My Macbook Won't boot from USB drives

Alright. Seems that ever since I've upgraded to Mountain Lion, I keep having one problem after the next. It's probably my fault, but I've been doing nothing I would think to be wrong...
Anyway. Here's a breif history. I have a Macbook pro. Before I installed Mountain Lion, I had Snow Leopard installed with Windows 7 on BootCamp. I installed Mountain Lion and made a startup USB for it as well. I used that USB as a startup drive so I could shrink my OS X installation partition on my HD so I could make a third partition since I am running out of room on my Windows Partition for games. It suceeded, I partitioned the remaining space on the drive as an ExFAT, and restarted. I tried to load up Windows, nothing would boot. I then loaded up my OS X partition just fine. No issues there. Figured something with the partition messedup the Windows install. So I decided to reinstall Windows. Nope, the Windows install USB won't boot. Okay... Maybe if I delete that extra partition I made, things will work. Nope, won't boot the Mountain Lion start up USB now. And for some stupid reason I cannot resize the partitions using the Mountain Lion startup partition on the HD.
So, what did I break that made it so only OS X will start up and no other bootable drives?

Week 2, this problem still occuring. Would be nice if this support forum actually offered support...

Similar Messages

Won't boot from USB Drive

I am trying to replace my internal drive. I got a WD Scorpio from OWC and formatted and installed OS 10.6. But when I boot from the drive I get the panic screen.
The drive otherwise behaves normally. I can see the files, etc.
Also, strangely, the drive is only recognizable as bootable from the right USB port. That doesn't really make any sense to me.
Please help! The OWC folks have sent me multiple drives and have really tried to get this working, but I have the same result each time. Anyone out there have a solution?
Thanks.

Try prepping the drive this way:
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 (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) 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.

Macbook won't boot from Hard Drive of Disc Drive!

So I bought a Macbook (Mid-2010) from a friend recently and I can't seem to get it to boot from the hard drive or optical drive. At first I tried booting from the HD it already had and when I didn't have any luck, I went out and bought a new one. It still won't boot. I'll turn it on, it'll chime and will try to load, and then I'll get the "You need to restart your." message. I've tried booting from disc (Leopard & Snow Leopard) and will still get the same message. I have also tried all possible startup key combinations and haven't had any luck. I don't have the original DVD it came with. So was wondering if any of you guys out there have experienced this. I would like to hear your tips before I go to an Apple Store and see if they can get it fixed for me.

"You need to restart your." message
That is referred to as a "kernel panic"...
Try here > Tutorial: Avoiding and eliminating Kernel panics | MacFixIt - CNETReviews
I don't have the original DVD it came with
You will need those discs. Replacement disc(s) from Apple: You can get replacement System Install & Restore CD/DVDs from Apple's Customer Support - in the US, (800) 767-2775 - for a nominal S&H fee. You'll need to have the model and/or serial number of your Mac available.
You can check the startup disk using the Disk Utility application located in /Applications/Utilities if you can boot in Safe Mode, but you cannot make repairs without the install disc.

MacBook won't boot from hard drive or CD

My MacBook will not turn on. When the power button is pressed the chime sounds as normal and the grey screen appears but it will not go any further. It also refuses to boot from a CD when c is held down. The CD spins up but it does not load. The computer was water damaged in December and this killed the hard drive but I replaced it and it worked fine again for about a month. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for the advice, doesn't seem to have worked though.

I Baught A iMac 2010 From Someone it came with lion but for the programs i use i need snow leopard but when trying to install it won't boot from usb or cd what can be the problem i've been at this for over 24 hours if anyone ca help it'd be greatly apprec

I Baught A iMac 2010 From Someone it came with lion but for the programs i use i need snow leopard but when trying to install it won't boot from usb or cd what can be the problem i've been at this for over 24 hours if anyone ca help it'd be greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

Downgrade OS X Lion To Snow Leopard [Video How-To]
http://www.cultofmac.com/110614/downgrade-os-x-lion-to-snow-leopard-video-how-to /
How To Downgrade OS X Lion To Snow Leopard: The Complete Tutorial
http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-downgrade-os-x-lion-to-snow-leopard-the-complet e-tutorial/
How To Downgrade from Apple OS X Lion to Snow Leopard
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2389334,00.asp

Tecra M2 - boot from USB drive

Hello
Why Tecra M2 don't have boot from USB drive in BIOS?
Is posible implemented this function in new BIOS.
Bye

Hello
Good question. You should ask this the Toshiba engineers.
However, I agree with Terentino and you can do nothing.
Greets

MacBook won't boot from new hard drive.

I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive, but my macbook will not boot to the new hard drive. I have erased and cloned the hard drive about three times now, using both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. It won't boot while it is in the macbook and it won't boot from an external hard drive case. All I get to is the screen with the mac logo and the spinning wheel. I have made sure the drive is GUID formatted, but it still doesn't work. When I put the new drive in an external case and plug it into the USB port of my macbook I can see and access everything on the drive. Can somebody please tell what I am doing wrong?
By the way the new hard drive is a 500gb western digital Scorpio blue drive.

I got a new hard drive recently 500gb seagate. I followed the directions on this page http://www.ehow.com/how2063795format-hard-drive-mac-os.html , Mine was a little more complicated since i had 2 partitions windows and mac on mine. Initially the process took a day and it started getting to the same thing as yours where it would get to the mac logo and not find the hard drive. I reformatted several times before i got to the point where i could boot up.Eventually I just figured out all the info was there the drive was formatted i could boot into windows 7 but not mac. So i put old hard drive back in the computer booted up with that. Attached new hard drive via usb in external case i was trying to put in the mac. I was able not to boot up but it would show the drives that have been formatted into the new drive and i simply copied my existing Disk by dragging it onto the new hard drive. Than turn off your mac keep your hard drive plugged in. Press and hold the option key in start up and you should see the 2 seperate hard drives and be able to boot into the new one. Was a long process for me took several complete deletes of the new hard drive and reformatting before it would work. once you get to the mac logo and spinning wheel its just saying mac cant find your boot up disk though. Sorry its confusing a bit any questions email me.

New MacBook won't boot from external disk

I have a new MacBook that I am trying to boot from an external disk that had the system from my first gen MacBook Pro. When I restart holding the Option key, and select my external disk, the system restarts again and won't let me boot from that disk. Is there something different with the OS (10.5.6) that is installed on a newer MacBook that won't allow it to boot from the same OS from an older MacBook Pro?
Thanks

Ian Patterson wrote:
golferx,
Will any other Intel Mac boot from the drive? If not, it's possibly because the drive uses an Apple Partition Map (bootable for PowerPC Macs) instead of a GUID Partition Table (bootable for Intel Macs).
To check: open to Disk Utility, select the hard drive on the left, select the Partition tab and look at the text at the bottom right corner of the window under Partition Map Scheme. If it says anything other than GUID Partition Table, you will need to erase and repartition it as such before it will be bootable.
Just a thought. Hope this helps. Good luck!
-i-
I can boot an prev gen MacBook and also my iMac (current gen). I took it to the Genius Bar and he could not get it to boot a new MacBook either and didn't have a solution.

OS X Recover Disk Assistant won't boot from USB

I just replaced my hard drive in my iMac (2008). I'm trying to get the OS installed and I don't have both of my original install disks (I believe they were Leopard disks). When I purchased Lion I did create an install disk, however. I ignorantly tried to install Lion straight up from my disk onto the new hard drive. Now, it says there's a problem with the installation and to try and install again. The problem is the install disk just goes straight to that message and I can't use it to install. I tried to Erase the drive with Disk Utility and start over, but the install disk still goes straight to the "problem" message.
I read about the OS X Recover Disk Assistant tool and loaded that onto a USB memory stick, but it won't boot from it. I can use Disk Utility when I boot from my Lion install disk and the new hard drive shows up, the USB stick shows up, the install CD shows up, and then there's a grey line and under that with a globe icon that says disk3 and under that it says Max OS X Base System.
Under Restore, I tried to use this Base System as a source and my new hard drive as the destination thinking that's what this Recover Disk Assistant thing was but that didn't work.
I don't know what else to do... am I going to have to take it into a shop or can someone help me?

*Mac OS X Base System

MacBook won't boot off Firewire drives

i just got a MacBook and couldn't be more pleased but i just tried to use the Firewire drive to boot from but it doesn't show up as option for restart. the drives( i tried two) are loaded with 10.4.10 and show up on the desktop and work fine but it's odd the Mac won't boot from them. had no issue connecting to my Pismo. both show up as start up discs. i looked in the forums but didn't see this issue brought up. a little help please.

Paul Roese1 wrote:
Does this mean i have to (can i?) install Tiger from my MB's discs on to a connected firewire drive and it can then be used as a start up drive for the unit? Thanks much.
Yup. Alternatively, you can 'clone' the MB's internal hd to the external firewire hd. Two of the most widely used methods of achieving this are:
1. Carbon Copy Cloner - http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
2. SuperDuper! - http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
Kryten

K9A2 Platinum-Won't boot from optical drives

My problem is that I can't get my computer to boot from either optical drive.Both drives work; I can read and write from either drive in windows xp. In the boot order menu neither drive is shown as a boot from device.The boot sequence menu shows all hdd and usb devices but no optical drives.Both drives are recognized in the bios.I wanted to dual boot vista x64 but can't because it won't boot from drive.Any ideas?
QuadCore AMD Phenom Black Edition 9850, 2500 MHz (12.5 x 200) MSI K9A2 Platinum (MS-7376) OCZ Reaper HPC OCZ2RPR10662G 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM ATI Radeon X1800 GTO (256 MB) WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 (232 GB, IDE)WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B0 (465 GB, IDE) Microsoft Windows xp SP 3 Cooler Master 650W+3.3V@28A,+5V@30A,+12V1@18A,+12V2@18A,[email protected], [email protected]

Create a signature with PC components and PSU specs.
Example of PSU specs: Corsair VX450W, +3.3V~20A, +5V~20A, +12V~33A
To create signature:
Click on PROFILE above (near top of this page) and then in your "Profile", what I show in red below under "Modify Profile", scroll down to "Signature" and enter your specs in the box and then click on "Change profile" button on the bottom.
Profile Info
Summary
Show Stats
Show Posts
Modify Profile
Account Related Settings
Forum Profile Information
Look and Layout Preferences
Notifications and Email
Personal Message Options

Windows Won't Boot With USB Drives Attached

I just installed Windows 7 on my Mac mini but it won't boot into Windows automatically if there are USB drives attached. I have to hold down the option key at boot time and select the Windows partition manually for it to boot, unless I remove the USB drives first, then it will boot into Windows on its own. Does anyone know how to fix this annoying problem?

Sounds like your mini is set to boot order: boot from USB first.
On a PC you could go into BIOS and change boot order and enable/disable USB booting.
Not sure why or what is on the USB bus, type of drive and device that could also make a difference (and not be universal to the Mini)

Cannot boot from USB drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi
I have 3-4 120Gb 2.5inch drives which I clone my MacBook Pro to on rotation.
I have always been able to boot from these drives UNTIL NOW!
Suddenly I can no longer boot from them, the boot process starts and gets well through and then the drives all seem to just 'hang'.
The only significant change is that a local Apple support company upgraded my stock 120gb drive to a 160Gb drive.
Any ideas what the issue coiuld be?
Cheers.
Robin

Hi robster,
If the USB drive contains a valid OS you should be able to verify and repair the permissions on that drive, give that a try.
Also i suggest running DiskWarrior 4 on it.
The replaced internal drive should have no effect on this unless some settings got changed when the new OS got installed on it that now prevents the mac from being able to read your USB drive.
Does the USB drive need a driver ? if so is the latest version of that driver properly installed ?
If the USB drive checks out and all is OK maybe a re-install of the OS on your internal drive would help.
For now try disk utility and diskwarrior if you can that could narrow things down

S10-2 Won't boot from hard drive

I have an S10-2 2957 that won't boot from the internal hard drive. The one key function doesn’t work either. After the splash comes up and the BIOS runs all that is displayed is a flashing cursor. If I boot from an external source (USB CD) I can see the hard drive and all files are intact. I have tried removing the battery and power supply, holding the power key for 30 seconds before powering the unit back up to no avail. I’m thinking that either the boot sector is corrupt or the first partition is not active. Any ideas?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

press f8 to load when you see lenovo logo at start-up, and select safe mode. post back the results.

XServe won't boot from any drive, but recognizes them in OS X Installer

I know I have another post here but this is a different issue, and I've already fixed that one thanks to Camelot .
I just received an 2 used xserves for work. One booted into OS X Server fine, so I scrubbed it and reinstalled without issue.
The second however never booted into an install. That is, I never found it on my network when I started it up and when I pushed the power button it would turn off immediately, suggesting that there was no OS on the disk or that the xserve couldn't find it. I didn't have a spare monitor to plug into it (surprisingly) so I just chalked it up to the fact that it was a new disk and hadn't had OS X Server installed on it.
Now I have a spare monitor, I've gone and installed OS X Server on the xserve. It boots from the DVD just fine, runs through the installer, then when it goes to restart, it won't boot from the hard drive that it just installed OS X Server on, it'll just boot back from the DVD unless I pop it out. If I let it boot up without the DVD in it, I'll get the standard Folder with a ?.
At first I thought it was the drive, so I installed OS X Server on another drive. Still wouldn't boot to that drive, so I booted from the DVD and repaired the disks in Disk Utility. Still nothing. I booted to DVD again and when I went to Startup Disk, it actually did show my disks with their respective OS X Server installs.
When I boot the machine holding alt/option, the system doesn't show my drives, only the DVD if it's in the slot.
I figured ok, this has to be the drives, so I swapped them with those of the identical xserve in the rack below, but my top xserve wouldn't boot from those drives either. Somewhat expectedly however, the bottom xserve would boot the drives that I took out of the first one.
Now I'm just stumped. Any ideas?
PS, drives are unlocked.

MrHoffman wrote:
The EFI firmware, the SMC and possibly the disk I/O path seem good potential candidates for culprit.
Load and run the hardware diagnostics.
Reset the SMC, and reset the LOM.
I'm running the EFI diagnostic tool now. Firmware and disk I/O path came to mind, let's just hope it's not a major hardware issue
beatle20359 wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Do you have the specs of the xserve and the version of OSX server you are trying to install? Does the Xserve have the RAID card installed in it and what size are the drive modules.
All the best
Beatle
2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon
8GB RAM
OS X Server v 10.6.3 (the version I'm trying to install, that is)
No RAID card. The system drive is 80GB and a second storage drive is 1TB.

My Macbook Won't boot from USB drives

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for