MBP retina with an external boot drive

What does one have to do to boot the MBP retina from an external drive ?
A bootable partition on a G drive using USB 2 mounts but will not boot the MBP retina. Works fine with the air from last fall. Basically I'm trying to run DiskWarrior.
What about the Buffalo drive with Thunderbolt - will that boot the MBP retina ?
Thanks for any suggestions !

I am having the same problem, more or less. But even after reformatting the old systems disk that had LIon on it with a fresh copy of Mavericks it it still refused to mount.
Hi, I have a rather interesting problem in that I'm trying to get osx 7.5 to boot in diskboot mode from a promise pegasus2 drive.
Theoritically the new format should mount but wont. If there are drivers that the new MBP must reconize to mount lion then it must also apply to files that controll how the disk that Lion is installed on as well.
If someone as an answer to this I would very much appreciate your assistance.
thanks.

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How do i clone this external boot drive to my MBP?

I have been testing Mavericks for some time, booting from an external drive. The internal drive on my MBP is still running 10.6.8.
Now I want to clone the external to the internal, replacing the Snow Leopard setup with Mavericks.
In the Finder, my internal drive appears in the sidebar under ‘Devices’ - as does the external boot drive. But clicking on the internal drive icon (bringing up the file hierarchy) shows the external boot drive in the adjacent column - ie as part of the internal drive.
As a result, when I launch Superduper to clone from the external to the internal, the internal does not appear as an option.
Can you see what’s wrong here, and advise on how can I achieve what I want to do?

I tried 3 re-starts - the first 2 made no difference to the situation, but the third at last brought up the option to clone to the internal drive. The clone is now completed, and all appears to be working OK.

Can I create an external boot drive for an updated Mac OS Maverick system?

I'm currently running Mac OS Snow Leopard (10.6.8) on my 24" iMac and would like to clone my current drive to an external drive & then update that external drive to Mac OS Maverick. First, can this be done to create an external Boot drive for my iMac System? Secondly, can I then select the internal system (OS 10.6.8) or the external drive Maverick OS system at boot time?

Probably will depend on just what your machine is - i.e. how current and fast is the internal hardware.
Generally though, the performance booting off a firewire 800 should be fine for most things with little if any system lag. My late-2008 MBP ( 2.53Ghz core-2 duo, 8GB RAM) runs quite well when booted from a firewire 800 drive (7200rpm - even my 5400rpm portable clone is perfectly useable).
Just remember if using the external for a long or serious work session, if the power goes out, that external is not going to be powered off battery (I keep my full size external drives plugged into a UPS because of that).

Can you help me with my External Hard Drive?

Hey everyone,
I'm having a big problem with my external hard drives. Firstly, I'll give you all the information I think you might need-
* I'm running on Mac OSX 10.4.11.
* I have the most recent release 13" Macbook and it has plenty of memory left.
* Both my EHD's are made by LACIE. One is 250GB (18 months old) and the other 500GB (2 weeks old).
* Both work perfectly on every other computer I've tried - (2 Macs and 2 Windows).
* Both are formatted as FAT32 because I need to use them on Mac at home and Windows at work.
Now, the problem is every time I mount one of the EHDs on my laptop, they show up on the desktop but when double clicked (or Apple + O 'ed) they cause Finder to have a spaz, with the top white bar disappearing along with everything on my desktop (for about 2s).
What I have *tried so far*-
* Mounting and unmounting the EHDs.
* Turning on and off both EHDs.
* Plugging them in one at a time.
* Restarting the Macbook and plugging them in after it has fully loaded.
* Restarting the Macbook and plugging them in as it loads.
* Creating a new user account to open them in.
* Verifying both EHDs using Disk Utility - both claim to be working properly.
* That trick where you take out the battery and power source, hold down the On button for 5s, then hold Apple + P + R + Option while the Macbook turns back on.
None of these have worked so far. Please help!
Thank you so much in advance,
Joe

Have you tried opening them in a Finder window? Also, you might boot to your Install DVD and launch Disc Utility to verify and repair both permissions and your drive.
Sounds strange. I also have the Lacie 500G - partitioned, but with one being FAT 32 ...works fine for me.

MacBook Pro Retina with a 500gb hard drive - 400gb storage space?

I have a MacBook Pro Retina with a 500gb hard drive. I recently deleted a windows 8 partition, and now my macbook says its total storage capacity is 399.42gb. Is this normal? Or am I missing 100gb storage space?
When I deleted the partition through boot camp, there was an error, but the boot camp partition seemed to have been deleted completely. I ran disk utility repair and single user mode command prompt /sbin/fsck -fy to make sure my disk was properly partitioned, but it still shows 399.42gb total storage in my "About This Mac".

You did not remove your Windows partition correctly. You need to remove it using Boot Camp Assistant. If you cannot then you will need to repartition the entire drive back to a single partition/volume.

Upgrading to Snow Leopard from Tiger with an external DVD drive.

I am trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard 10.6.3 from Tiger 10.4.11 with an external DVD drive. The disc loads OK and prompts me for my password to restart and begin the installation. On restart, instead of being asked to accept the terms of use and etc... I just get the same prompt to restart and get caught in a loop. Any tips?

Try this instead:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the disk icon of the Snow Leopard DVD.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

How does external boot drive bind to computer?

What mechanisms bind an external boot drive and the host computer when running? In particular, how is the user environment determined? Examples:
1.I boot from my external drive (10.5.1) to my home mini 10.5.1) and I get one desktop with specific background (that I chose); when I boot to the mini at work (10.3.9), I get another desktop and background (which I also chose). Each mini, booted internally, has its own desktop and background. How does the desktop environment get determined?
2. When booted to one or the other mini from the external drive, iTunes sometimes wants to authenticate permission to play a song. It always comes back with "3 of 5 computers enabled". Why does it forget, and why does it then remember the same three computers?
Where can I find out more about the nature of these behaviors as determined by the operating system?
Thanks,
Fred

If you have the same system (Leopard 10.5.2 latest and lot of fixes) you can easily set the home folder to point to another disk drive so you have the same prefs and home folder. All it is doing is using your home account.
Normally it is /Users/home_account
But you can unlock and change the Account control panel (Advanced option by control click on account) to any location with 'browse' on path field to...
/Volumes/volname/Users/homeaccount
and use the same prefs (like desktop but also email etc)
That would allow you to use carry your home account and always use the same email and such wherever you are.
I always keep home account on another disk drive. In Panther it was done using NetInfo Manager, now modifying home path is in Account control panel. And to me, that is what 'binds' the boot drive to your user environment that you asked.

HT201250 I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was?

I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was? I want to make sure I will still have various important files on my new computer, like my songs in iTunes, my photos in iPhoto, etc, etc. Thanks so much in advance!

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
When you turn on the new iMac for the first time, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the external disk and follow steps to restore all your files to your new iMac. Your new Mac will have the same settings and programs as your old computer.
In other cases, I would recommend to restore the whole backup without using Migration Assistant or Setup Assistant, but a Late 2012 iMac uses a special OS X build, so the OS X version that you're using on your old Mac won't work on the new one. For more information, see > http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
And here: http://pondini.org/TM/9.html
Peruse the whole site. There is a lot of information there.

Problem with Time Capsule used with an External Hard Drive (with it's own power supply)

I have a mid 2012 Macbook Pro with Mavericks installed. I have the latest Time Capsule (802.11 ac) with an external hard drive hooked up via the USB port. The external hard drive was taken from an older Mac desktop machine and is formatted correctly (Mac OS Extended Journaled). The external hard drive has it's own power supply and shows up fine when connected directly to my laptop.
For whatever reason I CAN see the hard (LAN Storage) when in AirPort utility but I CANNOT find or access the drive from anywhere within the Finder.
My finder settings are set this way:
My FInder appears this way, with the Time Capsule selected:
As you can see, the "Data" drive isn't displayed (it's not on the TIme Machine mounted drive either). The external drive "LAN Storage" isn't availailable anywhere either.
I've tried unplugging and restarting my Time Capsule and the External Drive with no luck.
Any advice?
Thanks.

Welcome to Mavericks.. and its new concept of network drives not just being hard to find like in Mountain Lion but totally invisible.
Apple changed over Mavericks to using SMB2 by default.. broken and flawed SMB2.
Change over to AFP by manually mounting the TC drives.
I strongly recommend the first thing you do is change the TC names to SMB standard.. that just helps.
Short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric.
So rather than the very Generic THE Airport Time Capsule.. you make it even more Generic with TC1 (each subsequent TC increment the number. )
LAN Storage is not a good name either for USB drive.. especially now that it is WAN Storage.. WStore for example.. but whatever makes sense to you.
The name itself doesn't matter. .following the rules, short no spaces and pure alphanumeric does. Everything, conforms.
Now in Finder.. Go, Connect to Server.
AFP://TC1 or AFP://10.0.1.1 (you can use either the name (now that it is proper network name) or the IP address .. replace with your actual name or IP).
The computer will find the resources and then ask you for a password.. this is required, even if default,, which is public.. so type in your password or public if you did not change it.
Store the password in your keychain.
The TC should now mount and all the resources on it be made available or visible.

I've been getting the error message "The disk you inserted was not readable by the computer". I can't open system preferences, disk utility, or Time Machine. I'm guessing it has something to do with my external hard drive, although it hasn't been touched.

I've been getting the error message "The disk you inserted was not readable by the computer". I can't open system preferences, disk utility, or Time Machine. I'm guessing it has something to do with my external hard drive, although it hasn't been touched lately, but I can't figure out how to solve the problem. Any suggestions? Thank you!

Thanks for your quick response. I had a look at your discussion... I tried it on a Windows machine and I thought that was compatible with ExFAT?
Therefore I need to attempt to use my external hard drive with a machine that boasts OS X 10.6.5 or above and then it should work?
Thanks

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule?

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule via the USB port? My current Time Machine has a total capacity of 1TB. I'd like to double or triple its memory. I don't want to use the external hard drive in lieu of the Time Capsule hard drive. I'd like to use it in addition to. Just don't know if/how it's possible.
This is another one of those questions that I've searched the web for answers, and have gotten tricky answers back. So now I'm trying to introduce a clean slate to the mix.
Thank you for your time!

Well, what you mentioning is possible. However, I don't know whether it's supported (as in, "easy to set up."). Time Machine officially supports backing up to a locally attached drive, to a machine running a Time Machine server (i.e. running OS X Server software), and to a Time Capsule. I don't know that it officially supports a drive attached to an AirPort or to a Time Capsule. Though I know some people have gotten it to work.
Best I can say is to try it. Plug the drive into the Time Capsule, ensure it's shared on the network, and then try and set it as a backup target from a machine in the Time Machine backup panel (you'll need to ensure it's mounted first). If it works, you're all set.

Intermittently using Time Machine with an External Hard Drive

Ok, Kappy answered some questions I had about how Time Machine works with an external hard drive.
After doing more reading about Time Machine, I found out that a person can, for example, leave the drive powered-off for a couple of weeks and only periodically or intermittently use Time Machine for back up. However, in the online article I read dated 2009, the author suggested that he didn't know how well Time Machine would work making up for the two weeks, or however long, no files had been backed up.
Specific questions: I have 10.6.3 SL (I have not yet been brave enough to download 10.6.4) and a 4 month old iMac. 1) Have any of you had experience with only periodically using Time Machine for back up and 2) with my current system would you think I might run into some trouble if I only intermittently backed-up using Time Machine?
Thanks for reading this and thanks if you feel my questions warrant answering.
Note: I do have another external hard drive where I occasionally manually back-up photos, gifs, music, etc.

JohnHusk wrote:
Ok, Kappy answered some questions I had about how Time Machine works with an external hard drive.
After doing more reading about Time Machine, I found out that a person can, for example, leave the drive powered-off for a couple of weeks and only periodically or intermittently use Time Machine for back up.
If you go several days between backups, Time Machine may have to do a "deep traversal," comparing every folder on your system to the backups, to determine what's changed and needs to be backed-up. This depends on the volume of changes, so can happen after an OSX update, but in other circumstances might be after several days. This isn't a big problem, but it does take longer, and the more data you have, the longer it takes.
Worse, after an extended period, Time Machine may do a new, full backup of your entire system, rapidly filling-up your TM drive.
If that's the way you want to back up, Time Machine is not the backup app for you. One of it's main features is the way it can do quick hourly backups of what's changed, so you have an excellent chance of recovering a previous version (or versions) when you change or delete something in error, or a file comes up corrupted, or your Mac fails.
Why don't you want to just leave the drive connected and Time Machine running, to protect you best, as it was designed to do?
For alternatives designed to do less frequent backups, see Kappy's post on Basic Backup.

IMac 10.5.8 is stuck on Apple logo loading screen , how can I back up my files with an external hard drive ?

so my iMac (10.5.8 its pretty old ) got stuck on the apple logo loading screen (as I call it lol) and it will not go beyond that .I've already made and appointment for the genius bar but now would I back up my files with an external hard drive ? No unfortunately I don't have any other laptop or computer just the external hard drive. how would I back it up? Does it have something to do with "target disc mode"?

Hi,
Thank you for great advice re SuperDuper.
You wasnt to know we didnt live in USA. We will try to get the full retail version of Leopard off the net. We will also phone round the apple resellers.
In the meantime, we are happy running Tiger with the knowledge that SuperDuper has cloned our hard drive in case of a disaster.
SuperDuper recommended backing up the hard drive with a new user account if we were using filevault on the master account. We backed up our hard drive without creating a new user with filevault as we could not read the pdf `Instuctions as preview was not responding.
Is this copy safe to use as a bootable drive or should we copy our entire HD again using a new user account without filevault?
Keith & Shem

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week.

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week

In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

MBP retina with an external boot drive

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