Install Snow Leopard on External FW Drive

Snow Leopard will only install on a GUID partition. I usually have two or three separate volumes on my external drive. If I partition my drive prior to Snow Leopard installation, the scheme is Apple partition map and I cannot install Snow Leopard on any volume. So I assume in order to do an install of Leopard, I must install to a single GUID partition because it seems there is no option to make any of the volumes a GUID partition. Am I correct? On this particular drive, I wanted to have a bootable clone
of my MacBook Pro HD, a bootable disk image of my Snow Leopard Install Disk, and a third scratch volume for temporary video storage. What would be my strategy be to accomplish this?

Tom Dignam wrote:
Snow Leopard will only install on a GUID partition. I usually have two or three separate volumes on my external drive. If I partition my drive prior to Snow Leopard installation, the scheme is Apple partition map and I cannot install Snow Leopard on any volume. So I assume in order to do an install of Leopard, I must install to a single GUID partition because it seems there is no option to make any of the volumes a GUID partition. Am I correct?
no you can have any number of volumes on a GUID partitioned drive.
select the whole drive (model, not name) in disk utility. click on the partition tab. set the number of partitions to 3 (or whatever), click on options and select GUID. set the formats for each partition, adjust the relative sizes and hit "apply".
On this particular drive, I wanted to have a bootable clone
of my MacBook Pro HD, a bootable disk image of my Snow Leopard Install Disk, and a third scratch volume for temporary video storage. What would be my strategy be to accomplish this?
this will work just fine once you reformat the drive as above.

Similar Messages

How to install Snow Leopard onto external hard drive.

I'm currently running on 10.5.8, and I just bought the Snow Leopard installation disc to update to 10.6.3.
My mac has been running on an external hard drive for about a year. The internal just stopped working.
I want to install Snow Leopard onto my external hard drive, but all of my files are on there, and I read that if I do the install, all of the data will be erased.
If I used time machine to back up the files before I do the install, are they at risk of being erased, since they will be back-uped on the external?
This is probably super obvious, but I want to be very careful with this.
Any help is very much appreciated!
^__^

1. The data won't be erased unless a problem occurs.
2. The Time Machine backup should be on a different drive, as drives can fail.
(92634)

Install snow leopard from external hard drive-terminal problems!

hi everybody ,
i have a big problem :s
wanted to restore and getting "Restore Failure Could not find any scan information... then i've followed some terminal commands..finished restoring and couldn't boot cause i only find Macintosh HD when i use "alt option" when i restart my macbook pro and even if i go to "startup Disk" i can find my partition of the external hard drive but when i click on it nd do retart it's can't boot ...another thing is tht m having a slow start and it's ask for my Password (i've no problem with password it just doesn't ask me to enter it before and i have internet and server failure)
Due to terminal commands?? :((
Plz help :s

"How to install Snow Leopard from an External Hard Drive"
* Launch Disk Utility
* Select the External Firewire/USB device that you want to use as the boot drive for the upgrade
* Click “Partition” from the menu options
* Select 1 Partition, then click “Options” below the partition scheme
* Select the top option for “GUID Partition Table” – it MUST be GUID to be bootable!
* Click OK to create the GUID partition (this will reformat the drive, ie: all data is lost)
* Next, click the “Restore” tab within Disk Utility
* Select your newly made Snow Leopard 10.6 Install DVD image and restore this image to the GUID partition you just created OR…
* Alternatively, you can select the Snow Leopard Install DVD and restore directly from the DVD to the GUID partition
* After the restoration is complete, your GUID partition will now be bootable by Mac OS X!
* Reboot the Mac holding down the “Option” key to pull up the boot loader, select the Snow Leopard install drive you just created rather than your default Mac OS hard drive
* Install Snow Leopard as usual!
Hope this helps!

After installing snow leopard my external hard drive won't show up on screen or backup

Afer installing leopard my external hard drive won't show up on my desk top. It also won't backup my hard drive with time machine. I need help.

Try going to finder preferences, general, make sure show these items on desktop external disks is clicked. You can also go to sidebar (same pane) and click it there so it will show when you open your HD. Time Machine>system preferences>time machine>turn it off click select disk, make sure the correct disk is selected, the turn TM back on. Hope this helps.

Cannot install Snow Leopard onto external drive

I'm attempting to install Snow Leopard on a second drive, an external bare drive in an Icy Dock enclosure connected to a MacPro (running 10.6.6) via serial port. Apple Disc Utility confirms that the external drive (a Seagate 325gb) has a partition map scheme GUID Partition Table. SMART Status is not supported. Connection Bus reads as SCSI but it's connected with a serial cable.
I'm able to perform the first part of the install by selecting the external drive but when I have to restart and complete the install from the original Snow Leopard disc (10.6), the external drive no longer shows up. I've tried several times and have restarted the Icy Dock external drive enclosure.
Any ideas? Thank you.

Not necessarily. Use a backup utility so that you can deselect all the data from within your Home folder as well as third-party applications in order to create a bootable disk but without some of the excess. Any of the following should be suitable:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
Silver Keeper
MimMac
Retrospect
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
SuperDuper!
Synchronize Pro! X
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Message was edited by: Kappy

Can't Install Snow Leopard on external drive

Hey Mac Addicts,
I'm trying to install Snow Leopard on an external drive (Lacie Triple Rugged, FW800 USB3.0) but keep on getting "Installation failed, can't copy the support files.
My drive is partioned in to 5x100GB partitions, GUID partition scheme. I boot from my installation disk, choose my partition and hit install. The DVD spins and spins and eventually give me a failure. I've tried not installing the custom options (Quicktime 7, Rosetta and have even unchecked X11) but still get the same.
The MacBook Pro I'm trying this from is running 10.6.8 and previous successful attempts at doing this were from 10.6.4, I'm thinking this is the issue, but would rather not have to clean install my machine and try again.
If anybody has any idea's that'll be marvellous, as I am a little confused and lost, especially as I've done this before.
All the best and thanks in advance.
BigMik

Two things,
1: Use FIrewire
2: Use Disk Utility to first Erase with Security Option Zero All Data, the entire drive, then setup the partitions
3: If it doesn't work, then increase the size of the 10.6 parittion or reducing the partitions until it works.
4: Also do all this from the Disk Utility on the internal drive, then try again from the 10.6 install disk. Apple might have pulled something.
Also you can clone your present OS X 10.6 partition using the donationware Carbon Copy Cloner, however the external partition needs to be large enough for all the contents (recommended)
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

Using snow leopard on external hard drive w/Mountain Lion OS Mac

I need to use Snow Leopard in order to use some expensive software that will not work in Lion or Mountain Lion. All of our computers have been upgraded to Mountain Lion, whcih doesn't support Rosetta. I was able to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive and it boots up fine from another computer (that is not mine) that has Snow Leopard as its OS.
But when I boot up from my MacBook Pro (running Mountain Lion) and from my Macbook Air (also running Mountain Lion), I can't seem to do it. I hold the "option" key when starting and I get the option to start from the computer's HD or from the external firewire Snow Leopard drive. When I choose the Snow Leopard drive, it crashes and gives me that black screen with the kernel (?) message in several languages that I need to hold down the Power key to turn off the computer and reboot.
How can I get my MacBook Pro or my MacBook Air to boot up from the Snow Leopard external hard drive? (Once again, it DOES work with a Mac that has Snow Leopard as its OS).

Richard Signes2 wrote:
The question is: How do I start up my MacBook Air (or MacBook Pro) from an external FireWire Bootable hard drive with Snow Leopard on it? When I start up either one with the "option" key pressed, I get the option to start up with the external Snow Leopard hard drive, but when I select it, it crashes, as described above.
You can't if the Mac is a Late 2011 and later, perhaps if it's a Early 2011 (as some came with 10.6 and some with 10.7) and it should be possible for all Intel Mac's earlier than Early 2011.
Also, like what has occurred in the past, Apple does eventually issues a firmware update in later OS X versions so that earlier OS X versions, despite the Mac previously being able to boot from them, won't any longer. However far as I know Apple hasn't done this quite yet, but will one day.
Baring those issues, if you installed 10.6 on a external drive using a machine specific black/gray disk from another Mac, it has hardware drivers for that model/year of Mac only.
If you used the 10.6 white retail disks from Apple, it only has hardware drivers for all previous Intel Mac's that came originally with 10.6.2 or earlier from the factory. Mac's with 10.6.3 or later on the drive from the factory have different hardware drivers, thus not on the 10.6.3 white retail disk.
To find out what OS X version came on your machines, use the free MacTracker and use your model indentifier in the Apple menu More > Info (aka System Profiler)
So for those Mac's that originally came with 10.6.3 or later, machine specific disks must be gotten from Apple, or if your really talented, it's possible to create a univeral 10.6-10.6.8 install disk by combing the 10.6.3 image with the 10.6.8 combo update which will boot on any Intel Mac if the firmware permits and the hardware drivers are compable.
There is a method to bypass the firmware and install on Mac's that are Early 2011/Late 2011 via Target Disk Mode, or via taking the drive out of the machine as some Late 2011's use the same hardware drivers as the Early 2011 machines (only a processor bump basically)
How to revert your Mac to Snow Leopard
For the MacAir, you can install 10.6 via a USB thumb drive, of course provided it has the hardware drivers.
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
So in your case you likely should be rather looking at running Snow Leopard in a virtual machine program in Mountain Lion, which MichealLax over at MacRumors has perfected a technique.
Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

Cannot boot Snow Leopard from external FireWire drive

I use a Western Digital My Passport Studio 500 GB external drive to back up my MacBook Pro with Time Machine. I had created a 30 GB Leopard boot partition with various utilities and tools; since the small drive goes wherever the laptop goes, I figured it might come in handy to be able to boot the computer in the event something went wrong with its internal 250 GB drive.
Over the weekend, I upgraded the external drive to Snow Leopard, and now it can no longer be used to boot the laptop. The symptoms are truly weird. Holding down the Option key while rebooting does not show the external drive unless I disconnect and reconnect the FireWire cable. The drive then shows up. I select it, and it appears to begin to boot, then it just sits on the gray screen with the little round thingie turning for a long time (five to ten minutes). Eventually, the system boots from its internal drive. This happens regardless of whether I'm connected by means of FireWire 400 or 800.
After spending a lot of time looking at the usual suspects (cables, permissions, PRAM, etc.) I reinstalled Sand Leopard (OK, 10.5) and lo and behold, the drive boots again (though for some reason I still have to go through the disconnect/reconnect routine). Clearly, something in the OS has changed with respect to the way booting from external drives is handled.
On the positive side, I have none of the symptoms described in other threads: Time Machine works flawlessly, and both the boot partition and the Time Machine partition appear on the Snow Leopard desktop every time I connect the drive.
Does anyone have the same issues? Does anyone know of a workaround?
Thanks,
Daniel

Hi,
Working from a MacBook Pro 2.4 (Santa Rosa) with 4gb ram, running OS 10.5.7-
(All external HDs are 7200 rpm)
Shortly after our fresh install of Snow Leopard onto a new but already tested External 1.5 Seagate Barracuda (with the most current firmware), in an OWC Mercury Elite enclosure-
We installed Snow Leopard smoothly to that external HD without any issues, and it booted up from that 1.5T external HD, and worked fine.
Then, still working from the MacBook Pro, I turned on and booted another external HD (a Newertech Guardian Maximus RAID running 10.4.11 via FW800, daisy chained to the 1.5T External with Snow Leopard newly installed.
Again that's MacBook Pro <FW800> Snowy external HD <FW800> 10.4.11 RAID (booted & working from the RAID).
But when I tried to bootup up Snow Leopard, after doing the work on the 10.4.11 RAID-
It would not boot up.
Though Snowy would appear as an available Start Up disk, each time it was selected as the Boot drive,
the Internal HD OS 10.5.7 booted instead.
I changed around the cables and tried repeatedly.
Same result, no Snowy boot.
Even after the OS 10.4.11 external RAID was power down, and disconnected.
After some looking around, I found this forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2136208&tstart=0
Got me thinking.
I tried the USB, and it booted !
I tried the FW400, and it booted !
And mysteriously, at this point- I tried the FW800, and it booted !
And then, the MBP boots seemed to reliably boot from that external, via FW800.
Bizarre.
Snow Cat needs to be taught originally how to find FW800 from the bottom up ?
Turns out, Snow Leopard doesn't like booting,
if the preceding boot was on the 10.4.11 RAID, and work was done with programs there.
So, once again, I repeated this process:
After working with programs on the 10.4.11 external HD,
the MBP would not boot the Snow Leopard external HD,
it defaulted to booting from the MBP internal HD OS 10.5 via FW800.
even though Snowy was selected for Start Up.
This was the case repeatedly.
(It would also boot from the 10.4.11 external RAID, if it were selected for Start Up.)
(In each of these tests below, I only rebooted the computer at each test. I did no work with programs on the various HDs.)
SO, once again, at this point of the process:
I plugged in that Snowy external HD via FW400,
and it booted up fine !
Then I booted up from the Internal 10.5, and tried to boot Snowy via FW800 again.
It worked !
Then I turned on the 10.4.11 RAID external HD, and tried to reboot from the Snowy external HD.
It worked too !
Then I booted from the 10.4.11 RAID, it came up fine.
Then booted from the Snowy, it came up fine.
Then booted from the Internal HD 10.5, it came up fine.
Then booted from Snowy again, it came up fine.
Then I turned off the 10.4.11 HD, booted from Snowy, it came up fine.
Then booted from the Internal, it came up fine.
Then tried Snowy one last time, it came up fine.
Anyway, the issue is:
It works fine-
Except when I do work within the programs on the 10.4.11 external RAID.
Then I have to use FW400 or USB to get it to boot once again . . .
Regardless of whether the other external HD is removed from the system.
It's some sort of flaw, and totally repeatable in testing.
Hopefully, it will be fixed soon.
Howard

Install snow leopard on external hdd using windows

My laptop logic board broke. So I wasn't able to erase the hdd. So I took it out put it into my external hdd enclosure. Now I'm stuck on how I would reinstall a fresh copy on the hdd when I only have a windows computer available. I could get a Mac one but that would be a little harder to do, since I have one and I have to go outta my friends. Anyone have a way for me??

Ummm, this is posted in the forum for help with iTunes on Mac.
Fresh copy of what? You're trying to install Snow Leopard on a Windows computer?? Or you are trying to install iTunes on a Snow Leopard drive in an external enclosure to run on a Windows computer? Need some clarity here please.

Installing Snow Leopard on external HD for games?

Hi, I just bought a new Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion, and I have some old games (like Neverwinter Nights) that used Rosetta and won't run on this machine. I'm wondering if I could install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive, boot up my Macbook from it, and run the games that way. Would it work and how would the perfornance be, seeing as it's running from an external?

No sorry, 10.6 doesn't have the hardware drivers for your newer hardware.
However there is a unsuported hack to get 10.6 running in Parallels virtual machine software, but you will lose performance naturally.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

After installing Snow Leopard, my external apple keyboard does not work. Any ideas?

After installing Snow Leopard (v. 10.6.3), my external Apple keyboard no longer works. Any ideas?

The laptops are called MacBooks there really is no MacPro laptop.
MacBook Pro Apple Support -
MacBook Pro specs 17-inch model
MacBook Pro

Instal snow leopard on a timemachine drive

I am trying to install Snow Leopard on an Intel iMac currently running Leopard, but the install cannot be done because the installer thinks that the drive is a timemachine volume. I am not using the drive to back up timemachine but the installer thinks that the drive is being used as a timemachine backup drive. Is there a way to override this condition.

Open TM preferences. Click on the Select Disk button and select None then click Use for Backup button. Then turn off TM.

I am installing snow leopard on a new drive unformatted but it does not show the disk to install it on.? do i need to format first with one partition?

I have installed a new drive on my mac book and more ram but the snow leopard install asks which to install the system on but then does not show the drive.
do I have to partition it and name it first. -- if so just one partition?

Do this:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
When formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.

Snow Leopard and external firewire drives

When is Apple going to acknowledge the problems with external drive access created by Snow Leopard?

Quite correct. I should not expect Apple to answer the question here. And who knows maybe they are actually working on a solution.
Since you made a kindly offer I will describe the problem in more detail.
Since upgrading to SL I have had constant problems with my firewire external drive. Unfortunately that was the drive with my Time Machine backups. The symptoms of the problems revolve around startup and recognition of the drive. The drive appears in the list but will not open, Time Machine attempted to initiate backup and just spun. I discovered that it was necessary to completely shut down my Imac, disconnect the firewire drive and power it down. I have tried leaving the drive connected and powered, sometimes the Imac sees the drive sometimes not. I have tried leaving the drive connected but powering it down, powering it up and starting the Imac sometimes it sees the drive sometimes not but more frequently than when I leave it connected. The most reliable way to reconnect to the drive is to shut down the Imac, disconnect and powerdown the drive, startup the mac, login, repower the drive and reconnect.
In the course of trying to find a solution I have tried both Disk Utility use and Tech Tool Pro. Both programs are unable to correct the problem, most frequently displaying the message "unable to unmount drive". However after the above mentioned repower sequence running either Disk Utility or TechTools Pro describes the drive as OK.
In the course of all of this I decided to wipe the drive and reformat. I was unable to remove the Time Machine files to another drive so I made the decision to abandon the backups since I made additional manual backups of the critical files and I have all my install disks.
I reformated the drive but I have not started Time Machine again. Time machine has not worked once successfully since I upgraded to Snow Leopard. And further it is clear that the same problems exist on the reformatted drive. At this point probably the best solution is to abandon SL until it leaves beta stage (if ever) and return to 10.5. Had I made that decision earlier I might (emphasize might) have been able to restore from Time Machine. Now the only option is a fully manual restore back to 10.5.
I would like to emphasize that I operate and have operated my Macs as absolutely "box stock" with no system tweeks or any third party tools. The majority of my software on this machine is Apple both Works and Life. I have MacLinkPlus Quicken, Stuffit, Bento, Data Desk, Photoshop elements, Firefox browser, Flip 4 Mac and DivX as the only third party software.

Can i install snow leopard with a flash drive?

i purchased the snow leopard family pack to upgrade 3 computers. I have installed it on one macbook pro, and finally got it to go on a mac mini. i am having an issue with my macbook pro, as it wont read the disc. Can i use a flash drive to install it? and how big should it be?

It's probably easier to install it more directly; to use a (working) DVD drive, rather than building yourself a USB keydisk. Get yourself an appropriate cable (probably FireWire) and Google or Bing search around for details of installing using what is known as Target Disk Mode, or alternatively scounge up an external USB DVD drive and use that directly on the OS X box with the failed DVD drive.

Install Snow Leopard on External FW Drive

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