The Startup Disk utility is missing from Preference Panel.

I recently realized that I no longer have the Startup Disk preference pane in the Preferene Panel. I sometimes boot from other drives and now I'm forced to hold down the option key at restart or startup instead of being able to select the startup drive through the Startup Disk pane. If anybody can help shed some light on this issue, I thank you abundantly.
MacMini 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo
2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Mac OS X 10.6.8

I was hoping to avoid a reinstall but it's probably going to be the best way to solve the problem.
Thanks again, baltwo.

Similar Messages

  • Startup Disks missing from Preference Pane - Help!

    I have my Macbook partitioned with boot camp and I can start up in both Windows or OSX by holding down the option key and I get to choose my system.
    However, in my preference pane for Startup disk, they only option that appears is Network Startup. Neither OSX or Windows appears there. This has only occurred since the last update. I haven't changed anything in my system in months.
    So I now have to wait for an extra 2 min or so, while the macbook searches the network for a bootable drive before it finally decides to start in OSX.
    Anyone have any ideas how to get my drives back in the Startup Disk preference pane?
    Any help you can provide would be welcome.
    Thanks.

    Oh, I wish that had worked, but unfortunately they do not appear with any other user either.
    I really don't want to do a complete reinstall of both systems. I hope I can figure out another way to fix this.
    Message was edited by: Chris Echlin

  • Migration Assistant doesn't see the startup disk from the old G4

    Hi,
    I just got my new iMac and was about to transfer stuff from my old G4 which have two internal disks. But I stumbled into serius problems right away. Migration Assistant is not able to see the startup disk from the G4. It sees only the other disk.
    I have tried to disconnect the extra disk and checked that the startup disk is forced with the jumper to be the master disk. With this configuration it won't start the G4 at all. Having he jumper in the cable select slot results to shut-up with the T-button (firewire) startup and normal startup without the T-way.
    What should I do? I can't figure out what the problem is.
    I enclose some System Profiler data of the problematic disk if this helps to find the solution.
    Model: MAXTOR 6L060J3
    BSD Name: disk0
    Protocol: ATA
    Unit Number: 1
    OS9 Drivers: Yes
    S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
    File System: Journaled HFS+
    BSD NAme: disk0s10

    Ok. This is really simple to do.
    The idea of the dual drive iMac is that the System and Apps reside on the fast SSD and that the user directories reside on the HD.
    You first need to create the same accounts on your SSD as on your old iMac.
    The next step is to change the path of the user accounts from the SSD to the internal HD. Duplicate or copy the Users directories on the SSD to the HD.
    Change the path in System Preferences > User & Groups > Unlock to make changes > Select User account in sidebar > Right-click > Choose Advanced Options > Home Directory > Choose the Volumes/your_hd/Users/user_name.
    Restart your iMac and restore from Migration Assistant.
    Remember to keep the empty directories on the SSD, in case you ever have a HD failure or replacement, you will have to change the path back to the SSD.

  • Why is the Mac HD icon missing in the Startup Disk window?

    The Mac HD icon is missing in the Startup Disk window in the Lion Partition on my iMac. It is also missing from the Snow Leopard partition.  I did not install Lion on my MacBook and the Mac HD icon is in the Startup Disk.
           Startup Disk (in Snow Leopard and Lion)
    MacOSX, 10.6.8,             Mac OSX, 10.7,        Network Startup     (no MacOSX icon)
    on Snow Leopard 1            on LIon 2
    Any ideas about this?

    I am currently in the same situation, and have Paragon installed on my Mac. Furthermore the Option key does not work when I try to hold it down during startup.

  • How can I remove files from the startup disk

    I am getting a screen when I am trying to quit saying   the "MAC OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory"  by closing the windows and removing files from the startup disk will help.
    How do I do this?

    That error message is misleading. Your problem is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory.
    That can happen for two reasons:
    You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
    You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
    Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
    In the Activity Monitor application, select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the  Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
    View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
    from the menu bar.
    If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
    The process named "Safari Web Content" renders web pages for Safari and other applications. It uses a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider it a prime suspect.
    If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
    The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command: 
    sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
    where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

  • I have Mac OS X, using boot camp i installed windows 7.  installation was successful but when i try to select to boot back to mac os x via boot camp from Windows 7 control panel, its saying "You may not have privileges to change the startup disk..."

    from the boot camp control panel, highlighted "Macintosh HD Mac OS X", click on Restart button or click OK or click Apply buttons gave me "An error occurred while trying to change the startup disk.  You may not have privileges to change the startup disk.  Make sure you have administrative privileges and try again."
    Im logged in to Windows 7 as admin thou but still giving me the above message.
    i rebooted & the option key does not give me option to boot to Mac instead gives me a screen with lock then below is a blank field then a right arrow on the right side, i normally hit the power button from this screen
    please help
    thx

    sorry for digging up an old thread, but what was the problem?

  • TS1702 how do i delete from the startup disk? I am trying to get Mountain Lion from the App store and it says that the purchase was not complete because i need 4.06 GB space to download OS x 10.8. and to remove items from my startup disk to increase space

    how do i delete from the startup disk? I am trying to get Mountain Lion from the App store and it says that the purchase was not complete because i need 4.06 GB space to download OS x 10.8. and to remove items from my startup disk to increase space. How?
    Thanks

    You can use iCloud with 10.7.5. You do not need to upgrade to Yosemite. You should provide a minimum of 15 GBs of free space or 10% of the hard drive's capacity, whichever is greater.
    Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
      1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
      2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
      3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
      4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
      5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
      6. See The Storage Display.
    You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
    You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
    Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

  • I have a windows 7 dvd in the drive and the mac is set to launch from the dvd drive. How do I change the startup disk?

    I have a windows 7 dvd in the drive and the mac is set to launch from the dvd drive. How do I change the startup disk?

    Hold the option key at startup and when you get to the boot panel select your Mac OS drive.

  • My startup disk is full?!?!  This has been happening for a while and I have dumped 4500 jepegs from iPhoto onto an external drive to try and free up space.  I am still recieving the "Startup disk full" message.  What more can I do?!?!

    My startup disk is full?!?!  This has been happening for a while and I have dumped 4500 jepegs from iPhoto onto an external drive to try and free up space.  I am still recieving the "Startup disk full" message.  What more can I do?!?!

    Did you empty the Trash?
    What size hard drive & how much free space. You should always have a minimum of 10-15% or more free space?
     Cheers, Tom

  • Why doesn't my backup drive appear in the Startup Disk selection window?

    I've been using SuperDuper! to backup my Mac HD to my internal Seagate drive. The Seagate is divided into Seagate1 and Seagate2. I backup to Seagate1. When I open the Startup Disk window from Preferences, only the Mac HD icon appears, highlighted, and a Network Startup icon. Seagate1 does not appear, although I've made it bootable while using SuperDuper!
    I'm not on a network, as I'm the sole user of my computer at home. I am connected to the Internet via cable, but that shouldn't be a factor, I think. I don't know why the Network icon is there but Seagate1 but Seagate1 isn't.
    Is there a way to make it so the Seagate1 icon appears in the Startup Disk window? As it stands if my Mac HD goes down, I won't have access to Seagate1 to boot the computer.
    Would much appreciate any advice or referral to another source that could help me.

    Something I learned re: partitioning w/ Disk Utility: Dave Nanian at SD! referred me to SD!'s FAQs, the 1st one dealing with my problem:
    http://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5738
    I told (email) him that the original partitions already showed APM, but I went ahead, anyway, following instr's in the FAQ. Notable in those instr's is to click on Options, which I may have overlooked originally. This time, when I clicked on Options, APM showed as the default in the window. I went ahead & proceeded, thinking, "Well, if APM is the default, why did I need to click on Options"?
    So I raised the issue with Dave. Here's what he said: "Alas, no - it uses the existing scheme, which was likely MBR."
    Lesson: When partitioning w/ DU, ALWAYS click on Options, even if APM is the default. I know DU directs this, but all I can think of why the original partitioning failed is that I did not do this. Any comments would be welcome.

  • Trying to get rid of error "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition". Recovery HD visible.

    Hello,
    I've been stuck for some hours now trying different things to install Windows 7 on my Macbook Air, and I think now is the time to call for some custom help.
    I'm using OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.
    So some months ago I just wanted to run Linux on my laptop so I installed rEFInd, shrunk the Macintosh HD partition by 25GB and booted on a linux live USB flash I burned using dd.
    Then I used gparted to create my linux partitions.
    It worked just fine, even though disk utility from OS X seemed quite unhappy about this (it seemed to have incorrect informations about the filesystem on these partitions, seeing them as journaled Mac OS while they were clearly not). At this point already, the Recovery HD from mac showed up in disk utility, which I found weird but didn't bother me.
    But recently I needed windows on my Mac. So after a few tries for the triple boot, I managed to create a bootable USB stick with boot camp, which already showed me the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" and hence refused to partition/install himself.
    So I thought "OK, that's no big issue, I can just partition with disk utility and then boot on the USB stick and everything will work fine". But when EFI booting on the USB flash drive I got stuck at the beginning of Windows installer with no keyboard or mouse support.
    After some hours spent googling, I was unable to find a working fix for that, and as there was no support for my case (where I used bootcamp to create the bootable flash but NOT to partition/reboot) I decided to give bootcamp a try.
    So I erased my linux partitions, and cleaned up everything I could on the HD with disk utility. That means I now have two partitions showing in disk utility : Macintosh HD and Recovery HD.
    When using disk utility from terminal, the list is :
    /dev/disk0
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
       1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
       2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            80.0 GB    disk0s2
       3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk0s3
    But boot camp still isn't happy, and the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" keeps popping after the intro and I can't partition/boot from bootcamp.
    So, as I don't understand what is wrong here anymore, any help would be greatly appreciated!
    I will be watching the thread a lot because I really would like this resolved (or windows installed one way or another) this weekend; so any questions on my past manipulations or config just ask!
    Thank you.

    keyboard issues are also something of a common issue.
    I wish the best threads were voted to the top of forums, something! Me, I literally burned out here, but after installing 10 Preview, wanted to "see what was going on" after hiatus of a couple years and see if anything had changed (no, not really!)
    Also, these new Communities are not putting "more like this" and failing to help too.
    I think rewriting Boot Camp Assistant's built in help and pdf would help a lot, and needs to be clearer and go into details. And Yosemite was not it seems tested against Boot Camp, and drivers for new Macs + new OS also lag behind. Again, common and no sign of improvement or change.
    One of the tricks to the "can't partition" is rather simple - of course backup is step #1 and is spelled out - SHRINK the main HFS+ partition! then stretch it back to full length. Sometimes a reboot is needed, and sometimes even do a Safe Boot - not sure what but Recovry Mode might be a good option too. That does seem to consolidate free space, move files that are locked and cannot be moved otherwise, and allow BCA to partition, jusst be sure to have enough space left and large enough for a proper Windows install (and fudge factor).

  • My MacBook Air keeps alerting that the startup disk is full and I've deleted applications, iTunes and MobileSync backups. What else??

    I don't consider myself an advanced Mac user but I'm really trying to use my Macbook Air much more than I do... but the biggest hurdle for me is that it's been alerting me that the startup disk has been full for several months now no matter what I do.  I'm on 10.9.1 OSX and can't even update to the newer version because I'm always out of space.  I have 4GIGs of memory and a 60GB SSD of which 52GB are in use.  Using OmniDisk Sweeper, I see I have 14.6 GB in Library of which 8.1 GB is Mail and 5GB is Application Support (and I have nearly 480 MB in Caches and 191 in Containers, 131MB in Messages).  As for the rest, I've deleted my iTunes content multiple times but my iTunes library STILL says 1.7GBs in Music.  I also have 672MB in Movies which I moved to an external drive and trashed so I'm not sure what still exists here.  I only have 2 movie files and I deleted them both!  I also have 16.9 MB in hob, whatever that is.
    I have 32.8 MB in Logs, 19.8 in Safari, 7.9 MB in Calendars, 5.6MB in Google, 4.3MB in Preferences (!!), and 1.6MB in GameKit (not sure what this is), 1.1MB in KeyChains.
    I'm just not sure what's going on.  I have everything backed up via SuperDuper on a huge external drive and when I delete on my Mac, it doesn't seem to "take."  Is is syncing that's the problem?  Are my iTunes music files from my iPhone reinstalling back on the Mac as are all my photos and movies?  I don't have that checked in iTunes so that shouldn't be happening either.
    Again, I'm not an advanced user so maybe I'm not completing a final step to make sure it doesn't sync with my other devices (I also have an iPad mini).  I like to get messages on my Macbook Air when I'm not near my phone but if it means I have 131MB in Messages that I can't pare down, I'd rather not.  I see no way to reduce the Messages file so that it's not so large.  I definitely want to get a handle on this before I even consider upgrading to a Macbook with more RAM and a bigger hard drive. 
    Final thoughts: Should I delete my mail accounts and just check mail on the web?  Can I delete most of the files in Application Support or leave them alone?  What's the difference between the MobileSync files and the MSYNC files?
    Thanks in advance for help!

    Go step by step and test.
    1. Start up in Safe Mode.
        http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
    2. Empty Trash.
       http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806
    3. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
      Local backups
       http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
    4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
        iTunes > Preferences > Devices
        Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
        http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
    5. Re-index Macintosh HD.
        This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.
        System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
        http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

  • The startup disk can't be used as a restore source

    Dear,
    can anybody tell, whenver i tried to clone (thru disk utility using firwire cable ) my macbookpro with imac (latest one), it shows me the folloing information/error
    i.e.
    The startup disk can’t be used as a restore source.
    To use this disk as a source, restart your computer using the recovery system, and open Disk Utility again.
    Followed the below steps_________________________
    Disk Utility>  Selected HDD > Restore (tab) > drag hdd  to SOURCE (it is my MBP) > dragged hdd to DESTINATION (it is iMac) > Restore
    Looking your reply.
    Regards
    K.Pradhan

    Are you trying to copy the OSX drive from a MacBookPro to an iMac?  If so, be glad it won't let you.  Most likely, it won't run at all; if it does, all sorts of things will go wrong.
    What are you trying to do?   If you're trying to set one Mac up like another one, see How do I set up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC?

  • Boot Camp error: The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Jounraled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

    Hi!
    I am getting the error:
    "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.  The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Jounraled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows."
    I read up some on google, but all of them says that they have crated a partition and that is the problem, I only have the standard "Macintosh HD".
    I tried to create a partition manually in disk utility but then the error message: "Partition failed with error message: Could not unmount disk."
    Can anyone help me? It's driving me crazy.
    Thanks.

    This message, and threads like yours got asked daily for over two years, now it is only a couple times a week!!
    Is it so hard to follow through? you were to have backup already, clones are best, then erase/format and restore.
    Then partition.
    Some have been able to use Disk Utility booted from OS X DVD or another drive, and repair the drive.
    You have to use Boot Camp Assistant (99.9% anyway) to create and achieve a proper Windows Master Boot Record partition.

  • I'm getting this error with bootcamp "The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned"

    Here's the story...
    I had a dual boot configuration on my mac with Mac OS X Lion and Windows XP (made with bootcamp).
    I decided to reinstall windows.
    I deleted the windows partition using BootCamp.
    Tried to recreate the Windows partition with Boot Camp and got: "The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned  You must have at least 10 GB of free space available"
    After reading several posts on this forum I decided to defrag the hard drive and try again. 
    The defrag did not work and I'm still getting the error, I have 22 gb of free space on my drive.
    Any suggestions?
    Also, I tried repair disk and repair permissions
    Hmm, my external harddrive says on the box "OS X 10.5.8 or higher (32-bit kernel only)"  Could the 32-bit requirement be an issue? Is lion 64-bit?

    Boot Camp must be able to allocate a contiguous block of space on the drive. If it cannot find 10 GBs of contiguous space, then you cannot create the Windows partition.
    You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
    Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
    Boot from the external hard drive.
    Erase the internal hard drive.
    Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
    Clone the internal drive to the external drive
    Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
    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.
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears.  Select the icon for the external drive and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
    After startup do the following:
    Erase internal hard drive
    Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area.  If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing.  SMART info will not be reported  on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    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.  Do not quit Disk Utility.
    Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
    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 internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
    Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.

Maybe you are looking for