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.

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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 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)

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 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.

My iMac (late 2006) no longer boots from FireWire drives, although they contain all the system files.

My iMac (late 2006) no longer starts (boots) from Firewire drives, although they all contain a current system (Mac OS X 10.6.7). If the drives are connected with USB 2, they boot normally. The FireWire drives appear in the Start Volume program, but they do not boot. If I press and hold the Alt key while booting, only the internal drives and the USB drives appear as options. What can I do in order to boot from FireWire drives as I always could in the past?

I'd first recommend doing a SMC reset and if that doesn't work refer to:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10333969-263.html
and
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/firewiretroubleshooting.html
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

XServe won't boot from any drive, but recognizes them in OS X Installer

I know I have another post here but this is a different issue, and I've already fixed that one thanks to Camelot .
I just received an 2 used xserves for work. One booted into OS X Server fine, so I scrubbed it and reinstalled without issue.
The second however never booted into an install. That is, I never found it on my network when I started it up and when I pushed the power button it would turn off immediately, suggesting that there was no OS on the disk or that the xserve couldn't find it. I didn't have a spare monitor to plug into it (surprisingly) so I just chalked it up to the fact that it was a new disk and hadn't had OS X Server installed on it.
Now I have a spare monitor, I've gone and installed OS X Server on the xserve. It boots from the DVD just fine, runs through the installer, then when it goes to restart, it won't boot from the hard drive that it just installed OS X Server on, it'll just boot back from the DVD unless I pop it out. If I let it boot up without the DVD in it, I'll get the standard Folder with a ?.
At first I thought it was the drive, so I installed OS X Server on another drive. Still wouldn't boot to that drive, so I booted from the DVD and repaired the disks in Disk Utility. Still nothing. I booted to DVD again and when I went to Startup Disk, it actually did show my disks with their respective OS X Server installs.
When I boot the machine holding alt/option, the system doesn't show my drives, only the DVD if it's in the slot.
I figured ok, this has to be the drives, so I swapped them with those of the identical xserve in the rack below, but my top xserve wouldn't boot from those drives either. Somewhat expectedly however, the bottom xserve would boot the drives that I took out of the first one.
Now I'm just stumped. Any ideas?
PS, drives are unlocked.

MrHoffman wrote:
The EFI firmware, the SMC and possibly the disk I/O path seem good potential candidates for culprit.
Load and run the hardware diagnostics.
Reset the SMC, and reset the LOM.
I'm running the EFI diagnostic tool now. Firmware and disk I/O path came to mind, let's just hope it's not a major hardware issue
beatle20359 wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Do you have the specs of the xserve and the version of OSX server you are trying to install? Does the Xserve have the RAID card installed in it and what size are the drive modules.
All the best
Beatle
2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon
8GB RAM
OS X Server v 10.6.3 (the version I'm trying to install, that is)
No RAID card. The system drive is 80GB and a second storage drive is 1TB.

Can't boot from internal drive - Please help!

The internal drive on my PBG4 was making some funny noises this morning and sure enough, when I tried to reboot from it I was unable to. Instead I was brought to a screen with a DOS prompt with some cryptic error message. Since then I've called Apple support and their "solution" was to re-format the drive and reinstall the OS. I can do that if I absolutely have to, but if there's any way around it, I'd much rather avoid the reformatting/reinstalling everything nightmare scenario. Initially Disk Repair said the drive couldn't be repaired. I booted from my Disk Warrior CD (3.0.3), which prompted me to backup data (luckily I have an external 250GB drive) and I backed up my home directory. I did that and rebuilt the directory, then restarted from my Tiger CD and ran Disk utility again and it said the disk was fine. I tried to boot from the drive and I get taken to a DOS prompt again with the following error message:
launchd can't exec /bin/sh for single user: No such file or directory
Any suggestions on what I can try at this point short of reformatting the drive and starting over from scratch?
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.25 GHZ, 1GB Ram
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5) 1.25 GHZ, 1GB Ram

I assume you have OS X on a 2nd drive that you can run DW, Disk Utility etc.
As you backup files and know they are okay, delete them. Undo the layers of onion and try to go from latest to oldest.
If you don't have an emergency fw drive...
The trouble with long backups on a problem drive is they can fail during the backup if the drive gets too hot, which happens.
Back in Panther, you could use BootCD to create an emergency CD or DVD with your system, full finder, loads of utilities, and could even run FireFox. With that, you could run TTPro 4, Disk Warrior, DU, Rember etc. AND play around in the Finder and Terminal.
I still keep a CD and DVD with 10.3.9 just in case. The perfect FW drive would have a couple OS versions, a backup partition (that you can erase if needed).
Apple Disk Utility from CD/DVD can also be used to copy/clone a volume or foleer, using Restore and output to a volume or disk image.

Boot from second hdd?

Hello!
My laptop: t420s.
This laptop has an extra slim 320 gb HDD as factory default.
My question: if I buy a second HDD drive caddy, and install a second hdd (SSD) the laptop can boot from the drive tah can be found in the caddy?
Thanks!

Technically yes, but not recommended. The primary bay is where is should be. You can move your existing HD into the caddy for additional storage if you want.
Normally the caddy is not always powered and if it ever is shut down the system will crash. Keeping it powered and online is not documented nor 100% guaranteed.
Imaging the HD for the SSD using another drive or cloning from the HD to the SSD are the most straight forward methods.
Acronis Trueimage is one of the better tools, while other exist. I would NOT wipe the original drive for some time afterwards in case something goes wrong or fails. That drive is a full backup.
Also before even starting I would make the recovery DVD's if you haven't yet. SSD do fail and when they do there is little warning.
T520 Model 4239 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2860QM CPU @ 2.50GHz
Intel Sandy Bridge & Nvidia NVS 4200M graphics Intel N 6300 Wi-Fi adapter
Windows 7 Home Prem - 64bit w/8GB DDR3

V120 server boot from hard drive freezes

Hi
I just installed open solaris build 75 on a sun v120 server. After the instalation all went well and I configured the processes and users on the server just like I did yesterday on another v120. What i did afterwards that was different from yesterday is that I put the machine on standby by holding the power off (0) switch for a few seconds, then unpluged the power chord. After turning the power on again the server will freeze the boot process in the first 2 steps after it tries booting from hard drive. (It does pass all hardware checks). To comunicate with the server I connect a windows PC on the lom port with serial cable and the SecureCRT software. I tried to break into lom with #. after poweron but it doesn't seem to work. And the lom console in standby wont let me boot from cdrom or anything while in standby. Can anyone give me some guidance here? I don't have much experience with this kind of hardware.

Well, LOL, I did that prior to buying the software. It does meet the specifications. I found the solution on the support site. When I googled before I hadn't googled the error message verbatim. Doing so led me to this page: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3926 where I was instructed to create a tiny partition (128MB) and then run the installer again. No explanation was given as to why, but this did work and I am typing this via the new OS. Thanks for trying to help me baltwo! Best regards.

Cannot boot from ext drive after 10.5.2 update

I followed the procedure in tech article 306502 for creating and updating a bootable drive. I am in a PPC Mini environment. External drive is LaCie 160 GB rugged firewire portable with auxiliary power, I created the drive with 10.5.1 and it booted nicely to my two Minis (running 10.3.9 and 10.5.1). I then updated the external system with 10.5.2 from the Apple site and now it does not boot. Sits and spins with a white screen, grey apple, and whirligig. Whirled for 1/2 hour and tried deveral times.
I see this is not uncommon, but there have been no cures posted. One post suggested Disk Warrior. What would I do to with DW to move this problem forward. This is quite annoying, as I rely on being able to move around and boot from this drive when needed.
Thanks for any help.
Fred

after 10.5.2 two days ago, mine booted up regularly. however after the additional leopard graphics update last night, it no longer boots up at all. i have to usethis ****** vista to report the problem. my macbook is right beside me, with nothing but a plain blue screen. occasionaly the mouse cursor appears for about 30 seconds, then dissapears and the screen remains blue. what can i do? if i cant log in apple cant update my mac!!! help!!!

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?

Problem booting from external drive

I'm having trouble booting my MacBook from an external USB drive.
I've created a bootable backup of my hard drive, using SuperDuper! (in order to be able to install a bigger hard drive and restore my current drive state). If, with the drive attached, I restart and hold down Alt (which I understand should offer a choice of drives from which to boot), I get nothing but grey screen (ie. the first grey you see before the apple logo comes up right at the start of startup). I have been able to boot from the external drive by changing Startup Disk settings, so I'm sure there's no problem with the external disk volume.
The drive is an Iomega 80GB USB 2.0 drive, and I'm running 10.4.10 on a 2GHz Core Duo MacBook.

Hey guys,
Thanks for the feedback... here's my update (still no joy):
• I'm not sure about the GUID table - how do I check? Does the fact that I can boot from the drive having selected it in my System Preferences mean that it is? It is definitely HFS+ formatted, however. (I gave bad information about the drive type, however - it's a Freecom 400GB, not Iomega 80GB, not that I suppose that makes a difference.)
• After holding that Alt key for a very long time, my MacBook did show me something other than a plain grey screen: a single, large, internal HD icon in the middle of the screen, above a vertical arrow icon. I take this to mean that the MacBook is recognising the internal HDD and no other volume. The external drive was still plugged into the USB port.
• The external drive is in fact partitioned as two volumes.

Booting from second HDD in Envy 17

I have just installed a second (hybrid) HDD in my brand new Envy 17 3270nr. Since this new HDD is supposed to be faster than the original one, I would like to have this new one as my main disk (disk 0) and boot from it. I have cloned the original HDD (disk 0) onto the new one (disk 1) and everything looks OK when I open Disk Management but in the BIOS setup it seems I cannot choose between disks to boot from, I can only switch the boot order between other internal or external devices and a internal hard drive. Would very much appreciate your guidance !
This question was solved.
View Solution.

It is real simple...you can't boot from a drive in the second bay. Switch them.

Problems booting from external drives

Ever since I got this 6-core 2013 MacPro (January 2015), I have had strange problems and glitches, but for this posting, I am talking about problems being able to boot up from external drives. I took the 4 external drives out of my old 2009 MacPro and put them into a 4-bay Thunderbolt enclosure. This enclosure can be configured as a RAID if all drives are the same (which they are not) or it can just be a place to be able to access all 4 drives. I used to be able to boot from each of those drives on the older MacPro but I am unable to do so now. They show up in the System Preferences/Startup Disk but if I choose one, it just reboots into the new MacPro drive. I even tried pulling out a couple of the drives and mounting each into a USB 3.0 (Sabrent) dock and still I could not boot from those drives which have the latest version of Yosemite. Yes, they are formatted correctly. I used to boot from them. I was able to clone one of the drives to a Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive and boot from that. Although, the clone was not perfect. It didn't transfer all my settings so I could recover some logins and serial numbers I wanted that I have never been able to retrieve since I got this new Mac.
Yesterday, I formatted a 32GB flash drive and tried to install Yosemite on it. I planned to put DiskWarrior on it. When I started to install Yosemite (from a saved download) it let me choose that drive, but when it restarted before installing, I was right back where I started on my MacPro's hard drive.
Is this normal behavior for the 2013 MacPro? Or is it just mine? I am beginning to think I may have a lemon since I have had other strange problems that don't go away.

Not all external devices are bootable. First stop would be involve whoever handles the 4-bay Thunderbolt. Seeing how it has a bridge most likely in order to support RAID mode that may not have the correct frmware or other reasons.
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4/search/bootable%20volume
CCC is the only program I would be using.

Trouble booting from second drive

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