Booting from external DVD-ROM

I have recently purchased Leopard for my server the only problem is, is that G5's do not have DVD drives a have a USB DVD drive is it possiable to boot from it?
Thanks

Hi
Are you sure? As far as I know every G5 came with at least a Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)? You can answer your own question by inserting the installer disk into the external drive, restart the G5, hold down the alt key and see if Disk Manager shows the disk as a valid bootable source. In fact you don't even have to do this. Insert the installer disk, go to Start up Disk in System Preferences and see if you can select it as a bootable source. Restart the G5, it will either work or not. Personally I think you may need a firewire connection rather than a USB one.
Tony

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HP Envy 15 Won't boot from external dvd rom

Hi All,
My HP Envy is brand new (Envy 15 j151sa). The external DVD drive is brand new (HP dvd600). My model of the Envy does not have an internal CD/DVD drive
I want to boot from a live DVD.
I've read other posts and answers for similar queries and followed the suggestion.
On boot press F10 (BIOS setup) and the Boot Options settings are as follows...
a) Secure boot - disabled
b) Legacy boot - enabled.
c) Changed the legacy boot order to have the USB dvd rom as first in the list.
Save the setting.
Restart the PC.
On boot press F9
Displays the availabe list of devices (3) to boot from as
OS Boot Manager
Boot from EFI file
Notebook harddrive
There is no option to select the external DVD rom drive.
I have upgraded the BIOS to the latest HP recommended version.
I don't know what else to try.
I could really use some help now.
Thanks
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Your external DVD drive is operatying as it should.
The best place to find an answer on how to make the live CD is at the Debian forum. The disk you made apparentlydoes not have an MBR bootsector or a recognized EFI partition. Either of those is what is needed for the disk to be bootable and your notebook BIOS must be configured accordance with the choice of format type.
Personally I have always preferred using a utility like UNetbootln to make multiple "live" bootable Linux versions.
I don't bother with the hassle of DVD or CD media any more.
If you have a spare 32 or 64GB usb flashdrive, then you can put an incredible number of versions of Linux and troubleshooting utilities on it.
The economy of scale with usb flashdrive has gotten to the point where a 16 GB usb flashdrive is less expensive that DVD recordable media. Check out the prices at NewEgg.
Get your preferred version of Debian AMD64 live iso from here.
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

Installing from external dvd rom

Hi,
Is it possible to install solaris 10 from external dvd rom. If yes then how?
Thanks,
Javed

I just did this on a Sun E420, attaching a SCSI DVD-ROM to the external SCSI connector, so that it's on a different SCSI bus.
Did a probe-scsi-all to see the device.
Did a devalias cdrom to see what that path looks like
Did a devalias dvdrom <path to DVD like the cdrom>
boot dvdrom (worked)
to make the device alias permanent (devalias setting is lost after reset or power down) use nvalias command (like the devalias) and make sure the use-nvramrc? OBP env variable is true. (see online OBP docs).
If you have a x86/x64 system, this won't help.

Macbook pro cant boot from external dvd device please help !!!!

hello everyone please help me i have macbook pro 2011 core i5 version
i just installed 2.5 ssd as second hdd
i cant boot from external dvd device to install any os the external dvd keeps on spining and mac is just thinking it doesnt show press any key to install
it shows the device when a boot into mac parition
i am trying to install windows on origianl 500 gb hdd and linux on ssd
but not luck
the external dvd drive works i pluged into my pc and it works
please help thansk in advance
200 gb mac
300 gb windows
120 ssd linux

I do not know about Disk Warrior but if you have a compatible OSX on an external HDD you certainly can boot the MBP. Use startup manager:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht1310
Ciao.

Ibook g3 M2453 boot from external DVD drive

Hi, I'm Simon from Germany.
I have an iBook M2453 Mac OS X and a lot of dvds.
But the iBook has no DVD drive. So I bought an external DVD drive. But no matter what I do during boot (press the C key or alt)
I can not boot from external DVD drive.
Please help me
Thank you.
Simon.
PS: I have translated the text using Google translate

Hi Simon,
the iBook is able to boot from USB, but this is not expected behaviour and not supported by Apple.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20554
There are some external enclosures that do the trick.
But only when you press ALT after Power on. (Select a startup volume via the Startup Manager)
External enclosures with Prolific PL-3507 chipset (Firewire/USB Combo)
You will find them on Ebay Germany
I have a Delock IDE>USB 2.0 enclosure for 2,5" HDs
http://www.delock.com/produkte/gruppen/Geh%C3%A4use/Delock_25_external_enclosure _USB20_42365.html?setLanguage=EN
that works also.
Hallo Simon,
das läuft nur mit einigen wenigen externen Gehäusen. Such auf Ebay nach "PL-3507"
und nimm eins mit Firewire und USB Anschlüssen.
Ein Festplattengehäuse von Delock für 2,5" Festplatten ging auch ( Link oben)
Ein Boot ist nur möglich wenn du die ALT Taste nach dem Einschalten drückst und dann über den Startup manager dein Boot volume auswählst.

All users GONE except for "Other"...and CANNOT boot from External DVD drive

I booted the iMac (Intel...the last one with the White Bezel) tonight, and all of my users were GONE except for "Other." The internal Superdrive has had a disc jammed in it for months, so instead I have an OWC external USB/FW400/FW800 DVD drive. Snow Leaopard.
I need to boot from the SL install disc, but that must go into the external drive...which, as it's been since I upgraded to SL, the Mac sometimes sees and sometimes doesn't. Right now it can't see it. Which leaves me a big pile of crap, doesn't it?
So, what to do? I can't boot the internal drive because it's jammed with a DVD (or I spend $300 to replace what should be a $20 optical drive in it), I can't boot the external DVD drive because the iMac w/Snow Lepeord can't see it, and, meanwhile, all of my photos, etc., are on my Time Machine backup drive...which, as long as I can't do any of the above, just sits there...useless.
Can you tell I'm a bit frustrated with this?
I've reset the PRAM. I've rebooted. I've held down all sorts of combinations of keys. I've tried every single interface type on the external drive and the same thing - the drive can't be seen by the computer.
Has the internal hard drive failed? Nope. I'm tying this using the Firefox browser that's running on my Windows XP installation via Boot Camp on the internal hard drive.

Thanks, but no luck so far.
I have an old iMac G3 downstairs, and I connected it to the machine via Firewire. I could see the disk on the 24" iMac, its folders, etc. I wanted to see if I could install OS X via Target Disk Mode from the old machine to the new one, but it's a PowerPC machine and you can't do that. Maybe you can't do that from ANY iMac...I'm not that experienced.
Now the iMac isn't booting at all to Windows via Boot Camp - it's been booting for 45 minutes now with the "WinXP" logo, but nothing. I'm about to throw it in the car and haul it over to my parents, who have both a Powerbook and a 27" iMac. Maybe it'll work there. Who knows.
Other ideas...replace the internal hard drive (cheap)...if that doesn't work, I'll just sell the thing. I'm not going to sink $300 into the thing when I can get a new machine for around $600-$700. I may go to a Windows7 machine on the desktop and a Powerbook...maybe even an iPad.
I really want to love this iMac. It's my first (well, I did have the G3, but that was just to play with) Mac. It's given me a ton of problems since I bought it new. It's always been a "stock" machine - nothing weird done to it. I was hit with an iMovie update once, and that broke iMovie. Even the new iLife 2009 didn't fix it. Then, the internal optical disk drive failed. I couldn't believe that Apple used a proprietary optical drive rather than a stock Pioneer model. Price for the drive alone? $200.
I installed Snow Leopard 2 months ago, and that completely broke my ability to use external optical drives. Sometimes they work...most times they don't. This is an ongoing problem that many people are having (check the forums)...but no fix. Where does that leave me? With a useless computer.
So, I've boiled it down to this: I love the Mac software. I hate the hardware. Sure, it's pretty, but if something goes wrong, get ready to pay. I hate that Apple knows about problems, yet does nothing to address them, like the problem with external optical drives and Snow Leopard.
I bought the Mac because I was sick of Microsoft not being able to simply produce an OS full of security holes. Often times I read people bashing supposed "driver ****" with Windows, but look at what users of Windows machine are demanding of Microsoft - "please make my software compatible with the trillions of combinations of hardware that can run the os...all the way back to stuff that was created in the mid 1990s." Meanwhile, from my experience, Apple can't get their software to work with their own proprietary, supposedly vertically-controlled hardware.
Windows7 is a not bad OS. It's got it's faults, of course. But, if my optical drive failed in a Windows box, I'd have it replaced in 10 minutes...with a bluray drive...that can write...for under $100.
I use my computer for pictures, etc. In fact, we were ready to send off to iPhoto for our yearly photo books. That's not going to happen, as the photos are forever trapped on my Time Machine backup drive (lesson learned: dump photos to a generic format...fat32 works...just in case you decide to switch from Mac to Win7). iLife is great. MS Office is great, too, on the Mac. I love the little things the Mac does right.
After years of screwing around with my Windows box, I wanted a computer that acted like a consumer electronic device. That's not what I've gotten.
Ugh, so now do I buy a Mac Mini for $700, a new iMac for $1,400, or a Macbook Pro and a mac mini?
...or...do I continue to work within this silly Ubuntu Linux world?
Whatever the answer, I wish I didn't have to ask the question now.

Combo Drive reading Dual Layer / booting from external DVD USB

I am helping a friend with an iMac G5. He has the combo drive which is not able to read the dual layer Leopard DVD. I have looked to see if there is a firmware update for the drive however no luck. I am able to put an external usb DVD and it reads the disk however I was not able to boot from the disk using keyboard commands I tried AppleOption+ShiftDelete, C, and also tried Option but no luck.
I have been reading that booting from usb external drive is a no no on older G5 iMac's unless you are using fire wire. If any one can give me some help with getting the USB drive to boot, or figuring out why the combo drive spits out the DVD every time I would appreciate it. I am also willing to make a bootable usb leopard thumb drive, but I don't want to waste my time if it's not going to boot from USB.
Thanks,
jtadmin

Do you happen to have a more recent Mac that can read the Leopard installation DVD?
If so, you may be able to start up your Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode,
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
and let the iMac G5 use your Mac's optical drive to boot from the Leopard DVD.
Also, it is true that PowerPC Macs can generally only boot from external drives that are FireWire.

Booting From External DVD Drive Thru USB to install OS Tiger DVD

Hi,
I would like to reformat my iBook G4 from Panther to Tiger. I dont have DVD drive internally. I've got the DVD ROM of Tiger and external USB DVD Drive. Tell me the possible ways to do the installation beside Firewire connection.
Please help me.

Hi Nik,
AFAIK you cannot boot from USB devices. You could give it try by inserting the Tiger DVD into the external drive and rebooting your Mac while holding the "alt" key. If your DVD drive was bootable then -after a while- the DVD should come up as an option to boot from. But this is not likely to happen.
The best way to get Tiger on your iBook - unless you have anothet Mac with a DVD drive lying around - is to get the Media Exchange form from this website and to exchange your DVD for a set of CDs (minus a handling fee).
-Petra

Sun v40z wont boot from external DVD/RW drive

Hello folks, I am banging my head on the wall with a Sun v40z that will not boot from an external dvd drive. I want to install Win2k3 Server on it. Any ideas.

The v40z is an x86 platform,and thus has a BIOS controlling the boot order and boot devices. You'll have to attach a VGA display and keyboard, power on the system, then hit F2 or F10 to enter Setup (it should say what magic key it is at startup time, just after the SUN logo splash screen comes up).
Enter the BIOS, and go to the menu for boot devices, making sure you select CD-ROM as a boot device before your regular boot disks or network boot devices. Then Save and Exit, restart the system, and it should see and use the CD for the boot device.
A caveat is that some early revisions of the BIOS's, especially ones on early x86 platforms like the v40z, will not recognize an external device as a boot device. You may have to download the latest BIOS, install it (uses a floppy, IIRC!), set the correct BIOS options again (they get wiped out when the BIOS is reinstalled), and then try the external CD boot again.
If this fails, you would be forced to install and internal CD device. This is not difficult, but is obviously more hassle than an external device.
Good luck!

Booting from external DVD R/W....some won't, some will

I have an external Freecom LS Pro writer (because I have a second HD in an Optibay instead of the Apple Superdrive).
The Freecom will boot the Snow Leopard install disk, but won't boot either of two bootable recovery disks I made with Paragon Drive Backup 10 or Rescue kit for Mac. Both of these will boot my Mac Pro fine. I have tried with the Freecom connected USB and Firewire.
I also have an LG slimline DVD R/W which behaves exactly the same as the Freecom except it is USB only.
Is there anything I can do to make the Freecom boot these disks?
Do you think the superdrive would boot them if I put it back in?
Any info or suggestions very welcome.

Well, it is more likely to be an interactive process of some kind, I would think. Will the MacPro, for example, boot from an earlier version of the OS than the MBP? And at the very least the two computers will have different boot-roms, and it may be that the makers of the Paragon software haven't properly "recognised" any differences of this kind yet.
I don't know enough about how the Paragon software actually works to make a truly informed comment about it, but looking at their various offerings some of it at least plays around with partition schemes and the like. There seem to be some others having boot problems with optical discs on the Paragon forums as well.
Definitely looks as if the software isn't quite "ready for release" yet to me.
Cheers
Rod
Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

Problem booting from external DVD drive on Lenovo S10e

Hi,
I recently purchased a new Lenovo S10e ideapad, a few weeks prior to that I purchased an external DVD rewriter drive manufactured by LG, the drive works perfectly on every computer I try with the exception of the Lenovo ideapad S10e.
The thing is that the drive is being recognized and installed by the Windows XP Home Edition the S10e came with but when I try to boot a bootable CD using then drive on the S10e ideapad I almost alwasy fail to do so.
I set the S10e BIOS to have the USB CDROM as first boot device, in addition I used the F12 key to use the boot menu to choose the boot device, in 9 out 0f 10 atempts my external drive will not show in the boot menu and when choosing the enter setup option I see that the BIOS do not list it as the USB CDROM, instead it says "USB CDROM:" rather than have the drive name after it.
In the 1 time out of 10 it does work the BIOS seem to be identifying the drive and it shows in the boot menu, however I cannot work with it for a more than 1 minute without it stopped being recognized again.
The problem seems very strange to me as the drive works under the windows operating system and do not have any problem whatsoever on other computers, I have tested the external drive on my PC, another Mini Laptop from LG and a GIGABYTE Laptop (Normal one), all of which had no problems recognizing the external drive and booting from it.
I will really appreciate if I can get some help with the problem.
Thanks.

I've had a similar issue with X61 and the external DVD drive from Lenovo.
In my case, it was the power issue. On the back of the drive, there is a small table says that the drive needs a 3.0A 5V power input. One USB 2.0 port can only provide 0.5A. I don't know if the drive has any special, low power mode, but I suspect that even if it has, 0.5A is still not enough to fully power it. I've checked the current with the multimeter, and at peak times, the drive draws 550mA. Even then, it makes a stuttering sound for a few seconds, before finally spinning the DVD disk. I've also noticed that the DVD works most of the times when it's connected to the left USB port. That may be because of how the laptop's internal power circuicity is laid out (+separate USB host controller for each 'side' of the laptop). Another thing that seems to help is to disable all 5V driven devices that the laptop uses: the wifi card, bluetooth, any additional devices connected to the USB bus / to the ethernet port / SD card port (I'm not actually sure which of the devices are 5V and which are 3.3V, but the best option is to disable all of them), maybe even remove the battery (if it's charging). Finally, the DVD drive works better if the laptop was turned on and runnig for some time, rather than it being turned on "a minute before". Also, in the BIOS, there is a setting that changes the speed of the DVD drive, but switching it to "low" didn't seem to affect the external drive (at least not before Windows boots up).

Restore Disc Will Not Boot From External DVD Drive

I am using an original MacBook Pro that I decided could use a good restore, and started to clean house. The optical drive is broken, so I am using an external USB drive. I inserted the restore disc that came with the computer (It has OS X 10.4.6 on it), erased my HD, and proceeded to install Tiger. However, setup froze while installing Photobooth, and I was forced to shut down the computer.
I'm trying to get my Macbook Pro to boot from the restore disc that came with it so I can try setup again, but it won't work. If I hold C during the boot, I get a flashing folder with a question mark over it. If I hold option, I get a cursor, but just a blank, gray screen. In both instances, the external DVD drive is active and reading the disc, but I'm not getting any results on the screen. I've also reset PRAM.
If I can just get my computer to boot from the disc, I should be able to get back on track. Thanks.

When I press option during boot, nothing happens. Just a gray screen and cursor, like I described above. I haven't been able to test the external drive yet on another mac to see if it is bootable because I can't find the other computer's boot disc at the moment, but I'll try later with something else.
I have been able to access the drive through Target Disk mode successfully though. Is there something in particular I should do with the files? The folders are:
Applications
cores
dev
etc
Library
OSInstall.mpkg.998YblbM
System
tmp
Users
var
Volumes

Booting from external dvd drive

hi all,
my optical drive in the 17" mbpro (1st gen) has finally packed up and it doesn't make financial sense to replace it when the external lacie units are half the price. Before i make the plunge, does anyone know of any limitations, if any, of using the external drive as the boot device for installs?
Thanks

hey guys,
my cd drive is fried too and i am using an external USB cd/dvd drive instead.
But now i just bought leopard and to install it i need to set the mac to boot from the drive.
The problem is that even when i press alt/option key at startup, the drive is not inculed on the available list as if it is not recognised.
Can somebody help me out please?
Thanks

The Air cannot boot from external dvd-drive

Hi!
I am using my rev.2 air, 1.86 Mhz prosessor, 120 GB HDD, leopard 10.5.7 with a Samsung writemaster external dvd-writer, but I am having problems booting from it.
When I try to boot (pressing option) I can choose the disc and the applesymbol will appear, but the spinning wheel below does not, and the screen just stay the same until I cut the power.
I have tried to boot both the original OS X-disc and Windows 7 (both through boot camp and normal restart) with the same result.
Any help will be...well, helpfull

Not sure if this will help - but whenever I need to boot from an install disc on my MBA - i turn on the MBA and hold the 'c' key until i hear it loading the disc. that's how I boot off of optical discs... worth a try?

Format iMac from external dvd-rom

My DVD-ROM kicked the bucket today & to top it off, my AppleCare expired end of 2009. Replacing the ROM is out of the question (for now) as I was quoted approximately $500 for a replacement.
I need to re-install Leopard & would like to know, is it possible to connect my other iMac & use it's DVD-ROM drive to re-install Leopard?

blimpmedia wrote:
Is there anywhere online I can buy spare parts for my iMac?
The Apple service centre wants to charge me $400 to replace the DVD-ROM, and $150 for labour.
I don't know if these people ship to your country, but they have reasonably-priced parts:
http://www.ifixit.com/Mac-Parts/iMac-20%22-2.16-GHz
They also have step-by-step instructions for a number of replacement operations:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-iMac-Intel-20-Inch-EMC-2105-and-21 18-Optical-Drive-Replacement/1090/1
WARNING: An iMac can be a little tricky to work on. For example, there are some parts that have to be coated with heat grease during assembly. Another thought: that disk drive is probably not specific to Apple. If you can find a competent computer repair shop, you could refer them to those repair instructions and let them do the replacement.

Booting from external DVD-ROM

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