Boot sequence reverts to external drive as default

When troubleshooting a now-resolved problem in my dual G5, I set up a clean installation on a partition on my external drive, and then used the OPTION key to boot to it. Everything got fixed, except now the machine automatically boots to that drive when I turn it on or restart. How do I reset the default boot drive back to my internal HD?

"Startup Disk" System Preference.
That was a no brainer…
Thank you for substituting for my brains. If I had used "startup" instead of "boot" in searching for information, I'm sure it would have popped up.

Similar Messages

  • Booting MBP from SATA external drive/hard disk

    I have an external SATA HD 120GB portioned in to 4 partitions. It is in an ICY BOX SATA house. Connected direct to the MBP via an USB cable. No external power supply.
    I have cloned the OS from the MBP to one partition on the external disk (using SuperDuper!).
    I can see the external device in the System preference window ‘Start-up Disk’ I can select it, but it refuses to start up from it. When I do a restart it starts up from my internal HD.
    If I hold down the Alt key at start-up I do not see the external HD.
    I also have an other non SATA disks connected via FireWire with a cloned version of my OS and here I have no problems.
    Any suggestions as to how to be able to boot form the external SATA disk?
    Thnaks

    In Disk Utility/Partition/Options we can read:
    - GUID Partition Table (GPT) "to use the disk to start up an Intel-based Mac".
    - Apple partition Map (APM) "to use the disk to start up a PowerPC-based Mac or to use the disk as non startup disk with any Mac".
    At http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2006/tn2166.html we have very important secrets of the GPT:
    - Any Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 and later can mount GPT-partitioned disks.
    _ Intel Macs can boot from GPT. By default, the internal hard disk is formatted as GPT.
    - While Intel Macs can boot from GPT and APM, Apple only supports booting Mac OS X on these machines from GPT. Apple's GUI tools, like the Installer, will prevent you installing Mac OS X for an Intel-based Mac on non-GPT disks.
    Many posts In this forum telling ius that it is mandatory to format disks GUID partitioned to boot MBP.
    But, in other forums there are some opinions about APM too:
    . http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006061610374449
    . http://www.macfixitforums.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38 "How to make a triple-boot service drive"
    . http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=42&func=view&cat id=7&id=786
    We are discuss the boot capability of external drives and I wish someone can clarify this question to isolate software (include cloning software) or hardware problems.
    MacBook Pro 2 GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

  • Booting From SD Card, External Drive, USB Stick, etc...

    If you configure an external HD, usb stick, sd card, etc. to be a startup volume for your mac, does the computer write or otherwise use the computer's 'default' internal hard drive?
    For example, if I insert an sd card into an iMac and boot off of that and open safari and visit a website, once I startup again from the iMac's internal drive, will that appear in the safari's history when booting up again form the internal HD?
    Will there be any trace otherwise of anything I do while booted from the sd card?
    If I sent the iMac to DriveSavers or some other computer forensic analysis place would they find anything on the internal drive?
    I'm inclined to think they would not, but I was hoping this could evolve into a technical discussion with somebody perhaps being knowledgable enough to explain how data travels from the internet, over the ethernet connection, to the motherboard, and then the hard drive. I try to visualize it, myself having a basic understanding, and I think that if there is an entirely different boot volume being used, the 'secondary' volume wouldn't even get written to - unless I obviousy elected to save a file to it.
    *Oh, without sending super sketchy I thought maybe I should put this question into context. So, I'm a college student and I was thinking that maybe I could just spend a hundred bucks on an sd card and always have it with me and just go to the library or lab (or local apple store? thought I think they don't allow it) and boot from a 'host mac'. My concern is that I don't want to leave traces of a paper, or email, or private chat, or browsing history on the computer's internal hard drive.  If this works I'll save like $1,000 - to a college kid that's like a billion dollars, even in this economy.
    Thank you very much!
    Tom

    Each boot drive will use a different set of home folders, so the history and other settings created in one will not be available in the other.
    The operating system is just software that loads from a storage device. For Macs this can be the internal drive, an external drive, a DVD, or a networked volume. This software loads at boot and allows use of the system's hardware (mouse, keyboard, graphics processors, etc.). Booting does not require the use of the internal drive. When the system is powered on it gets a list of all attached storage devices and will preferentrially try to load an operating system from the default boot device, but if it cannot or if it's instructed to look elsewhere (e.g., if you hold the C key to boot to a DVD), then it will load the operating system software from a different location.
    When the system has an specific boot drive loaded, it will reference every location of where to save things from that drive. This is the "root" of the system, on which the system has references to storage locations both on the "root" drive and to those on other storage devices. Very briefly, the system sees your external drives simply as folders on your boot drive.
    If you boot to an external drive, then this will be the "root" drive, and your system's internal drives will be likewise seen as folders like any other secondary storage locations.

  • MBP 13' Won't boot from CD or external Drive

    Recently my MBP 13 (newest version) occasionally crashes with the grey screen death which forces me to hard shut down. This led me to believe my directory may be corrupted so I tried to boot from my external OS X (Snow Leopard) with DiskWarrior installed to do the repair. Unfortunately, when the grey Apple logo shows up, the computer crashes again.
    I tried again using original recovery CD to boot hoping to use Disk Utility, but it does the same thing where it crashes at the Apple logo.
    I can't seem to figure out why. Anyone have experience with this issue? how do I resolve this issue???!
    Thanks

    JL9283 wrote:
    The external drive is a clone of a different computer.
    This could be why it won't boot to it. It may not have the correct drivers to run the 13'. You really should have a clone of each Mac you own. Perfect for trouble shooting this type of thing. You can partition an external to have clones of several different Macs. I do that, plus I clone each to an extra internal on the desktop models.
    However, if this have any impact it should've occurred in the past?
    I think you just got lucky in the past.
    I just spent 2 hrs re-installing OS X again and restoring. It's still doing the same thing. (It appears I can boot from the restore CD, but not external drive).
    What install method did you use please?
    If you can boot from the DVD, go to disk utility and see what your internal drives S.M.A.R.T. status is. Might as well run a Disk Repair while you are there.
    Also, since you can boot from disks,
    I would try running the extended version of your Apple Hardware Test.
    It's not perfect but may flag something.
    I'm assuming you can't boot from your DiskWarrior disk cause it's an older version that won't boot the new 13'?
    That's the case for me and my MacBook. Since you can't boot to your bad clone, do you still have another Mac around? If so, you could boot in Target Disk Mode and use Diskwarrior from the other computer to try and repair the 13'. 
    DALE

  • Can't boot from DVD or external drive

    Because of recent slow performance on my iMac G5 I ran disk utility and repaired permissions, then clicked Verify Disk. It reported minor errors in directory files and said I should repair them. I tried starting up from the MacOS X installation DVD, but I get a spinning beach ball and a symbol with a circle with a diagonal line through it (like a Do Not Enter sign). I had to unplug the computer to reboot.
    Using another computer, I made a startup disk on an external hard drive and tried booting the iMac from that, but I get the same beach ball and symbol. Tried another OS X DVD with the same result.
    I am able to boot from the internal hard drive only, but then I can't do a disk repair. I have already reset the PRAM, but that didn't help.
    Any suggestions ??? Thanks.

    Because of recent slow performance on my iMac G5 I ran disk utility and repaired permissions, then clicked Verify Disk. It reported minor errors in directory files and said I should repair them. I tried starting up from the MacOS X installation DVD, but my G5 still starts from the hard disk and I am therefore unable to repair rthe hard disk.
    Can I create a new startup disk by copying my installation disk, leaving off the installation software, and then start my Mac using Option "C".
    On my previous Macs I always used Norton Utilities to repair my disk and recover files - are ther any similar packages available for OS X (10.4.7)?

  • Mac Pro will not boot from cd or external drive

    My Mac has an issue whith the boot drive, and I would like to format the drive and reinstall OS-X Mountain Lion and then use Time Machine to resore the Data. When I try to boot my Early 2009 Mac Pro (OS-X 10.8) using the option key, it loads the scrren that allows me to choose among the bootable drives. Once I choose either an external drive or CVD, it loads to the apple screen, stays there for about 5 minutes, then loads the OS on the main drive... Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
    Bill Mueller

    At first I was just going to say it sounds like you have a bad optical drive, but then you had to go and say that it also won't boot from a HDD.
    That just makes things a whole lot worse.
    Start by removing the side cover and checking the RAM to see if any of the LEDs are lit up indicating bad RAM. Usually if there's any bad RAM found, it will just automatically disable that stick, but maybe yours isn't for some reason.
    Look for any other LEDs that may be lit. Generally speaking, the only time you should see an LED (outside of the power LED) lit consistently is if there's a problem.
    You should also see if you can get Apple Hardware Test to run, which may or may not find some problem.
    But sorry to say, it's sounding very suspiciously like a bad logic board.
    One other thing to try, is putting the SL drive into a different slot. So if you were putting it in slot 2, try slot 3 or 4. If you just have a bad SATA port, you might be able to just work around that until you get a new system.
    If by chance this system is still under warranty, do not walk, do not pass go, do not collect $200, RUN to the nearest AASP or Apple store to make it THEIR problem to sort out.

  • Will Late 2013 iMac boot from Snow Leopard External Drive?

    Hey gang-
    Got a new late-2013 iMac for Christmas (yayyyy!!)
    I plan on running Mavericks for day-to-day use, but there are a few old Power PC apps that I occasionally need to run. Does anyone know if the new iMacs will boot from an external drive running Snow Leopard? I have an external Firewire drive with Snow Leopard on it and I'm wondering if the new iMac will boot from it if needed.
    Thanks!
    Dave

    Thanks gang.   No worries- I keep an older Intel MacBook with Snow Leopard on it and I suppose it will do in a pinch.
    Cheers!
    Dave

  • Possible to boot Win from an external drive?

    I've recently replaced my original drive with both Mac OS X and a small partition for windows installed.
    My windows partition is now on an external drive: the only difference is, i'ts now connected via USB instead of the internal SATA connector.
    (I can still boot off of my old Mac OS X partition)
    Is it possible to Boot from a bootcamp partition on an external drive?
    if yes? Can I clone it to other drives?

    ok thanks man.
    I'm now cloning that old partition to an external drive... guess I have to buy some old crappy pc system to acces some old programs.
    I'm not doing the bootcamp partition anymore because someone advised me partitioning startup disks makes them slower. And I maybe use windows once every 6 months to find an old file.

  • Booting system from an external drive; Folder with Question Mark

    Hello all. I am trying to setup an external USB hard drive as a bootable device for my Tiger install. This is on a Core Duo Mac Mini. I have successfully partitioned it using GUID into two partitions; A small 5gb partition for the minimal OSX install, and the remainder for data. I installed OSX onto it via my included Tiger discs that came with the Mini, no problems. However, when I try to boot from it I get a Folder icon with a question mark in the center. I can boot the Mini normally and browse the external partition. It shows no problems. Disk Utility also shows no errors on the drive. What have I missed?
    For any who are curious, my goal here is to use NetRestore to make a backup image of my main Mini hard disk. Then by booting to the external USB drive, I will be able to restore the backup image (stored on the data partition of the external drive as well) to the internal Mini hard disk.
    Mac Mini Core Dio Mac OS X (10.4.7)

    Just letting everyone know that I am still unresolved on this one. I have tried it all; Zero-overwrite erased the external drive before partitioning it, used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the boot disk, you name it. Every situation leads to the same result; no ability to boot from the USB drive, It just acts like it can't read it. Are there "undocumented" problems booting from USB on Intel macs?

  • Very slow to boot, even on an external drive

    A friend's 15" MacBook Pro, quad core i7,(older, not sure of the exact model) very slow to boot, and boots with the progress bar, then when you try to log in, it goes back to the login page. Often it will not start. Starts after resetting SMC.  Reset PRAM. Booted to the recovery disk, ran repair disk on drive, no errors, tried to run repair on the volume and the MBP shut down. Tried booting to an external drive and it boots to an empty desktop with a finder window like an extended desktop.Tried AHT, only the usual battery sensor error, 4SNS/1/40000000  TB3T-128.000. ran extended test, same thing, only the one error.
    So, how to back up this MB Pro before I try an erase and install. (short of removing the drive) It would seem to be a hardware error, but always want to try an erase and install. Any ideas or troubleshooting suggestions?

    Mike -- thanks for your input. I guess Windows is just a worrisome thing for us Mac guys. Part of what always gets me is unknown code that goes into Windows. I did a Google the other day to see if I could get a feel for the "roots" of the upcoming Vista.
    Who knows what Vista is really based on -- a modification of NT that was in part based on DOS and VMS? From my limited experience, I am not sure there is enough shelf space to hold the manuals to run VMS successfully. Of course, why worry; Boot Camp and other things will change before Vista gets here.
    The bottom line is that I will use all the Windows security fixes.
    Mac Mini (Intel Core Duo)   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

  • Can't boot PB 17" from external drive using Firewire

    Title says it all. I've got a WD My Book 500MHz external drive with Tiger loaded on it. The startup drive panel shows it as a bootable drive, but when I select it and restart, the PB briefly displays the question mark folder and then defaults to the internal HD running Leopard.
    I repaired disk permissions on both drives, but still no success. Any ideas?
    John

    Thanks. According to Western Digital, some versions of this drive are bootable, though the Studio Edition I have is not. See the WD My Book page for a list of what they say are bootable versions.
    That page at the bottom also gives a procedure using Disk Utility to make any My Book bootable. I tried it twice, however, and no go. The issue you raised must be the catch.
    John

  • Boot Camp on an External Drive

    Does anyone know why Apple has chosen not to allow installion of Windows on an external drive? I don't think I am going to be willing to risk putting Windows on my internal drive.
    Mac Mini (Intel Core Duo)   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

    Mike -- thanks for your input. I guess Windows is just a worrisome thing for us Mac guys. Part of what always gets me is unknown code that goes into Windows. I did a Google the other day to see if I could get a feel for the "roots" of the upcoming Vista.
    Who knows what Vista is really based on -- a modification of NT that was in part based on DOS and VMS? From my limited experience, I am not sure there is enough shelf space to hold the manuals to run VMS successfully. Of course, why worry; Boot Camp and other things will change before Vista gets here.
    The bottom line is that I will use all the Windows security fixes.
    Mac Mini (Intel Core Duo)   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

  • Show user library on a Mac OS boot disk running as external drive

    I've had an internal Mac OSX Mavericks boot drive start to fail and am in the process of backing up the user data on this drive.
    The HDD has been removed from the computer as it wouldn't start up. So far I have been able to mount this drive as an external drive on another mac and I'm in the process of transfering the data to a new drive.
    My question is how can I access the User/Library on the failing drive when it's being run as an external drive on another mac?
    I tried looking and the view setup for this user folder but there's no option to select 'show library', guess that's because the drive is not running as the normal boot drive!
    Thanks in advance to anyone that can help.

    Using the Terminal....
    Depending on the name of the external drive, select the correct option. Insert your User name for YOU.
    Drive name: Mac HD Clone
    chflags nohidden /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ Clone/Users/YOU/Library
    Drive name 3TB Seagate Clone MTL
    chflags nohidden /Volumes/3TB\ Seagate\ Clone\ MTL/Users/YOU/Library
    Drive name Mavericks
    chflags nohidden /Volumes/Mavericks/Users/YOU/Library

  • Can't boot snow leopard from external drive

    I have a copy of snow leopard installed on a separate usb hard drive which I use to run some PowerPC programmes under rosetta. I can attach this USB drive to my Mac Pro and also to an Intel Macbook and choose to start up on this external drive without any issues. However when I try restarting my new 2011 iMac on this external usb drive the machine crashes every time with a kernal panic. Is this problem unique to me or does everyone else have this issue with new iMacs. Mine is a 27" 3.4ghz i& with 12ghb ram installed running 10.72. Is their soemthing I can do to resolve this problem?

    I have now solved the problem of being able to boot from either Snow Leopard or Lion on a new Mid 2011 iMac. This is how I did it.
    1. Attach an external USB drive to an earlier Mac or borrow one from a friend. In my case I used my 2009 Unibody Macbook (which has Lion installed on it but does allow you to install Snow Leopard on an attached device) Put the Snow Leopard install disc in this machine and tell it to install Snow Leopard on your attached USB Drive.
    2. Start up the Macbook (or whatever machine you are using) and get it to restart on the attached USB drive so that it boots up in Snow Leopard. Then when Snow Leopard is up and running on the attached external drive, do a software update to bring it up to 10.68 (the current version). This step is important as I found that if I plugged in the external USB drive into the iMac with only operating system 10.6 installed it would cause a kernal panic on start up when I choose to start up on the external USB drive.
    3. With Snow Leopard updated to system 10.68 you can now plug it into your iMac and restart the iMac booting into Snow Leopard from the external USB drive. You do this by either going to System Preferences>Startup disk and choosing the external drive, or by holding down the option key when you restart your Mac and choosing the external USB drive.
    4. The next step is to make your iMac dual boot now that you know it can run Snow Leopard successfully from an external USB drive. To do this, go into Utilities>Disk Utility and select your main drive. Select the main disk (with Lion on it)  and then choose Partition and choose 2 Partitions. Drag the first partition bundary line down to make the second partition size as small as possible. In my case I had a stock 1TB drive and the smallest partition size it would allow me was 70gb. Create the second partition (assuming you have spare space on your drive to allow this to happen). This will then create a second hard drive icon on your desktop. I renamed mine "Snow Leopard startup".
    5. Download the free (and excellent) utility Carbon Copy Cloner and use it to copy your Snow Leopard operating sytem from your attached USB external drive to your new partition.
    6. That's it! Now you can choose to start up your iMac from either Lion or Snow Leopard using either method mentioned in 3 above.
    7. As a final step I suggest your install your Rosetta only programmes in your new Snow Leopard partition so that you can access them easily and keep them all together.

  • Can't boot from my firewire external drive

    I have a 80 Gb LaCie firewire drive where I have installed (since Phanter) an operating system. All things were OK until I updated the system to OS X 10.4.10 in my G3 iMac (slot-loading). Since then I was unable to boot from the external drive. I had updated the drive's firmware, installed OS X 10.4.10 in it, but nothing has solved my issue. Can anyone help me with this?
    Helder Monteiro
    iMac G3 slot-loading   Mac OS X (10.4.10)   iBook G4 - 10.4.10

    Helder,
    I apologize if I sounded like I was finding fault with your use of English, which I think you use very well. My own abilities with any foreign language are embarrassingly poor ... & I'm not that great with my native English one either!
    My concern was that we were not communicating well enough for me to understand your situation well enough to suggest anything that would not make things worse. I'm still not entirely sure of that but let me review what I believe it to be before proceeding:
    You have a LaCie external hard drive that both your iMac & PowerBook recognize when either is started up from its internal copy of 10.4.10. With either one, the drive mounts & you can read & write files on the external without problems. The only problem is neither Mac will start up from the external drive, which has a copy of 10.4.10 installed on it in the same way as with your Mac's internal drives, that being booting from the Tiger installer disk, installing the base version of the OS on it & then updating it to 10.4.10 with some succession of Apple updates downloaded from Apple. You have also tried the PPC version of the 10.4.10 combo update. None of this has resolved the problem.
    If this is all true & accurate, then I suggest you start by attaching the drive to one or the other Mac while booted normally & seeing if the external drive appears as a choice in System Preferences > Startup Disk. You do not have to select it if appears; the test is just to see if the Mac recognizes it as having a valid OS version. If it does appear in the list, hover the mouse pointer over it until a popup box appears, which will tell you the version of the OS installed.
    If it does not appear in the list, it means there is no valid version of the OS installed. If it does, you could try selecting it & restarting, but I suspect from what you have said, it won't work -- the Mac will display a question mark for a while on startup, eventually give up on the drive & start from the internal one. (If so, don't forget to reset the startup disk to the normal one to speed up future restarts.)
    Either way, launch Disk Utility & run the "Repair Disk" function on the external drive. If it finds anything wrong, continue to repeat the repair until it passes. If it reports failure, stop & report that here before continuing.
    If the drive was recognized in the system preference, also run the "Repair Permissions" step. (if not, it is unlikely this will be an option.) If the drive passes both tests now, try booting from it again by whatever method you prefer.
    If it does not work now, I think you will have to reinstall the OS. If you have room on the drive, an Archive & Install will probably work. If not, you will need to consider "cleaner" install methods, which we can discuss if you wish.
    Good luck!

Maybe you are looking for