Can't boot from external hard drive with Snow Leopard

I bought a new Macbook Air with Lion. I have my old Snow Leopard installation cloned onto an external hard drive, and I want to boot from it. I can choose my external hard drive during boot, it shows the Apple logo, but after that the screen goes black and nothing happens. Is there a way to fix this?

Can't be done. Snow Leopard does not contain necessary drivers and perhaps other items required for OS X on the 2011 MBA. In fact, the version of Lion on the App store won't install on the 2011 MBA.
This is totally normal in Apple's world. A new version of MAC hardware that comes with a new version of OS X installed usually will not operate correctly with previous versions of OS X.

Similar Messages

Can I boot an internal hard drive with snow leopard?

Hi, I Have an Mid 07 macbook which i'm in the process of upgrading. I have a hard drive that i am up grading from 160gb to 500gb. my problem is i dont have a boot disc, because it's ethier been lost or didn't come with one. my question is can i just format the new hard drive with a copy of snow leopard?

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc. Insert the disc into the
         optical drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the
         "C" key. Release the key when you see a small spinning gear appear below the
         dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, set the format type to Mac
         OS Extended (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Partition button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.

External Hard Drive with Snow Leopard/Windows 7

I just bought a 500GB external HD that I would like to be able to use with Snow Leopard AND Win 7. I won't be using it for any Time Machine backups. I just want to be able to read/write files on it with both Leopard and Win 7.
Is there any recommended format procedures in order to be able to do this. I may be wrong, but I don't think I can read/write to my external Time Machine external hard drive with my Windows lap top running Win 7.

a TM drive must be formatted mac os extended and windows can't even read that without extra software like Mac Drive. It also requires that the partition scheme be GUID which it's most likely not at the moment so repartition the drive with correct partition scheme now if you do decide to use it for TM in the future. also, snow bootcamp drivers once you install them in windows will let you red (but not write) to mac os extended formatted drives.
the only FS which is natively read+write from both OS X and windows is FAT. but it's very old and has many deficiencies especially on the OS X side.
but it's good for interoperability.
or you can format the drive NTFS and use some software like NTFS-3g or NTFS for mac by paragon to make it writable from OS X.
you may also wish to split the drive in two partitions and format them differently.

Can't boot from external hard drive

I have a 250 GB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Firewire drive that I use for backups for my MacBook Pro (running 10.4.8) and iBook G4 (running 10.3.9). The drive is partitioned into four parts, two of which I use for bootable clones of the MBP and iBook. I've been able to boot from the MBP clone, but whenever I try to boot from the iBook clone, after a few seconds of the gray screen with the Apple logo on it and the spinning circle, the Apple logo turns into a gray circle with a diagonal line through it, and the spinning thing keeps spinning, and it never boots up. (For lack of a better description, the circle with the line through it is a gray version of the symbol you see, for instance, in the Ghostbusters logo.)
Here's a few things that aren't (or don't seem to be) the problem:
- I'm not trying to boot from the wrong machine--i.e., I'm not trying to boot the iBook clone from the MBP
- Since I've tried creating the clone with both EMC Retrospect Express and SuperDuper and get the same result with both, it doesn't seem to be the backup software
- I've tried completely erasing the partition (including erasing the free space) from both the MBP and the iBook before creating the clone
- Just for good voodoo, I've also repaired permissions, reset the NVRAM, and run a disk repair on both the internal iBook disk and the clone
- The iBook definitely recognizes it as a bootable drive, since it shows up when I hold down the option key during boot, and also in the Startup Disk section of System Preferences
I'm a little stymied at this point. The only other things I can think of would be that (a) I need to completely reformat and repartition the drive (which I don't really want to do, since I also have other backups and data on there), or (b) for some reason the fact that I initially created the partitions on the MBP is preventing the iBook from using those partitions (i.e., I can only create Intel-only or PPC-only partitions, which I hope isn't the problem, since that would mean I'd need a whole separate drive just to back up the iBook).
Anyone have any idea what's going on?

The MBP and iBook require different partition schemes to be bootable. You won't be able to boot both computers from the same drive.
I can't install Mac OS X on a hard drive
If the installer won't let you install Mac OS X on a hard drive and gives as the reason "Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume," the drive may not have the partition scheme that the Installer requires. The needed partition scheme depends on the type of processor in your Mac. The installer installs Mac OS X for Intel-based Macintosh computers only on drives with the GUID partition scheme. It installs Mac OS X for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers only on drives with the Apple partition scheme.
To check the external drive's partition scheme, open Disk Utility, select the drive in the list, choose File > Get Info, and look for the "Partition Type." If you can't see the "Partition Type," you may have selected the volume instead of the disk. (Drives are flush left, with their volumes indented to the right below them.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh2315.html
John

I'm trying to boot my new iMac running Mavericks from an external hard drive with Snow leopard but it fails with a window telling me to power down manually. It works with my old iMac.

I have made a bootable copy of OS 10.6.8 onto an external G-drive from my 2007 24" iMac with success. I can't boot up my my new 2013 imac that has Mavericks installed. Any suggestions?

trey4 wrote:
I have made a bootable copy of OS 10.6.8 onto an external G-drive from my 2007 24" iMac with success. I can't boot up my my new 2013 imac that has Mavericks installed. Any suggestions?
Why do you want to run Snow Leopard on your new 2013 iMac with Mavericks?

HP Pavilion 500-210 QE Can't boot from any hard drive.

Good Evening. As you can see from the subject, my computer just can't boot from any hard drive that I put on it. I tried swapping the power supply, the SATA cable, resetting the BIOS, enabling legacy boot, changing from AHCI to IDE and RAID...
When I get to the BIOS setup, I can see the hard drive and its specifications, but it just won't boot or show up when I'm trying to install a new OS. I'm not an expert, but I think the problem might be in the motherboard SATA ports, but I'm not sure. Just to make sure, I did try another hard drive and it didn't work aswell.
I was also thinking about buying an external hard drive and instaling my OS on that, but I don't even know if that's possible and I would really like to have my computer working again.
Thank you for your attention!
This question was solved.
View Solution.

What is the installed operating system?
Did you make a recovery disk set?
Did you happen to make a Windows 8.1 startup disk or USB recovery thumbdrive?
Have you tested the hard disk?
Press the power button and then immediately tap the Esc key. In the Startup menu, choose F2 for Diagnostics. In the HP Basic System Diagnostics menu choose hard disk. Run the test and post the results here.
The issue you are facing has nothing to do with the SATA ports. It is a configuration issue. Your PC is a modern one and its BIOS (UEFI) is far more advanced than what you may have seen before.
If you want to install a different operating system then you will have to make a few changes in the BIOS configuration. Secure Boot is turned on by default for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. If you try installing a different OS without turning this off then your system won't boot up. You may be running into this if you are trying to install another operating system.
The image below is what will be seen in the BIOS of your PC in the security tab --> . In the secure boot configuration options do not clear the secure boot keys! Those keys are your operating system license activation keys.
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

Booting from external hard drive on intel-based MacBook Pro

Good day everyone. I know similar questions were raised in this community, but I still have some questions.
I have MacBook Pro(late 2011) with OS X 10.7.5 and external hard drive with Ubuntu 13.04, from wich i can boot succefully on my PC. But MacBook Pro will not boot from my external drive, no matter which key/combination i use during restart.
After googling I found some answers to my initial question, how to boot from external hard drive
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1852633?start=0&tstart=0
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/faq/macbook-pro-boot-from-exte rnal-firewire-or-usb-drive.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1948
As I understand I need to format my external hard drive into GUID partition type and this will be enough to be able to boot from it on my mac?
With this new partition type, will I be able to install ubuntu again on my external drive?
Does GUID partition type supports NTFS, ext4 and FAT32, linux swap?(I use ntfs for big files, ext4 as partition for ubuntu and fat32, because i use windows, linux and osx)
Will I be able to boot from my pc from my external drive with this new partition type?
What are downsides, if any, to GPT?
here is info on my e-drive

LowLuster wrote:
The only OS that will boot from an external drive is Mac OS X or maybe Linux. For OS X to be installed on any drive it need to be formatted Mac OS Extended and have GUID partition table.
As for Linux I'm not that familiar with it but again for a Mac to boot it need an EFI partition on the drive and I don't think that is possible with NTFS or FAT32 let alone the native Linux format.
Went to wiki to learn more on efi but found artice on uefi.
Operating system loaders are a class of the UEFI applications. As such, they are stored as files on a file system that can be accessed by the firmware, called EFI System partition (ESP). Supported file systems include FAT32, FAT16 and FAT12, and supported partition table scheme is GPT only. UEFI does not rely on a boot sector, although ESP provides space for it as part of the backwards compatibility.[26]
Here is FAQ on official uefi website.
Can UEFI Secure Boot be adopted and implemented by a variety of operating systems?
UEFI specifications are platform-independent, supporting multiple platforms and architectures. In addition, UEFI specifications are designed to promote cross-functionality, as well as to support broad adoption across multiple operating systems, including Windows as well as Linux-based operating systems. The specifications are robust and can potentially complement—or even advance—other distributions, such as Linux-based distributions.
And here is wiki article on GPT expaining OS support.
It is obvious both uefi and GPT are ok with Linux and file systems such as FAT32, ext4 and NTFS.
I guess there is no much difference(or is that the same thing?) between uefi and efi used in Macs.
In your answer to Stark Industries you said that mac can boot linux from external hard drive, well this is not the info i got of official website and it is still my question, because your answer is very inconclusive and your info is partially incorrect

Can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

There are WiFi enabled portable hard drives available that can stream media, such as music or video, to your iPad, but no external hard drive in the sense of how you would use one with a computer.

Can I have mavericks time machine on one partition of a WD external hard drive and snow leopard data on another

can I have mavericks time machine on one partition of a WD external hard drive and snow leopard data on another

If you want to and it is so large that it has room (350% is a good estimate for TimeMachine), then use a partition(s) to hold system restore images or bootable clones. Or VM images.
Using SSDs most Mac Pro models can easily hold 6 or more storage devices inside, except the nMP cylinder 6,1's; which do need external Thunderbolt and USB3.
System drive / data / scratch / backup data / backups of system / ....
I recommend a couple system backups, especially when faced with dual boot situations as well as an OS that is still undergoing updates and changes.

Why won't my iMac 27" boot from external hard drive?

I have a new 27in Intel i5 dual core 3.6GHz iMac. It works wonderfully.
My question is this. I have a Pleides Ice Cube external hard drive with a USB 2.0/Firewire enclosure with a 500GB hard drive. I used diskutility to format the hard drive as a GUID Partition Table. I then used SuperDuper to clone the iMac OS 10.6.7 and Apps over to it.
I can select the external drive in System Preferences/Startup Disk to boot from, but when booting the iMac gets as far as the white screen then just stops loading.
I have tried both the USB connection and the Firewire connection (with a Firewire 800 to 400 cable).
I have run Disk Utility and repaired the disk and the preferences.
I have used Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory as well, but the iMac will not boot from the drive.
It does boot from the original DVD's and its own hard drive.
My old 24" iMac had no trouble booting from this hard drive or any of the others I have collected over the years, so I am reluctant to think it is the external drive. It is something to do with this particular processor Snow Leopard and external drives.

It sounds like something in the SuperDuper clone might not have copied well. To get the full answer on that I would check with Apple or SuperDuper to see if they support each other.
As a quick test, if you restart and immediately press and hold "option" on your keyboard do you see your external HD as an option to boot from? If so, click it and see if the boot runs any differently, but if you don't see it at all that could show that the problem is more deep rooted.
Personally, if looking in to either of those didn't give me any other info to go on, I would reformat and start the clone again. BTW, do you know for sure GUID Partition is the format you'd want to do this on? Generally macs use "Mac OS Extended" and some external HDs can use "FAT32" (if you want them to work well with Windows)
Hope that gives a little direction
Alex

How can I partition an external hard drive with data in it? When I select the drive, the partition option is grayed out.

I am having a problem partitioning an external hard drive with data in it.
When I select the partition, everything is grayed out. I can't add a a partition for some reason. When I asked this question to other people, they told me to select my partition "io" to do it from there.
As you can see, I can't seem to partition it form there either. I ran the Verify Disk utility but the volume came out okay.
Any ideas as to what the problem would be?
Thanks!
Luis

Select the main hard drive entry (topmost one.) Click on the Partition tab. Shrink the existing partition by grabbing the sizing gadget in the bottom right corner and pushing up until you free up enough space for your second partition. Be sure you do not shrink to less than the space currently occupied by your files. Click on the Add[+] button to create a new partition in the free space. Click on the Apply button and wait until the partitioning is completed.

Booting from External Hard Drive (Time Machine)

I just learned that my hard drive is failing. I haven't backed up my data for a while, so I bought a new 1 Terabyte Seagate Drive for Mac. It's one of the new models that don't need a power cord; you just connect it to your computer.
Anyway, a guy at the Genius Bar told me that I can use Time Machine to create a virtual clone on an external drive. I later realized that I might be able to boot up with my external drive and work with my cloned hard drive if my internal hard drive. I've done that with Carbon Copy Cloner before.
Anyway, that's my main question - can one boot up a MacBook Pro on a virtual clone created by Time Machine instead of using the internal hard drive? If so, how do you access it? I think I recall having to hold down a key (Option?) while the computer is booting up, which forces it to give you a choice of hard drives.
One more question: I've backed up some files on my new external drive - about 200 GB in several folders. My internal hard drive is 750 GB, of which about 180 GB is free. In other words, I need about 775 GB space on my external hard drive (570 GB for a virtual clone of my internal drive and 200 GB for the files I've already copied to it. Since it has 1 TB of space, that should be a breeze.
But can I use an external hard drive when it already contains files? In other words, will enabling Time Machine wipe out the files I've already copied to my external drive? Ordinarily, it wouldn't be a problem; I'd simply be replacing some folders with ALL the contents of my internal hard drive, including those same folders. However, I'm a little conerned because my hard drive is failing. I'm just worried that Time Machine might erase the files on my external drive, then poop out before it's finished creating a virtual clone.
So those are my main questions - can I enable Time Machine without wiping out files already copied to an external hard drive, and, once I've copied my entire internal hard drive to the external drive, can I boot up with the external drive and work on it? Thanks.

Hmmmm...I don't know what you mean by "restored," but it sounds like I'm out of luck (my OS X version is 10.7.5). It sounds like I need to purchase another external hard drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable clone on it, right? And could someone remind me how you access multiple hard drives when booting a computer? I remember you have to hold down a particular key(s) while it's booting.
Thanks.

Boot from external hard drive

I have just loaded Leopard 10.5 wonderful but not overwhelming. It deleted OS 9 and now ALL my cool classic games won't run. I have a eMac G4...Can I add an external hard drive..load OS9 on it and boot and run my games???

Bill W wrote:
If your eMac was capable of booting directly into OS9 before,
I suspect that any eMac which could boot OS 9 would have to be 800 or 700 MHz units, and therefore will have problems installing Leopard. (Min speed: 867 MHz, and the installer checks.)
then yes you can install it on an external drive (firewire), assuming the OS9 installer sees the external drive. I think you might also be able to reload OS9 onto your internal drive without partitioning. If that doesn't work, another option is to partition the internal drive and install 9 on a separate partition.
The OS 9 System Folder may still be around. (I don't know, I haven't installed Leopard yet.) However, Classic is dead and gone on Leopard.
His best bet would be to get an external drive, install a pre Leopard version of OS X (and Classic) on it, and reboot from that drive when he wants to run Classic. I have already set up an external drive to do just that in the event that I need to run Classic on my iMac. My eMac will simply stay at Tiger.

Can I connect an external hard drive, with a FireWire connector to AirPort Extreme?

I am considering getting AirPort Extreme. I need to be able to connect an external hard drive with a firewire connection. Can it be done?

Sorry, but no.

G5 won't boot from external hard drive

I have installed Leopard on my external hard drive, but have not gone through the 'setup'. I want to boot my G5 from the hd now, but when I restart holding down the option key, the internal hard drive is the only option that appears. When I do boot from the internal hd, the external hd is recognised perfectly and I can see all the files and everything - I just can't seem to boot from it. The newer iMac I used to install Leopard on the external hd will boot from it, but the G5 refuses to recognise it in the boot options.
Any help much appreciated.

No. If you boot an installer disc on an Intel Mac it will only install an Intel version of OS X. You would need to boot the installer disc on the G5 then install OS X onto your external drive. However, if you do that you will not be able to boot the Intel Mac with the external drive. The only solution to using one external drive on both computers is to partition the drive. Install OS X on one partition using the G5, and install OS X on the other partition using the Intel Mac.

Can't boot from external hard drive with Snow Leopard

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