Install osx on external hdd (usb)

is it possible to install osx on an external usb disk?
And if so how do i do it?
Thx!

There are some utilities which claim to partition or re-partition on the fly.
DriveGenius seems to be the "Swiss Army Knife" of utilities, including the ability to repartition "on the fly" (A little scary for my tastes). But Prosoft is a trusted software manufacturer. There is also iPartition. and a couple of other utilities.
Myself would be a bit uncomfortable with this.
As for the size of the OS X partition, I would give it at least 10GB, if you can. The system itself will occupy 3-4GB and OS X needs room for VM to operate properly.
-mj
[email protected]

Similar Messages

Install OSx on external usb drive.

I have an iMac G5 isight that has unreliable internal hard drive connection. I've swapped out several hard drives that work fine in other computers, but there seems to be an issue with accessing it on this iMac.
So I would like to try and install OSx on an external usb drive. I have alreay found that I can boot from an external usb on this computer, the problem is it won't let me install OSx on to the usb drive when I boot from a disc.
The only other macs I have are Intel based which won't let me put a powerpc installation on to an external.
I'd rather not purchase a firewire external, and I'm not sure that I know of anyone with a working powerpc mac.
Any suggestions??

Use a product such as Carbon Copy Cloner to clone an already existing PowerPC or Universal installation to an external partitioned using the APM table map. The OS used must be at least as new as the iMac and not newer than 10.5.8.
(62109)

Can boot camp install windows in external hdd connected via usb

i have win 7 img. in my mac also 500 gb ext hdd
can i install windows in that hdd?????
also i have selected the iso fle n its now downloading support software
so how much time it will take its 3 hours now

No you can't install windows on external drive.

Installing Mavericks to external HDD, can I have more than one Partition?

Hi,
I am about to install Mavericks on an external SSD drive, which I shall be using instead of the internal HDD. My question is do I have to format the SSD with one partition, or can I use 2 or 3 ?
Thanks

Just to update I bought the WD My Book Studio 2tb as I like WD drives and it comes in a matching aluminum case.
I am using it as my boot drive and also my main storage. I put a copy on it of all the apps and software I had on the internal drive.
Boot up time with internal HDD @ 32 seconds
Boot up time WD external HDD @ 43 seconds (USB 3.0)
Not too shabby! Look forward to getting an external SSD drive connected via thunderbolt (might then match my new p.c. with a boot up time of 9 seconds)

External HDD: USB vs. Firewire?

All,
Maybe this is just me ... but I have owned my PowerBook G4 for well over a year now and have never had consistent success attaching an external HDD via USB. Sometimes I plug it in and it just spins and spins and never shows up on OSX. Other times it just hangs unexpectedly. Very annoying.
I can attach USB devices and USB mem sticks with no problem, but when I attach a large capacity HDD (60 GB) it just doesn't work so great.
I have been told by some that USB is not the "protocol of the future" that some think it is, and that I am better off using 1384 for external drives.
Really would like to get some opinions from the community before I go to the trouble of switching over.
Happy holidays!
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 512 RAM, 1.5 GHz PPC, etc.

Hi, fragmore -
I've never used one - the prices put me off on them years back.
Just took a look at LaCie's site, network drives - they have a 500GB model for about US$250 which is not bad. It can be used with OS 9 or higher; and looks like it could be of significant advantage where a person has more than one machine networked together but not set up for File Sharing.
Ethernet speeds exceed those of firewire and USB, particularly on machines with GB Ethernet capability (all G4's and later starting with the G4 Gigabit Ethernet models), so particular attention should be given to the drive's speed and read/write speeds - those would be the speed limiting factors.
A possible downside to speed would be in a situation where the ethernet network sees a lot of traffic all the time. And, I have no clue about what the protocols for such a drive might be when access to it is attempted by more than one Mac at the same time.

Installing Oracle R12 External HDD

Please can anyone provide with me with some good steps to install Oracle apps R12 based on the following information:
Windows 7 Professional on Laptop
HDD - 100gb
External HDD - 500gb
Ram- 2gb
Thanks in advance
Ify

Please can anyone provide with me with some good steps to install Oracle apps R12 based on the following information:Oracle E-Business Suite Installation Guide: Using Rapid Install
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B53825_08/current/acrobat/121oaig.pdf
Interesting Documents Concerning E-Business Suite 11i to R12 Upgrades [ID 850008.1] -- Release 12.1.x Operating Systems Install & Upgrade Notes
Windows 7 Professional on LaptopWindows 7 is not certified as an application tier node or as a database tier node. The list of supported Windows OS can be found in (Oracle E-Business Suite Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 (12.1.1) for Microsoft Windows Server (32-bit) [ID 761567.1]). If you want to use Linux, you can find the list of supported OS in the Linux docs referenced in [ID 850008.1].
Windows 7 can be your host OS, and pick one of the supported Windows/Linux to be your guest OS. You can use VMWare to install a supported OS and lay down the R12 software on this VM.
HDD - 100gb
External HDD - 500gbYou have sufficient space so you should be good -- The total space required for a standard system (not including the stage area) is 85 GB for a fresh install with a production database, and 233 GB for a fresh install with a Vision Demo database. Running Rapid Install from a stage area requires at least 47 GB to accommodate the file system and database files in the stage area.
You can still install EBS R12 on an external HDD with no issues.
Ram- 2gbYou need at least 4 GB for the R12 instance, and more RAM for the OS, so please consider adding more RAM.
Thanks,
Hussein

Failed to install osx on externa WD HD

I was wondering if anyone knows what could be happening here?
My HD failed on me yesterday, So I am trying to install osX on a brand new external HD from WD (my book series).
I have partitioned with the GUID Partition Table and the format is on Mac OS Extended(journaled) so I think everything is how it should be for a boot drive.
After the installer checks 100% of the install disc, it says preparing for installation then it says there was an error, restart.
Anyone knows what could be happening?
Thanks for any help in advance... Im kinda lost here.

Hi himzka,
What kind of error it said when it failed. If it said your HD cannot be used for installation, after you partitioned and format that using disk utility, quit disk utility and restart your macbook, and after that repeat the installation procedure.
Good Luck.

External HDD-USB or Firewire

Hi, I'm quickly filling up the hdd on my iMac with video editing so I've decided to buy an external HDD. I was under the impression that Firewire was the best way to go, but after reviewing the specs on the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500, is seems that the transfer rate on USB 2.0 480mbs) is faster than firewire 400 (400mbs). A firewire drive is more expensive that just a USB drive, and I don't mind spending the additional money if it's required, but now I'm confused. Should I buy a firewire drive, or can I get a faster transfer rate, and save money by going with a USB only drive? I have an early Intel iMac, so I don't have firewire 800 or eSATA ports on it.
Thanks for your interest...

I did some practical testing, transferring a 1GB file from the iMac to a Lacie d2 triple.
USB 2.0 - 147 Mbps
FW 400 - 294 Mbps
FW 800 - 426 M bps
Speeds transferring the same 1GB file from the Lacie to the iMac averaged about 30% faster.

Exporting to an external HDD USB 3.0 (2.5" disk)

Hello,
I just recently built a new rig and I currently have two internal hard drives:
Toshiba Q-Series SSD 256 GBBoot, Programs, Media Cache
Seagate 7200 RPM 1TBMedia Files, Project Files
Reading through these forums I saw recommendations to use a 3rd drive in order to avoid reading/writing to the same drive at the same time.
I have an external HDD (WD My Passport 2TB) that I'm guessing spins at 5400 RPM due to its 2.5" size. It's connected through USB 3.0. I tested read/write and it starts around 90 MB/s, then drops down to 50-60 MB/s after a few minutes.
If I'm doing light editing (~5 minute clips) would this external HDD be my bottleneck? And will I see a significant improvement by buying a new 7200 RPM internal drive?
Other specs:
CPU: i7 4770k @ 4.4 GHZ
GPU: Radeon 7950 @ 1000 base, 1450 memory
Mobo: Asrock Z87 Extreme4
RAM: 32 GB Kingston HyperX @ 1600 mhz 10-10-10-27 timings
Thanks!

Surprise surprise, I noticed absolutely no difference among them: all took exactly 0:30 seconds to render regardless of HDD.
That is no wonder. Your test is only 16s @ 24 Mb/s, so only 48 MB needs to be written. That is done in less than a second, especially if you take into consideration the cache on-board the disk.
If you would test it with a 37 GB file, then the difference would be noticeable. In that case the writing to disk would take around 660 sec. on the external, around 250 sec. on a single dedicated internal disk and only 22 sec. on a superfast large array.
But what is that in comparison to the bulk of the work? Negligent.
You spend say one week editing, two hours transcoding the final results, and need say 10 minutes to write the results to disk. You have to ask yourself if the shaving off, of say 5 minutes is worth the investment.

T420s and external HDD (USB, previously eSATA)

Hi,
just got my new T420s delivered the other day (replacing my T400s) , and so far I am a happy customer but one thing:
I used to attach an external HDD via eSata on the T400s. As my new T420s doesn't have a eSATA port, I am trying to attach my external HDD (using the very same IcyBox) using USB. For a reason I don't understand, the T420s does not 'reckognize' the external HDD. Using the very same external HDD (on USB) on another machine works just fine.
Any idea what's going wrong here ?
Kind Regards
Werner Guttmann

Hi Werner,
Is your IcyBox (sorry I don't know that one) self-powered (wall wart?) or powered via USB?
Is the drive spinning up?
I'll guess it has its own power supply since eSATA is supported.
That's "any answer" but not much of one
Z.
The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc. The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
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Installing applications using external HDD in OS X 10.5

Hi,
I am trying to install some applications, which are in from of .dmg files in my external HDD and I am trying to install directly from Ext. HDD in OS X 10.5 on MAC G5, I found that when i disconnect my Ext. HDD, I am unable to run the application, because OS X 10.5 is looking for the source.
So, do I need to keep .dmg file in my MAC all the time? otherwise what is the solution?
I really appreciate for your help in advance.
Thanks.

no, You've misunderstood me. I should have made it more clear. let me explain again. say, you have a .dmg on desktop. double-click on it. this will mount this dmg as a drive. you'll see a new finder window popup with the contents of that drive and you'll also have a new drive icon both on your desktop and in the sidebar.
inside that drive there will be the application you want to install. drag THAT (not the dmg itself) to the Applications folder. then eject the drive mounted from the dmg. you can now delete the dmg file or archive it in case you need to reinstall. the application you've installed is now in your Applications folder and you can just use that from now on and forget about the dmg. I hope this makes sense.

Install OSX using External CD

Hi all,
Working on my cousin's MacBook thats a few years old now. We determined that the hard drive failed by attaching it to a usb cable and trying on serveral computers - mac & windows. So we put in a replacement one.
The optical drive on this laptop had failed some time ago so we plugged in an external reader/writer into the USB ports, insterted a OSX disk, rebooted the laptop holding down the Option key.
The laptop doesn't appear to recognize the external CD to install from.
Is there any tricks to allowing me to do this?
Thanks in advance!
Bob

Hey Bob, unfortunately, accessing CD/DVD drive from another Mac is only for MacBook Airs. I don't know why Apple still puts it as an option on all other Macs. But try this, Reboot and immediately hold the C key, which force boots from any CD/DVD drive. Also make sure that the external drive you are using is Mac Compliant and will work with one.

Can't install OSX on external drive...

Hi ----------------------------
A couple of days ago I purchased a Seagate 300gig Firewire/USB drive. I partioned it with Disk Utility and proceeded to install OS 10.4 from the install DVD. No dice. It wouldn't let me get past the window where you indicated a disk/volume on which to install. Phoned Seagate support. They said I couldn't install a system on an external drive. That sounded strange to me as I have a ACOM 60gig external on which I had no problem installing OS 10.2.8.
Anyhow, I then turned to Carbon Copy Cloner and proceeded to try that. after clicking "Make Bootable" on the CCC preference page, I then proceeded to try to make a clone of my system. I failed twice, but the third time was a charm. When I fired up the Startup Disk in System Preferences, there was an icon for my new drive partition staring me right in the face. I choose it as the new startup disk, clicked on it, and my computer started it restart routine.
But, a flashing icon appeared on the screen, alternating between a question mark and a folder icon, and then the computer restarted up in its original disk/volume.
Hey, what gives? What am I doing wrong? I thought when I saw the new system icon in the Startup Disk window, that I was home free. If I'm unable to get a start up system on my new drive, it will become (just like the birdie in Monty Python) and "ex-new drive." It will go right back to Comp USA.
Can anyone help me out here? If so, TIA
Phil (Da Kid)
G4 867 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

FWIW, the 'zero out' option is a waste of time for problems like this. Please understand that even a one volume partitioning scheme puts more than one partition on the drive. Partition number zero contains information about the scheme & the other partitions. (This is the partition Disk Utility's "Info" button reports info about when you select the drive rather than one of its volumes. That should say it is ApplePartitionScheme for a PPC Mac, or a GUID one for an Intel one; otherwise the drive won't boot the Mac in question no matter what else you do.)
This partition is not affected by an erase with zeros option, which only applies to a mountable volume & only overwrites data on that volume with zeros. Aside from the intended use as a security option, the only other value it has is to pre-mark bad blocks on the drive used for storing that volume's data. But since it doesn't affect the other partitions, since the drive already maps out bad blocks wherever it finds them at write time, & since a misread zero is as bad as a misread one wherever it might occur in the partition info, there is just no way the zeros option is going to correct a boot problem.
So, if you want to do something useful, forget this advice to 'zero the drive' & the "Erase" tab in Disk Utility as a means of formatting the drive. You can only format volumes with that tab. To reformat the entire drive, or to check that its partition scheme is the right one for booting your Mac, use the "Partition" tab & its "Options" button.
FWIW #2: the StartUp Disk system preference doesn't do extensive checks on a startup volume, so it sometimes displays startup volumes that won't actually boot your Mac. If you select one of these, you see exactly what you saw: the flashing icon, followed by a startup from a viable volume, if one is present.
Startup Manager, which is enabled by the Option key restart, does much more extensive checks (which is why it takes so long to complete its scan for startup candidates). If a drive doesn't show up in Startup Manager, you can be sure it won't boot the Mac. The same isn't true of the pref.

Panther booty: ok but still no way to install Panther on external HDD

I've looked around the posts for my specific problemo and didn't see it. So here goes my question.
I can't install Panther on my iomega external hard drive - 250 GB firewire. My powermac G4 has no trouble recognizing the iomega hard drive on the desktop, but when I reboot from the Panther disk and hit 'install' the only option to install is on my current hard drive. But when I select disk utility from within the booted computer it does recognize that the iomega hard drive is there.
Do I need to do some extra tap dancing in order to get a Mac OS onto this iomega creature? I want to run iMovie, iTunes and Garageband on it, in addition to some non-Mac apps that right now go onto the iomega with no trouble.
I don't want to use the iomega as a backup as much as I want to use it for specific memory-hogging applications.
Thanks
PowerMac G4 867 Mhz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Like to add another wrinkle, for install experts:
I just got a Micronet 80GB firewire/USB external drive. My iBook HD is dead. I want to make the external drive a bootable for the iBook -- and also have it mountable on a PC (Win2K)machine with USB. The drive came preformatted as Fat32.
Right now I have the same situation as Sheila. OS X installer doesn't see the drive (with firewire or USB connection to the ibook). Disk doctor does. So I could erase and format as Mac OS, but...
Can I make one partition Mac file system and boot the iBook, and keep the remainder Fat 32K to be mounted by Win2K?
If not, I guess I format the whole drive with Mac file system to make it a bootable external disk, and perhaps use the LAN to access it through the Ibook.
Any tips appreciated.

Can't install OSX 10.8 on USB

I have a lab full of Macs I need to install 10.8 on and I have decided to do it with a USB Drive. Whenever I try to install the image onto the drive I get the message: An error (60) occured while copying. (Operation timed out.)
I am using a 32Gb Kingston USB Thumb drive.
I did select the GUID option.
Any ideas?
Thanks

Try this free program - it will erase the drive.
Bootable Drive DVD or USB Flash Drive – Lion Diskmaker

Install osx on external hdd (usb)

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