Booting from external Hard Disk

I just got a portable usb 2.0 160gb hard disk, and I want to boot from it on a different computer. I used SuperDuper! to clone my hard drive, but Leopard won't recognize it as a bootable disk. Is there a way to boot from this disk?

Same problem here.
Booted up using an external USB drive running Mac OS X 10.4.9 (or is it .11 now?), and it worked great the first time, but after that it will no longer see it. Wish I hadn't made two partitions now, but I'll just delete the OS installation and use that partition for other unique items.

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Should I boot from external hard disk and how do I achieve this?

I'm in a downward spiral and need advice about if booting off of an external hard disc is the right thing to do and how to go about it. How I got into this mess I'll write below. My immediate problem is that I want to be able to install a copy of osx 10.5 from the original disks that came with my computer onto a usb hard drive. Then I want to boot from that drive and install software such as disk warrior on the same external hard drive in order to repair and recover the files on my internal hard disk. Not sure if this is easy to do with the install disk that came boxed with my macbook. So is what I want to do feasible and how do I do it? Thanks.
How did I get into this mess?
For those with time to read more. A downward spiral (and my macbook was working fine)::
I have been backing up my work documents onto a 20 GB pendrive waiting to get the money to buy an nas to work with time machine for the two macbooks we have at home as a place to backup photos and video. I bought a network drive but it wouldn't work with my macbook; my time machine backup freezing at 3 gb, but works fine with wife's macbook pro.
I tried to do TM backup on a usb hard disk and got the same problem. Support forums indicated that hard disk problems could confuse TM, so although I was experiencing problem free computing I ran disk utility from internal osx. This indicated an <invalid node structure - file system verify or repair failed> at the checking catalog file stage. So I followed instructions to run disk utility and repair from the installation disk. When I ran disk utility from installation disk I get exactly the same <invalid node structure - file system verify or repair failed>. It gets worse.
After failing with install disk utility, I could not then boot from my hard disk (I had had trouble free computing up to my attempts to use TM) or eject the disk. At first attempt I had no option but to boot from dvd again as hd not offered as an option. Second attempt hd option available but fails. By reading advice given to others I managed to eject the dvd and have tried:
safe boot - it won't
boot in verbose mode and single user (indicates I have disk0s2:I/O error) and won't boot
try to use disk utility from install disk to create disk image on external hd, it won't (cites i/o error)
If I can boot from an external I will try to repair with Disk Warrior as forums indicate that this software has been able to solve <invalid node structure> issues (but am open to recommendations of other products). I also hope that I may be able to try again to burn a disk image sucessfully if this repair works. I'm still trying to save my photos and videos that aren't backed up.
I plan to try an archive and install installation but first I want to try a repair with disk warrior as I fear that archive and install won't work and I'll end up having to erase and repair my hard disk.
I feel like some perverse god is punishing me for trying to do the right thing and back up my hard disk.
Macbook 5.1 late 2008
Intel Core 2 Duo
OSX Leopard 10.5.8
85 GB of a 150GB hard disk needs backing up (saving)

I am not sure about this, but my memory is that if you try to partition the drive (in OS 10.5.8) it will erase the data.
But you can try. Go through the Add a partition steps, but watch for any warnings. If my memory is correct there will be a message to the effect that everything will be erased. If you see that, do not proceed. This page has info about how to do it, if it can be done: http://www.macworld.com/article/1164643/live_partition.html
With respect to DW on an external, I do that. I have a 80 GB external - I call it Emergency - with an OS, DW and TechTool Pro on it. (Since I have is a recovery partition built in with all new OS, Emergency would be of use only if I need to run DW or TTP.) I have never yet had to use it, but it's there. It is not usually connected - I just did that for this screen shot.

How can i transfer all my data 250 GB from external hard disk to MAC pro

How can i transfer all my data 250 GB from external hard disk to MAC pro

The simple answer is just connect the external hard drive and drag the files from there to wherever you want them to go. If you need to do something more specific, you'll have to provide more details.

Transferred backed-up data from external hard disk to new hard drive on my MacBook Pro which seemed to be successful. I now find that some (or maybe all) old emails have been resent. Can anyone tell me what has happened?

Transferred backed-up data from external hard disk to new hard drive on my MacBook Pro which seemed to be successful. I now find that some (or maybe all) old emails have been resent. Can anyone tell me what has happened?

Greetings,
I've never seen this issue, and I handle many iPads, of all versions. WiFi issues are generally local to the WiFi router - they are not all of the same quality, range, immunity to interference, etc. You have distance, building construction, and the biggie - interference.
At home, I use Apple routers, and have no issues with any of my WiFi enabled devices, computers, mobile devices, etc - even the lowly PeeCees. I have locations where I have Juniper Networks, as well as Aruba, and a few Netgears - all of them work as they should.
The cheaper routers, Linksys, D-Link, Seimens home units, and many other no name devices have caused issues of various kinds, and even connectivity.
I have no idea what Starbucks uses, but I always have a good connection, and I go there nearly every morning and get some work done, as well as play.
You could try changing channels, 2.4 to 5 Gigs, changing locations of the router. I have had to do all of these at one time or another over the many years that I have been a Network Engineer.
Good Luck - Cheers,
M.

Booting from external hard drive on intel-based MacBook Pro

Good day everyone. I know similar questions were raised in this community, but I still have some questions.
I have MacBook Pro(late 2011) with OS X 10.7.5 and external hard drive with Ubuntu 13.04, from wich i can boot succefully on my PC. But MacBook Pro will not boot from my external drive, no matter which key/combination i use during restart.
After googling I found some answers to my initial question, how to boot from external hard drive
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1852633?start=0&tstart=0
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/faq/macbook-pro-boot-from-exte rnal-firewire-or-usb-drive.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1948
As I understand I need to format my external hard drive into GUID partition type and this will be enough to be able to boot from it on my mac?
With this new partition type, will I be able to install ubuntu again on my external drive?
Does GUID partition type supports NTFS, ext4 and FAT32, linux swap?(I use ntfs for big files, ext4 as partition for ubuntu and fat32, because i use windows, linux and osx)
Will I be able to boot from my pc from my external drive with this new partition type?
What are downsides, if any, to GPT?
here is info on my e-drive

LowLuster wrote:
The only OS that will boot from an external drive is Mac OS X or maybe Linux. For OS X to be installed on any drive it need to be formatted Mac OS Extended and have GUID partition table.
As for Linux I'm not that familiar with it but again for a Mac to boot it need an EFI partition on the drive and I don't think that is possible with NTFS or FAT32 let alone the native Linux format.
Went to wiki to learn more on efi but found artice on uefi.
Operating system loaders are a class of the UEFI applications. As such, they are stored as files on a file system that can be accessed by the firmware, called EFI System partition (ESP). Supported file systems include FAT32, FAT16 and FAT12, and supported partition table scheme is GPT only. UEFI does not rely on a boot sector, although ESP provides space for it as part of the backwards compatibility.[26]
Here is FAQ on official uefi website.
Can UEFI Secure Boot be adopted and implemented by a variety of operating systems?
UEFI specifications are platform-independent, supporting multiple platforms and architectures. In addition, UEFI specifications are designed to promote cross-functionality, as well as to support broad adoption across multiple operating systems, including Windows as well as Linux-based operating systems. The specifications are robust and can potentially complement—or even advance—other distributions, such as Linux-based distributions.
And here is wiki article on GPT expaining OS support.
It is obvious both uefi and GPT are ok with Linux and file systems such as FAT32, ext4 and NTFS.
I guess there is no much difference(or is that the same thing?) between uefi and efi used in Macs.
In your answer to Stark Industries you said that mac can boot linux from external hard drive, well this is not the info i got of official website and it is still my question, because your answer is very inconclusive and your info is partially incorrect

Why won't my iMac 27" boot from external hard drive?

I have a new 27in Intel i5 dual core 3.6GHz iMac. It works wonderfully.
My question is this. I have a Pleides Ice Cube external hard drive with a USB 2.0/Firewire enclosure with a 500GB hard drive. I used diskutility to format the hard drive as a GUID Partition Table. I then used SuperDuper to clone the iMac OS 10.6.7 and Apps over to it.
I can select the external drive in System Preferences/Startup Disk to boot from, but when booting the iMac gets as far as the white screen then just stops loading.
I have tried both the USB connection and the Firewire connection (with a Firewire 800 to 400 cable).
I have run Disk Utility and repaired the disk and the preferences.
I have used Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory as well, but the iMac will not boot from the drive.
It does boot from the original DVD's and its own hard drive.
My old 24" iMac had no trouble booting from this hard drive or any of the others I have collected over the years, so I am reluctant to think it is the external drive. It is something to do with this particular processor Snow Leopard and external drives.

It sounds like something in the SuperDuper clone might not have copied well. To get the full answer on that I would check with Apple or SuperDuper to see if they support each other.
As a quick test, if you restart and immediately press and hold "option" on your keyboard do you see your external HD as an option to boot from? If so, click it and see if the boot runs any differently, but if you don't see it at all that could show that the problem is more deep rooted.
Personally, if looking in to either of those didn't give me any other info to go on, I would reformat and start the clone again. BTW, do you know for sure GUID Partition is the format you'd want to do this on? Generally macs use "Mac OS Extended" and some external HDs can use "FAT32" (if you want them to work well with Windows)
Hope that gives a little direction
Alex

Startup from external hard disk

I have made a system backup volume on an external Firewire HD. However, since I am using Apple Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard when I start up from the external disk the wireless devices do not connect reliably, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
What do I need to do to make this process more fool proof?
Please help.
Rudolf

Get a wired keyboard or tell Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk you want to boot from the external hard drive. This will ensure that it does that until it is told otherwise.
You may have to do the same to Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Startup disk while booted from the external hard disk so the settings are remembered.
Note you really only want to boot from the external hard drive for troubleshooting purposes, and not on a regular basis. External hard drives are much more likely to lose their connection than internal hard drives, and are better suited for backups than regular use. Not to mention the internal hard drive tends to be faster anyway.

Boot from external USB disk

Is there any way to boot from an external USB disk formatted in NTFS or UFS (CD/DVD format)? Basically my idea was to be able to boot the Win7 install image from an USB device. I tried many different ways, I even have my old internal HDD with the boot camp partition in a USB case (I just upgraded to 500GB!! ;)) but I can't in any way boot from USB. Only OSX backup and its installation disk boot fine from an external USB source. Any idea?

It isn't well supported by Microsoft. The problem on Apple hardware is you can't even make changes to the BIOS boot manager.
I have 4 internal hard drives so it is rather easy to boot from one hard drive and run the installer.
You ran into the lack of support for UEFI though which adds another layer and meant most likely having to alter and reburn the ISO to disc with Imgburn or something (and can be done from Windows only so you need a VM).
I got tired of the trouble and work arounds needed though and in the end I just built my own custom PCs - one of which has native eSATA that are bootable (an Intel DX58SO board).
Oh, and it is easy to install Windows 7 on PC, then just move the drive into Mac Pro and boot from there!

Not able to delete file from external hard disk

I connected my external hard disk to my macbook pro. But am not able to delete any file since it says the file cannot be deleted when I move it to trash. Could you let me know how to delete a file from the external hard disk?

How is your HDD formatted? NTFS? FAT?
Did you write files with rights? When you strike +I on any file, you can see its rights; if you're read-only, you may change your file's rights.

Recovery from external hard disk

Dear Hp representative,
I have copied recovery file from recovery partition to external hard disk.
After that, I have deleted recovery partition and now I can't restore computer to factory settings.
I have tried to make new recovery media but it says that recovery partition doesn't exists although I have made new partition and copied the recovery file to it.
Please help.
Thanks
Karlo

Hi @Karlo12333 ,
Welcome to the HP Forums!
It is a great place to find answers and information!
For you to have the best experience in the HP forum I would like to direct your attention to the HP Forums Guide Learn How to Post and More
Unfortunately coping the partition does not work. I don't thing you will be able to create recovery media from the copied partition on the external but if you have not yet created recovery disk you can give it a try.
If you cannot create the recovery media you will need to contact HP support to obtain a recovery kit.
Please call our technical support at 800 474 6836. If you live outside the US/Canada Region, please click the link below to get a support number for your region.
World Wide Phone Support
Good Luck!
Sparkles1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
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Cannot copy files from external hard disks

This is happening often enough to be really painful:
I insert a hard disk. I browse the files on it. I open a new window of Finder and drag some files from the external hard disk into my own machine (OSX Leopard 10.5.5). It croaks, telling me some "permissions" are wrong (Error -36).
Browsing Google and Macosxhints and all of that, the suggestions indicate that I should "repair permissions", "repair disk", and reboot. All done. Still doesnt work.
What now? I never had this problem with Windows. What's with this permissions drivel on OSX and how can I fix it once and for all? I only use my machine to browse on Firefox/Safari, talk with Skype, edit with Coda/Transmit, and then Office documents. Which of these tools changes these mysterious permissions so that I have to keep "repairing" again and again???
Thanks for any pointers or advice!

I am on shaky ground here because I am totally ignorant about about Windoze and MS-DOS. What I can tell you, though, is that the Unix underpinning of Mac OS X is heavily reliant on the concept of "ownership" which, apart from other factors, has security implications. FAT32 has absolutely no concept of file ownership. (That's why Microsoft encourages everyone to use NTFS instead - mainly for the security implications).
You need advice - Sorry! - from someone more knowledgeable than me as to how to change both the format (to Mac OS Extended, Journaled) and the Partition Scheme (to GUID) *+while preserving your data+*. I presume that you would need to find a temporary home for that data, after which altering the drive's structures would take only a moment - but as to how to then correctly replace the data onto that drive I would prefer not to say. I would guess that simply transferring the data back onto the drive now with a 'Mac-appropriate' structure would suffice - but PLEASE do not entrust your data to my 'guess'.
Wait patiently for someone who knows how to advise you to respond in this thread, or post again with a possibly more descriptive/pertinent title.
Sorry not to have been of any help.
Andreas

To Upgrade or Not To Upgrade (From External Hard disk to Internal Hard Disk

Hi, need some advise here.
Currently I have a External Hard Disk (320GB) connect with my IMac with Internal Hard Disk of standard 80GB.It is ok just that have to power on/off the External Hard Disk. It is very common that I forgot to power on the External Hard Disk and my iTune library goes to other location in the Internal Hard Disk instead of follow my setting in my External Hard Disk.
So I am considering remove the standard 80GB in my IMac and change with the 320GB.Read some instruction/procedure on this to me look complicated with the thermal pad thing so now hesitating worth the risk to swap the hard dsik or just leave it as it is.
Leave it as it is or change it?
Any advice ?

Here's a link to a take-apart guide I used a few times to replace & upgrade drives & memory in my old G4.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/iMacg4/imacg4takeapart.html
No it's not as easy as opening up a pc, but the key word is patience. The key thing to remember is to make sure you get some heatsink paste from your local computer store, and apply it to the areas that need it before buttoning everything back up.
It'll only take you a few hours if you work carefully. While you have it open I highly suggest upgrading your upper memory stick, as well as upgrading your superdrive. I get all my stuff here, they haven't steered me wrong yet:
http://eshop.macsales.com/static_pages/index.cfm
Sean
San Diego

Photos from external hard disk to another

Is there a way to move photos straight from one external hard disk to another external hard disk?
Because MacBook Pro´s hard disk is too small (120 Gb) for my photos, I must use those external disks. The idea is that the original photos are in an external disk and in addition there are a couple of other disks as the vaults.

It's easy to see why all of this is confusing because of the poor human interface design of the "library location" feature of Aperture.
First, when you change your library location, you actually have to quit and restart the app. What a concept--I wonder why the orginal Mac team didn't think of this approach when you wanted to change the document you were working on in MacWrite? Instead of "Open" from the File menu, you could do it in "Preferences" and with a relaunch...
Secondly, if you point to a library on an external drive, and forget to mount that drive before launching, rather than telling you it can't find the library and asking what to do, it arbitrarily (and silently) decides to create a brand new library in your "Pictures" folder. Yuck.

Can't boot from external hard drive

I have a 250 GB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Firewire drive that I use for backups for my MacBook Pro (running 10.4.8) and iBook G4 (running 10.3.9). The drive is partitioned into four parts, two of which I use for bootable clones of the MBP and iBook. I've been able to boot from the MBP clone, but whenever I try to boot from the iBook clone, after a few seconds of the gray screen with the Apple logo on it and the spinning circle, the Apple logo turns into a gray circle with a diagonal line through it, and the spinning thing keeps spinning, and it never boots up. (For lack of a better description, the circle with the line through it is a gray version of the symbol you see, for instance, in the Ghostbusters logo.)
Here's a few things that aren't (or don't seem to be) the problem:
- I'm not trying to boot from the wrong machine--i.e., I'm not trying to boot the iBook clone from the MBP
- Since I've tried creating the clone with both EMC Retrospect Express and SuperDuper and get the same result with both, it doesn't seem to be the backup software
- I've tried completely erasing the partition (including erasing the free space) from both the MBP and the iBook before creating the clone
- Just for good voodoo, I've also repaired permissions, reset the NVRAM, and run a disk repair on both the internal iBook disk and the clone
- The iBook definitely recognizes it as a bootable drive, since it shows up when I hold down the option key during boot, and also in the Startup Disk section of System Preferences
I'm a little stymied at this point. The only other things I can think of would be that (a) I need to completely reformat and repartition the drive (which I don't really want to do, since I also have other backups and data on there), or (b) for some reason the fact that I initially created the partitions on the MBP is preventing the iBook from using those partitions (i.e., I can only create Intel-only or PPC-only partitions, which I hope isn't the problem, since that would mean I'd need a whole separate drive just to back up the iBook).
Anyone have any idea what's going on?

The MBP and iBook require different partition schemes to be bootable. You won't be able to boot both computers from the same drive.
I can't install Mac OS X on a hard drive
If the installer won't let you install Mac OS X on a hard drive and gives as the reason "Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume," the drive may not have the partition scheme that the Installer requires. The needed partition scheme depends on the type of processor in your Mac. The installer installs Mac OS X for Intel-based Macintosh computers only on drives with the GUID partition scheme. It installs Mac OS X for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers only on drives with the Apple partition scheme.
To check the external drive's partition scheme, open Disk Utility, select the drive in the list, choose File > Get Info, and look for the "Partition Type." If you can't see the "Partition Type," you may have selected the volume instead of the disk. (Drives are flush left, with their volumes indented to the right below them.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh2315.html
John

Did 10.4.6 break booting from external hard Drives

Hi
This afternoon, I tried to clone my internal Hard Disk to an external drive. I do the regularly using Disk Utility, and I have not had and problems doing this until today. In fact, when I acquired my Power Mac three weeks ago I cloned my iMac's drive to the same external drive, and then cloned my Power Mac's drive from the external. I did have one hiccup during that last step - I had cloned to the PM's drive while running the PM off the external drive, and the clone was flawed, so I booted using my Tiger DVD and re-cloned the drive using Disk Utility off the DVD. All went well, and my Power Mac's been running flawlessly since.
That was before the 10.4.6 update. Usually, when I have a good known bootable external hard drive, I will only back up my home folder onto the drive. If I've gone through an OS update, or have some major application changes, I will opt to re-clone my internal drive. I did this today.
I tried restarting from the external drive. Yes, I did remember that 10.4.6 did offer that lovely second chime before truly starting up after upgrading, so I waited to see if spotlight was indexing the external drive. I waited 25 minutes. That only thing I saw was the grey apple and - maybe this is a clue - a couple seconds after showing up, that moved an half an inch down screen.
Has anybody been able to clone 10.4.6 to an external hard drive and successfully boot off it? Is my problem of today related to my problem of a couple weeks ago, and I need to run Disk Utility of the Tiger DVD to get a good clone?
My internal drive = 128 gigabytes, external = 118 gigabytes, about 29 gigabytes being transferred.
Thanks in advance.

Wish I figured out I was in the mail and address book forum before I posted. Oh Well.
It seems that there might be some sort of weird thing going on between my computer and Disk Utility when booted in the full OS. Earlier, I tried cloning my internal Hard disk using Carbon Copy Cloner, and it worked. My Power Mac boots off the external disk fine and everything runs flawlessly.

Booting from external Hard Disk

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