Why can I not boot from my new hard drive?

After replacing my hard drive (40 Gb) with a larger (120 Gb) drive the computer will not boot. I can boot from the 10.4 system CD and have managed to install the system without problems, but after restarting the computer I only get to see a folder with a flashing question mark in it.
My computer is the first of the Titanium series (400 Mhz). The hard drive is a Seagate momentus 5400 rpm. Is there a compatibility issue here? Any input would be greatly appreciated!
PowerBook G4/400 Titanium Mac OS X (10.4)

Hi, StenErik. If I were you, I would forget about FireWire Target Disk Mode. I'd start the Powerbook from a retail OS X 10.4 installer DVD, open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, select the hard drive, reformat it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", check the box for installing OS 9 drivers, and then install Tiger. I can't explain why this should make the resulting installation any different from what you have installed now. But it seems to me there must be some detail you've failed to mention and we've failed to think of, and that detail, whatever it is, is much more significant than it seems: significant enough to prevent your Tibook from booting. Therefore, reverting to the most basic installation procedure possible, with as few external variables as possible, seems a useful thing to try. To minimize variables even further, disconnect all peripherals from the PB while reformatting and installing.
As Hardy has suggested, the size of your drive is not the issue. A 120GB drive should be fine.

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Why can I not boot from a disc or drive?

In order to repair my HD, I have tried to start from a DVD (a bootable DiscWarrior 4 disc), but when restarting holding down the c-key, the disc drive is not recognized and the iMac starts up as normal and my log-in icon is shown. I have the latest Lion update.
I have also tried to start up from a bootable memory stick which I made after installing Lion, but this does not work either.
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Hi, StenErik. If I were you, I would forget about FireWire Target Disk Mode. I'd start the Powerbook from a retail OS X 10.4 installer DVD, open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, select the hard drive, reformat it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", check the box for installing OS 9 drivers, and then install Tiger. I can't explain why this should make the resulting installation any different from what you have installed now. But it seems to me there must be some detail you've failed to mention and we've failed to think of, and that detail, whatever it is, is much more significant than it seems: significant enough to prevent your Tibook from booting. Therefore, reverting to the most basic installation procedure possible, with as few external variables as possible, seems a useful thing to try. To minimize variables even further, disconnect all peripherals from the PB while reformatting and installing.
As Hardy has suggested, the size of your drive is not the issue. A 120GB drive should be fine.

Mid 2009 macbook pro 13" not booting from Western digital hard drive

So i've gone ahead and purchased a Western digital 2.5 inch scorpio black 750gb 7200rpm sata 16mb internal hard drive to replace my critical status 160gb standard drive in my macbook.
I have followed a guide using a usb 2.0 enclosure, with my new hard drive then carbon cloner which does allow me to clone a copy of the existing hard drive, but... when i boot up the macbook holding the option key i get the external hard drive which i can select but then i go into a os x utilities screen and does not boot straight to finder.
I get four options and one of them is disc utilities, so assuming this process in't as straightforward as i'm led to believe?
I have partitioned the new hard drive with guid for intel macs so pleae can anyone help me before i just give up and take it to my local apple store?
Thanks matt.

I have just solved this problem, with a fresh head this morning i realised that the external drive was empty and the cloning process didn't complete for some reason?
Anyhow i ran the clone again and booted externally which worked so then replaced my old hard drive with the new scorpio black and wow what a difference! I had beachballing before as my old drive was critical but now with the with the new speed 7200rpm drive its flying, very happy:-)

Why can't I boot from an external scsi drive?

In a previous post, I mentioned that my hard drive died. While trying to find ways to work around it, I dug out an old 4 GB SCSI drive I used to use with my old Mac, and hooked it up. When I booted from the OS 10.3 install disk, I was aboe to install the OS on the external drive, and choose it as the startup drive before rebooting. When I rebooted, however, the Mac could not see the SCSI drive as a startup drive. I tried it several times, changed the SCSI ID, erased the drive and reloaded the OS, repaired the directory with Disk Warrior, all with the same results.
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What model SCSI card do you have installed? Some cards are driver-based, like the Adaptec 2906. Its driver is loaded from the boot drive, as the extensions are displayed across the screen during the startup process. As such, drives connected to that type of card can't be designated as the boot device. A newer SCSI card that's firmware-based, like the Adaptec 2930, can be used for booting the computer. If you have a card that's firmware-based, then you may need to update the firmware with a newer (Mac OS X) compatible version.

How do I boot from a new hard drive?

I have a 15" MacbookPro (pretty much stock) that I purchased new in Jan. 2012. I had to replace the hard drive and just got the new drive installed. Now I need a disc with an OS on it to boot from to get it all working again. I originally had OS X Lion, but now that they've upgraded to Mountain Lion I can't find anyplace to download Lion. It was preinstalled so it didn't come with a disc. And I have another mac running OS X 10.6... should I make a boot disc from that? and how would I do that? Or do I need to do Lion since my computer was orginally registered with that verson of OS X? Any ideas on what is the most logical step would be helpful. Thank you.

Oh this is on a NEW drive. You have to Partition and format it before you can install the OS.
Once booted from the Internet Recovery system open Disk Utility and select the drive makers name and or model number of the drive, the top most listing in the left hand side of DU, then select the Partition Tab.
From the Partition Layout section select one partition from the drop down list. Make the name Macintosh HD and the format Mac Extended (Journaled) then click the Apply button.
Once that is done exit DU and Reinstall Mac OS X.

Can OS X boot from an external hard drive's partition?

I purchased a 500GB external hard drive in hopes of: 1. creating a bootable backup copy of a freshly installed version of Snow Leopard, and 2. a backup of files which I don't want on my Macbook (ie. school files from 8 years ago).
If I divide the external hard drive into 2 partitions, can OS X still boot from a partition? I heard from somewhere that OS X can only boot a volume, but not a partition...
As usual, thank you for any help you can provide!

miceblue425 wrote:
I purchased a 500GB external hard drive in hopes of: 1. creating a bootable backup copy of a freshly installed version of Snow Leopard, and 2. a backup of files which I don't want on my Macbook (ie. school files from 8 years ago).
Yes.
If I divide the external hard drive into 2 partitions, can OS X still boot from a partition? I heard from somewhere that OS X can only boot a volume, but not a partition...
Two names for the same thing: partition = volume.
As usual, thank you for any help you can provide!
Most external HDs are bootable. But some Western Digitals won't boot a Mac. Their list of which ones should and +should not+ boot: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1787. But note the disclaimer that they don't support it +*at all.+*
For setup instructions, see #1 in Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks.

Can a MacBook boot from a Firewire hard drive?

I've been trying to install OSX from the restore disk onto a freshly formatted external firewire drive, and the installer says that the drive is not bootable. What am I doing wrong?

I figured it out. You need to partition the drive,
and in the partition options there is an option for a
GUID partition which enables booting from an Intel
Mac. After partitioning in this manner, the install
is moving forward. It coulda been easier, but at
least it works.
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Why can i only 'read' from some portable hard drives

I'm having trouble with some portable hard drives. I can only read them and not copy to. Why is this, and can i change this?

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Why can't I boot from my hard drive internally but no problem externally?

Being unable to 100% solve my problem based off solved problems I have decided to log in. I will start from the very beginning. The computer is the Macbook late 2009 unibody. I upgraded the ram from 2GB to 8GB. everything was going smoothly until like 2 months ago. My 250Gb Hard drive was geting maxed out and in the midst of downloading I was getting warnings to free space so I was deleting and downloading the same time.....and then boom...the computer froze. Couldn't forse quit or anthing only choice was to manually power off. when I powered back on the screen was grey and would not start. I reserched solutions and ended up resetting the PR ram. after that the screen changed to white and nothing happened for a long time I was stuck...until......:
I bought an external hard drive incasing. and like magic everything I thought I lost was right there booting externally. Now I'd be fine with that if not for the reason I bought the computer in the first place, which is to be ultra portable and kep me awake as I work nights as a security in various changing post on a nightly basis. lugging the external case around has complicated a system that was working fine to the point of death.
So over time I have acumilated these things:
a 16 GB hp flash usb currently holding the bootable snow leapard DVD installer
a 500GB wd scorpio blue hard drive from an old PC pased laptop
a 250GB toshiba hard drive (came with laptop snow leopard installed)
a 250GB can't think of the brand cause I'm using it now hard drive (mountin lion installed)
neither Hardive holding apple operating systems will boot internally but boot externally. I have tried putting snow leopard, lion and mountin lion on the scorpio blue but everytime I get the same result, an install failed error. So you may have guessed, I was hoping the scorpio blue as my last hope, getting an operating system on it maybe I could boot internally but for what ever reason it won't intall fully any mac os X. So at this point I want to know if it's possible for me to just put a windows operating system on it ad if it may be able to boot that way.
EXTRA INFO:
when partioning the hard drive, if I have it connected internally, the computer recognizes it but I get cannot unmount errors. externally everything moves smoothly but it won't install the operating system. Currently I'm running mountin lion externally and I have the big hard drive inside the computer and it shows up as "untitled 1" it contents is two folders "Mac os X Install data" (red icon attached) and "private" It tells me I don't have permission to look inside the mac os folder. if I drag a fle from my computer to untitled 1 it says "The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)."
HELP! whatever it takes I just want to boot something without lugging this external case everywhere.

Hi Too_Talls,
I'm not quite sure I have totally understood you. Please correct me if I am wrong but this is how I've read your symptoms:
MacBook not booting
Plug in external hard drive, choose that as the startup volume. MacBook boots.
Remove internal hard drive and replace with hard drive that has OS installed. MacBook not booting.
Remove replaced hard drive, plug it in to usb port. MacBook starts up fine
Does the above correctly summarise the problem?
If it does, then the fault can only be one of two things.
The SATA connector is not fully seated into the hard drive.
The SATA connector ribbon cable is damaged and needs replacing.
The good news is that, obviously, everthing else in your MacBook is okay (logic board etc) else it would not start up when an external hard disk is plugged into the usb port.

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Can I recover data from a reformatted hard drive? I did not do a back up prior to talking to Apple Support and the guy having me delete the hard drive and start anew. My bad but is all lost??

Can I recover data from a reformatted hard drive? I did not complete a back up prior to talking to Apple Support and the guy having me delete the hard drive (10.5.8) and start anew (10.6.3). My bad but is all lost?? Years of very important information....

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My Macbook air flash had gone for a month and I saw Apple's Macbook air flash storage drive replacement program. I'm not sure whether that program is still available for the broken device or not. Now, I'm booting from the external hard drive. Thank you.

My Macbook air flash had gone for a month and I saw Apple's Macbook air flash storage drive replacement program. I'm not sure whether that program is still available for the broken device or not. Now, I'm booting from the external hard drive. Warranty has gone in October 2013..
I want to send back my macbook air back to apple store. The problem is that I bought it from US and now, I'm using it in Myanmar. If the program is free of charge for my device, it's worth trying to send back to US. Since mine is broken, I'm afraid Apple will take charges for reparing.
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I have no idea about how to handle the international aspect of your question.
But here is the Apple writeup about the problem and the remedy. Maybe that will help you.
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookair-flashdrive/

I want to Boot from My old hard drive.

I an trying to do this work around so I can continue using protools 7 with my MBP running Snow leopard. I pulled out my old hard drive running Tiger and put it into a USB case. I installed a new 650GB hard drive in to my laptop, installed Snow Leopard and reinstalled all my old software. So far so good. Now I want to boot from the old hard drive running Tiger so that I can launch Protools 7. I choose the external HD as the startup disc and end up getting a circle with a line through it on startup.
Is there something else I need to use my old hard drive running Tiger as a startup disk?
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If the original HD still has the version of Tiger installed on it that came with the MBP (probably Mac OS X 10.4.8, build 8N1037, 8N1051, or 8N1430) or a later version of Tiger like 10.4.11, then the MBP should be able to boot from it.
To determine what OS & build number is on that drive, open the Startup Disk system preference. Hover the pointer over the drive's image in the window & the OS version & build number will pop up in a ToolTip window after a brief delay. What does it show?
Also, which MBP do you have? Open System Profiler to the Hardware Overview page. What is the Model Identifier shown in it? Is it "MacBookPro2,2" or something else?
Assuming the OS version & build number are sufficient to boot the MBP, it may be that the USB enclosure does not support booting. Most do, a few do not. What is brand/model of the enclosure? Do its specs specifically say it can boot a Mac?
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Why can I not boot from my new hard drive?

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