Booting up from an external USB drive

Can I boot up from an external USB hard drive with OS X installed? The Imac G5 manual says you can boot from an external Firewire HD but says nothing about booting from an external USB HD

Yes, because OS X cannot be started from a USB drive.
To make a clone of your hard drive you must use the proper software, you cannot simply use drag and drop. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper, LaCie SilverKeeper, Retrospect, Synchronize! Pro X, Tri-Backup, or any of a number of such utilities. You can also use the Restore option of Disk Utility. This latter option only does full backups (no syncs or incremental backups) but it's free, part of the OS, and reliable. Follow these instructions:
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder unless it's already open.
2. Select the startup volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Drag the startup volume to the Source entry field.
5. Select the backup volume from the leftside list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Check the box to Erase Destination. Skip this step if you've already formatted the drive or if you cannot format it.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Similar Messages

No application runs after booting from an external (USB) drive

Hi all,
my best hope is that I just embarrass myself with a blatantly obvious question instead of finding a real issue that will be resolved only in later updates. Here it is:
As I want to upgrade my hard drive in my good ol' MacBook, I wanted to backup my present boot HDD to an external USB drive (freshly formatted, HFS+ journaled, GUID partition table). I tried both SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner. In both cases, the backup/cloning process goes fine, and I can reboot into the external drive, and the OS starts (yes, with wifi working, even iStat menus, textExpander etc. initiating fine). But all applications (not those on the menu bar, though) crash and notify me of some thread having tried some invalid operation, or sometimes I even got some vague reference to kernel protection.
Do you have any ideas what this is? Something new and (supposedly) secure in 10.5.6? I tried a fairly standard procedure, I think. (Also, it is a fairly pressing issue as I would not really want to waste much more time on this drive swap. And I would rather use disk-cloning than the install disk and sucking back data from an apparently unreliable backup.)
Many thanks for any thoughts!
(Just to inform the interested, I ran a fairly extensive cleaning-maintenance-rebuild cycle by the latest Onyx before starting all this, this should clean up the state of the OS pretty much. But I could not run DiskWarrior. Convince me if you think that this would solve the problem.)

Thanks Devin, I think my issue is a bit different.
I am 'long' past the 10.5.6 update (as long as possible), it did not crash, and Software Update checked what it wanted several times since then (as it is set to do so daily).
Thanks for the safe boot tip, I have not tried it yet, though I am skeptical why would this help applications starting up without breaking some kernel protection -- but only if I booted up from an external drive.
I repaired all I could before the cloning of the drive, only the deep maintenance of DiskWarrior was skipped. With the disk or the OS itself, I basically did what you can, even the stuff that you are rarely supposed to do. (Onyx is a great tool to do all these and more, freely.)
I am not sure either that a FireWire drive would have helped, but who knows. (But really, the OS would boot, just the applications would feel that their are on an 'inferior' drive?) In any case, FireWire drives are not that easy to come by, and a risky investment -- e.g. I could not use them with the new MacBooks. Oh, and all my work was done on a firm table, but again, the behavior would be hard to explain as the HDD misbehaving, as the OS had no glitch, just I could not start applications without their crashing immediately.
Thanks again, I hope I run into something useful or if it is a bug then Apple magically pushes out some update before their winter break, or I will sadly watch my precious new drive sitting on a table idly.

I want to dual boot Windows 8 on my 20-inch, Mid 2007 iMac, from an external USB drive.

I want to dual boot Windows 8 on my 20-inch, Mid 2007 iMac, from an external USB drive. The internal drive is completely dead, it doesn't even show up in Disk Utility. I'm running 10.8.2 from the external drive. When I start Boot Camp Assistant, at the Introduction page, when I press the continue button nothing happens. Do I have to have internal drive to run Boot Camp Assistant? Can anyone provide me with the steps to dual boot, with his setup? Thanks in advance!

Hi maczimillon,
Only follow these steps, it works for my:
Open "System Information" and note your "Boot ROM Version" (some like MBP51.007E.B06)
Navigate to "Utilities" in Finder and open the package contents of -BootCampAssistant.app- with right click. Duplicate the "Info.plist" file to the Desktop e.g. and open that with Text Editor.
You must locate the keys "DARequiredROMVersions"and "USBBootSupportedModels"
Add new strings with the information of your machine under booth keys (step 1), always respect the format, such as: <string>MBP51.007E.B06</string> for the frist key and <string>MBP51</string> for the second key.
Save changes and replace the original plist file (it may ask you to enter admin pass)
If you proceeded correctly you will see the checkbox "Create a Windows 7 USB install disk" enabled in Boot Camp Assistant.
Then you can follow the usual Boot Camp installation using your WIN8 DVD iso image . The assistant program will proceed resizing your disk partition and installing necessary drivers for your iMac.
I strongly recomends you to use thirld party's bootloaders like rEFInd (rEFIt) because of the Apple SMC versions of some old machines should not be able to boot properly from external devices like USB drives.

BOOT FROM AN EXTERNAL USB DRIVE???

I know apple has made it clear about booting from an external USB drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474
but I know that there are people who are able to boot from an external drive, does anybody know how to do this?
It's just that id like to work on final cut studio on an external drive for various reasons:
1st: my powerbook's HD is small and slow (60gb)
2nd: my external usb drive is big (160 gb) and fast (7200 RMPS!)
so a little help would be apreciated
best regards

"Actually, USB II is faster than FW 400."
In theory, probably. In real life Firewire 400 is much faster than USB2, not to speak of Firewire 800:
"Wee Wiebetech" Portable FireWire/USB2 Drive Challenges The Fastest Competitors.

Can anyone boot Leopard from an external hard drive on an iMacPPC?

Can anyone boot Leopard from an external hard drive on a G5 iMac PowerPC? How?

Allan's answer is irrelevant as he refers to Snow Leopard. He must have isread your post!
Yes, you can and I do. The proviso is that the external hard drive is connected by firewire, as a PPC Mac cannot boot via USB.

Can a time machine usb drive backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme*

can a time machine usb drive conected to my mac book backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme ?

Hi Adam, if you think yoiur HD may be failing you could do a TM restore onto the new disk. I would rather see you do a clone either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner.Of your internal drive. That way you have a bootable backup in case it does fail.
btw - what are the symptoms of your failing drive?
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

How to run windows from an external usb drive

Hi,
I've just install windows using bootcamp. after that i restore that windows installed bootcamp volume to an GUID partitioned external HDD. Now it is shown in startup disc, but when i select that (external HDD) volume it is unable to start.
I don't know what to do? I just want to run windows from an external usb drive like i can run mac osx.
please help. thanks

Windows will not run from an external drive.

Can I boot Vista OS from an external USB drive

Hi, I would like to install Vista onto an external (USB) drive and boot from that occasionally whilst retaining XP on the internal drive. Is this possible please. I realise I would need to change the boot order in BIOS.
I know I could create a dual boot internal but would like to retain as much space as possible on the internal drive as I will only rarely need to use the dreaded Vista.
Thanks
Ron

And how you want to install Vista on USB device? Have you already tried it?
Please post a little bit about your experience with it if you have some.
Anyway, as far as I know something like this is not possible.

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)

Is it possible to boot to a Windows 7 install DVD from an external USB drive on current iMacs?

On the iMac I'm currently using, a mid-2007 24-inch, it's impossible to boot into a Windows install DVD from an external drive: I can hold down option on boot, and all my hard drives come up, but if the Windows disc is in my external DVD drive, it won't show up. I'll soon be upgrading to a late 2012 iMac, and I'd like to be able to install Windows 7 for a boot camp partition. Since that iMac has no built in drive, I'd like to know if using an external DVD drive will work on that model. I'd like to do that, seems easier than messing around with disk images. But we'll see...

You can use an external optical drive to install Windows without any problem with a Late 2012 iMac.
The reason that you couldn't install Windows from an external optical drive on the 2007 iMac is that it has got an internal SuperDrive, so Apple only allows you to use it to install Windows on your iMac

How do install Tiger from an external USB drive?

I'm trying to upgrade from 10.2.8 to Tiger. How do I install Tiger from my external USB DVD drive? Tiger only comes on DVD and my G4 only has a CD ROM as an internal drive. Is there a way to boot from an external USB DVD drive?

bamim2,
you obviously just cracked some known hardware restrictions that not even Apple knew how to do: Don't start up from an external USB device.
The procedure you described is the standard procedure for the startup manager. However, as Apple's article explains this does NOT work with USB-devices on PowerPC (G3, G4, G5) based Macs.

CD/DVD Install from an external usb drive

Is there any version of Solaris 10 (x86) or a download tool or driver that would enable me to install the OS from an external usb CD/DVD drive?
My internal CD/DVD drive on my older SONY laptop has gone bad and SONY support has been less than helpful in providing me any support for a replacement.
-verO

Not (yet?) with Solaris 10 x86, but it might work with current Solaris Express x86
releases.
But I've never tested this.

Unable to backup from one external USB drive to another

Hi all, this one's been doing my head in for a few days and now I'm waving the white flag of surrender and deciding to ask on here.
I'm trying to backup some of my video files off one of my external HDDs onto another external HDD (or DVD - more on that in a minute) but I don't appear to be able to do so. The files I'm attempting to back up are either my own DVD rips or iTunes Movie purchases, since we don't yet have Movies in the Cloud in the UK. At various points during the copy procedure I get the following messages:
The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in <<various names>>.m4v can't be read or written. (Error code -36)
then, after clicking OK, I get:
The operation can't be completed because one or more required items can't be found (Error code -43)
If I use Finder to navigate to the offending named file, there it is in its original place on external disk 1 all nice and happy. In iTunes the file is in the playlist and is perfectly playable. I have turned off "enable disks to sleep where possible" in Preferences to see if one or the other may be going to sleep during the operation. If I use Disk Utility to verify the two HDDs in question both come up as OK. User Permissions are of course off for the external drives and I have tried reformatting the 2nd drive jsut in case. Obviously I can't reformat drive 1 since it contains the data I'm trying to back up and since I can't back it up......you get the idea.
If I try to use a DVD to backup the media files I'm getting the same errors, along with (in the case of an external DVD drive) something about comunnication between the computer and the drive has failed. Now I'm fairly sure I should be able to backup my data for archiving purposes so does anyone have any idea what could be casuing this problem?
I'm currently trying again, using yet another external drive and to copy just over 18.5GB it's giving me an estimated completion time of 15 hours and has seemingly frozen on 50.3MB copied! Now I know USB 2.0 is slow by today's standards but still I feel this is a little excessive. It's now down to 3 hours estimated but keeps pausing and climbing to 15+ then back down again. I'm guessing it's either a read error from disk 1 or a write error to disk 2 but since Verify Disk is showing both are OK I'm not sure how to tell which. And now I just got the error messages quoted at the top of the page again.
OK, ideas anyone.....

You can copy the entire to a file. Use the dmg extension. Double click on file to mount.
Perhaps you should run disk utility on the drive. Maybe the filesystem is mess up.
Do a bit-by-bit copy
You can use the following command to display all partitions:
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
# This is a little deep.
#It is best to do the pdisk command before you eject the external hard drive. Now, eject the external hard drive. Do another pdisk command to see what drive name has disappeared. The disappearing name is the name of your external hard drive.
sudo pdisk -l
#for details...
man pdisk
# Do a bit-by-bit copy.
#eject the partition in the normal GUI
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
dd if=/dev/disk0s10 bs=4096 | gzip | dd of=~/disk0-s10 bs=4096
#this can take awhile. Open another window and do ls -l ~/disk0-s10
# Here is how to restore the partition.
dd if=~/disk0-s10 bs=4096 | gunzip | dd of=/dev/disk0s10 bs=4096
Don't zero out your unused records, since you are having problems with your disk.
Here is another way to run the command. When you run the command in the background you can question how for the process has gotten. Adjust or eliminate count as needed.
mac $ dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024 count=1kx1k of=/Volumes/MacOSFirewire/zero&
[1] 510
mac $ man kill
mac $ kill -s siginfo 510
953197+0 records in
953196+0 records out
976072704 bytes transferred in 82.524495 secs (11827673 bytes/sec)
mac $ 1048576+0 records in
1048576+0 records out
1073741824 bytes transferred in 89.700333 secs (11970322 bytes/sec)
Here are two utilities for making a complete backup of your internal hard drive. I've recommend using one of these so that you can create a bootable system on your external hard drive. ( PPC require a firewire connected drive. ) Once created, you can run your system from the external drive. Hold down the option key on your keyboard then power on your machine. This will bring you in startup manager click on the drive image you wish to boot then click on the arrow key to the right.
"Clone, synchronize, backup. Schedule and forget it."
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
"SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless."
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Install Leopard on a PPC Mac from an external USB Drive

I'm trying to install Leopard in my eMac an external hard drive ( USB Samsung S2 500GB).
I restored an image of the leopard cd to my hard drive using Disk Util.
I boot in Open Firmware and a type this commands:
boot /pci@f2000000/usb1b,1/disk@1:,\\:tbxi
After this command the my system freezes and nothing else happens.

For some reason, my eMac/800 & eMac/1.42 can boot from USB Drives using Option key, but not Startup Disk pref Pane.
They also boot using the tbxi method, but searching for my notes on that as I think it only worked if you add in the Partition#.
Ah here's some of it, depends on how it was formated, ususlly 3, but 10 if OS9 drivers were installed...
Type setenv boot-device ud:3,\\:tbxi where the number after the colon corresponds to that partition number we found in step two. You should get an ok back.
Type printenv boot-device, and you should see the change displayed already. Something like:
boot-device ud:3,\\:tbxi hd:,\\:tbxi"
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384
setenv boot-device ud:10,\\:tbxi

Can I boot mac from an external hard drive (internal hard drive hard drive closure)

Model: Macbook Pro 2010 mid
OS: OSX 10.9 Hard Drive: WD5000BPKT 500GB
For some reason I need to change my perfectly working internal bootable drive to external bootable drive.
I took out my internal hard drive, put it into closure, and then connected it to mbp with USB. But my mac cannot even recognize my external hard drive. It displays a folder with a question mark with grey background, which means it cannot find executable boot drive. I tried pressing option key during start up and nothing showed. Also, I tried resetting parameter RAM but still no luck. Any help will be appreciated.

The reason is somehow complicated and most likely be related to the question itself, so I did not write it down. But here is the situation.
I bought a new SSD to update my HDD. I found a software called carbon copy cloner, which could do a bootable clone. I tried to clone my original hard drive to SSD and turned out the SSD only worked when it was connected externally. After I seeking a while, I found a solution from CCC website: do the clone again with putting my original drive externally and the SSD internally (I think it is a bug of CCC.)
You may say, "why not use time machine" instead of using a third party software. My answer is time machine is too slow, and I have to reinstall the OS. My focus is why my internal hard drive does not work externally since it should work.

Booting up from an external USB drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for