Quick boot question -- cloned a bootable drive in latest Tiger, can i.....

I cloned a bootable drive in latest Tiger version; if i install Leopard on my Powerbook will i still be able to boot from that Tiger drive?? in essence i guess i would have two different platforms running on my Powerbook -- doesn't seem like it would work the more i think about it....hmmmmm.
thanks appleheads!
e

e to the d wrote:
if i install Leopard on my Powerbook will i still be able to boot from that Tiger drive??
You can't install a second OS on your PB. However your clone should boot your PB from the disk it's on. Just connect that disk, then in System Preferences >> Startup disk, choose it and restart.
-mj

Similar Messages

Hi I have a newish MBA approx 1 year old that was running mountain lion. I think i have deleted the entire system and any partitions it boots and says no bootable drive when i try cont R it starts internet recovery but just sits there

Hi during playing around with my MBA i think i have despite all the warnings deleted everything from my laptop. I do not have a back up or usb start up. when i boot the laptop it says no bootable device found, i have tried various configerations of alt cntr r etc the best i can get it to is a spinning grey globe that says looking for internet connection. it does not see my wifi so i do have a usb-rj45 adapter that if i plug into the R/H side usb port lets it see the internet (i think) it then brings up a down load bar but this never moves and in the end brings an error nummber up i think it was -0007 or -0002.
Do i have to buy new mountain lion or usb start up stick
I have access to a windows PC (not mac) so can use this to create a usb if someone helps an idiot out
thanks Martin

I had just finished backing everything up and was about to hit the wipe button when I found a solution that worked for me: here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4144252?tstart=0
It gdisk to be installed, and a bit of terminal knowledge, but it fixed the problem for me. For this step:
add partion 5 to the MBR
It was partition 4 for me. You should first use gdisk's 'p' command to find the number of your bootcamp partition, and then use that number.

Booting system from an external drive; Folder with Question Mark

Hello all. I am trying to setup an external USB hard drive as a bootable device for my Tiger install. This is on a Core Duo Mac Mini. I have successfully partitioned it using GUID into two partitions; A small 5gb partition for the minimal OSX install, and the remainder for data. I installed OSX onto it via my included Tiger discs that came with the Mini, no problems. However, when I try to boot from it I get a Folder icon with a question mark in the center. I can boot the Mini normally and browse the external partition. It shows no problems. Disk Utility also shows no errors on the drive. What have I missed?
For any who are curious, my goal here is to use NetRestore to make a backup image of my main Mini hard disk. Then by booting to the external USB drive, I will be able to restore the backup image (stored on the data partition of the external drive as well) to the internal Mini hard disk.
Mac Mini Core Dio Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Just letting everyone know that I am still unresolved on this one. I have tried it all; Zero-overwrite erased the external drive before partitioning it, used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the boot disk, you name it. Every situation leads to the same result; no ability to boot from the USB drive, It just acts like it can't read it. Are there "undocumented" problems booting from USB on Intel macs?

Early 2008 MBP source drive won't boot after cloning

I cloned the original/source drive, via USB, Carbon Copy Cloner, to a Crucial MX100 256GB SSD. The clone process completed without errors. I powered down the system to do a start-up from the USB drive to see if it would boot. The computer will not start from the source drive and holding the Option key to select a boot drive never gets that far.
I can hear the optical drive try to spin up, the status light blinks quickly like it is trying to start and then quits, remaining a steady light. I have tried Cmd + R at boot without success. Tried the PRAM reset, also the SMC reset.
There is plenty of room on the source drive, at least 160GB. The target drive is the same size as the source drive.
Prior to cloning the source drive and powering down, the computer was operating flawlessly. This an early 2008 model with the 2.5Mhz processor.
Any recommendations? I am hesitant to remove the source drive and install the cloned SSD for concern that I'll end up with some other trouble.
I do not have a start up disk. BTW, the OS X is Yosemite, the most recent version, .10, I think.
Thanks,
Bob

wsev1955 wrote:
I have a HP Pavilion Dv4170us laptop added some new upgrades to it.. max RAM 2GB... a new battery... and I bought a 160GB samsung IDE drive to replace the origional 100GB drive...Using EZ Gig II software and usb drive adapter I successfuly cloned the smaller hard drive but when I swaped them out it won't boot windows xp.. just a black screen with the blinking curser at the top left corner... using my windows xp pro disc.. i ran the system recovery and tried first fix mbr command... then I tried fixboot.. I also looked for the boot.ini file which is not in the C: root drive...I only found a back up copy of it in the windows/pss folder... this is on both drives.. so the cloeing copied it all... but the origional drive will boot and the new one won't... I even tried reinstalling XP as a repair installation...still nothing... any ideas??
Hi,
Can you see the new hdd in the BIOS?
Dv6-7000 /Full HD/Core i5-3360M/GF 650M/Corsair 8GB/Intel 7260AC/Samsung Pro 256GB
Testing - HP 15-p000
HP Touchpad provided by HP
Currently on Debian Wheeze
*Please, help other users with the same issue by marking your solved topics as "Accept as Solution"*

No boot sector on internal hard drive and No bootable devices.

Hello, I hope someone can help me.
I have a dell inspiron 1525. I recently replaced on of my memory 512mb modules with a 2gb memory module. At the same time I change the 120gb harddrive and upgraded it to a 320gb harddrive. After doing this when I start the computer I receive the message:
"No boot sector on internal harddrive".
"No bootable devices - - strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility, Press F5 to run onboard diagnostic".
I have tried to change boot sequence and tried to boot from the Windows Vista Home Basic 32BIT. Regretablly with no results. If there is anyone who can guide me and help me to solve this problem I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanking you in advance.

Whenever we get this error "No boot sector on internal hard drive", it means that our hard drive has no partition/ boot sector to boot/ start operating system (Windows).
The ultimate solution is to install Windows from beginning either by using CD/DVD or USB bootable flash drive. You need to have windows installation disc or bootable flash drive for that.
Visit link for more info. : http://deepes007.blogspot.com/2015/04/solution-tono-boot-sector-found-on.html

Hello, can someone help me: my eMac G4 700 MHz. I can not boot it. If he starts appears on the screen, only a small "folder with a question mark." The Mac was not used 1 year. Question 1: Problem = hard drive? Question 2: Problem = PRAM battery? the What

Hello, can someone help me: my eMac G4 700 MHz. I can not boot it. If he starts appears on the screen, only a small "folder with a question mark." The Mac was not used 1 year.
Question 1: Problem = hard drive?
Question 2: Problem = PRAM battery?
the
What can I do to boot?

Restart with the Option key held down.
If the internal drive shows up, it's the PRAM battery.
If it doesn't, insert a compatible Mac OS 9 or X install disk, click the button with the circular arrow, and either repair the internal drive or install a new OS on it. If it doesn't show up in Disk First Aid(9) or the Disk Utility(X), it's either not plugged in or needs to be replaced.
(97530)

Cloning my Lion Drive questions

I decided to clone my drive after upgrading to Lion weeks ago on my iMac mid 2011, just in case my Hard Drive should
break down. My Mid 2011 came with Snow Leopard. So, eventually, would I restore back from clone (which, if a true clone, would have
the two partitions already on it). Or, is it useless doing a Lion clone? ie I would hope that it is a simple as how I used to do my SL clones.
Hopefully,, I don't have to go and reload SL from disk, update to Lion,, and do backup from TM as my only option. Thanks

Stoker wrote:
CorkyO2 wrote:
FWIW,
Creating the clone by partitioning the destination drive with one partition and then using the restore feature in Disk Utility while booted from the Lion installer on the flash drive (and subsequent restoring of the clone back to the original machine) always results in the inclusion of both the Recovery HD partition and the OS X Lion partition.
I have tested and retested this when booting from all three versions of a Lion install disc (flash drive, external HD and a DVD). All work exactly the same. The clone (in my case) is kept on an external HD and I connect using FW800. Works every time.
Note - I don't use CCC or SuperDuper, so can't comment on those.
Ok,,, so I gather that my first hypothesis can't be carried out ie; just cloning my Lion clone back to internal formatted drive, because it will not create the Lion Recovery partition.. So,, I will try Corky02 method. I already had made a usb Lion Recovery (think I will also do a DVD one also). So,, please correct if I am mistaken. I use the usb Lion recovery to apply to my HD. By doing that, it installs 2 partitions on my Drive, one Clean Lion OS,, plus one Recovery partition.. Then, I can go in to boot mode,, look for Macintosh HD,, and replace that with my clone? Correct?
Then it sounds like CCC and Superduper have lost some of their effectiveness .
If you boot from the Lion install disc (USB flash drive or DVD), you would then use the Utilities/Disk Utility to partition the drive you want to install OS X Lion on (I always name mine 'Macintosh HD', but you can use a different name if you wish). After partitioning, you quit Disk Utility and are returned to the OS X Lion installer - which you would run to install Lion. The end result is a clean install of Lion which also includes the small partition named 'Recovery HD'.
Note - the 'Recovery HD' is only visible when booting to the boot option screen by pressing 'Option' during start up (or when viewed by some other utilities like iDefrag).
Once you have your OS X Lion set-up with whatever you want included in the clone (e.g., applications, music, pictures, files, etc.). You can then boot from the USB flash drive or DVD to create your clone. I create the clone with the following steps:
1 - Connect external drive which is to be the destination for clone image.
2 - Boot from OS X Lion install disc.
3 - Invoke Disk Utility (Utilities menu > Disk Utility).
4 - Partition the external drive with 1 partition for destination of clone.
5 - Click the 'Restore' tab in Disk utility.
6 - Select the partition I want to clone (in my case the 'Macintosh HD' partition) - which automatically populates the 'Source' field in Restore dialog.
7 - Drag the partition on the external drive to the 'Destination' field.
8 - Click 'Restore' and confirm 'Erase' in pop-up dialog.
The above steps assume there is only 1 partition on the destination drive. This will result in a clone which includes both the OS X Lion partition and the (hidden) Recovery HD partition.
You can then restore both partitions by first creating '1 Partition' on your intended destination drive (typically the internal drive) and using the 'Restore' tab to set the clone as the source and the internal as the destination, which will result in a OS X Lion partition (including all applications, music, pictures, files, etc., that you included in the clone) and the (hidden) Recovery HD partition.
Note - if you do not first partition the destination drive before attempting to restore the clone, I am not sure that you will end up with a functioning system. I say this because I have not tested that, so please only use my steps if you intend to partition with only 1 partition when trying to either create the original clone or restore the system from said clone.
I hope that was clear.

How about cloning bootable drive in 10.5

I use this to ensure that I have a workable drive ready at hand using Intego's Personal backup X4. I upgraded to the Leopard x4 patch, and then get wierd messages about GUID formatting for the drive. What the **** is that and how do I overcome it?

BeachfrontJames wrote:
I use this to ensure that I have a workable drive ready at hand using Intego's Personal backup X4. I upgraded to the Leopard x4 patch, and then get wierd messages about GUID formatting for the drive. What the **** is that and how do I overcome it?
You do not overcome it, you join it But it's nothing special.
GUID is an Intel/Mac partitioning scheme. I have been unable to determine what it means, but Leopard will only boot from a GUID partitioned drive.
If you access the drive using disk utility app you will be able to erase the drive and reformat/partition it as GUID (one of the choices in disk utility) and that's it.
GUID is the "native" partition scheme for Intel Macs. My MBP and LaCie drive was already GUID.

External HD as bootable drive & upgrading OSX

Due to shortage of disk space on my internal drive I'm getting an external HD. After reading some of the posts here I'm considering using the external drive as the bootable drive & cloning the internal one.
My question is, how would go about I upgrading my OSX after this? Can I just upgrade the external drive? I'm a bit worried that I wouldn't have enough free space on my internal drive if I upgraded the OSX first (I currently have 13GB of space left).

My question is, how would go about I upgrading my OSX after this?
Software Update applies any update to the boot drive.
If you are booted from the external drive, the OS on the external drive will be updated.
If you are booted from the internal drive, the OS on the internal drive will be updated.

Let's create a walkthrough for booting ppc's from usb2 drives!

What started as a personal project has now evolved into a call for a community collaboration. I think there's a new trick here that should be more available to the ppc using public. Let's create a walkthrough for the public that is complete, concise, and fool-proof.
I have been trying for days to figure out how I can create a bootable drive with what i've got;
PowerMac G5 quad, 500gig drive, 350gigs used, over 200 gigs of unimportant stuff.
Seagate external USB2 drive, 150 gigs, let's beta this puppy out til we get this
bondi blue, 80 gigs, no attachment, no remorse
History:
I have been trying to use my 150gig usb2 external drive to create a bootable drive. The general theory WAS, apparently, that ppc's cannot boot from usb, only firewire - but now intels can boot from either. I've read in many, many posts that USB drives CAN be booted from using a ppc, by either using SuperDuper to do a complete cloning, or booting from Open Firmware and using some scripts.
I can't get either of these to work, and it's probably because i did something wrong or there isn't a solid resource out there on this topic. I think it's because my internal hard drive is bigger than my external, so any cloning i do has to omit folders (movies, pictures, music only) and just isn't a 'complete backup'.
Posts have said that SuperDuper does something that has allowed USB2 drives to be bootable on a ppc without Open Firmware, even appear in the startup disk preference panel!
I just can't get it right, somehow, although plenty of others posted positive results with the same architecture. Is there a way of getting a good install on the usb drive? Can you give me a good walkthrough of the way to go about booting to it?
Next idea:
I have an old Bondi Blue, with 80gigs in it. Perhaps i can use this as a workaround to overcome the size issue (my internal drive being larger than my available external drive).
There's nothing important on the Bondi's hard drive, I just keep it around for OS 9, in case I need that (haven't since I was fourteen years old, though). So I thought, perhaps I can ethernet it to my powermac, reformat the drive and use it as an external drive. Then I bet I could use the install dvd to put 10.4 on it (though it won't run with anything past 10.3.1, just using it as a hard drive i could, right?). So I'd have to boot the bondi blue in some particular fashion; what would that be? As a 'slave drive' or something? Will I be able to boot from this over the ethernet cable?
If this is succesful (or first of all possible) then I could mount both the bondi (as an external/network/some kind of drive) and my usb2 hard drive to the PowerMac. With disk utility or SuperDuper, I could restore/clone the bondi to the USB2 drive, and Blam! the USB2 would have a clean install of os 10.4 that i could (maybe?) boot from with Open firmware. Then I could reinstall OS 9 on the bondi (i've been wanting to give it a fresh start anyway).
here's what i've been reading, and it's confusing, contradictory, and without solid answers:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061017084322177
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384
http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-34864.html
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/08/intel-macs-can-boot-from-usb-drives/
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/03/07/boot-a-powerpc-mac-from-a-usb2-drive/
Apparently, THIS IS possible. Now I am deadset on figuring this out. With the help of the community, we can create a walkthrough that WORKS and ppc users will be able to create bootable usb2 drives (perhaps even usb1.1 from what i've read).
G5 quad Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2.5 mghz, 4gigs RAM, 500Gigs storage

What started as a personal project has now evolved into a call for a community collaboration. I think there's a new trick here that should be more available to the ppc using public. Let's create a walkthrough for the public that is complete, concise, and fool-proof.
I have been trying for days to figure out how I can create a bootable drive with what i've got;
PowerMac G5 quad, 500gig drive, 350gigs used, over 200 gigs of unimportant stuff.
Seagate external USB2 drive, 150 gigs, let's beta this puppy out til we get this
bondi blue, 80 gigs, no attachment, no remorse
History:
I have been trying to use my 150gig usb2 external drive to create a bootable drive. The general theory WAS, apparently, that ppc's cannot boot from usb, only firewire - but now intels can boot from either. I've read in many, many posts that USB drives CAN be booted from using a ppc, by either using SuperDuper to do a complete cloning, or booting from Open Firmware and using some scripts.
I can't get either of these to work, and it's probably because i did something wrong or there isn't a solid resource out there on this topic. I think it's because my internal hard drive is bigger than my external, so any cloning i do has to omit folders (movies, pictures, music only) and just isn't a 'complete backup'.
Posts have said that SuperDuper does something that has allowed USB2 drives to be bootable on a ppc without Open Firmware, even appear in the startup disk preference panel!
I just can't get it right, somehow, although plenty of others posted positive results with the same architecture. Is there a way of getting a good install on the usb drive? Can you give me a good walkthrough of the way to go about booting to it?
Next idea:
I have an old Bondi Blue, with 80gigs in it. Perhaps i can use this as a workaround to overcome the size issue (my internal drive being larger than my available external drive).
There's nothing important on the Bondi's hard drive, I just keep it around for OS 9, in case I need that (haven't since I was fourteen years old, though). So I thought, perhaps I can ethernet it to my powermac, reformat the drive and use it as an external drive. Then I bet I could use the install dvd to put 10.4 on it (though it won't run with anything past 10.3.1, just using it as a hard drive i could, right?). So I'd have to boot the bondi blue in some particular fashion; what would that be? As a 'slave drive' or something? Will I be able to boot from this over the ethernet cable?
If this is succesful (or first of all possible) then I could mount both the bondi (as an external/network/some kind of drive) and my usb2 hard drive to the PowerMac. With disk utility or SuperDuper, I could restore/clone the bondi to the USB2 drive, and Blam! the USB2 would have a clean install of os 10.4 that i could (maybe?) boot from with Open firmware. Then I could reinstall OS 9 on the bondi (i've been wanting to give it a fresh start anyway).
here's what i've been reading, and it's confusing, contradictory, and without solid answers:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061017084322177
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384
http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-34864.html
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/08/intel-macs-can-boot-from-usb-drives/
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/03/07/boot-a-powerpc-mac-from-a-usb2-drive/
Apparently, THIS IS possible. Now I am deadset on figuring this out. With the help of the community, we can create a walkthrough that WORKS and ppc users will be able to create bootable usb2 drives (perhaps even usb1.1 from what i've read).
G5 quad Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2.5 mghz, 4gigs RAM, 500Gigs storage

How can I boot images on external hard drives with an older OS

Hi,
I recently bought a new MacBook Pro Retina (running OS 10.9.2 Mavericks), because I had to give back my „old“ one (bought in February 2013, running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion), which was only a loan from University.
So here comes my problem: I used Carbon Copy Cloner to create bootable images of my old MacBook on two independent hard drives. I tested these images and they both booted perfectly well on the old MacBook. As it turns out, I cannot boot from these images on my new MacBook Pro, I just get a crossed grey circle (both images work perfectly well when I boot from my internal hard drive and I just use them as external drive, by the way). Is it really correct, that it is not possible to boot a system with an older OS as the OS of the MacBook? Why? I really would like to have the option of booting these images, since I have some applications installed I might want to use from time to time in the future (and I don’t want to migrate all applications to my new MacBook, but prefer a clean install). As I understand, it would be necessary to update the images to Mavericks. But how do I do this when I have no computer which is able to boot them?
I still have a very old MacBook from 2007 running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and I also tried booting the images with this computer - didn’t work either. Would it help to update this to Snow Leopard? What OS would I need to boot my Mountain Lion images?
Any help on this is highly appreciated!
Thanks!

Hi!
Thanks for your prompt response. The reason I don't want to migrate all apps is that I had installed a lot of scientific applications on the Mt-Lion MacBook that I will definitely not use in the future, some that I might use only very rarely, and I can migrate only the complete applications folder (and I have only a 256 GB hard drive). Of course I could deinstall the unused apps manually after the migration, but I am not 100% sure, if this procedure completely removes all the stuff from the libraries and preferences, etc. Moreover I also started playing with some time ago with server applications like apache server etc. and since I am a complete newbie in this field, I have to admit, I really don't know how to uninstall these things properly. So I figured a clean install for the new MacBook would be the best. Well, maybe I will migrate everything and remove the unnecessary stuff afterwards manually. I am just a bit disappointed, because I didn't anticipate these problems with the images...
Just one further question: Is it correct, that if I find a way to update my images from Mt-Lion to Mavericks (if that is possible at all?), this would make them bootable again?
Thanks!

No application runs after booting from an external (USB) drive

Hi all,
my best hope is that I just embarrass myself with a blatantly obvious question instead of finding a real issue that will be resolved only in later updates. Here it is:
As I want to upgrade my hard drive in my good ol' MacBook, I wanted to backup my present boot HDD to an external USB drive (freshly formatted, HFS+ journaled, GUID partition table). I tried both SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner. In both cases, the backup/cloning process goes fine, and I can reboot into the external drive, and the OS starts (yes, with wifi working, even iStat menus, textExpander etc. initiating fine). But all applications (not those on the menu bar, though) crash and notify me of some thread having tried some invalid operation, or sometimes I even got some vague reference to kernel protection.
Do you have any ideas what this is? Something new and (supposedly) secure in 10.5.6? I tried a fairly standard procedure, I think. (Also, it is a fairly pressing issue as I would not really want to waste much more time on this drive swap. And I would rather use disk-cloning than the install disk and sucking back data from an apparently unreliable backup.)
Many thanks for any thoughts!
(Just to inform the interested, I ran a fairly extensive cleaning-maintenance-rebuild cycle by the latest Onyx before starting all this, this should clean up the state of the OS pretty much. But I could not run DiskWarrior. Convince me if you think that this would solve the problem.)

Thanks Devin, I think my issue is a bit different.
I am 'long' past the 10.5.6 update (as long as possible), it did not crash, and Software Update checked what it wanted several times since then (as it is set to do so daily).
Thanks for the safe boot tip, I have not tried it yet, though I am skeptical why would this help applications starting up without breaking some kernel protection -- but only if I booted up from an external drive.
I repaired all I could before the cloning of the drive, only the deep maintenance of DiskWarrior was skipped. With the disk or the OS itself, I basically did what you can, even the stuff that you are rarely supposed to do. (Onyx is a great tool to do all these and more, freely.)
I am not sure either that a FireWire drive would have helped, but who knows. (But really, the OS would boot, just the applications would feel that their are on an 'inferior' drive?) In any case, FireWire drives are not that easy to come by, and a risky investment -- e.g. I could not use them with the new MacBooks. Oh, and all my work was done on a firm table, but again, the behavior would be hard to explain as the HDD misbehaving, as the OS had no glitch, just I could not start applications without their crashing immediately.
Thanks again, I hope I run into something useful or if it is a bug then Apple magically pushes out some update before their winter break, or I will sadly watch my precious new drive sitting on a table idly.

No bootable drive after installing windows successfully

I am trying to install Windows XP/Vista 32 Bit On Intel Mac Notebook through BootCamp.But after installing windows successfully,when it reboot?resatrt,It gives me error message that NO bootable Drive ,Press any to key to continue.......
I have Downloaded Windows XP/Vista 32 Bit ISO format and burned it on my DVD through Disk utility.I can install windows successfully but when it restarted then it gives that message.However I am able to locate windows hard drive after holding the Option Key and when I choose the windows HDD (BootCamp),It gives me same error.
I started the installation in osx using boot camp, and the windows was completely installed, even the boot camp driver for windows was installed and there are options to restart into either windows or mac osx.
But when I restart the machine and choose to go into windows, it just can not boot, saying no bootable device. If I insert the installation disc into the drive, then I restart and go to windows, it can boot successfully.
Please Help.
Much appriciated.

While we all have MacBooks in this forum not all of us use BootCamp. There's a BootCamp Support Community where everybody uses BootCamp. You should also post this question there to increase your chances of getting an answer.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/windows_software/boot_camp

How to Install and boot-up New Blank Hard Drive

I am looking to install a new hard drive on my 2007 MBP C2D. I currently have a stock 200GB 5400rpm Toshiba hard drive installed and I am looking to upgrade. I was looking at a Seagate momentus 320GB 7200rpm SATA or a Western Digital 500GB 5400rpm SATA. Would I have any problems with either of these drives, and would I see significant improvement in performance if I went with the 7200rpm drive?
I was also looking to start fresh with the new drive, only copying and pasting some files from my old drive to the new one. I would do this by first copying the files I want from my old drive to an external, and then copy them to my new drive once it is installed. My questions are do I need to format the new drive? How do I install Leopard? Would I simply put the DVD into the disk drive and install it from there? I've read about partitioning issues and other installation problems; will I have to deal with these by installing it this way?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

All of my external hard drives are Western digital. I am pretty sure that they can only be formatted in FAT32, is that going to be a problem if I decide to clone my current hard drive?
FAT32 is not Mac OS X bootable. If you must have PC readable hard drive that is Mac bootable, get http://www.mediafour.com/macdrive
That will allow your PC to read your Mac drive.
If you want to setup a small network:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2959?viewlocale=en_US
You can still maintain the Mac booting by formatting your drive HFS+, and the PC will still be able to share files with your Mac.
Regardless you can't clone a Mac OS X bootable drive to a FAT32 formatted drive. And there is no such thing as a hard drive that can't be formatted HFS+. They may come initially formatted FAT32, but Apple's Disk Utility can reformat them.
I don't know what restrictions exist in event you run Boot Camp though. For that you'd have to ask in the Boot Camp forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1244
Would a 7200rpm drive show significant performance advantages over a 5400rpm drive?
If the drives are of equal capacity yes. Larger capacity but slower drives actually are the nearly the same speed as the faster drives of smaller capacity. I.e. a 120 GB 7200 RPM drive is going to be of equivalent speed to a 160 GB 5400 RPM drive.
Also, the one reason why I want to start fresh is because my computer sometimes runs slow, which it never did in the first few months that I had it.
The speed of the machine is not necessarily as dependent on capacity, as how full it is*:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
Thus as long as you don't approach the arbitrary 85% full point, and as long as all the software you are using has been tested with the currently installed operating system, and as long as your spotlight indexes are complete, and you aren't running any non-compatible optimization utilities, you should never have a slowdown. See my other FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html
to understand why a machine may slow down.
A 10 GB free hard drive sounds like it lacks the necessary empty capacity to run smoothly.
Cleaning the space as suggested earlier may be an easier approach than trying to install a new drive.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

How can I make the second internal drive bootable drive bootable for trouble shooting?

I suspect that a newly installed SSD boot drive may be causing instability in my new 2012 Mac Mini Server. The logic board and RAM have been replaced and boot drive wiped and partitioned and 10.10.2 reinstalled. I'd like to make the second drive bootable in order to take the SSD boot drive out of the equation.
Could some please describe the correct method for making the second internal drive bootable.
Thanks.

A quick addendum: your Mac will have a default boot drive set, and if not then it will choose the first one it identifies on the disk (usually the first partition on the first disk, followed by subsequent partitions on this disk, and then moving to the second identified disk, etc.). As a result, if you have to hold Option to select your second boot drive, the next time you restart, your Mac will boot back to the first drive. To make the second boot drive the default one, you will need to select it in the Startup Disk system preferences. This will update the hardware to use this as the default boot drive.

Quick boot question -- cloned a bootable drive in latest Tiger, can i.....

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