External FireWire Disk will not boot

Hi Forum,
after some installations (OS 10.4.9, latest security update and Qucktime 7.1.6 I canot boot from my external disk (Lacie) connected to FireWire 800 port. The Apple shows up but then nothing more happens. Does anyone have a hint?
Thanks
Oliver

Add me to the list also. I had an external firewire disk as a RAID mirror for my boot disk. After a system crash (and some problem with my internal disk) I couldn't boot from the firewire stripe. This used to work.
I've tried creating a single-disk "degraded RAID pair" on the external disk and cloning the internal disk to it (using Disk Utility "Restore"). The cloning works fine but I can't boot from the copy. This is how I originally set up the RAID pair (clone, boot from clone, add internal disk to RAID group). This used to work. I bought a new firewire disk and it has exactly the same problems.
My original firewire disk was an Acomdata E5. My new firewire disk is a Coolmax Gemini CD-311 enclosure with a Hitachi 250GB deskstar inside.
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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Any suggestions?

Went through the motions on that. No positive results. I'm starting to suspect either the enclosure or one of the latest updates.
This what I have found to date.
The Enclosure " Vantec NexStar 3" extrenal USB 2.0 and Firewire. Model NST-360UF-BK
The Drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320 GB IDE Drive
I tried 10.5.0 on an Intel Mac Mini. (GUID format) It boots ok. Install 10.5.1 manually downloaded or automatic it will install the update but will no reboot.
(this part I have to verify a second time) tried the same enclosure on a G4 . I attached the drive formatted it for a PowerPC install and boot. Installed 10.4.10 but not the latest security updates, JAVA, and QT. It will boot ok from the external FW drive. I next install the latest Updates via the update app in the Systems Preference window. After doing the updates for 10.4.10 it will not boot.
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External startup disks will not start with my new iMac

My external devices which are startup disks will not start when connected to my iMac, although it appears in the bootable drive selections after the chime sound, using the option (Alt) key. I get the bootable drive selections and when selecting it all I get is a gray screen with the apple logo and that is it. No matter how long I wait the start up does not happen. I am sure that the external device is not damaged because there is no problem to use it as a startup device when connected to my MacBook Pro.
Otherwise the devices work as they should. If I connect them to my iMac then they will appear on the desktop, etc. The only thing which does not work is that they cannot be used as startup disks, even though they work fine as startup disks if connected to my MacBook Pro.

Based on your description it is very hard to tell what is going on.
You appear to have an i7 iMac. That model was delivered with Snow Leopard (10.6.x).
My guess is that your external disks may have a version of OS X that predates the version supplied with your new iMac. You cannot run an earlier version of OS X than what was delivered with your Mac.

Western Digital 3T Firewire 800 will not boot iMac

The internal drive on my iMac (intel) is small (300G) and corrupted. My idea was to buy an external firewire 800 drive and use it as the boot disk.
I bought the western digital "My Book Studio" drive (WDB3G0030HAL). I installed the system from time machine backup and it wouldn't boot so I reinstalled Mountain LIon using the recovery partition. After that, I learned it will boot my macBook Pro but still doesn't boot the iMac.
I have found older articles about western digital having problems getting external drives to boot.
Does anyone have newer information or work arounds?
thanks
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Here is a list of WD bootable drives:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1787/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvd GltZS8xMzUxNTIzMzIwL3NpZC9ueUFYc1g5bA%3D%3D
You can check to see if yours is on it.
FWIW, are you saying that you have one backup and are trying to boot two different machines with it? Unless the two machines have the same build, that is not possible - Macs simply cannot be booted or run with a system version older than what they came with.

Tech tool disk will not boot machine ????

greetings in my neverending issue ....
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so
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no spinnny gear below the apple
just the apple sitting there
no sound of disk spinning
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kt

HI kt,
I love to offer advice to Apple users here except when I have to say something they don't want to hear. It sounds like the drive is dying and needs to be laid to rest even though you ran DU and it reported no errors, obviously something is wrong when you can't boot from the restore disk or TechToolPro. Sounds like it just doesn't want to mount any disks at all.
Try resetting the PMU... here's how: Reset PMU on iBookG4
Also, here's a PDF User Manual for the iBookG4: iBookG4 User Manual PDF
A trip to an Apple store or an Apple retailer might be the answer.
Apple Store Locations Scroll to the bottom of that window.
Carolyn

Installed X.5 on external HD FW - Will not boot - I'm confused

Hi
Bought an external HD FW (500Gb)
Formatted it as Mac OS Extended (journaled)
Installed Mac OS X.5 Leopard
Selected Start-up disk - New ext HD
Doesn't work.
This I've done sinc system 7 I guess. Can't figure out why it doesn't work now.
Yours most confused Bengt W

You can check the partition scheme in Disk Utility by clicking on the topmost (drive) icon and looking at the bottom right of the screen, but even if it is Apple Partition Map, correct for your PPC macs, they probably still won't boot.
From this Western Digital support web page http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1715
====
Power PC based Macintosh computers are unable to boot to a My Book external hard drive.
Question
Why am I unable to boot to a WD My Book external hard drive using a Power PC (PPC) Based Macintosh computer?
Answer
Problem:
Power PC based Macintosh computer systems are unable to boot to the following My Book external hard drive:
* My Book Pro II Edition
* My Book Premium II Edition
* My Book Home Edition
* My Book Studio Edition
Intel Macintosh computers are not affected by this issue and are able to be booted from My Book external hard drives if the partition on the drive has been setup as a GUID partition scheme.
Cause:
This issue is a Macintosh bug cause by the Mac ROM code of the computer and how it attempts to boot from the first SCSI LUN it detects (LUN 0). In the case of the aforementioned hard drives, the LUN 0 device is dedicated to the button board and safe removal tools of the hard drive case and not the internal hard drive, thus causing booting to be impossible.
Resolution:
There is currently no resolution to this issue. If a resolution is found by Apple, this answer will be updated with this information.
=====
Hopefully you can exchange your drive for a different brand.

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When you last formatted the drive, and mounted it in the Finder, did you make sure that Get Info's Ignore Privileges was not checked?

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I have a G4 Cube that exhibits a perplexing boot issue on an external firewire drive. The external drive is a clone of the Cube's internal dual boot, two partition drive made with an identical 120 GB Seagate. The internal drive boots without incident into either OS X or OS 9 - each in it's own partition.
The problem comes when I select the external drive's OS X partition in Startup Disk and restart - the external drive's activity LED shows an initial attempt to boot but then hesitates and boots to the internal OS X partition repeatedly.
As a workaround, I am able to select and boot to the OS 9 partition, either internally or externally, launch the StartUp Disk control panel, select the external OS X partition and reboot successfully into that partition. But upon a restart, it fails to boot into the external OS X partition repeating the aforementioned behavior i.e. it boots to the internal OS X partition.
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Hi, LEOinDC -
How old is the internal battery in that Cube? Many machines exhibit boot anomalies if that battery is too weak or dead.
Those batteries have an expected life of about 4 to 5 years under best-case usage; if the machine is unplugged regularly or for an extended period, the battery is consumed much faster. Even if the machine is not unnplugged the battery will eventually die, and there will be no symptoms such as loss of date or time since the trickle power drawn when the machine is shut down (but still plugged in) will maintain those.
Also, is the external firewire drive self-powered? If not, try that.
Sometimes when using Startup Manager (which is what booting with Option held down invokes), all available bootable volumes aren't picked up before it displays what it has found. The solution for that is to click the circular arrow button in Startup Manager - this is an instruction to rescan the buses.

New HDD Will Not Boot Internally

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Taking the old drive out, and putting the new one in, I used the Startup Manager to select the new drive and it wouldn't boot. It came up with the Apple screen and spinning wheel, but wouldn't get further than that.
Thinking that some boot information hadn't been copied, I attached my old drive externally so that whatever information wasn't copied was at least accessible, but the new drive still wouldn't boot.
I took the new drive out and connected it externally via USB again, but this time with no drive internally. I selected the new drive in Startup Manager, and I was able to boot from it.
Unsure of what's going on, I wiped the new drive and put it back in the MBP. Booted into Recovery Mode and selected Restore from Time Machine backup. I went through the selection of where my backup was and which one to use, but my new 1TB drive wasn't available to restore to.
I then tried the option to Reinstall Mac OS X, however it wouldn't let me do this either.
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For whatever reason, this hard drive will NOT work when installed internally. I've contacted Seagate and they basically told me to shove off for opening the unit and voiding the warranty, no one online seems to have any ideas as to why this isn't working!
If anyone has some great ideas for a solution they'd be more than welcome!

It worked! Drive and Recovery Partition were cloned without problem and I can now boot to the internal drive as normal.
Thanks for the help Grant!
The fix/method for anyone wanting to do this in future:
Install new HDD into Mac, connect old drive in an enclosure.
Boot to old drive recovery partition
Run Disk Utility from the recovery partition and 'restore' the image of your old drive (which is connected via USB) to the new drive.
Wait a LONG time (5 hours for a 750GB HDD) and it'll clone your entire HDD including the recovery partition.
Whilst still in recovery Disk Utility, change startup disk to the new HDD (the one installed in your Mac)
Disconnect USB drive and boot to the newly cloned intertnal drive.
Celebrate - up to you how to approach this one, I just did a little dance.

Core i7 mbp will not boot from external disk

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I'm trying to boot my core i7 from any external disk without success getting only the grey restart screen. The machine will neither boot from the 10.6 upgrade disk, nor the external firewire disk.
I'm not sure, but it seems that you're suggesting that I rebuild the OS as though it were a brand new machine without any of my s/w or data, and I cannot conceive of such a monumental task. If you mean that I should reinstall the OS, that would be fine, but I can't boot from a DVD, which is what prompted this query to begin with.
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I have a new macbook pro 2,6 Ghz i7, 8GB 1600Mhz internal ram. He will not boot from an external disk with operating system Snow Leopard

I have a new macbook pro 2,6Ghz i7, 8GB 1600 Mhz internal ram, but he will not boot from an external disk with operating system Snow Leopard.

These Macs shipped with 10.7, and will run nothing older than that:
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Original Mac OS X included
(see Tips 1 and 3)
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Intel Xserve will NOT boot from hard disk drive

I have two Intel Xserves 2.0 QC machines
I have tried to re-install version 10.4.11 OS (don't ask) onto a Hard disk drive that is in a Disk drive caddy and inserted in the machine.
When booting from The installation DVD media
The disk is seen by the "Disk Utility" (the disk is partitioned as GUID boot) and the installation proceeds to the disk.
Once the first pass of the installation is complete and the system reboots, the system shows the folder and ? mark.
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I have tried bona fide Apple supplied Disk drives
I have tried various different caddies
I have tried installing Operating System 10.5.* and 10.6.8 server
I have run SMC reset and system reset
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Is it fixable?
Do I have replace something like the Hard Disk Drive back plane circuit board? Or even the main logic board?
I have now run out of ideas and cannot find any help in discussions or just googling.
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Regards
Tony

Antonio Hi !
QC = Quad core or QX as it is written on the "pull out" serial number tab at rear of system
I have 3 late 2006 Intel xserves
On my intial posting I declared 2 were 2.0 machines - when I was trying to be concise
2 of the macines are 2.66 systems and 1 is 2.0 system - all are QX machines
the 2.0 and 1 of the 2.66 will NOT boot from the ADM and disk inside the system - whereas the other 2.66 system will.
I have many different Caddies and these have different product/model number labels
603-9965
603-9545
603-9796
these are marked "intel SATA"
The 80Gb was only one of the drives tested - I have used Seagate 400Gb 750Gb and 1Tb - all of which have been used in systems at one time or another
and as I said the drives ARE visible once the operating system (either installation DVD or external firewire are booted from) - they are just NOT visible when the system is searching for boot media.
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Leopard will not boot from Firewire HD

Hello,
The issue is this,
I have a Mac Mini G4 (M9687LL/A) and I am "trying" to install 10.5 on to a external firewire drive. The Drive is Acomdata 160GB Firewire dirve with a Partition Type of Apple Partition Map and is formated in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) So I boot off the Leopard install DVD and I install it to the firewire drive and all goes well. Then when I try to boot from this drive it will not boot off the FWHD. When I restart the mac and hold the option key to get the boot menu, I do not see the Firewire drive only the internal drive? So if someone can help me on this or is having the same issue let me know. Thanks

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Unfortunately, Acomdata's record on the matter isn't quite clean*:
http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug2.html
My recommendation, swap out the hard drive case and put another one in its place around the hard drive that is known to be compatible. The only two companies I know of are http://www.macsales.com/ and http://www.cooldrives.com/
There may be others you can write to on the above FAQ*. The problem is not all Firewire nor USB drives are bootable.
Another thing you may be running into is that if you want to use the keyboard to startup from an external drive, you may need an Apple keyboard to be certain the C or Option keys work. Option key should work if you have the right keyboard:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178
Finally, Time Machine is not a bootable backup, but does backup everything. Currently only Carbon Copy Cloner, and Apple's Disk Utility offer bootable backups of Leopard.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Mac Mini i7 (Mavericks) will not boot from the external drive

Mac Mini i7 (Mavericks) will not boot from the external drive with Disk Warroir 4.4. or Drive Genius or Lion.
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I have a ppc mac running OS 10.5.8 and an external hard drive, formatted with APM and containing a clone of the ppc mac. Using the firewire interface, this external drive will not boot the computer. The external HD box is an OWC Mercury Elite Pro containing a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda HD with 2 partitions, one partition containing the clone.

Does it only happen using FireWire? Have you checked if the external disk has got an Apple Partition Map? Note that it's required to start a PowerPC-based Mac.
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