to Mac extended format. The system recognizes both drives and they even appear in the list of 'start up discs' but no matter what I choose or even 'option C' or 'command-option P-R' on start up, will not get this sucker to boot to anything else except the internal drive. The Mac also has a second internal drive, which was wiped easily. Is there any clever way I can make this work so I can erase the main drive and prepare the Mac for sale? I've researched this a lot and for some reason, many of these PPC's are fussy about what type of external drive they will boot to. My understanding is that Firewire is the only way to go. Thanks... MIke

That Leopard Disc should work...
2Z691-6037-A Mac OS X Version 10.5.0 Leopard...
Compatible with eMac, eMac (ATI Graphics), eMac (1.0 GHz G4), eMac (USB 2.0), eMac (2005), iBook G4 (Mid 2005), iMac G5 17-inch (ALS), iMac G5 20-inch (ALS), iMac G5 (17-inch iSight), iMac G5 (20-inch iSight), iMac (Early 2006 17-inch), iMac (Early 2006 20-inch), iMac (Mid 2006 17-inch), iMac (17-inch Late 2006 CD), iMac (17-inch Late 2006), iMac (20-inch Late 2006), iMac (24-inch Late 2006), iMac (20-inch Mid 2007), iMac (24-inch Mid 2007), Mac mini, Mac mini (Late 2005), Mac mini (Early 2006), Mac mini (Late 2006), Mac mini (Mid 2007), Mac Pro, Mac Pro (8-core), MacBook (13-inch), MacBook (13-inch Late 2006), MacBook (13-inch Mid 2007), MacBook (13-inch Late 2007), MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro (17-inch), MacBook Pro (15-inch Glossy), MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo), MacBook Pro (17-inch Core 2 Duo), MacBook Pro (15-inch 2.4/2.2GHz), MacBook Pro (17-inch 2.4GHz), MacBook Pro (Early 2008), Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver), Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver 2002), Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver 2002ED), Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors), Power Mac G4 (FW 800), Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors 2003), Power Mac G5, Power Mac G5 (June 2004), Power Mac G5 (Late 2004), Power Mac G5 (Early 2005), Power Mac G5 (Late 2005), PowerBook G4 (1GHz/867MHz), PowerBook G4 (12-inch), PowerBook G4 (17-inch), PowerBook G4 (12-inch DVI), PowerBook G4 (15-inch FW800), PowerBook G4 (17-inch 1.33GHz), PowerBook G4 (12-inch 1.33GHz), PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.5/1.33GHz), PowerBook G4 (17-inch 1.5GHz), PowerBook G4 (12-inch 1.5GHz), PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz), PowerBook G4 (17-inch 1.67GHz), PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD), PowerBook G4 (17-inch Double-Layer SD), Xserve, Xserve (Slot Load), Xserve (Cluster Node), Xserve G5, Xserve G5 (Cluster Node), Xserve G5 (January 2005), Xserve G5 (January 2005 Cluster Node), Xserve (Late 2006)
http://www.welovemacs.com/2z6916037a.html
Does it still not boot from that Disc?

Imac 27 will only boot from internal and from factory install DVD?

I was trying to create a bootable external source for my iMac 27 and came across a pretty odd scenario. One that Apple iteslef says they have never seen before. Love any feedback on how to create a external bootable source. Below are my notes from the 45 minute conversation I just had with Applecare.
My iMac 27 purchased in December, 2010 Will not boot from:
Apple Factory Install DVD (white printed with Snow Leopard)
TechTool Pro 5.06 DVD
SD Card with Bootlable installation
EXT HDD with previous bootable (Leopard 10.5.9) system on it
eDrive on an EXT HDD
I had a 45 conversation with Applecare and the tech has never heard or seen a situation like this one.
Every source shows up if I hold the "option" key down upon power up.
Every source shows up in the System Prefs Startup window (though there was one oddity that he had not seen before. I have to authenticate each and every time I try to change my startup disk in the Startup Disk Prefs)
Every source other than the internal has the same result if I try to boot into it, gray screen with dark gray Apple logo, no gears running, no optical accessing, just the gray screen forever.
We reset my PRAM and tried again. No change
Then the Applecare tech had to get off the phone in order to do some further research.
He came back and we tried to startup from the DVD that shipped with my iMac, not the white factory Snow Leopard I got from Amazon, but the gray install DVD from Apple.
This one booted.
We repaired permissions and checked the internal disk from the Apple Gray Install DVD.
That is as far as the tech could go. He is sending me out a new copy of Snow Leopard, but is unable to support me in my quest to boot from an external source.
I am going to try and create a bootable external source using the gray install dvd instead of the commercial Now Leopard one and see what happens.
Thanks,
Henry

The point is that V.K. is correct.
You cannot create a bootable disk for your iMac from the factory Snow Leopard DVD because your machine was released after Snow Leopard was and as such relies on operating system changes and drivers that exist solely on the disc that came with your machine.
I'm really surprised if an AppleCare agent didn't know that.
To create a bootable external drive either use your Software Restore disc or create a bootable clone of your internal drive using an app like Carbon Copy Cloner.

EMac Won't Boot from Internal HD

Got an eMac that would no longer boot from a client. Got all the data off the drive with Data Rescue, reformatted the internal HD, and reinstalled OS X 10.4. The install went fine, but the machine will still not boot off the internal HD. I just get the question mark. I tried reformatting the HD and re-installing 10.4 from a different set of media. Same problem. I ran a full surface scan on the HD with TechTool, which it passed. I ran the exteneded Apple hardware test, which it passed. I yet again formatted the HD and installed 10.4. Still got the question mark. The eMac will boot off of a CD, a DVD, or an external FW drive, but it just doesn't want to boot from the internal.
My next step is to replace the internal HD, which I don't want to do because getting into the eMac is such a pain. Any other suggestions? Thanks!
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz DP Mac OS X (10.4.1)

Presumablly you've double-checked that the drive was formatted as HFS+ / Mac Extended. After installing the system, restart from the OS X Install Disk again and run Disk Utility. Does DU recognize the drive after the install? Run Repair Disk on the hard drive and see if that reports any problems. Since you're reinstalling from OS X Install disks after reformatting the hard drive, this link doesn't really apply.

Won't Boot from Internal Hard Drive

I received the "Startup Disk is Full" message and neglected to do anything about it before my Mac stopped booting. To remedy this, I installed and booted from Snow Leopard (10.6) on an external hard drive, found what was eating my space on my internal hard drive (currently Mac OS 10.5.8) and freed up about 35 GB of space.
I then went to my System Preferences to change the default Startup Disk back to the internal drive. It's not booting past the gray screen.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Do I now need to update my internal hard drive to Snow Leopard? If so, will this erase anything on my internal drive?

Hmm.
Do you have your external drive connected?
Try booting with the ALT key held down. Is your internal drive an option here? Choose it, then give the computer 5~10 minutes to boot.
If that doesn't work, try holding the Shift key and starting up in Safe Mode, which will take 5~10 minutes.
Do you have your OS X install discs for 10.5?
~Lyssa

Boot from internal Fusion or external SSD?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for