Booting and Back Up to External Firewire Drives

I would like to boot from two 7200 RPM Lacie Firewire 800 drives, one at home and one at work. I would like to keep both external drives and the internal drive synched at all times, so drive performance will be good at my desks and my PB will be in synch while on the road. Also, my system and all of my stuff will be backed up in three places, in my work office, home office and inside the PB. What is the best way to accomplish this?

In my view the easiest, and perhaps the fastest, utility for this kind of task is SuperDuper! - not free but $19.95 is very good value. SD! is so easy to use it is possible to be backing up within a few mouse clicks.
Whilst CCC does have a sync feature - but it does not work well (if at all) in Tiger. Retrospect is a very good backup solution (which I would recommend it for more complicated needs) and will do pretty much everything one needs, but it is not the easiest to use.

Similar Messages

Set up to save directly to external Hard Drive so cannot have separate 'back up'I now want to reverse i.e save to internal Hard Drive and 'back up' on external 'hard Drive'. Please advise me how to do this.

Macbook Air 13 inch purchased October 2013. set up to save [mainly photos] to external 'hard drive' i.e. not saved to internal hard drive. Cannot find easy way to create 'back up'. Please advise how I can reverse i.e save directly to internal 'hard drive' and 'back up on external 'hard drive'

For backing up your data I recommend that you use Time machine:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
rob at the orchard wrote:
save directly to internal 'hard drive'
When you import images or create other data files, file them in the appropriate places on your internal drive, don't delete them and let Time machine back them up.
Ciao.

Booting os x from *partitioned* external firewire drive?

Hi all,
my internal hard disk (on a 12" powerbook G4 867 mhz running osx tiger 10.4.10) has started acting weird (many people are reporting failing hard drives, and I'm assuming mine is failing too), so I'm preparing for replacing it with a new hard drive.
I've backed up the drive to an external firewire drive (LaCie portable 80 GB firewire drive "Design by F.A. Porsche") using Carbon Copy Cloner with the option 'make bootable' selected.
PROBLEM: I can't boot OS X using my clone on the external drive.
I'VE TRIED:
1. holding down Command-Option-Shift-Delete while booting to bypass the internal drive. (This didn't work: I saw an os 9 icon blinking/alternating with a question mark for a while, and then the computer booted from the internal hard disk.)
2. holding down Option to select the external drive in Startup Manager. (Didn't work either: Startup Manager opened fine, but only showed my internal drive volume. I tried clicking the 'rescan' button, but it couldn't find my external drive.)
3. SELECTING THE EXTERNAL DRIVE under Startup Disk in System Preferences. Note that the external drive volume *did show up* there. So under some conditions at least, the external volume is identified as a bootable volume. (This didn't work either, though: When I shut down the computer and booted up with the external drive connected, it still booted up from the internal drive.)
POSSIBLE EXPLANATION?
My external drive is partitioned into three partitions of different formats:
1. "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)"
2. "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)"
3. "MS-DOS File System (FAT32)"
The bootable volume is the first partition with the os x format.
Could my problem be caused by this partitioning of my external drive?
Either way, what to do?? I hope some of you savvy people out there can help me out.
Cheers,
Philip

Hi Philip,
My problem has been fixed, & I imagine it's the same for you...:
With the excellent help from Dave Nanian at shirtpocket.com - the developer of 'SuperDuper!' (thanks Dave - you rock!), the problem (as Michael suggested) is to do with the Partition Scheme of the drive.
If your drive was like my portable LaCie Porsche drive, it was FAT32-formatted for PC out of the box. This format has an underlying MBR (master boot record) partition-scheme. When re-partitioning a drive in 'Disk Utility', the original partition-scheme sticks, so if you simply re-partition the drive to Mac OS Extended, it will still have an MBR partition scheme... which Macs cannot boot from!
For a Power PC Mac to be able to boot from an external firewire drive, the drive MUST have an APM (Apple Partition Map) Partition Scheme underlying the Mac OS Extended partitions. To do this, click on the 'Options' button in 'Disk Utility' when on the 'Partition' page before partitioning. You will see the options:
GUID Partition Table (for Intel Macs... (n.b. Power PC's cannot boot from a GPT drive))
Apple Partition Map (to create a bootable drive for a Power PC Mac)
Master Boot Record (to create a bootable PC drive)
So.... to make your external drive bootable for your Powerbook G4, choose 'Apple Partition Map' in the 'Options' page prior to partitioning.
Special note about Intel Macs: Contrary to info supplied by Apple, an Intel Mac CAN boot from an APM-partitioned drive (this is why the OSX installer can be univerally bootable!), BUT, the problem is that the OSX installer will NOT let you install OSX-intel on an APM-partitioned drive....
You can, however, clone an Intel-Mac-OSX internal drive that has a GPT partition-scheme (using CCC or SuperDuper) to an external drive with APM, & the Intel Mac will still be able to boot from that clone...
The only real use for doing this, though, is if you want a multi-partitioned backup drive with separate bootable partitions for OSX-PPC & OSX-Intel machines. (Remember that a PPC machine cannot boot from a GTP-partion-scheme drive, hence the need to use APM in this instance seeing as the Partition Scheme applies to the entire drive (it can't be different for each partition.)
Good luck - let us know how you get on!
Jason

Is it possible to have two USB drives for the IPad? I want to bring RAW photo files from my camera, through the IPad and back to an external hard drive. One of my cameras does not use an SD card. How can I do this?

Is it possible to have two USB drives for the IPad? I want to bring RAW files from my camera through the IPad and out to an external hard drive. One of my cameras has an SD card but the other one doesn't have a card that would fit in any of the camera devices I've seen on line. Realted to this, I bought the IPad camera accessory. Can I put the SD card in the device and also hook the external hard drive to the USB port of the accessory and download from the camera to the hard drive? Can I put Lightroom or the Nikon photo editing software on the IPad? Right now I carry a PC laptop and external hard drives with me on wildernes trips. Internet and WiFi are not available. Because I shoot so many photos and they're in RAW I need to download from the camera to the external drive because I run out of memory on the PC (and it has much more memory than the IPad). I have Nikon NX software and lightroom on my PC. I'd love to be able to reduce the weight I carry by using the IPad to edit my photos each night while on trips. Is this possible and how would I do it? I'd appreciate any guidance.

No, the camera connection kit only supports the copying of photos and videos to the Photos app, it doesn't support copying content off the iPad. For your second camera instead of the SD reader part of the kit, does the iPad to camera cable not work with it for direct transfer to the iPad ?
For Lightroom and Nikon software again no - you can only install apps that are available in the iTunes app store on your computer and the App Store app on the iPad, 'normal' PC and Mac (OS X) software are not compatible with the iPad (iOS). There are some apps that perform fairly basic editing functions that are available in the store, but nothing as sophisticated as, for example, Lightroom.

Booting my imac from an external firewire drive suddenly stopped working. Disk still mounts but it will not boot the machine!

I took my MacBook Pro in for repairs and erased the drive for safety AFTER having copied the entire contents to an external firewire 800 drive using SuperDuper!
The copy process made the disk bootable and I was able to boot up my iMac and run it just as if I were working on my MacBook Pro. After a couple of times working this way, the iMac stopped booting from my drive.
The drive shows up when starting up by pressing the option key but then, after a long time, the iMac shows a circle/slash symbol as if it can't find the system files.
If I restart without pressing the option key, the disk mounts on the desktop and I can use it as an external drive just fine! I tried selecting it in System Preferences as the startup disk, but the same thing happens, blank grey screen with the circle/slash.
Since this happened with a Seagat drive - a brand that has failed me in the past many times - I thought it was a disk problem. I had backed up my MacBook pro contents to another Toshiba drive, and booted from there perfectly well for a couple of times...
Until the same thing happened! Thank God I didn't trash the Seagate although it makes very faint clicking noises that will keep me far away from using it again anyway... but that's another story!
iMac runs 10.5.8, the boot disk (and my MacBook) runs on 10.6.8 if that makes any difference... And now I'm scared that when I copy back to my MacBook Pro it might not boot up at all!!!
What gives???
- MerlinCreative

You need to reinstall Snow Leopard onto the external drive:
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard 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 Utilities menu. 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.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro 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.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

Restoring and backing up an external hard drive

I have had a WD My Book external for a few years and it has been working great up until yesterday. This is what is showing up.
As I am typing this it is no longer grayed out, I am in the process of copying and pasting to the new 3TB External. This is freaking me out... For future reference what do I do in the restore tab if anyone can help.

Your iPhone's backup, which is created and maintained by iTunes stores data such as most iPhone settings, email account settings, contact info, SMS messages, notes, recent calls, call favorites, photos available in your iPhone's camera roll (you shouldn't depend on your iPhone's backup alone for these photos, which should be imported by your computer as with any other digital camera), and 3rd party app settings and data created and stored by a 3rd party app.
It isn't necessary to backup your iPhone's backup. You can manually update your iPhone's backup at any time without syncing, and the same when connecting your iPhone with iTunes on another computer. With your iPhone connected to iTunes and without syncing, control-click on your iPhone and at the menu window that appears, select Back Up.
Maintaining a backup of your iTunes library is much more important - copying the entire iTunes named folder to an external drive or some other external media used for backup purposes.
Since the iPhone is designed to be synced with a supported application on your computer for contact info and calendar events, you should maintain a backup of the supported application on your computer for this data. Photos transferred from your computer to your iPhone are not included with your iPhone's backup, so these photos should be included with your computer's backup along with all other important data.
When syncing an iPhone with iTunes on another computer, only iTunes content on the iPhone will be erased first, not all data on your iPhone such as contact info and calendar events. When selecting photos to be transferred to your iPhone from another computer, all photos available on your iPhone that were transferred from another computer will be erased first. If you don't select to sync contact info and calendar events with a supported application on another computer, contact info and calendar events on your iPhone will not be touched.

Booting the Mac from an external USB drive

I was under the impression that you could only boot a Mac from an external firewire drive. However, I have just successfully booted my new MacBook from an external SuperDuper backup connected via USB.

I was under the impression that you could only boot a Mac from an external firewire drive.
That basically only applies to Mac OS X on PowerPC Macs, not on an Intel Mac such as a MacBook.
(37425)

How do I back up my Boot Camp partition to external firewire drive?

I have a 15 GB Windows XP Boot Camp partition (FAT32). I want to back it up to a 120 GB external Firewire drive. (I know the backup won't be bootable). In OX X Disk Utility, I formatted the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT). I planned to do the backup using the Windows Backup utility.
However, when booted into WinXP, Windows will not recognize the external hard drive. I thought I might need to create a FAT32 partion of 32 GB or less on the external drive, but I apparently can't do this in OS X or Windows (since Windows doesn't recognize the drive).
Any suggestions on how to backup the Boot Camp partition will be appreciated. I'm mainly interested in preserving all programs and data. Ideally, a clone could be created that could be restored back to the original partition in bootable form, but from studying this and other forums, it dosn't seem to be easy to do this for a FAT32-formatted volume.

My goal was to create a bootable clone of my FAT32 Boot Camp partition, while at the same time increasing the size of the partition from 15 GB to 32 GB if possible. This is what I did:
1. As suggested in this thread, I used Disk Utility to create a disk image. I formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT), and made it 32 GB in size.
2. Used the Finder to copy all files from my 15 GB Windows XP partition to the new disk image.
The following steps were only to determine if the disk image is a viable backup:
3. Removed the internal hard drive with my original Win XP partition, and installed a new internal hard drive.
4. Used Boot Camp Assistant to create a 32 GB Boot Camp partition on the new internal drive.
5. Inserted my Win XP installation disk and started the Windows installation. Formatted the new partition as FAT32. (I used the long rather than the quick format method--not sure if this was necessary.)
6. Continued the Windows installation to the point of restarting the computer, at which time I used the Option key to boot back into OS X.
7. Used the Finder to copy all the files from the 32 GB disk image to the new Boot Camp partition. (This overwrote a few Windows files installed by the aborted Win XP installation.)
8. Restarted and used the Option key to select the new 32 GB Boot Camp Partition. Windows booted as usual with all files, programs, etc. from the original 15 GB partition. Windows did complain about "new hardware" and required a restart, but all appears normal.
This indicates that the disk image containing all the files from my original Boot Camp partition is a viable backup, and can be used to restore the partition if necessary. I'm not sure if formatting the disk image as MS-DOS (rather than Mac OS extended) was necessary, or not.

Can WinXP be loaded and booted from external firewire drive?

The subject line probably says it all but:
Does the recent firmware upgrade and/or BootCamp allow you to install WinXP on an external Firewire drive rather than partitioning the iMac Core Duo's internal drive?
Mike
Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.6)

The other problem is XP itself doesn't support booting from firewire. Even if someone could figure out how to install to an external from bootcamp, you would still have to contend with XP.
Glor

External Firewire Drive Will Not Boot with 10.5.1

I have a Intel Mac Mini and I tried to install Leopard onto a external Firewire Drive. I have done this with 10.4.11 and all works well. The Mac Mini is running 10.5.1 on it's internal drive. I attached the Ext FW drive 320 GB and formatted it using 'Disk Utility' GUID format. I next installed 10.5.0 on the Ext FW Drive. I can shutdown and reboot with 10.5.0 using the firewire drive as the booting drive. I next installed the 10.5.1 update and when it completes it requests a restart, I restart it and it never boots back up just the Grey-Apple screen.
I have left it sit for a long time in this 'trying-to-boot' mode for a longtime because I know 10.5.1 may restart more than once on initial install. but nothing. I have also tried partitioning the drive into 3 40-80-180GB drives, but still the same behavior.
Any suggestions?

Went through the motions on that. No positive results. I'm starting to suspect either the enclosure or one of the latest updates.
This what I have found to date.
The Enclosure " Vantec NexStar 3" extrenal USB 2.0 and Firewire. Model NST-360UF-BK
The Drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320 GB IDE Drive
I tried 10.5.0 on an Intel Mac Mini. (GUID format) It boots ok. Install 10.5.1 manually downloaded or automatic it will install the update but will no reboot.
(this part I have to verify a second time) tried the same enclosure on a G4 . I attached the drive formatted it for a PowerPC install and boot. Installed 10.4.10 but not the latest security updates, JAVA, and QT. It will boot ok from the external FW drive. I next install the latest Updates via the update app in the Systems Preference window. After doing the updates for 10.4.10 it will not boot.
So I'm suspecting either the enclosure or the latest updates

Boot process hangs if external firewire drive disconnected.

I have an external firewire drive connected to my desktop at work. Time machine has been working well until someone disconnected the firewire drive. I didn't notice that it wasn't connected, but what I did notice was that the computer would hang at the grey screen during the boot process. Sometimes, I shut down the machine and then started it again, it would boot normally.
Then I noticed that the firewire drive was disconnected. Once I reconnected it, there were no longer any problems. I haven't seen any posts about this topic but I have heard from other folks at work that they have had the same experience.
So my real question is this: if I set up my MacBook Pro (which I carry back and forth to work on a daily basis) to have Time Machine back up to the Time Capsule at home, will the MacBook Pro be reluctant to boot when I'm not at home and Time Capsule is not available?

Has no problem booting when disconnected from time machine

Is it possible to boot a G4 (pci graphics) from an external firewire drive?

I have a Lacie 250 gig bootable external firewire drive which is recognized on my Power PC G4 400 but I cannot get it to boot from this drive. The procedure works fine on my ibook... I looked into a possible firmware update but the apple site says no update is necessary for the G4 400/pci graphics...
Any suggestions?

There sure are some radically contradictory posts here! (This isn't typical, at least in this section of the Discussions, RMx2.)
Can anyone who has posted here (or might join in here) actually boot from a hard drive connected via USB? I just tested this with OS X and I can't. For some time now, the Discussions have been riddled with posts, whether 100% accurate or inaccurate, that Macs don't boot from USB drives, despite the seemingly conflicting info in the article that Don kindly referenced. (John Huber: Don't eat your words just yet, John!)
Here's my personal experience, for what it's worth... I have a rev.2 B&W G3 which recognizes, reads, and writes to drives via USB, but refuses to boot from them (I tested with OS X 10.3 and 10.4). I also have a QS 2002 G4 that yields the same results. The QS G4 will, however, boot from these drives via FW. I used a WiebeTech ComboDock for testing this with both USB and FW. I tested with two different hard drives, both of which are known to have stable, working versions of OS X on them.
My G3 running OS X 10.3.9 sees the USB-connected drives in the Startup Disk Preference Pane, but when I click to Restart after selecting the USB system folder there, I get a beachball (haven't seen that in awhile...) and have to Force Quit System Preferences. Console tells me that that it could not get open firmware information or set open firmware information, and that it can't touch or set System/Library/CoreServices/BootX, returning Error 1 running bless.
On the QS running Tiger, the USB OSs don't even appear in the Startup Disk Pane of Sys Prefs. I can see the USB drive(s) using the Startup Manager, but selecting them and restarting results in a hung startup to a spinning cog with a prohibitory sign on the screen...
I haven't tried playing around with open firmware NVRAM settings (and don't intend to, except perhaps for trying an NVRAM reset), nor have I attempted to boot to OS 9, reset the startup disk there, and attempt the boot again to the USB device in OS X and in OS 9, which I may try later on when I have a bit of time...
Gary
Message was edited by: Majordadusma

Boot from external Firewire Drive-cannot repair or optimize internal drive.

Hi all
Connected my new 300 GB Seagate External Firewire Hard Drive today.
Installed Tiger from DVD. Updated to 10.4.3.
Installed Tech Tool Pro 4. Updated to 4.1.1.
Booted from External Firewire Drive.
Disk Utility cannot Verify or Repair internal drive. Does not say or do anything.
Tech Tool Pro cannot repair volume or optimize. Says, "Cannot Unmount Volume."
Is there a fix for this?
Thank you for the help!
Jeff
eMac 800 nVidia. Mac OS X (10.4.3) 160 GB Internal HD. Pioneer Superdrive. 1 GB RAM.

Hi
I did name the new external completely different from the internal.
After booting from the external Firewire Hard Drive, I tried running Disk Utility and Tech Tool Pro from both drives. No matter which drive I run the Utilities from the same things happen every time...
Nothing happens when trying to use Disk Utility to Verify Volume on internal eMac Drive.
Tech Tool Pro says, "Cannot unmount volume" when trying to check Volume or Optimize internal drive.

External Firewire Drives Incompatible with FW-Booting

Hi All,
I'm trying to install the EFI update, but I have an internal RAID, so I need to boot from a different drive. I've tried three different firewire drives, and the OS X installer won't let me install on any of them. Has anyone had success getting OS X Intel installed on an external firewire drive?

Is there any way to have a firewire drive with two
paritions, one intel bootable and one ppc bootable?
Connect the drive to a PPC Mac, partition it, and install PPC OSX on one partition. Move the drive to an Intel Mac that has OSX 10.4.9 installed, and copy that OSX to the other partition using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!
<http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html>
<http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html>

Cannot boot my mini from CD/DVD or external firewire drive

The problem I face is simple: I cannot boot my mini from CD/DVD or external firewire drive.
When I boot with option key down, I see the Mac OSX boot and a ghost Windows from an early BootCamp installation, removed long ago (I now use Parallels).
I tried disconnecting everything but keyboard and mouse, to no avail.
I tried resetting PRAM and NVRAM.
I tried disconnecting the mini from everything and waiting one night.
I tried erasing the disk from another Mac when booting the mini as FireWire drive.
And still, the mini refuses to boot from the original CD, or any external drive.
Anyone has an idea whether it is software or hardware ?
Could it be a consequence of the early Boot Camp install and then removal ? Is there a way to reverse this ?
Any help or hint will be appreciated.
Best regards
JC
Intel mini early 2006 Mac OS X (10.4.10) 2gb RAM, core duo

Hi DaddyPaycheck,
Thanks for your message. Indeed, I failed to mention the problem from the Startup Disk Preference point of view.
Bootable CD and/or external disks also never appear in Startup Disk Prefs.
It indeed sounds like time for a backup (I did that) and a HD erase and reinstall of OSX. But since the CD does not want to boot, I tried installing from another Mac with my mini booted as FireWire drive. And that failed, probably because the master mini I used was a G4 one...
Best regards
JC

Booting and Back Up to External Firewire Drives

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