Can't boot from clone drive

After getting a blank gray screen on startup, I determined it was time to replace my hard drive.  In preparation for installing a new hard drive, I used CCC to create a clone on an external hard drive.  However, it appears I cannot boot from the external drive when I start in recovery mode - I still get nothing but the gray screen. I can still do a soft boot of the original hard drive, but I can't confirm that the cloning worked.  Is it possibly something other than the HD?

Then boot from the Recovery HD on the external drive after you have installed the new drive in the computer.
Install Lion/Mountain Lion on a New HDD/SDD
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-R keys until the Utilities main menu appears on the screen.
Partition and Format the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your new internal 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. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Similar Messages

  • How can I boot from Clone Drive?

    I believe that I am having some problems with my boot drive, and I would like to boot up my system using the boot drive I created with Carbon Copy Cloner, which is on another internal HDD within my tower.  I would like to boot with that cloned copy, but have forgotten how to do it.  My boot drive is a SSD drive, and appears to be working well, but disk permissions showed many errors, most of which I was able to repair with repair disk permissions, but not all of them.  Any help and/or direction is greatly appreciated.

    System Preferences > Startup Disk ...
    ... will show all Volumes it thinks it can boot from. Set to whichever one you want.
    That presumes your Mac is booted up and System preferences is working.
    If not, hold down the Option key at Startup.
    You get a display of all bootable Volumes, and the Eject key is "live" once they are all drawn.

  • MacPro can't boot from external drive

    Running 10.7.3 and a MacPro which gets backed up each night with SuperDuper. Can't boot from this drive (black screen). Yet I can take the same drive and start up my Macbook Pro! So it isn't the drive or the data on it. I'm stumped. Could this be related to an issue where I can't get this same MacPro or system to successfully backup to Time Machine without error? The boot drive seems OK (ran Disk Warrior and Disk Utility).

    Please read this whole message before doing anything.
    This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
    The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
    Be sure your Mac is shut down.
    Press the power button.
    Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
    Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
    Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
    The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
    Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
    After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

  • Can't boot from internal drive - Please help!

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    Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   1.25 GHZ, 1GB Ram
    Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   1.25 GHZ, 1GB Ram

    I assume you have OS X on a 2nd drive that you can run DW, Disk Utility etc.
    As you backup files and know they are okay, delete them. Undo the layers of onion and try to go from latest to oldest.
    If you don't have an emergency fw drive...
    The trouble with long backups on a problem drive is they can fail during the backup if the drive gets too hot, which happens.
    Back in Panther, you could use BootCD to create an emergency CD or DVD with your system, full finder, loads of utilities, and could even run FireFox. With that, you could run TTPro 4, Disk Warrior, DU, Rember etc. AND play around in the Finder and Terminal.
    I still keep a CD and DVD with 10.3.9 just in case. The perfect FW drive would have a couple OS versions, a backup partition (that you can erase if needed).
    Apple Disk Utility from CD/DVD can also be used to copy/clone a volume or foleer, using Restore and output to a volume or disk image.

  • 2 internal hdd's can't boot from thumb drive

    I installed an SSD and a seagate SSD/HDD hybrid in the optical bay.  I installed refit but I can't boot from a thumb drive and my superdrive doesn't act right,  Is there firmware update or any kind of fixes anyone has seen heard or similar problem.
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    cleaning the drive worked.

  • Can't boot from clone on external firewire 800 drive

    Hello,
    I have a 24" mid-2007 iMac 7,1 running Snow Leopard. I recently changed my set up to put a clean install of OS X 10.9.1 on a partition of an external SSD. I also moved the 10.6.8 start up system to a partition on the SSD. My internal iMac hard drive now has no system folder, only my data files. I have additional firewire drives for Time Machine, other data and media drives. Finally, I just bought a pair of 3TB drives that I partitioned into enough partitions to be able to clone both operating systems and all my data files for a rotating pair of offsite backups. All moving/cloning of drives was done with version 3.5.4 (Mavericks-compatible) of Carbon Copy Cloner.
    I can boot from my external SSD (either Mavericks or Snow Leopard) fine and all external drives mount correctly in either case. After cloning all the partitions onto the backup drives, I tried to test the clones but I am not able to start up using either the Mavericks or the Snow Leopard clones when the backup external drive is connected via firewire 800. This is true whether I select the clone volumes in the Startup Disk preferences pane or hold down the option key during start up (note that the external drive with the clone partitions does not appear in the list of disk choices with the option key method). I get the "question mark in the folder" sign that the start up system is not being found.
    I have changed the order in which the external drives are connected (normally the SSD is first in the chain), including trying when only the backup drive is connected directly to the iMac. I get the same result no matter what.
    Curiously, the Mavericks and Snow Leopard boot clones start up via firewire 800 when the external backup drive is connected to my wife's 2009 13" Macbook Pro, indicating that the clones and the enclosure (an OWC Mercury Elite Pro quad interface, newer version with USB3) both support booting. Furthermore, if I connect the backup drive to my iMac using USB, the boot clones both work to start up the iMac.
    This all points to an issue with the firewire bus failing to recognize the boot clones somehow during my iMac's start up process. I am rather puzzled about how to fix this.
    I can get by booting via USB in an emergency but because my system is old, this is of course USB2 so its slow. If I had to use the clones to recover I'd rather be able to operate and restore at FW800 speeds.
    If anyone has any ideas what might be going on, I'd appreciate hearing them.
    Thanks in advance.
    Greg

    Did you ever get this resolved, Greg?

  • How can I boot from USB drive?

    I have installed a Kingston SSD drive on my Macbook Pro. The original HDD is now in a USB enclosure. I tried to boot from the supplied CD by selecting it in the preferences. However they supplied a CD with Aarons for Windows. Now I cannot either clone my HDD to the SSD or boot from the original HDD. How can I override the CD as boot disk?

    Boot Using OPTION key:
      1. Restart the computer.
      2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the
          "OPTION" key.
      3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
      4. Select the disk icon of the external USB drive.
      5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

  • Can't boot from firewire drive

    Howzit,
    I have partitioned an OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 1.5 TB firewire drive into 2 partitions using Disk Utility and GUID mapping. I then used Carbon Copy Clone to clone the startup disk of my MacPro, which runs OS 10.4.11. The clone successfully boots when it is connected to the MacPro.
    The problem is that I am unable to boot from the firewire drive when I hook it up to my iMac. When I restart and hold the OPTION key, the clone appears as a startup option, but the computer freezes when I click on it. The clone also shows up as an option in the Startup Disk preference, but when I try restarting after selecting the clone, it freezes the same way: gray screen, no apple, no rotating gear.
    Can you help?

    Make an OS partition then for each. Or, upgrade your Mac Pro to SL as well. Unless there is software holding you to Tiger.
    Now, when SL came out, I know I saw a lot of threads regarding issues booting from external firewire drives, so you may not be 100% out of the woods, but you should.
    I'd expect to get a panic screen from 10.4, lacks any support for newer hardware / graphics card and more.

  • Help! I Can't Boot from Firewire Drive (Previous MBP C2D Hard Drive)

    Can a hardrive from a C2D Macbook Pro start an i7 Quad MBP?
    I just sold my 2008 15" 2.4ghz C2D MBP, (that had 10.6.5 installed), and today bought the newest
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    I installed a fresh HD on the 15" before selling it, and kept its HD, and put it into a FW800 enclosure.
    +(note: The 15" Macbook Pro I just sold, booted fine from this HD in the FW800 enclosure.)+
    Before migrating my data, from the FW800 drive, I figured I would upgrade the old OS to 10.6.6, so it would be a seamless migration.
    While up and running on the brand new i7, I could see the FW800 drive with 10.6.5 as a Startup Disk option in System Preferences.
    I rebooted holding down the option key, selected the FW drive, and pressed the arrow below to continue startup.
    The grey screen with the apple came up immediately, but I was horrified that the spinning gear never did appear, and startup froze at that point. I left it like this for five minutes. Grey screen with apple. Frozen.
    So, I held down the power key, shut it down, then restarted holding down Command-S to run Disk Utility in SIngle User Mode, (/sbin/fsck -fy). Disk was okay.
    I rebooted into the new internal, installed Diskwarrior 4.3, and checked the FW800, and it had no errors.
    I opened Startup Disk in System Preferences, and chose the FW800 drive as the Startup Disk, and rebooted. Same result. Grey screen with apple, and no further...
    Can someone please help me troubleshoot this?
    Should I be able to boot this new MBP i7 with the HD from my old MBP C2D?
    Is there something incompatible between the old C2D and i7?
    Thanks in advance!

    Ho Lee MACkeral wrote:
    That CD2 OS will not boot into a new computer's OS.
    Hi, thanks for replying.
    I knew that the switch to Intel from ppc, meant a ppc drive, partitioned with APM could not boot an intel machine with a GUID partition table.
    Do you know:
    1. for certain that a C2D HD cannot boot an i7 machine?
    2. and why?
    Ho Lee MACkeral wrote:
    Why not use Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder?
    I am planning on doing this.
    My old drive was 10.6.5.
    The new machine has 10.6.6 pre-installed.
    I figured that if I was able to upgrade the old drive to the same OSX first, it would provide a more seamless migration.
    I was also concerned that my applications on 10.6.5 might become broken if they were migrated to 10.6.6. I really do not want to have to install everything.

  • 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.
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  • Can not boot from Hard Drive and or CD

    Hi
    I have a SUN Blade 1000. I loaded Solaris 10 a few days ago
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    I know Windows and x86 hardware very well and have built many machines.
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    How did you begin the previous installation?
    Have you spent any time reading these forums?
    Use the forum search function, keywords ...
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  • Can't boot from external drive, no options...

    Okay so I just upgraded my 24" iMac to Snow Leopard, from an external drive, and things seemed fine. I was migrating my old settings and then after I noticed I couldn't access system folders. It wanted old settings' permissions, not the new one, so I right-clicked on the folder and set permissions so that anybody could write to it.
    Still didn't work. I thought I should then reboot.
    So I did. But now when I try to log on, to my old profile or my new one, neither password works. Even though they're the same. If I get it wrong enough times, it will let me put in the master password for the computer, in a separate pop-up, which is the same, and that works.
    Then it wants me to give a new password, back in the old password box, and then it just shakes angrily afterward, not accepting anything I type. Why is this?
    The next step seemed to be re-install Snow Leopard. But pressing the option key at startup doesn't let me boot up from the external drive. I looked online with my macbook and found all these other boot options, but none of them work. Not a single one has any effect.
    One thing I should mention is that I'm not using the standard iMac keyboard, not sure if that makes a difference. It's a PC keyboard and the keys are just slightly rearranged but it has Alt, Ctrl, and the option key is a circle with the windows logo in it. Any chance that the new OS isn't recognizing the new keyboard properly?
    I just don't know what else it could be. Any help is appreciated.

    coconutmelodies wrote:
    I only have one master computer password, and it's not the same as any of my other passes. That's the pass that's needed to log on, and access system info. However it's also the same password as my old profile, that I was migrating over (which is still confusing as to how to do a clean install and then bring old admin info over so they work together seemlessly) so now when trying to log on, after the first reboot, I saw that I could log on to the old or the new profile. As well as a guest account, which isn't accessible though.
    It sounds like here you are talking about an admin user account & its login password rather than a "master" password. Only admin users can access & change system info (more or less). However, you cannot merge two user accounts, if that is what you mean by 'bringing old admin info over so they work together seemlessly.' Also, keep in mind that each user is a separate entity as far as the computer is concerned, whether or not they have the same login password, & that you can log into & use only one account at a time. So for instance, if you have a user account "A" created on the Mac & an imported/migrated account "B" from another Mac, if you are logged in as "A" you will not be able to access info in the folders belonging to "B" unless while logged in as "B" you previously explicitly set permissions on those folders for "A" to access them.
    So whichever profile I attempt to log onto, when I type in the password, (there's even an obvious clue after a few tries, so no chance I'm getting it wrong) the box shakes like I got it wrong.
    The box shakes only if you did get it wrong, so I don't understand what you mean about there being no chance that you got it wrong.
    After like six tries, it asks me for a "Master Password" "Type the master password to reset this uer's password" into which I put my regular login pass that I've been trying over and over, and here it does work.
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    So then it asks me to put in a new password, and verify it, but after each try it just shakes. It won't accept anything.
    Again, I don't understand what you mean in the first paragraph above when you say "here it does work." The Master Password the dialog box asks for is one you would have had to previously explicitly set up for the computer in the File Vault tab of the Security System Preference. It is not associated with any user account (& again, it makes no difference if you set it to the same one as for one or more user accounts). It's purpose is as a "safety net" to unlock File Vault protected user accounts. As explained in Mac OS X 10.6 Help: If you forget your password for your FileVault-protected account, you must first fail to enter the account's password correctly three (not six) times, then click the “Forgot Password” button to get to the Master Password dialog box. Entering the previously set up Master Password allows you to set & verify a new password for that account.
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    If you mean something else is happening please explain it more clearly, in step-by-step fashion including the results of each step. Don't say things like "try it." Instead, say that you clicked on the "OK" (or whatever named) button & say what the result was.

  • Downgrading from Mavericks to Snow Leopard, can't boot from USB drive

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  • 13" late 2011 MacBook Pro has frozen after Yosemite installation. I can, however, boot from a clone of my MacBook Air that is on an external drive. Despite the fact that I can boot from the external, could it be the RAM that's the prob

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