Install leopard on an external drive?

Hi I was wondering if I can do a clean install of leopard on a usb external drive.
I originally did an upgrade install on my imac, but would like to play around with a clean install on an external. And if the setup seems faster would like to migrate it back to my internal. Just wondering if this would be possible? Thanks

Yes you can I have a clone of my internal drive with leopard using carbon copy cloner and it is bootable

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Can I install Leopard on an external drive to run my computer?

Since it seems my hard drive has totally bit the dust, can I install Leopard on the external drive I use for Time Machine, and run my desktop from that drive? Could I run it from an external drive totally dedicated to Leopard? I am buying a new desktop soon, but I need info off of this machine. Can I plug in my Time Machine drive to my laptop and be able to use it without losing data?

Elizabeth Salcido wrote:
Thanks so much.
Youa re welcome!
I figured I would have to use a second drive. At least when I get my new desktop I will have a drive for Time Machine for both desktop and laptop.
If you really plan to keep the laptop around after you get your desktop, I would recommend replacing its internal hard drive. While running your laptop off an external is possible, it should be considered a stopgap measure. i wouldn't do it on a permanent basis. For one, as you'll find out, it's quite a bit slower than when using the internal drive.

Install Leopard on an External Drive on a Snow Leopard Mac Book Pro

Hi
I have a MBP 17/CTO 2.66GHz i7, which came installed with Snow Leopard.
I've used boot camp to install Windows 7.
I've attempted to install Leopard 10.5.4 on an external drive.
The steps I've taken:
1 - Connected my WD Passport on the Firewire Port
2 - Partitioned the drive. The first partition is 100GB, Mac OS/X Extended (journal) and I've selected the GUID Partition Scheme
3 - Inserted the Mac OS/X Leopard DVD, and followed the instructions to restart
4 - On restart I have three options. Mac OS, Windows and Install Mac OS\X
5 - I select Install Mac OS\X.
6 - The disc spins for a few moments and then the laptop freezes
Beware of the following issue:
1 - On restart more often than not, the DISC will spin and then the laptop will freeze.
2 - To overcome this, restarting pressing the ALT (option) Key.
3 - You should see your boot options. If you do not see "Install Mac OS\X", then eject and reinsert the disc.
The question maybe why would I want to have an Leopard Installation when I have Snow Leopard. The software I develop has thrown up a number of differences between Leopard and Snow Leopard, hence I need both OS's to support my software.
I mentioned this to the Apple Store before I purchased my machine. They put me through to a senior technician at Apple Care, who told me it would be possible to have the set up I am after; and to contact Apple Care if I ran into any difficulties.
After I received my laptop and ran into the problems I described above I contacted Apple Care, only to be told by a senior technician that it should be possible to install Leopard on an external drive, but Apple Care cannot provide any support or assistance.
I really do like the laptop and would much rather not return the laptop; but I really do need the setup described.
Anyway I have tried a number of different approaches:
1 - Having no partitions (so just the single partition)
2 - Trying all three Partition Schemes:
- GUILD Partition Table
- Apple Partition Map
- Master Boot Record
All resulting in the same problem.
I can confirm the external drive does appear as bootable in disc info.
My guess is one of the following is preventing the install:
1 - It is simply not possible to install an earlier version of Mac OS\X than 10.6 on the laptop I have, even if I tried to install on an external drive. This restriction is built into some hardware confirguration. So even if I wiped the internal hard drive or added a new partition to the internal hard drive, I would not be able to install 10.5.4. I say this may be a reason as the second technician told me the CPU has built into it a process which prevents installing older versions of Mac OS/X, but that it should NOT restrict installation on an external harddrive.
2 - When trying to install Mac OS/X, a search is carried out for an external drive which has the correct format. For some reason it may be that this search is not finding my external drive?
I'm a little stuck here and quite disapointed that the support promised by Apple Care for assistance in setting this up, is now not forth coming.
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated, as ideally I would prefer to keep and not return the laptop, it's a beautiful piece of machinery.
Cheers
Parmy

The mystery continues...
I have an older MBP (2.33 GHz Intel Core Duo) which came installed with Tiger. I can confirm I purchased a genuine copy of Leopard (10.5.4) from the Apple Store and it’s not an OEM version. I installed 10.5.4 without a hitch on my old MBP internal drive. It is the only OS installed on my old MBP.
Using my older MBP (which through software updates is now running 10.5.7), I managed to install 10.5.4 onto my external HD (WD My Passport Studio – 640GB FireWire 800).
However; on the final restart, the screen remained grey and 10.5.4 did not boot from the external drive.
I restarted the machine holding down the ALT (option) key, and only two options appeared, Macintosh HD and the Install DVD. I selected the Macintosh HD and opened System Preferences.
In System Preferences --> Startup Disk, I discovered the partition on my external HD which contains 10.5.4. I selected this partition and selected restart.
On restart my MBP displayed a grey screen, and the blue light on my hard drive flashed slowly. I left this for an hour, however; the OS did not start and the screen remained grey.
I then plugged my external HD into my new MBP which I started holding down the ALT key.
To my surprise I found 3 boot options (Macintosh HD, Windows and Leopard). Leopard being the partition on my external drive, which now has 10.5.4 installed.
I selected Leopard, but sadly after 30 minutes, the OS failed to boot.
Although this deviates slightly from this post, I fail to understand the problem here:
1 – Why can’t I boot 10.5.4 on an external drive, from my old MBP? Surely this is not because my old MBP is now running 10.5.7?
2 – Why can I see 10.5.4 as a boot option on my new MBP but not on my old MBP when I start the MBP holding down the ALT key?
I doubt there is a problem with my external drive, as it seems to read, write, etc... in all normal cases.
Whilst it definitely appears that I won’t be able to boot 10.5.4 on an external drive from my new MBP, I should be able to at least boot it from my old MBP, which would give me the option of installing Snow Leopard and Windows on the internal drive of my old MBP.
Apologies for keeping this post going, but I hope by getting to the bottom of this, it will help other Mac users as well.
I’ve run out of ideas of things to try, so I will give Apple Care another call in the morning, and will report back.
Any suggestions of other things I can try?
Cheers

How do I install leopard on an external drive

I have been unable to install snow leopard on my external drive, when I put the install disc in the drive on the iMAC, it shows up on the desktop, but i cannot get it to install on the external drive, the iMAC has Lion installed.

I'd like an answer to the original question, too. I have a brand new Intel iMac which came preloaded with Lion. I'd like to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive for a variety of reasons. I would rather NOT erase the internal hard drive of the iMac, if possible. Of course, I get this same message that, "You cannot install Snow Leopard on this machine running Lion" more or less. Does anyone have a method of faking out the installer so it will install Snow Leopard onto an external hard drive even though the Mac is running Lion?

Installing Leopard on an external HD

I have a MBP for work, which is still running Tiger. Nevertheless, I would like to play around with Leopard and was wondering if I can run it on an external (bootable) HD.
If so, I have a few questions:
- Do I need Firewire 800 or can I use USB 2.0 (the MBP is Intel, not PPC).
- How complicated is it to install Leopard on en external drive?
- How can I make an external drive bootable.
- How can I choose which drive to boot from?
Thanks a lot,
Stefan

The good news is that this is a pretty straightforward process (I have done this, and trust me, I'm no expert!) Intel Macs will happily boot from a USB 2.0 disk. First, if you haven't already done so, partition the external in disk utility. Make sure you choose 'Mac OS Extended (journaled)' as the format. Under 'volume scheme', choose how many partitions you want, and their size(s), then under 'options', make sure you choose 'GUID partition table'. Insert the leopard installation disk, choose the external as the destination volume, and install in the normal way. To choose which drive to boot from, hold down the option key at startup and you will be asked to select a drive.
Message was edited by: Foozlum

HT4904 Help. I have an older 20 inch iMac and had Lion running on it but the internal hard drive died. I'm trying to install Lion on an external drive but it doesn't look like Lion Recovery is supported. I have Leopard installed but am stuck.

Hello,
My 20inch iMac's internal drive died and I'm trying to re-install Lion on an external drive. If I could get the Lion DMG file I think I'd be all set but am not sure how to do this. It doesn't look like the Lion Recovery feature is supported in my older iMac. And I have Leopard installed on the external drive but there's no AppStore to download the Lion DMG file.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
-Lee

Without a bootable backup/clone or a Time Machine backup of your previous Snow Leopard installation or a saved copy of Lion's install app, you'll have to upgrade your Leopard volume to Snow Leopard (10.6.6+) so you can waste another hour or more DLing the Lion thing again.

Why can't I install Snow Leopard on an external drive?

In order to open applications which have been rendered useless when I installed Lion, I have been trying to install Snow Leopard from the Install DVD on an external drive. For some reason, it either hangs up and stalls during the installation or, when it does finish the process, I am unable to boot from it. It hangs up and the gear rotates forever. Is it not possible to do what I am attempting to do, whih is to get some use out of my now useless applications, or is there some way to accomplish this with which I am unfamiliar?

I see.
BTW have you considered abandoning Quicken? I was a long time (at least 10 years) Quicken user however it's clear Intuit does not consider the OS X market an important one or not important enough to come out with a true Quicken replacement that will run on the most contemporary version of OS X. Personally I (along with thousands of others) decided the time was right to begin looking at alternatives to Quicken. I chose iBank for it's similarities to Quicken, it's ability to import my Quicken data and it's support. I began using it several months ago now and have been very happy. IMHO it's a better solution than what you're attempting and staying with "dead" software is simply postponing the innevitable which will only become more difficult the longer you postpone it.

Can you install leopard from an external usb disc drive?

I don't know if the disc drive is fast enough for leopard or something. It's taking forever to open the installer, and when I restarted into the installer it just booted back to my desktop. I have an external disc drive I want to try. Can you install leopard from and external disc drive?

****, I just tried it and when I restarted it didn't go into the installer. I think my disc drive in my old mac mini might be too slow. It takes forever to recognize the disc and just to double click on it and it up. And when I tried to install it the first time from the internal drive it just booted right into my desktop again.

How do I install Leopard on an external?

I have a MacBook that for some reason won't take an OS. My thought is to install the OS from my MacPro on a 2.5" in an enclosure and put it in the MacBook.
How would I go about installing Leopard on my hard drive this way?
-Kyle

Installing onto an external HD should be a routine matter. Ensure that the ext HD is partitioned w/a single partition, has the GUID partitioning scheme, and is formatted Mac OS X. Personally, I prefer FireWire to USB. FW is significantly faster than USB. BTW, ensure that the MacPro has the latest OS update on it. That should allow it to boot the MacBook, but I don't have either to do any testing. BTW, if you're getting those machines sans their HDs because of problems, my experience indicates that most issues are SW related and not HW related.

10.5.8 install issues on an external drive

I did a fresh install of Leopard onto an external drive I keep for emergencies (I never installed it there -- it's been on Tiger for a while) and ran the update after I booted with that as a startup drive. And now I don't have an external bootable drive. For whatever reason, it boots fine in 10.5, but after downloading the 10.5.8 update and restarting, it hung ad the white screen w/ the apple and spinning circle.
So I turned the computer off, did a fresh clean install (without saving network or user info) and rebooted. Again, no probs with 10.5. I installed all the updates (Quicktime, etc.) first and rebooted....no problem. In downloaded only that monster 10.5.8 update again and let it run through the install. Rebooted and went to bed. I came downstairs this morning to an alarmingly hot imac sitting on the white screen with an apple and spinning white circle. It stayed that way all night while I let the update install, and my imac was alarmingly hot to the touch when I checked it this morning.
For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to like being installed on this external hard drive.
Has anyone had success in installing 10.5.8 to an external drive? I'm trying to determine if it just doesn't like this drive or if this is an issue with the update. I'm leery of installing the 10.5.8 on the computers internal hard drive if I don't have a bootable drive I can use for diagnostics if needed.

I am seeing same problem in MBP. I upgraded to a 500GB HD in dec and kept the 250GB original HD as an external/lab/recover USB drive. All updates up to 10.5.7 work on both drives, and 10.5.8 works in the internal drive as well. But like Bryan's setup, the external USB drive won't finish upgrading to 10.5.8. Right after the second reboot it will hang onto spinning circle and after some messages about Mac OS X component in verbose mode. I'll get the messages later to this post.
To make sure I haven't an HD problem, I erased the partitions on it, recreated as GPT (as it was before) single HFS+ journalized partition, freash 10.5.6 install and comboed to 10.5.8 to the same fault. Original installation was from 10.5.7 to 10.5.8 via Software Update (which worked fine in my internal disk).
I also tried using another HD, a desktop 1TB (my Time Capsule archive mirror), erased all data and partitions, installed a fresh 10.5.6 again and ran combo ending up on same issue. Also, trying a small partition (50GB) won't fix this.
Still working on this problem but not more ideas up right now. I am expecting a firewire 400 case to be delivered this week and give a try.
regards

Can't load leopard on an external drive

I am having some serious trouble trying to load leopard on an external drive. I have a 1TB drive on my MBP and it is partitioned with Mavericks and Leopard. I am tired of Mavericks hanging up and I am goint to do a clean install like I did on my Mac Pro.
I have a mini 500GB FW drive that I put mavericks on and migrated my data. On the leopard partition I have a few older programs and I want to migrate that partitition to a 320FW external drive. That way I have all my data, can wipe my 1TB drive, partition it, load mavericks and leapord and migrate from the FQW Drives.
When I put in my disc for leopard, Mavericks won't allow me to load it. I tried the Command R function with start up and I can't load leopard on that drive. I get a message saying I can't do that. I have also tried to copy the leopard disk over to the 320 GB FW HD and I get permission errors.
I really need to be able to use leopard for an older program that takes panasonic p2 cards.
Is there anything I am overlooking or missing? Any tricks to make this work?
Thanks!

I hope you mean Snow Leopard:
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Installing Leopard on an external as a subordinate boot.

Aloha All
I just finished the transfer of all my back up data from my external onto my iMac and (very essential onto DVD) So I'm ready to reformat and install Leopard on the external as a secondary OS. I'm running Tiger on my native HD and my intention with running Leopard on my EHD is just to learn the changes.
External HD is F/W 7200 rpm, 250GB and my only intention is to look and learn the new OS before I move it onto my iMac. any advice, warnings.

Rick:
I did something similar. I first tried doing an Update install on a clone of my internal drive on external drive, but that resulted in 8 hours of frustration (described in my reply to Eric W. in Apple - Support - Discussions - Blue Screen on MacBook Resolved ...).
However, when I erased the external partition (not as drastic a step as reformatting it, as you intend to do) the "virgin" install went smoothly & I am now running Leopard from that partition with no problems noted so far.
My guess is you will have no problems if you do what you contemplate.
Good luck!

Can I install Linux on an external drive?

I'm kinda curious about something. If I boot up off an external firewire drive at boot time and I have previously partitioned it into 2 partitions (techtool or iPartition) is it possible to install a Intel Linux distro on the 2nd partitition?
When I go to boot from that external drive will the Linux installed boot loader allow me to select OSX or Linux to actually boot from?
Even better can I just install Linux on this external drive in the only partition?
I'm only looking to experiment with a Linux distro and I don't want to use Parallels anymore so I'm wondering if I can use an external drive to do so.
TIA,
Peter

I'm kinda curious about something. If I boot up off
an external firewire drive at boot time and I have
previously partitioned it into 2 partitions (techtool
or iPartition) is it possible to install a Intel
Linux distro on the 2nd partitition?
When I go to boot from that external drive will the
Linux installed boot loader allow me to select OSX or
Linux to actually boot from?
Even better can I just install Linux on this external
drive in the only partition?
I'm only looking to experiment with a Linux distro
and I don't want to use Parallels anymore so I'm
wondering if I can use an external drive to do so.
TIA,
Peter
Here is an indirect answer. I know you can using Paralles, not sure about the other way though.
http://www.parallels.com/

Can I install os9 on an external drive from mavericks

Can I install OS9 on an external drive from Mavericks? I'm running Mavericks 10.9.4 on both my MBP and 27" iMac. I have my original OS9 install disc. I'd like to install OS9 on an external drive so I can use some classic apps that I'd like to use.
I tried to install directly to an external drive, but when I click on the Mac OS Install icon, I get the message "You can't open the application "%@" because it may be damaged or incomplete." The icon for Mac OS Install is the generic page with an A. Figuring that Mavericks doesn't recognize the app. Then I restarted and held down the C key - no luck.

I understand, but was hoping I boot off an external drive in 9. Thanks for your response and I apologize for my late response.

How to install Leopard from an external DVD reader?

Hi,
I've bought Leopard today. unfortunately, it's not yet installed on my PowerBook. As my SuperDrive is dead, I use now an external DVD (Lacie Portable DVD-RW), but it doesn't work. I can read the Leopard install DVD, but when it reboot, it reboot on my current installation.
I've tried the following during the boot sequence:
- alt pressed, but I can only see my main HDD
- c pressed, but I boot on my current installation
Can you tell me if it is possible to install Leopard from an external DVD, and how can I do that ?
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Emmanuel Di Pretoro

Can you tell me if the same problem occur with a FireWire external DVD ?
It does not occur on your model of Mac.
(25504)

Install leopard on an external drive?

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