Booting mini from external drive ?

I net to boot a 1.83 core duo from external with no on board drive or bay installed. Is that possiable?

I'm not sure if that will work or not?
I do know that the Mac Mini's will startup from either FireWire or USB External HD's, because I have and run from either.
Where is the HD or do you have a new one to put back into it?
If you have a new Hard Drive that you can install into it, then do so and startup from either your Install DVD or your bootable clone and follow the instructions below.
1. Startup from your install DVD or Bootable Clone and open Disk Utility.
2. Highlight the new HD in the list of drives and select the Partition tab.
3. Under Volume Scheme select 1 Partition and click on the Options... button.
4. Select GUID Partition Table in the drop down window and click OK.
5. Set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Apply button.
6. Once thats done then you can do a clean Install, restore from TM or clone OS X back from your Bootable Clone.

Similar Messages

Can't connect to LAN when booting MBP from external drive?

In an effort to always work in my computer environment, I backup my Mac Pro main drive to an external firewire drive, plug in to my new Macbook Pro 2.9 and option start off this drive. Result is I'm working off the last backup of my main Mac Pro drive so all my apps, stored mail, etc, is alive and well. I merely track any changes and new files and copy them over or use DropBox to get them on to my Main Mac Pro, my main computer.
Problem is, when booting off my external drive running Lion 10.7.5, my MBP's network won't turn on or recognize my home LAN. Then if I restart off just the MBP drive, it does connet to my LAN automatically.
Could the problem be that since my MBP was set up for Mount Lion, that it won't fully work with a drive with a Lion OS on it? I thought perhaps I had to turn on Airport when on my external Lion drive, since I don't have that turned on on my Mac Pro which uses ethernet. Can't figure this one out. The MBP must have airport as I'm on it now but booted off the internal ML OSX drive.
Thx,
Steven

No not at all. You should have access to your LAN from any version of OS X that is set up correctly. It's still using the same hardware and should be loading the same drivers for that hardware and YES you may have to actually turn on the Airport card.

Booting Windows from external drive

Hi all. I recently got an external Firewire 400 drive for backups, and it's just occurred to me that I could possibly run Windows off of it and reclaim some 60GB of internal hard drive space. I would like to know if this is possible. Yes, I know that Windows supposedly cannot boot from an external drive, but I have read reports of people booting it off of USB drives, and wonder if a similar tact can be tried for Firewire for greater I/O speed. I also know that OS X can be booted from Firewire, so it seems it should be possibly for Windows.
My guess as to how to do this would be to. . .
- use dd to do a bit-by-bit copy of the Windows partition on my internal drive to a partition on the external drive
- modify the boot.ini on the external so that it points to the correct location
- modify a .cfg file to load Firewire drivers earlier in the boot process (?)
The first step is trivial, and the second will be easy since the Firewire drive will appear in the same place unless I have another external or CD attached. What I'm not sure how to go about doing is the third - which .cfg? I can probably figure out the drivers otherwise.
Finally: has anyone else done something like this? If so, links/hints? Thanks.

i recommend looking into rEFIt:
I've looked at rEFIt before (because I really didn't want to go through all that hacking), but I think the problem still exists: Windows XP does not support EFI (and neither will Vista), so there's still the problem of USB/Firewire drivers loading at boot time. From
http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-224050.html
some people got rEFIt on the external drive, and that helped to dual boot on that drive, but it still required hacking the Windows CD (it's the registry, that I think goes into the installation itself, that's hacked). It's a Window's problem.
you should be able to do this using esata external
drives with a esata express card for native speeds.
If the expresscard includes drivers that support booting, it may work (hence the mention of the Nitro AV card). I know that not all cards do, and I haven't heard anyone had success with it. But, it would be cool if someone decides to get such cards and try ; )

Booting new (June 2010) Mini from external drives (USB2 vs 1394a)

I have a brand new mini and it doesn't seem to want to boot from the HDD I'm trying to migrate over from my old G4. The HDD is in a USB2 enclosure, and doesn't show as bootable in System Prefs->Startup disk. I'm considering getting a 1394a enclosure instead as I've read that is /definitely/ supported, but I've also read (on various forums, nothing official) that all Intel macs should be able to boot from USB2 external devices already.
The HDD has 10.4.x (I think .11) on it, and I really need to get that drive as the booted volume to recover some system preferences etc, rather than just have it mounted as a slave (it does mount fine).
So, before I go out and buy a 1394a enclosure, does anyone have any insight on this issue? Is the drive likely not booting the Mini because its in an USB2 enclosure, or is it because its an older OS, and wasn't formatted with GUID partition map?
I tried booting my wife's G4 laptop off the external USB2 enclosure and that didn't work either. I'm guessing the PPC needs 1394a to boot externally- I'm less stumped by that.
Any knowledgable comments/thoughts appreciated.

Any insight on the booting issue (irrespective of OS)? If this drive were upgraded to 10.6, could the Mini boot from it via USB2, or is 1394a required?
At least historically it has not been the case as a hard and fast rule- you have often been able to boot macs with older OS versions, to a point. Of course hardware eventually has a minimum OS needed to boot it, so it is often the case indeed. Do you know if there is a list of the minimum OS level needed by hardware revision? That'd certainly be a handy thing to have available.

Problems booting from external drives

Ever since I got this 6-core 2013 MacPro (January 2015), I have had strange problems and glitches, but for this posting, I am talking about problems being able to boot up from external drives. I took the 4 external drives out of my old 2009 MacPro and put them into a 4-bay Thunderbolt enclosure. This enclosure can be configured as a RAID if all drives are the same (which they are not) or it can just be a place to be able to access all 4 drives. I used to be able to boot from each of those drives on the older MacPro but I am unable to do so now. They show up in the System Preferences/Startup Disk but if I choose one, it just reboots into the new MacPro drive. I even tried pulling out a couple of the drives and mounting each into a USB 3.0 (Sabrent) dock and still I could not boot from those drives which have the latest version of Yosemite. Yes, they are formatted correctly. I used to boot from them. I was able to clone one of the drives to a Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive and boot from that. Although, the clone was not perfect. It didn't transfer all my settings so I could recover some logins and serial numbers I wanted that I have never been able to retrieve since I got this new Mac.
Yesterday, I formatted a 32GB flash drive and tried to install Yosemite on it. I planned to put DiskWarrior on it. When I started to install Yosemite (from a saved download) it let me choose that drive, but when it restarted before installing, I was right back where I started on my MacPro's hard drive.
Is this normal behavior for the 2013 MacPro? Or is it just mine? I am beginning to think I may have a lemon since I have had other strange problems that don't go away.

Not all external devices are bootable. First stop would be involve whoever handles the 4-bay Thunderbolt. Seeing how it has a bridge most likely in order to support RAID mode that may not have the correct frmware or other reasons.
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4/search/bootable%20volume
CCC is the only program I would be using.

Mac Mini Will not boot from external drive or install disk

Hi,
I just bought a new 2.0 ghz mac mini 1 gb ram. 120gb hdd.
I have a separate external HDD attached and wanted to boot from this. It works with my MBP and IMAC.
When i plug it into the Mac Mini and start up with Option key. It recognizes it.
I then click on it. It automatically reboots.... then grey screen comes on. It goes black after about 10 seconds. then boots into original operating system.
I also tried to use the MAC install Disk, thinking it might be a corruption in the shipped software. It does the same thing.
I have MAC Install DVD on an external drive too. Same issue.
I partitioned the HDD and installed a copy of the Mac install disk onto that with disk utility... Same thing grey screen, then black then back to original operating system.
Not sure what is going on?
thanks
Chris

Hi,
Thanks.
It is running 10.5.8.
I am trying to boot up an external drive with 10.5.8 on it. It works on my Macbook Pro which is running 10.5.8, runs on my IMAC running SL. But doesnt work on the mac mini?
It had been running SL, however there are a number of programs I have like Windows Live Sync which are not yet compatable with SL so i downgraded to 10.5.6 which came with the Mac Mini then loaded all updates.
It seems to just go into an auto reboot as soon as i click on it.
i thought it might be the firmware? Is it possible to downgrade them and then re-install?
I have reset the PRAM.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

External Drive with Time Machine, booting from external drive with utilitie

I'm using Time Machine now with
a LaCie 1TB external hard drive.
Everything works fine.
But, I've been wondering:
Can I place a program like TechTool
on the external drive (that Time Machine uses)
and boot from that external drive.
I would like to be able to do that,
because diagnostics and repair programs
only works properly and fully when they run from
external drives. Anything on the internal drive can be repaired
and examine. Impossible to do if Techtool is on the same
drive that's been examined.
Any thoughts as to what I should do?
Thanks
iMac, Leopard, Time Machine, Lacie Quadra 1TB drive.
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?

pitou wrote:
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?
As V.K. says, you can't boot from TM backups.
But you can restore your entire system from any one of them, per the procedure in #14 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
You can also selectively restore from them, while running normally. See #15 in the FAQ Tip.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the rest of the FAQ Tip.

Trouble Booting from External Drives - MBA 2012

Hello,
I have a brand new 13" MBA which I'm working on building an image to use for deployment using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.5. For whatever reason, I can't boot the new 2012 MBA from an external LaCie FW800 or Thunderbolt 1TB Little Big Disk that is running either 10.7.2 or 10.7.4. As soon as I select the drive to boot from when holding the Options key or from selecting the partition from Startup Disk in System Preferences, I get the do not enter icon(circle with the diagonal slash). I tried both plugged in through a Cinema Display and plugging the Thunderbolt drive directly to the laptop. I confirmed both LaCie drives boot properly on an iMac and the last gen MBP/MBA.
Laptop Specs:
13"
1.8GHz Dual-core i5
8GB
128 SSD
10.7.4
Curious if anyone has run into any problems booting from external drives on the new 2012 MBA.
Thanks,
Paolo

Please be sure you have prepped these external drives correctly:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
My suggestion for cloning is to use Disk Utility. This will also automatically clone the Recovery HD, as well:
Clone Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue button.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Installing windows and booting from external drive

I just got a Seagate 250gb external drive. I only have cords to connect it to my I-mac with usb cords from its dock but the drive itself has a firewire port. What i want to do is install windows xp onto the seagate drive so the drive can stay Windows formatted and my mac drive can stay mac formatted so both OS's will run at peak efficiency. The only reason i want to be able to boot up from the drive is so i can use my I-macs hardware but be able to play my PC games in its windows OS.
How do i accomplish this?

Assuming it's an Intel iMac since you're installing Windows®, Intel Macs can boot off of USB, but...
USB2 is slow compared to Firewire/400 even, about 1/2 to 2/3rds the spedd, so FW would be better.
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/partitioningtiger.html
Open Disk Utility, format the external MacOS Extended Journalled, and don't forget the GUID partitioning at the bottom of that link.
Then...
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html
Clone your internal to the External.
Reboot and hold the Option Key down at bootup & select the external drive to boot from, test it all out.

New hard drive not booting osx from external

Hi guys, I currently installed a new hard drive into my macbook, and I tried holding down the alt//option key to try and boot osx from my external hard drive ((Connected through USB)) but nothing happens. My mouse cursor appears, but nothing shows up. I tried 5 minutes ago to make sure that I was actually able to boot to my external drive from my old hard drive, and it worked perfectly. But nothing shows up on this end. Any help or suggestions?
thanks!

any one have any insight?

When I check my boot SSD drive using Disk Utility under Mavericks, I often get "Incorrect number of extended attributes" errors. But if I boot off an external drive and check the same SSD, no errors are reported. Is this a bug in Mavericks?

When I check my boot SSD drive using Disk Utility under Mavericks, I often get "Incorrect number of extended attributes" errors. But if I boot off an external drive and check the same SSD, no errors are reported.
This happens not just with the SSD in my Mac Mini, but with another SSD in my MacBook (both now running Mavericks). So far as I know, all of the kit I am using is in good order (despite the file corruption reports). So I am beginning to wonder if it could be due to a bug in Mavericks? Both SSD drives have been formatted to MacOS Extended (journaled) format. Should I have used a different format, I wonder?
Has anyone else encountered this issue?
Does anyone have a solution?
Or an explanation that might help my investigation of the issue?
Thanks guys,

I understand that the Corsair Force 3 is not one of the SSD drives that are supported on Apple Macs.
I did try downloading and using Trim Enabler, but the error message came up both when it was off and when it was on.
I understand that not everyone thinks Trim Enabler is a good program, though there is a new version out now, so I may give it another try.

Broken in Logic 9?: Reindex loops from external drive

Adding loops from an external drive in Logic 9 does not seem to work any longer. It used to work great in L8. Anyone have similar experiences? Know any work arounds? Is it a bug? If it's a bug I'll file it with Apple.
Previously in Logic 8 it was easy to reindex loops on an external drive:
(1) Delete the loop indexes from root/Library/Audio/Apple Loops Index
(2) Use Finder to locate the loops on the external
(3) Drag the loop folders into the L8 media browser.
(4) L8 asks if you want to copy the loops or use them from their present location. Select present location intsead of copy locally.
(5) L8 takes 5-20 minutes to build index of loops from external drive
I have tried this procedure several times in L9 without success. Instead I get the following:
(1) Delete the loop indexes from root/Library/Audio/Apple Loops
(2) Use Finder to locate the loops on the external
(3) Drag the loop folders into the L8 media browser.
(4) L9 ask for my admin password.
(5) Enter my password
(6) I'm NOT asked if I want to copy loops locally or use them in their present location. Instead a reindex progress dialog comes up for 2 seconds then goes away.
(7) In the end nothing happened. No loops copied, indexed, or anything
There is only one way I managed to get loops into L9 but it is exactly what I'm NOT looking for:
(1) In the folder with all my loops spotlight search ".CAF" (In this case want to reindex Apple content which is all CAF)
(2) Make sure to click "show more" at the bottom of the search results.
(3) Drag the search results to the loop browser.
(4) L9 indexes them all right, AND also copies them to my user library! All 30 GBs worth. Definitely not what I want.
In the end, I had to reinstall the Loops from the DVDs and specify an external location for them. (This whole mess got started when I tried to move the GarageBand and iLife loops to an external drive. The installer does not let you specify a location for them.)
Just so you know I've done some homework:
I've scoured other Logic forums and found these relevant threads that in the end did not solve the issue. They mostly seem to refer to Logic 8 which does not have this issue.
@ LUG
Thread 1
@ Logic Pro Help
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3 this fellow seems to have a similar problem as I. He drags folders into the loop browser but nothing happens.
@ Apple Discussions
Thread 1
Thread 2

I just installed LP9 and all my loops and samples are on external drives. The drag and drop onto the browser method worked fine and I WAS given the option to move the files or not. The only exception to the above is Ultrabeat samples. They seem to want to be on the System drive.
RW

My Mac crashed. I got a new hard drive. I reinstalled Lightroom. Fortunately ircats are stored on an external drive. How do I import all of the old catalogues from external drive into a new LR catalogue. I have done it before. It has just been many years

My Mac crashed. I got a new hard drive. I reinstalled Lightroom. Fortunately ircats are stored on an external drive. How do I import all of the old catalogues from external drive into a new LR catalogue. I have done it before. It has just been many years and I can't recall how.

If you had stored your catalog files on an external drive, then all you have to do is double-click on them to open them and use them.
Or you could move them to the internal drive and double-click on them once the move is completed.
To create a single catalog file from multiple ones, you could use File->Import from Another Catalog

Since you can no longer backup to disk, how to restore from external drive without losing all ratings and playlists

since you can no longer backup to disk, how to restore from external drive without losing all ratings and playlists?

My own opinion is that you should install the later appropriate version of Silverkeeper. That said, I would in fact recommend if you can wait a few days for an answer, that you email the La Cie Silverkeeper backup team via the email link on the site at http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/
They are careful to say they are not officially providing a backup service, but when I emailed them with a query regarding usage about a year ago after downloading Silverkeeper for myself, I got a reply within a couple of days that cleared up my question.

Can't read iPhoto library from external drive

I suddenly can't can't read iPhoto library from external drive. I have talked to WD and nohing is wrong with the network drive. I can open images and files from it. But, I can't read in iPhoto Library.

Network Drive? a NAS?
iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, exporting, saving edits and sharing the photos.
Basically, you need to move the library to a correctly formatted disk.

Booting mini from external drive ?

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