Booting Intel Mac and PowerPC Mac from same external drive

Seems to be difficult. My previous experience and experiments made me conclude you need a separate firewire drive for each variety of Mac. But
http://rentzsch.com/tidbits/intelbasedMacBootIncompatibility
does list a method with which this can be done. I hope. Will give it a try. Hopefully this means that down the road this won't really be a question.

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Booting two Macs from one external drive: 10.8 and App Store?

I boot two Macs from one external harddrive. Does this mean that when 10.8 is sold exclusively via the App Store and thereby linked to a unique hardware identifier, I am going to have issues with activation/authentification each time I switch machines? I have avoided the App Store since I discovered that an app I bought there, and which I really needed to open automatically on log-in, had to be manually re-activated with my Apple ID after every switch (so that I eventually deleted it and reverted to an earlier, non-App Store version).

Welcome to the forum!
There are a couple of "solutions" to your problem. The easiest, and possibly the best for you (although it is a bit slower) is to copy your catalog onto the external drive as well.
Then when you plug in the drive, you will always have your latest catalog for access.
The other way is to keep a local copy of your catalog, and copy it onto the local drive as a way to transfer it from one computer to the other.
This has the problem of possibly not being in sync, that is, you forgot to copy it over once and did some editing. Then you would end up with essentually two different catalogs, instead of one in two places.
You can copy the catalog either with your OS, or you can "export as catalog" and specify the external drive as the destination. Then, on your other computer, "import from catalog" and only take the meta-data settings (it's on the import dialog box).
Personally, when I'm traveling, I have my catalog on my external drive as well. It just makes life easier, and I don't have to worry about it being out of sync, or losing it (and not the images).
So, I would go with the first method, at least to start. To get your catalog over there, you can either export as catalog or copy it, either one will work.
You can find the location of your catalog file (if you don't know where it is) in the catalog settings menu prompt. Both the location and the name will be displayed.
Cheers!

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)

HT2518 how do i or can i drag and drop files from one external drive to another ???HOW

how do i drag and drop files from one external drive to another, i cannt get both drives to open up. only one at a time.. i have alot to learn i know but that is where i am at the time...

You posted here so would assume you are also talking about running Windows.
Are the drives NTFS and use on Windows?
Are they Mac HFS formatted?
You likely will need NTFS for OS X in one case. to mount PC and use under Mac OS Lion
MacDrive to mount and WRITE to HFS drives under Windows

HT1751 can i put my films and shows on to an external hd and watch them from the external drive on the pc

i am enjoying downloading films and shows from itunes on to my pc but hd space is becoming an issue can i copy the files over to an exrenal hard drive and delete the orginals and watch them from the external hd thus saving space on the pc ?

Drag the existing iTunes library to the external drive, launch iTunes with the Shift key held down, and point it to that instance of the library.
(86085)

Booting Windows on Intel Mac from an external Firewire/USB hard disk?

Is it possible to boot an Intel iMac from an external hard disk - in target disk mode etc., without having to install Boot Camp?
I have a spare drive with installed XP on it and I need to find out what is on the drive before re-formatting. However, I only have my mac in which to do so. The extra disk will be used in an external firewire/USB 2.0 caddy. I have researched some methods, but they are all very long winded and require a PC or the creation of a Windows partition on my start-up disk using Boot Camp.

"Is it possible to boot an Intel iMac from an external hard disk - in target disk mode etc., without having to install Boot Camp?"
No.

Is it possible to boot Intel Mac from 5G iPod?

I have my old (3rd or 4th generation - not sure) iPod which I use also to boot my PPC iMac G5 if in need to do some repair and to keep some data backup on it.
I wanted to get today new 5G iPod and I asked for FireWire cable for it and guy in store told me that new iPods don't support FireWire anymore and that it is impossible to use them as bootable external drive.
I agree that PPC Mac cannot be booted through USB - but what about my MacBook Pro which is Intel? Can I use 5G iPod as bootable drive with Intel Mac's?

Yes, it's possible.
While I have not done it myself, there have been a handful of posts in this forum from users who have done it successfully.

Install Leopard and Snow Leopard from an external drive?

Hey guys,
I have a 120GB ext drive and was curious as to if its possible to install Leopard and Snow Leopard from it if I have the DMG's. I guess my main question is how would I setup formatting in Disk Utility?
Thanks!

Set up two 10GB partitions and a third partition for the rest of the drive on the external drive, use Disk Utility to "Restore" the mounted installer DVD to a 10GB partition on the drive.
Plug the drive into a Mac and hold the option key down during boot. Select the installer you wish to use.

Downloaded new version of itunes, did a sync on my ipod and now music from my external drive is missing? Help

Downloaded new version of itunes, and then subsequently performed a sync on my ipod nano as I had purchased a new song from itunes store. I now only have 25 songs on my ipod as it removed all of my other music. My music is stored on an external drive. I downloaded the music there from cd's that I own. Can anyone help me fix this. I am going on holidays soon and want to have my ipod loaded with music for the trip. Thanks

hi mike,
First of all, your music is not gone. Its there, I promise. Second of all, you need to always make sure you backup your music elsewhere because funky things happen and computers do take nosedives.
Ok, go into File on the iTunes Task bar and click on add folder to library. Your music files should be under my documents>my music. Let me know how it goes...
Rachyl

Bootable clones for both iMac (Intel) and G5 (PPC) on same external drive??

Is it possible to format and partition one external firewire drive to accept a bootable clone of my iMac (Intel) on one partition and my G5 (PPC) on the other? I seem to remember that in order to be able to boot, the Intel and the PPC require something different in formatting on the drive.
If this is not possible, could I as a second choice format/partition an external firewire drive to place a bootable clone of the G5 on one partition and a Time Machine backup of the iMac on the other? I am looking for a way to store just one rather than two drives in my safety deposit box. Thanks

I put up instructions and a picture showing how to select the partition scheme:
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/Leopard/leobugs.html
Scroll down to about the middle of the page.
Frankly I was surprised to find out you can boot an Intel machine from a drive that is APM rather than GUID. I'm not sure that what you want to do is going to be as easy as one would hope. Anyway, the instructions I found for dual booting off a firewire drive sounded a bit complex!
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Will LaCie D2 QUADRA with firewire restore my apps back onto my MacBook Pro if I upgrade to Lion and then restore from the external drive?

I ordered the disk to update to Snow Leopard. Did that so I could get the App Store. Did that so I could download Lion. After I installed Lion my MacBook is super sluggish. Takes like 6 seconds just to open a drop-down menu in Finder.
I have been backing up. Will LaCie D2 QUADRA with firewire restore my apps back onto my MacBook Pro if wipe my drive using the USB Lion OS stick (which I think I'll have to buy even though I downloaded the new OS online)? I have been plugging my laptop into the Lacie drive set on "auto" and it's been working great.
One Genius said yes "you will get everything back" but my Mac buddy says "say goodbye to most of your apps". Then a guy at the university I asked "do you have a disk image". And I said "what the **** is a disk image?".
Is the problem that I installed an OS on top of new OS without wiping the drive? Or, is my MacBook Pro too old? Do I need to buy a new one?
15-inch, Late 2008
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D50b)
Any help?

SA will indeed transfer accounts, files and apps at first start. Can do so even faster if you clone the internal HDD onto the external (just split into a partition large enough to contain it) and then use it as the source. Probably faster than Time Machine too. The safest and quickest way to do a disk image or clone is using CarbonCopyCloner (free), and it will preserve the Lion Recovery Partition too.
Since you'll have to re--download the Lion installer again, note that you can concoct your very own Lion Installer USB Stick with it prior to reinstalling and not have to pay for the Apple-branded version. See Kappy's tutorial: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3786371?tstart=0
As for the sluggishness, I believe that a great part of the cause is that you only have 2GB RAM. Don't know if your Mac can take more but try at least to get to 4GB, if not 8GB. Should attempt this before messing with the reinstall, as this may get you what you want.

Going from 10.3 to 10.5... can i still boot 10.3 from an external drive?

I want to switch from 10.3 to 10.5, but I have some important software and hardware that only works with 10.3. Can I copy my current hard drive information to an external drive, and then essentially boot up my old computer setup from that external drive whenever I need to use 10.3?
How would I go about doing this?
thanks!

System Preferences >> Startup Disk >> choose the one you start from and press restart. Or boot to Startup Manager.
-mj

Boot Camp install of Win 7 TO USB external drive?

Hi,
I recently bought a 32 GB USB thumb drive. I was able to install a full copy of SL on the drive and use it to boot several different Macs in my household -- it's a little slow, but it works fine. The procedure was dead simple -- format the drive and away you go.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to do the same thing with Boot Camp/Windows, i.e. install a copy of Windows on the USB thumb drive such that it will boot and run on a Mac.
I read somewhere else here that it isn't possible -- that Boot Camp can only run on an internal drive. I guess my question is: if all my Macs can install and boot OSX from an external USB drive, why isn't it possible to the same with Windows?
(As I type this it occurs that I didn't try booting the Mac from the USB drive, partitioning the thumb drive in Boot Camp and installing Windows from there. It would be pretty slow going, but maybe that's a solution?)
Thanks for any/all illumination!

From my days using ThinkPads (long, long ago) I remember doing flash updates to the BIOS. The updates came from IBM, not Microsoft (so I assume the BIOS was hardware-based, not software (i.e. Windows o/s) based.
That suggests (to me, anyway!) that something in the Mac motherboard prevents installing Windows on an external drive (but allows OSX to be so-installed).
I've also read the Macs use "open firmware" instead of BIOS and that open firmware is, to some degree, programmable (as in programmable to allow Win to boot from a USB drive).
Am I on the right track or am I completely, totally, wrong?! (I'm 'way over my head here).

If I move my itunes and photo libraries to an external drive, will they still be backed up via time machine (on another external drive)?

I have 2 external drives, one of which I would like to use to store my iphoto and itunes libraries (to create space on my laptop hard drive). Then I have a 1tb drive that I'm going to use for my time machine backup. Will I be able to back up the itunes and iphoto libraries from the external drive onto the time machine drive with the rest of the files that are on my laptop hard drive? Thanks.

Depends on the version of the OS that you are using I would post on the forum for the version of the OS that you are using.
Later version od Time machine will, definitely. If the version you have doesn't, then there are plenty of 3rd party back up utilities that wll do the job for you.
If you're moving the iPhoto Library then remember the disk needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Regards
TD

Is it possible to run my iTunes solely from an external drive?

I'm a college student and don't have my own computer anymore, and I currently use campus computers and library computers (No admin priviledges).
I currently have all my previous iTunes music backed up on my external drive, and I have the iTunes package (The install package you download from Apple) also on there as well.
I'm basically wondering if I can install iTunes onto my external drive, open it from there, and also be able to access my music from there as well?
To give more clarification, I want to be able to go to a college or library computer (These computers are running on Windows XP or 7), be able to open iTunes from my external drive, and be able to manage and use my library from there.
With college and library computers, you don't have the admin rights to install iTunes. However, I do have friends that will let me use their computer to install iTunes onto my external drive (If that is possible). So not being able to install iTunes because of lack of admin priviledges is a barrier I can get through.
How ever I don't know if it's possible to run, and open iTunes from an external drive, and be able to open and use my iTunes library from there.
And help would be great.
Thanks in advance!

how would I go about putting my iTunes library on an external drive?
It depends on where your library is now and how it's organized. If you have all your content and library files in a single iTunes folder, drag the entire iTunes folder (the _entire_ folder, _not_ just the iTunes Music folder) to your desired location. Then hold down the Shift key while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location. Note that this procedure assumes that all of your tracks are contained in the iTunes Music folder. If they're scattered around your volumes, moving them becomes much more complex. Don't delete the tracks from the old location until you've confirmed that they're working correctly from the external drive
Also is it possible to get past administrator rights, to install iTunes and delete iTunes each time I use a computer that I don't have administrator rights to? That way I can still use iTunes.
No, it's not possible. As with most applications, you need administrator rights to install iTunes.
Regards.

Booting Intel Mac and PowerPC Mac from same external drive

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