Eternal Boot of Firewire drive seems impossible on MacBook- Major Issue?

I have just purchased my MacBook and guess what I cannot boot off the external firwire drives.
I have made sure the external FW drives are OSX 10.4.8 (both the Lacie and the Maxtor) These same drives work pefectly booting external to a PowerBook G4 17" and a G5 2 gig.
So imagine you want to upgarde the MacBooks internal 80gig drive to a new 120 gig (as I do) I run Retrospect to backup the 80gig internal to the FW external. I then want to change the laptop drive to the 120gig drive, boot external to the FW drive and then run Retrospect to restore the original data to my new drive in the MacBook. No Way. You cannot boot of an external FW drive on a MacBook.
So boot internal, run Retrospect on the FW drive and try to restore over my MacBook boot drive. It starts but crashes leaving your HDD totally ruined. Back to install CD's to get operational but still no data moved accross to the new drive. What a mess. This makes the MacBook a real pain in the proverbial to work with. In fact it make it impossile to do backups using a FW drive and Retrospect. What is the value in that I ask?
Can anyone shed some light on this?
MacBook Intel Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2gig RAM and 120gig HDD

Yes, if you use the GUID partition scheme the drive will no longer boot a PowerPC Mac. The following article explains a way to get around this and create bootable partitions on one drive: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006061610374449.
There are currently two different versions of OS X: one for PowerPC and one for Intel Macs. They are not interchangeable. A universal version will not be out until Leopard (10.5) is released next year.
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Similar Messages

My iMac (late 2006) no longer boots from FireWire drives, although they contain all the system files.

My iMac (late 2006) no longer starts (boots) from Firewire drives, although they all contain a current system (Mac OS X 10.6.7). If the drives are connected with USB 2, they boot normally. The FireWire drives appear in the Start Volume program, but they do not boot. If I press and hold the Alt key while booting, only the internal drives and the USB drives appear as options. What can I do in order to boot from FireWire drives as I always could in the past?

I'd first recommend doing a SMC reset and if that doesn't work refer to:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10333969-263.html
and
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/firewiretroubleshooting.html
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

MacBook Pro 8,1 beeps 3 times on boot from FireWire drive: why?

Hi, all,
about the brand spanking new 13" I bought, I immediately wanted to boot the FireWire drive so I could install Snow Leopard. Install disk image was copied to a dedicated partition on the FW drive to speed up install process.
Holding the [alt] key during startup leads to 3 beeps that are indefinitely repeated. I also tried to select the relevant partition in the Control Panel Startup Disk. Same result
Why doesn't it want to start from this image? How can I solve this issue?

In fact, it is a late 2011, not an early 2011 "New Old Stock", so you're correct it shipped with Lion. But, aside from its weird ergonomics (Dynamically-attributed spaces and different gestures from the previous OS X versions), what turned me off was the official complete impossibility to get a physical copy of Lion at a reasonable price, when it is installed. I also wanted the mounted drives to appear at the top left corner in Finder windows, as they did in pre-Lion OS X, instead of the bottom left. I wanted to put back the Firefox profiles in their place... Turns out the Library folder isn't visible in Lion.
Simply put, anything I wanted to do to start on the good foot wasn't possible on Lion.
I went to the Genius Bar, and indeed their own external rescue drive also made the Mac beep. I told them about the Snow Leopard tethered downgrade. They were aware of the method, but there was no Snow Leopard Mac remaining in-store. And with the install DVD causing kernel panics, there was no way to at least try a dual-boot installation (Snow Leopard for mission-critical apps, Lion for playing around with).
To another Apple-approved place I went. The young tech here was willing to perform the downgrade (since it would have cost me $75/hr), and had both Snow Leopard and Lion machines. But I argued that I wouldn't be willing to pay twice since I intend to switch to SSD in a short while. He then tested when booted from a clone, and Snow Leo half-installed on the internal drive (needs one reboot during installation), but it ended up in kernel panic. Same went when he tried the physical Snow Leopard disk after formatting the internal drive, hypothesizing something detected on it may prevent Snow Leopard installer to boot. It immediately went into a kernel panic.
Both techs were actually surprised that this signal came out, instead of a message stating (official) incompatibility, as well as kernel panics.
My hypothesis is there's something in the Snow Leopard installer that accesses the hardware at a lower level during installation, but not during normal execution or Target Mode, hence causing kernel panics in the former.
What else can be tried, or what else didn't go through my mind?

Booting from FireWire Drive

I have a LaCie 160MB (F A Porsche style) external firewire drive.
I have been able to create a bootable clone of my iBook HD using Disk Utility and the Restore function.
I have been able to create a bootable partition by installing the System Software onto it.
But I have not had success using SilverKeeper or SuperDuper! Does anybody know why? I would really like to use the features of one (or another if available) of these applications.
Thanks.
-Ted

Below is LaCie's Tech Support Reply. What is interesting is that they suggest Carbon Copy Cloner (instead of Silverkeeper). Also interesting is that it worked. I hope this helps some of you.
Ted
Hi Ted--
Thanks for contacting LaCie Technical Support. All of our firewire
drives can be used as boot volumes. Due to differences in operating
systems and Macs, we are unable to provide support for booting from
firewire drives other than the following information:
1. Make sure the Mac is bootable via firewire. All Macs with built-in
firewire can be booted from an external drive except:
-Blue and White G3s
-PCI-Graphics G4s. This can be determined by looking in the Apple
System Profiler. The PCI Graphics G4s use the same motherboard as the
B&W, except with a G4 processor shoehorned in.
2. The drive must be connected to a native port. It will not work if
the drive is connected to an add-on card.
3. The Mac must have the latest firmware installed. The proper updater
can be found and downloaded from here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
Download and read the instructions carefully. It is possible to kill a
Mac if the update is interrupted. Then, perform the update. If the
firmware is already current, the updater will report this.
4. Format the drive fresh using either Apple's Disk Utility in OS X or
Silverlining in OS 9. Use the Mac OS Extended (HFS+) format only.
(Journaling may be enabled on OS 10.3.)
5. If making an OS 9 boot drive, you can just copy the System Folder
over to the root of the boot volume. To be bootable, the System Folder
must be blessed, i.e. has a happy Mac face on it. If it does not, you
can try to force it to bless by removing the Finder from the folder and
moving it to the root. Then, move the Finder back. The folder should
now be blessed. If not, then there is probably an issue with the System
Folder.
6. In making an OS X boot drive, the ONLY two recommended solutions
are:
--install from the OS X install disk, preferably the one which came with
the Mac. You will not be able to make a successful boot drive using an
older disk set. A newer disk set should also be fine.
--use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to perform a copy of an
existing OS X install. It is not possible to do this manually. There
are issues with permissions, hidden files, and files in use that cannot
be manually overridden. If you are using a disk image, you will still
need to use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to copy the files out
from the image to the root of the new boot volume. A simple drag and
drop will not include the necessary hidden files, such as the boot
loader and the kernel.
If the volume does not appear as a Start Up Disk, try booting with the
Option key held down and see if the drive shows in the boot drive
selection screen.
If the volume does not show, or the kernel panics on boot, chances are
the OS install was not performed properly.
In general, CD/DVD drives are not bootable via firewire, but will work
under certain circumstances, usually booting from OS X to OS X. They
should not be relied upon as such. To boot from one, hold down the
Option key while booting. If the boot CD shows on the screen, you may
select it and continue the boot.

Ibook g4 won't boot, but hard drive seems fine

I have a ibook g4,800mhz. osx 10.4.8
On start up i get the folder & question mark. I have tried the following.
1) i booted with an os install disk. disk utilities reported the drive was ok it but couldn't see a disk partition so disk first aid had nothing to do.
2) next i ran disk warrior which had the same probably, it could see the hard drive, reported that the drive was functioning, but saw no partition.
3) finally i gave up and reformatted the disk, and re installed an os. this worked for 48 hours at which time the problem came back.
4) i can put the laptop in firewire mode connect it to a desktop and access the hard drive. I can format the disk using apple disk tools, i can install an new os, but after all this it still won't boot from the internal hd.
5) I reset the pram. also tried starting up with the option key down .. no hard drive is visible when i do this.
So the hard drive seems to work ok. Two different disk utilities see the hard drive and think its functioning ok. OSx installer runs without complaint, but the &$%! won't boot from the hd.
Anybody got any suggestions?

...this worked for 48 hours at which time the problem came back...
This is the time period that I was commenting on. If something was used during that time that corrupted the OS, it would cause the situation you are in.
If everything is perfect with the OS then something is wrong with the hard drive or the motherboard's interface to the hard drive.

Won't boot as firewire drive?

Hey guys,
So I've read through every post on a ton of websites about this problem and nothing I tried worked. Today I started my computer up as an external firewire drive (holding 't' as it was booting) and it worked normal. However, several hours later I tried it on another computer and for some reason it didn't show up on the other computer. I restarted it and tried it again - no luck. I disconnected the cables and then just booted up like normal and all of a sudden my Macbook Pro took like 1 min longer to boot up than normal (1 min 52 sec). Also, my computer wouldn't shut down - it got stuck on my bg after clearing the finder.
I proceeded to follow all of the advice I found online: I reset the PRAM and SMC (taking out the battery, disconnecting the power cord, holding power button for 7 s, reconnecting everything), deleted the cache in my home/library/cache, and even repaired the disk and disk permission via the install disk (also repairing disk permission after booting up to see if that would do anything). Somewhere along the way my computer decided that it could now shut down normally (well - it turns off within like 5 - 7 seconds but if I close the lid the little sleep light remains on for another 10...is that normal?) - but I still have the two problems: slow startup and not showing up as an external firewire drive on another computer.
Anyone have any ideas - or do I totally have to reinstall Mac OS X?

So tried the previous post and it didn't work. I got fed up so I did an archive install of Leopard using the install disc and the problem STILL won't go away...what else can I possibly do? I thought that was the last resort? Thanks...

Mac Pro won't boot if firewire drives attached

New Mac Pro (OS X 10.4.8) won't boot if my two daisy-chained LaCie hard drives are attached (firewire 800).
I can upnplug 'em and the computer cranks right up; can then plug the drive back in and everything's fine. Wazzup?
Thanks, Bob
Mac Pro 2.66 Mac OS X (10.4.8) User since Apple IIe

Similar problem with iMacG5 - if two firewire drives on bus wouldn't boot. Worked with one but erratic, also long delays opening files, finder erratic and hanging. Decided it was probably a chipset problem with the firewire bus. Since upgrading firewire enclosures problem gone away (I hope). How old are the drive enclosures. Oxford911 firewire bus has some problems with newer macs and OS. May get information on bus in "about this mac/moreinfo/firewire", or in disk utility window ("applications/utilities/disk Utility") WHEN computer is booted up with drives running.
OK, a Plug for Macpower's IceCube enclosures, bloody expensive but since I upgraded no problems. Also wiebetech.com have some cool stuff including internal SATA adaptors/cages etc.for older G5's and dual cores

Old G4 won't boot from firewire drive

I have an older 400 MHz G4 running 10.3.9 and 10.1.5 which will not boot from a firewire system volume. Two system volumes (10.4) on the external drive appear as start up disk choices in the system preferences, but when selected the system displays a folder w/? upon restart and then the system boots from an OS 9 partition on one of the machines internal drives. This happens when the system is restarted from either of the computers boot partitions (10.3.9, 10.1.5). Don't know if this is a software or a hardware problem. Holding down the option key upon restart, even without the external OS 10.4 drive, produces same behavior. System info identifies the machine as a G3 but processor type as G4. It is one of the graphite colored Power Macs.
Any insights appreciated.

The G4 PCI graphics PowerMac can not boot off a Firewire hard drive. Check which G4 model you have here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58418
The G4 AGP and the iMac DV were the first Macs to be able to boot off Firewire.
It is interesting your Mac identifies itself as a G3. Now it is true that the early G4s were basically a G3 with a slightly modified logicboard and front and side panels (as well as the omission of the ADB port). But there are G4s inserted in some old Blue and White G3s by adventurous upgraders. The Blue and White G3 pictured here can't boot off Firewire either:
That Mac also can't boot off Firewire.

Re: Old G4 won't boot from firewire drive

I am having the same problem with one I just received today. I have the AGP one but it will not but off of the firewire drive. Any insights on this?

Hi, stupidipodnano -
Okay -
The firewire drive shows on the desktop, so there is nothing wrong with the Mac's hardware or the hardware for the drive.
The drive's size, and the OS on it, are not incompatible (OS 9 can not boot from volumes larger that 200GB, but neither of those conditions pertain here).
That leaves the issue of the installation of the OS.
• If the OS (OSX 10.4.x) was installed while the drive was connected to a different model Mac, it is probably a model-specific install of the OS, and thus not capable of booting a different model.
• If the OSX Install CD used is one that came with a different model, and not a retail one, that, too, would result in a non-bootable OS. The disks that come with a Mac are model-specific to that particular model and its hardware.
• If the OS was copied from another source, rather than actually installed using the installer program, that, too, usually results in a non-bootable installation.
What format is the firewire drive? You can determine that by doing a Get Info on the icon of the mounted drive.
Did you reformat (initialize) the drive after gettting it? ...or did you go ahead and use it 'as-is' as soon as you got it? If you did not re-initialize it, it would be a good idea to do so. Note that this will erase everything on the drive.

Boot Off Firewire Drive

My internal Superdrive is dead so I always use my external Firewire drive. Well I need to run Disc Utility and it says I should reboot of my OS disc but my internal Superdrive is dead so can I reboot off my external Firewire drive? If so how do I do this? My external drive is a Pioneer DVR-111D if that matters.

Aswell as the Macintosh HD option there should be another box appear with the external drive there. I assume that the external drive works well if you boot into OS X normally(?)
What kind of OS disc is it that you're using? Is it a retail one or the one that came with your iMac?
Try booting holding Option-Command-Shift-Delete this tells the Mac to ignore it's primary start-up volume and look for another.
mrtotes

Can't boot from firewire drive

Howzit,
I have partitioned an OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 1.5 TB firewire drive into 2 partitions using Disk Utility and GUID mapping. I then used Carbon Copy Clone to clone the startup disk of my MacPro, which runs OS 10.4.11. The clone successfully boots when it is connected to the MacPro.
The problem is that I am unable to boot from the firewire drive when I hook it up to my iMac. When I restart and hold the OPTION key, the clone appears as a startup option, but the computer freezes when I click on it. The clone also shows up as an option in the Startup Disk preference, but when I try restarting after selecting the clone, it freezes the same way: gray screen, no apple, no rotating gear.
Can you help?

Make an OS partition then for each. Or, upgrade your Mac Pro to SL as well. Unless there is software holding you to Tiger.
Now, when SL came out, I know I saw a lot of threads regarding issues booting from external firewire drives, so you may not be 100% out of the woods, but you should.
I'd expect to get a panic screen from 10.4, lacks any support for newer hardware / graphics card and more.

MacBook won't boot off Firewire drives

i just got a MacBook and couldn't be more pleased but i just tried to use the Firewire drive to boot from but it doesn't show up as option for restart. the drives( i tried two) are loaded with 10.4.10 and show up on the desktop and work fine but it's odd the Mac won't boot from them. had no issue connecting to my Pismo. both show up as start up discs. i looked in the forums but didn't see this issue brought up. a little help please.

Paul Roese1 wrote:
Does this mean i have to (can i?) install Tiger from my MB's discs on to a connected firewire drive and it can then be used as a start up drive for the unit? Thanks much.
Yup. Alternatively, you can 'clone' the MB's internal hd to the external firewire hd. Two of the most widely used methods of achieving this are:
1. Carbon Copy Cloner - http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
2. SuperDuper! - http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
Kryten

Booting from firewire drive does not recognize existing users.

Hello,
I just bought a Lacie firewire drive to have a bootable backup of my Macbook internal drive.
I used SilverKeeper 1.1.4, that comes with the drive, to make a bootable copy.
The copy is bootable but when Tiger startus up fro the firewire drive I get the presentation video and am asked to setup the system including creating a new user.
It is as if the existing Users directory, that was copied, is not recognized by the clonned system.
Running Tiger 10.4.11
Any ideas?
Joaquim

I think this was driver issue

MacBook Pro (Retina) has S/PDIF Mini-TOSLINK? Audio Input? Boot as FireWire Drive?

I love all the Apple MacBooks and I fall in love with the new MacBook Pro (Retina) but then I review all the specs and I feel that some things are missing:
It has S/PDIF Mini-TOSLINK? I use this a lot!
It hast Audio Line-In input?
I only see output and somebody told me that the same port could do both, but what abaout using the MacBook with Guitar Rig? I need both, input and output!
Sometimes you need to boot the MacBook as FireWire target disk mode, the new MacBook doesn't have any FireWire port, you can plug a Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptor, It could work? how can I boot the mac as target disk mode?
The last thing that was missing is the optical drive but that is another story!
Thanks for your answers!

well, like Point - counter point (for those old enough to remember it) let me give you my 0.02 cents worth
YES, it is SO worth it. The big expense is the 512G flash SSD. Besides being more shock resistant, not subject to fragmentation, its blankty blankaty FAST! So many programs load twice as fast. (I am running windows in Parallels, a huge diff. in start up speed). Video editing SO much faster. That is a huge part of the cost. The rest is the lovely screen. When I picked mine up yesterday (Tuesday) opened it in the apple store, put it next to the current 15" MBP and there is a noticeable improvement including less glare.
One feature that is not mentioned, while the screen is 2880 x 1800 you get 5 different display resolutions that all are very sharp. For OLD eyes, you can go down to 1024 x 640 (OK, WAY TOO BIG) and when I am writing code, I want a lot of space, so bring it up to 1920 x 1200. The default is in the middle. Most other LCD screens have one "GOOD" resolution. To me, this is a HUGE feature!
The speakers are MUCH better than the ones on my previos MBP. and the fan is MUCH quieter (I play Second Life a lot and that heats up the computer so the fans are always at max!) Oh yea, the video card is noticably faster with Second Life. I am getting twice the FPS.
I am very happy with the jacks. Yes, if you need wired ethernet each day, it would be nice to have that built in, I guess ditto for video out, etc. but I dont mind buying the adapters when I need them (Yo Apple, I am waiting!). Ditto with the external DVD Drive. If I was living on an airplane and wanting to watch movies on each flight, thish would NOT be the laptop for me, but I figure I use a DVD maybe once every other month or so. (and since I have more than one mac, the remote DVD option works fine with me. Worked fine for years with the mac air!)
Bottom line, this very expensive computer seems very polished to me. If I was just not so impatient to wait 2-3 weeks to order one, I would have an extra 256G storage and 16G of ram! But I guess I can settle for this "entry Level" machine
bruce

Help! I Can't Boot from Firewire Drive (Previous MBP C2D Hard Drive)

Can a hardrive from a C2D Macbook Pro start an i7 Quad MBP?
I just sold my 2008 15" 2.4ghz C2D MBP, (that had 10.6.5 installed), and today bought the newest
17" 2.2ghz i7 Quad Core MBP, (that has 10.6.6 pre-installed.)
I installed a fresh HD on the 15" before selling it, and kept its HD, and put it into a FW800 enclosure.
+(note: The 15" Macbook Pro I just sold, booted fine from this HD in the FW800 enclosure.)+
Before migrating my data, from the FW800 drive, I figured I would upgrade the old OS to 10.6.6, so it would be a seamless migration.
While up and running on the brand new i7, I could see the FW800 drive with 10.6.5 as a Startup Disk option in System Preferences.
I rebooted holding down the option key, selected the FW drive, and pressed the arrow below to continue startup.
The grey screen with the apple came up immediately, but I was horrified that the spinning gear never did appear, and startup froze at that point. I left it like this for five minutes. Grey screen with apple. Frozen.
So, I held down the power key, shut it down, then restarted holding down Command-S to run Disk Utility in SIngle User Mode, (/sbin/fsck -fy). Disk was okay.
I rebooted into the new internal, installed Diskwarrior 4.3, and checked the FW800, and it had no errors.
I opened Startup Disk in System Preferences, and chose the FW800 drive as the Startup Disk, and rebooted. Same result. Grey screen with apple, and no further...
Can someone please help me troubleshoot this?
Should I be able to boot this new MBP i7 with the HD from my old MBP C2D?
Is there something incompatible between the old C2D and i7?
Thanks in advance!

Ho Lee MACkeral wrote:
That CD2 OS will not boot into a new computer's OS.
Hi, thanks for replying.
I knew that the switch to Intel from ppc, meant a ppc drive, partitioned with APM could not boot an intel machine with a GUID partition table.
Do you know:
1. for certain that a C2D HD cannot boot an i7 machine?
2. and why?
Ho Lee MACkeral wrote:
Why not use Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder?
I am planning on doing this.
My old drive was 10.6.5.
The new machine has 10.6.6 pre-installed.
I figured that if I was able to upgrade the old drive to the same OSX first, it would provide a more seamless migration.
I was also concerned that my applications on 10.6.5 might become broken if they were migrated to 10.6.6. I really do not want to have to install everything.

Eternal Boot of Firewire drive seems impossible on MacBook- Major Issue?

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