Can't boot from my C drive

I tried BDAqua's method I was able to see my options to boot using the option key when starting up my computer but after selecting the options nothing happens after. HELPPP!!!!!

Hi again, it might be better to continue in one of the other threads going on this issue, like...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15207577#15207577
Did you try any of those last suggestions yet?

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Can I boot from a SATA drive? What if it's RAID?

I'm planning on getting the MSI 875P Neo FIS2R 800FSB motherboard. I'm also planning on getting ONE SATA hard drive. Can I boot from the SATA drive? Do I HAVE to set up it as a RAID drive? Can you boot from RAID drives? RAID and SATA confuse me a little. Anyone care to help?

I'm using the MSI 865PE Neo2 board and I'm having this problem. It probably has an easy solution, but this is my first build, so I'm not sure exactly what to do.
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2.4b P4
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Panasonic FDD
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It took me a little bit of experimenting, but I got the BIOS to recogonize the DVD & HDD. It seems every time I got it to recognize one, the other disappeared. Anyway, like I said, BIOS recognizes all 3 now.
I go to install XP and it says I need to install the drivers from a floppy (after I had previously hit F6). Well, where do I get the drivers? I have a CDROM that came with the mobo but I don't know where to find the drivers for the SATA controller on it. ???
Can someone help me by directing me to a download and/or the file names that I need to transfer to floppy for Win XP installation? I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Can I boot from an external drive with a "Virtual CD"

I just purchased a Hitachi LifeStudio external hard drive for use as my Time Machine backup. When I plugged it in to my MacBook running 10.6.4, I realized that it had one of those "Virtual CDs" that contained the manufacturers crapware, similar to Western Digital's MyWare or whatever its called. It shows up in disk utility as an actual separate disk and not just another partition that can be wiped.
I reformatted the drive using GUID and and created 3 HFS+ Journaled partitions. One was going to be for the 10.6 installer, one for the 10.6 boot, and one for my time machine backup. I restored a 10.6 install dvd disk image I created using disk utility to the 10.6 installer partition (with erase destination checked) then option booted my mac and the partitions did not show up. The only thing I could see was my internal hard drive.
I have done this many times before and it has always worked so Im trying to figure out what Im doing wrong. The only thing I can think of is that the "Virtual CD" that Hitachi put on this external drive is stopping the Mac from seeing the bootable partitions I created. I even went into system preferences>startup disk and blessed the 10.6 install partition. That didn't work either, the computer just booted to my internal drive.
So my questions are. Is it because of this "Virtual CD" that I can't boot from my external drive? If so, is there a way around it? I already searched their web site and emailed their tech support asking for a firmware update to remove the virtual cd.
Thanks in advance.

Yes, it's a known issue. You've already referred to the issue with WD systems. WD has a long list of products that are either not compatible with Macs or won't boot a Mac.
There are practically no problems with bare drives, but once installed in an enclosure there is no guarantee that the package will function as a bootable device. This is especially the case if the manufacturer uses some sort of "virtual" scheme intended for using the device as a sort of one button backup device.
External drives don't have to specifically say anything about being Mac bootable or compatible. It's up to the consumer to verify compatibility and usability.

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

Can't boot from IDE hard drives

Just purchased a barebones system with a KEN NEO Platinum board running an AMD 64 3400+. Tried to install old Maxtor hard drive (40 gb) into new system and a blue screen pops up for less than one second and reboots PC. I can’t read the blue screen but I believe it is saying there is a hardware conflict.
What is causing this. The CMOS recognizes the HD but it can't boot from it. I’ve got two of these units and both have the same problems. I put the drive back into the original PC and it works fine.
Need help desperately.

When I connect the cables, they show which is the slave and which is the master. In the CMOS, everything looks fine. I've noticed alot of people are having difficulty installing used and new hard drives. I've been working with PC's for quite a while and I've never had this much trouble. I was hoping there was something I missed in the CMOS settings.

Trying to install SL on a new hard-drive for my iMac, when asked which disk to install on it gave me no options, i followed advice from another forum and created a partition, now can't boot from the new drive at all. Help?

I've had **** with my iMac, the hard-drive failed so i replaced it with a new 1TB Samsung drive. Then when i tried to install SL from the install disk, all went to plan until it asked me which drive i wanted to install it on, where it came up with a box where my options should have been, but instead it didn't give me any options to install it on any drive i.e. it asked which drive i wanted to install it on but no drives came up to select.
So i followed the advice from another forum, look at the 'Extended Hard-drive preparation' response
( https://discussions.apple.com/message/10576009#10576009 )
After following these instructions i have now got a new partition, but when i restarted my computer to install SL on the drive, the option to boot from the drive is now not available, now i must boot from the install disk, whereas before i was able to boot from either the install disk or the hard drive. The hard drive is still visible in disk utility as it always has been, but i am now unable to boot from it, let alone install SL.
Please help my iMac has been broken for months and i've been trying to fix it for so long and am getting problem after problem. Thank you!
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Hi db2
That off the shelf MS-DOS / FAT-32 drive needs to re-partitioned GUID Partition Table / Mac OS Extended (Journaled) before you can install OS X and Startup your Intel iMac from it.
1. Boot from your original install or retail SL DVD and open Disk Utility.
2. Highlight the new HD in the list of drives and select the Partition tab.
3. Under Volume Scheme select 1 Partition and click on the Options... button.
4. Select GUID Partition Table in the drop down window and click OK.
5. Set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Apply button.
6. Once thats done, then you can do a clean SL Install, Restore from TM , your old HD or Bootable Clone.
Dennis

Did a little too much maintenence - now I can't boot from my system drive

I figured I'd watch the Bears game this afternoon and do a little maintenence on my G4/733, currently runnint 10.4.9.
I booted from an older (10.3.9) system disk I have in the computer, Verified the disk (all was well, no repairs needed), then booted from my Disk Warrior (Tiger) disk and rebuilt the directory. Booted from the newly verified and rebuilt disk and it started up fine. Then ran Onyx and emptied several caches, including the system cache and kernel cache. Ooops, no longer boots...instead, I get the grey Apple screen, and then it just sits. When this happened the first time, I reset the PRAM by pressing the restart button six times...still no boot action.
The drive mounts fine, and so I'm in the process of copying the entire volume over to an external drive before performing any more maintenence. I can't do an archive and install from my supplied OS disc, as it's a lower OS version than I'm currently running. I'm loathe to do an erase and install, as then I get to perform the always-painful "make the computer work like it used to" process. And, the maintenence steps I've taken on this drive are nothing I haven't done recently on my other two Macs (both now running 10.4.10), both of which are running fine. So I'm still classifying this glitch as "minor".
Any suggestions out there? I'm gonna try to repair the disk again, and then run the OS 10.4.10 upgrade, unless I hear different from anyone here. Idears?

I had a similar problem. A mac started doing wierd things like not starting. All the tests showed no problem except one..I ran TechTool and did a full surface scan. It showed some bad blocks. The only way to repair was to clone to a back-up----erase and zero out the whole drive---then restore from the back-up.
That cured it....even a disk utility did not see the error.
Bad blocks can happen anytime, it may be no big deal but if this is your problem check it every so often and if more start showing up....start shopping..
Cheers,
Glynn

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

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.

Can't boot from external Lion drive on Retina Macbook

Hey guys,
I like to create clones of my startup disk when transitioning between machines or systems to be able to boot from these if anything goes wrong, I forgot stuff, sell the old machine etc. etc.. This always worked nicely, I have an external drive with two partitions, one Snow Leopard, one Lion that I can boot from with my old macs running Lion.
Now I just got a new Retina Macbook and 10.8.3 doesn't let me boot from either, the Lion partition just gives me the prohibitory sign.
I'm aware that the Retina Macbooks won't run Snow Leopard but from what I read they should let me boot from systems as "old" as 10.7.4. Is there something I am missing here?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
V

MacBooks Pro with Retina display came with a special OS X 10.7.4 build when they were launched, so if you are trying to start from a OS X 10.7.4 installed on a different computer, your computer won't start. Also, note that your Mac may be restricted to use OS X Mountain Lion or later by firmware. It's worse in the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, which can only run Mountain Lion

Can't boot from an upgraded drive

Hi, I upgraded a 12" PowerBook G4 to a 160GB HD. The machine was running 10.4.11 on its original 60GB drive.
The new drive formatted correctly (extended), and I clean installed OS 10.4 without a hitch. But on reboot, after the apple logo, I ended up with a solid blue screen. Tried an update to 10.4.11, and got the same result. I zapped the PRAM and still can't boot -- though now I start up with vertical pinstripes behind the apple logo, then a black screen.
I've checked the new drive thoroughly with Disk Utility and Tech Tool, and no problems there. SMART status fine, same power requirements, etc. Boot ROM version is 4.9 0f0, which should support a 160 GB drive, if I'm not mistaken, but can't find any info on the Support site as to what the correct Boot ROM version should be to run with 10.4.11.
I can boot fine from the original drive via a firewire enclosure, so no hardware problems with the G4.
Any ideas? Thanks!

Okay, I don't know what happened, but it seems to be fixed now.
I migrated the old system files over from the original drive (hadn't wanted to, as I assumed a clean install would simplify things). After doing that, I got a kernel panic screen at startup, which after a blank screen, seemed like progress.
Then I zapped PRAM and reset the PMU again, and voila. Everything is fine. If anyone has any clue what could've been better about a crufty old System folder than a fresh clean install of the same version of the OS, I'd love to know.

How can I boot from an external drive?

I am unsuccessful trying to have the external backup drive to boot the Powerbook. I tried first a USB Lacie Mobile Disk, then thinking USB was the problem I got a FireWire Little Disk of the same brand. None will boot even if the disk appears in the startup disk control panel. When I boot with option key, the choice is no longer there. Maybe they require a power supply other than the USB power lead? Any experience?

USB drives are not bootable for PowerBooks. FireWire drive usually needs to be used with the power supply since it consumes more power than the USB
Right! So there is no way to boot from an external without a power source.
Thanks Arnie.

X86 install was successful, but now I can't boot from the hard drive

I have successfully installed Solaris 10 for x86 from the bootable CD ROMs. However, now, after removing the CD-ROM from the drive and booting from the hard disk I am having problems.
The system attempts to boot. It displays the Solaris Primary Boot Subsytem v2.0 screen...pauses for 15 seconds...then reboots itself. And it continues this process.
However, if I boot to CD-ROM first, then boot to the Hard Drive, I have no problems. The CDE comes up fine.
We are running a 64 bit OS with a SATA drive that is supported. And as I mentioned, the install successfully completed.
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

is your hard drive connected as IDE0 - primary master? if not try doing so.

Suddenly, I can't boot from my alternate drive (which runs 10.4.11)

I run OS 10.6.8 on a Mac Pro 2.66 Ghz Dual Core. On a separate drive, I run OS 10.4.11 (for some older software).
That setup has worked for years. But today, I can't start up from the 10.4 drive. When I go into System Preferences: Startup Disk, the 10.4 drive shows as an option. So I select it, and click Restart. The Mac then takes a long time, as though it can't find the 10.4 drive, and finally restarts from the 10.6 drive.
The only clue I can think of is that I used Disk Utility yesterday to repair permissions on the 10.6 drive. I MAY have used Disk Utility also on the 10.4 drive, though the only options are verify disk and repair disk--and I don't think I did any repair.
Disk Utility says the 10.4 volume appears to be OK.
Can anybody help me? Thanks in advance!

I'm not entirely certain of this, but I don't think you need the BR2032. The CR2032 is what OWC sells for Mac Pros. They're very cheap there, but you'd have to pay for shipping and then wait. You can easily find a CR2032 for around $5 or less at a Radio Shack or even a CVS or any chain like that.
So what's the difference between a CR2032 and a BR2032?
Most lithium cells have a nominal terminal potential of 3 volts. Like other types of primary (i.e., non-rechargeable) cells, however, their voltage isn't perfectly uniform over time and use. Because of somewhat different composition, the BR-type cells yield more uniform voltage over most of their useful life, but near end of life, their terminal voltage falls fairly rapidly. Because of that, they are often called constant-voltage lithium cells. CR-type cells, on the other hand, exhibit a more gradual decline in voltage over most of the discharge period, and thus they may give somewhat longer service in circuits designed to tolerate a wider range of terminal voltage, and they tolerate higher continuous load currents. In addition to typically having somewhat higher rated capacities, they also tend to cost less than their BR-type counterparts, which largely accounts for their greater popularity.
http://www.batteryhatch.com/cgi-bin/bhx.cgi?pg=HO-#selectionguide
I wouldn't use a tweezers. Could cause a short in the PRAM circuit and really ruin your day. Maybe a strip of non-skid rubber to grip it and slide it out carefully with your fingers. But do be certain to ground yourself before doing this, in case of any static electricity buildup. Might even get a wrist strap (I got one from RS, but that was years ago. Don't know if they still sell them). Then again, if you're in the US, it's probably humid enough right now where you are not to have to worry about static electricity buildup and discharge wrecking a tender chip. Something more to be concerned about during dry winter days. Just ground yourself first on a radiator pipe and then momentarily grip the Mac Pro chassis while you are engaging any of the components.
I would definitely change the battery. 7 years is about the limit for one of those lithium coin cell batteries.

Can I boot from an external drive

Can I run snow leopard from an external drive? If so, would my user directory need to be moved to it?
If not, would it create a new one on the external drive?

I don't want to use the same OS. I need to go back to Tiger for a specific app.
So can it be FireWire or USB?
I assume a new user directory would be created. Should it have a different user name?
Could I see the older one and use files from it? If so, could I also use apps on it or would I have to install them again on the external drive?
Or would that confuse the Mac?
Would the original drive appear like another accessible drive on the desktop or would it appear as a drive I would have no access to?
I am on a network where I can see other macs and use files from them? Would this behave like that? I have access to my files as the same user on other macs, but no access to other users files.

Can't boot from bootable FW drives

I have two LaCie d2 external FW400 drives, both with Tiger installs on them. Booted from either for a long time using my old G4 TiBook and G4 Dig Audio tower. Now, with a new MacPro & 10.5.2, these drives are mounted and recognized, writeable and readable, but not as boot volumes. Neither is an option in Startup Disk. Help?

Tiger for Mac Pro would have to be cloned or installed on the drive volume. Tiger from a G4 or retail kit is a DIFFERENT OS than that used for INTEL. The G4/5 used PowerPC chips and won't run on INTEL.
Leopard is Universal OS.
Also, make sure that "Ignore Ownership" is OFF and that you repair permissions before trying to boot.
It isn't that it is "old" only that it is the wrong OS version.
Get yourself another FW drive and format it to GUID and then clone or install OS X from your Mac Pro disks. That is the only version that will work.

Can't boot from my C drive

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