Booting to external Drives question

I want to set up a Maxtor One-Touch III drive (FW 400 + USB 2.0) with a HPFS+ partition, and an NTFS partition, so I can use it to back up my Mac and my PC.
Will a partitioned drive be bootable? Will I need to create the Mac partition first, so it's at the beginning of the drive?
If you have any advice I'd appreciate it.

i forgot to mention. another option is to format the drive as HFS+ (the mac standard) and use something like MacDrive on the windows side to communicate w/ the drive....
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/
cheers

Similar Messages

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.

Another external drive question

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've partitioned my WD 500 GB firewire 800 external drive into three partitions. My intention was to obtain a bootable backup in the first partition (100 GB) and have the other two as supplemental strorage for future use (200 GB and the remaining approx. 165 GB). After performing an immediate backup of the Macintosh HD into the first partition, I read that a "duplicate", not "backup" was required for boot purposes.
I'd really appreciate some suggestions here from those with more experience in these matters. My internal 500 GB HD has approximately 28 GB of used capacity currently (this will grow, of course, over time). Should I have created a partition for a bootable start up and "duplicated" the internal HD? Then, should I use a second partition for normal backups? What size should these partitions be configured to allow for maximum future storage, without pushing the limits on the backup/startup partitions? And finally, what are the steps to re-configure the external to achieve my desired intentions?
This is a lot of question, but I certainly appreciate the guidance provided me thus far in my early days of Mac enjoyment. Thanks.
iMac 24 2.33/3G Ram/500G HD/7600GT/BT K/M /WD 500GB FWHD Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hello! Sounds like you have thought it out well. All you need now is to clone your main drive so it will be bootable. You can do that using CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper, or you can use the Apple Disk Utility you already have. A lot of people use SuperDuper and others swear by some of the others. Below are listed Kappy's steps to do it using the disk utility. I use several bootable backups just for peace of mind. I generally clone to one and then the other so if something happens during the cloning (such as a power outage) I'll still have a drive that works. I usually make a clone about once a month and then backup any important documents every day to a flash drive, cd/dvd, or another hard drive volume. Once you make a clone you should always boot from it to make sure it's booting ok. Sometimes a clone will fail to boot. I also HIGHLY recommend obtaining and using DISKWARRIOR. Diskwarrior is the "gold standard" for disk drive directory maintenance which is the leading cause of hard drive problems. Using DW about once a month or after any force shutdown, forced re-start, or power outage will head off most disk problems. Tom
Kappy's Steps to Produce a bootable clone
Prep external FW drive:
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.
For added precaution you can boot into safe mode before doing the clone.

Can't boot an external drive on a PowerMac G4?

Hi,
I've got a PowerMac G4 (w/ Firewire, SuperDrive, and a ZIP drive) that I'm trying to install OS 10.5 on. The internal hard drive is blank.
I tried booting from the OS 10.5 DVD (hold c at boot) and that worked, but during disc install or verification, it says the disc cannot be read. This is strange since this disc works in other machines just fine.
Thinking it was the drive going bad, I hooked up an external firewire DVD drive. I booted up with drive select (hold opt at boot) and it searches for drives but never finds any. Eventually it seems to freeze.
I tried to boot from an external firewire HDD with a bootable 10.4 image on it as well. It also cannot be found in drive select.
I tired booting directly to an external drive (hold e at boot, also hold command-opt-shift-delete at boot), but this seems to do nothing and leaves me with a folder/question mark screen.
I zapped the PRAM (hold command-opt-p-r at boot) just to see if that would fix anything, but it did not.
Why can't this machine boot from an external drive? Is there anything I can do to fix this, or force it to go directly to a drive?
Thanks.

What processor speed does the G4 have? Has this G4's firmware been updated to the latest version? Is your OS 10.5 Leopard DVD a retail/universal version of the installer or is it the restore DVD that shipped with your Intel processor-based iMac? If it's the latter, it won't boot the PowerPC-based G4 Mac. Did the FireWire bus on the G4 function without problems in the past? Do you have an earlier version of a Mac OS universal installer disk (OS 9.x, 10.2, 10.3, etc.), to try booting the G4?

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.

How to transfer files after booting from external drive?

My fathers MB Air has been failing to boot, most likely due to lack of space on hard drive. I've come to the conclusion seeing as how its a 2014 model and he has 6 GB's of free space on his main dirve. I've managed to boot his MB Air from an external drive and now I need to know how to transfer his files to the external hard drive from the internal hard drive, while of course running on the external device. I apologise if this made no sense; trying my best here. If there is any more information required to answer my question please don't hesitate.

There are two backups to be concerned about. Your iOS devices can backup your App purchases to the computer (that can get big fast!) and it can also backup personal settings. Personal settings can be backed up to your iCloud account and Apple provides 5GB free space which is just enough to back up two devices. I suggest the personal data (basically how you have your iOS device configured) be backed up to the cloud rather than the computer. This will free up about 5GB. Once this has been done, open iTunes, select preferences, click on the Devices tab and you'll see the stored backups (if any). Delete each one.
The backed up apps are stored in the iTunes folder. Inside the music folder you'll find a folder labeled Mobile Applications. Good news: you can delete this folder (mostly) safely because it costs nothing to redownload apps if needed. Bad news: if the app is removed from the App store it can't be downloaded again. This has never affected me but it is a potential problem. My solution is that I don't backup my apps to the computer. In the rare event that I need to wipe my iOS device and restore it I've found that downloading the Apps again (which is done automatically for you, no need to remember what you had) takes no longer than restoring them from the computer's hard drive.

Simple external drive question please

Hi all, quick and probably rather basic question here....
I have a mac mini which we use as a family internet channel, email and the occasional synching of an Iphone and iPod Touch. I am getting memory almost full messages from my mac mini. It is. However rather than going through files and deleting I would like just to be able to expand the mini with one of the stackable external drive options.
The apple 500Mb Time Machine looks expensive compared to the IOMEGA Tb, does anyone have any advice/ recommendations...I have no other back up source so upgrading the internal drive is going to get messy.
Hope you can help, I would like to purchase and get this issue resolved asap.

First off, you'd be wise to address this issue ASAP: OSX gets very unhappy when it runs out of space on the hard drive.
I'd recommend that you get an external hard drive that connects via Firewire. (Most of these will also have the option of connecting via USB, but you should use the firewire connection for best speed and reliability.)
You can simply connect the drive and then use DiskUtility to erase and reformat it as Mac OSX Extended (Journaled). If you have a PPC Mini (2 USB ports on the back) be sure to use the Apple Partition Map. If you have an Intel Mini (4 usb ports) be sure to use the GUID partition scheme.
Once properly formatted, you can clone your internal drive to the external using the free feature of SuperDuper! . I would then use System Preferences > Startup Disk to set the external as your startup drive.
Be sure to verify the health of your internal with DiskUtility before you clone it.
I'd also be sure to get as much free space as possible on your internal before starting any of this procedure, as OSX doesn't treat you well if you run out of space in the middle of an important process.
BTW I run my Mini exactly as I describe above, booting from a 250 Gig firewire external drive.
SuperDuper! is available for download here:
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
the cloning feature is free.
There is a decent selection of firewire externals at OWC:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
Another option would be to let OWC handle the whole cloning process. For a $99 fee (plus parts cost) they will install a larger internal drive (and other options) and clone your old drive onto it:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/install/
You can get up to a 500 Gig internal for the Intel Mini this way. (Smaller if your Mini is a G4 model.)

Can't Boot From External Drive

Situation:
Prior to upgrading to Lion I used SuperDuper to create a copy of the existing internal hard drive on an new external drive (iOmega eGo 500GB).
Tested booting from the external disk and it appeared to work correctly.
Upgraded to Lion.
Several days later attempted to boot from the external disk (by setting the start up disk in the system preferenes ) but it fails.
The system always boots into Lion.
What I've tried:
Setting the start up disk through system preferences
Holding down the option key to select a disk on startup - interestingly enough I only see the internal hard disk and a recover HD. No sign of my external disk.
Using a clean partition on the external hard drive I installed SL from the retail DVD. This produces the same effect of system booting to Lion on the internal drive, which suggests that the problem is not related to the copy I made using SuperDuper, but rather has to do with the external drive or something in Lion that prevents using an external drive (but I've never heard of such a thing).
Talked to technical support at Apple since I had newly purchased Lion. They couldn't offer a solution but did give a lot of thought and suggestions - but they don't support booting from an external disk.
Talked to iOmega technical support. Not helpful but did figure out at the end of an online chat that they don't support their disks being used for external booting.
Emailed SuperDuper. Very helpful. They offered some suggestions but in the end these didn't work.
Characteristics
Lion 10.7.4
iMac 2007
External Drive Interface FW800
I'd appreciate any suggestions as to the cause of the problem and possible fixes.
Thanks

@shootist007
Still no success but more information:
I found the USB cable for the drive, connected it to a powered USB hub (note that there are two cables going into the hub that must merge and go into a single connector for the USB interface on the drive). with both cables plugged in I still can't get the external drive to boot.
I need to do one more experiment on this. The hub is fully loaded so I'll try removing as much load as possible on the USB to see if I can get it to work.
Regarding your question, there is no way to get power to the drive. (Now I think about it, the design is for a portable drive that you can carry around with you so iOmega aimed the design at not needing a power supply to make it very portable). Hmmm, didn't think about that when I purchased it.
If reducing the load on the hub doesn't make it work then I'l have to get a replacement drive with its own power supply.
Thanks for your help. Even though no success yet I suspect you've identified the problem.

Booting from external drive: Can doing so be detected?

I have a late model iMac and I am wondering if there is a way for me to tell if someone has used it by booting from an external drive.
Thank you,
-Doc

Kappy & rack0 tack0,
Thanks again for the responses ... this is along the lines of what I was looking for.
Two questions:
1. My understanding is that the Boot ROM does the POST and then the EFI portion selects which installed OS to access, and that is where I thought the Option key comes into play; giving the user the option of which drive to boot from instead of the EFI defaulting to the last used, and at this point the drives are just coming into play.
Based on that assumption, I thought that any system logging would be done solely on the drive which is being booted from. If this is the case, then I'd think that booting from the ineternal drive and then checking the log files would result in no entries related to having booted from an external drive. Is this incorrect? I certainly do not know for sure ... again, this is simply an assumption on my part.
TL;DR Is the boot activity logged by the ineranal drive no matter what, or will those log entries only appear on the drive being booted from?
2. When I open Console, select All Messages, and type boot_time in the search box, I get no results. What am I doing incorrectly?
Thanks agian for your time!
-Doc

Not booting with external drive attached after itunes 10 installed.

Since installing itunes 10, my computer will NOT boot into Mac OS X with the external drive attached. It consistently freezes at a grey screen with the apple logo.
If the external drive is powered off, it will boot normally - but slowly. Anyone else with this glitch?

AndyPeardrop wrote:
if I forget to UNPLUG the Lacie (by pulling out the Firewire cable), when I boot the Macbook it will give me the Question Mark.
Try opening the Startup Disk panel of System Preferences and redeclaring the startup disk. You could see this behavior if your Mac isn't sure what device to use for booting.

Button/command for booting from external drive?

i have a PB and want to install and run linux fedora from an external drive on the PPC processer.
(don't worry, im not abandoning apple, i like them to much for that, i just want to see what linux is like)
now, i asume that the traditional method of going into sys prefs and choosing the startup disk with linux will not work cause it probably wont show up as its not OSX.
so does anyone know how i could boot from the external drive via a button or some commands in single users mode or something??
cheers

Kappy & rack0 tack0,
Thanks again for the responses ... this is along the lines of what I was looking for.
Two questions:
1. My understanding is that the Boot ROM does the POST and then the EFI portion selects which installed OS to access, and that is where I thought the Option key comes into play; giving the user the option of which drive to boot from instead of the EFI defaulting to the last used, and at this point the drives are just coming into play.
Based on that assumption, I thought that any system logging would be done solely on the drive which is being booted from. If this is the case, then I'd think that booting from the ineternal drive and then checking the log files would result in no entries related to having booted from an external drive. Is this incorrect? I certainly do not know for sure ... again, this is simply an assumption on my part.
TL;DR Is the boot activity logged by the ineranal drive no matter what, or will those log entries only appear on the drive being booted from?
2. When I open Console, select All Messages, and type boot_time in the search box, I get no results. What am I doing incorrectly?
Thanks agian for your time!
-Doc

Can't boot to external drive from g5

Hi, I have a new 1TB firewire 800 external drive. I have 1 G5 with leopard 10.5.8 on it, but it had tiger on it at one point.
I installed tiger onto this external drive (10.4.4) However, after installing, I can't boot to the external drive.
I have tried going to the startup disk- it shows up in the options, but then just reboots back to my internal HD. I have also tried holding the option key down on restart, but the external disk doesn't show up.
Please help- I have put a lot of time and effort into this.

[Western Digital My Book Studio Edition 500GB|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1899888&tstart=0] - is recognized but won't boot.
[List of Western Digital bootable and non bootable models|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9022456#9022456]
"DO NOT USE a ** WESTERN DIGITAL ** drive..."
Could well be a problem model, according to the above. I'd see about returning it.

Backup to external drive question

Alright, so I have been trying to partition my Macbook HD for a little while now (to install Bootcamp), but it is now telling me to backup all data and format my HD.
So, after looking around for a little while, I found a backup program on the Apple download site called "SmartBackup". It says that I should be able to backup my information to any external HD. I have a 250GB external HD that is in NTFS format (so I can use it on my Windows Desktop, too).
My question is, will I have to partition the external drive to be in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format to do a proper backup? I've been a Mac user for a while, and this is my first time doing a full backup to an external HD. Also, if I partition my external drive, do you know if it will erase the data currently on the external drive?
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,
may I suggest a setup for the external HD with two partitions, one for OSX and one for NTFS:
Open Disk Utility (found in Applications / System Applications) - choose your external drive from the left pane - go to the Partition Tab - from Volume Scheme choose two partitions - set the size of the partitions - click on Options to verify that GUID is set - click on the first partition and choose HFS+ as file format - click on the second partition and choose MS-DOS (is FAT32) as file system
Start the process by clicking on Partition.
To get NTFS (if wanted) for the second partition you have to reformat it while in Windows since Disk Utility can not do this.
Use SuperDuper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html to make a full bootable backup of your internal OSX system to the external HD (makes it easier to do what you need).
Caution: Using the a.m. procedure will delete all files that curently are on your external harddisk !
Regards
Stefan

MBP slow to boot and WILL NOT boot from external drive

I have two problems. First my friends MacBook Pro which is less than a month old is taking long to load. So I did a clean install without installing anything other than what came. Still slow to boot. Sometimes I see a light blue screen for a while before getting into the desktop. She complains of the beachball far too often. She says my MacBook is faster than her Pro, which is not right.
So I came down with my external LaCie drive, which I cloned from my iMac 24". I wasn't able to boot from the external (firewire) drive using her MacBook Pro. I thought my LaCie drive was bad or soemthing, but when I got home, I hooked it up to my MacBook and booted from the external drive just fine. I use SuperDuper to make a bootable clone.
So as it stands now, her computer is slow to boot into the OS, and it won't let me boot from my external drive. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? I did a clean install, used cocktail, etc. If it persists, I'll tell her to take it in.
Thanks,
Bryan

Robert,
I have no idea what you mean by Apple is not responsive to the issue. If you want help, please start a new topic thread so someone can help you identify the problem without the distraction of other people's problems around yours. Blaming people does not solve problems.
This is the link to post a new topic on this board:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1149&start=0
This is a user to user board. If you need help from Apple, call AppleCare directly here:
http://www.apple.com/contact/phone_contacts.html

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

Booting to external Drives question

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