External drive preventing start up

I have a new iMac 21.5" model A1418. It will not start up with my LaCie drive connected. Never had this problem with my old iMac. Used a brand new cable. Don't think that is the issue. Any advice?

Do a search for and downlaod and install OmniDisk Sweeper and OnyX.
Hard drive getting full or near full?
Here are some of my tips for deleting or archiving data off of your internal hard
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save to disc, Flash drive/s or to ext. hard drive.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, Flash drive or ext. hard drive and/or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Uninstall apps that you no longer use. If the app has a dedicated uninstaller, use it to completely uninstall the app. If the app has no uninstaller, then just drag it to the OS X Trash icon and empty the Trash.
Also, if you save old downloaded .dmg application installer files, you can either archive and delete these or just delete the ones you think you'll never install, again.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. Let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be thinned out, moved, also, to the external hard drive and then either archived to disc, Flash drive or ext. hard drive and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

Similar Messages

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

no.

HT201250 I've just used an external drive to back up my Mac with Time Machine. I have Lion, but didn't click and check the "Encrypt Backup Disc". What should I do? Can I delete the external drive and start again, or can I encrypt later?

I've just used an external drive to back up my Mac with Time Machine. I have Lion, but didn't click and check the "Encrypt Backup Disc". What should I do? Can I delete the external drive and start again, or can I encrypt later?

I guess if stolen or lost it would protect my "stuff", and if I'm travelling would protect my privacy.
You must understand the purpose and implications of encryption before deciding whether to use it.
Encryption locks your data with a password. If you forget that password, the data is lost beyond any chance of recovery. Neither Apple nor anyone else will be able to help you recover that data if you don't know the password.
By the same token, the password must be strong enough to provide the security you want. For example, if you're the potential target of industrial espionage by a government or large corporation, you need the strongest possible password. To create and manage such a password safely is a task in itself, not to be undertaken lightly.
If you're only concerned about casual snooping by someone with no special skill, a weak, easily-remembered password is appropriate.
But regardless of the strength of the password, if you lose it, the data is gone forever.
Another point to remember is that if you encrypt your data on one storage device, you must also encrypt it on all other storage devices that would be accessible to the same attacker. Otherwise the data isn't protected. For example, if you keep your computer and your backup drive in the same room, and the internal drive of the computer is not encrypted, then there's no point in encrypting the backup drive.

How do I tell itunes (on a Windows XP PC) to start adding downloaded files to an external drive ? Starting itunes while pressing the shift key and then choosing works only for a MAC, I think. I only need this one final step. All is copied already

How do I tell itunes on a Windows XP PC to start downloading new songs to my external drive ? The whole library has already been moved. I am just one final step away. Everything I`m downloading still lands on C: Relaunching itunes while pressing "shift" and then getting prompted to choose library might work for a Mac, it doesn't for Windows.

In iTunes click on 'Edit', then 'Preferances', Click on the 'Advanced' button, change the entry in the 'iTunes media folder location' to point to your external drive.

HT201250 Time Machine does not recognize external drive at start up

I have an external WD 2TB drive which I use as my Time Machine back up drive. When I restart the iMac desktop the Time Machine drive does not start automatically and I must open Time Machine each time and remember to identify the external drive that contains my Time Machine back up data. Is there some way to make this drive the default Time Machine back up device when the system starts? It is annoying to have to remember to do this each time my machine restarts. I have a drive icon that displays as "My Book" on restart where the Time Machine icon is located but this icon is yellow and my Time Machine drive icon is blueish green. Once I set the correct drive it will go into the mode to refresh the backup (usually in 118 seconds) and then once the backup is updated then the icon become blueish green and all works normally. Please help! Thx Tom

I called Apple tech support and went through the recommended actions with doing the disk check with the Utilities and all checked out okay. They had to ask the senior support advisor and was told that it does not automatically start the Time Machine drive until the next scheduled back up. There was a misconception that this drive SHOULD be identified as the Time Machine drive on boot up but that is not the case. I waited for the next schedule back up after reboot and it DID recognize the drive and it appears to be working fine.
The Time Machine does start on boot up but does not indicate that the Time Machine is recognized until the back up is done then it is back on cycle and will operate normally until the next reboot where it will then refresh during that cycle and become recognized in green. Until that time the drive will appear as a yellow icon for the disk.
Oh, by the way, the drive has external power on my WD 2 TB drive.

Macbook not loading external drives on start up

I have two external hard drives attached to my MacBook Pro (running Lion) using a powered USB hub. What is the best procedure to use when shutting down the computer at the end of the night, and when turning it on the next morning. I didn't turn the computer off much when I used Snow Leopard so I can't really say that it has something to do with Lion, but I'm using Lion now and I am shutting down every night. Every morning when I turn the computer on the external hard drives don't load. I have to disconnect all the wires from the hub then first reconnect the hub to the computer, next the power to the hub, then the hard drives one at a time as they load. I would like to turn the computer on and have the external hard drives load automatically. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I only shut-down completely when I'm transporting my MBP in my backpack. Otherwise, I sleep, or do the occasional restart. I would just let your computer sleep at night and see if that solves the problem.
Regards,
Clinton

Encrypted disk image on external drive prevents that drive from ejecting

I've tested this a few different ways, and it seems to be a rather consistent problem.
I have an external USB hard drive (seagate) and on that drive I use encrypted disk images to store my data.
(because it's a portable drive, I'm nervous I'll lose it and then someone will have access to my stuff).
So anyway, whenever I mount the sparse bundle disk image, when it comes time to eject the drive (after ejecting the disk image of course), it hangs for a while and then the Finder says it can't eject, but that I can Force Eject the drive. When I chose to Force Eject, it works, but I don't like having to force it every time.
Anyone know what's up?
Thanks,
Brian.,

Open Disk Utility > File > New >Blank Disk Image...
or use the "Option-⌘-N" Key combo (with Disk Utlity open).
Kj

How to I set Lightroom CC to not start up every time I plug in an external drive, etc.?

I have Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom CC installed and every time I plug in an external drive Lightroom starts and wants to catalog everything. I want to set it to never start on its own. How do I do this?

Thank you very much for your help.
Stephen Wolper, DPM
[email protected]

PB G4 won't start up in Tiger from external drive

My brother has what I take to be a PowerBook G4 (15-inch FW 800). It has Panther installed.
He wants to try using Tiger, so he bought the standard Tiger install DVD from Apple, and I recommended that he install Tiger on an external hard drive. He has tried this with two FW400 drives and a FW800 drive, and in all cases, after installing Tiger on the external drive and starting up from the external drive, the computer freezes in a horrible way. For example, last time, it got to the spot where, after a new installation, it asks for your name; the mouse became unresponsive and the music turned into a repeating BONG BONG kind of sound.
Why on earth would this be? I run Tiger from an external drive all the time.
He has done all hardware diagnostics, including Rember and MemTest and the diagnostic included with the computer, and everything passes just fine.
The very same external FW drive with the very same Tiger on it works just fine with a different computer attached. So we conclude that there is something about his computer that is problematic. But what could it possibly be?

Hi, mattn.
Here's a better idea. Erase the external drive. Clone your brother's internal hard drive to it as a backup. Test to see whether the Powerbook will boot normally to the clone. If it doesn't, stop right there and run a full battery of first aid and repair utilities on the internal drive, then clone it again and test again. If all tests on the internal drive are OK, your external drive enclosure(s) may just not be bootable — some aren't.
If the clone on the external drive boots the PB with no problems, upgrade the internal drive to Tiger so your brother can put it through its paces for a couple of weeks. If he likes it and decides to keep it installed, clone the internal drive again to the external drive, so Tiger and any work done in the interim is backed up. If he wants to stick with whatever older OS he was using, erase the internal drive and clone the external drive back to it. In the latter case, be sure to make a separate backup of any documents that have been created or modified during his trial period, before restoring the older clone to the internal drive.
Note that a Powerbook with Firewire 800 is Aluminum, not Titanium, and there's a separate set of forums for the Albooks:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=135
Any future questions related to the Powerbook's hardware should be directed there to reach the folks who are most knowledgeable about those models.

How to Move iTunes Library on an External Drive to Another Computer

How do you move your iTunes library (including all your playlists) if your iTunes media files—movies, TV shows, music, etc.—are housed on an external drive, rather than the local drive on your computer?
The usual advice concerns copying media files from one computer to the next, e.g.:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
But if your media is on an external device, you don’t want to copy it, just access it from a new device. You could plug the drive into your new computer and drag the media into iTunes, but then you would lose your playlists and other information.
Fortunately, you can transfer an entire iTunes Library using the Export/Import function. The essential information is found in an Apple support document, “iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists”:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451
Using this information, we can create a procedure for transferring both the media files that are on an external drive and the iTunes Library that goes with it.
Here is the procedure:
1. On the old computer, Export the playlist, using File > Library > Export Library. Transfer the resulting file to the new computer.
2. You might want to note the number of music files, TV shows, etc. you have on the old system. Select View > Show Status Bar, then choose the “List” view, and this information will be shown at the bottom of the iTunes window. Also disable sharing, etc.; you may want to deauthorize the computer as well.
3. Close iTunes on the old computer, dismount and disconnect the external drive(s). (Yes, this will work with media on multiple drives).
4. On the new computer, close iTunes and delete “iTunes Library.itl” in the iTunes folder.
5. On the new computer, Connect and mount the external drive(s).
6. Open iTunes on the new computer. Choose Preferences > Advanced. Deselect (uncheck) both “Keep iTunes Media Organized” (because it’s already organized on your external drive, right?) and “Copy files to iTunes Media folder” (because the files are on the external drive). Then set your iTunes Media folder location to your media folder on the external drive and click on “OK”. (Note: don’t close iTunes after this step, because it will automatically reset your media folder to your local machine rather than the external drive).
7. Choose File > Library > Import Playlist and choose the file you exported from the old computer. This will import all the media you had on the old system into iTunes (no need to manually move anything from the external drive). The import will probably take some time. (If you see that iTunes is copying files, you probably messed up Step 6; you can stop it and go back to Step 4 without harm).
8. After the import, you can check the numbers you noted in Step 2; if there is a discrepancy that bothers you, check out the scripts “Music Folder Files Not Added” “List MIAs” and at http://dougscripts.com/itunes/.
9. When everything is satisfactory, you can recheck “Keep iTunes Media Organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Media folder” in Preferences.
10. You may now want to enable sharing, sync iOS devices, etc. Also be sure to set up your backup strategies on the new machine (you *do* have backups of your external drive(s), right?). If you already had some media on your new computer and you want to incorporate it into the external drive, choose File > Library > Consolidate.
11. Oddities:
* iTunes Extras must be manually imported.
* Some of my movies & TV shows imported as “Home Video”.
* Mobile applications did not import (presumably because no iOS device was synced).
* Books that were once handled by iTunes are now handled by iBooks and will not import (to let iTunes see them again, you’ll need to add them manually to iBooks, then choose File > Move Books from iTunes). Audiobooks import okay, but you may have to authorize your Audible account.

Or:
Copy the iTunes folder from the old computer to the same location in your user area on the new one. Attach the external drive and start iTunes. If you have put it in your Home > Music folder the application will automatically know to look for it there and becausse you are using the same library it will be configured to look for media on the external drive.

How can I back up to an external drive with three partitions using Time Machine?

I have an external drive connected to my MBPro. The external drive has three partitions: one dedicated to the MBPro, one dedicated to my iMac and one for Photos. How can I be sure that when I backup my MBPro, it does so to the dedciated partition?
Also, I eject each of the partition icons on my desktop through the Eject selection in Finder menu and then I turn off the external drive and disconnect it. However, when I connect and turn the external drive to start it up again, the a message comes up that it has not been ejected properly. How am I supposed to eject the partitions and drive?
Thanks for you helpl
Vernon

When you set up time machine you should select which partition to backup to, after that it should be automatic, mine is.
I have not encountered your second problem, after ejecting the disks do you immeadiatley switch the drives off or leave them for 10-15 seconds to let them write the info stored on the disk drives internal buffer to disk?
I usually use the CNTL Click on the drive and select eject, but that should not be any different than using the Finder menu.

Hello I bought my wife a new MacBook Pro, in setting it up for her, I took her Time Machine external drive to migrate onto the new machine but her old MBP not only was on 10.6, it was my old machine which I was still Administrator for. i plugged in the

Hello
I bought my wife a new MacBook Pro, in setting it up for her, I took her Time Machine external drive to migrate onto the new machine but her old MBP not only was on 10.6, it was my old machine which I was still Administrator for.
i plugged in the external drive to start the migration process after entering her name and username from the old machine which gave me the options on transferring the old data over.
I also unchecked the Administrative end that had my info hoping that ONLY her data, files, etc., would be the ones sent over to her new machine which I wanted her to be the ONLY Administrator for. All went like clockwork until the restart.
Normally the screen should show the username and only need the password but both entries were blank, as in ‘Other’ sign in option available only. I entered her name and password, nothing….used her username and password, nothing. Used my old Administrator name and password, NOTHING!
I tried defaulting to factory settings from the Restore feature but it directs me to notify Apple. I tried in Terminal to change the password, nothing. I tried to boot from MY external drive and it doesn’t recognize it. I tried to even use my external drive which actually has the Mavericks upgrade, nothing!
Basically I can only get the startup screen which isn’t accepting the username/password or the Restore feature which doesn’t offer any options helpful!
Please, how do I start from scratch and start over here? Or simply change the Administrator name and password so I can proceed with everything thats already on there? I wish I could even boot from another drive but no luck on anything!

First, on the old machine, make your wife's account an admin one. Log into it and delete yours. Then, update the TM backup. Finally, use Internet recovery mode, ⌘⌥R, erase the HD, and restore the OS. One first boot, follow the steps outlined in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide.

Moving iTunes library to an external drive that already has music on it?

I want an external drive that contains music to be designated as my iTunes library. How do I do it?
Note: I do not want to move an existing library to the external drive, just start fresh with the library on the drive.
Thanks!

pbay wrote:
I want an external drive that contains music to be designated as my iTunes library. How do I do it?
Note: I do not want to move an existing library to the external drive, just start fresh with the library on the drive.
welcome to the discussion area, pbay !
1) launch iTunes with the option key pressed. choose to create a new library when prompted.
2) in preferences > advanced make sure iTunes is pointed to the external drive and that +keep iTunes media folder organized+ and +copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library+ are checked.
3) from the iTunes file menu, choose +add to library+ and start populating iTunes with the tunes you want.
when you have added all tunes to your new library, make sure they play fine. right-click on random files and +get info+. look at the summary tab and check if the path leads to the correct location (your external drive).
when satisfied, the original files can be deleted.
happy computing ...

Moving library to external drive

I am helping a client that has an iMac G4 with OS X 10.4. She has a LOT of photos in her iPhoto Library, around 25000 of them, and she is almost out of space on her internal hard drive. She has a new external drive that I would like to move her iPhoto library to.
I found instructions on the iPhoto information page. However, when I drag the iPhoto Library over to the external drive, it starts copying but then after a while I get an error about not being able to copy an alias file and it stops copying.
Also the copy procedure seems very slow, it was showing that it would take 9 hours to copy those photos. While I was watching the file transfer it was only moving about 100MB every minute. Does this model just have the older slow USB connection?

Hi, Techserv. Any iMac G4 built before September 2003 has USB 1.1, not USB 2.0 ports. With such a machine it makes no sense at all to use a USB-only external hard drive. Your client should have a FireWire-capable drive enclosure instead. It would be many times faster.

Damaged filesystem on external drive, and cloned.dmg

Hello,
To make a long story short, I had an external drive that started to show signs of failing. I got all the data off of it, and successfully transfered it to a new external drive. Several months ago my laptop and external drive were stolen, and the only copy of the data i want was on the previous external drive.
** I am skipping all the steps that you could do in disk utility, I did try them, they didnt work
I was able to get the drive to mount by removing the exclosure, and connecting it to my MBP with a sata to usb connector.
The issue now that it stayed mounted was on larger file xfers from drive to system drive, failed.
Next step
Used data rescue 3 to make a clone of the entire drive
externalclone.dmg was the result, and it was 500gb. When i tried to mount the dmg to recover files i get a message that reads
"Warning"
"The following disk images couldnt be opened"
"Image - externalclone.dmg / Reason - no mountable filesystems"
no more use in data rescue, non of its other features were able to do anything with it.
superduper, terminal commads, and a few other no name / no help apps all gave me an input/output (I/O) error.
this next part is where i get a little confused and have kind hit a wall
went out got a new 2tb external drive. was able to get the clone.dmg off of my MBP and onto the new external. I originally wanted to burn the image onto an external and use diskwarrior to rebuild the directory, i forgot what the exact error was, but the image wouldnt burn.
now that the image is off my system drive, i try to xfer it back on. When ever i try to do this it will transfer x amount (about 6ish gb) then stop and give me some generic error (sorry i didnt remember at the moment).
I thought i was dealing with a curropt file/filesystem, so i did a little hunting/research and found that someone was able to use synchronize! pro x to make a bootable system backup and had success in skipping the issue files.
i dont have a 3rd workspace right now, so i didnt try that yet, the other features in sync pro work well, but during moving of files it quits when it hits problem files.
So this is where i am, and im not sure what to do next if anything can be done.
as it stands i have a working external drive with the clone.dmg that will not mount on it. The dmg also makes the partion that it is on act up, no idea why.
any help or direction would be greatly apprechiated, this has already given me such a head ache.

the data on the drive really isnt worth the amount of money to recover it. however if i can still remedy the situation on my own i dont really care about time, this has only been a side project. I just dont know what my next step would be if i were to continue to recovery process.

External drive preventing start up

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