Is Leopard eating my Firewire Hard drives?

I've just had the 2nd hard drive in a month that won't mount, and Disk Utilities can't see.

Hi Peter,
Have you tried using another firewire port on your iMac? Another possibility is the firewire cable itself - do you have another cable you could try? Also, is the 2nd drive the same make and model as the 1st drive? - It could be a problem with the firewire chipset on the drive.
Jon

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Snow Leopard on external firewire hard drive keeps crashing/freezing

I own a 2006 iMac that came with OS X 10.4 Tiger installed and it has always been stable and reliable. Lately I had the need to use some software that only ran on OS X Snow Leopard so I installed an external Firewire (Western Digital) 260GB hard drive and put OS X Snow Leopard on it. For the first few months, everything ran fine, but as the drive slowly filled up (or perhaps with time), my Leopard external drive started giving problems, most commonly, it would lose its Ethernet connection for no reason, or I would get a line of black/multicoloured pixels appearing across my Firefox browser (or something else weird would happen to the display), followed by the rainbow wheel spinning indefinitely... this happened more and more often, when I opened too many applications at the same time, or more than 3-4 tabs in Firefox. Occasionally the screen would "white out" or go completely black. I'd have to physically switch the computer off and on again.
However, I still have not even used 20% of the hard disk space so its not a matter of the hard drive becoming full...
The Tiger internal drive is still running 100% fine so it's not a problem with my RAM...
I've tried verifying/repairing the disk, but it doesn't show any problems. Any ideas about what I should try doing next?
Thanks in advance for any pointers.
Message was edited by: artemisworks

Just so I understand this correctly:
1. Your internal hard drive is on Tiger?
2. Your external (a WD) is on Snow Leopard?
3. Where is the "partition"? Do you have either drive partitioned?
4. You only have the problems when you are booted from/working on something using the external drive?
I've seen quite a few posts here regarding problems with external Western Digital drives; it appears that their internal drives are fine, but the externals do not play nice with Macs after a while (maybe the enclosure they use??).
In any case, if your problems are only when using the Western Digital, I'd say return it if possible, get it replaced, or buy a different brand and use the WD as a not-often-needed extra backup.

I've installed LION. Is it possible to put Snow Leopard on an external hard drive?

I've installed LION. Is it possible to put Snow Leopard on an external hard drive?

I was unaware of this change for usb support! However Babowa makes a good point in that you would probably not want to run SL via USB and rather Firewire.
Having said that, the 13" MacBooks do not have firewire.
But again as Babowa points out, that machine wouldn't be able to run Lion anyway.

Can anyone boot Leopard from an external hard drive on an iMacPPC?

Can anyone boot Leopard from an external hard drive on a G5 iMac PowerPC? How?

Allan's answer is irrelevant as he refers to Snow Leopard. He must have isread your post!
Yes, you can and I do. The proviso is that the external hard drive is connected by firewire, as a PPC Mac cannot boot via USB.

How do I boot Mac OS X Leopard from an external hard drive onto an eMac?

My eMac's internal hard drive died a while ago, and I was finally able to successfully able to install Mac OS X Leopard onto an external hard drive. However, my eMac still refuses to boot Leopard. I only keep being put on the OS Install/Upgrade screen. After install, I selected the Start-up Disk utility and chose my hard drive. Upon restart I find myself on the Install/Upgrade screen as I said earlier. I tried restarting again, but this time I pressed the option key to select a boot disk. However, only my Mac Install Disk shows up.

How is the external HD connected - USB or Firewire? Most Power PC Macs can't boot from a USB connected external HD.
 Cheers, Tom

I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that is running 10.7.5 and I am trying to use a 10.6.3 DVD to install Snow Leopard to an external hard drive.

I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that is running 10.7.5 and I am trying to use a 10.6.3 DVD to install Snow Leopard to an external hard drive. I've followed every possible instruction on every which website. The problem is when I boot to Install disc, I am unable to choose which hard drive I'd like to install the OS on. It says that it is unable to Install and automatically takes me to Restore and suggests that I restore to Time Machine backups. Any and all help is appreciated.

lovinlife5959,
have you tried booting from the grey Mac OS X Install DVD that originally came in the box with your MacBook Pro? See if you can install its version of Mac OS X (either 10.4.9, 10.4.10, or 10.5.0, depending upon when it shipped from the factory) onto your external hard drive. If that works, boot from your external hard drive, run Software Update on it, and then try updating your external drive to 10.6.3 via the white Snow Leopard DVD.

HT3777 I have a Window 7 HP laptop. I want to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive as the memory space on my laptop is very less. I have the original snow leopard disc and I think it's a retail version . Please guide me through the installation.

I have a Window 7 HP laptop. I want to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive as the memory space on my laptop is very less. I have the original snow leopard disc and I think it's a retail version . Please guide me through the installation in details. Can you also please let me know about this boot camp.

You cannot. From a legal standpoint, the license agreement for OS X mandates that you run OS X only on Apple hardware. HP is not (yet) owned by Apple.
From a technical standpoint, your HP laptop doesn't use EFI, but rather an early predecessor called a BIOS. Apple is the only vendor of consumer computer hardware that uses EFI; other vendors reserve EFI for use in servers.
Secondly, Apple's operating systems support a rather limited number of configurations of video hardware and mainboard chipsets directly since they need only support those systems that they manufacture. You cannot use Windows software or drivers on OS X, so prior to installation, you would need to write your own hardware drivers for your laptop, create an OS X drive image on a Mac, and then modify that image with your drivers before putting it in the HP.
It will be simpler (and legal), to simply purchase a used Mac. Apple's online store has refurbished MacBook Airs starting at $850 and Mac Minis for $700. If you go to e-bay or craigslist, you'll find used Macs for considerably less.

Can I install snow leopard on an external hard drive so I can run quicken 2006, and put snow leopard on my imac harddrive

Can I install snow leopard on an external hard drive in order to run my quicken 2006, and install lion on the hard drive of my imac?

You don't need to erase the drive and repartition from scratch. You may be able to add a second partition on the fly. The caveat here is that once you do that you cannot create a Windows partition using Boot Camp. Of course if you have no plans for Boot Camp then it isn't relevant.
To create a second partition on your existing startup volume:
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Open Disk Utility and select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.
2. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.
Now, you cannot add a new partition that exceeds the amount of contiguous free space at the end of the drive. Disk Utility will fail to add the partition if it cannot find sufficient contiguous free space. If that's the case then you will need to follow your state outline - backup, boot from clone, erase internal, repartition internal, restore backup to one of the partitions (or both in your case.)

Snow Leopard on an external hard drive; sign-in issues, Snow Leopard on an external hard drive; sign-in issues

I have an older (circa 2006) MacBook running Tiger. I've been able to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive and when I restart, it seems to boot from the external drive. However, it asks for a user name and password and the combination I use in Tiger doesn't work. I don't get an option for an admin user/password.
Any suggestions?

If you did a fresh installation from the original installer disk, then unless you used Migration Utility as part of the installation then you would have been stepped through the process to set up a user acount. Without that there would be no account to log into. So either you don't remember, you didn't install on an empty drive, or you used Migration Utility.
In any case, boot from the original installer, select the external drive, and under the Utilities menu choose Password Reset.
Regards.

I had Leopard on may Mac. I upgraded to Mountain Lion using Snow Leopard. I can't use my video with Mountain Lion. Can I load Snow Leopard on an external hard drive so I can use it with my camera?

I had Leopard on may Mac. I upgraded to Mountain Lion using Snow Leopard. I can't use my video with Mountain Lion. Can I load Snow Leopard on an external hard drive so I can use it with my camera?

First, you cannot do this if you have a Boot Camp partition.
Second: Create a new partition.
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.
Third: Install Snow Leopard.
Boot from your Snow Leopard DVD. Follow instructions for installation being sure that before you actually install Snow Leopard you have selected the new partition as your target destination.
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo
appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

Unstable firewire hard drives performance in 220 volts countries

Over the years, I often travel back and forth to the US, Asia and Europe with my MacBook Pro and external firewire hard drives, which were purchased in the USA. While in Europe or Asia, which generally runs on ~220 volts, I've had several experiences whenever I daisy chained more than 1 external firewire hard drive to my laptop, either the connection was very unstable, resulting in drives randomly unmounting; or my current dilemma where the 2nd drive is not mounting at all. I never experience these issues at all while I'm in the US. My guess is that the difference in voltage (110 vs. 220) or cycles (60 Hz vs. 50 Hz) is affecting the drives somehow. I have experienced this with G-drives, and the Newertech Voyager Q and Wiebetech Traydock which are well built, reliable enclosures. I pair the enclosures with Seagate or Hitachi drives. All the enclosures' AC adapters specifically state that they're rated for 100-240 volts. I thought hooking all my drives to a 2000 watt voltage transformer would solve the problem but it didn't. Using 1 firewire drive is not a problem, but the daisy chaining seems problematic. The dilemma is I MUST daisy chain the drives for backup purposes and just for general data wrangling. Plus my MacBook Pro only has 1 firewire port. My laptop and firewire port is not the problem, as I've upgraded several times over the years.
My questions are:
1. Has anyone else ever experienced USA drives acting funky in 220 volts countries?
2. Anyone have an idea for a solution to this problem?
Thanks so much,
HL
PS. On perhaps a related note, when I plug my MacBook Pro into a 220 volts outlet and lay my wrists below the keyboard, there is a current or vibration that I do not feel when I'm in the US.

There is no difference in the power delivered to the computer or the drives, it's 12-15v wherever you are, and it's DC so there are no cycles, I think this is not the right tree you're barking up.

Large OS 8.6 Compatible Firewire Hard Drive?

I'm needing a larger firewire hard drive, which must able to back up my older Macs (running 9.1 and 8.6)
However the newest 500GB ones all seem to list OS 10.x as their minimum requirement. (Not sure whether this is the minimum for doing stuff like formatting and partitioning, or whether these drives will not mount at all under OS9)
Can anyone suggest a large firewire external drive which will mount and perform backups under OS 8.6 ?

It should look somewhat like this:
xxxx% sudo du -x -h -d 1 /
Password:
24K /.fseventsd
1,9G /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.TemporaryItems
0B /.Trashes
0B /.vol
17G /Applications
9,0M /bin
0B /cores
4,5K /dev
1,2G /Developer
14G /Library
1,0K /net
0B /Network
10,0G /opt
4,4G /private
6,8M /sbin
4,0G /System
157G /Users <------ in this example this folder contains the most GB's
1,7G /usr
4,0K /Volumes
xxxG / <------ xxx GB : this is the total for all folders above.
So the results are presented one folder at a time in alphabetical order (?) with the total at the end.

Firewire Hard Drive corrupts OS Lion and will not boot

I have re-installed OS lion on my macbook pro 5-6 times now. There seems to be some conflict with my firewire hard drive enclosure which causing it not to boot shortly after using it when restarting. I am trying to get all my data off this hard drive.
When I boot in Verbose Command + V
I get this error which goes into a loop and does not allow the computer to boot.
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
I end up having to reinstall the OS every time and it fixes it temporarily.

Fixed it without even reinstalling the OS this time. I connected a firewire 400 cable between the mac book pro and my other mac and held down the "t" key to boot the dead macbook pro as a hard drive on my other mac. The hard drive didn't show up but it seem to get it out of the loop it was locked in not allowing it to boot and unable to reinstall the OS. After restarting it booted right back up like normal.
This was an easy fix if my enclosure caused this problem again and does not allow my computer to boot after using the FW 800 cable.

Can PB boot from an External Firewire Hard Drive?

Can I set up an external firewire hard drive as an emergency boot drive, in case my internal drive goes south? Anyone have utility software recommendations for setting up boot drive or mirror drive, in addition to OS X's Disk Utility? Thanks.

Photon2:
Yes, you can set up your external firewire HDD as an emergency boot drive.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Your HDD must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2. (Optional) I suggest you partition your HDD so that the first partition is roughly equivalent to the size of your internal HDD. The rest can be partitioned for other uses. (See Dr. Smoke's FAQ Backup and Recovery) For step-by-step for formatting and partitioning please post back).
3. Use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your internal HDD to the external firewire HDD/partition.
Please post back with further questions or comments.
Cheers
cornelius

External Firewire Hard Drive is not recognized

Hello
I have a LaCie External Firewire Hard Drive (like this one (http://www.lacie.com/us/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10105). Since it uses a fireware 400 cable, I bought a FireWire 800-400 adapter, the one from moshi that is sold in the mac store.
I have tried connecting it to both ports in the external harddrive, connecting and disconnecting and still is not recognized. Any idea and suggestions?
I already tried in another computer, with windows xp, and the hard drive works.
Thanks.

Hi, oops, I have more than 1 mac & I apologize for assuming you are a multiple mac owner..
You could visit your local Apple Store or Local Apple Approved Service Agent.
You could try connecting via USB if your external HD has the capability, it could also be a bad cable.
You can check the Finder -> Preferences & the Show These Items..
You can reboot with the Ext HD connected & see if it shows up on your d/top...L

Is Leopard eating my Firewire Hard drives?

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