Tiger doesn't install on external firewire disk (partition)

hi, i've got a Lacie Porche 250GB firewire drive, partitioned in two parts, and i want to install tiger on the first 50GB partition, but the installer give me an error about the destination: "You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume."
i'm trying to do this with an ibook G4 and the standard Tiger DVD Install.
the external firewire disk is formatted in HFS+
please help me
iMac Intel\iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

A boot disk for the Intel Macs needs to have a GUID Partition Table, the G4 needs the "Apple Partition Map". If you formatted the drive on your Intel Mac, you may need to repartition for the G4. In the "Partition" tab in Disk Utility, use the "Options..." button to choose the partitioning. Backup any data on the drive that you need, first.

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External firewire disk partition will not mount

I have two external hard drives connected by a firewire to my 2002 G4 iMac running OSX 10.3.9. One is a 160GB and the second a 360GB drive.
I was out of the room when the area experienced a minor power drop in voltage and when I came back the iMac had the message to shut down and restart. When I restarted everything appeared normal until I realised that one partition did not mount on the 360GB drive. I ran Disk Utility to check the disk and it found some issues (I failed to write them down..) but Disk Utility appeared to fix them.
The disk has 2 partitions and only one of the two partitions will not mount (the second partition works fine!). Disk Utility says that both partitions check OK.
I have rebooted several times. I have removed all other external attachments and rebooted but still the partition will not mount.
I cannot see the partition in Finder. The second partition on the disk is available to see and use in Finder.
I have selected the partition in Disk Utility (grayed out) and tried the "mount" button but nothing happens. For some 18 months up until now the drive has worked fine although I did notice a couple of times it took a while for the drive to open up in Finder and other applications. I use that particular partition daily, it has approx 100GB used of the 150GB total space.
When I ran Disk Utility it comes up with a variation in the results compared with the partition that has mounted OK. The result of running "Verify Disk" is listed below. The only diffeerence between the two partitions is the first line of each volume. Does the ",0" following "Checking HFS Plus volume." for the first partition called "Genesys1" indicate anything?
DISK UTILITY REPORT
Verifying volume “Genesys1”
Mounting Disk(S,"Checking HFS Plus volume.",0)
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Genesys1 appears to be OK.
Verifying volume “Genesys2”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Genesys2 appears to be OK.
2 volumes checked
2 HFS volumes verified
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards

Hello! Power failures are murder on disk drive directories as you have found out. Your best shot is to get DISKWARRIOR. It is the "gold standard" for these types of problems and can usually resolve the issue when Disk Utility cannot. As with any utility there are times when even it cannot fix things but it's the best there is at resolving such issues. Tom

Install Solaris on External Firewire Disk

Hello All,
I have a laptop running windows 2000 and I have a External Firewire Hard Disk of 60 GB. Now my question is, " Is it possible to install Solaris 8 on this external Firewire Hard Disk". When I tried installing, It did not find the external Firewire Disk, the only partition information, which solaris was displaying was from my internal Hard Disk.
Please give me clues/information, how should , I do it.
Thanks
Sanjay

First off, is any of your Macs an Intel Mac, that will complicate matters since they use a different hard drive formatting and need a different installation of Mac OS X.
Secondly, you can't directly install Mac OS X from an Intel Mac to an external hard drive, you have to do a clone with a software like Shirt-Pocket's Superduper for that.
If it isn't an Intel Mac, perhaps your Firewire hard drive isn't Mac OS X bootable? Not all are.
Here's a hint on making the Intel/PowerPC partition table:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006061610374449
Also note, different Macs which came out after Tiger will only boot off the install disk which came with them, and not the retail disk. So you are best off cloning that Mac to its own partition.

Hi there! yesterday I installed Mavericks on my Macbook. Since then, it doesn't mount my external hard disk drive anymore, which he did a week ago (without the update). Is there anyone out there who knows a solution?

Hi there! Yesterday, I installed Mavericks on my Macbook. Since then, it doesn't recognize my external hard disk drive anymore (at least not on the desktop. In Germany they call it "it doens't mount it". I don't know if it's the same expression in english?)
I just used it a week ago, before I did the update and it worked perfectly fine.
Is there anyone out there who knows a solution for this problem? I've been googleing for hours now and can't find any answer.
Thank you!!!

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Hello, since I actualized my Mac with Maverick it doesn't recognize any external hard disk ,... only the one to make copy on the time machine. Can anybody help me? thank you!!!!

hello, since I actualized my Mac with Maverick it doesn't recognize any external hard disk ,... only the one to make copy on the time machine. Can anybody help me? thank you!!!!

Hello Laurabcn,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information, take a look at:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1151
Have a nice day,
Mario

The iMac doesn't recognize my external hard disk

My iMac doesn't recognize my external hard disk. The iMac also keeps a DVD inside. It doen't throw it out despite "eject".

Sounds like you might need to make that call. In the meantime here are a few of things you could try that may help:
To eject the disk try a restart holding down the mouse button - hopefully it'll eject.
If you are running either Mountain Lion (10.8) or Lion (10.7) try booting into the Recovery HD:
Restart holding down Command+r. At the screen with 4 choices choose Disk Utility and then select Macintosh HD and click on repair disk. If it fixes anything click on repair disk again until you get a clean pass. Restart as normal from the Apple menu.
If you are running an earlier OS you would normally carry out this process by putting the grey restore disk that came with your Mac in the Disk drive and restarting holding down the C key. Choose your language and at the next screen from the menu bar select Utilities>Disk Utility and then follow the above instructions (I realise you won't be able to do this if you have a disk stuck in the optical disk drive).
Try an SMC and PRAM reset: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3603
Try a Safe Boot: Restart holding down the shift key until you see a grey progress bar. Once it's booted restart as normal from the Apple menu.
If none of this helps, I guess you need to make that call. Good luck.

External FireWire Disk will not boot

Hi Forum,
after some installations (OS 10.4.9, latest security update and Qucktime 7.1.6 I canot boot from my external disk (Lacie) connected to FireWire 800 port. The Apple shows up but then nothing more happens. Does anyone have a hint?
Thanks
Oliver

Add me to the list also. I had an external firewire disk as a RAID mirror for my boot disk. After a system crash (and some problem with my internal disk) I couldn't boot from the firewire stripe. This used to work.
I've tried creating a single-disk "degraded RAID pair" on the external disk and cloning the internal disk to it (using Disk Utility "Restore"). The cloning works fine but I can't boot from the copy. This is how I originally set up the RAID pair (clone, boot from clone, add internal disk to RAID group). This used to work. I bought a new firewire disk and it has exactly the same problems.
My original firewire disk was an Acomdata E5. My new firewire disk is a Coolmax Gemini CD-311 enclosure with a Hitachi 250GB deskstar inside.
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

External FireWire disk doesn't mount on Leopard, does on Tiger?

Hi All,
I have an external FireWire Hard Drive that mounts as it should on all our Tiger Macs, but is invisible on our Leopard Mac. If we swap the FW cable for a USB2 cable, it shows up.
Is this perhaps another Leopard 'thing' maybe? Like the one where Leopard couldn't erase a hard drive to FAT 32 like a Tiger could?
Cheers and thanks in ant...
Chris

"Methinks you're perpetuating a myth"
I'm too long in the tooth to either listen to or perpetuate myths of any kind! Not a myth unfortunately, a weakness in Leopard that was pointed out to me some time ago (when Harry Potter was a boy) by a sage far wiser and way older than you or I - and he was right, and more importantly brought to an end some hours of frustration with Leopard.
So there!
Thank you for your suggestions, which have made me think. It can't be the cable because it works with all the Tiger Macs. It might be the slot but if it is, I have two faulty slots which would be rare on a pretty new machine.

Can't install OS 9 on external firewire disk

I am running Panther on an iMac G3 450. Some older software and games just don't run correctly in Classic mode, so I would like to install OS 9 on an external firewire drive. The original OS 9 disk from 2000 doesn't run with Panther. When booting from the OS 9 install disk, it can't read the firewire drive. How can I get the OS 9 boot disk to read the external drive for an install? Or - can I install OS 9 on my hard drive without affecting my OS X and all my software and files? Thanks.

Hi, sageimac -
The original OS 9 disk from 2000 doesn't run with Panther.
Correct. The installer on any stand-alone OS 9 Install CD, retail or original model-specific, will not run in OSX - it will run only when the Mac is booted to OS 9, such as to the OS on the CD.
When booting from the OS 9 install disk, it can't read the firewire drive.
The OS on OS 9 Install CDs contain the necessary software to 'see' a firewire drive connected to a native firewire port while booted to the CD, provided the drive does not need any additional software. If the firwire port was added via an upgrade card, OS 9 may not be able to see it without additional software.
When you added the firewire drive, did you reformat it using Disk Utility under OSX? If so, if the option to install OS 9 drivers was not selected, then that drive can not be mounted whenever the machine is booted to OS 9, such as to an OS 9 Install CD.
Article #106849 - Disk Is Available in Mac OS X But Not in Mac OS 9
Unfortunately, since in that case the drive probably did not have OS 9 drivers on it previously, there may be no solution but to re-initialize that drive - but it won't hurt to try re-installing OS 9 drivers while booted to the OS 9 Install CD, using Drive Setup's Update Driver function.
If it is necessary to re-initialize the drive, it can be done using Drive Setup while booted to the OS 9 Install CD, or by using Disk Utility while booted to OSX (be sure to select the option to install OS 9 drivers in this second case. This will erase it, so be sure to first back up your data. In either case select Mac OS Extended as the format.
Or - can I install OS 9 on my hard drive without affecting my OS X and all my software and files?
Yes - OS 9 and OSX are designed to co-exist on the same volume.
You should have no problem doing that, provided there is sufficient space on the hard drive. I do not consider my OS 9 to be overly fat; however, the System Folder still occupies about 0.4 to 0.5GB. OSX runs best when 5GB or so is left free on the drive. So, if you have 6GB or more free space on the internal drive, there should be no problem doing that.
Use the Clean Install method to install OS 9 from your original Software Install CD (not the Software Restore CD), or from a retail OS 9 Install CD of adequate version.
Note that a Clean Install of OS 9 removes nothing. It installs a brand new, 'clean' System Folder, renames any already existing one to Previous System Folder, installs a new set of standard OS 9 utilities if they're not already present, and little else.
Article #58176 - Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9: Performing a Clean Installation

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.

Blue Screen Result When Installing To External Firewire Drive

I can't afford to have problems with programs not running on Leopard on my 17" G4 1.67 GHz 2 GB RAM PowerBook so I am trying to install it on an external Firewire drive. I was hoping to test out Leopard with certain applications by running it from the external drive.
The Firewire drive has two partitions, one has my backup clone of the PowerBook and the other just has files and about 35 GB of free space. The installation would be a new installation so none of the files that deal with login or Application Enhancer that are being talked about in other threads are an issue.
My first attempt to install brought up a blue screen after the installation restart. I left it there for about 30 minutes then powered off the PowerBook by holding down the power button. I started it again and held down the option key, picked the install disk as startup, went through the disk utility repair disk (found no problems). After that I picked the new install on the external from the startup preferences and it simply restarted to a blue screen. I left that one for about 20 minutes then powered down.
I went back to the Powerbook Tiger OS system, deleted all the installed folders on the external and tried a completely new install. Once again it went to the blue screen after the Leopard install restart. This time I left it overnight and this morning the display was dark and upon waking it up with a tap of the space bar was greeted by the bluescreen again.
I talked to my Apple hardware rep who knows the equipment that I am working with and we talked about all the steps I went through and he has no explanation why it won't work on the external.
I would love to hear from anyone that may have insight for this particular external FW drive installation perspective.

Joe-
Is the drive partitioned to APM? (Sorry I took Anton's reply to be yours.) What was the type fo partitioning onthe disk with the success? I am not knowledgable enough in those error messages on the system.log file, but one thought is - after the memory upgrade, did you clear the PRAM (long shot, but do it anyway)? The machine booting on one external Firewire drive (#2) implies the problem is with the external FW disk (#1) you are using. Some other people had the bus error, but with Time Machine. (Not to go on a tangent, but TM seems to have problems when the disk name has non-alphanumeric in it.)
Hoping someone who knows the syslog errors and the boot sequence will pipe in here.

Upgrading from Tiger to Leopard on and external (FireWire) drive...

Hi all,
I'm pretty sure this has been discussed somewhere on the www but after several hours of research, I'm embarrassed to admit I'm ready to call it quits (unless someone more tech savvy than I can help <:o)
I've been running my OS on a WD 500GB FireWire for the past couple of years. Switched to it shortly after realizing that the 80GB HD on my MacBook was insufficient for my needs.
Now I'm getting ready to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard and I've got some issues. Most importantly, when I launch the installer and it requires me to restart my system, I do so through both methods (holding down the "option" key to start up using the external HD and also by just allowing a normal boot under the old drive). In neither situation do I ever get the option to select where I'd like to install the new OS. In fact, when I allow the normal start without the "option" key being pressed, I don't even get to see the option to begin an installation. When I hold down the "option" key, I get the Mac OS X Install DVD screen (directory on the DVD), but it never gets to the point where I can start the installation.
I'm at a loss and getting a little frustrated (which has been my problem since I started with Macs--been a long time PC user and I'm always looking for the difficult way of doing things--so I'm probably just being PC-stupid as usual >;o)
Any assistance with getting me on the path to continued righteousness would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much in advance!
Ali T. Borahan
http://www.alisails.com
PS: Despite the fact that I'm PC-literate and Mac-stupid, I've managed to convince almost a dozen people to switch to Mac, simply because I'm hooked and love how the Mac community sticks together and helps one another (and also because I can't stand the Microsoft kingdom!!! <:o)

Insert the Leopard DVD in the optical drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the "C" key until the dark gray Apple logo appears on the screen. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button.
When the menubar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your startup drive's entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Continue with the installation process until you reach the point where you must select a Target drive. Select your Target drive then click on the Options button in the lower left corner of the dialog.
Select the Archive and Install option.
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
Your target drive must have repaired OK when you repaired it. Otherwise do not continue.
You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Should I be able to boot from external firewire disk?

Yesterday, to prepare for upgrading to Leopard, I copied across my hard drive contents onto an external Firewire drive, by using drag & drop, folder by folder.
I was hoping that this would let me (after a reboot) select the external drive as my Startup Disk in System Prefs, or allow me to choose it if I rebooted holding down the alt key. However the external drive doesn't show up in either case.
Is there something else I need to do to allow booting via external Firewire? Is that even possible on my PB 1.5GHz (OSX 10.3.9)? Thanks.

Close, but no cigar! Copying by drag n drop misses invisible files necessary for a boot volume. The way to do this is to use one of the cloning programs like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything needed to make the FW drive bootable. You can even specify to NOT copy all your files if you wish.
I go to Versiontracker.com to get these programs.

Can't open external Firewire disk after upgrade to Leopard

I recently upgraded a PowerBook G4 from 10.4.11(?) to 10.5.5. Now I cannot open its external disk, a LaCie 400 GB Firewire disk, model number 300925, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Lacie-400GB-7200Rpm-Firewire-300925/dp/B00066989Mreport
The disk's icon appears on the desktop after it is plugged in. After double clicking to open it, the pinwheel cursor spins for a while, then Finder appears to restart, redrawing the desktop. When I have the Activity Monitor open during this, I see a process called ReportCrash run for a while before the Finder reset.
Does anyone recognize this symptom? Is there a way to see what is being reported by ReportCrash?

The Genius was skeptical that this was a problem between Leopard and a given disk. Indeed his first test was to boot my laptop from a clean install of Leopard on his own external FireWire drive. Running this way I had no problem opening my external disk from my laptop, running his fresh copy of OSX 10.5.something.
His theory was that something leftover in my configuration files (in /Library/Preferences) from a previous OS was causing the Finder crash while opening a FireWire disk under Leopard. (Since this machine is four years old, there has been a lot of opportunities for kruft to collect.) His suggestion was do a backup (complicated by the fact that I can't open my backup disk, d'oh!) then to do a clean install of Leopard, and then copy back my user folder.
I wish there was a smaller hammer I could use, like setting aside some magic .plist file... Any hints?

Installing on External Firewire Drive

Hi-
My Mac has started doing some funny things recently; I cant connect any USB devices, MobileMe refuses to let me delete any items from my iCal and other little irritations.
I have an external 4Tb Firewire Drive which has loads of space on it free, so I want to do a complete re-install of OS X and boot from from the external drive. I can then reinstall my apps and stuff bit by bit and see what is causing the problems.
The question is: when I install the system onto the FW drive, will it erase what is already on there? I have some important work on it and don’t want to lose it! Does the installer need a ‘clean’ disc to install?
Thanks, Andy

Disk utility's Restore function (and other copying apps such as CCC) will make a bootable installation of Snow Leopard on an external firewire drive that already contains data. Just remember not to check the erase disk option for the firewire drive.
It's most convenient if you first collect all your user material on the firewire drive into one folder. And there is possibly a risk of something bad happening if some files in your user material have names identical to the names of files in the Snow Leopard installation. That may be unlikely. But you'll have to judge that.
If that worries you, before you do the Snow Leopard installation on your firewire drive, you can use disk utility to repartition your external drive without erasing any of its data. See this: http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1395749. With such a large firewire drive, a number of partitions would seem desirable.
Then you can install a bootable Snow Leopard on an empty partition of the firewire drive for which you do check the erase disk option. With that option checked, the copy is performed as a block by block copy. Otherwise it's performed as a file by file copy. The block by block copy goes faster and is supposed to be identical in all respects to the original. That's not so with the file by file copy -- though both provide equal functionality.
Your firewire drive should be partitioned GUID. You can use APM (and the copy will still be bootable) but you will not be able (I've read) to install Snow Leopard updates. You can't, alas, change the partitioning scheme without erasing your firewire drive.
Message was edited by: Roy Vincent
Message was edited by: Roy Vincent

Tiger doesn't install on external firewire disk (partition)

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