Can you boot from an external USB hard drive? (Neo2 Platinum)

As I'm tempted to get a 160Gb drive for Linux and AMD64 XP installations. But obviously it needs to beable to boot from it.
Thanks

I read a post recently about booting from a usb memory stick - I assume the principal is the same. You need to make the usb drive bootable, in the same way that you would make a cd or a diskette bootable. In the example given about a usb memory stick, they suggested copying the contents of a win98 startup disk onto the memory stick. Then, run 'sys.com' on the drive letter of the usb stick from the startup disk. Then, enable usb legacy support in the bios, and access the boot order to tell it to boot from the usb or legacy, I'm not sure which.
What you're in essence wanting to do is to copy the xpcd to the usb drive, so the format and files, etc., are the same. Then, follow with the usb legacy stuff, etc....

Similar Messages

Can PB boot from an External Firewire Hard Drive?

Can I set up an external firewire hard drive as an emergency boot drive, in case my internal drive goes south? Anyone have utility software recommendations for setting up boot drive or mirror drive, in addition to OS X's Disk Utility? Thanks.

Photon2:
Yes, you can set up your external firewire HDD as an emergency boot drive.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Your HDD must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2. (Optional) I suggest you partition your HDD so that the first partition is roughly equivalent to the size of your internal HDD. The rest can be partitioned for other uses. (See Dr. Smoke's FAQ Backup and Recovery) For step-by-step for formatting and partitioning please post back).
3. Use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your internal HDD to the external firewire HDD/partition.
Please post back with further questions or comments.
Cheers
cornelius

Can't boot from my External USB since 10.5.6 Update

Hi to everyone and sorry in advance for my english.
Here's my problem:
I have a copy of Mac OS X in my external USB drive, just for emergency. Two days ago I decided to update the OS, so i reboot my iMac and everythings gone in the right way. So the disk had no problems.
I run Software update and I downloaded a 377 MB Update (from 10.5.5 to 10.5.6). The installation was successful and the iMac reboot. After first reboot I had a second reboot and now it happend. My screen is still grey with the apple logo and the black wheel that keep rollin'. The hard disk seems to be freezed.
Someone knows if there's something i can do?? I don't wanna reinstall Mac OS.
Thanks. Andrea.

Restart, holding down the OPTION key until the icons start showing up on the screen. When the spinning gear stops, select the internal HD, and click arrow underneath. That should boot the machine with the internal HD. From there you can run Disk Utility on the USB HD. By the way, your English is fine.

Can't boot from snow leopard bootable hard drive on my new 27 imac

Hey guys
I have just bought a new 27in Imac with all possible upgrades.
I have an old 2.2 MBP running snow leopard. I used carbon copy clone to make a bootable clone.
It will boot from the hard drive on my MBP ( the one I cloned it from) but it will not boot on my Imac.
I can select it from the boot screen ( holding down alt) but after I select it I just get the apple logo and nothing happens.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I have looked through tones of forums but can't seem to fine the answer.
Will the new mountain lion not boot snow leopard? If it can boot windows I don't see why it wouldn't boot my clone.
Thanks in advance peeps

I don't think it is fixable. Your new Mac has come installed with Mountain Lion. My understanding, from what I've learned on these boards, is that a Mac cannot boot from an OS earlier than the one that was installed at point of manufacture. I believe it is to do with the firmware that is on later models.
It also means that you cannot install an OS earlier than the one the machine came with (apparently this can be worked around by installing an earlier OS in a Virtual Machine, like some people install Windows on their Macs. This is not something I've done, but a regualr poster on here MichaelLAX, I think, has described how it's possible).
If you're wanting to just erase and start afresh with the MBP surely you can do that with the clone? You don't need the iMac to do that.

T430s: boot from an external USB DVD drive

I wanted to change boot sequence to boot from external DVD drive to install Win8. To access the BIOS I hit Enter (empty password I guess) but in the BIOS everything is greyed out: I can't make any changes. What is going on?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

@kaja69...
As Rich has stated, you have a supervisor password set, and as Jin Li has stated, there is no default password.
For information on the various BIOS-level passwords, please see your T430s Hardware Maintenance Manual (manual pages 36-38).
Per the Community Rules, discussion of passwords is sensitive territory and may risk a thread lock, so please keep that in mind if/as this discussion progresses.
Regards.
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Can't boot from Recovery or USB Install Drive

Hi Folks,
My (mid-2011) MacBook Pro [Mavericks (10.9)] is not booting up – not matter what I try.
I've tried booting into Recovery (using command-R), Internet Recovery, and tonight I finally created a bootable USB install drive – no luck there either (pressing option to get to the startup disk manager). I can select which drive I want to boot from, but after selecting the USB drive and clicking on the arrow, I get to the gray apple screen (with the spinning progress wheel), and then it just stalls on a blank light gray screen (and the fans spin up). I've waited up to 45 minutes in this state, still nothing.
The same thing happens when I try to boot normally. I have Filevault 2 enabled, so I get to the user account screen – but after selecting my account, the machine goes from the gray apple startup screen to the blank gray screen and hangs.
I've tried resetting the NVRAM, booting from an install CD, etc., etc., and nada.
Does anyone have any advice where to go from here? I had hoped the USB install drive would be the answer, but for whatever reason, I'm simply having no luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated – this is my main rig and I can't afford to have it down for much longer…
Thanks so much!

What install "CD"?? (sure it's not a DVD disc) did you try.
Not sure it is related to the Filevault system but if you can't get the Recovery HD partition to boot that may be caused by having Filevault enabled.
Have you tried the Real Online Internet Recovery system? Hold down the Command + Option/Alt + r keys at startup and keep holding them down until you see a globe on the screen. If after you see the globe, or you never get a globe on the screen, and you get that same Grey color on the screen then you more than likely have a hardware problem. You should make an Appointment with your local Apple store Genius Bar for your Mac to be properly diagnosed.

C30: Booting from external USB hard drive

I carry my OS on an external portable USB drive, and then make use of whatever hardware is available where I visit.
I recently attempted to boot a Lenovo C30 Thinkstation with this external drive, and was unable to do so. In looking at the BIOS settings, there is no option to boot from USB (other than floppy(?!?) or memory stick).
Is it possible to boot from an external USB hard drive, and if not, why?
jerry

The boot sequence section of our setup menus has been troublesome to say the least (at least through the development phase). There are various reasons why it is the way it is now....from spec requirements to customer requirements. So long story short it really needs to be this way, even though situations like the one you encoutered is inconvenient.
The USB issue is actually done for security reasons. For example, many large customers don't want users to have the ability to just walk up and plug in a USB device and allow the system to detect that and attempt to boot to it right away as it is a risk to their image/security. For this reason, USB devices don't automatically get added to the boot order, and must be added throught he setup menu if needed.

Transfering iTunes files to new computer using external USB hard drive

Thought this could be useful:
If you want to transfer your complete iTunes library to a new computer preserving all your playlists and library information, but without using your iPod as a hard dive, or without burning a CD or DVD, you can do it by using an USB external hard drive following these easy steps:
1) Quit iTunes
2) Connect your USB external hard drive to your computer and acccess it thru My PC or Windows Explorer.
3) Create two new folders in your external hard drive (you can name them LIBRARY Backup and PLAYLISTS Backup).
4) Open the LIBRARY Backup folder.
5) Open another Windows Explorer or My PC window; open the iTunes Music folder (usually located in C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My documents\My music\iTunes).
6) Copy all of its contents (only the contents, not the whole folder) to the LIBRARY Backup folder you created in your external USB Hard Drive.
7) Close both the LIBRARY Backup folder from your USB external hard drive and the iTunes Music folder.
8) Open the PLAYLISTS Backup folder from your USB external hard drive
9) From your iTunes folder, copy the iTunes Music Library.xml to the PLAYLISTS Backup folder.
10) Close all the windows and extract your USB external hard drive from your PC ()
11) Install iTunes in your new computer.
12) Using Windows Explorer open the iTunes Music folder (usually located in C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My documents\My music\iTunes).
13) Connect the USB hard drive to your new computer and open it using another Windows Explorer window.
14) Open the LIBRARY Backup folder and copy all of its contents (only the contents, not the whole folder) to the iTunes Music folder in your new computer. After the copying is complete, close this folder.
15) Copy the PLAYLISTS Backup folder to you new computer’s desktop.
16) Close Windows Explorer and extract USB hard drive.
17) Open iTunes
18) From the File menu, choose Import. Navigate to the iTunes Music Library.xml file on the Desktop and click Choose. The imported playlist will show only songs located on the computer's hard disk or external media.
19) You can now delete the xml. file from your new computer’s desktop if you wish.
PC Windows XP Owner of 5th Generation iPod

Type "move itunes library" into the Google search bar.
Type "ipod touch not recognized by itunes" into the search bar at the top of this page by "Support"

Partition External Usb hard drive

Hi,
Can I partition a 500GB external usb hard-drive to 2 partitions (nfts and HFS)
The HFS part is for using with Time-Machine (150 GB) and the nfts for storage of photos etc. trough Windows.
Is it possible to back-up on a partition with Time Machine?
I know that it is impossible to partition to nfts with the standard Mac program, but it is possible with Gparted Live-cd (the one Ubuntu uses).
Can all that be done?
Thanks on purpose
TheM4inframe

set up two partitions both fat32.
erase one and reformat as the apple format. plug the drive into the winbox, use administration>computer management>storage to find and reformat the fat 32 partition as ntfs.
you can also format both as mac, then have win reformat one (I think)

Satellite L20-100 can be booted from external USB hard drive?

I recently bought Toshiba Satellite L20-100 and I wonder if:
1. is there any possibility to boot this machine from external usb hard drive?
2. it is possible to attach another internal hard drive?
Supposing that the both answers above are 'no', how can I solve the following problem: I need hdd space, I need to boot 3 separate Wxp Operating Systems onto the same machine (Toshiba Satellite L20-100).

Booting from external USB HD - "No" would be the official, mcrsoft sponsored, answer. However, it is possible. Not easy but it can be done. I've seen it done with my own eyes and there are guides how to do this. Just look for it with search engine. But if you have enough disk space you better do what was suggested here - create 3 partitions and use boot manager.

How can i install snow leopard on my mac G5 using a command line and booting from an external usb rom, since my disk i have is not a bootable media

How can i install snow leopard on my mac G5 using a command line and booting from an external usb rom, since my disk i have is not a bootable media

Hi.
You simply can't. Snow Leopard is compiled in Intel binary only.
Good Luck.

External USB Hard Drive Can't Be Safely Removed After Boot Camp 3.1 Install

I just wanted to report that I've done multiple installs of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on my MacBook 4,1 and although I've had no problem using the cmd workaround ( http://www.zath.co.uk/how-to-install-windows-7-on-apple-mac-boot-camp/ ) to install the 64-bit Boot Camp drivers that come with the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard retail DVD, I have found that by installing the Boot Camp 3.1 drivers on the same system, under no circumstance can I click the the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the system tray and not receive a message saying that ... "The device 'Generic Volume' cannot be safely ejected..." and that some program or service must be using it. However, a restart doesn't solve the problem any more than logging out does.
I read somewhere that part of the fix that Boot Camp 3.1 was intended to provide was to allow safe ejecting of the Macintosh HFS+ partition. Well, my external hard drive has three partitions: one NTFS, another NTFS, and a third HFS+ for Time Machine backups. I suspect, since I haven't seen anyone else reporting this issue, that it may simply be that the Boot Camp 3.1 drivers don't take into account the possibility of an HFS+ partition on external USB devices. Anyway, a System Restore to before Boot Camp 3.1 drivers were installed completely remedies the issue.
At this point, I'm not having any trackpad issues or anything else of note with respect to the original Boot Camp 3.0 drivers that came with the Snow Leopard retail disc, so I'm fine keeping those drivers installed and allowing Windows Update to update the Intel and Marvell drivers as it recommends. I just find it slightly amusing that the Boot Camp 3.0 drivers, which supposedly did not support Windows 7 (let alone the 64-bit version) work better than the 3.1 drivers which do supposedly support Windows 7. And the funny thing (or is it?) is that you have to install the original Boot Camp drivers with the cmd workaround before you're even able to update to the Boot Camp 3.1 drivers. Hilarious stuff there.
Proprietary gamesmanship is a big reason some of us prefer the Linux "share the ownership +for free+" model of computing. Just saying...
Anyone have any proper solutions (as in, other than "don't install the updates then!")?
bkadoctaj

I have a pair of external usb drives, one formatted for NTFS and the other for HFS+ connected through an external 7 port hub. I am running Windows 7 (64 bit) with bootcamp 3.1 on a late 2009 Mac BookPro. I share the same "safely remove hardware" issues you described. I always assumed it was because my external drives were connected through my external USB hub because of a similar issue I had running Vista (64 bit), but now I can confirm directly connecting the external USB HFS+ drive also yields the same "safely remove hardware" problem. Unfortunately for me, if I regress to the Bootcamp 3.0 drivers, my audio drivers, at times, fails to load. I would need to regress to Windows Vista (64 bit), the last environment where my iSight camera, internal speakers and all other hardware performed correctly. I would gladly, at this point, live with the "safely remove hardware" issue in exchange for a working iSight camera, the one and only hardware device lost to me in the move to Windows 7.

I can not boot from DVD or USB to install

I have a 27 in iMac with i7 processor. For reasons I wont get into (lets just assume I have the right reason) I want to do a complete fresh install of Snow Leopard and start completely over.
When I use OPT to select the SL DVD to boot, all I get is the apple logo, no spinning wheel, i let it sit that way all night still didnt work. If I force boot the SL DVD using C, same thing. So I tried formatting an external USB hard drive as a GUID drive and had the install residing on there, when I use OPT when booting the USB is not an option, nor is is listed in startup disks either.
I can not do a fresh install, and i have followed loads of tutorials online, but my DVD never does boot.

You need the discs for your computer. No other discs will work.
The retail copy of 10.6.0 doesn't have the necessary drivers for your computer, nor does 10.5. Your computer should have shipped with 10.6.1.
I think the inability to boot from USB is due to an invalid operating system being installed on the drive.
~Lyssa

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.

Can a la cie external USB hard drive be bootable on my G5?

Can a la cie external USB hard drive be bootable on my G5?

PPC Macs need a Firewire drive to boot from, IntelMacs can boot from USB, but Firewire drives with a one button touch feature won't work either, as examples...
The following external hard drives are bootable on Intel-based Macintosh computers systems through USB:
• My Book Essential Edition
• My Book Essential Edition 2.0
• My Book Home Edition
• My Book Mirror Edition
• My Book Office Edition
• My Book Premium Edition
• My Book Premium Edition II
• My Book Premium ES Edition
• My Book Pro Edition
• My Book Pro Edition II
• My Book Studio Edition
• My Book Studio Edition II
• My Passport Studio
The following external hard drives are bootable on Intel-based Macintosh computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b):
• My Book Home Edition
• My Book Mirror Edition
• My Book Office Edition
• My Book Premium Edition
• My Book Premium Edition II
• My Book Pro Edition
• My Book Pro Edition II
• My Book Studio Edition
• My Book Studio Edition II
• My Passport Studio
The following external hard drives are bootable on Power PC based Macintosh computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b):
• WD My Book Premium Edition
• WD My Book Pro Edition
The following external hard drives are not bootable on Power PC based Macintosh computers systems through USB/FireWire 1394(a/b):
• My Book Essential Edition
• My Book Essential Edition 2.0
• My Book Home Edition
• My Book Mirror Edition
• My Book Office Edition
• My Book Premium Edition II
• My Book Pro Edition II
• My Book Studio Edition
• My Book Studio Edition II
• My Passport Studio
• My Passport Elite
• My Passport Essential
• WD Passport
• WD Passport (Silver)
And I'm in no way suggesting a WD cased drive, there drives are good but the cases & chipsets leave much to be desired.

Can you boot from an external USB hard drive? (Neo2 Platinum)

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