Software Updater ran, restarted, booted from external FW HD for no reason??

I did a Software Update yesterday and got the latest iWeb and Quicktime. I was then prompted to restart the computer, it restarted and for some reason used by backup external FW HD as the startup disc. The internal drive is, and has always been, the startup disc. While running from the backup drive, I went Startup Disk in System Prefs, selected the internal drive and restarted. It restarted from the internal drive perfectly. I recently ran Drive Genius on the internal and external drives and the permissions are repaired nightly when SuperDuper makes an overnight Smart Backup of my system... the internal drive on my iMac was just replaced by Apple less than a month ago. Can't figure why the internal drive wouldn't get used. Why might the system have randomly elected to use the external FW HD as the boot drive?
iMac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

I don't have an answer for you, because I've never seen that behavior, but suggest that you unmount and power-off any external HDs while doing updates. That will preclude that from ever happening again.

Similar Messages

  • Tiger won't boot from external firewire

    Installed 10.4.3 DVD on clean external firewire (Extended/Journaled). Before I installed Tiger, I ran updates, and repaired permissions. Everything looked good to me.
    I'm keeping Panther on main system drive for now - so from System Preferences>Startup Disk>the external tiger drive appears and I select it. Then I select restart and the promt confirms that the computer will restart with 10.4.3. Looks good so far.
    After restart, I'm looking at the desktop, guess what? It's 10.3.9, not 10.4.3. How could that be?
    Also, when I restart and hold down the Option key for Startup Manager options - the firewire drive does not appear as an option.
    So Tiger appears in System Preferences>Startup Disc as an option, but the option doesn't actually work, and that drive does not appear at all in (Option key) startup manager.
    I'm Indexing the firewire drive now (OMG is that slow or what!), but I'm not expecting this to make any difference. I'm stumped. What am I overlooking? Please advise.
    Muchas Gracias

    R MacCool,
    "What if I manually drag and drop the 4 folders (from the Tiger DVD) onto a second internal SATA drive without partitioning the drive first? Will I be able to boot off an internal SATA drive like that? When I installed Tiger on the external firewire I see that 4 folders are there - I could drag them from that drive onto the second internal drive. Does that work?"
    No, this does not work. MacOS X consists of more then 20,000 invisible files, most of them somehow connected and referencing each other.
    MacOS X DOES boot from external firewire drives, both hard disks and DVD drives.
    Why don't you just upgrade your current 10.3.9 to Tiger using this procedure: 10.4 Tiger Upgrade: Decision tree+Checklist?
    "Why does Tiger seem to install correctly, then System Pref>Startup Disc recognizes it, but then after selecting 10.4.3 it restarts into 10.3.9?"
    I am not a technician, but it could be that the firmware is the primary source for connectivity. After MacOS X has booted the internal firewire drivers might take over and "overrule" the firmware (this is why you can see it in the startup disk preference pane) but at boot-time it exclusively depends on the firmware. This theory might be completely wrong though.

  • 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.

  • Boot from external Firewire Drive-cannot repair or optimize internal drive.

    Hi all
    Connected my new 300 GB Seagate External Firewire Hard Drive today.
    Installed Tiger from DVD. Updated to 10.4.3.
    Installed Tech Tool Pro 4. Updated to 4.1.1.
    Booted from External Firewire Drive.
    Disk Utility cannot Verify or Repair internal drive. Does not say or do anything.
    Tech Tool Pro cannot repair volume or optimize. Says, "Cannot Unmount Volume."
    Is there a fix for this?
    Thank you for the help!
    Jeff
    eMac 800 nVidia.   Mac OS X (10.4.3)   160 GB Internal HD. Pioneer Superdrive. 1 GB RAM.

    Hi
    I did name the new external completely different from the internal.
    After booting from the external Firewire Hard Drive, I tried running Disk Utility and Tech Tool Pro from both drives. No matter which drive I run the Utilities from the same things happen every time...
    Nothing happens when trying to use Disk Utility to Verify Volume on internal eMac Drive.
    Tech Tool Pro says, "Cannot unmount volume" when trying to check Volume or Optimize internal drive.

  • Core i7 mbp will not boot from external disk

    One upon a time, I tried to boot my new:
    Model Name:    MacBook Pro
      Model Identifier:    MacBookPro8,1
      Processor Name:    Intel Core i7
      Processor Speed:    2.7 GHz
      Number of Processors:    1
      Total Number of Cores:    2
      L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB
      L3 Cache:    4 MB
      Memory:    4 GB
      Boot ROM Version:    MBP81.0047.B0E
    from a bootable Carbon Copy Cloner backup on my external FW800 drive.  (This, after I used Migration assistant to move the user over from My MacBookPro 5,1 core 2 duo machine.)
    It didn't like it, booting from the CCC clone, that is.  There were problems with the boot of the new machine from that external disk and then problems with the boot from the internal disk.  I repaired disk permisssions and all seemed to be well booting from the internal disk for several months until I tried to boot from my SL 10.6 2Z691-6431-A CPU Drop-in DVD upgrade included with the initial purchase.  That didn't work.  I got the grey "restart your computer by holding down the power button" screen with a bunch of words and numbers in the background.  This also happened with the grey intsall disks that shipped with the machine with 10.5.7 on them. 
    Following this, the turning gear times are erratic, varying from 11 to 40 turns on boot up with an odd flicker happening for a fraction of a second during the turning gear screen.  From time to time I'll get some beach balling while the login is taking place and all of the icons are loading in.  After that, the machine functions fairly normally. 
    I know there's a problem though and I'm looking to resolve it with any advice the community can offer. 
    I have used DiskWarrior in the past but not for this machine which has not been used with this machine since it's incompatible.  I also have a full timecapsule backup. I also have a partition on an external drive with OS 10.6 on it.  Haven't tried to boot from it because I'm scared it'll mess things up worse.

    I'm trying to boot my core i7 from any external disk without success getting only the grey restart screen.  The machine will neither boot from the 10.6 upgrade disk, nor the external firewire disk.
    I'm not sure, but it seems that you're suggesting that I rebuild the OS as though it were a brand new machine without any of my s/w or data, and I cannot conceive of such a monumental task. If you mean that I should reinstall the OS, that would be fine, but I can't boot from a DVD, which is what prompted this query to begin with. 
    I would like to resolve the external disk boot failure.

  • Booting from external hard drive on intel-based MacBook Pro

    Good day everyone. I know similar questions were raised in this community, but I still have some questions.
    I have MacBook Pro(late 2011) with OS X 10.7.5 and external hard drive with Ubuntu 13.04, from wich i can boot succefully on my PC. But MacBook Pro will not boot from my external drive, no matter which key/combination i use during restart.
    After googling I found some answers to my initial question, how to boot from external hard drive
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1852633?start=0&tstart=0
    http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/faq/macbook-pro-boot-from-exte rnal-firewire-or-usb-drive.html
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1948
    As I understand I need to format my external hard drive into GUID partition type and this will be enough to be able to boot from it on my mac?
    With this new partition type, will I be able to install ubuntu again on my external drive?
    Does GUID partition type supports NTFS, ext4 and FAT32, linux swap?(I use ntfs for big files, ext4 as partition for ubuntu and fat32, because i use windows, linux and osx)
    Will I be able to boot from my pc from my external drive with this new partition type?
    What are downsides, if any, to GPT?
    here is info on my e-drive

    LowLuster wrote:
    The only OS that will boot from an external drive is Mac OS X or maybe Linux. For OS X to be installed on any drive it need to be formatted Mac OS Extended and have GUID partition table.
    As for Linux I'm not that familiar with it but again for a Mac to boot it need an EFI partition on the drive and I don't think that is possible with NTFS or FAT32 let alone the native Linux format.
    Went to wiki to learn more on efi but found artice on uefi.
    Operating system loaders are a class of the UEFI applications. As such, they are stored as files on a file system that can be accessed by the firmware, called EFI System partition (ESP). Supported file systems include FAT32, FAT16 and FAT12, and supported partition table scheme is GPT only. UEFI does not rely on a boot sector, although ESP provides space for it as part of the backwards compatibility.[26]
    Here is FAQ on official uefi website.
    Can UEFI Secure Boot be adopted and implemented by a variety of operating systems?
    UEFI specifications are platform-independent, supporting multiple platforms and architectures. In addition, UEFI specifications are designed to promote cross-functionality, as well as to support broad adoption across multiple operating systems, including Windows as well as Linux-based operating systems. The specifications are robust and can potentially complement—or even advance—other distributions, such as Linux-based distributions.
    And here is wiki article on GPT expaining OS support.
    It is obvious both uefi and GPT are ok with Linux and file systems such as FAT32, ext4 and NTFS.
    I guess there is no much difference(or is that the same thing?) between uefi and efi used in Macs.
    In your answer to Stark Industries you said that mac can boot linux from external hard drive, well this is not the info i got of official website and it is still my question, because your answer is very inconclusive and your info is partially incorrect

  • Cannot boot from external SSD ...

    Hello,
    I have just made a fresh install of Mavericks on a brand new Samsung 840 EVO SSD (I initially erased the drive and formatted it to Mac OS Extended Journaled, then created a USB installation drive and performed the installation on the SSD …). It all went well, the computer restarted during this 30 min or so process … However, the problem is when I try to boot in the Samsung SSD at startup having the ALT key pressed, I can only see the 10.8.5 and its recovery partition … Any ideas as to why it doesn't show up the SSD which is connected via USB 3.0 to my laptop ?
    Also, even if I go in Mountaion Lion at the Start-up disk option and select the Samsung SSD with 10.9 it still boots into ML … Has anyone encountered this before ?
    Thank you.
    *non-Retina Macbook Pro 15 inch, mid-2012

    Hi Ralph,
    thanks a lot for the helpful information! But the problem still persists, and I don't know what's wrong about the installation. I again checked the case and device are fully compatible with Windows 8 on USB 3 and the current boot camp drivers are installed - so everything should work perfectly fine as Windows 8 does natively support booting from external USB-3-devices.
    I personally still assume it's rather a driver related problem as the external SSD doesn't even show up whilst booting into the boot menu with "Alt" pressed - I can only choose to boot from the external SSD within the "start volume" menu in OSX (which then doesn't work out when rebooting, unfortunately). I mean, if there was a chance to boot from the external SSD with the configuration I got right now, but OSX/the iMac just "doesn't know" it shall boot from the external partition and therefore rather chooses the internal boot camp partition, the SSD would at least show up in the boot menu when pressing "Alt" on start-up, or do I go completely wrong? I even tried to rename the internal bootcamp partition (which did not work out) or disable it in order to prevent OSX/the iMac to boot from the internal bootcamp partition, but it didn't help: After rebooting it again chose the internal boot camp partition to start from.
    Might the deletion of the internal partition be worth a try? Meaning is there a realistic chance that the issue might be caused by that? I would give it a try although I really don't wanna loose the internal boot camp partition for no good reason (btw: would it be possible to clone an image back from the external SSD to the internal HDD then?). Or do you maybe have any other idea what driver could miss resp. could be wrong about the installation so the boot process from the external SSD fails...?
    Again MANY MANY THANKS in advance for your further assistance, everybody!!

  • 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.

  • Combo Drive reading Dual Layer / booting from external DVD USB

    I am helping a friend with an iMac G5. He has the combo drive which is not able to read the dual layer Leopard DVD. I have looked to see if there is a firmware update for the drive however no luck. I am able to put an external usb DVD and it reads the disk however I was not able to boot from the disk using keyboard commands I tried AppleOption+ShiftDelete, C, and also tried Option but no luck.
    I have been reading that booting from usb external drive is a no no on older G5 iMac's unless you are using fire wire. If any one can give me some help with getting the USB drive to boot, or figuring out why the combo drive spits out the DVD every time I would appreciate it. I am also willing to make a bootable usb leopard thumb drive, but I don't want to waste my time if it's not going to boot from USB.
    Thanks,
    jtadmin

    Do you happen to have a more recent Mac that can read the Leopard installation DVD?
    If so, you may be able to start up your Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode,
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
    and let the iMac G5 use your Mac's optical drive to boot from the Leopard DVD.
    Also, it is true that PowerPC Macs can generally only boot from external drives that are FireWire.

  • HT4623 I have a Gen 4 Ipod Touch, it is still running with IOS 4. When i go to my settings and select General there is no Software Update button to choose from. How do i update my Ipod to the new IOS system?

    I have a Gen 4 Ipod Touch, it is still running with IOS 4. When i go to my settings and select <General> there is no <Software Update> button to choose from. How do i update my Ipod to the new IOS system?

    You have to hook it up to a computer and update it to ios 5 and then there will be a "software update" button.

  • Macbook pro cant boot from external dvd device please help !!!!

    hello everyone please help me i have macbook pro 2011 core i5 version
    i just installed 2.5 ssd as second hdd
    i cant boot from external dvd device to install any os  the external dvd keeps on spining and mac is just thinking it doesnt show press any key to install
    it shows the device when a boot into mac parition  
    i am trying to install windows on origianl 500 gb hdd and linux on ssd
    but not luck
    the external dvd drive works i pluged into my pc and it works
    please help thansk in advance
    200 gb mac
    300 gb windows
    120 ssd linux

    I do not know about Disk Warrior but if you have a compatible OSX on an external HDD you certainly can boot the MBP.  Use startup manager:
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht1310
    Ciao.

  • I have macbook pro 13 late 2011.  efi 2.7 not see on software update and if download from site say in not compatible. why? in not compatible. why?

    i have macbook pro 13 late 2011.  efi 2.7 not see on software update and if download from site say in not compatible. why?

    Because your MBP does not require it.

  • How to boot from external Hardisk where sap is installed

    Hi friends,
    I have an External Hardisk where SAP is installed in it i.e., Win 2003 on C drive & SAP on D drive.
    In my laptop Win XP is there, but I am trying to boot with External Hardisk where Win 2003 is installed.
    I am selecting to boot from External Hardisk where Win 2003 is installed but it shows the Win 2003 booting screen and the next moment screen becomes black.
    So can anyone help me How to boot from Hardisk.
    Thanks
    santhosh

    Hi,
      You can not boot OS from USB devices in Windows.
    Create the separate drive on your existing disc and install windows on that drive and use ur USB disc for installing SAP.
    Hope it'll help u....

  • HT4623 The 'software update' tab is missing from the General menu. How do I get it reinstalled?

    Software Update tab is missing from General settings. How do I fix this.  I NEED TO LOAD NEW new a new iOS

    If you have an iPad 1, the max iOS is 5.1.1. For newer iPads, the current iOS is 6.1.3. The Settings>General>Software Update only appears if you have iOS 5.0 or higher currently installed.
    iOS 5: Updating your device to iOS 5 or Later
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4972
    How to install iOS 6
    http://www.macworld.com/article/2010061/hands-on-with-ios-6-installation.html
    iOS: How to update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4623
    If you are currently running an iOS lower than 5.0, connect the iPad to the computer, open iTunes. Then select the iPad under the Devices heading on the left, click on the Summary tab and then click on Check for Update.
    Tip - If connected to your computer, you may need to disable your firewall and anitvirus software temporarily.  Then download and install the iOS update. Be sure and backup your iPad before the iOS update. After you update an iPad (except iPad 1) to iOS 6.x, the next update can be installed via wifi (i.e., not connected to your computer).
    Tip 2 - If you're updating via wifi, place your iPad close to your router to preclude getting a corrupted download.
     Cheers, Tom

  • How to prevent boot from external devices?

    Hello,
    Does anyone know how I could disable my imac's boot from external devices (firewire/USB disks etc.) like it can be done on PC hardware by changing BIOS options? Also, how can you password protect your machine pre-boot? I believe both issues are important to protect from unauthorized access (know the "evil maid attack"?)
    Many thanks,
    Georgios

    There is a firmware password feature
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1352
    but there is an ominous Warning below the Summary. It basically sets the hardware so that a password (not the same as you user account password) is needed when you start up the Mac and nothing much can be done without it.
    At the most basic level, if you turn off +Automatic Login+ in System Preferences Accounts pane, a login window will appear when you start up. If a different account (or a different drive) is used to start up your iMac, your user account home folder will not be accessible directly. However, the data is not encrypted in any way, so a determined hacker would be able to access your data.
    If you want to encrypt your user account home folder, you can use the File Vault feature which is set up in System Preferences Security pane FileVault tab.
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8727.html

Maybe you are looking for