Booting via USB External Drive

I cloned my MacBook to an external USB drive to transfer everything to my MBP. I can boot from the USB drive fine with my MacBook, but when I went to boot the MBP from it, no go. The Apple logo comes up and the gear starts spinning. Then the screen will go white and just stay there. It won't load the desktop. Anyone else run into this?
It must have something to do with the OS build number or firmware. What is your OS build number and firmware in your System Profiler? Mine is Mac OS X 10.4.8 (8N1037) and SMC Version: 1.12f5.
-Bmer
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Not Oracle VM-related, so I would say: "Google is your friend!".
Search for "grub change boot sequence": http://www.google.com/search?q=grub%20change%20boot%20sequence

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GRUB hangs when booting Oracle VM Server via USB External Drive

I installed Oracle VM Server 2.1 on USB external drive (/dev/sde - 80gb) with First Sector Boot Partion (/dev/sde1) as /dev/sda1 (MBR) is already occupied. After a successful installation, I changed the hard-disk device sequence (not boot order) so that USB drive is found as first C: drive. All I got was the word 'GRUB' displayed (hangs) and nothing else. How do I get Oracle VM Server to boot? Should I reinstall now that the hard drive sequence has been changed?
Thank you.

Not Oracle VM-related, so I would say: "Google is your friend!".
Search for "grub change boot sequence": http://www.google.com/search?q=grub%20change%20boot%20sequence

Boot from usb external drive

Mid 2011 MacBook Air does not check the usb port for attached devices after a restart, but does after a shut down and power up. So a "restart" to a USB external clone drive from the Startup Disk Manager does not work, only works if you shut down, then power up. Anyone notice this? (it also does not work using the "option" key startup method, but does if shut down and power on)

Ok heres the deal I have tried every single way under the sun to boot this g5 (except firewire). I get the ? folder aka hard drive failure. I took a harddrive out of a windows computer an 80gb Seagate Barracuda. I didn't have an enclosure except my WD My Book which I wasn't gonna take apart. Also I do not want to spend any more than I have to. So I took the Seagate up to a computer repair shop and they formatted it in APM and they installed my OSX 10.5 dvd on the disk for 20 bucks (ya I know shoulda just bought the enclosure). Bring It home. Again ? folder. So make a partition on the WD Mac OS X extended (journaled) mount the dmg no go ? folder. I have tried all the open firmware work arounds with the WD (usb) and thumb drives in every slot. It also spits out the dvd at boot and after holding down C along with the Open Finrmware command "eject disc" states can't OPEN the EJECT device (I have to open the drive with the pin hole initially) . Also if I hold option down at boot it does not list the drive that I took to the repair shop, or the WD, or the USB. It runs great lol it just won't boot! All my other macs are intel based but I know leopard is compatible with both so maybe I could install leopard on my macbook air and put it in target disk mode. I guess after having to buy a firewire cable and adapter as both my macs carry thunderbolt ports. Any suggestions? I'm starting to think I might need to get a firewire enclosure so I can take a look at this myself. Is there a way to format a drive in Apple Partition Map on an intel based mac I don't see an option for that in disk utility?

Boot Camp with Win 8 Can't See The USB External Drive [MBR with NTFS, Fat32, HFS Partitions]

Hi. When I boot to Boot Camp with the latest Apple Windows Support drivers can't see my USB Flash Drive, DVD and OS X volumes but not my USB external drive that has an MBR partition scheme (using iPartition from GUID) and in there it has different volumes [HFS when I boot to Snow Leopard, Fat32, NTFS]. What can I do with Boot Camp to make it see my USB external drive and why isn't it seeing the USB when it can see the USB flash drive both use USB?
Thank you in advance.
God bless.

Buy Paragon NTFS for OS X $20.

Boot Intel Mini from USB external drive

Hi -- can anyone confirm that Intel MacMini can boot from an external USB (NOT firewire) drive?
I see plenty of notes that people boot from firewire, but I haven't seen anything about USB.
Thanks for your help!!

Alan, SATA drives are "faster" than ATA drives, but I don't think the have any other advantage, and unfortunately you lose that advantage when you opt for a USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 connection (they both are slower than SATA or ATA, so it's like a bottleneck). And while USB 2.0 is theoretically faster than FW400, it real-world use FireWire is faster.
There have been reports of people successfully booting off a USB drive on Macintels, and some of them even where Mac minis, at least as far as I can remember. Unlike on PPC Macs, in order to boot off an external drive, you have to partition it with the GUID partition scheme. I'm not sure that cloning a drive would automatically do that, which could explain why Seedling can't boot off his clone ...

USB External Drive Backup & Erase Woes

I have been using a Lacie 500GB USB external drive allocated as a backup disk for time machine. Over the last couple of weeks, the disk has been spontaneously ejecting itself from the desktop. This could happen when not backing up to time machine, or during the backup.
I am not a daily time machine backup-er, as I don't have much to backup on a daily basis (and I weekly backup to an alternative disk using Super Duper). What I had noticed with the time machine disk, is that the preparation prior to the backup beginning was a massive 40+GB, certainly not the amount of data which would have been 'new'.
To try to resolve this, I have used disk utility to verify the disk, and the snow leopard disc to check my boot disk on the Macbook Pro... there has not been a problem identified with either.
Today, I decided to erase the time machine disk, zero the data, and re-allocate the drive for time machine backup. After setting these preferences in disk utility, and clicking 'erase', the disk again erased itself, with the error message :
'Disk erase failed with the error: Assert: internal error, or unimplemented'
I then had an external disk which was not present on the desktop, and apparently in some sort of limbo between erased and mounted!
I was able to do a simpler format function on the disk via disk utility, the disk will mount, but the allocated disk space previously used by time machine is still present, and the format has only done that remaining space on the disk.
Anyone know what the above error message refers to, am I able to reformat the disk using the 'zero function', or has the disk failed and become unrecoverable?
Answers / suggestions kindly welcomed.

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
When you use Disk Utility to erase totally you need to click on the LaCie drive name not the name that appears on the desktop. Select how many partitions you want and give each partition the name you want it to have and perhaps also the partitioning scheme and other options that are available, then erase.
Doing this will of course make all that is on the drive unavailable to you.
These are LaCie's directions for their drives.
Some LaCie drives might also have firmware updates available - worth a check on their website.
Note that LaCie seem to have 2 yr warranty on their drives, at least the one I looked at on their website. If the drive is younger than this you might have a warranty claim.

Booting From An External Drive in OS 9.2?

I have a G4 with a bad internal ROM drive. I am currently running OS 9.2.
I would like to upgrade to OS 10.
I have an Iomega USB 2.0 external drive connected to my computer via the USB port in the back.
How can I boot from the disk in this external drive?
I tried holding "option"- it only found my regular hard drive.
I tried holding "cmd-opt-shift-del" but my mac got very confused and blinked a ? at me.
How can I boot from the external drive so I can upgrade?
Thanks
O.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Mac OS X will not boot from USB drives on a PowerPC.
You need a Firewire optical drive to boot, and an AGP PowerMac G4 at that to boot Mac OS X. To identify your PowerMac G4, see this article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58418
Once you've identified it, boot the machine into Mac OS 9 on the hard drive and make sure your firmware is up to date:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
And then you'll be able to install Mac OS X. Follow these precautions on my FAQ before doing so:
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html
If it turns out you have a PCI PowerMac G4, you'll have to replace the optical drive internally to boot Mac OS X or Mac OS 9.
Also make sure your clock battery is under 4 years old before attempting to upgrade the firmware. It is a 3.6 V 1/2 AA battery you can buy from Radio Shack item 23-026.

Elitebook 8440p - recovery disc creation & booting from an external drive

I have a brand new Elitebook 8440p & I have a couple of issues that I cannot seem to resolve.
1. I expected to get some sort of system install, or recovery or repair discs - or the ability to create such disks with this laptop. Nothing came with it, and I cannot find any place to create some sort of system recovery disks, nor is there anything listed for this laptop on the HP site to acquire them from HP. I am not comfortable having no way to recover this computer should a hard disk go south. Any ideas how to create or get an op system disk or recovery discs or something?
2. I have an encrypted company/business hard disc inside the laptop for work. I also have the original hard disk that came with the computer in an external eSata/USB case. I have configured and installed software on the external drive to include my personal software and programs, leaving the company hard disc inside the laptop for business use only. However, I cannot make this laptop boot from the external drive if the company drive is inside the laptop. I have read and tried everything, but if a drive is inside the laptop, it will not boot from the external eSata/USB drive. If I simply remove the laptop hard drive, it boots perfectly from the external drive via eSata and works fine. How do I manage to get this laptop to boot from my external drive without having to remove the internal hard drive?
Any help or ideas someone can offer are greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.

Hi, Rich:
If you live in the USA or Canada, you can get a set of restore disks from HP for $10. I am surprised you didn't get a set but maybe they only come with the business desktops.
Here is how you order them:
1. Write down the part number and serial # on bottom of the computer on the white tag. The model # is an HP-Compaq 8440p, but the part number will be found on that white tag below the serial #.
2. Call HP at 1-800-952-7689, option 1 (ordering restore disks is part of the list in the option).
3. Provide the info asked by the rep that answers the phone. Some just ask for the serial #, some want both, or they will just want the serial number and type of computer (8440p).
4. Have a Master Card or Visa ready for purchasing. They don't take Discover. You will be charged $10.00.
You will receive the disks by First Class Mail or you can pay an additional $10.00 for FedEx shipping.
Sorry, I can't answer your second question. I assume you have already tried hitting the F9 key at the HP splash screen to select the device to boot from?
Paul

MDT 2012 deploy OS from USB external drive failed - need to unplug and plug it once again

We are using MDT 2012 and deploying Windows 7 using media (USB external hard drive). We can successfully deploy Windows 7 32 bit using this method but there is a problem with deploying Windows 7 64bit. This problem appears only on HP EliteBook 840. We can
boot into WinPE 64 bit and can start proper task sequence, all image is applied then after restart, before logon screen appears there is an error saying that cannot find litetouch.vbs script. After clicking ok, I can logon to Windows and there is no usb external
drive recognized. But when I unplug and plug usb drive once again it is recognized by Windows and can be used. I can see that Windows install some drivers just after plug it again
I checked BIOS looking for some USB power options - there is no such settings. And 32 bit deployment works ok. So this is not a case. Looks for me like a problem with proper usb drivers for 64 bit. I download all drivers from HP website (driver pack and
drivers only for USB 3.0). We are using make and model matching in MDT - works ok for all the rest hardware models. Any idea how to troubleshoot it?

Not sure what's going on here. Is this a USB "Flash" drive or a USB "Hard Drive". There *Is* a distinction.
I *thought* that MDT would copy itself to the c:\minint\scripts folder to continue installation.
Next time, when you see this error, Press Shift-F10 to get into a cmd.exe prompt. Can you find litetouch.vbs on any of the drives? Does the USB Drive appear?
IF in fact, the USB Drive is not appearing after the 1st reboot, then you have a problem. Why did the USB 3.0 driver not install. Check the Driver Installation Logs to verify.
Keith Garner - keithga.wordpress.com

Problem mapping USB external drive connected to Airport Extreme on my PC

I am having a problem mapping my USB external drive in my PC running WIndows Vista. Here is what I have so far:
USB External Drive connected to my AirPort Extreme which is connected to my Century Link modem/router.
I have installed the USB drive using the Airport Utility. In the Disks section the Enable File Sharing is checked, Secure Shared Disks is set to With a Disk Password, I have entered the password in the next 2 rows, and finally AirPort Disks Gues Access is set to Not Allowed. The section below named These Settings Configure Windows File Sharing is empty. Am I supposed to put something here?
I was also told I need to map the drive in my PC, but when I go to do that via the Computer and the Map Network Drive, I get stuck where it asks me to enter a folder name. I read many of the posts which tell me I need to enter among other things the disk's ip address, but I am unable to find it anywhere. Where do I find what to put here?
Can someone please help this frustrated user?

I had my USB drive on my APE working with Time Machine under 10.5.1 very reliably. A few days ago however, I needed to suspend a backup operation, and when I came back to restart it, time machine refused to mount the disk image on the drive. After several attempts to get it to connect with no luck I decided to delete the image (the sparce image file) and start over. Now TM refuses to create a new image.
BTW, on the Mac OSX hints site there have been suggestions to start a backup with the drive directly connected, then stop the backup, move the sparce image file to the root of the drive, reconnect the drive to the APE base station to get it working. I tried this again, but I think Apple has changed something in 10.5.2, because when directly connected TM no longer creates a sparce image file.
Anybody else seen this behavior after upgrading to 10.5.2?

Cannot boot from USB/dvd-drive on Satellite Pro M10

Hi,
since the internal dvd-drive is broken, an external USB drive is used. Now, I need to reinstall windows on a new harddrive. How can I boot from this external drive? (I do have a Floppy disk drive, but I cannot find the right drivers)
Thanks,
Luc

Hi,
you dont need any drivers for that USB-drive because the USB-floppy is a integrated peripheral of your computer. That means, everytime you connect the floppy to your machine, the computer sets that floppy like a internal hardwired floppy and thats the reason you wont need any drivers.
Its already installed when you plug it in.
Cheers

How do i boot from an external drive on my imac G4?

ive have tried to press option to boot Leopard from a USB external drive. This does not work, it just takes me back to Tiger..
I have done this on my other mac and it does allow me to boot with this drive.. Is there something i am missing or can i not run Leopard on my iMac G4.
Processor 1.83 GHz Intel Core Dou
Memory 512 MB 667 MHZ RAM
thanks

jamesfromcanogapark wrote:
ive have tried to press option to boot Leopard from a USB external drive. This does not work, it just takes me back to Tiger..
I have done this on my other mac and it does allow me to boot with this drive.. Is there something i am missing or can i not run Leopard on my iMac G4.
Processor 1.83 GHz Intel Core Dou
Memory 512 MB 667 MHZ RAM
thanks
First you say you have an iMac G4. Then at the end of your message you state specs that say Intel Core Duo.
I wish you would get your story straight because if it is an iMac G4 it can' have an Intel processor in it.
Once you get a plausible story, I'll consider answering you then.
Allan

Question about reinstalling OS via USB-external CD/DVD

Hi all. I need to reinstall on my porteg m200 the operating system, but i have a lot of problems:
1) the recovery dvd seems to don't work on my USB external dvd reader
2) at the boot, it is impossible launch any on-cd OS from USB external dvd reader, so i cannot use another XP or Linux OS at the boot
Someone told me i need a particular type of pc-card dvd-reader. It is true? any pc-card dvd readers are good or i need some particular toshiba gadget?
Thanks for the help and sorry for my english
idum

Hello
As far as I know you need a compatible USB drive to boot from the external drive.
I found on the Toshiba support page this useful document with a list of compatible drives.
Please check this link:
http://support.toshiba-tro.de/kb/40/TSB4800R70001R01.htm
Best regards

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 from USB pen drive is *UNGODLY* slow

Being quite sick of floppies, I decided to install Minimax on my USB pen drive, and it worked fine... But things are going very badly with the boot process. You see, GRUB takes 10 seconds to load, the kernel takes over a minute, and the initrd isn't done loading after 5 full minutes... This initrd is 32 MB, and Damn Small Linux, which is 50 MB, can be copied entirely to my machine's RAM in less than 30 seconds. This absurdly low speed makes booting via USB quite unfeasable.
Now I've got the EHCI controller enabled in my BIOS; in fact, what makes this doubly annoying is that USB2 works fine when I'm booted into Arch Linux, with huge files (e.g. Minimax's initrd) getting written in a matter of seconds. Yet it seems that the EHCI controller isn't doing its thing while I'm booting. What's going on here? I'd really like to get my machine up and running again, the sooner the better...
(For what it's worth, my mobo is a Biostar M7VIG 400, if that's any help...)

Gullible Jones wrote:
Can't do that, Minimax puts the whole damn thing in the initrd.
You sure there's nothing I can do about this? No BIOS update that would fix it, or anything? :cry:
You're saying minimax puts the whole system into the initrd? That is so.. crap. Unlike IDE there's like a max 3 or 4 different usb1.1 controllers out there, and I've only seen about 2 usb2.0 controllers out there, so it's soo much more feasible to have it boot up and mount the usb drive.
I mean, that's just lazy compared to most liveCDs which boot and have to load thirty something IDE modules, SCSI modules, USB modules, Firewire modules and now SATA modules to find the CD/DVD drive, whereas the usb only needs uhci-hcd, ohci-hcd, ehci-hcd and usb-storage to cover 95% of usb capable computers out there.
Make you own usb distro based on Arch is the only thing I can suggest. Possibly base it off the Archie scripts.
As for your bios, there might be an update, but thats something you can check, not for everyone to do for you.

Booting via USB External Drive

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