External usb boot drives not starting on M90P

Hello everyone I hope you can help with a long term problem booting an M90P from an external drive. It is a fully installed Linux distro on 1TB usb powered . I am able to boot without issues on to my lenovo M50P and other computers. I have ensured the device is not listed in the "excluded" devices in bios and I am able to select it as a bootable device following the F12 procedure but it simply hangs . I have tried using an externally powered drive to rule out the possibility of power over USB issues and the results are the same. I feel sure it is a BIOS setup problem and I have tried many different configurations but for the life of me I can not work it out.I have seen elsewhere similar posts pointing to a problem with bios on this model. Perhaps this model has somehow been designed to disallow boot from an external drive?

Both Hard Drives work on my 2012 Macbook Air 13" (running on Mountain Lion) absolutely fine. Tried the 7 USB drives– they all work as well.
Yes, youre having a problem with WD software and firmware, this has been a point of much discussion with WD software and Mavericks , and affecting drives OTHER THAN WD, via their software
you can read about it here, and ask WD about their removal software
http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/bd-p/passport_mac
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/11/27/western-digital-smartware-software-update-address es-bug/
From WD:
You can now download the WD Software Uninstaller. This utility will remove Mac WD SmartWare and WD Drive Manager software. You can find the uninstaller under any of the Mac Drive Downloads sections such as the My Book Studio below.
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=124&sid=214&lang=en

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2.5" external USB hard drive not recognized by my iMac

I have a small 2.5" external USB hard drive that my intel iMac will not mount or see. My 12" G4 Powerbook sees it fine and it is formatted in Mac OS Extended. My iMac is bootcamped and XP on my iMac sees the drive but not OS X Tiger on the iMac, (wierd) I have Tiger on both my Macs too.
Why does the intel based OS X refuse to see this external 2.5 HD. It sees a 3.5" USB one I have but not the small one. I know it is software.

Hey coby,
Well thanks for the star. Not sure I deserve it.
i then tried connecting the drive to each USB port again, and voila! i have found one it works in. I guess my computer's ports must be a little worn.
Hmm well try looking inside and see if there's some smutz in there, if the contacts are dirty or bent or worn.
i was starting to think i would have to go out and get a USB hub to give it some more power.
Is it powered off the USB? If so that actually might be a good idea since that puts a lot of strain on the connectors. Even if it's self powered it might be a good idea since it would take the strain off an obviously flakey USB.
richard

External USB Hard Drive not showing up on Time Capsule

Hi all,
I have a 500 Gb Time Capsule that used to be able to detect my external USB hard drives. I had to store my things for a while and have just started using the Time Capsule again. The TC works fine, however, the same USB external hard drives I used to connect to the TC are not showing up anymore :s They show up on the desktop when I connect them directly to my MacBook via USB. I have been through most of the file sharing options in Airport Utility and System Preferences but have not been able to solve this. I can't think of any settings that would have changed from when they were showing up in the past. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thx

yosemite won't work with ntfs drives for some reason, i've had the same issue with my toshiba. i thought ok lemme buy another one, and transfer it over maybe it's a driver issue which i've tried over and over, apple support can't figure it out.
here's a simple fix, but the problem is i have an external where all my photography and video files are stored, so i can't access them right now and it's making my life ****.
http://guides.macrumors.com/Formatting_an_External_Device
that does work and make the drive mountable now, but problem being i can't obviously reformat the old drive and lose everything. once the new drive is formatted for mac i can't plug it into a pc to transfer the files from. which is the only problem now. but formatting the drive for mac only DOES work. but you're just screwed and not able to use it ntfs. hope the link helps SOME people.

External USB hard drive not being recognized

Hello! I'm sure this has been posted before, but excuse my naivety with this sort of thing...
I have a mac mini 10.5.6 (1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) and I run the Time Machine function to an external usb hard drive. The hard drive worked fine (plugged into the usb port on an older keyboard), but I went out and bought a new aluminum apple keyboard (because they look so cool ^_^ ) - I plugged the external usb drive into the keyboard and it wasn't recognized, so I tried plugging the external drive directly into the mac mini, but it is still not recognized. It is not showing up in Disk Utility or in System Profiler
Help? I'd hate to have to give up this fancy keyboard...
Thank you!
Dr. E

I believe I had my external drive plugged into the (old) keyboard because with the old mac that I had didn't have a free usb port for it - so when I got the mini I just plugged things back in where they were. But I have always had the Time Machine back up to this drive (connected to the keyboard) though it has been slow (another reason I thought the new keyboard was a good idea).
I tried restarting the computer without the alu keyboard plugged in, but same problem of no drive showing up.
Here is what System Profiler has to say about my drive:
USB2.0 Storage Device:
Capacity: 93.16 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Product ID: 0x6830
Vendor ID: 0x04b4 (Cypress Semiconductor)
Version: 0.01
Serial Number: DEF107920F07
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Cypress Semiconductor
Location ID: 0x3d130000
Current Available (mA): 100
Current Required (mA): 0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
USB:
Capacity: 92.84 GB
Available: 53.14 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s2
Mount Point: /Volumes/USB
I don't know the brand or model as it has 'always' been in the case that in which it currently resides and I didn't physically buy the thing :\ I do know that no software was installed with the drive as I assumed that when I put all the old info from the original mac to the mini that it was the sort of thing that would carry over.
Sorry I'm not terribly helpful - Thank you!
Dr. E

HP external USB DVD Drive not recognized by computer.

Have HP Mini-210 and HP external USB DVD Drive. When attached, the DVD drive lights and spins but computor will not recognize it. When checking Device Manager, it says no driver for DVD drive.. I try to reinstall the driver, and then it says I have the best one already. Device Manager continues to indicate that this drive has a problem. Tried to download a driver from HP support and it was not available on line.
Copied install disk that came with drive thru dropbox cloud to move it onto the computor. Was able to install the programs but still have no driver and unable to use DVD drive.

Try this wayne
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929461/en-us

Help with using an external USB hard drive to start up a powerbook?!

Hello ppl of the apple support communities,
My uncle recently gave me an Apple Powerbook G4 with a bad internal hard drive and the Mac OS X installation disk that came with the machine! In my country Greece to repair this powerbook costs about 140$ that i dont have! I need your help! I connected the external USB disk to 2 USB ports,and started the Mac OS X 9.2 installation! I went to Utilities Menu checked the disk erase tab and at Volume Format i used ''Mac OS Extended(journaled)'' and checked the box ''Install Mac OS 9 Driver'' and then click Erase. However the box for the ''Install MAc OS 9 disk drivers remained checked.(Seems like they cant be installed!)Then when i go to the partition tab ad at ''Options...'' i cant find this GUID thing and i can only choose between ''Apple Partition Scheme'' and ''PC Partition Scheme''!!

GUID partition scheme is required for Intel-based systems. The Powerbook would use the Apple partition scheme.
While it's probably what was provided with the Powerbook, I wouldn't bother with OS X 9.2. If you plan to use it to connect to the internet, there are so many advances that have taken place since 9.2, especially in handling web sites and security. And some web sites rely on newer versions of plug-ins, like Flash, to name one. You should also expect that watching online video's will be difficult, as even the last Powerbooks have difficulties with some video's.
Good luck with your project!

External USB Hard Drive Not Recognised / Seen

Hi,
I have a WP 250 GB External hard drive which was working fine until recently and now is not recognised by my 2007 Intel Macbook. When I plug in the hard drive, a light comes on solidly and it begins whirring. Then, it continues to whirr as if it was going to work, but the light starts flickering.
It is not visable as an external hard drive in finder. 'View Hard Disk' is switched on under Finder / Preferences. On System Profiler, when I click 'USB' fom the list on the left, the computer displays the circular "thinking about it" spinning thing, and system profiler freezes, and nothing else happens. The same thing happens with disk utility.
I tried plugging the hard drive into a windows computer, and it worked fine; all the files inside it were visable. It is formatted to my mac and I have successfully used the hard drive many times before. A logical next step would be to try it on another mac but I don't have access to one.
I have tried to to a PRAM reset, but couldn't do it, even following the instructions on the MAC website (turn off computer, turn on and hold the mac button, ctrl, p, and r simultaneously) it wouldn't do a PRAM reset.
I am not a computer expert, but I am not completely green either. Why is it that doing the simplest thing on a computer requires a minimum of a 4 year computer science degree or equivalent.... somebody please help me crack this, I am close to smashing the whole thing to pieces with a hammer (which would be satisfying but counterproductive and expensive...)
Thanks in advance for your replies

Did you allow Windows to upgrade the formatting on this drive from FAT to NTFS recently? You should be able to check the formatting on the volume from within Windows. It would also be worth trying to repair the drive under Windows if it allows you to.
Note that NTFS is not readable under OS 10.4.x without special software. NTFS is read-only but not writable under OS 10.5 and later.
If the volume isn't NTFS, and repairing it doesn't help, you may need to just backup the data and try to reformat it.

External USB Hard Drive not recognized on iMac HELP!!

I am currently using a i5 iMac running Lion 10.7.5
I have recently partitioned a Verbatim USB external hard drive and uploaded all my footage from a wedding. This was done with no problems and the QT videos could be opened from the hard drive.
A few weeks later, the hard drive does not show up in my finder. BUT it is recognized in disk utility. Here is a screen shot;
So first I ran "Verify" and it told me to repair disk. After clicking on Repair, I got this;
It is giving me the error message "Invalid B-Tree node"
Here is more info on the hard drive;
Name : Hitachi HTS545032B9A300 Media
          Type :           Disk
          Partition Map Scheme :           Master Boot Record
          Disk Identifier :           disk1
          Media Name :           Hitachi HTS545032B9A300 Media
          Media Type :           Generic
          Connection Bus :           USB
          USB Serial Number :           091004B3066D
          Device Tree :           IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/EHC2@1A,7
          Writable :           Yes
          Ejectable :           Yes
          Location :           External
          Total Capacity :           320.07 GB (320,072,933,376 Bytes)
          Disk Number :           1
          Partition Number :           0
          S.M.A.R.T. Status :           Not Supported
Can someone give me a step by step on how to get the hard drive working again? It would mean the world to me as this footage is priceless and irreplaceable.
OR can you refer me to someone (Geek Squad? Apple Store?) that might be able to help me out?
Thanks in advance!

The error message invalid b-tree node size indicates that the directory on the disk is corrupt. The way that it can be repaired is to reformat as disk utiltiy says.
It is recommended that the data be backed up first before either of this solution are done.
Since it is not be recognized by the sytem at all it does sound like you can back it up now.
Do you have a backup?
If you don't there is every chance you may lose all your data.
You can check to see if a data recovery service can recover any data for you. If you go that route you are looking at spending $$$$
Allan

External USB Hard Drives Not being recognized since recently.

Some quick facts:
Using early-2011 MacBook Pro, 15"
Two HD's worked fine recently (around before upgrade to Mavericks):
1 Lacie Neil Poulton 1TB Disk
1 Western Digital MyBook 500GB Disk
BOTH were formatted to Mac OS Journaled since day 1, so NO bloatware/manufacturer software. Purely storage.
The 2 drives are connected via a powered USB hub, but connecting it directly doesn't help. (strangely, the keyboard and mouse attached via USB hub work fine)
Tested with 7 different USB drives to test– none of them work
The 2 drives actually show up in the System Profiler, but not in Disk Utility.
Both Hard Drives work on my 2012 Macbook Air 13" (running on Mountain Lion) absolutely fine. Tried the 7 USB drives– they all work as well.
Tried SMC reset. Briefly detected the drives, but once I put it to sleep and turned it back on, it stopped detecting it again.
Help!!!!!

Both Hard Drives work on my 2012 Macbook Air 13" (running on Mountain Lion) absolutely fine. Tried the 7 USB drives– they all work as well.
Yes, youre having a problem with WD software and firmware, this has been a point of much discussion with WD software and Mavericks , and affecting drives OTHER THAN WD, via their software
you can read about it here, and ask WD about their removal software
http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/bd-p/passport_mac
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/11/27/western-digital-smartware-software-update-address es-bug/
From WD:
You can now download the WD Software Uninstaller. This utility will remove Mac WD SmartWare and WD Drive Manager software. You can find the uninstaller under any of the Mac Drive Downloads sections such as the My Book Studio below.
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=124&sid=214&lang=en

External USB Hard Drive Can't Be Safely Removed After Boot Camp 3.1 Install

I just wanted to report that I've done multiple installs of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on my MacBook 4,1 and although I've had no problem using the cmd workaround ( http://www.zath.co.uk/how-to-install-windows-7-on-apple-mac-boot-camp/ ) to install the 64-bit Boot Camp drivers that come with the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard retail DVD, I have found that by installing the Boot Camp 3.1 drivers on the same system, under no circumstance can I click the the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the system tray and not receive a message saying that ... "The device 'Generic Volume' cannot be safely ejected..." and that some program or service must be using it. However, a restart doesn't solve the problem any more than logging out does.
I read somewhere that part of the fix that Boot Camp 3.1 was intended to provide was to allow safe ejecting of the Macintosh HFS+ partition. Well, my external hard drive has three partitions: one NTFS, another NTFS, and a third HFS+ for Time Machine backups. I suspect, since I haven't seen anyone else reporting this issue, that it may simply be that the Boot Camp 3.1 drivers don't take into account the possibility of an HFS+ partition on external USB devices. Anyway, a System Restore to before Boot Camp 3.1 drivers were installed completely remedies the issue.
At this point, I'm not having any trackpad issues or anything else of note with respect to the original Boot Camp 3.0 drivers that came with the Snow Leopard retail disc, so I'm fine keeping those drivers installed and allowing Windows Update to update the Intel and Marvell drivers as it recommends. I just find it slightly amusing that the Boot Camp 3.0 drivers, which supposedly did not support Windows 7 (let alone the 64-bit version) work better than the 3.1 drivers which do supposedly support Windows 7. And the funny thing (or is it?) is that you have to install the original Boot Camp drivers with the cmd workaround before you're even able to update to the Boot Camp 3.1 drivers. Hilarious stuff there.
Proprietary gamesmanship is a big reason some of us prefer the Linux "share the ownership +for free+" model of computing. Just saying...
Anyone have any proper solutions (as in, other than "don't install the updates then!")?
bkadoctaj

I have a pair of external usb drives, one formatted for NTFS and the other for HFS+ connected through an external 7 port hub. I am running Windows 7 (64 bit) with bootcamp 3.1 on a late 2009 Mac BookPro. I share the same "safely remove hardware" issues you described. I always assumed it was because my external drives were connected through my external USB hub because of a similar issue I had running Vista (64 bit), but now I can confirm directly connecting the external USB HFS+ drive also yields the same "safely remove hardware" problem. Unfortunately for me, if I regress to the Bootcamp 3.0 drivers, my audio drivers, at times, fails to load. I would need to regress to Windows Vista (64 bit), the last environment where my iSight camera, internal speakers and all other hardware performed correctly. I would gladly, at this point, live with the "safely remove hardware" issue in exchange for a working iSight camera, the one and only hardware device lost to me in the move to Windows 7.

In start disc mode can I use a external USB flash drive on MAC Book Pro

In start disc mode can I use a external USB flash drive on MAC Book Pro?

To do what? Yes you can connect a USB flash drive to the system and if it has the Recovery HD files on it you can boot from it. If it has the OS X install files on it you can boot from it. If it is large enough to contain a Time Machine backup on it you can restore your system from it.
So what do you want to do with the USB thumb drive?
Roy02649 wrote:
In start disc mode can I use a external USB flash drive on MAC Book Pro?

C30: Booting from external USB hard drive

I carry my OS on an external portable USB drive, and then make use of whatever hardware is available where I visit.
I recently attempted to boot a Lenovo C30 Thinkstation with this external drive, and was unable to do so. In looking at the BIOS settings, there is no option to boot from USB (other than floppy(?!?) or memory stick).
Is it possible to boot from an external USB hard drive, and if not, why?
jerry

The boot sequence section of our setup menus has been troublesome to say the least (at least through the development phase). There are various reasons why it is the way it is now....from spec requirements to customer requirements. So long story short it really needs to be this way, even though situations like the one you encoutered is inconvenient.
The USB issue is actually done for security reasons. For example, many large customers don't want users to have the ability to just walk up and plug in a USB device and allow the system to detect that and attempt to boot to it right away as it is a risk to their image/security. For this reason, USB devices don't automatically get added to the boot order, and must be added throught he setup menu if needed.

Satellite L20-100 can be booted from external USB hard drive?

I recently bought Toshiba Satellite L20-100 and I wonder if:
1. is there any possibility to boot this machine from external usb hard drive?
2. it is possible to attach another internal hard drive?
Supposing that the both answers above are 'no', how can I solve the following problem: I need hdd space, I need to boot 3 separate Wxp Operating Systems onto the same machine (Toshiba Satellite L20-100).

Booting from external USB HD - "No" would be the official, mcrsoft sponsored, answer. However, it is possible. Not easy but it can be done. I've seen it done with my own eyes and there are guides how to do this. Just look for it with search engine. But if you have enough disk space you better do what was suggested here - create 3 partitions and use boot manager.

External USB hard drives working very slow and/or not recognized. Help!

This probably started after my Yosemite upgrade, but my external usb hard drives either aren't working well or not being recognized. It's taking forever to write files to my external Seagate Free Agent USB 2.0 through front ports and my thumb drives aren't mounting (they have shown up for a second or two, then nothing). Is there a fix? I'm on an early 2008 mac pro with Yosemite 10.10.2.
Thanks!

Do an SMC reset using this slightly-modified procedure:
Resetting the SMC for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve
1.Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
[2a. Press the power-on button to discharge the power capacitors.]
3. Wait fifteen seconds.
4. Attach the computer's power cord.
5. Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
in all cases, the stated times are recommended minimums, and there are no maximums.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support

Cannot boot to Windows disc from external USB DVD drive.

I have a MacBook Pro 17" Early 2011 8,3. I have tried to use bootcamp to install Windows 7 from a external USB DVD drive. All I get, like many people, is a black screen with a blinking cursor, as if it never makes it to boot. I tried restarting to the OS selection for holding alt, and tried the DVD again, did not work.
I saw a few posts claiming that this didn't work on some models of Mac because of a EFI problem that would not allow booting from a external USB, which is really stupid because it would seems some models can... And MacBook airs can... Can someone please confirm this for me? Has anyone found a resolution?
If not, APPLE PLEASE FIX THIS.

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. Yes the MBP is currently running Tiger, I want to flatten this with a fresh install of Leopard. I can view the install DVD when in Tiger currently.
I haven't tried what you have suggested, but I have seen various posts suggesting this approach. I've also seen several posts explain how to create a partition on an external firewire Harddrive and this seems to have worked for various people.
This would however mean that I didn't really need the external Lacie drive at all, as I've got access to my G5s DVD drive over the network. The more I search on this, the more convinced I am the USB drive was a bad idea.
Once again thank for the response.

External usb boot drives not starting on M90P

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