MacBook wont boot with a USB HDD attached

The problem I am experiencing is that I bought a USB 2 HDD (500gb lacie) and I formatted it to 2 partitions but now when I try to boot up my MacBook, it wont go past the grey screen (no Apple logo). If I remove the usb hdd it works again and boots to Leopard. And for some odd reason when I'm in Leopard and after the boot crazyness, if I replug it in, it wont recognise the drive at all, I have to disconnect the power cable and plug it back in to see the drive again.. Is there a work-around for this, 'cause I dont want to be playing with the cables everytime I have to reboot...

Ah! Then I'm sure that both devices would need Windows drivers!
Maybe there are some later drivers for the webcams...
Clinton

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Neo 2 Platinum freezes while booting with USB HDD attached

This system freezes when a powered-on USB HDD is connected. I realize that the system is trying to boot off the USB device and have disabled all of the USB boot options in the BIOS. However, DISABLE USB HDD is not one of them! Is their any BIOS or other fix available for the problem?
Moe

After bios update , clear cmos with jumper onboard .
After that you must enter cmos setup and "Load optimized defaults" followed by save+exit
Sounds to me bios if looking for MBR on attached USB HDD ( didn't do this on my Neo2 with 1.C bios and external USB attached)
Set the normal boot order to
Floppy
Cdrom
HDD
Boot other devices :Disabled
(other boot order can mock things up)
Find "USB KB/Storage support" set to:Enable
Save+Exit
Boot with USB HDD attached and enter the submenu of "Harddisk boot priority" in cmos setup and all recognized HDD's
wether they are IDE/SATA/USB shall be listed , move your OS HDD witch host bootfiles/mbr to top with PGUP key and save+exit .

My macbook wont boot up, black screen and the cd drive keeps making a constant sound. What to do?

My macbook wont boot up. When I turn it on, the screen turns black right away and the cd/dvd drive keeps making a constant "ejecting" sound.
The strange thing though is that once in a while starts up propperly, but suddely goes black again (after a min. or two), and the ejecting sound comes back. What to do, and yh, I've never done a back up so would it be possible to take out the HD and regain whats in there?
Any help would be appriciated!

Hello. Try resetting the PRAM and SMC first.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

My macbook wont boot up :-( HELP!!!!

Hi
HELP!!! My macbook wont boot up.
I was deleting some files off my system last night, Id put them in the trash and deleted them (there was quite alot!!) and the screen gradually went black and told me i needed to restart my computer by holding down the power key.
I tried doingt this but it wouldn't restart.
I left it a while and tried powering up, it seems to turn over once but the chimes dont kick in and nothing happens, the little light (is it the sleep light?) does come on but nothing else.
I really really hope someone can help!

Since you are still using Panther, try booting from your System Install DVD. Try running the +repair disk+ & repair permission options.
See Article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301287 My computer stops responding during startup
If you have AppleCare, suggest that you contact them.

I have an airport extreme with a USB printer attached (non-airprint). Can i print from my ipad?

I have an airport extreme with a USB printer attached, it is a non airprint printer.
I can print via my network from my desktop but I want to know if i can print from my ipad 2 and ipad 1

Printing from an iPad or iPhone
To print directly from an iPad you need an AirPrint - enabled printer on the same wireless network as the iPad. All AirPrint printers are wireless but not all wireless printers are AirPrint-enabled.
If you do not have an AirPrint printer, a number of workarounds exist that enable the use of any printer you normally use, even older ones that may predate AirPrint by decades. Search for the following products:
handyPrint (Mac only, donation-supported)
Printopia (Mac only, $19.95 with free trial)
These are utilities you install on the Mac you normally use for printing, enabling it to act as an AirPrint print server. The Mac must be "on" but may be asleep for them to work. The iPad needs nothing else, no iOS apps need to be installed and no configuration is necessary. If your computer can print, so can the iPad, using one of these utilities on your Mac.
Equivalent utilities may exist for PCs but I have no experience with them - I suggest https://www.collobos.com
You can also buy this standalone hardware print server, bypassing the need for a computer altogether:
http://www.lantronix.com/it-management/xprintserver/xprintserver.html
Otherwise you will need to buy an AirPrint printer or multifunction device.

Replaced hard drive; now Macbook wont boot from CD (or USB for that matter)

Looking for a genius. I've tried holding down "C" during startup until the option to boot from CD shows up, but my install disk spins, then stops. Does this about 3 times and the Macbook spits it out (I held "C" the entire time). I've also tried holding "alt/option" key with an external drive attached via USB but the option to boot from there never came up either. I tool it into the Apple store earlier today and was told only the hard drive was bad. Now that I've bought, opened, and installed the new HD, I'm concerned I've wasted that purchase. Anyone? Thanks so much.

Startup your Mac while holding down the Option key. That should launch the Startup Manager window where you can select the startup disk then click Restart.
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac < includes info for repairing the startup disk
A Windows install disc will not boot your Mac.

Why wont my macbook pro boot with external hard drives connected?

After two years of uninterrupted success running my MBP with five external hard drives attached (two USB, two eSATA with LaCie Expresscard 34, one FireWire 800), my MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion 10.8.2 installed will not boot with the drives attached. Starting up with the option key depressed does not work. Anyone have insight? This didn't happen until I upgraded to 10.8.2, so is there a bug fix needed in that update?

Update, I reset the PRAM (i think) and now the chime is back as I start up... small win but thats all it does.
So I decided to dload a copy of Lion and burn to a disc, then try and boot from there. When i boot holding option and select the dvd it sounds like something is happening, contstant turning or reading of the disk, but nothing is happening on screen, just my old friend the apple logo and his mate the spinning wheel. Starting to concede now, just hoping to get my data back, its mostly photos and some files i cant duplicate.
I am going to purchase Mountain lion on my current apple ID using a friends macbook and try and reinstall from there. Although i never had Mountain Lion installed in the first place (just lion) there isnt an option to buy lion on the app store (i dont think) This is prob my last spin of the dice i think before handing it in, unless anyone on here has some ideas....

Macbook wont boot (folder icon with question mark)

Dear all,
I have macbook 13.3 (black one) for a year. This morning it just didn't boot and I got the question mark sign. I googled and discovered that it is probably a HD problem and the solution is: boot macbook from DVD install disk and try to repair.
My problem is, that I cant do even that. I put the original DVD in, after boot I pressed hold option. Then I got only mouse cursor but no icons (like the DVD is not inserted). I tried with C also, but nothing. It just wont boot from DVD.
Does anyone has a solution, how can I force macbook to boot from DVD?
Message was edited by: tdarko

Make sure the disc is clean with no scratches in it. Also, you can try running fsck to check the disk.
1. Reboot/Startup holding your Command-S key down.
2. At the command line type the following and hit 'Return.'
/sbin/fsck -fy
3. If it finds a problem and repairs it, immediately run fsck again until the drive checks OK.
4. After it has check/repaired your disk, type 'reboot' and hit 'Return' again. Unit should bootup normally.
Dave M.
MacOSG Founder/Ambassador  An Apple User Group  iTunes: MacOSG Podcast
Creator of 'Mac611 - Mobile Mac Support' (designed exclusively for an iPhone/iPod touch)

USB boot with flash or HDD in ARCH64

The information provided by mobo mfrs never includes bios boot info.
Please help me to find at least one 64bit mobo that does bios boot using USB 2.0 devices.
I figure I might as well get 64bit aloing with the USB bios boot and large ram all at the same time.

Tried to boot USB flash drive on three high profile machines at FRY's, one an HP , a FRY's model and a Gateway. None would boot from my flash drive.
I suspect that admin has strapped the USB boot to prevent virus entry into the boot on their demo machines.
I have no way of determining whether a mobo boots from USB flash . None of the salespersons even know what bios boot options are present in their demo computers to say nothing about their multitude of mobos.
Motherboards.org has no info on bios boot options.
I desire to purchase a mobo which will boot from Larch flash drive into arch in ram. The mobo has to have 2GB of ram (or more).
I will pursue any good candidate whether 32 bit or 64bit mobo.

My Macbook wont Boot, Power Light just lights up

I am having a HUGE Problem with my macbook pro. (Early 2011). I already brought this to the mac center but they could not find anything wrong with it. They said that the whole time it was with them their technicians did not find anything wrong with it.
The problem is that it wont boot up. The last time i was able to use my macbook pro (I am using it right now since it booted up) was 2 weeks ago. Today i tried my luck since i really needed to check my files and luckily it did boot up. but before this it would take an hour for it to boot up. After presing the on button the power light will turn on and after a few minutes a whirring sound will be heard. I will then turn off the Mac and turn it on again and the booting up sound will be heard. but last 2 weeks it was just whirring sound and after i turned it off and turned it on it wont boot up anymore until now.
I am really stumped as to what the problem of my Macbook is. Any help would be really appreciated.

Go through the steps - one by one - that ds store outlines in his user tip, Step by step to fix your Mac.
Good luck,
Clinton

Windows partition wont' boot from internal secondary HDD? No bootable device error

Here is my scenario: I previously had a 500GB bootcamped HDD in my 2012 macbook pro. The boot camp partition was running windows 7 and the mac partition was running 10.9. I replaced my original HDD with a 250GB SSD, took out my optical drive, and replaced that (op drive) with my original HDD. When i boot from the main drive, the SSD, it successfully recognizes the HDD with the 2 different partitions on it. But when I try to boot into my windows partition(on the HDD) by holding option at startup and selecting the windows partition, I keep getting a black screen "No bootable device. Insert boot disk and hit any key". I tried installing rEFIt, but still no luck. Here is the output from partition inspector:
* Report for internal hard disk *
Current GPT partition table: # Start LBA End LBA Type 1 40 409639 EFI System (FAT) 2 409640 487127591 Mac OS X HFS+ 3 487127592 488397127 Mac OS X Boot
Current MBR partition table: # A Start LBA End LBA Type 1 1 488397167 ee EFI Protective
MBR contents: Boot Code: None
Partition at LBA 40: Boot Code: None (Non-system disk message) File System: FAT32 Listed in GPT as partition 1, type EFI System (FAT)
Partition at LBA 409640: Boot Code: None File System: HFS Extended (HFS+) Listed in GPT as partition 2, type Mac OS X HFS+
Partition at LBA 487127592: Boot Code: None File System: HFS Extended (HFS+) Listed in GPT as partition 3, type Mac OS X Boot
Ive seen similar post, but none specific to my scenario. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to preserve the contents of my original HDD as it contains important school files I will be needing.

Please download Gdisk from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/ . You do not have a valid MBR on disk1 so Windows will not boot, even though you can see the volume in OS X Finder on the HDD.
Use Gdisk to recreate a Hybrid MBR which includes GPT#4.
Here is an example. Please notice the spaces between 2,3 and 4.
sudo gdisk /dev/disk0
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.10
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
MBR: hybrid
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.
Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk0: 490234752 sectors, 233.8 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 59BDFEEB-1EB4-4529-94FE-3CBC2C3CD513
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 490234718
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2604 sectors (1.3 MiB)
Number Start (sector)    End (sector) Size       Code Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00 EF
   2          409640       401060383   191.0 GiB   AF05 Macintosh HD
   3       401060384       402329919   619.9 MiB   AB00 Re
   4       402331648       490233848   41.9 GiB    0700 Microsoft basic data
Command (? for help): r
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h
WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.
Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 2 3 4
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y
Creating entry for GPT partition #2 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AF): AF
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n
Creating entry for GPT partition #3 (MBR partition #3)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AB): AB
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n
Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #4)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 07): 07
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w
Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk0.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.
Now Reboot and verify the output of fdisk again.

[SOLVED] Booting Arch off USB HDD fails - can't mount real root device

I've installed Arch on the internal HDD (sda) of my laptop, and I attempted to install a second copy of Arch on partition sdb3 of an external USB HDD. sdb3 is a primary partition that I had prepared beforehand with gparted and outfitted with the reiserfs filesystem. I skipped section 3.2 (manually prepare hard drives) of the Arch installer. There was no problem with section 3.3 (manually configure filesystems and mountpoints); I put all of / in sdb3. Installing packages and configuring the system also went without a hitch.
I wanted to boot this new install of Arch via the boot menu of GRUB that was installed in the MBR of sda with my primary install of Arch. On the new install, I first did go through section 7 (install bootloader), thinking I would want to install GRUB in the root sector of partition sdb3 (not in the MBR of sdb where the GRUB of MintKDE resides, a boot menu that I want to keep) but that failed, so I then picked "no bootloader to be installed". With that I exited the new install, since it appeared to have gone to completion.
I then copied the appropriate stanza in the /boot/grub/menu.lst of this new Arch install to the /boot/grub/menu.lst of my primary Arch install on the internal HDD of my laptop.
This stanza reads as follows:
# (3) Arch Linux on WDPP60 blue (sdb3)
title Arch Linux on WDPP60 blue (sdb3)
root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/191cc027-43ce-443b-8846-f265d60555ec ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
However, I'm not able to boot the new Arch install when I pick this entry from the GRUB menu list. The new install starts booting, finds sda but not sdb and stops with the following errors, dropping me to a recovery shell:
Root device /dev/disk/by-uuid... doesn't exist. Attempting to create it.
ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid...'
mounting /dev/disk/by-uuid... on /new_root failed: No such file ...
ERROR: Failed to mount the real root device.
Running "mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdb3 /new_root" at the ramfs prompt also fails.
I've tried a number of edits of the menu.lst stanza from the grub> command prompt, such as adding rootfstype=reiserfs, replacing root=/dev/disk/by-uuid..etc. with root=/dev/sdb3 (booting then fails with "/dev/sdb3 No such file"), using "initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img" etc., but booting always fails at the same stage with equivalent error messages.
I have no trouble booting half a dozen other Linux/BSD distros that reside on two different external USB HDD's by the same method, i.e. choosing an entry from the GRUB boot menu of my primary Arch install, after I placed the appropriate stanza in its /boot/grub/menu.lst.
How can I get this new Arch install to boot?
Last edited by RobF (2010-05-17 23:03:27)

Yes, this was in fact the solution. I stumbled upon it in this thread:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=65844
When one wants to boot from a USB mass storage device, the initrd needs to include the modules for accessing USB devices, and in Arch this is accomplished by adding "usb" to the HOOKS array. I simply reinstalled Arch to the USB HDD and in the system configuration step now edited /etc/mkinitcpio.conf by adding the "usb" item. Adding "rootdelay=10" and/or "rootfstype=reiserfs" to the kernel line in the appropriate stanza in Arch's /boot/grub/menu.lst wasn't necessary in this case. I left the stanza exactly as I posted it above.
Thanks for your input.

Satellite U400-15E - Can't boot from new USB HDD

Hello.
Recently a bought an external WD My Book with 3TeraByte to use with my Satellite U400-15E. I can use it inside Windows 7 Ultimate with no problem. But if I try to boot from it (by pressing F12 key), the BIOS doesn't even see the drive.
Is this because Toshiba doesn't use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)? UEFI BIOS can overcome the 2.19TB limitation in todays computers easily, like the following Western Digital document explains:
[http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/Flyer/ENG/2579-771501.pdf]
This would allow me to use my new external drive to store a Ghost image of my Toshiba's internal HDD for instance. I mean 3TB and even greater capacities are a reality today. When will Toshiba update their BIOSes to support UEFI?
Equipment used:
Toshiba Satellite U400-15E (BIOS v5.00 26-10-2010)
Western Digital My Book Essential 3TeraByte - Firmware v1.014 (USB 3.0 interface)
MS Windows 7 Ultimate - 32bit version
Thank you

Hello
Well... with this same computer, I already tried booting (successfully) from the following pendrive capacities:
8GB
16GB
32GB
All without problem.
And besides, before having the 3TeraByte WD, I had a 1TeraByte Iomega USB HDD from which I could store Ghost images, because the BIOS would show the 1TB Iomega drive after pressing F12 and Symantec Ghost could also detect the drive without problems.
But with this new 3TeraByte WD... the BIOS doesn't even show the drive after pressing F12.
So when you say +{color:#0000ff}So USB HDDs are not supported{color}+ are you refering booting from USB HDD?
Hum... I'm not sure about that.
I never tried booting an OS from the Iomega.
But that was never my purpose either.
My purpose is for the BIOS (and hopefully Symantec Ghost) to detect the WD USB drive, like it happened before with the 1TeraByte Iomega.
I was using a 1TeraByte Iomega "Select Series" drive.
With the Iomega I could create Ghost images of my Toshiba without a problem.
+{color:#0000ff}But you’re absolutely right: 3TB and greater capacities are reality today but Satellite U400 is older notebook model and not newest one.{color}+
A Laptop computer that has Two 64bit CPU cores and 8GB RAM capacity is not that old!
I think it could be a BIOS limitation, since it's not using UEFI.
Any more ideas?
Thank you.
Message was edited by: Binary-Synapse
Message was edited by: Binary-Synapse

Boot from external USB HDD - Tecra M5

Hi!
Does anyone know is it possible to boot OS from external HDD connected to notebook via USB-port? There is "HDD priority" in BIOS setup with an ability to choose: USB - Built-in - Second HDD. But it doesn't work :(
I tried to boot Windows 98 from the same external USB-HDD on my home computer. Everything is OK...
The version of my Tecra M5 BIOS is 3.20.
TIA

Hi
You can boot from the second HDD if this HDD was placed in the SelectBay but not if the HDD was connected to the USB port.
Only this devices are bootable:
USB FDD, Primary HDD, SelectBay devices, Network(LAN), SD-CARD

Macbook wont boot after updating ram

Please help,
I have a white macbook mid 2010 model. Today I attempted to upgrade the RAM in my machine but to no avail. The ram I purchased was 4 GB (1 x 4 GB) - DDR3 SDRAM - 1333 MHz DDR3-1333/PC3-10666 - Non-ECC - Unbuffered - 204-pin SoDIMM PNY 4GB DDR3 SDRAM. I already tried to upgrade a few years ago so I had 3gb or RAM in my machine. I wanted to buy a 4gb stick and use it along side the 2gb stick that I have in now. When I put both sticks in my computer just beeps and wont boot. It will however boot, if i put either stick in alongside one of the original sticks that my machine came with, which would either give me 5gb or 3gb. I have seen people with similiar issues and the answers given was bad ram or bad memory slots. If the memory or the slot was bad, it would work at all no matter what combination you used so that really dosen't make any sense to me. If someone could help me, I would appreciate it.

If you bought your RAM at a place that also sells PC RAM you may have gotten mislabelled RAM. PCs can handle different RAM speeds so they’ll often label higher speed RAM as a lower speed rather than make two different speeds of RAM. But Macs are much more picky. They require a RAM stick to be exactly 1066mhz not 1333mhz. The way to tell is to put one of your old RAM sticks in and it will force the new RAM to run at the correct speed. Your MacBook requires 1066mhz RAM not 1333mhz.
These are good online stores for Mac compatible RAM
OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_Whi te - They offer Mac tested RAM at very good prices.
Crucial Memory http://www.crucial.com/ - good place to buy RAM from all over the world. They also have an excellent memory selector that allows you to choose memory based on your computer's model
Data Memory Systems http://www.datamemorysystems.com/apple-memory.asp - another good, cheap place to buying RAM if you live in the U.S.

MacBook wont boot with a USB HDD attached

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