Slow boot when an USB-Drive is connected

Hi,
I have a very annoying problem: As soon as an USB-drive is connected (hard disk, iPod etc.) to
my Mac Pro it boots extremly slow (several minutes). If I disconnect the USB-drive during the waiting the booting continues immediatelly. Is there any solution for this behaviour?
Thank you for answering.

SWEET its fixed.
After multiple repairs and w/e
The last thing I did was verifying my MacBook HDD (right under the *branded HDD*) n I went to bed, and my computer went into hibernation, when I woke up, I tested my computer with every connection 1 by one, than I started plugging them together.
first just the computer
firewire
external monitor
audio
usb hub(cooling station)
kvm switch usb (mouse+keyboard) **Critical**
firewire+external monitor
firewire+external monitor +usb hub+kvm switch **Critical**
c
the **Critical** area means thats when the computer messes up. slows down or w/e
I learned not to boot up my computer with my iphone, so I plug my iphone on the cable later.
anyway my computer I never really troubleshooted a mac until today, the command V, single mode, PR n all that good stuff...I really like the command V. i wish I can login that way everyday cause it looks cool and i can see *** is going on.
dont forget, use apple+V when rebooting and see if your USBF..etc is having issues.
If yes, repair our machine and leave it running till battery dies or go to hibernation. good day!
-- Blen

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Slow boot from external usb drive

I just upgraded my daughter's macbook to the latest fixes on her internal drive. I reformatted her external LaCie drive to Mac OS Extended(Journaled) and did a restore. I did notice that there are less files on the internal than the external drive when comparing immediately after the restore. When I try to boot from that drive, it takes 10 minutes to boot the system. It takes about 7 minutes before I even hear any drive activity. In the past this system used to take about 2 minutes to boot at most vs 30 seconds from the internal drive. I have repaired permissions without seeing any effect. I did attach another USB drive that had a copy of her old OSC 10.5.8 image and that booted in less than 2 minutes. Any thoughts on what could be causing the long boot time on the external drive? I have seen comments on GUID formatting. Doesn't that come automatically with Mac OS Extended(Journaled) on an Intel machine? Should I have selected an option when doing the format to specify GUID? I did run a verify Disk as well and the extrnal checked out without any problems.

+" ... and did a restore ..."+
How, of what, from where, to where?
+" ... I have seen comments on GUID formatting. Doesn't that come automatically with Mac OS Extended(Journaled) on an Intel machine? ..."+
No, it does not happen automatically when you format the drive. GUID is a partition type, not a format. You specify GUID partition scheme at the time you partition the drive. Formatting is a separate operation, occurring after partitioning. Drives that will be used to boot an Intel Mac must be GUID partition scheme and formatted as Mac OS Extended Journaled.

IMac i7: Slow boot when Ext USB HDD connected.

Hello,
I have a weird issue with my iMac.
When i have an External USB HDD connected and powered on while booting it takes a very long time for the Apple logo to show up.
I'm guessing this has to do with the fact that my iMac is searching the External USB HDD for an bootable operating system.
Is there a way to preventing my iMac from doing this?
I don't have any OS on my External USB HDD.
Thanks!

go into system prefs -> startup disk and select the disk with os x on it. that should solve the problem

Cannot boot when external hard drive is connected.

Hello everyone!
I got a brand new Macbook Pro w/ Retina 13" for Christmas today, and I've ran into an issue. I have a Samsung external hard drive with my documents and photographs on (and nothing else), and if I start up my mac with it plugged in, my computer hangs on the black screen (no Apple logo). If I leave it for 5 minutes, it eventually works. Also, shutdown is very slow as well. I've tried booting without it plugged in, and it works perfectly. I've ran the disk utility on it, and it reports no problem.
My hard drive's format is in ExFAT (previous Windows 7 user).
Booting in verbose mode doesn't work either, as no text shows up.
Could someone please tell me how to boot my mac quickly without having to disconnect the external hard drive every time?
Thanks.

KaiSilverthorne wrote:
Hi CellarDwellr,
My Samsung HDD uses power from the Mac (and I didn't have the mac plugged in when tried). I am going to reformat my external HDD to see if that helps (it's in ExFAT), as I need to in order to use it for Time Machine backups.
I'll let you know if anything works.
Thanks,
Kai
I see. Well, yeah, in order to use it with Time Machine, format it to Mac os Extended (Journaled)

W520 hangs on boot when a WD SES USB drive is connected

Hi,
Computer: W520
Hard drive: Western Digital - My Passport (SES Drive - encrypted)
When I boot with the usb hard drive connected to any usb port on the computer, the computer hangs forever at boot time. If I unplug the drive and reboot, everything is fine. I was able to fix the problem by disabling the USB support in the bios but then, none of the USB ports work in Windows.
I believe this is due to the SES function of the WD usb hard drive (see: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3701/~/computer-freezes-when-it-restarts-with-a-wd-m...
Also, a previous post with a similar problem was written on this board but provided no working solution (see: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/W520-won-t-boot-with-SES-device-connected-to-U...
Thanks in advance for your help.

Hello jeantremblay44,
As I understand the laptop cannot boot if the external USB drive is connected.
Kindly try the following troubleshooting step
You can make the USB boot disable from BIOS and make the first boot device as Hard Disk
Best Regards,
Tanuj
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Can you boot off a usb drive or external hard drive (usb 2.0) on an iMac?

I have an intel iMac that will not boot off of a USB drive with Ubuntu installed (my PC netbook boots off the usb drive fine) or my external hard drive with Ubuntu installed. I heard somewhere that you cannot boot off of usb on iMacs even if they are Intel, but a Genius bar guy told me diffferent. Then why won't it work for me, and how can I make it? Thanks.

I should have been more general in my post - I don't believe any Mac can boot off an external drive with Ubuntu. I could be wrong of course (and if I am, hopefully someone will correct me), but as Mac hardware is so specific that it demands a specific install disk for each build/model/generation, it would be unable to boot with just a "foreign" OS such as Ubuntu installed. As you may know, you can't boot an iMac with an install disk from a different model iMac, Macbook, or any other Mac (unless it is exactly the same build/model), so it doesn't surprise me that it won't boot with Ubuntu.
Edit: and this question begs to be asked: why would you want to boot/use Ubuntu when you have a superb OS to work with already?
Message was edited by: Barbara Daniels1

How can I boot Cisco1841 with USB Drive instead of CF?

Hello
I need to boot Cisco1841 with USB Drive instead of Compact Flash but I don't know what should I do.
I heard I need to format USB Drive with FAT and need to save IOS on the USB Drive.
Before boot, Need to set config register ? I am not sure which parameter should I set config register in detail.
Please let me know if there is URL describing thease steps from the beginning.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/modules/ps6247/prod_qas0900aecd80232483.html
     Q. What sizes of USB Flash sticks are supported?
     A. USB Flash sticks are supported in 64, 128, and 256 MB sizes. No other sizes are supported.
     Q. Can I use any USB memory stick for this application?
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Q. Can I boot an image directly from the USB Flash module?
A. Yes. USB drivers have been added to rommon, starting with version 12.4(13r)
     Q. Can I format the USB Flash module on the router?
A. Yes. You can format the module on either a router or a PC. You must specify "FAT16 file system" as the file system for the PC format process to use.
If your setup satisfies above conditions you can get the router to boot up with the IOS on the USB flash
If you are in ROMMON mode, use 'dev' to find out the name of the USB Flash (should be usbflash0).
set BOOT=usbflash0:
If you are in the router,
boot system flash usbflash0:

/boot on a usb drive [SOLVED]

Hey everybody I have been trying to get a fresh install to have /boot on a usb drive and the rest on the hard drives.
My setup is 5 drives raid 5 (md0) ---> encrypt layer ---> lvm with a root and home
That whole setup works fine I can mount it from the live CD and everything.
I setup /boot to be on a usb drive plugged into the system. Every time I try and boot I get operating system not found and a grub prompt.
grub
root(0,0)
(kernel section) cryptdevice=/dev/md0:array root=/dev/mapper/array-root
I have dm_mod and ext4 in the modules line of mkinitcpio and usb after udev and mdadm encrypt lvm2 before filesystem.
I also have uselvm on it the /etc/rc.conf
does anyone have any suggestions on what I need to do to get this booting right.
Last edited by tpolich (2011-07-11 06:24:26)

I have a boot system using two raid0 CF cards and within that raid array is a boot partition on sda1 and a swap on sdb1 each 100mb. The raid devices are sda2 and sdb2, the remaining partitions of the two devices.
It may be that USB is not enabled at boot time?

Can Macbook Pros (and Macbooks) boot off of USB drives?

I know that you cannot boot off of USB drives in iMacs, but is that the case for Macbook Pros and Macbooks too? I have Ubuntu installed on a 16 GB usb drive and was wondering if it is possible to boot to that usb drive. I cannot simple Boot camp or just dual boot my own way because it is a school computer that they lend me for the year.

I know that you cannot boot off of USB drives in iMacs
That's only the case for some PowerPC Macs. It doesn't apply to any Intel Mac, including MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
(55569)

Booting from external USB drive

I was wondering if there is any way to boot from a USB drive that I have? I partitioned the drive, erased it, and its basically ready to go. But I can't install Mac OS X on it because it says that I cannot reboot from the drive.
I know that iBook G4s generally can't boot from a USB devise but is there any way to get around this?

If you're computer is having kernel panics there's a conflict; either software or hardware. 2GB of free space isn't enough but I haven't seen anything that suggests KPs are caused by too little free space. Your computer should start fine with 2GB free. It may have problems after a period of use but it would startup and run.
Try starting in Safe Mode. If successful move some of your files to the external drive and then restart normally. If it KPs again, restart in safe mode and disable all startup items in System Preferences>Accounts>youraccount and restart. If it KPs again go through the linked troubleshooting steps by Dr. Smoke step by step. That's the only way to resole your problem.

HT1349 very slow external HDD and usb drive connected to Apple Extreme Router

Hello
So I got a western digital USB drive (500gig) and western digital Live 2TB.
I bought a new Apple Extreme router and connected them both.
USB drive and external hdd (WD Live 2TB) very slow when connected to Apple Extreme Router, using Lion 10.7 and updated both firmware for router, western digital and Airport Utility.
Slow means, it takes half an hour to copy 200 Mb of file to the WD Live 2TB, and its connected to my router with a gigabit ethernet cable!
Is someone else having the same problem, I thought even over usb I should get around 2-5mb range.
I am using Macbook Pro and 802.11n with Lion 10.7.2
Please Help

The USB WD 500 gig is connected to the Airport Extreme using a non-powered USB 2.0 hub, only two things a HP printer and the 500 gig is connected through it. I already formatted it to MAC OS Extended Journalled. ANd I think the speed didnt change.
For the WD 2TB Live I didnt format it to anything, started using it out of the box. I just updated its firmware. I was having the same speed even when I directly connected it to my Mac Book Pro using ethernet gigabit cable.
This WD 2TB Live doesnt have any USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 connectors, just the ethernet cable. I wasnt planning to carry it around. Just wanted to use it as a good ol NAS. So then I saw the fix somewhere and connected to this drive via AFP, afp://MyBookLive._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Public and it become suddenly very fast. Just like how it should be, I easily copied 20 gigs in around 20-25 minutes. (This was dirctly connected to my computer)
So then I thought my problem is solved and disconnected my WD Live and connected it back to the Apple Router again, and the speed became very slow again. Now both the USB 500 gig and this 2TB Live are slow.
Time machine is also very slow.
Thing is I also have a linux and windows machine(in repair, but should be up soon), Since apple is the newest computer I have, I want to make it work on this first. I dont want to use the MACosx journaled on the 2TB right now. Besides formatting the USB 500 gig to this format didnt help with my speed. So the problem can be elsewhere.
- I will try to get a powered USB hub as woodmeister50 suggested.
- I dont know how to connect via iCloud as cigame suggested
Please let me know if you guys have any suggestions. I have tested and returned enough routers in past few weeks. I really want it to work on this combination LionOSX + Airport Extreme + WD Live.
Thanks

[SOLVED]Error when trying to boot from a usb drive

I have installed arch linux on a usb drive.
When I am trying to load it , I get the following error :
ERROR: '/dev/disk/by-label/ARCH_201211' device did not show up after 30 seconds
Any ideas?
Thank you.
Last edited by skiabox (2012-11-16 19:55:10)

Use a BitTorrent client instead of a ddl (direct download link). This way it's less prone to errors, because it's checked while it's being downloaded.
Either that, or check its MD5 against the one from the Download page.
There's also this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … ion_medium
Note: The quality of optical drives and the discs themselves varies greatly. Generally, using a slow burn speed is recommended for reliable burns. If you are experiencing unexpected behaviour from the disc, try burning at the lowest speed supported by your burner.
Last edited by DSpider (2012-11-16 15:13:55)

Slow boot when connected to network

Hi
I have a macbook pro and an imac, both recently updated and have noticed that since the update there is a significant delay, right at the start of the boot process, if either machine is connected to a network. Both my machines are running boot camp with windows 7.
On both machines, if I hold the "ALT" key to select a disk when powering on and the machine is connected to my network (which uses static IP addresses), there is a delay of a minute or so before the boot disks are displayed. If they are not connected then the disks are displayed almost immediately.
My question then: What's going on? The IP addresses are static so what could they possibly be waiting for?
Cheers
Mark

Hi,
How about Safe Mode? Have you tried it? In addition, please try to upgrade your BIOS and motherboard driver to be latest for test.
Be warned: Flashing BIOS is a risky process. If power is interrupted during the update your machine will be rendered unusable.
Roger Lu
TechNet Community Support

Booting from a USB drive when the System Volume has FileVault2 turned on

Hi, I need to perform some maintenance on my primary volume. (10.9.1 on a mac Mini 2011).
During installation, I enabled FileVault2 to protect my files.
Now when I attempt to run DriveGenius or similar, the tools will demand to boot from a different volume to access the drive.
However, when I boot the system, no other boot choice shows up, neither my Mavericks install USB stick nor my backup clone (created with SmartBackup 3.5.3, used to work on older versions before 10.9)
When selecting "Start Volume" under systems preferences, no other volume will show as a choice, even when the volumes mentioned are attached.
Please advise
TIA

Okay just clarifying my INTERNAL hard drive is most likely dead, I am looking to install and boot from my external hard drive. According to this AHT article
Before you begin
Important: If your Mac was released after June 2013, you will use Apple Diagnostics rather than Apple Hardware Test (AHT). See Using Apple Diagnostics for instructions.
Consider doing some preliminary troubleshooting to determine if your issue is related to hardware. You can try to determine if the cause of your issue is related to hardware or software by following Isolating issues in Mac OS X. AHT can help determine which hardware component may be causing the issue.
Before starting AHT, be sure to disconnect all external devices except the keyboard, mouse, display, and Ethernet adapter. Also disconnect any external optical drives.
My goal is to find a way to boot from my external drive.
"Won't matter, as long as you have the Disc.
To make it botable, you will need to set the Partition Map Scheme (GUID Partition Table) and Format it (Mac OS Extended Journaled) before installing OS X."
The disc or the drive? I assume you mean the drive but according to the document that should be removed.

Booting from a USB drive

I have an urgent problem.
As I had a fatal problem with my orignal MBP It's currently getting repaired. However I have my backup with the latest LION on the timemachine drive!
I can now use my brothers MBP but he's running Snow Leopard and not Lion!
Someone gave me the advise to boot from an external USB drive and like this I could use all my saved stuff on my brothers Laptop without bothering his Harddrive at all!
SO I copied all my stuff to this external USB drive and tried to boot pressing "alt" at the start but my external HD wouldn't show up.
How can I get this external drive to act as a bootable drive?
I have the Timemachine Drive and the USB drive connected to the MBP but I can't boot from either the time machine drive nor the USB dirve!
Please help!!

You need to partiton and format the drive properly for OS X. You then need to install OS X on the drive using a version that can boot the computer.
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select the USB 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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Afte formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.
Once you've installed a working OS X that boots the computer you can then go about the task of restoring your software from your TM backup using the Setup Assistant or using Migration Assistant.

Slow boot when an USB-Drive is connected

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