Trouble Booting from External Drives; Trying to Defragment from External

I have a Verbatim External Firewire 400/USB 2.0 hard drive that has Leopard installed on it. I have installed Drive Genius and Disk Warrior on the external drive. I boot holding the Option key and see the list of drives, and the External does appear. When I select it, the computer just reboots and loads the loads the internal hard drive. I'm trying to defragment the MacBook Pro from an external drive, but I can't do much if it won't boot from an external. I know with Intel Macs, you can boot from USB 2.0 and FireWire. Why won't it work? To be more advanced, I made a disc image of the MacBook Pro Restore DVD and restored it to a new partition of the external, thinking the operating system might be different in the new MacBook Pro because of the new settings in the System Preferences that control the glass trackpad. I'm stuck. Please help.

No, I would not recommend making a disc image. I would recommend cloning the drive to a freshly erased external drive. Cloning is not the same as making a disc image. Disc images cannot be used to boot the computer. They are large and unwieldy. They are intended to be burned to an optical disc and not used as a system backup.
Clones are exact file copies of everything on the source drive such that the destination drive is a mirror of the source drive. You can boot clones, you can update them, and you can access them directly just like any other drive.
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the drive to which you will restore or backup.
Source means the drive you are restoring from or backing up.
There are many alternatives to using Disk Utilities Restore option. Any of the following can create clones as well as perform regular backups, and they can incrementally update a clone:
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
10. MimMac (Shareware)
11. SilverKeeper 2.0 (Freeware)

Similar Messages

Trouble booting from Leopard installation DVD

I'm having some trouble booting from the Leopard installation DVD, I was wondering if anyone here could help.
I want to reset my administrator password since OS X does not seem to be accepting it, and I heard that the best way to do this would be to boot from a Mac OS X installation DVD or CD and change some settings. When I start up my computer with the Leopard DVD in the drive, I hold down the 'C' key after the chime, and continue to hold it until the spinning gear appears.
From there, the spinning gear stays on the screen, and nothing happens. I've heard that it takes a while for the screen to come up, but I let it sit for over three hours and nothing happened. I also tried holding the Option key at startup and selecting the DVD, but the same thing happened. The DVD is in good shape and has no deep scratches, and it appears right away in the OS itself. I can't access the installer from the OS since it asks for my Administrator password, which it does not seem to be accepting. I also tried another solution to the Administrator password problem that involved typing some commands in Single User mode, but that did not help either.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

what exactly did you try to do in single user mode?

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.

Trouble Booting from DVD/CD/External HDD

I own a new 24" / 3.06 GHz / ATI 4850 / iMac, all seems well after upgrading to Snow Leopard. Although, there is one strange problem that I've been having right along; the system will not boot from a bootable CD/DVD or and an external FireWire Drive. The disks and the drive WILL boot using a different 17" iMac with Intel Processors. So, I know its not the formatting of the drive or an out of date bootable disk. They all boot the 17" iMac without issue, both machines are Intel and are running 10.6.
When I attempt to boot the 24" I select the drive or disk in the "startup" preference pane and or select the drive while holding down the "C" key. Either way I choose, the computer will eventually restart and boot from the onboard hard drive. Not sure which way to turn, runs too good to bring it in for diagnostic work. I was hoping someone would have a quick fix so I can boot from a source other than the installed HDD.
Thanks...

The startup disk setting is stored in PRAM, so I would try resetting it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
But there is an important consideration that may be the cause of your problem. Macs can generally boot the version of Mac OS X it came with, or LATER (up to hardware limits), but NOT earlier.
So a brand new iMac, if it came with Snow Leopard, will not be able to boot an older retail Leopard disc. It will also not be able to boot an external drive that has Leopard on it. The 17-inch Intel iMac, since it is a 2006 model, can boot Tiger, Leopard, or Snow Leopard; it came with Tiger, and Leopard and Snow Leopard were released later.
Now, if you are putting the Mac OS X installation disc that came with your new iMac into that external optical drive, I think it should have worked. If that external FireWire drive has Snow Leopard that was installed by the new iMac on it, I think it should have worked.

Trouble booting off FW drive from PBook

I just got a LaCie Porsche Firewire/USB drive to use as a backup for my 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 (running 10.4.8).
I used SuperDuper to clone the enitre PBook drive to the LaCie. Everything went well, but it won't startup from the LaCie. It shows up in the Startup Disk Pref Pane, but even if I pick it, it boots from the internal. Holding Option doesn't bring it up in the list of disks. Holding shift-command-option-delete gives the Question Mark for a second, then it proceeds to boot from the internal drive.
I know this clone works, because I booted successfully from the LaCie on my G4 iBook using the Pref Pane as well as the Option key method.
What could be going on with my PowerBook that's preventing it from booting from the Firewire LaCie?
I've repaired permissions on all drives several times now. I booted into safe mode and repaired permissions from that level.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Bjorn,
Thanks for the reply. I was just about to give CCC a try, but I wanted to use SuperDuper, due to the "sandboxing" and easier incrementals in the paid version. So I gave my setup one more scan and noticed that when I formatted the new LaCie drive, I only set the desktop volume to Extended-journaled, not the main drive itself (it was still set to MS-DOS or something.)
I reformatted the main drive and the desktop volume in Disk Utility, re-cloned with SuperDuper, and the PowerBook booted from the LaCie, first try.
Thanks so much for the suggestions. I saw a bunch of OF comments regarding firewire drives and was looking for how to do it.
So add "Make sure your new drive is actually formatted properly" to the troubleshhooting list for external drive/cloning/booting. Duh.

Trouble Booting from USB Drive

So I am using Syslinux this time around on my Arch install. Everything about it is fine, except that now I am trying to boot from a Backtrack 5 R3 USB which also uses Syslinux (I think, via uNetbootin) and it loads straight to the normal Arch Syslinux. How can I make it boot to the USB?
Thanks a bunch,
- Yorak

I was not referring to the Arch USB drive. I used the Win32 Disk Imager program as suggested in the Arch Wiki, and that works great. Boots right up and I am able to do my business. My problem was specifically trying to find a method to get Backtrack 5 R3 to run from a USB drive like my Arch one. uNetbootin does not work. I tried Linux Live USB as well to no avail. In my BIOS, the USB drive is selected first. Sorry guys, I guess my issue is best suited in the Backtrack Forums. I was thinking it had something to do with Syslinux until I thought harder about it, lol. Thank you all so much for your replies though. :-)

Trouble booting from second drive

I have two hard drives in my desktop. I can boot from one of them without an issue. But the second drive will not boot. It just sits at the apple screen with the status wheel. I have tried using Disk warrior but it is not able to fix the issue. I can slave it and view my files but can't boot from it.
One other issue my optical drive does not work. So I am limited with repair options.
Could it be a bad hard drive?

When did you last initialize your drive, and just what Mac are you trying to do this on?
The issue may be the partition table; or permissions; or how the OS was copied/cloned or installed.
Add your Mac hardware to your profile, it helps.

Trouble booting from USB/Sata

I have a T430s, and put a different drive in it to run Linux. After connecting the previous drive to a SATA-USB connector, I tried booting from the external (Windows) disk, but am not getting anywhere. I moved that drive (recognized in the BIOS utility) to the top of the list, but when I start I get a message to "remove disk" and start again, as if it's trying to boot from a non-bootable CD.
Any ideas? I need to run native Windows periodically but hate having to keep swapping out the drives. This should work, right?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Windows won't run through USB port by default. You'll need some fiddling to get it to work.
http://reboot.pro/topic/9196-tutorial-boot-windows-7-from-usb-hard-disk-by-karyonix/
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Trouble booting from CD

Hi! I'm excited to getting some help on this forum. A lot of good advice is floating around these pages. Now to see if some one can help me, or tell me this old iMac is hooped!
So, I picked up an old imac on craiglist totally for fun. It was 20$, and I was told it didn't boot. The seller wasn't sure why, but for $20, I figured it would be a fun little project to find out. The generation of iMac G3 is
500MHz/128MB ram/20GB HDD/CD-RW/ATI Rage Ultra/FireWire
I think you get the picture. Anyways, long story short, I still can't get it to boot . I get the familiar "can't find a boot volume" icon if I switch it on. First try at installing was with my OS 9.2.1 CD (I have install discs for OS 9.2.1, 10.3, 10.4, all on CD). Holding the C when booting spun the CD around, but ultimately brought me back to the same flashing unbootable flashing icon. I tried my 10.3 and 10.4 discs (I know i can't get 10.4 installed without more ram, but i was looking for things to try), and they brought the computer to the point of having the white screen with a grey apple logo. From there, the disc would spin for a minute or two, and then seemingly stop and would stay at that screen indefinitely.
The next thing i tried was holding the option key to bring up a graphical boot choice. That showed the install CDs i put into it, but when i tried to boot from the 9.2.1 disc, it spun the disc for a sec, and then it would just disappeared from the choices screen (as if i had ejected it). So that was no help.
I've replaced the lithium battery inside the mac, checked the firmware version (it has the newest version), reset the PRAM, and the NVRAM.
Anyways, I'm kind of out of ideas on what to try. I'd like to think its not totally broken, but I might have to come to terms with failure. thanks for any input you guys have. really appreciated!
-Hugo

Hey Hugo,
Have you tried resetting from open firmware:
"reset-nvram" return
"set-defaults" return
"reset-all"return
When I work on these I have a standard firewire external optcal to run the installer from. That eliminates the problem of a flakey internal, a common problem.
I also have 2 complete Tiger CD retail installers and about 3 backups of each of these as well as DVD retail installers and backups. I also have the original system disks for about 90% of these iMacs.
I also have a master firewire external hard drive with 5 partitions and iMac installs of 9.2.2, 10.3.9 and 10.4.11 that I can boot from.
Richard
Message was edited by: spudnuty

Trouble booting from RAID0 (2 x Seagate 7200.9)

Anyone out there tried this yet? I've set up a dual 2GHz G5 with two Seagate 7200.9 Barracuda 500G drives (yes, I've disabled SSC!) configured in RAID0 (striped set) with the default 32k block size. I can copy an existing boot image to the new array, but the system hangs at the apple logo during boot. Trying now with a fresh (from DVD) install, but not hopefull... Perhaps I need the SeriTek/1S2 contoller? I've seen reports that it may be faster and more reliable at booting RAID (?)

Boot from external FW (disk 3) then used Disk Utility to copy system from disk 1 to RAID (disk 2).
Footnote: Seritek card worked great. Allowed booting. Still curious to learn what I did wrong...

System is very fragile and has trouble booting. Hard Drive Problem?

Im having a problem with my Intel iMac which I can't solve and it really annoying me. As of lately my mac has been crashing, a lot. I am running Snow Leopard 10.6.2 on my 2008 24" iMac.
In the order that I remember them happening, here are the symptoms:
1. Applications would not start, from the dock to from spotlight.
2. Pressing OptionCommandEscape showed no applications in the Force Quit dialogue.
3. Rebooting solved the problems for a while.
4. Starting the Disk Utility in OS X will trigger 1.
5. My fiancees account will not log in, it either freezes on the wallpaper or kicks me back to the login screen. Making the keyboard not work to type in my password on my account.
6. Rebooting the machine now often results in booting to a folder with a ? (question mark) on it.
7. Most recently I lost the drive completely and could not boot into anything.
Here is what i have done to try fix it.
A. I have ran the repair disk in disk utility by booting from the install CD. However now (see 7.) I cannot even see the drive in the utility to try again.
B. I booted with Command + s to enable the console and typed /sbin/fsck -sy a few times
C. Holding Option while booting will NOT show my HDD only the CD
D. I reset the PRAM by holding CommandOption+PR during boot. This doesnt seem to have done anything.
E. to resolve 7. I pulled the power cord out for 30 mins. Then it booted.... weird
The machine overall feels very fragile and I cannot do anything with it really and its amazing if it even boots up. What are my options? The only thing I have not tried is a full reinstall of OS X. However it feels like more of a hardware issue, will this fix it? I'm not sure.
Thank you for looking and any suggestions are welcome.
Cheers.
Andrew
Message was edited by: Jamsen

First, make sure your user data is backed up.
Instead of just unplugging it, use the reset SMC procedure
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
which is unplugging the iMac and reconnecting using a precise procedure. You should disconnect ALL cables when you do this. If you have been connecting the power cord to a power strip, connect it directly to a wall outlet for this test. Power up with nothing connected, except the power cord. If it does start up from the hard drive, connect only your keyboard/mouse and use it that way, doing the things that caused problems. Any improvement?
If not, the next thing you should try, since you have already done good troubleshooting, is probably to erase the hard drive and reinstall the software. There is a way to do this and give the hard drive a good test, so you can post back if you want more info.

Trouble booting from internal SCSI on a Quicksilver

Hello,
I have a Quicksilver G4 that came from factory with IDE and OS 9 only. I added an Adaptec 29160 PCI card and a Seagate U160 LVD SCSI drive.
I added everything, then booted the Panther install CD's. The installer initially did not see the drive, but I just had to go to Utilities and format the new drive (I used Mac OS extended - Journaled filesystem). The install went fine on SCSI, then the computer rebooted.
After reboot it loaded up into OS 9, and wont see the SCSI disk.
Is the Adaptec driver missing in my OS 9? Any ideas what I should do here? Haven't tried it yet, but I will disconnect IDE and see if it boots to SCSI, I have a feeling it will.
-John

found the URL by chance
http://adaptec-tic.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adaptectic.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3549&p_created=1008846164&p_sid=phPd-Bbi &p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjMmcF9wcm9 kcz0wJnBfY2F0cz0wJnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9 wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1vcGVuIGZpcm13YXJl&p_li=&ptopview=1
This DOES WORK!

Trouble booting from ssd

hi everyone, i installed a 128GB samsung 830 ssd in a hard drive caddy replacing the CD drive in my early 2011 macbook pro. when i try to install an operating system to the SSD it will refuse to boot. It flashes between the apple logo and the no symbol- ⃠. I've tried installing lion, mountain lion, and windows 7 with bootcamp, tried clearing out the PRAM and totally formatting both drives. the "verify disk" in disk utility passes and it seems to work fine as a storage drive for an operating system installed on the stock HHD.
the hard drive caddy says that it is designed for a 2010 macbook pro, but the comments on amazon show success on the early 2011 model as well.
i have tried everything i can think of with no luck, does anyone have any other ideas or suggestions?
thanks!

How is the SSD formatted?
Allan

Trouble booting from second HD

Hi all.
We have a MacPro (8-core 3.0) with two internal HDs in it (bays 1 & 2). Both have slightly different versions of OS X Leopard because of different software we use.
Even with drive #2 setup as my startup drive, the system will not boot automatically from it from a shutdown. If I am restarting, it will work. But in the morning ot after a shut down, I have to hold down option on bootup to get the selection screen -- and the second hard drive is the one selected.
If I go in and physically switch the drives, it will work, but whenever I want to use the other drive I will be in the same boat.
Why does it only seem to want to wake up from drive #1?
(BTW, I have run Disk Warrior and repaired permissions on both drives.)
Thanks in advance!

Disk Warrior 4.1.1 was posted today that addresses issues in 10.5.5 related to the repair permissions routine which was not working. Also, never repair permissions of 10.5.5 from prior OS, like your DVD.
I'd try an experiment and clone your drive to #3. And if you need a drive,
http://www.barefeats.com/harper14.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD6400AAKS/
Then, if you do get your system working on another drive, I'd zero your original #2 setup.

Trouble booting from OS9 CD

I have a Powerbook G4 that came with OSX10 and now runs one critical OS9 application in the Classic environment.
In anticipation of Leopard, I decided to boot up in OS 9 from my OS 9 CD and to my dismay, startup only offered the two OS X's attached to my system. Restart, holding down the C key, results in my coming up in OS X. Restart with the option key down results in only the OSX choices being presented. Using the Startup Disk preference panel results in only the OSX choices appearing, even though the CD is inserted and shows on the desktop.
My CD is labeled with the big gold 9, and has on the label "To start up from this CD, hold down the C key as the computer starts up." It also says Version 9.1, 691-2746-A. I have that CD, as well as another labeled Mac OS 9.2.1 Update CD. But I believe my application would not need that upgrade.
What to do? I have an older G3 computer that I will leave, perforce, on OS 10.4, so that could run my OS 9 application. But I would like the Powerbook to be able to be booted up, on occasion, in OS9.

Your Mac OS 9 CD is too old to start up the PowerBook G4; if the G4 is an Aluminum model, it cannot start up from Mac OS 9 at all. Since your computer doesn't list a Mac OS 9 option in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences while having Classic installed, it is an Aluminum model.
If possible, use the application on the G3 and install Leopard on the G4.
(25108)

Trouble Booting from External Drives; Trying to Defragment from External

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