Possible to Boot from External Drive with Snow Leopard??

I have a new iMac that came with Mountain Lion installed. My previous Mac had Snow Leopard. I kept that OS drive with all my applications. I've already transferred 99.9% of my stuff from the old Mac to the new one and everything is working fine BUT....
There is one little thing from one of my apps that I need and to get it I need to launch that app from the previous install (on the old Mac). Since I have that old system drive, is it possible connect it via USB and boot from it? I've been trying but haven't had any luck
Can anyone help out?

If the app in question was written strictly for the PowerPC you would need to boot from the Snow Leopard volume as you suggest. Generally speaking you can't run an OS X version that predated the one installed on your Mac when it was built, but there is no harm in trying to boot that OS X version installed on a separate partition.
You may be able to run the app with that HD mounted and available to your iMac as long as it is not strictly for the PowerPC.
I've been trying but haven't had any luck
What have you tried so far?

Similar Messages

External Drive with Time Machine, booting from external drive with utilitie

I'm using Time Machine now with
a LaCie 1TB external hard drive.
Everything works fine.
But, I've been wondering:
Can I place a program like TechTool
on the external drive (that Time Machine uses)
and boot from that external drive.
I would like to be able to do that,
because diagnostics and repair programs
only works properly and fully when they run from
external drives. Anything on the internal drive can be repaired
and examine. Impossible to do if Techtool is on the same
drive that's been examined.
Any thoughts as to what I should do?
Thanks
iMac, Leopard, Time Machine, Lacie Quadra 1TB drive.
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?

pitou wrote:
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?
As V.K. says, you can't boot from TM backups.
But you can restore your entire system from any one of them, per the procedure in #14 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
You can also selectively restore from them, while running normally. See #15 in the FAQ Tip.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the rest of the FAQ Tip.

I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives. I currently have Lion installed on one hard drive. I want to have the option to boot from either Lion or Snow Leopard. How can I do this?

I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives. I currently have Lion installed on one hard drive. I want to have the option to boot from either Lion or Snow Leopard. How can I do this?

It's best to install Snow Leopard on one of the three remain drives without an Operating System.
You can then install the applications you need from the original media. Create a User Account using Setup Assistant.
Do you want to migrate User Accounts from the OSX LIon boot drive, or are you keeping the User Accounts separate?
Dual-booting just requires holding the option key during startup and selecting either Lion or Snow Leopard.

Trouble Booting from External Drives - MBA 2012

Hello,
I have a brand new 13" MBA which I'm working on building an image to use for deployment using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.5. For whatever reason, I can't boot the new 2012 MBA from an external LaCie FW800 or Thunderbolt 1TB Little Big Disk that is running either 10.7.2 or 10.7.4. As soon as I select the drive to boot from when holding the Options key or from selecting the partition from Startup Disk in System Preferences, I get the do not enter icon(circle with the diagonal slash). I tried both plugged in through a Cinema Display and plugging the Thunderbolt drive directly to the laptop. I confirmed both LaCie drives boot properly on an iMac and the last gen MBP/MBA.
Laptop Specs:
13"
1.8GHz Dual-core i5
8GB
128 SSD
10.7.4
Curious if anyone has run into any problems booting from external drives on the new 2012 MBA.
Thanks,
Paolo

Please be sure you have prepped these external drives correctly:
Drive Preparation
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 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 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.
My suggestion for cloning is to use Disk Utility. This will also automatically clone the Recovery HD, as well:
Clone 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.
Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue button.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

Hi there,
I found that Time Machine in Mavericks will sort it all out for you. You shouldn't need to buy another backup drive, unless you have insufficient space left and can't afford to delete whats on there. It should just work fine.

Mac Mini Will not boot from external drive or install disk

Hi,
I just bought a new 2.0 ghz mac mini 1 gb ram. 120gb hdd.
I have a separate external HDD attached and wanted to boot from this. It works with my MBP and IMAC.
When i plug it into the Mac Mini and start up with Option key. It recognizes it.
I then click on it. It automatically reboots.... then grey screen comes on. It goes black after about 10 seconds. then boots into original operating system.
I also tried to use the MAC install Disk, thinking it might be a corruption in the shipped software. It does the same thing.
I have MAC Install DVD on an external drive too. Same issue.
I partitioned the HDD and installed a copy of the Mac install disk onto that with disk utility... Same thing grey screen, then black then back to original operating system.
Not sure what is going on?
thanks
Chris

Hi,
Thanks.
It is running 10.5.8.
I am trying to boot up an external drive with 10.5.8 on it. It works on my Macbook Pro which is running 10.5.8, runs on my IMAC running SL. But doesnt work on the mac mini?
It had been running SL, however there are a number of programs I have like Windows Live Sync which are not yet compatable with SL so i downgraded to 10.5.6 which came with the Mac Mini then loaded all updates.
It seems to just go into an auto reboot as soon as i click on it.
i thought it might be the firmware? Is it possible to downgrade them and then re-install?
I have reset the PRAM.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Yosemite won't Boot from External SSD with Firewire Connection

Seeking help, I boot from external SSD drives from my 2010 iMac. I recently installed Yosemite on an External SSD with a firewire connection and all went well with the installation and first boot. After completing set up and restarting my iMac Yosemite will no longer boot from the firewire connection it will boot to the loading bar and then get the dreaded Goest Buster Emblem, if I swap out the SSD to USB connection it boots normally. I have 6 SSD Drives with Mavericks and Lion installed on that will boot from the Firewire Connection. Any suggestions ?

Additionally when testing while the SSD is connected to a USB Connection and booted if I attach any firewire device they are not recognized or connected to the operating system.

Can I boot an internal hard drive with snow leopard?

Hi, I Have an Mid 07 macbook which i'm in the process of upgrading. I have a hard drive that i am up grading from 160gb to 500gb. my problem is i dont have a boot disc, because it's ethier been lost or didn't come with one. my question is can i just format the new hard drive with a copy of snow leopard?

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc. Insert the disc into the
         optical drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the
         "C" key. Release the key when you see a small spinning gear appear below the
         dark gray Apple logo.
     2. 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.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, set the format type to Mac
         OS Extended (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Partition button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.

External Hard Drive with Snow Leopard/Windows 7

I just bought a 500GB external HD that I would like to be able to use with Snow Leopard AND Win 7. I won't be using it for any Time Machine backups. I just want to be able to read/write files on it with both Leopard and Win 7.
Is there any recommended format procedures in order to be able to do this. I may be wrong, but I don't think I can read/write to my external Time Machine external hard drive with my Windows lap top running Win 7.

a TM drive must be formatted mac os extended and windows can't even read that without extra software like Mac Drive. It also requires that the partition scheme be GUID which it's most likely not at the moment so repartition the drive with correct partition scheme now if you do decide to use it for TM in the future. also, snow bootcamp drivers once you install them in windows will let you red (but not write) to mac os extended formatted drives.
the only FS which is natively read+write from both OS X and windows is FAT. but it's very old and has many deficiencies especially on the OS X side.
but it's good for interoperability.
or you can format the drive NTFS and use some software like NTFS-3g or NTFS for mac by paragon to make it writable from OS X.
you may also wish to split the drive in two partitions and format them differently.

Leopard Won't Boot from External Drive

I'm using an iBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.10. I just purchased a Western Digital 320GB eSATA external hard drive to use as an external Leopard boot disk because my internal hard drive does not work (I've been using a 20GB Lacie external hard drive as my boot drive up to now).
I have installed Leopard onto the new external drive using the Leopard install DVD. The installation was successful, and the new external drive mounts on the desktop. In addition, I can see all of its contents, and it appears as a startup disk in the startup disk preference panel. However, when I select it as the startup disk and restart the computer, it will not boot from the new external drive.
Notes:
1. The drive is formatted in the Apple Partition Map scheme.
2. I have pressed "option" during restart, but the drive does not appear.
3. I have restarted with only the new hard drive connected to the cpu, to no avail.
Am I missing something? Please assist.
Thanks!

I've been trying all day to boot from my external HD after installing Leopard on both my HD and external HD. I was convinced that my external HD volume wasn't being read and recognized. What I discovered a while ago was that my internal HD volume always shows up at the top of the list on my desktop whether it's the volume running or not!!
When running 10.4.11 and booting from the external HD, the icon for the external HD volume always appeared at the top on the desktop, over the internal HD icon. That's how I could remember which one I was on. That's not happening now. I may have been working on the backup for half the day and not known it.
The only way I'm able to tell for sure which is the active drive is to check the User folder to see whether the House/Home icon appears (the system running) or the name is in text (the system not running).
Is there some way to change that or is it a glitch in Leopard? It's weird!

MacPro can't boot from external drive

Running 10.7.3 and a MacPro which gets backed up each night with SuperDuper. Can't boot from this drive (black screen). Yet I can take the same drive and start up my Macbook Pro! So it isn't the drive or the data on it. I'm stumped. Could this be related to an issue where I can't get this same MacPro or system to successfully backup to Time Machine without error? The boot drive seems OK (ran Disk Warrior and Disk Utility).

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

Problem booting from external drive

I'm having trouble booting my MacBook from an external USB drive.
I've created a bootable backup of my hard drive, using SuperDuper! (in order to be able to install a bigger hard drive and restore my current drive state). If, with the drive attached, I restart and hold down Alt (which I understand should offer a choice of drives from which to boot), I get nothing but grey screen (ie. the first grey you see before the apple logo comes up right at the start of startup). I have been able to boot from the external drive by changing Startup Disk settings, so I'm sure there's no problem with the external disk volume.
The drive is an Iomega 80GB USB 2.0 drive, and I'm running 10.4.10 on a 2GHz Core Duo MacBook.

Hey guys,
Thanks for the feedback... here's my update (still no joy):
• I'm not sure about the GUID table - how do I check? Does the fact that I can boot from the drive having selected it in my System Preferences mean that it is? It is definitely HFS+ formatted, however. (I gave bad information about the drive type, however - it's a Freecom 400GB, not Iomega 80GB, not that I suppose that makes a difference.)
• After holding that Alt key for a very long time, my MacBook did show me something other than a plain grey screen: a single, large, internal HD icon in the middle of the screen, above a vertical arrow icon. I take this to mean that the MacBook is recognising the internal HDD and no other volume. The external drive was still plugged into the USB port.
• The external drive is in fact partitioned as two volumes.

Problems booting from external drives

Ever since I got this 6-core 2013 MacPro (January 2015), I have had strange problems and glitches, but for this posting, I am talking about problems being able to boot up from external drives. I took the 4 external drives out of my old 2009 MacPro and put them into a 4-bay Thunderbolt enclosure. This enclosure can be configured as a RAID if all drives are the same (which they are not) or it can just be a place to be able to access all 4 drives. I used to be able to boot from each of those drives on the older MacPro but I am unable to do so now. They show up in the System Preferences/Startup Disk but if I choose one, it just reboots into the new MacPro drive. I even tried pulling out a couple of the drives and mounting each into a USB 3.0 (Sabrent) dock and still I could not boot from those drives which have the latest version of Yosemite. Yes, they are formatted correctly. I used to boot from them. I was able to clone one of the drives to a Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive and boot from that. Although, the clone was not perfect. It didn't transfer all my settings so I could recover some logins and serial numbers I wanted that I have never been able to retrieve since I got this new Mac.
Yesterday, I formatted a 32GB flash drive and tried to install Yosemite on it. I planned to put DiskWarrior on it. When I started to install Yosemite (from a saved download) it let me choose that drive, but when it restarted before installing, I was right back where I started on my MacPro's hard drive.
Is this normal behavior for the 2013 MacPro? Or is it just mine? I am beginning to think I may have a lemon since I have had other strange problems that don't go away.

Not all external devices are bootable. First stop would be involve whoever handles the 4-bay Thunderbolt. Seeing how it has a bridge most likely in order to support RAID mode that may not have the correct frmware or other reasons.
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4/search/bootable%20volume
CCC is the only program I would be using.

How to install new reboot drive with Snow Leopard when new drive is unformatted and the only thing displayed is to choose to run the OS disc? It is impossible to choose disk utility as nothing happens.

Mac Pro (2006) running Snow Leopard crashed. Geniuses were certain it was bootable HD. Installed new HD and pressed option key with Snow Leopard in optical drive. Chose "Mac OS Installation Disc." Disc runs once for a minute, stops, runs again, then nothing. It is impossible to choose disk utility to format the disc as absolutely nothing but a black screen is visible!

pull all your drives so you just boot the DVD
If you have an ATI 5770 you cannot boot with less than 10.6.5
Ideally you would go through phone system and buy Lion, download and SAVE and create a Lion Installer media (DVD and flash memory are possible).
If you can't boot the DVD alone, let us know as gives a better idea.

Booting from external tiger backup in Leopard

Greetings,
I recently upgraded from Tiger(10.4.11) to Leopard(10.5.4). Before installing Leopard I made a bootable backup of Tiger on a partitioned Western Digital External Firewire HD (MyBook Home Ed.) using SuperDuper v2.5. I then selected the backup from the startup disc panel in system preferences and clicked restart. It booted from the backup with no problems. Then I did an erase and install of Leopard on my internal drive which also went fine.
The problem now is that ever since installing Leopard I can't seem to boot from the Firewire drive. The drive doesn't show up in the startup disc panel (though i can see it on my desktop and browse it in finder). I've tried both target disc mode and startup disc from my install cd. Neither of which work. When I restart while holding option I get a mac os9 looking screen with only my internal (Leopard) drive listed. When I click target disc mode from sys prefs I get a firewire symbol that drifts around on a blue screen. When I restart from the install disc and access startup disc from there the external (Tiger) drive is listed but attempting to boot from it yields a brief purple screen with a question mark folder before taking me to the Leopard login screen.
I've tried installing the Western digital updates for Leopard but to no avail. I'm largely a self-taught mac user so it could be that I'm just not doing something quite right. I'd normally just search the forums, find a similar post, and figure it out from there, but unfortunately, the search feature appears to have been taken down (big bummer). If any additional information is needed(specs/logs/etc.) just let me know. Any insights/guidance/solutions would be most appreciated. Thanks.
-Peace

february_fifteenth wrote:
i did and it didn't.
When installing Leopard, was the FireWire drive unplugged? Some curious things happen when external bootable systems or drives are left on during an install of Leopard.
When you boot, holding down the Option key, I am assuming that the drive does show up in the menu.
That most likely means that the boot sector of the drive has been modified making it non-bootable.
I am sure that there are some tools to use to change the boot sector code back. You might contact SuperDuper, since I am sure that your issue is a common one.
During the early days of Leopard installs, this happened regularly, after which we reminded people installing Leopard to unplug ALL unnecessary peripherals while installing.
I am sure the Tiger data are intact and all you need to do is what is called "blessing" the drive.

Possible to Boot from External Drive with Snow Leopard??

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for