OS Bootable External HD

HI All
Recently I bought an Ultra external HD enclosure firewire/ usb2. It works fine for data and what not but I cannot boot up from the OS I installed on the HD. When I contacted Ultra they said the enclosure did not support booting in Mac OS.
So I have a 3.5" HD I want to use and I was wondering if anyone out there can recommend an external HD Firewire enclosure that will support booting in Mac OS X. I would prefer one with a fan but beggars can't be choosers.
Thanks.
Matt
P.S.- UPDATE- just spoke to apple they said that the only external HD they know and support that boots up an OS is the LaCie drives. that is good and all but I am looking for a case, I already had the drive. So I hope someone can shed a little light on the subject. Thank you!

Hi SWV-
I am not sure what you mean by " Did you make the external HD 'bootable'? That is a choice that has to be made up front when you clone or copy your drive."
This is what i did with Disk Util.- i assume i made it bootable because it worked with my Lacie Drive:
Erase the HD clean and created 2 partions- one for the os and the other for data-
installed a clean copy of the OS from the DVD on the drive.
On my LaCie D2 external dirve the os booted up fine. But not with the HD i pulled from my old G4 which i put in the Ultra external case,
( http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=13887 47&CatId=1204)
I did all the sames steps mentioned above- erase, partion, install, and the cpu would not recognize the os on the external drive. both booting up holding down option key and with system preferences- start up disk. though when the CPU OS was booted it did mount the 2 partions from the external HD.
Is there something else i should have done to make it BOOTABLE?
I will check out both of those links for cases in the meantime.
Thank you for your help.
Matt

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Holding down the option key when booting my iMac lo longer shows me my bootable external drives, the system just boots up to the main system. Also, holding down command, option,P,R no longer zaps the p-ram. the system just boots up.

Holding down the option key when booting my iMac lo longer shows me my bootable external drives, the system just boots up to the main system. Also, holding down command, option,P,R no longer zaps the p-ram. the system just boots up normally. Why do these key fonctions no longer work?

It could be your timing if on a bluetooth keyboard. I find it best to hit the keys as soon as i hear the chime, release and hit them again but this time holding them before the chime ends....like a fake pump in football.
But....you can always open up system preferences, startup disk, and select your bootable clone for booting. If it doesn't show up there, the Mac doesn't think it's bootable.

Is it possible to set up a bootable external hard drive

Is it possible to set up an external hard drive by copying my system folders, etc from my Ibook to my firewire drive??? If not is there a way to do it w./o the system DVD

Hi matthew,
first of all: WELCOME TO THE DISCUSSIONS!
Yes, it is possible, but you need certain devices and software. You cannot create a bootable external device with drag&drop only.
In order to get a bootable hard disk you have to buy a firewire disk (USB is not a bootable inteerface with MacOS X). Then you have to make a bootable clone from your internal hard disk to the external. You can use backup utilities such as Carbon Copy Cloner to achieve this.
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

Create Full HD Backup to encrypted bootable external drive

I have used SuperDuper to copy my internal HD to a bootable external drive configured with a 300 GB partition. Now I want to go one step further by creating that same backup but this time I want my external data to be encrypted for added security. I do not care if the OS and Applications files are encrypted as long as I can encrypt my home folder.
1) Does SuperDuper have an encryption feature?
If yes, how do you activate it?
2) If not, can I accomplish what I want using a Macbook Pro utility e.g. Disk Utility and perhaps
turn on FileVault?
3) Can I simply just turn on FileVault encryption and use Finder to drag my internal HD to external?
If yes, will my external drive now be bootable still?
Thanks in advance.

Turn on Filevault, then use SuperDuper.

Time Machine to backup a bootable external HD

Running 10.6.8 on a 27" 2009 iMac with a bootable external HD also running 10.6.8.
For the internal HD (1TB, 680GB used), I use TM to backup to external HD (1TB). No problem.
For the bootable external HD (called "CupCake," 500GB, 200GB used), it tells me that the external HD that I'm trying to backup to (called "CC TM," 500GB, empty), is too small for the 800GB data. I assume that 680 + 200 = 800GB, TM is trying backup the internal HD and CupCake. I want to backup CupCake alone to CC TM.
How do I get TM to backup only the external HD?
Thank you, JS

I would suggest CarbonCopyClone ($40 download) to backup an external drive. It allows you to select the source and destination drives, and makes bootable clones which I would suggest doing for your intern drive. A bootable clone is a good "usable backup" when your internal drive fails (it will eventually fail).
SuperDuper also clones, but does not save the RecoveryPartition like CCC does (at least so is reported).

Need to get a bootable external E-SATA HDD connected via E-SATA ExpressCard adaptor

We need to get a bootable external E-SATA HDD connected via E-SATA ExpressCard adaptor to this laptop however there are 2 main question before we purchase those hardware:
1 - will it be bootable at all?
2 - what speed is going to be provided by the ExpressCard slot on this laptop - is it comparable with E-SATA standard?
I'm purchasing the card here http://www.ebay.com/itm/add-2-eSATA-Hard-Disk-ports-for-Laptop-Notebook-PC-fits-34mm-Expresscard-slo... but still can't understand is it compatible and what speed will I get on the slot of my laptop - taking into account your official specification:
" 1 ExpressCard/54 Slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)"
Could you please advise us on the above?

wiki explains that "...The ExpressCard has a maximum throughput of 2.5 Gbit/s through PCI Express and 480 Mbit/s through USB 2.0 dedicated for each slot, while all CardBus devices connected to a computer share a total 1.06 Gbit/s bandwidth." - but:
how can I know whichever bus (PCIExpress or USB) is used in my laptop for this interface?

Installing Mavericks As A Bootable External Harddrive Please Help!

Hi sorry to bother you, I'm having difficulty installing Mavericks as a bootable external harddrive. I've downloaded Mavericks off the App Store (which taken 4 hours) and have tried using the createinstallmedia method but I'm having no joy
I've been following a Youtube tutorial and everytime I run the below command through terminal when I get to the part where its "Making disk bootable…" I get this message - Couldn't mount dmg /volumes/install os x mavericks/install os x mavericks.app/contents/sharedsupport/installesd.dmg (error code 5)mount of outer dmg failed.
I have no idea what this means I'v tried googling it and there isn't much on the subject apart from one forum where one guy had to re download Mavericks again which I've done already and still get the same error message. If anyone knows where I am going wrong it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Last login: Fri Nov 15 07:39:42 on console
MacBooks-MacBook-Pro:~ macbookprouser$ sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/installMavericks --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app --nointeraction
Password:
Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%... 20%...100%...
Copying installer files to disk...
Copy complete.
Making disk bootable...
Couldn't mount dmg /volumes/install os x mavericks/install os x mavericks.app/contents/sharedsupport/installesd.dmg (error code 5)mount of outer dmg failed.
Done.

Thanks "clintonfrombirmingham" for the quick reply! Yea I think I am going to have to use either the Disk Utility method or like what you suggested the DiskMaker option. I was just interested in the reason as to why it wasn't working for me using the bootable USB installation disk method.

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Do I transfer everything over? iOS was Snow Leopard. (my folks computer)
I was thinking of partioning their new computer and copying SuperDuper! bootable external with all their files onto new computer, then wipe out external and start indexing with Time Machine (to external). Log into empty side of partition and let Time Machine start copying from external to restore everything.
Do I have this all wrong? I've never had to restore like this, especially from different iOs'. (I have a Time Machine and a SuperDuper! external for my computer although I've never had to use it.)
Please advise! I'm going to their house shortly! Thank you!

Use the external drive to make a bootable clone of the hard drive using Disk Utility, not SuperDuper. Be sure you first erase the external drive.
Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
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.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
     5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Need help repairing bootable external drive permissions

I, like some of the other posters I have read, have messed up the permissions on a bootable external drive.
I don't have direct access to my home computer right now so I set up an external bootable copy of my personal account, so I can basically run a copy of my own personal computer from anyone elses mac. And when I get back home I will be able to copy back across any new files.
The set up was working great till I realized that my external drive was completely readable, and writeable by anyone who turned it on as a peripheral disk while logged in on the main computer if the computer was booted up on it's own startup disk.
If my external was set as the startup disk, then my password and account kept everything secure.
So anyway, not really knowing what I was doing I, using the show info command, changed the group permission for the whole disk/volume from admin to my username. Now unfortunately I cannot startup using my external disk; the whole system goes straight to Kernal. And all my files are still totally assesible to any one logged in on the computer using its own start up disk.
Can you help me with the commands, to first repair the group permission so my disk is bootable again, then second so that I can prevent anyone with out my password access to any files on the disk?
Thanks alot!

Can you help me with the commands, to first repair the group permission so my disk is bootable again, then second so that I can prevent anyone with out my password access to any files on the disk?
On another machine, open the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder, select your drive in the list of disks, and then click on the Repair Permissions button; other solutions are available if this doesn't work.
Your two goals are mutually exclusive; there is no way to restrict access to an entire disk to yourself while maintaining the ability of that disk to boot Mac OS X. Your home folder can be protected in this way by changing the permissions on the item inside /Users/ with the house icon, or by turning on FileVault in the Security pane of System Preferences.
(11310)

What do I need to make a bootable external disk?

I got a response from Apple support that said I could make an external disk a bootable one, like a flash drive or ext hard disk, by using an OS X Installer app that was supposed to be available at the Mac App Store. I looked and couldn't find it. Since we no longer get a hard-copy of the system install disk, I was trying to figure out what to do to make a 500Gb external disk one I could boot using the MacBook Air with its limited GB storage.
So if anyone can give me the simple solution I'd appreciate it.

Get an external disk drive. Start by partitioning and formatting it:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. 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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply 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 Security 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.
Next, clone your existing system disk to the external one:
Clone Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
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.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Test the new clone by:
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 external disk's icon.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

Hard drive died - want to create bootable external

The hard drive on my spare laptop - and old PowerBook G4 - just died, and I'll probably wind up getting a new HD installed. In the meantime, I was thinking of booting it from an external drive, of which I have several. But none are clones of the old HD. They're just empty drives sitting in the closet.
Can I make one of those external drives bootable so I can use the old G4 until I take it in for a new internal HD?
Another question: I have been backing up this old G4 with Time Machine to an external drive. I'm assuming that isn't a bootable clone ... or is it?

Roger Barre wrote:
The hard drive on my spare laptop - and old PowerBook G4 - just died, and I'll probably wind up getting a new HD installed. In the meantime, I was thinking of booting it from an external drive, of which I have several. But none are clones of the old HD. They're just empty drives sitting in the closet.
Can I make one of those external drives bootable so I can use the old G4 until I take it in for a new internal HD?
Another question: I have been backing up this old G4 with Time Machine to an external drive. I'm assuming that isn't a bootable clone ... or is it?
No, TM backups are not bootable.
And since your HD is dead, you cannot clone it.
However, this might work - I say "might"
Connect both the TM drive and a blank external drive to the computer and boot up with the Leopard DVD - hold down "C" key on boot.
After language screen, in the menu, top left under Utilities you will find "Restore from TM backup" or something to that effect.
See if it allows you to select the second, empty drive as the target. If it does, you can restore your OS to that drive. Whether or not it's bootable depends on your hardware.

Bootable External HD?

I've just purchased a 750GB external HD. I will use the external HD (Firewire 800) for backing up the MBP, storing music files, storing photos and storing DV capture files. Before formatting it, I've been reading various posts to see what would be the best formatting answer for me. The decisions I'm trying to finalize are:
1. How many partitions (I'm leaning towards 3; Backup, DV capture Files, Everything Else)
2. What size partitions (Considering - Backup-140 GB; DV Capture - 400 GB; Everything else - 210GB)
3. Bootable partition? I don't know whether to have a bootable partition. They seem popular here, but I haven't read why this is preferable to using the system disks that the MBP came with or if there is any downside to making one partition bootable.
4. If it is preferable to having a bootable partition, how do you load the OS to the partition?
Any insights and suggestions would be appreciated. Also, does anyone know how to delete text (the DELETE key is a backspace key but will not delete text in front of the cursor). Thank you!

Setting up a backup strategy is not a simple matter, so you are right to want to consider all options in advance. Especially since there are so many possibilities.
I think the suggestion of more than one drive is a good one, as it gives you extra protection. I also think that it doesn't hurt to space out hard drive purchases a bit so that they aren't all the same age, and could possibly all go south at the same time. So if you decide to lay in a second drive sometime for the safety of having redundant backups, you can wait a bit to do so.
Here's the way I did it. I have a 2 year old La Cie desktop model that I use for Time Machine. But I travel a lot so I don't want to drag the La Cie around. So instead I recently got a 320 GB Western Digital notebook drive and put it in a firewire enclosure from OWC. This is small enough to carry around in my bag. I partitioned it into 3 partitions. One of these has the bootable clone I created using Super Duper and keep up to date. The other partitions are available for whatever I might need them for. For example, If my hard drive starts getting too full, I could move my photo library onto one of the other partitions and then delete it from my hard drive. When I update the clone, the photos will be removed from the clone as well. If I find I will be somewhere longer than expected, I could even use the third partition for a second time machine. Once a three day trip turned into a 4 month trip, and this could happen again, so I plan to be well prepared while on the road.
At the same time, I feel the La Cie is getting a bit long in the tooth. Before it turns three, I plan to lay in another desktop drive and copy everything on the La Cie onto the new desktop drive, whatever it may be.
One thing to understand about Time Machine. It keeps writing backups until its partition is full. Then it will tell you, and begin overwriting the oldest backups. So if there is something old that you know you want to save forever, like say photographs of a wedding, you need to copy them some where else.
This is where the notion of an archive comes in. You place your photos or whatever onto a separate partition that is dedicated to storing data and nothing else. You want it to be separate from Time Machines and clones because you want to be sure it cannot ever be erased or overwritten by accident.
There is one other thing I have been told, but cannot test myself because I don't have Disk Warrior. I understand you can install it in your Applications folder on your computer. Then when you make the clone, it will be in the clone's application folder. If you boot from the clone, you can open Disk Warrior and then use it to repair your MBP's startup disk. If this can be confirmed, you wouldn't need a separate partition for these utilities. Maybe one of the other people on this thread can confirm or refute this.
In terms of your partitions, Time Machine needs its own separate partition. This is so that it will not be able to overwrite anything else when it gets full. If you ever need to restore from Time Machine, you boot from your install disc and then restore from Time Machine. You might want the Time Machine to be larger than your internal drive.
The bootable clone needs its own partition equal in size to your internal hard drive. If it turns out you can incorporate Disk Warrior into the clone, you won't need a separate partition for these utilities.
With both Time Machine and a bootable clone, you shouldn't need any other back up software.
You will want a separate partition for archives and data storage, which will be your "everything else" partition.
So it looks like 3 or 4 partitions, depending on whether or not you can incorporate DiskWarrior and other utilities into the clone.
Hope this is not getting too confusing, but I feel that in the end, a discussion from different perspectives will ultimately shed a great deal of light on the situation, and the way forward will be clear.
Good luck!

Question: Time Machine b/u vs bootable external drive

I wanted to make an external bootable drive and planned on getting Carbon Copy Cloner. However, I see some discussion strings on Time Machine that suggest that if your hard drive fails, you can boot the computer using Time Machine backups. Surely the TM b/u's do not allow you to boot from scratch too (or do they?)

gangof4 wrote:
I wanted to make an external bootable drive and planned on getting Carbon Copy Cloner. However, I see some discussion strings on Time Machine that suggest that if your hard drive fails, you can boot the computer using Time Machine backups. Surely the TM b/u's do not allow you to boot from scratch too (or do they?)
Use both

Best bootable external HD for Power PC iMac

Hey guys, first post. I'm looking to purchase an external hard drive, preferably a 1 TB one that I can set up in RAID 1 format, as well as be able to boot from. I was about to buy a WD My Book Studio Edition II, but then realized I wouldn't be able to boot from that as I have a Power PC. Any suggestions? I'd really like some suggestions for RAID 1 AND bootable, but if that's getting too specific, RAID 1 isn't necessarily a deal breaker.
Another problem I may run into is that I'm looking to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard soon, to take advantage of Time Machine, among other things. What's the best way to go about backing up data when an OS update is on the horizon? Back up with Tiger, do a clean install of Leopard, and then boot from the external? Then wipe the drive clean and set up Time Machine?
By the way, is the option to boot from my external HD of critical importance? If I have my hard drive cloned on there, and my system crashes, what are the options that I have if all the information is on the external drive, but it is non bootable?
Ahhhh, so confused. Sorry I have so many almost-unrelated questions, but I'm not really sure what I should be buying and what I should be doing with it. Basically, I want to upgrade to Leopard, not lose anything in the process, and then have everything backed up. Hope someone out there can help.

You can buy single drives that are 1TB externals, so I would not go with a dual drive external just to get a RAID. A single drive is more reliable than a RAID (as long as you back it up) and RAIDs still need to be backed up. Any speed advantages will not be worthwhile, since your iMac G5 and FireWire 400 ports will be not be able to take advantage of the RAID.
Any FireWire external drive should be bootable for your iMac. If you want to future-proof a bit, you can get a FireWire 800 drive and use a 800 to 400 adapter (or an 800 to 400 cable). And there are drives that have FireWire and USB 2.0, for better flexibility down the road.
OWC (macsales.com) has good external drives. If you want to build-your-own to get the exact drive mechanism you want at the price you want to pay, OWC sells most of their drive enclosures empty.
Another problem I may run into is that I'm looking to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard soon...
I think the best (in my opinion) way is to first clone the internal drive to a FireWire external drive. Then test boot from that external drive to ensure it works properly. That clone is your backup. While booted from the external, run Disk Utility and use +Repair Disk+ (not +Repair Disk Permissions+ ) on the internal drive; make sure there are no errors, or any errors are reported as being repaired.
Start up from the Leopard installation disc. Select to do an +Archive and Install+ option installation. You can do so by clicking the Options button. An +Archive and Install+ will give you a fresh Leopard system (instead of installing Leopard over your Tiger system), but retain your user accounts and settings. So your data and settings should be there when you boot Leopard, but in case something bad happens, your external clone is your backup. Make sure the internal drive is selected as the installation target and proceed. Installer will put the old system components into a folder called +Previous Systems+. After ensuring you do not need anything from the old system, you can delete that folder to free up space. After you start up into Leopard and go through the setup screens, be sure to run Software Update a few times to pick up all the updates. Then, run Disk Utility and use +Repair Disk Permissions+.
If something goes wrong, or you want to revert back the old system, start up from the external with your clone. Then clone the clone back to the internal drive. You should have your old system back, as it was before the Leopard upgrade.
Also, if the +Archive and Install+ option does not produce good results for some reason and you want to do an +Erase and Install+ (install Leopard onto a newly formatted volume), you can do so and use your clone as the source for migration of your personal data.
By the way, is the option to boot from my external HD of critical importance?
If you use Time Machine after upgrading to Leopard, you will be able to re-create your internal volume to within one hour of internal drive failure. You do so by booting off the Leopard installation disc, then selecting the command to restore the volume from Time Machine (I forget the exact wording) from the Utilities menu (go up to the menu bar at the first Installer screen). You can also run Disk Utility from the same menu, and run repairs on the internal drive.
So while it is nice to be able to boot from the external FireWire drive, it is not critical. I use an old FireWire-based iPod with a failed screen as my emergency/maintenance boot drive. My FireWire external drive can be made bootable, but I don't have any system installed on it. It's basically my personal data drive. If I did not have that iPod boot drive, I would definitely have some external drive that I can boot from for maintenance and emergencies.

OS Bootable External HD

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