New MAC Mini w/OSX Lion - will not boot from USB or external optical drive when attempting to use BootCamp to install Windows 7?

The University recently purchased 6 brand new MAC minis for deployment in classrooms I support. I am attempting to create a dualk--boot environment comparable to our existing computer systems, only these machines wil be running MAC OS X Lion and Windows 7. After following the procedures outlined in the BootCamp on-screen prompts, and attempting a few techniques I found in the tech support user-base, I am still unable to get the MAC mini to boot up from the USB flash drive, or from an external optical drive, so that I can complete the installation of Windows 7. When using the Boot option key at start-up, all devices are displayed suggesting that they are being properly recognized, however the computer boots to a black screen with an error message indicating that "No bootable devices are found - press any key to continue." I am able to boot into the computer's internal drive, but not from any external devices. I fully expected that the semi-automated BootCamp procedure properly prepares the USB device for booting, and for installing the Windows 7 OS.

Meh, with the price they take for a drive in Denmark, I don't think it's worth it... They take around 160 $ for the drive (that's the cheapest MacBook drive I could find), and I am not even sure that's the one I need.

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2005 mac mini on OSX leopard will not boot up from firewire disk

I have an old mac mini that my son still uses and the super dirve does not work any more. But now the main hard disk needs to some attention from Disk Utility. So I need to boot up from the Leopard install DVD. But of course the DVD dirve does not work so how to do this? I have tried to create a bootable disk by restoring the install DVD to a partition on a firewire drive and this is seen as a bootable drive by my 2008 iMac, but not by the Mac Mini. So is it possible to boot up rom a irewire drive? USB doesn't work either

Which Tiger Install DVD do you have...?
1. I think that, that model originally came with 10.4.10 and so you will need either the original 10.4.10 install disc or a later retail (Leopard or Snow Leopard) upgrade DVD.
2. In addition, a new (HDD, Hybrid Drive or SSD) must first be Partitioned GUID Partition Table and Formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) before OS X can be installed.

IMac 27 inch i7 OSX Lion will not boot up from Hard Disc

iMac 27 inch i7 OSX Lion will not boot up from Hard Disc on cold start, and cannot find wifi hardware in the machine. Restart and everything is fine. I have two machine and they behave the same. Software or hardware problem?

First of all, try a hard restart; making sure no disks are in the slot, unplug everything from your computer (keyboards, mice, etc.) and then unplug the computer itself. Leave it unplugged for a minute or two, then plug it back in and boot it up.
If that fails, reboot it while holding down the option-key on your keyboard. The screen should show a choice of which disk drive to boot from. Choose your usual drive.
If that fails, reboot it while holding down the shift-key on your keyboard. It should take a while for it to boot up, as it is destroying all connections to sources that may contain a virus.
If that fails, reboot it while holding down keys "option-command-P-R" until you hear the startup tone a second time.
If that fails, reboot it while holding down the C-key. Make sure you have inserted the installation disk before doing this step.
If that fails, reboot it while holding down the command-key and the R-key.
If that fails, please reply to this and let me know.

Optical drive trashed and MB Pro will not boot from USB image

Hello,
New here but I have searched and tried all I know to get this MBP working right again. My disk drive is trashed and has been for some time now, this is why I have a bootable version of Snow Leopard on an 8G flash drive. When my MBP began acting funny recently and I went to disk utility to verify permissions and the disk. Both failed = must boot from disk to repair, thus my issue. For some reason by MBP will not boot from the usb image I have used previously??? Pressing C or Option during startup does not work. If I press Option, I only get the harddrive option, C yields nothing and the computer boots normally.
Please!! let me know how / what you would do to resolve this. I don't understand why I have previously been able to boot from this same file on the same drive previously to repair my disk / permissions but cannot do so now. FWIW, I tried placing the file (OSX) on my external HDD to boot from, this did not work either (USB HDD).
Thank you in advance for your input!!

It isn't clear what you mean about your HD being trashed or which disk (HD or USB drive) you are trying to repair, but either way you need to start up from your Snow Leopard installer DVD & instead of installing anything go to the Utilities menu & run Disk Utility from there to repair either or both of the disks.

Hp mini will not boot from usb and USB not listed as a choice

I have an HP mini 110-1116NR and it crashed. During a system restore it stopped working so now there is no operating system on it.
In BIOS there is no choice to boot from USB (when my disks come in mail from HP)
Also when it kinda starts im at the DOS screen....system32.exe???????
I dont know what this means

Hi cathy69:
Thank you for your inquiry. I am pleased to assist you!
I hope you had a great weekend!
I see you are looking to change the boot order on your computer. Here is a link to 'Configuring the Boot Order in the System Bios" click here. Please let me know if you require further assistance.
Sparkles1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Mac Mini 1.42 G4 will not boot Folder With Question Mark Plus more....

I have a major problem with my mini, It was working ok one minute then it froze completely so I had to shut down via the power button, But when I restarted it I got the folder icon with the question mark in, I've tried various things to get it to boot, I also put in the 10.5 disc to do a hardware test,I've since found out that that is the wrong disc to do a hardware test with. Now I can't get the disc out I;ve pressed the eject key and pressed the mouse button on start up with no look, Also when I press the Option key to select the start up disc all I get are a round arrow and and arrow pointing left. When I press the right arrow key on the keyboard I get some text on screen saying something about firmware and an option to type shut-down or mac-boot, If I type mac-boot the screen goes grey and nothing seems to happen.
So I'm stuck now with a Mac Mini with my 10.5 disc stuck in it and refusing to boot.
Any one any ideas as to what I can do?
Thanks
Ade

As you no doubt have recognized by the use of the 10.5 install disk, the folder icon with flashing question mark means that the system can't find a valid and viable MacOS installation to boot from - a problem which could have been existent for some time but not yet developed into a failure, or possibly caused directly by the forced shutdown.
Your thought to use the install disk was a reasonable one, though at this point I wouldn't have wanted to run a hardware test so much as boot to the installer and from the utilities menu once it has started up, then run Disk Utility to test the hard drive for errors, and attempt to repair any found. The reason for that approach is because while the symptoms you describe can certainly be caused by a hardware failure, it is much more common for this to be the result of a failing or corrupt drive - which at the very least Disk Utility is good at diagnosing.
However, now you've got the 10.5 install disk in the drive, the question becomes why it cannot be found by the boot loader (the screen you get when you've booted with the Option key down) and thus can't be used by the system to get it booted up.
It could be that the disk is not a valid installer for that system - in which case it would have to not be a 10.5 retail installer but instead have come from another system. Alternatively, it could be that the drive didn't correctly load the disk, thus doesn't know it is there. This might explain why trying to eject it by holding the (left) mouse button down during bootup doesn't seem to have worked.
To be clear however, you need a wired, USB mouse to eject the disk during bootup, and it must be connected directly to the system or via an Apple keyboard which is not an aluminium model. The (left) mouse button should be held down from hearing the startup chime, and until the disk pops out. If that technique doesn't work, and there is no indication of any life from the drive when you try, it may mean your mini needs to be opened up to retrieve the disk from the drive.
Also, be aware that while the boot loader screen appears relatively quickly after the Option key is held down, it can take a few minutes for a disk in the optical drive to be read and appear there. In most cases, I'm sure users typically wait long enough while wondering what, if anything, is going to happen, but it can take much longer than expected!

Mac Pro will not boot from cd or external drive

My Mac has an issue whith the boot drive, and I would like to format the drive and reinstall OS-X Mountain Lion and then use Time Machine to resore the Data. When I try to boot my Early 2009 Mac Pro (OS-X 10.8) using the option key, it loads the scrren that allows me to choose among the bootable drives. Once I choose either an external drive or CVD, it loads to the apple screen, stays there for about 5 minutes, then loads the OS on the main drive... Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Bill Mueller

At first I was just going to say it sounds like you have a bad optical drive, but then you had to go and say that it also won't boot from a HDD.
That just makes things a whole lot worse.
Start by removing the side cover and checking the RAM to see if any of the LEDs are lit up indicating bad RAM. Usually if there's any bad RAM found, it will just automatically disable that stick, but maybe yours isn't for some reason.
Look for any other LEDs that may be lit. Generally speaking, the only time you should see an LED (outside of the power LED) lit consistently is if there's a problem.
You should also see if you can get Apple Hardware Test to run, which may or may not find some problem.
But sorry to say, it's sounding very suspiciously like a bad logic board.
One other thing to try, is putting the SL drive into a different slot. So if you were putting it in slot 2, try slot 3 or 4. If you just have a bad SATA port, you might be able to just work around that until you get a new system.
If by chance this system is still under warranty, do not walk, do not pass go, do not collect $200, RUN to the nearest AASP or Apple store to make it THEIR problem to sort out.

Macbook Pro will not boot from USB drive or Macintosh HD

The Mac in question:
Macbook Pro mid-2009
2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
4GBs RAM
OSX 10.8.4
Basically I did a fresh install of OSX 10.8.4 and Installed Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit via Bootcamp.
All software was up to date, I had the newest version of bootcamp for windows software, and everything was working fine.
I lent the computer to my dad
fast forward 3 months.
Windows boots fine and works for about 15 minutes then Blue Screens and restarts. Endless loop.
I did everything conveiveably possible for the Windows side before deciding to work on the Apple side.
Come to find out, my dad had not booted into the Apple side for almost 3 months. So on holding option and selecting the Macintosh HD icon, I got the apple logo with a spinning wheel under it. The wheel spun for about a minute then stuck. No response, so I held the power button down and restarted.
held option, and selected "Recovery 10.8.4" same deal minus the spinning wheel. stuck on the apple logo.
so i plugged in my bootable mountain lion usb (has been used countless times and works, its not the usb) and selected the usb. Same stuck apple logo.
I am at a loss as to what to do now. I dont care about any information on the drive, so i dont mind formatting and such.
But i am at a loss as to how to repair it if i cant access and bootables to do a disk repair or a clean install
Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks.
(btw, ive reset SMC and PRAM and all the usuals and ive internet searched out the whazoo, so yall are my last resort *grin*)
-Dusty

New info:
Selected Recovery disk in boot options menu and it loaded.
Disk recovery disk verification says there are errors with Macintosh HD but it cannot repair them.
Tried Reinstalling mountain lion from the Recovery screen and followed the instructions, signed into my Apple ID and it started installing mountain lion on Macintosh HD.
It immediately said 4 hours to complete and the blue progress bar started moving slowly.
it says it is "Downloading additional components, your computer will restart automatically"
about an hour later i checked it and the bar was full, but the estimated time was 1 hour 59 minutes and it has been almost 12 hours now.
Just trying to give a play by play so yall have something to work with.
making a Mountain Lion bootable USB as i type, will try that as soon as its done.
Dusty

Imac g5 ALS will not boot from internal HD or portable drive or eject disc

I cannot get my g5 ambient light sensor Imac to boot from the internal hard drive or a portable drive. I have tried multiple keystroke combinations (c + power on, option + power on, and others) upon startup and all get the same response: the computer powers on and the screen displays the apple logo. after a minute or two, the screen darkens, and a multilingual message appears telling me that I need to restart the computer. I cannot get far enough to start from a different drive or a system software disk. I cannot eject the disc currently in the drive. I cannot run any diagnostic software, cannot reinstall system software or put another disc in the drive. obviously, I am experiencing hard drive problems, but I cannot seem to get past this frustrating stumbling block. any troubleshooting or problem solving would be greatly appreciated. I have checked other discussions and support forums, but cannot find any that reference the specifics that I have mentioned. I have researched and tried the logic board check and many other potential "solutions", but none of the discussions mention the gray screen "you must restart your computer" message that I continually receive.

What you are experiencing is called a Kernel Panic.
First, to get the disc out of the drive, hold the mouse button down as you reboot.
Have you tried resetting the SMU?
1. Turn off the computer by choosing Shut Down from the Apple menu, or by holding the power button until the computer turns off.
2. Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord.
3. Wait 10 seconds.
4. Plug in the power cord while simultaneously pressing and holding the power button on the back of the computer.
5. Let go of the power button.
6. Press the power button once more to start up your iMac.
Then try booting from your install disc and running Disk Utility:
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
Please post back with results,

Laptop will not boot from usb

Hi
Im trying to install windows 7 on my levovo laptop because the win 8 os corrupted it gives me a blue screen saying that there has been an error. restarting please wait and it keeps on doing this everytime i launch.but i have a problem...I have a 8gb usb stick with the windows iso on it (done with windows 7 usb/dvd download tool) but it won't boot. i press the lenovo button with the needle to get onto bios and make sure my usb is first on the boot order but it wont boot from it. please help
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hello and welcome,
You didn't say which laptop. I don't know if that will turn out to be important, but it might.
If you used the Windows 7 USB prep tool, you probably have an NTFS-formatted flash drive intended for legacy (not UEFI) booting. Go into BIOS and switch from UEFI to legacy booting and see if that helps.
Since this was a Win 8 machine the drive is probably GPT formatted. The Win 7 installer may complain that it can't install to a GPT drive when booted in legacy mode. If that happens you can use SHIFT-F10 to bring up a command window and run Diskpart. Diskpart can clean the drive so the legacy installer can format it MBR.
It's also possible to install in UEFI mode but that would require prepping the flash drive differently.
Z.
The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc. The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
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PM8M-V will not boot from USB memory stick

I'm using a PM8M-V mainboard and would like to boot from a USB memory stick (disk2go Pure T5, 256MB). The memory stick is bootable and properly formatted. The stick works fine with any other mainboard that I have tested so far. However, with the PM8M-V I cannot get it to work. (Other makes/models of memory sticks have been tested as well, but to no avail.)
Can anyone help?
I suspect that this is related to the fact that the PM8M-V BIOS does only support USB sticks as 'floppy drive', whereas on all other mobos I had to configure it as 'hard disk'.
Any help would be appreciated.
Best regards,
meter

Check in BIOS and see if the USB thumb drive is being recognised in the Boot Priority and whether you've select USB Device Support to "All Devices".

MP will not boot from CD

I'm trying to upgrade to SL from Tiger but the system will not boot from the CD. It reconizes the cd And launchs giving the install option. When install is selected I get a screen with only a restart option. After restart it comes back to the original install screen. Ran disk verify which found an issue. Put the original Tiger DVD in to try to repair and I get the same thing.I have tried the following.
1) Added a new external DVD drive as I thought it could be a hardware issue with the internal drive.
2) Restart holding "c". System simply boots from the hard drive.
3) Reboot holding option key. I receive the hard drive or cd choice. select CD. It boots as normal off the hard drive.
4) Selected Boot from CD in the system utilities start menu. System still boots from the hard drive.
5) Unplugged system for a few minutes. Same thing will only boot from hard drive.
6) reboot holding command, option, P, and R keys to reset. Same thing.
7) Unplugged all peripherals, except external DVD. Same thing boots as normal from the hard drive.
Currently running 10.4.1
Note when look for updates is selected the system always says none available. Other software updates fail.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

"A Mac that connot boot from an appropriate Installer/Utilities CD/DVD has a Hardware problem."
As a desperation move, you could try pulling your Hard Drive (with power OFF) to see whether you can boot from the DVD alone. It should still boot even if, when it gets there, there will be nothing to Install on.
EDIT: The theory you are testing is whether something on the Hard Drive is interfering with booting up in general.

Mid-2009 MacBook Pro sees internal SATA hard drive, but will not boot from or format

I inherited a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53 GHz model) with a very strange issue.
It first presented itself as not being able to boot from the internal SATA hard drive that came with the computer. Nothing I tried could get it to boot, so I assumed the file system was corrupted beyond repair and booted from a CD to try to format the drive. Disk Utility on the CD would not format the drive, giving me strange error messages like "Unable to write to the last block of the device".
At this point I figured the drive itself must be toast, so I pulled it out and put another known-good SATA hard drive in, booted from CD, and attempted to format. Again, same error messages and an unsuccesful format.
So I had the bright idea of formatting one of the drives in an external enclosure and then putting it in the MBP to see if OS X would even install. No dice. Get a cryptic error message before installation even begins.
So I installed OS X on the drive in the external enclosure and put it in the MBP, and it attempts to boot, but never goes anywhere.
So to sum up, the symptoms I'm seeing:
MacBook Pro CAN see internal SATA hard drives.
MacBook Pro WILL NOT boot from any internal SATA hard drive and cannot format or install OS X to any internal SATA hard drive.
MacBook Pro WILL boot from any CD or external device and seems to work properly otherwise.
At this point I'm thinking it's one of two things: the hard drive ribbon cable or the SATA controller on the logic board.
Since the MacBook Pro seems to work completely fine other than this one issue, and will boot properly from both external devices and the CD (also a SATA device), I'm thinking and hoping that it's just the hard drive ribbon cable. From my searches online, I've heard that this batch of MacBook Pros is known to have issues with the hard drive ribbon cable, but it seems in most cases this manifests itself by the Mac not being able to see a drive at all.
I've done quite a bit of troubleshooting to get to this point, but right now I'm just looking for any feedback at all. Specifically I'd love to know a way I can easily test to see whether it's the logic board or the cable.

UPDATE: An interesting development!
I just tried a third known-good SATA hard drive, one which I believe supports SATA I only (but I'm not sure), and unlike the other drives that the Mac sees but cannot properly interact with, the Mac can't even see this one when I put it inside.
Frustrating as this may be, I believe I'm actually getting closer to a solution since my symptoms now appear to be closely aligned with people having SATA ribbon cable issues.
Onward!

HP Pavilion 11 x2 not booting from USB

I have tried everything I can think of but my HP Pavilion 11 x2 will not boot from USB...I have Windows 10 currently installed on it and need to boot from USB to allow me to install a new OS on the machine.
I have gone into hte bios...(which I can see is a locked bios with very limited options)....I have turned off the Secure Boot option and have set the USB has the first boot device.
But when I hit F9 on startup...it just gives me 2 options:-
OS Boot Manager
Boot From EFI File
I have tried Boot from EFI File...but this does not work..
I know the USB is configured correctly as I can boot from it on my desktop computer.
How can I get this to work?
Thanks in advance

hi,
i stumbbled into your thread while i was looking for a similar answer for my Pavilion X2 10".
mine was delivered with win 8.1 with bing. it was alright to use, but i was unable to bring this machine to connect to my office domain. due to the lack of networking features which is only available in the pro or enterprise version of win 8.1.
i tried many ways to load in a win 8.1 pro os. the disc is authentic, keys are authentic, usb stick or optical drives; it makes no differences. the machine just refuse to boot into the usb disc / stick like all other previous system does.
there isnt an option for the bios to go into legacy mode. however there is an option to turn off the secure boot, but that does not gives legacy support to the make the system boot to usb.
i had probably done the same things you tried, no matter what setting is done to the bios, there is always only 'os boot manager' and 'ueif' when i hit boot sequence (f9).
had tired everything that i can think of, talking to HP was like talking to an answering machine, and they were asking the most bacis questions ... "were you able to select 'legacy boot' from the bios menu?" ... even when i tell them there isnt a legacy boot option in the bios ... they were too amature .
i concluded that the only way to boot to usb is to do it in uefi with secure boot off and encryption turn off in win 8.1 (else it will bring u to bitlocker).
but i am still unable to boot into the usb media to install win 8.1 pro today. i gave up.

Mac Mini i7 (Mavericks) will not boot from the external drive

Mac Mini i7 (Mavericks) will not boot from the external drive with Disk Warroir 4.4. or Drive Genius or Lion.
Not even from the external Firewire hard drive with Mavericks

Does the external HD have a GUID partition table?
Is the external drive formatted Mac OS X Extended (journaled)?
Is this a 2011 or late 2012 Mac?
How was Mavericks installed on the external drive?
Who is the builder of the drive mechanism in the external drive?
Who is the builder of the external enclosure?
What type of interface does the external drive have USB2, USB3, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, thunderbolt?
Is the external enclosure directly connected to the mini?
Have youtried a different interface cable?

New MAC Mini w/OSX Lion - will not boot from USB or external optical drive when attempting to use BootCamp to install Windows 7?

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