Booting off external hard drive

I am trying to boot off an external Seagate 160GB USB hard drive. I used SuperDuper to create a full system backup to my drive. When I reboot, I should hold option, right? When I hold option, the grey screen comes up when booting after the chime and then the system reboots again with the chime. It doesn't give me the bootable drive option. Can someone help? Thanks.

hello i have a similar problem with my mac mini i aquired a 160GB western digital drive and cloned my current 40GB seagate drive into it using a software called carbon copy cloner but after replacing the drive the flashing ? appears iv tried almost everything possible i have zapped the pram,reset the nvram and nothing seems to work but i see the drive when i connect to my mac via usb as an external harddrive i guess my question is how do i make my new hard drive bootable since its going to replace my old one in the mac please help.
thanks
aden

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Wont boot if external hard drive is on

PC wont boot if external hard drive is turned on. If I turn them off boots fine. This has happened since day one.

Hi,
Turn "them off" implies more than one.
You might be experiencing one of three issues or all or them.
1. The external HD needs a firmware upgrade to be compatible with your PC
2. The BIOS boot order is incorrectly set which is typically not the situation with new PCs.
3. The external HD is drawing excessive current from the USB port.
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Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT

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

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.

Running Disk Utility off External Hard drive

To run "repair disk" in disk utility on my internal hard drive I'm supposed to insert my Install DVD, restart my mac and run disk utility - however running this program off the disk is much slower than running it off my 800firewire external hard drive. I've tried a few different ways of going about this:
1) Partitioning my hard drive in two (both HFS+) with more than enough room for the DVD, I've tried both making a Disk Image of the Install DVD and dragging it into the source field in the "restore" tab and dragged my Install partition into the destination field, after that was complete, I restarted my computer while holding the "alt" key I wasn't even offered the option to boot to my external hard drive
2) I've also tried after partitioning the external drive, in the restore tab just dragging the Install DVD (not the disk image) from the left of the disk utility window into the "source field" and again the partition into the destination field, and when restarting both with the "alt" key and by going to system preferences -> start up disk and choosing my external drive to boot from, I was still unable to boot off my drive.
Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions! This would be such a big help for me since I'm constantly helping people with diagnostic issues with their macs and this would save me so much time. Thanks in advance
George

I'm not sure why you can't make a bootable copy of the installer DVD using Disk Utility but as Niel suggests, it is much better to install the OS on a partition on the external drive using the DVD & then use that instead of a 'clone' of the DVD as a boot source to run utilities. There are several reasons for this:
1. You can update the installed version of the OS on the external to take advantage of any improvements, including to Disk Utility, that may be released in the future.
2. The version of Snow Leopard that runs from the DVD is a special one that among other things is optimized for read-only media. For instance, it doesn't write log files to the startup disk since it doesn't expect that to be possible.
3. You can include other utilities on the external & easily customize it to your liking. For instance, configure it for automatic login to an admin user account, drop Disk Utility into that account's login items & it will automatically launch at the end of the boot process. You can do the same with shell scripts or Applescript applications for just about as much automation as your scripting skills & imagination can dream up.
However, one thing to keep in mind: since a HD is not read-only but a DVD is, you can never be as certain that your external is as reliable as the DVD, since it is possible for something to change or corrupt files on the HD but short of physical damage the DVD is immutable.

IMac won't boot if external hard drive running Time Machine powered on

Upon rebooting, my iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM, running OS X 10.5.4, locked up in a gray screen, the "gray screen of death."
At the recommendation of the Apple Tech Support rep, I turned off the iMac using the power button, and rebooted with my USB and Firewire devices removed.
The iMac boots fine with everything except my G-tech drive 1GB external hard drive running Time Machine with no partitions, attached using a Firewire 800 cable.
If the external hard drive is on, I get the interminable gray screen.
If I boot with the external hard drive powered off and then power it on after I'm at the Mac desktop, the disc image mounts normally on the desktop.
I've already repaired all disc permissions and it doesn't help.
My external hard drive has used 907 of the 931 GB true capacity. Supposedly, Time Machine removes the old files to make room for the new files.
Time Machine itself is running properly once I get my iMac booted in this peculiar way.

Raja,
Do a SMC reset perhaps even a couple of times and see if that helps. Also in System Preferences + Startup Disk make sure the internal HD is selected.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

MacBook Won't Boot When External Hard Drive is Plugged In

I have a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500Gb external hard drive. When I have it plugged into my computer through the USB port. When the computer is off and I turn in on with the external plugged into the USB port, it will not boot. It just chimes over and over. I have to unplug the external then restart to get it to boot.
Anybody know how to get my MacBook to boot with the external plugged in so I don't have to unplug it every time?
Thanks

The problem is probably the drive. I have several of these drives and have no trouble booting with any of the computers I use.

Password problem booting from external hard drive

I have an eMac and just installed Leopard. BUT now I can't use Photoshop and Quark from within Classic because it's not available with Leopard. I've installed my old 10.3 OS on my external hard drive, and when I boot up from that (using the Option key), after I choose the hard drive as the startup disc, I am asked for my admin password. When I type that in, the dialog box jiggles from side to side for a moment and blanks out the password, asking for it again.
How can I boot up 10.3 from the external hard drive? Help -- I need to use the Classic environment for a job! Thanks for any help --

Hi, Jeff --
Well, I think my problem is finally solved, thanks (partly) to your help. Just to help other folks who have this problem, I'm going to state briefly how I fixed it:
-- I did an Erase and Install on the Seagate AFTER spending all day burning 30 CDs with the archived files I'd taken off the Mac but didn't want to lose.
-- After that, I could indeed boot up the Mac from the Seagate in 10.3 and all seemed fine.
-- But I made the mistake of doing a full backup to the Seagate from the Mac (which took two hours).
-- After that, I couldn't boot up the Seagate at all -- I spent two 20-minute periods waiting for it to get off the gray screen with the Apple log, to no avail. A friend of mine suggested that the backup program might be the problem.
-- After some trepidation but knowing that I already had everything I needed on those 30 CDs, I decided to experiment and partition the Seagate (via Disc Utility) into one partition with only the 10.3 install on it and the other with whatever files I needed, including the applications I needed to open in 10.3.
-- That worked!! I can now boot up the Seagate "10.3 drive" and access all the files and applications I need from the Seagate "Backup Drive."
I hope this information helps someone else in the same predicament.
Thanks for all your help and patience; your suggestion to do an Erase and Install was the right move to get me started.
Eileen

OS booting from External Hard drive

So I have searched high and low and I cannot figure out if the Toshiba Satillite's are able to boot an OS off an external Hard drive. I have found out that there are laptops that can do that but their BIOS must beable to do it. If Toshiba notebooks can do this which ones can?

Hi
some models now are able to boot from USB stick.
I don't know if it is possible to make theese models also boot from an USB HDD.
The models are right now: Tecra A6, A7, M4, M5, S3
Other models might also support this.
Then there is the possibility to add a 2nd HDD to certain Toshiba-models and boot from that drive. The models that support this are many.
Tecra 9000, 9100, M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, SatPro 6000, 6100, M10.
BR
Tom

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

Hard drive dead/Boot from external hard drive?

My hard drive failed and I need a new one. For the time being, I'd prefer not to open up my iMac and replace the internal hard drive. I have an external USB hard drive and I cannot install OSX onto this drive (strangely, it takes the first disc but not the second).
Is it possible to boot and run an iMac G5 from an external hard drive? If so, what is required for hardware and what steps need to be taken?
If not, what course of action would you recommend?

It is very easy to boot an iMac from an external drive, but the drive should be a Firewire drive. Get one, then get SuperDuper!, which will enable you to clone your data and system to it. You can then choose the external firewire as your boot drive and operate without any problems.
Apparently, there are ways to boot from a USB drive, but they are complicated and a firewire drive is very straightforward and fast.
Let us know how you make out,

Booting from External Hard Drive (Time Machine)

I just learned that my hard drive is failing. I haven't backed up my data for a while, so I bought a new 1 Terabyte Seagate Drive for Mac. It's one of the new models that don't need a power cord; you just connect it to your computer.
Anyway, a guy at the Genius Bar told me that I can use Time Machine to create a virtual clone on an external drive. I later realized that I might be able to boot up with my external drive and work with my cloned hard drive if my internal hard drive. I've done that with Carbon Copy Cloner before.
Anyway, that's my main question - can one boot up a MacBook Pro on a virtual clone created by Time Machine instead of using the internal hard drive? If so, how do you access it? I think I recall having to hold down a key (Option?) while the computer is booting up, which forces it to give you a choice of hard drives.
One more question: I've backed up some files on my new external drive - about 200 GB in several folders. My internal hard drive is 750 GB, of which about 180 GB is free. In other words, I need about 775 GB space on my external hard drive (570 GB for a virtual clone of my internal drive and 200 GB for the files I've already copied to it. Since it has 1 TB of space, that should be a breeze.
But can I use an external hard drive when it already contains files? In other words, will enabling Time Machine wipe out the files I've already copied to my external drive? Ordinarily, it wouldn't be a problem; I'd simply be replacing some folders with ALL the contents of my internal hard drive, including those same folders. However, I'm a little conerned because my hard drive is failing. I'm just worried that Time Machine might erase the files on my external drive, then poop out before it's finished creating a virtual clone.
So those are my main questions - can I enable Time Machine without wiping out files already copied to an external hard drive, and, once I've copied my entire internal hard drive to the external drive, can I boot up with the external drive and work on it? Thanks.

Hmmmm...I don't know what you mean by "restored," but it sounds like I'm out of luck (my OS X version is 10.7.5). It sounds like I need to purchase another external hard drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable clone on it, right? And could someone remind me how you access multiple hard drives when booting a computer? I remember you have to hold down a particular key(s) while it's booting.
Thanks.

Booting from external hard drive

Hello.
How do I install Mac OS X on an external hard drive, or have Mac OS X running on an external hard drive and boot from it? I tried to install to it and it says Mac OS X cannot be booted from this drive.
What should I do?

Remy,
SuperDuper is another option, but...Note also that USB drives do not allow booting Power PC based Macintoshes under any version of Mac OS X: this is not a SuperDuper! limitation, but one of the OS. If you would like to boot from a backup stored on an external drive, and have a Power PC based Mac, please purchase a Mac compatible FireWire drive.;~)

Run itunes off external hard drive and keep settings

I have an imac which has my consolidated music library on it. I also have a macbook which i use while traveling. My itunes is about 130 gigs, which is fine on my imac, but too big for my macbook. in the past what i have done is just put everything on my 80 gig ipod, and then do the manual setting in itunes so that, if i get new music while traveling, i can put it on the ipod. anyway, that ipod was stolen and now i have a nano. So what i want to do is somehow copy my itunes from my imac onto an external hard drive, and then run itunes off that from my macbook. the point being to have my whole music collection there. The problem is that i cant seem to keep all my ratings, play counts and settings and stuff, the macbook doesnt recognize the setting file when its on the hard drive. Is there a way to do this? I tried changing the iTunes music folder location to the folder on the hard drive, but that did not make the songs appear in itunes on the macbook.
In addition, what id like to be able to do is, when i come back, copy the itunes from the external back onto my imac with all the new ratings, play counts, and music.
Message was edited by: poil66

See this article, iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
"If you just want to move all those music and media files to another hard drive on your system, here's a way to make the move while retaining all your playlists, ratings, and play history."

Turning off external hard drive

I just connected a Seagate external 300gb hard drive to my 12 inch Powerbook G4. I am wondering if there is an "order of operations" as far as turning the external hard drive off with the laptop?
The manual is not exactly clear to my understanding. It does mention dragging the external hard drive icon to the trash icon in my dock area but I think that is if I would like to DISCONNECT it from my laptop?
I am GUESSING that I would turn off the hard drive first THEN the laptop? Does anyone know if it matters, I do not want to damage the drive or any info on it.
Any info woul be appreciated, thanks in advance people!

wow, thanks so much for the all the comprehensive info! I appreciate the fact that you guys didn't leave anything out didn't assume anything! It makes things much more clear.
So it sounds like the jist is make sure that if I AM turning the external HD off to make sure I drag the external HD icon on my desktop to the dock FIRST in order to avoid potentially damaging or loosing files.
But what about turning the external HD and laptop ON? Is there also an order? I am assuming the external HD should be turned on first?
It would be nice if the external HD could turn on and off whenever I turn on/off my laptop but I doubt that is a possibility.
thanks again, looking forward to learning more!!!
Powerbook 12 Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Booting off external hard drive

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