Could I boot off a partitioned Lacie drive?

Hello,
I'm considering buy a LaCie 500 GB d2 Quadra eSATA/ FireWire 400/800/ external drive. But I'd like to partition it so that I could use 100gig or so for backup of my PC's hard drive. Then I'd like to install Leopard on this drive and make it my preferred boot drive.
Is this possible? Will my Mini recognize the boot partition?
Thanks,
Jeff

yes-just go to system preferences- the option should be readily visible.

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I am unable to boot of GUID partitioned ext drives

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It boots off of CD's.
It boots of of USB "thumb" drives.
But it will not boot off USB or Firewire ext hard drives.
I've tried everything I can think of, and I am flabbergasted. Yes, the drives are GUID and yes other machines can boot off of them. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
Randy

Hello
try reset P-Ram , hold on just after start up sound , CDM-OPTION-P-R keys until ear 2-3 more start up sound
try use disk manager , just after start up sound , hold on OPTION key until show valide volume to start from
go to control panel - startup disk - select disck you want use net start up - restart
next option need to dessasemble your imac - to remove mother board battery - but is fare away to be an easy task let a professional to do that
other question do you lost date & time a each start up ?
HTH
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Hi @Gilligan8
Welcome to the HP Support Forums!
I understand that your hard drive is stuck in a repair loop, and you are not able to boot off of an external device. I am happy to assist.
Are the USB drive image and the CD legacy boot images or are they UEFI?
Have you tried the BIOS or system hardware tests?
You try one of these methods to try to backup the data on your hard drive, and once have everything safely backed up you could try a system recovery, for which I have two more links below.
How to Recover Data from the Hard Drive of a Dead Laptop - wikiHow.com
Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 8)
Troubleshooting HP System Recovery Problems (Windows 8)
Do not do the recovery until you have tried to backup everything you can to another hard drive.
I hope this helps.
Malygris1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click Accept as Solution if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click Kudos Thumbs Up on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!

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Could I boot off an external 1tb ssd instead upgrading internal to 512gb ssd?

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MAC Framework successfully initialized
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dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda count=64
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-- Bob

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I can run the original install disk and I can run the hardware diagnostics on it. All is fine.
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When I run the installer on my new iBook G4 and the computer restarts, the screen that comes up after the gray Apple logo and spinning gear is a blue border and white rectangle with graphics showing what look like a two-step process, numbered 1 and 2 at the bottom. The graphic depicts an oval shape with what looks like a cover removed and two AA-type battery icons linked to the graphic. The picture is much the same for each step with differences the communnicate the idea of inserting or replacing. The second step has a small blinking red circle, like a screw head.
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Thanks. Makes sense. I'll try that. I had checked the drive firmware with the most recent LaCie updater. So I didn't think it was the drive.
I did manage to use the keyboard shortcuts to open the Keyboard Preference Pane while booted off of the external drive. I enjoyed learning how useful it is to type the beginning of search terms (like "trac") into the Search box and use the menu of matches returned to navigate by Mouse to the Trackpad pane, only to be told that the Trackpad Tab wasn't loaded because my iBook doesn't have one (wrong). It had loaded only the Mouse tab.
Learning a few new tidbits today. Thank you very much.

Can you boot off a usb drive or external hard drive (usb 2.0) on an iMac?

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I should have been more general in my post - I don't believe any Mac can boot off an external drive with Ubuntu. I could be wrong of course (and if I am, hopefully someone will correct me), but as Mac hardware is so specific that it demands a specific install disk for each build/model/generation, it would be unable to boot with just a "foreign" OS such as Ubuntu installed. As you may know, you can't boot an iMac with an install disk from a different model iMac, Macbook, or any other Mac (unless it is exactly the same build/model), so it doesn't surprise me that it won't boot with Ubuntu.
Edit: and this question begs to be asked: why would you want to boot/use Ubuntu when you have a superb OS to work with already?
Message was edited by: Barbara Daniels1

Booting off external firewire drive

Hi Ive cloned my internal imac drive using superduper.
Inside the startup application i can now see my external drive as bootable.
I am trying to boot off the external drive TARGET disk mode. Is this correct to get the os to boot off the external FW drive?

Hello Joe.
You don't use Target disk mode to do so. When connected, you can select the external firewire drive to boot from via System Preferences > Startup Disk or use the Startup Manager during startup or restart.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178

Dual boot arch from second hard drive [SOLVED]

I have two sata hard drives connected. Hard drive 0 has my working updated version of arch.
I'm trying to boot off the second hard drive that has an older installation of arch. I have added this to my menu.lst of my first hard drive:
# (2) Arch Linux 2.6.31
title Arch Linux 2.6.31
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/29523114-ab52-4a9b-b93f-e2da915c0dc1 ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img
I have also tried using /dev/sdb1 on the kernel line with the same results. The uuid is correct I am able to obtain that from /dev/disk/by-uuid/
this is definately where the vmlinuz26 file resides for that hard drive. I can mount it and see it.
But when I choose this option, it tries to boot but then I get:
kinit: init not found!
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What do I need to change? Do I need to add something to that initrd line? Thanks.
Last edited by kekules_dream (2010-01-10 21:43:31)

I had to change the uuid to that of the root partition on sdb (the second hard drive) even though I had a /boot partition on it (sdb1). It is now working.
# (2) Arch Linux 2.6.31
title Arch Linux 2.6.31
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/4a5827bc-6ace-4d4d-9ba7-24586e365c8a ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img

Another annoying "won't boot off firewire" thread

OK, I work at a small charter school with only a single Intel Xserve ("late 2006" model 1,1).
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I have a keyboard and monitor actually hooked to the Xserve for now, so I can easily select the "option" key at bootup method and simply select my boot disc. This drive does not show up when hooked up to firewire, but shows up immediately when hooked to USB (but this is far too slow for our purposes).
What am I missing? (besides my brain, that is...)
Thanks.

Turns out the drive manufacturer was simply lying. I called them directly and they tried to give me the runaround about them "not supporting the Xserve" and that I would have to call Apple. At any rate, their attitude demonstrated quite quickly that they knew perfectly well the drive wasn't actually firewire bootable. Too bad as the device was nicely made and very fast on firewire 800. It has been exchanged at the place of purchase for a different firewire 800 drive which is bootable and works perfectly.
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Mini G4 Won't Boot off External after 10.4.9 Update

I've tried three times to install the update and boot off my external hard drive connected to my MacMini G4. Tried the usual stuff like using Combo update, reparing permissions, reset NVRAM, safe boot, single-user login, etc. After it updates successfully, the machine reboots and after a few seconds, the "broken folder" or prohibitory sign appears. The little progress indicator continues to spin, but I have to restart off the internal drive to boot up. Once booted, the external has to be turned off and on so that it will appear on the desktop.
Never a problem with earlier updates. Back to 10.4.8 I go....

Howard:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Try booting from the install disk and running Repair Disk in Disk Utility. Here's how:
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key.
Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel, and report)
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
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cornelius

Could I boot off a partitioned Lacie drive?

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