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.

Similar Messages

  • 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
    17" 2.2ghz i7 Quad Core MBP, (that has 10.6.6 pre-installed.)
    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.

  • My iMac (late 2006) no longer boots from FireWire drives, although they contain all the system files.

    My iMac (late 2006) no longer starts (boots) from Firewire drives, although they all contain a current system (Mac OS X 10.6.7). If the drives are connected with USB 2, they boot normally. The FireWire drives appear in the Start Volume program, but they do not boot. If I press and hold the Alt key while booting, only the internal drives and the USB drives appear as options. What can I do in order to boot from FireWire drives as I always could in the past?

    I'd first recommend doing a SMC reset and if that doesn't work refer to:
    http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10333969-263.html
    and
    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/firewiretroubleshooting.html
    SMC RESET
    Shut down the computer.
    Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
    Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
    Release the power button.
    Attach the computers power cable.
    Press the power button to turn on the computer.
    PRAM RESET
    Shut down the computer.
    Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
    Turn on the computer.
    Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
    Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
    Release the keys.
    Roger

  • Booting from FireWire Drive

    I have a LaCie 160MB (F A Porsche style) external firewire drive.
    I have been able to create a bootable clone of my iBook HD using Disk Utility and the Restore function.
    I have been able to create a bootable partition by installing the System Software onto it.
    But I have not had success using SilverKeeper or SuperDuper! Does anybody know why? I would really like to use the features of one (or another if available) of these applications.
    Thanks.
    -Ted

    Below is LaCie's Tech Support Reply. What is interesting is that they suggest Carbon Copy Cloner (instead of Silverkeeper). Also interesting is that it worked. I hope this helps some of you.
    Ted
    Hi Ted--
    Thanks for contacting LaCie Technical Support. All of our firewire
    drives can be used as boot volumes. Due to differences in operating
    systems and Macs, we are unable to provide support for booting from
    firewire drives other than the following information:
    1. Make sure the Mac is bootable via firewire. All Macs with built-in
    firewire can be booted from an external drive except:
    -Blue and White G3s
    -PCI-Graphics G4s. This can be determined by looking in the Apple
    System Profiler. The PCI Graphics G4s use the same motherboard as the
    B&W, except with a G4 processor shoehorned in.
    2. The drive must be connected to a native port. It will not work if
    the drive is connected to an add-on card.
    3. The Mac must have the latest firmware installed. The proper updater
    can be found and downloaded from here:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
    Download and read the instructions carefully. It is possible to kill a
    Mac if the update is interrupted. Then, perform the update. If the
    firmware is already current, the updater will report this.
    4. Format the drive fresh using either Apple's Disk Utility in OS X or
    Silverlining in OS 9. Use the Mac OS Extended (HFS+) format only.
    (Journaling may be enabled on OS 10.3.)
    5. If making an OS 9 boot drive, you can just copy the System Folder
    over to the root of the boot volume. To be bootable, the System Folder
    must be blessed, i.e. has a happy Mac face on it. If it does not, you
    can try to force it to bless by removing the Finder from the folder and
    moving it to the root. Then, move the Finder back. The folder should
    now be blessed. If not, then there is probably an issue with the System
    Folder.
    6. In making an OS X boot drive, the ONLY two recommended solutions
    are:
    --install from the OS X install disk, preferably the one which came with
    the Mac. You will not be able to make a successful boot drive using an
    older disk set. A newer disk set should also be fine.
    --use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to perform a copy of an
    existing OS X install. It is not possible to do this manually. There
    are issues with permissions, hidden files, and files in use that cannot
    be manually overridden. If you are using a disk image, you will still
    need to use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to copy the files out
    from the image to the root of the new boot volume. A simple drag and
    drop will not include the necessary hidden files, such as the boot
    loader and the kernel.
    If the volume does not appear as a Start Up Disk, try booting with the
    Option key held down and see if the drive shows in the boot drive
    selection screen.
    If the volume does not show, or the kernel panics on boot, chances are
    the OS install was not performed properly.
    In general, CD/DVD drives are not bootable via firewire, but will work
    under certain circumstances, usually booting from OS X to OS X. They
    should not be relied upon as such. To boot from one, hold down the
    Option key while booting. If the boot CD shows on the screen, you may
    select it and continue the boot.

  • 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.)

  • MacBook Pro 8,1 beeps 3 times on boot from FireWire drive: why?

    Hi, all,
    about the brand spanking new 13" I bought, I immediately wanted to boot the FireWire drive so I could install Snow Leopard. Install disk image was copied to a dedicated partition on the FW drive to speed up install process.
    Holding the [alt] key during startup leads to 3 beeps that are indefinitely repeated. I also tried to select the relevant partition in the Control Panel Startup Disk. Same result
    Why doesn't it want to start from this image? How can I solve this issue?

    In fact, it is a late 2011, not an early 2011 "New Old Stock", so you're correct it shipped with Lion. But, aside from its weird ergonomics (Dynamically-attributed spaces and different gestures from the previous OS X versions), what turned me off was the official complete impossibility to get a physical copy of Lion at a reasonable price, when it is installed. I also wanted the mounted drives to appear at the top left corner in Finder windows, as they did in pre-Lion OS X, instead of the bottom left. I wanted to put back the Firefox profiles in their place... Turns out the Library folder isn't visible in Lion.
    Simply put, anything I wanted to do to start on the good foot wasn't possible on Lion.
    I went to the Genius Bar, and indeed their own external rescue drive also made the Mac beep. I told them about the Snow Leopard tethered downgrade. They were aware of the method, but there was no Snow Leopard Mac remaining in-store. And with the install DVD causing kernel panics, there was no way to at least try a dual-boot installation (Snow Leopard for mission-critical apps, Lion for playing around with).
    To another Apple-approved place I went. The young tech here was willing to perform the downgrade (since it would have cost me $75/hr), and had both Snow Leopard and Lion machines. But I argued that I wouldn't be willing to pay twice since I intend to switch to SSD in a short while. He then tested when booted from a clone, and Snow Leo half-installed on the internal drive (needs one reboot during installation), but it ended up in kernel panic. Same went when he tried the physical Snow Leopard disk after formatting the internal drive, hypothesizing something detected on it may prevent Snow Leopard installer to boot. It immediately went into a kernel panic.
    Both techs were actually surprised that this signal came out, instead of a message stating (official) incompatibility, as well as kernel panics.
    My hypothesis is there's something in the Snow Leopard installer that accesses the hardware at a lower level during installation, but not during normal execution or Target Mode, hence causing kernel panics in the former.
    What else can be tried, or what else didn't go through my mind?

  • Old G4 won't boot from firewire drive

    I have an older 400 MHz G4 running 10.3.9 and 10.1.5 which will not boot from a firewire system volume. Two system volumes (10.4) on the external drive appear as start up disk choices in the system preferences, but when selected the system displays a folder w/? upon restart and then the system boots from an OS 9 partition on one of the machines internal drives. This happens when the system is restarted from either of the computers boot partitions (10.3.9, 10.1.5). Don't know if this is a software or a hardware problem. Holding down the option key upon restart, even without the external OS 10.4 drive, produces same behavior. System info identifies the machine as a G3 but processor type as G4. It is one of the graphite colored Power Macs.
    Any insights appreciated.

    The G4 PCI graphics PowerMac can not boot off a Firewire hard drive. Check which G4 model you have here:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58418
    The G4 AGP and the iMac DV were the first Macs to be able to boot off Firewire.
    It is interesting your Mac identifies itself as a G3. Now it is true that the early G4s were basically a G3 with a slightly modified logicboard and front and side panels (as well as the omission of the ADB port). But there are G4s inserted in some old Blue and White G3s by adventurous upgraders. The Blue and White G3 pictured here can't boot off Firewire either:
    That Mac also can't boot off Firewire.

  • Re: Old G4 won't boot from firewire drive

    I am having the same problem with one I just received today. I have the AGP one but it will not but off of the firewire drive. Any insights on this?

    Hi, stupidipodnano -
    Okay -
    The firewire drive shows on the desktop, so there is nothing wrong with the Mac's hardware or the hardware for the drive.
    The drive's size, and the OS on it, are not incompatible (OS 9 can not boot from volumes larger that 200GB, but neither of those conditions pertain here).
    That leaves the issue of the installation of the OS.
    • If the OS (OSX 10.4.x) was installed while the drive was connected to a different model Mac, it is probably a model-specific install of the OS, and thus not capable of booting a different model.
    • If the OSX Install CD used is one that came with a different model, and not a retail one, that, too, would result in a non-bootable OS. The disks that come with a Mac are model-specific to that particular model and its hardware.
    • If the OS was copied from another source, rather than actually installed using the installer program, that, too, usually results in a non-bootable installation.
    What format is the firewire drive? You can determine that by doing a Get Info on the icon of the mounted drive.
    Did you reformat (initialize) the drive after gettting it? ...or did you go ahead and use it 'as-is' as soon as you got it? If you did not re-initialize it, it would be a good idea to do so. Note that this will erase everything on the drive.

  • 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.
    2010 mbp Intel ssd/momentus XT hybrid

    cleaning the drive worked.

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

    The internal drive on my PBG4 was making some funny noises this morning and sure enough, when I tried to reboot from it I was unable to. Instead I was brought to a screen with a DOS prompt with some cryptic error message. Since then I've called Apple support and their "solution" was to re-format the drive and reinstall the OS. I can do that if I absolutely have to, but if there's any way around it, I'd much rather avoid the reformatting/reinstalling everything nightmare scenario. Initially Disk Repair said the drive couldn't be repaired. I booted from my Disk Warrior CD (3.0.3), which prompted me to backup data (luckily I have an external 250GB drive) and I backed up my home directory. I did that and rebuilt the directory, then restarted from my Tiger CD and ran Disk utility again and it said the disk was fine. I tried to boot from the drive and I get taken to a DOS prompt again with the following error message:
    launchd can't exec /bin/sh for single user: No such file or directory
    Any suggestions on what I can try at this point short of reformatting the drive and starting over from scratch?
    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.

  • 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.

  • 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 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.
    Thanks for your help. Even though no success yet I suspect you've identified the problem.

  • 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.

  • Can not boot from Hard Drive and or CD

    Hi
    I have a SUN Blade 1000. I loaded Solaris 10 a few days ago
    and had it running pretty good until I ran an update program.
    Now I cannot boot the dam thing. IT just hangs at a * prompt somwhere in the boot process.
    I would like to re load Saolaris 10 but do not have a clue how to
    make the machine boot from the CDROM if I cannot get to the OK prompt and I cannot get to ANY prompt that will let me get ANYwhere for that mater.
    Is there some key or combination of keys I could push or something to get this dam thing to boot from the CDROM so I can start over???
    Thank you in advance.
    I have almost no experiance with SUN Solaris on SPARC or any other platform.
    I know Windows and x86 hardware very well and have built many machines.
    Is there a way to get into the Bios at boot time like with an x86 system? The last question is not as important as the first one of how do I boot this pig from the CD.
    Thanks
    Jim

    How did you begin the previous installation?
    Have you spent any time reading these forums?
    Use the forum search function, keywords ...
    "get to the ok prompt"
    (in quotation marks)

Maybe you are looking for