Can't boot from either of 2 external Seagate hard drives

Over a year ago, I purchased two external Seagate drives. One is FireWire 800/400. The other is an eSATA 500GB connected to an eSATA PCI card. I have not been able to boot from either one of them after placing a "bootable" copy of my "main" internal hard drive on each using SuperDuper! It isn't a SuperDuper! problem because I have another internal hard drive with two partitions. I have placed the same kind of bootable copy on each of the internal drive's partitions and they boot just fine. The external drives are the problem. After a lot of back and forth with Seagate, they concluded that my boot ROM is too early (too old) and does not support booting from their drives. Their lab has a newer dual PowerMac G5 and it does boot their drives. I was told that updating boot ROM was not possible. Both external drives function very well except for the fact that neither will boot. I just read elsewhere in this forum that boot ROMs _can be updated_. Is this true? Search on "Boot ROM" and include the quotes to see the references to updating boot ROM. Is this possible with my machine? See below for boot ROM version. Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

Hi-
Blaming the boot ROM is a first. Haven't heard that one before.
Boot ROM can be updated, though it would have to be an update provided by Apple. There are no G5 updates beyond 5.1.8 (that my searches reveal, anyhow).
I think it is best to look elsewhere for the problem....
What are the Seagate series numbers? 7200.10?
What is the Seagate firmware version?
What is the make and model of the SATA PCI controller?
What is the chipset, make and model of the firewire drive housing?

Similar Messages

  • My External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only

    my External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only on its own?
    I went to get info and scrolled down to the  Sharing and Permissions
    But there is nothing there but a greyed out : You can only read
    There are No boxes to check or uncheck, No options to change to read and write, No name of owner or ignore ownership box. NOTHING ELSE IS THERE
    HELP!
    I have recently upgraded to Mountain Lion and am having other problems as well

    Click on the external HDD icon COMMAND+I.  You should see a display such as this:
    You should be logged on as the administrator.  Click on the lock icon.  It should open and allow you to make the required changes.
    Ciao.

  • Can I restore from Time Machine backup after replacing hard drive

    I'm planning on replacing the 250GB hard drive in my mid 2010 13 inch MBP with a larger one. My MBP comes with Snow Leopard, and I've installed Lion and recently Mountain Lion from App Store. Can I use my Snow Leopard disc to boot up the laptop after replacing the hard drive, and restore Mountain Lion and everything else from the latest backup in Time Machine without having to install Snow Leopard?

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
    Press Command and R keys while your Mac is starting and restore your backup. You shouldn't use 10.6 to restore the Mountain Lion backup

  • Since upgrading to Mavericks, I can't connect to my external Seagate hard drive. How to I fix this??????

    I have two Seagate hard drives that were working fine for a couple years until I upgraded to Mavericks. They connect via USB and never show up in Finder.

    I tried to connect a Samsung hard drive. Before Mavericks it was working fine. Now it won't appear in Finder and it can't be mounted in Disk Utility. As with previous issues I reported concerning iOS 7 and Mavericks, I wrote in this forum, but Apple never reacts. People are trying to help each other with workarounds, which is great, but the core issue isn't solved by Apple. It seems after Steve Jobs they're not concerned about quality that much anymore. The fact that I can't use a very common Samsung external hard drive on Mavericks is just way beyond deplorable. And what did I get in return? iBooks?

  • HT201250 Macbook air and 1TB external seagate hard drive

    i just bought a 1tb seagate hard drive and set up time machine to my macbook air. so just to check i went back and opened iphoto from one of my backups and the iphoto library wouldnt open. does anyone know why and how do i access the pictures from my iphoto library on my exteranl hard drive.

    I didn't think that this would happen, so I never bother backing it up to another drive. I regret it I don't want to format it, I don't want to lose what's inside it. I wish there were another way? Please, help me!!!
    This is what I got from the disk utility -
    Disk Description: WD Elements 1023 Media
    Connection Bus: USB
    Connection Type: External
    Serial Number: 575873...
    Total Capacity: 500.11 GB
    Write Status: Read/Write
    SMART Status: Not Supported
    Partition Map Scheme: GUID Partition Table
    Mount: Point: Not Mounted
    Format: Mac OS Extended

  • Broken cd drive, so can I boot Os X dvd in external usb Dvd drive on iBook

    So there it is:
    My cd/dvd drive on my iBook 1,33 GHz PowerPc G4, 1,5GB DDR SDRAM is broken....
    I want to know if is there some way to format my iBook hard drive and then boot from an external cd/dvd drive to install OS X 10.4 Tiger on it.."????
    Please help
    Thanks

    You first need to boot your computer from the external drive with the Tiger disk. Once the computer is booted you can run disk Utility, format your internal hard drive and install Tiger. I don't know about more recent G4s but older Macs used to be somewhat selective about the brand of drives from which they would boot so there could be issues there.
    Let us know how it goes.

  • Mac G5 Won't boot. Won't boot from reinstall disc, doesn't recognize hard drives.

    Hello everyone,
    I have a problem with my 2005 G5 and I've tried desperately to fix it over the past couple days.
    It started with my G5 oddly booting up to OSX Leopard and missing numerous key features such as the dock, the abillity to restart/shut down from the menu, and I was also unable to drag icons around on the desktop. Though, weirdly enough, some programs would still launch.
    My goal this week was to reinstall the OS to see if it would fix the problem. I tried numerous times to reinstall from boot via CD while holding C at startup. Also tried reinstall from an external harddrive, and USB, to no avail. I hold down option, and it doesn't detect the internal hard drive. I put in a new 500GB hard drive, still doesn't detect it, nor does it detect the install disc, USB, or external HD.
    Since putting in a new harddrive, sometimes the computer will not go past a black screen, but occasionally sometimes will get a grey screen. Fans start spinning like crazy at this point.
    So to recap, thus far: I removed the old hard drive and put in a new one, switched around ram, reset PRAM, took out and put back in the video card, tried to reinstall from CD. Still the same results, unable to boot past a grey or black screen, and unable to re-install the OS.
    My only conclusion is that it could be a bad logic board.
    Does anyone have any insight on this, or agree with my hypothesis? If so, I'll likely pick up a new one off ebay and have a go at installing it.

    Is the External drive USB or Firewire? G5s won't see/boot USB drives as a rule?
    Do you have another Mac around with Firewire?
    Might be time to replace the PRAM Battery, 4 years is close to their lifespan, far less if ever without AC power, & can cause strange startup problems...
    See which one your G5 has...
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/CR2032/ 
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BAA36VPRAM/ 
    Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
    Does it boot into Open  Firmware with CMD+Option+o+f ?
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642
    reset-nvram (press Enter)
    set-defaults (press Enter)
    reset-all (press Enter)

  • Boots from disc, but doesn't recognize hard drive

    I've got an 800mhz G4 iMac and it won't start up. It boots really slowly into the blue screen and then never passes that point. It's just a blue screen. I can move the mouse around, but nothing else happens and there's nothing for the mouse to manipulate.
    It will boot from the optical drive and I'm trying to reinstall Panther (can't find Tiger upgrade discs...blast). But when it gets to the point in the installation where it asks which drive to install on, it gives me no options.
    Is the HD dead? Anything I can do? Thanks for all your help in advance.

    Try things in Apple doc.#106464 for your startup issue.
    Also, try using Disk Utility to repair your startup disk (hard drive) as shown in Dr.Smokes Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption. Smokes link will help walk you thru it. You will need the Tiger disk to do this if you have Tiger installed. If your Panther disk is a 10.3.9 version, it will repair a Tiger installation. 10.3.9 only though.
    Let us know what errors DU reports and if it was able to repair them.
    Try these things before a re-install. You can try things in Apple doc.#106214; run fsck-you can run a repair with out the disk this way.
    Cheers!
    DALE

  • Can I sync from iPad to a Mac as hard drive crashed and data lost

    My iMac hard drive crashed and the data cannot be recovered. Can I sync the iTunes data on my iPad or iPhone back onto the new hard drive?

    You should be able to recover data that is in the backup. That does not included some items like music. See the following for what is in the backup:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4079
    First in iTunes preferences check the box for prevent automatic syncing when a device is connected.
    They connect your iPod to the computer and transfer iTunes purchases to the computer. See:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848
    Then right click on the iPad listed under Devices in the left hand side and click on "Back Up". After backup is complete I think you will have to restore the iPad from backup to complete the process of using your iPad to the "new" computer.

  • HP Z620 does not boot when external Seagate hard drive is connected

    I'm troubleshooting an HP Z620 workstation with 32GB RAM, one 500GB HDD + one 1TB HDD running Win 7 Enterprise 64 bits, this user has 2 external USB 3.0 HDDs,  one Buffalo 2TB  + one Seagate Desktop Backup Plus 4TB; the problem comes when the external Seagate HDD is connected and the PC is turned one, for some reason the PC does not boots, it shows a message that states "Non-disk or no boot disk error" and sometimes it tries to boot, but then goes thru the "Windows repair option" or "Start Windows normally" routine, none of these results on starting the PC.
    The only way this PC starts and works properly is when PC is started with the external Seagate HDD disconnected and then connected once the Win 7 is up and running; the problem described above does not happens with the external Buffalo 2TB HDD and the Seagate HDD have been tested throughly and no errors or problems have been detected on it.
    I'll really appreciate your attention to this, as well as your prompt response.
    Regards,
    Gaspar Campos

    Hi:
    You may also want to post your question on the HP Business Support Forum -- z Workstations section where there may be more folks familiar with that issue.
    http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Workstations-z-series-xw-series/bd-p/bsc-272#.U1k4uv1OXGg

  • Recent problems with a pair of external Seagate hard drives

    I've recently started having some trouble with a pair of external hard drives.  They're used exclusively for back up and I'm fairly certain all of their contents are available elsewhere, so I'm not terribly concerned about the data they contain.  I would, however, appreciate some insight into what has happened, how it happened and/or what I might do to fix it.
    The two hard drives were both formatted with a single ext4 partition.  Within the last couple weeks, Arch Linux started to incorrectly detect them both as HPFS/NTFS/exFAT.  Mounting them as I had been (with just -o rw), ownership/permissions do act as if the partition is ntfs.  Using chown to change ownership would affect all directories but did not affect any files.  If I use -o uid=myusername,umask=177,dmask=077 (which I'm pretty sure is all that's been necessary in the past to read and write ntfs partitions), I can then access files as well, but I still can not write anything new to disk.
    After a bit of searching, I found a pair similar threads suggesting that fdisk/cfisk should be used to change the partition type back to 83.  I used cfdisk to do so and both cfdisk and fdisk -l now show partition type as linux.  Mounting with just -o rw and using chown does now change ownership of files as well, but it still does not allow me to write to the disk and ownership/permissions are not kept after unmounting/remounting.  I'm not really sure where to go from here.
    As to the potential source of the problem, the main point that comes to mind is that I booted into Windows 7 for the first time in at least a few months around that time.  I don't generally leave these external hard drives connected except for when backing up, but it's possible that they were connected while booting Windows at one point.  If they were connected, I definitely did not do anything that should have affected them, but I'm wondering if it's possible that Windows automatically did.

    I highly doubt Windows itself would have done anything without your consent. For programs running in Windows, there's no telling, but if you don't have the security stuff turned off you should still have been prompted. Also, the fs type really shouldn't have any effect in Linux unless you're using a poorly written helper.
    Anyway, give us something concrete to work with, s/a output of fdisk -l, lsblk -f, dumpe2fs -h, the relevant output of mount when the partitions are mounted, the permissions of the mountpoint when mounted, an example of the contents of the fs, etc.
    Other thoughts: Have the partitions been fsck'd lately? Have you looked at your journal from around the time things started going sideways?

  • External Seagate Hard Drive with Apple Ipad Air

    I've just read that you can buy a Seagate Expansion 1TB Portable Hard Drive USB 3.0 (Model Number: STBF500300) which is powered from the USB cable, so there is no need for an external power supply. However, I already own a Seagate 500 gigabyte desktop external hard drive which I've had for about a year. Anyone know whether it would be compatible with the Ipad Air?

    No, not directly. You would need to transfer your data from your iPad to your Mac and then back it up to an external drive.
    Pete

  • Unable to move .avi files in a folder to my external seagate hard drive

    please help me! whenever i try to do so, it consistently says "cannot move _, an error has occurred (error code -50)" or "the item ___ is in use" even though nothing is open but the finder! help me out here, please.

    The good news is there is finally a hard drive copying mechanism that requires no computer!
    You will need to remove the hard drive from its external case and put it in that mechanism, but at least it will solve your file copying issues.
    http://the-gadgeteer.com/2010/03/30/startech-satdock22r-usb-to-sata-standalone-h ard-drive-dock-duplicator-review/
    I don't work for Startech, just am a very happy customer.
    That's just something to keep in back of your mind should you end up getting a new drive.
    Since the drive is USB, it likely is getting hung by other USB devices on your system. Go to Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info, and select USB.
    Make sure the hard drive is not on the same bus as other devices. Every single item on the same bus can slow down the hard drive.

  • My external Seagate hard drive won't show up on my iMac

    I've had my Seagate external hard drive connected to my iMac for some time now and have been using it for Time Machine Backups....  Recently I noticed the drive would not show up in the finder and backup began to fail because it couldn't find the drive.

    Hello Jwlane64,
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
    For more information on this, take a look at:
    Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3275
    AirPort Time Capsule: Time Machine backups may not mount; "Backup volume cannot be found" may appear
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1170
    Best of luck,
    Mario

  • Best method for importing mini DV tape movies directly to an external seagate hard drive for later import to iMovies ??

    Best method for importing mini DV tape movies directly to an Seagate external hard drive,for later import to imovie event???

    The simplest and cheapest option is LifeFlix.  They have more info at www.lifeflix.com or on the Mac app store at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lifeflix/id630212114?ls=1&mt=12

Maybe you are looking for

  • Update to Oracle BPM Suite 11.1.1.4

    We're currently testing Oracle BPM 11gR1 (11.1.1.3.0) which is running on a clustered environment (Weblogic). We would like to know if there is any documentation on how to upgrade the current installation for the new patch - 11gR1 (11.1.1.4.0). It ju

  • Updating to 2.0

    I sync my music and videos and photos to my account at home and I sync my contacts, calender, and e-mail at work. Well I am at work and want to update to 2.0 but it says that I should do this where I sync my media because I will loose all of my photo

  • Edit a picture and go to the next photo

    When I edit a picture and go to the next photo where is the photo I just edited saved?

  • Flicker Video Issues

    Hi I m using adobe pro cs5 i have NVIDIA GTX 560 TI ,1 GB, I m getting a flicker screen after i play with the speed duration( if i speed up or speed down the video) any suggestion?? Thanks??

  • "Paste Email Plus 5.1" no longer works - why??

    I have a Firefox add on called "Paste Email Plus 5.1" which allows you to paste email addresses into any text field. It is a great add on and I use it a lot but today it stopped working. I click on it and nothing happens except the appearance of a ti