How do I load OSX on an external hard drive (on my macbook) and boot from it?

I am having internal hard disk problems that disk utilities can't fix. I need to keep working and would like to use an external hard drive as the system disk, either clone the existing internal one, or preferably load a complete 'new' OSX on the external drive. Then maybe swap them over. Is there an easy way to load a new version of OSX on an external drive?

Here are links to articles on installing OS X on an external drive. It is probably best to do an clean OS X install as you could possibly copy the defective problems by cloning
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5911
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Osx-Lion-on-an-External-Drive

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From what it seems like, You may want to try and do a Time Machine backup. Time machine is meant for backing up data like photos and movies automatically. You can set up Time Machine by going to the apple in the top left, system prefrences, and Time Machine. On the right click select disk, select your external drive, and turn Time Machine on. Now your computer will back up every hour while that is connected

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I have a 15" 2012 Macbook pro with 2gb of ram, i7 processor, and a 250 gb Hard drive. In the middle of using my computer, the screen went black. Upon rebooting the computer, I noticed gray and white horizontal lines running across the screen, but I was still able to see the apple logo and loading indicator in the background. As soon as the login screen appeared, the screen went black again.
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Hello mafrerichs and welcome to Apple Support Communities,
Simplest way is to use Target Disk mode:
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode - Apple Support
and hook to another Mac and use CCC or SuperDuper and clone your HD to another drive.
You could also pull the drive out of your MBP and use an external USB case or SATA - USB dongle to hook it to another Mac.
"MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011),... have a 15" 2012 Macbook pro with 2gb of ram, i7 processor"
That's a little confusing?

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Hi there.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/PH6379
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I just posted this to another topic, but it applies here as well. Hopefully there's no prohibition on cross-posting on this board, my apologies to all if there is:
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I have a Macbook Pro, with Itunes. I already know how to set-up HOME SHARING with the APPLE TV that allows me to view my Itunes library from my TV.
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*Please share as much information as you all can because I need to view all my options (if any) in this situation and I value all the advice....THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!*
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I followed exactly what you advised, and it all worked. I did convert the files first that were .AVI ---> .MP4 (the audio and video came out beautifully when viewed). I organized my files around a bit, and then I went into Itunes---> Preferences---> Advanced---> Changed where I want to grab my movies from. It keep all my previous music, tv, movies, podcasts files that I had in ITunes, and just "added" the new content without disrupting anything in my Itunes at all. I LOVED IT...so simple in the end.
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All in all....THANK YOU/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic__ _/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/ migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-a vail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstat ic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-ima ges/migration-img-not-avail.png
Since whenever I open my Itunes, all the movies display well, and so my APPLE TV can now view all my "content" in Itunes. I thought I was going to have to return that APPLE TV since I couldn't figure a way around it, and all in all, it wasn't all that bad of a process to convert and then change file location in preferences.
MANY THANKS and HAVE A GREAT WEEK

How do I load OSX on an external hard drive (on my macbook) and boot from it?

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