Can you boot / run an Intel iMac from an external hard drive? Built-in drive is dead.
Hello, Have a six? year old, 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo iMac that has a dead internal HD. The drive has 16,000 hours on it (per SMART Utility) and no longer shows up on desktop. Disk Utility, Disk Warrior and SMART say it's toast. I'm backed up to Flash drives and Time Machine but need a month before I can get a new computer... Don't want to run this one off TM back-up. Question is, can I add an external drive, use TM to make it my start up drive until then... Thanks, dp
Yes you can, you're going to install OSX on it (from the Snow Leopard disk) but it will work.
Similar Messages
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Any problems running a 24inch iMac from an external hard drive.
Six weeks ago I cloned my almost full 250GB internal hard drive onto a 1TB external hard drive and started to run the system from the external drive.About a week ago the sytem started freezing up and the bootup/login times got longer. Two days ago at bootup the display just showed a purpleish glow with no desktop etc.I have tried reseting PRAM, SMC and reseating the memory all to no avail.Having searched on the internet the conclusion is either the display has gone faulty or the graphics card/chip is faulty(both not desirable).Is this mearly a coincidence or is it the result of running the system from an external drive which has 'possibly' caused overheating os some other fault ?????????
This system is a 2006/7 24-inch Intel iMac.The difference between safe mode and normal is that in safe mode only the minimum number of kernel extensions are loaded. Since the display works properly in safe mode that strongly suggests that you have one or more corrupt kernel extensions. I would recommend one of two things. First if you have not already done so, reinstall the operating system - you can reinstall a new operating system right on top of the current. If that doesn't work or if you'd rather skip that step, the second thing would be a clean install. Of course to do this you would have to erase the entire hard drive so if you don't have a current backup you want to do that first.
However, since your original problems began after some crashing and freezing with the Extertal hard drive you might want to consider using a different drive if you choose the clean install route I suspect that your display problems go back to one of the early crashes which may have been caused by a hard drive issue. When the computer has issues but passes the extended hardware diagnostics I tend to suspect the hard drive. When the hard drive is an external drive my suspicion becomes even stronger. The weakest link of an external drive tends to be the electronics of the enclosure but since most external enclosures are in capable of passing on the SMART status of the drive mechanism itself it's hard to know which is the problem. -
Booting Windows on Intel Mac from an external Firewire/USB hard disk?
Is it possible to boot an Intel iMac from an external hard disk - in target disk mode etc., without having to install Boot Camp?
I have a spare drive with installed XP on it and I need to find out what is on the drive before re-formatting. However, I only have my mac in which to do so. The extra disk will be used in an external firewire/USB 2.0 caddy. I have researched some methods, but they are all very long winded and require a PC or the creation of a Windows partition on my start-up disk using Boot Camp."Is it possible to boot an Intel iMac from an external hard disk - in target disk mode etc., without having to install Boot Camp?"
No. -
Can I boot up an intel imac running os lion from a snowleopard install disk so that I can run my old power pc software
If the Snow Leopard install disk came with or otherwise is compatible with your iMac, you can boot from it, but that won't allow you to run software (other than the utilities that are part of the installation set). You will have to install Snow Leopard, either on a partition on the iMac's internal hard drive or on an external drive, before you will be able to run applications.
Regards. -
I have an imac 2009 the disk drive is damaged and I have lost the passwords I need to reset passwords I tried booting with a macosx disk from an external hard drive but did not read the drive how else can I reset password ?
I have a 2012 mac book pro can I use that to connect with firewire and load osx that way? and how woudl I do that?
Thanks so much!To what password are you referring? Do you mean your user account's admin password? Or do you mean the master password for File Vault or do you mean a Firmware Password?
For an admin password:
Forgot Your Account Password
For Snow Leopard and earlier
Mac OS X 10.6- If you forget your administrator password
For Lion/Mountain Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
When the menubar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu.
Enter resetpassword at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow
instructions in the dialog window that will appear.
Or see Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password and
OS X Lion- Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password.
If you cannot do the above then try this:
1. Boot to Safe Mode by restarting and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-S keys until a black screen with white type appears.
2. At the prompt, type the following commands pressing return after each command line:
/sbin/fsck -yf
If you do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message then repeat this command until
you do. If after seven tries you still do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message,
then the system is corrupted and needs to be reinstalled.
mount -uw /
cd /private/var/db/netinfo
mv local.nidb local.old
rm ../.AppleSetupDone
shutdown -r now
The second-to-last command above will cause OS X to think that the operating system is newly installed, and when the new owner starts up the computer it will send him/her to the startup wizard where he/she can start a new user without reinstalling.
This last method does not actually change a password. It simply removes the user accounts and lets you create an initial admin account as if the computer were new out of the box.
How to reset the OS X password without a startup CD:
Reboot into Single-user Mode. Enter the following and press RETURN after each command line
1. Type fsck -fy
2. Type mount -uw /
3. Type passwd <username>
I have never tried this method myself. -
Is it possible to run an operating system from an external hard drive?
Really weird question here, but I've always wanted to know this. I have a MBP 13" mid-2012 and I installed a 256GB SSD. I currently have OSX 10.9 and Windows 8.1 installed on the drive, but is it possible to actually run an operating system from an external hard drive. I don't want to install anymore operating systems onto the internal SSD because I don't want to run out of space. So, I'm wondering can I install Linux on an external hard drive, the same way I would on an internal hard drive and just plug it in via USB 3 or Thunderbolt? Is it actually possible to use a computer this way? I know I can boot from a usb stick, so is it possible to actually use a computer with an operating system installed in an external hard drive?
windows don't support being installed on usb mass storage installs like usb
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Can you save your itunes and songs onto an external hard drive so that incase your computer crashes you will still have all your music?
The procedures below are for "moving" your library but as long as you don't delete it from your internal drive you are basically backing up.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Simple answer: Copy your whole iTunes folder to the external drive. For subsequent backups you might want to learn about cloning and using a tool that only does incremental backups of recently changed items rather than copying all your files each time. -
My PC recently died. Won't do anything when then power button is pushed. I have the C drive from the PC backed up on a external hard drive, & I would like to know if I can somehow transfer the Firefox bookmarks & settings from the external hard drive to my laptop that is also running Firefox. The PC was running Windows XP, the laptop is running Windows 7. Thanks, Alex
Profile is a folder which store all your personal data in a safe place
* https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles
* here explain how to backup profile https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing%20up%20your%20information
* here explain how to restore it
https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Recovering%20important%20data%20from%20an%20old%20profile -
Can I re-install Adobe Creative Suite from an external hard drive?
After an appointment in the Genius Bar I have decided to have my mac's hard drive completely wiped. I had installed Mavericks and it caused a lot of my Adobe programs to stop working probably, the girl in the mac store said this was because the Adobe Master Collection CS4 is incompatible with Mavericks. So I'm having to take my Mac in to be completely wiped so that Lion can be reinstalled. I have ran time machine on an external hard drive to back up all my files, including my Adobe master collection. When I get back Mac back, can I reinstall my Adobe programs just from my external hard drive? If so, how do I do this?
You can try with migration assistant.. but I think you would be much better doing install from original disks. You can recover your working files etc..
Alot will depend on what you have done with Time Machine since you upgraded to Mavericks. If you did not do any TM backups you could have simply restored the computer from TM.
How to use migration assistant.. see http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html -
Can a time capsule store a movie from an external hard drive then allow that movie to be played on an iPad on the network?
I don't use ipad for this so i am just googling.
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/media-player-playerxtreme/id456584471?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/oplayerhd-lite-best-free-video/id385896088?mt=8
http://www.freemake.com/blog/5-free-video-players-for-ipad/
Anything that will play from Samba network file store..
You will probably also need filebrowser loaded on the ipad to find the files.
Is the ipad necessary btw.. ?? If you only want to play the file to your TV you can buy a WD Live TV.. unlike the Apple TV it is a media player.. and can play files of almost any format direct from the TC. -
Can i run i tunes/iphoto from an external hard drive?
does any one know if i can run ituens/iphoto from an external hard drive and if so how do i do it?
Drag the libraries to it, launch each application with the Option key held down, and point them there. The iPhoto library needs to be stored on a drive, partition, or disk image formatted as Mac OS Extended.
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Can time machine back up an imac and an external hard drive?
I currently back up my imac via time machine but to reduce space on my hard drive I want to move my itunes library onto an external hard drive. If i do this can time machine still back up my imac and the external hard drive with the itunes library on automatically?
Regards
Toekomstoekoms wrote:
I currently back up my imac via time machine but to reduce space on my hard drive I want to move my itunes library onto an external hard drive. If i do this can time machine still back up my imac and the external hard drive with the itunes library on automatically?
yes, given enough space on the destination drive (your library may grow over time). also, the drive needs to be connected directly to your Mac.
you might want to make sure the drive is not excluded from TM backups by checking in system preferences > time machine > options.
also, as for moving your iTunes library, see this read for tips/instructions.
JGG
edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly) -
Any suggestions for running an iTunes library from an external hard drive on two computers?
I have two Mac computers: an iMac and a MacBook Air. My iMac has 1TB of storage space (plenty enough for my 200+gigs of music) but my MacBook Air only has 250gigs of storage space. I know I can access all of the music from my iMac on my MBA with HomeSharing. But that doesn't work when I take my MBA out of the house for work. I was going to switch over my iTunes library to an external HD but I don't know if I can access the library on the hard drive from my MBA, when the main library is on my iMac.
Any suggestions as to how to get two different computers to access an iTunes library from an external hard drive?
Thanks.I am confused as to what you had or have where and when. The bottom line is, your library (for the standard user) is everything in the iTunes folder. As far as iTunes' organization and display is concerned, your library is a file called "iTunes Library.itl" which points to all the other host of files and folders normally in the iTunes folder which all work together.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
If you kept everything together in one place then you need to put the whole iTunes folder on the drive where you want it, start iTunes while holding down the option key and guide it to that .itl file. If things were split up and you had media on the external and the rest of the library on the internal you need to get them back to exactly where they were before. If you can't find that iTunes folder holding the critical .itl file anywhere then you have a bunch of media tracks and no organization and will need to rebuild the organization from ground level. -
Since I can't find a way to permanently disable Airport I need to get the Airport card out of the computer. With the old G5 iMac this was easy but now there are some wierd screws on the bottom and I cannot find instructions anywhere on the apple site on how to open an Intel based iMac.
Help!
Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)well theres an easier way. first make him his own account then go to the application "internet connect" and turn off airport and turn of show airport in menu bar to. Then click get info on the internet connect icon form there go to owner ship and permisions. click the lock where it says system and make you the owner, it will ask you for a password enter it then change all the acsses and group accses to no accses then log back into you own accountt
remeber while doing this you must be in his account and as long as he does not know your password he wont be able to change it also use the parental controls to lock him out of the system prefs -
Hi all. I have Yosemite on my iMac. Can i restore via my external hard drive to an earlier time when i had Mavericks on my iMac? If i can which operating system will i end up with? I would like to do this because i prefer Mavericks to Yosemite. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
I've never seen that problem, but others have reported it. Maybe you should search for those other topics. You might try the following:
Try these in order testing your system after each to see if it's back to normal:
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
b. Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally. If this doesn't help, then:
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilities menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
3. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
4. Reinstall Yosemite: Reboot from the Recovery HD. Select Reinstall OS X from the Utilities menu, and click on the Continue button.
Then download and install the OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 Combo Update.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
because it is three times faster than wireless.
5. Reinstall Yosemite from Scratch:
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.
How to Clean Install OS X Yosemite.
Then download and install the OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 Combo Update.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
because it is three times faster than wireless.
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