Dual identity for MPB: Leopard on External Drive

I will be getting a new MBP at work, and am wandering if theres a way to have it serve a second purpose as my personal computer at home.
As the work computer it will come loaded with all the work stuff on internal drive, and be configured and updated as such whenever the IT dept decides to run updates on the company network, etc.
My plan is to have an external drive that would basically serve as the "personal computer", completely independent from the work computer. I would like to have Leopard loaded on an USB drive, to boot and run off this drive, and hold all my personal software (CS3, Logic, etc) and documents (music, photos, etc). So basically the external drive would hold the entire 2nd identity for this MBP.
My questions are:
1) Is this possible - will Leopard boot from an external drive?
2) If this is possible, how will performance be affected by running the OS and Apps, docs all from one external drive (primary concern is OS and Apps).
3) Does USB vs. Firewire matter (other than transfer rate)? I would like the drive to be bus-powered to maintain mobility. Is this possible with firewire?
4) Is there a External drive of choice for this task? I am looking at the LaCie Rugged 200G 7200RPM USB drive for the small size and rubber case (and appears to be bus-powered, but does this include Firewire?)
5) What am I missing in this plan? Is there a better option to do this (other than buy my own MBP
Thanks for all your help.
t

1) Yes, but I recommend a FireWire HD—it's faster.
2) You shouldn't notice any difference because everything you run is loaded into RAM
3) Yes—see 1)
4) If you're going to be using it at home, why is mobility an issue? Personally, I like Seagate FW/USB combos; others are satisfied with LaCies
5) I suggest just putting a bootable backup/clone of what the company provides onto the ext HD, then you can install your own software onto that. When the company updates the machine, you can do an incremental backup onto the ext HD which will leave all unique stuff there in place.

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Why can't brand new MacBookPro9,1 (OEM Mountain-Lion) boot from Snow Leopard on external drive, or internal partition?

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Is this because of hardware changes? Or firmware changes? Or is it just and Apple Inc. administrative fiat?

@Steve Holton: Sorry Steve, but you're wrong about that one . I'm using 10.8 (purchased and downloaded) on the internal HD of this MBP8,3 (2.2 GHz, 17"), and I am also able to boot into 10.7.4 and 10.6.8 from external FW800 partitions.
However, I DO have problems with my MBP9,1. It came with 10.7.4 installed and ran fine. Then I purchased and installed 10.8. It ran fine but could no longer boot from 10.7.4 on an external partition. I then reinstalled 10.7.4 on the internal HD and discovered that it is still unable to boot (even 10.7.4) from an external FW800 partition.
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I'd like to do what I have always done before when upgrading OSes, which is install Leopard on an external HD whilst I keep my existing Tiger on the internal HD.
This way I get to try out the new system without throwing out the old until I am satisfied the change is actually an "upgrade".
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Peter Breis1 wrote:
I'd like to do what I have always done before when upgrading OSes, which is install Leopard on an external HD whilst I keep my existing Tiger on the internal HD.
This way I get to try out the new system without throwing out the old until I am satisfied the change is actually an "upgrade".
However I have heard this doesn't work with Leopard, you can not run 2 different OSes on the one machine and switch between them at startup.
Is this true? Has anyone tried this for themselves?
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Using smart previews on iMac to control two sets of identical original files on two external drives --- render previews setting when using smart previews

I’m just getting started with Lightroom and if someone can help me I’ll be very appreciative.
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With the smart previews capability of Lightroom 5, I’m hoping to remove all the active files from the iMac drive. I hope to import existing images into the LR catalog from two identical drives with identical folders and have both sets of images reflect the changes I make using smart previews on my iMac.
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Hey Mac Addicts,
I'm trying to install Snow Leopard on an external drive (Lacie Triple Rugged, FW800 USB3.0) but keep on getting "Installation failed, can't copy the support files.
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Two things,
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4: Also do all this from the Disk Utility on the internal drive, then try again from the 10.6 install disk. Apple might have pulled something.
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https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

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Not in cases when the computer successfully boots to one OS but produces three beeps when an attempt is made to boot it to another. If it really was a RAM problem that serious, the computer wouldn't get as far as checking the OS version, and it has no problems booting Lion. In the event of a minor RAM problem, it wouldn't produce three beeps like that at all.
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I asked if it would make sense to buy an new external drive, load Leopard on that, and boot off that while I save for a new Mac. He suggested that would work. (While the speed might not be ideal over a USB connection, I'm not too concerned with that. As long as the kids can do their homework, and I have a place to store photos it's fine.)
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Hi JDB38;
There is no such thing as an Intel G5. It is either one or the other but never both. An Intel tower is a Mac Pro. A G5 is a tower with a PowerPC processor in it. So which do you have?
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THe disk utility cannot repair these problems.
Now I'm at the 3rd drive getting corrupt in the last week.
Is Apple coming out with an update to resolve these issues?
In the meanwhile I saw this page on the Seagate web sites.
https://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seagate.cfg/php/enduser/popupadp.php?p_sid=dLEqXr6j&p_lva=&p_li=&p_faqid=5005&p_created=1195077097&psp=
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You can get dozens of "not me" or "yes" opinions, but you might want to look at reader feedback reports first on MacFixit (subscription required after 3 days) or MacIntouch, or handy olde Google.
There have been problems with external drives mounting, not unmounting, a known issue during shutdown, that seems to affect a number of drive cases.
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http://www.macintouch.com - hard drives a good start.

Can't boot snow leopard from external drive

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4. The next step is to make your iMac dual boot now that you know it can run Snow Leopard successfully from an external USB drive. To do this, go into Utilities>Disk Utility and select your main drive. Select the main disk (with Lion on it) and then choose Partition and choose 2 Partitions. Drag the first partition bundary line down to make the second partition size as small as possible. In my case I had a stock 1TB drive and the smallest partition size it would allow me was 70gb. Create the second partition (assuming you have spare space on your drive to allow this to happen). This will then create a second hard drive icon on your desktop. I renamed mine "Snow Leopard startup".
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Did you ever figure this one out?
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Hi,
I have an external drive, ( western digital passport 120GB )
I was wondering if it was possible, to install Leopard on my external drive.. and boot from my external drive so I'll be running leopard from the external.
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and also, if I wanted to delete the Leopard system from my external drive, how would I go about doing that, so my macbook boots from its own hard drive again ( tiger )
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You first have to be sure the drive is bootable. Not all external HDs are bootable.
You will also have to partition it GUID or GPS since you are using an Intel box.
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Installing leopard to external drive

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This is where I am smacking my own fingers. I do not have a backup of my important files (I will change that post haste). I purchased a backup drive last night also.
Here is my question...
Can I install Leopard on the new external drive first. Then boot from the external drive (I saw them do that at the store last night). Then copy the important files onto the external drive (I only care about documents and music - I am fine with reinstalling the programs). Then erase and install the OS back on the computer. I did not purchase the multiple license version. Or is there a better method I do not know of? Once I have the computer fixed, the external drive will be just for backups (so I would erase the Leopard install and copied files from that drive).
Thanks

thanks,
CCC looks interesting but since my internal drive is not booting, I assume I would need to:
1) install Leopard to the new external drive
2) boot the machine from the external drive (don't know how to do that yet)
3) download CCC to the external drive
4) make a copy of the original drive onto the external drive
5) unhook the external drive
6) install Leopard on the internal drive (with an erase)
7) download CCC to the internal drive
8) hookup the external drive
9) use CCC to move the files from the external drive back to the internal drive
(except for the OS files - how would I do that?)
10) erase the external drive and use it as a backup for the internal drive!!!!!
(no more excuses for not backing up regularly)
Questions:
1) Is there a difference between CCC and "Time Warp"?
2) Is there a problem with cloning the non-working hard drive?
(It appears to physically be working, just not booting)
2a) If it is not advisable to clone the entire non-booting drive,
(due to problems with the copying back to the internal drive after
the clean install), is CCC any better/more useful than just using
file manager if I am only moving data files and no programs?
3) Is there anything funky about copying the downloaded iTunes files?
4) Did I leave anything out of my plan above?
I think I am close and can't wait to get home to try this.
Thanks,
David

Looking for suggestions to sync external drives over internet

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I have confirmined on this discussion there was not a typo and the user libray does exist as I can see it in the finder. And it came up with
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10.6.8 is Snow Leopard.
10.7 is Lion.
10.5.8 is Leopard.
Please confirm what you mean by Leopard.
Are you trying to do a 180 degree swap?

Dual identity for MPB: Leopard on External Drive

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