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!

Similar Messages

Lighroom 3 on two Macs utilising one external drive

Hello
This my first post
I use Lightroom 3 on a MacBook Pro. My photographs(library) is held on external disk
I have recently purchased a MacBook Air for use in the field, I have installed LR3 and have
what I thought would be a simple issue.
How can i access the photographs from both Macs??
grateful for any input

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!

How to move Startup Disk clone from one external drive to another?

I thought this would be a question easily answered on the WWW and easily found via search engines, but so far no luck, hence this question.
Prior to upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion I followed some very good instructions from Tom Nelson on ask.com (http://macs.about.com/od/backupsarchives/ss/diskbackup.htm) related to using Disk Utility to clone my internal Macintosh HD drive to an external hard drive, making it a bootable drive. I cloned to a very nice LaCie external FW drive that had far more room than that needed for the clone. This drive booted just fine as a startup disk, so mission accomplished:   I have now a bootable clone of my Lion system prior to upgrading to Mountain Lion.
The upgrade to Mountain Lion went well, and now, before I put any additional apps or much additional data on the original internal Macintosh HD drive, I want to use Disk Utility again to clone the drive so I'll have a snapshot of the system right after the upgrade to Mountain Lion.
Questions:
Is there any way to use the same LaCie drive that now holds the Lion startup disk clone to hold the yet-to-be-done Mountain Lion startup disk clone?
If not, how can I move the Lion startup disk clone from the oversized LaCie external drive to a drive more the size of the Lion clone (approx 140G)?   The LaCie drive is far too roomy and nice to have sitting gathering dust for only 140G to be used in an emergency restore.
Thanks in advance for your advice.

Good info Csound1, and thanks.
So my final question (I think): How does one move/copy a startup disk clone from one external drive to another, and still have it bootable on the new external drive?   I'm still considering freeing this LaCie drive up for more dynamic storage and getting another drive for the bootable startup disk clones IF I can move this Lion startup disk clone to a new external drive.
I guess the summary question is:   how does one clone a startup disk clone? As I think about this, and recall the Disk Utility screens, couldn't I simply select the Lion clone on the LaCie FW external drive and do the same operation I did with the original internal Lion drive? Basically the same steps as before but this time the source is the LaCie FW external and the destination is a new external drive?
Thanks again; wonderful forum here with very smart people.

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)

How to transfer from one external drive to another?

I am trying to move files from one external drive to another. I can write to both drive from my Mac. When I do a large transfer using Finder, I only get a few files and an error code 50.
I'm using two Seagate drives, one formatted for Mac only and where I'm writing to, and one formatted for PC and Mac. I have written and read successfully to both drives.

I moved some movies and some seldom listened music (coped the files) into a folder on the Lacie drive. Then I reimported them to the main itunes library while holding down "option". This created a link to those files to the external. the files show up in my itunes but cannot be played unless i have the Lacie connected to them.
See this link.
http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_split_your_itunes_library_across_multi ple_locations

How do I move an iTunes library from one external drive to another?

I need to move my iTunes library from one external disk to another, because the original disk is about to fail. So, I went into iTunes Perferences --> Advanced, and set the library to a new, empty folder on the new drive.
Nothing changed. I expected all my music to vanish from iTunes, so that I would have to re-import it. However, all the music remained, still on the old disk. At this point, if I were to recreate the library on the new disk, I would have all of my music twice.
Is it possible to move an iTunes library from one external drive to another, or am I stuck with my original choice until I buy a new machine? If I can move it, can one of you clever folks explain how it could be done?

Paul Seymour1 wrote:
However, those are all dealing with old versions of iTunes that still contained the Advanced --> Consolidate Library command which is no longer part of the app. (I'm on iTunes 10.6.1.)
Consolidate is still part of iTunes.
It is in iTunes menu File > Library > Manage library > Consolidate.
The article you linked to is old and it is (and was) a hacky way of doing it.
Just copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to new location, hold Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows) when launching iTunes.

Can I transfer data from one external drive to another using my MacAir as a platform?

I am trying to transfer about 94 Gigs of data from one external drive (Touro) to another (Seagate) using my Mac Air which only has about 14 Gigs of available space. How best can I accomplish this operation?

Niel - I know that I must be a real dunce on this. I tried opening the additional window on finder and then dragging and dropping from the Touro drive to the other open finder window for the Seagate drive. Again, it bounced back. What is NTFS? And how do I find if either or both of the drives are formatted in that manner?
Again, thanks for you help on this.
JC
PS I just got the info on the Seagate that it is Windows NTFS formatted. What do I do now? Is Paragon something I can download off the Internet? Why, since I formatted the Seagate to run on my Mac Air would there still be a problem? The packaging on the Seagate says it is compatible with Mac OS systems. jc

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

Can I backup two macs onto one external time machine?

Can I backup two macs onto one external time machine drive? I am trying to do this over Wi-Fi.

Yes, the external drive has to be formatted correctly to HFS+ and shared to the network.
It doesn't matter how the second machine logs into the network but wireless back will be extremely slow as it will involve double hop wireless, I presume to a wifi router somewhere. For incremental backups this is no biggie but do the initial backup with the drive plugged into that particular computer or over ethernet.. gigabit for preference.
Pondini has some instructions as he has for most things.
http://pondini.org/TM/4.html
Also look at Q33 where he lists using a shared drive on another Mac.
If you are planning using something other than wifi router give clear information about the network layout you have and hope to use.

Lightroom - how to restore backed up files (not Lightroom catalogue) from one external drive to another?

How to restore backed up files (not lightroom catalogue) from one external drive to another.
I recently backuped my photo files from one external drive to another. The backup (carbon copy cloner) pointed to some corrupt files on the original drive.
I have deleted those files and am finding good copies of them in Time Machine backups.
I want to get rid of the original external drive; use the recent backup as my main external and then back it up onto a brand new drive.
What I am not sure about is how to point lightroom to the backups so it knows to look on the new drive instead of the old drive and all those exclamation marks and question marks go away.
There are close to 60,000 images in numerous folders all with one 'parent folder.'
My best guess is from Lightroom Help - Create and Manage Folders - Locate Missing Folders
Can I point to the one parent folder and all the subfolders will come back?
Is this the process to recover files into lightroom and will there be a problem with so many photos?

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

Moving LR files from one external drive to another

How do I move LR image files from one external drive to another external drive?

Move the photos using your operating system and then re-connect in Lightroom following these instructions: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders
Do not use this as an opportunity to re-arrange folders or move photos from folder to folder. Just move the entire "tree" of folders.

I moved my iPhoto libraries from one hard drive to another and have to manually locate the photos, every time!!!

I moved my iPhoto libraries from one hard drive to another and now every time I open a library I have to manually locate the photos. After locating the first file, it works well and remembers the location of the files of all the events, even when the folders containing the actual photos are in several different locations.
The problem is that when I close and open iPhoto, it does not remember where the files were and I have to locate at least a file, all over again.
Does anyone knows if there is a way of making iPhoto "remember" or saving the location of the files?

By default, iPhoto will store its library file under ~/Pictures. To select a library manually in iPhoto:
Ensure that iPhoto is closed.
Hold down the Option key and click on the iPhoto icon in your Dock or launch it from the Applications folder.
Click on Choose Library.
Locate and select the library you wish to use.
Close iPhoto and re-open it. Does it remember the library that you selected?
For more information on moving your iPhoto library, see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1229.
Hope that helps, have a great day.

How do i move a file from one external drive to another

This is my first Mac computer and I have no idea how to move/copy a file from one external hard drive to another? It won't let me drag and drop from one Finder window to another and there is no copy/paste option on the left mouse click.

mediamagnate03 wrote:
This is my first Mac computer and I have no idea how to move/copy a file from one external hard drive to another? It won't let me drag and drop from one Finder window to another and there is no copy/paste option on the left mouse click.
That is because it is on the Right Click, and the menu.

Copying video files from one external drive to another

Hello! I am very new to Apple and FCP, so please forgive my ignorance. I have looked through the other topics and have not found one that addresses my question, so please forgive me if this has been addressed in the past.
I am working on a project and have all of my video clips saved to a G-Tech G-Raid 320 GB extenal hard drive. I captured much of my footage using "capture now" instead of logging individual clips for various reasons (i.e.: some tape sources did not have timecode), so if I ever have a problem, simply recapturing the footage does not appear to me to be a valid option.
With this weighing heavily on my mind, I thought it would be best to copy the poject to a second G-RAID external hard drive.
However, the G-RAID uses an 800 firewire and my G5 computer only has one such port.
What would be the best way to copy from the one external drive to the other? Will I have to copy the files to my internal hard drive first? And if so, how do I do that? Thanks!!

Crystal,
Please reply to a specific post, not to your orignial one. This keeps the threaded discussion in order.
To see the format for a drive. Open Disk Utility. It is located in your /Applications/Utilities folder.
You should see all your connected drives on the left side of the window. Click on the icon of the drive you want information on. Select the Volume icon, not the Drive icon ( the volume icon is the one under and slightly indented to the right of the drive icon)
Look at the bottom of the window. You'll see an item FORMAT: it should say Mac OS Extended. If it says MS-DOS, you'll need to ERASE the disk. When you do that, you'll have the option of changing the format.
Do not right click and COPY. Simply drag the icon of the folder containing your media files from one disk to the other. It will copy by default.
good luck.
x

Copying files from one external drive to another external drive

I have a powerbook G4 (Mac OS X 10.4.11) with an external drive (WD Element 500GB) for store music and pictures. I am trying to copy the files from this drive to another (backup) drive (a LaCie 250CB). I do not use a backup software; I simply copy the folders\file onto to LeCie drive. For smaller size items I successfully copy\backup the files. However; I have a large 104GB iTunes library that I am trying to copy\backup onto the LeCie. The copying commences and 37GB into the process the copying ceases and the Powerbook freezes. The LaCie was once partitioned, but I reformatted without partitions.
Any ideas on what is wrong or what I can do to back up the 104GB iTune library.

First, I must correct the statement about maximum file size. FAT32 supports files up to 4 GB, minus 1 byte.
First, both drives do not need to be in MS DOS file format. WD Element is unintentionally in the MS DOS.
Then you can ignore any part of my post about NTFS, which is Microsoft's standard drive format for XP, Vista and the upcoming Windows 7. You want to reformat the WD Element drive for Mac OS Extended (HFS+).
Should I reformat the LaCie Drive to MS DOS from the Powerbook, then back up the WD Element?
No, format it as HFS+ so it is in Mac format (which I assume is where it is already), and can handle any size file you throw at it. Once duplicated and verified there, you can then reformat the WD Element drive as HFS+ and duplicate the information back.
In addition, why does my copy and paste work when I backup smaller folders (one is a iTune library of 17GB.
To which drive? If it's going to the LaCie drive, then it works since it's currently formatted for the Mac. It would (should) be impossible to copy a 17 GB file to any FAT32 (MS DOS) drive.
Also, would backup software help in backing up the WD Element? Someone suggested Carbon Copy Cloner.
Carbon Copy Cloner would work just fine. As would the non paid version of SuperDuper! With either, the destination drive must first be formatted as Mac OS Extended. Neither will recognize an MS DOS formatted drive.

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

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for