Yosemite won't Boot from External SSD with Firewire Connection

Seeking help, I boot from external SSD drives from my 2010 iMac. I recently installed Yosemite on an External SSD with a firewire connection and all went well with the installation and first boot. After completing set up and restarting my iMac Yosemite will no longer boot from the firewire connection it will boot to the loading bar and then get the dreaded Goest Buster Emblem, if I swap out the SSD to USB connection it boots normally. I have 6 SSD Drives with Mavericks and Lion installed on that will boot from the Firewire Connection. Any suggestions ?

Additionally when testing while the SSD is connected to a USB Connection and booted if I attach any firewire device they are not recognized or connected to the operating system.

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Cannot boot from external SSD ...

Hello,
I have just made a fresh install of Mavericks on a brand new Samsung 840 EVO SSD (I initially erased the drive and formatted it to Mac OS Extended Journaled, then created a USB installation drive and performed the installation on the SSD …). It all went well, the computer restarted during this 30 min or so process … However, the problem is when I try to boot in the Samsung SSD at startup having the ALT key pressed, I can only see the 10.8.5 and its recovery partition … Any ideas as to why it doesn't show up the SSD which is connected via USB 3.0 to my laptop ?
Also, even if I go in Mountaion Lion at the Start-up disk option and select the Samsung SSD with 10.9 it still boots into ML … Has anyone encountered this before ?
Thank you.
*non-Retina Macbook Pro 15 inch, mid-2012

Hi Ralph,
thanks a lot for the helpful information! But the problem still persists, and I don't know what's wrong about the installation. I again checked the case and device are fully compatible with Windows 8 on USB 3 and the current boot camp drivers are installed - so everything should work perfectly fine as Windows 8 does natively support booting from external USB-3-devices.
I personally still assume it's rather a driver related problem as the external SSD doesn't even show up whilst booting into the boot menu with "Alt" pressed - I can only choose to boot from the external SSD within the "start volume" menu in OSX (which then doesn't work out when rebooting, unfortunately). I mean, if there was a chance to boot from the external SSD with the configuration I got right now, but OSX/the iMac just "doesn't know" it shall boot from the external partition and therefore rather chooses the internal boot camp partition, the SSD would at least show up in the boot menu when pressing "Alt" on start-up, or do I go completely wrong? I even tried to rename the internal bootcamp partition (which did not work out) or disable it in order to prevent OSX/the iMac to boot from the internal bootcamp partition, but it didn't help: After rebooting it again chose the internal boot camp partition to start from.
Might the deletion of the internal partition be worth a try? Meaning is there a realistic chance that the issue might be caused by that? I would give it a try although I really don't wanna loose the internal boot camp partition for no good reason (btw: would it be possible to clone an image back from the external SSD to the internal HDD then?). Or do you maybe have any other idea what driver could miss resp. could be wrong about the installation so the boot process from the external SSD fails...?
Again MANY MANY THANKS in advance for your further assistance, everybody!!

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.

New MacBook won't boot from external disk

I have a new MacBook that I am trying to boot from an external disk that had the system from my first gen MacBook Pro. When I restart holding the Option key, and select my external disk, the system restarts again and won't let me boot from that disk. Is there something different with the OS (10.5.6) that is installed on a newer MacBook that won't allow it to boot from the same OS from an older MacBook Pro?
Thanks

Ian Patterson wrote:
golferx,
Will any other Intel Mac boot from the drive? If not, it's possibly because the drive uses an Apple Partition Map (bootable for PowerPC Macs) instead of a GUID Partition Table (bootable for Intel Macs).
To check: open to Disk Utility, select the hard drive on the left, select the Partition tab and look at the text at the bottom right corner of the window under Partition Map Scheme. If it says anything other than GUID Partition Table, you will need to erase and repartition it as such before it will be bootable.
Just a thought. Hope this helps. Good luck!
-i-
I can boot an prev gen MacBook and also my iMac (current gen). I took it to the Genius Bar and he could not get it to boot a new MacBook either and didn't have a solution.

Panic (cpu 0 caller 0xffffff800ec59301) - BOOT from External SSD Samsung

Since few days I'm experimenting the boot of my iMac 27 i7 from external 500GB Samsung SSD series 840.
First test with SSD installed on the 2,5" Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt without external power suffered by some frezing probably due to low current from TB.
Then I put the SSD in a 3,5" eSata enclosure with its own power supply and connect it to TB trough Sonnet Express Card Pro adapter and Sonnet eSata card.
Happy with the speed of boot and of the read and write to the SSD but expereincing some problems.
Few times the iMac does not boot . it remains on the gray screen with the rotating weel.
Once instead of the Apple in the middle of the gray screen I had in Gray something like the noparking signe (circle with a diagonal diameter line) and no boot.
Last time this panic printout, and no boot.
then the iMac could be restart without any problem.
Checked and repaired the SSD: no problem.
I cannot understand what is going on. I connect these with the boot from the external SSD and the complicated chain TB-SonnetAdapter-Card-eSata..
Or there is something more ?
Am I running any risk ?
I still have all my OS system and data on my internal HDD (which I keep every day in sync with the external SSD): this toghetehr with backups and TM should limit my risk.

Thanks Topher Kessler.
It was the enclosure (a Maxxtro 3,5" which negotiated only at 1,5 Gigabit).
I used for some time a Wiebetech 2,5" with 2 FW800 and the eSata (which negotiated 3 Gigabit) and now since yesterday the SSD works in a Value series 2.5" PATA/SATA HDD to eSATA/USB2.0 (from Great Britain eBay).
With both the 2.5" enclosures the system is stable.
The strange about the Value series is that the specs are for SATA II and transfer rates to 3 Gigabits while my system reports 6 Gigabit.

Late 2012 Mini won't boot from ext HDD with 10.8

Having just replaced an early 2009 Mini with a later 2012 mini, I tried booting off an external HDD that is a backup with Mountain Lion 10.8 as the OS. I selected it to be the boot drive after holding down the option key, but the boot process never went beyond the white screen/Apple logo, even after waiting for minutes.
The external drive is in a Newer 3.5" enclosure with a FW800 port connected to the Mini via a FW800 cable. After booting from the internal drive I can view and change items in the 10.8 external drive. This drive previously booted fine from my old Mini.
[Note: This is not related to my earlier "Snow Leo won't boot" question.]
Thanks

The problem is the version on the external drive, if created
on the old Mini (infered from ""This drive previously booted
fine from my old Mini.") won't boot on the new Mini because
it lacks drivers that are not available on the general Mountain Lion
updates. Since the new Mini came out after 10.8.2, only the
version on it contains the proper drivers. Also, if the version
on the external drive is earlier than 10.8.2, it will never boot
as no Mac can boot to an OS older than it was shipped with.
Whenever 10.8.3 comes out, it will likely sync all current models again.

SL won't boot from external drive

i tried installing SL on an external FW800/400/USB drive. while the first part of the install went fine, upon the restart, it would only get as far as the gray apple screen. after many false starts, i tried finishing the install by booting my wife's (non-unibody) macbook with the drive attached and the SL disc in the optical drive. sure enough, the install finished and it booted to SL.
now, when i try to boot from this same drive on my new MBP, it stays stuck at the gray apple screen. i'm able to see and choose the SL partition when i start up, but it just won't continue booting. i've tried booting via FW800, FW400 and via USB. none work.
has anyone else experienced this?

To wrap everyone's comments, since I just got back—we had a rare power failure due to someone knocking a local transformer down—yes, the new machine won't allow you to boot an earlier version's disc. The one that came with your new machine is now your GM for that machine. The other, the SL GM, is unusable for it, but good for all the machines that shipped before it arrived. The new disc can be used on any properly formatted volume, internal or external. If you followed the steps in Best Practices and Setup new Mac, then your new MBP should mimic your previous machine. You do the same. Install the OS onto the ext HD and, on first boot, use the Setup Assistant to migrate from the MRB to the ext HD. We used that procedure throughout the beta-test period. HTH

Boot from external SSD cause freeze

I bought a Samsung 830 SSD ( 256 GB model MZ-7PC256D )
I planned to connect it to my 27" 3.5 GHz Intel i7 iMac (mid 2011) via thunderbolt with the Seagate GoFlex adapter and use it as primary boot drive.
I installed Lion (I'm running OS X 10.7.5) on the new external drive using the OS X Recovery.
Everything runs fine and very fast except that system randomly freeze.
I can't open/close apps and the spinning beachball appears. I can't do anything other than power-off holding down the power button.
I disabled the "disk sleep" option, disk seems ok (I checked the status and said verified) but system keeps freezing.
It appears that after the first freeze, soon occur a second one.
Also, I noticed strange(?) sound (something like tock) from the adapter/SSD during the normal use.
I searched for the word error in the Console at the corresponding freeze time and this strings came out:
17/12/12 18:04:06,000 kernel: SMC::smcInitHelper ERROR: MMIO regMap == NULL - fall back to old SMC mode
17/12/12 18:04:09,043 WindowServer: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 31
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSRemoveSurface: Invalid window 0x1f
17/12/12 18:04:17,891 talagent: CGSConnectionRelinquishWindowRights(cid, newWindowNumber, reservedRights): CGError 1001 on line 619
17/12/12 18:04:17,891 talagent: CGSReleaseWindow(cid, wid): CGError 1001 on line 759
[Here the complete error log]
Any suggest?

I'm not certain this is the culprit, but the overall consensus that I've read online points to the fact that most (or all?) available external Thunderbolt drive enclosures that are *bus-powered only* (so no independent power brick with the enclosure) have difficulty providing enough power to SSD's that exceed ~240GB. And without enough power the system freezes or causes other errors.
Here's at least one thorough examination that came to this conclusion:
http://wolfgangtechnology.blogspot.com/2012/06/mac-with-seagate-thunderbolt-adap ter.html
The solution, from what I've read at least, is to find a Thunderbolt adapter with an independent power source or use a smaller SSD (under 240GB it seems) that is capable of running on bus-power only.
I'm looking into doing the same as you (using external SSD as primary boot drive) but there aren't that many relatively-affordable enclosures to choose from at this point (off the top of my head just the Seagate GoFlex, Buffalo Ministation, and Lacie offerings come to mind) and there's still an outstanding question as to whether the available enclosures support the SATA III spec to really get the most out of the fastest SSD's available today.
Of note, I believe this version of Seagate's adapter (the "Desktop" version) does come with its own power brick and could solve your problem, at least according to the article I linked above.
Hope this helps, good luck!

Can't boot from external HD with Leopard on MacBook Pro or PowerBook

I can't boot from an external HD with 10.5.5 Leopard on either my MacBook Pro or my PowerBook G4. I had a PowerBook G4 from which I could boot from either an external FW400 drive or an external FW800 drive. At some point, I stopped being able to boot from any HD, but I'm not sure if it was after upgrading to Leopard or not? Recently I just bought a MacBook Pro 15" and transferred all my files over from the PowerBook to the MacBook Pro during the install. However, even with the new computer, still cannot boot from an external drive. I have Leopard 10.5.5 running on both the external HD and the internal HD.
Is this a common problem? Anybody know how to fix it?
Thanks!

That probably wasn't very clear was it? I have several ext. HD's, some with bootable systems and some just backups. One bootable disk was made with CopyCloner and the other was a clean format and only had an original install of the OS just to use for an emergency boot. They both booted just fine. Then at some point, they stopped being bootable. I have used the Control Panel "Startup" and also used the Option key boot and picked the bootable disk. Neither one boots anymore. It started doing this on the old PowerBook and then also refused to boot on the MacBook Pro. This is not the problem with the HD since it happens with any bootable HD. Something is going on at the system level and it was transfered from the PowerBook to the MacBook.
Thanks,
Bill

External Drive with Time Machine, booting from external drive with utilitie

I'm using Time Machine now with
a LaCie 1TB external hard drive.
Everything works fine.
But, I've been wondering:
Can I place a program like TechTool
on the external drive (that Time Machine uses)
and boot from that external drive.
I would like to be able to do that,
because diagnostics and repair programs
only works properly and fully when they run from
external drives. Anything on the internal drive can be repaired
and examine. Impossible to do if Techtool is on the same
drive that's been examined.
Any thoughts as to what I should do?
Thanks
iMac, Leopard, Time Machine, Lacie Quadra 1TB drive.
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?

pitou wrote:
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?
As V.K. says, you can't boot from TM backups.
But you can restore your entire system from any one of them, per the procedure in #14 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
You can also selectively restore from them, while running normally. See #15 in the FAQ Tip.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the rest of the FAQ Tip.

Leopard Won't Boot from External Drive

I'm using an iBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.10. I just purchased a Western Digital 320GB eSATA external hard drive to use as an external Leopard boot disk because my internal hard drive does not work (I've been using a 20GB Lacie external hard drive as my boot drive up to now).
I have installed Leopard onto the new external drive using the Leopard install DVD. The installation was successful, and the new external drive mounts on the desktop. In addition, I can see all of its contents, and it appears as a startup disk in the startup disk preference panel. However, when I select it as the startup disk and restart the computer, it will not boot from the new external drive.
Notes:
1. The drive is formatted in the Apple Partition Map scheme.
2. I have pressed "option" during restart, but the drive does not appear.
3. I have restarted with only the new hard drive connected to the cpu, to no avail.
Am I missing something? Please assist.
Thanks!

I've been trying all day to boot from my external HD after installing Leopard on both my HD and external HD. I was convinced that my external HD volume wasn't being read and recognized. What I discovered a while ago was that my internal HD volume always shows up at the top of the list on my desktop whether it's the volume running or not!!
When running 10.4.11 and booting from the external HD, the icon for the external HD volume always appeared at the top on the desktop, over the internal HD icon. That's how I could remember which one I was on. That's not happening now. I may have been working on the backup for half the day and not known it.
The only way I'm able to tell for sure which is the active drive is to check the User folder to see whether the House/Home icon appears (the system running) or the name is in text (the system not running).
Is there some way to change that or is it a glitch in Leopard? It's weird!

G5 won't boot from external hard drive

I have installed Leopard on my external hard drive, but have not gone through the 'setup'. I want to boot my G5 from the hd now, but when I restart holding down the option key, the internal hard drive is the only option that appears. When I do boot from the internal hd, the external hd is recognised perfectly and I can see all the files and everything - I just can't seem to boot from it. The newer iMac I used to install Leopard on the external hd will boot from it, but the G5 refuses to recognise it in the boot options.
Any help much appreciated.

No. If you boot an installer disc on an Intel Mac it will only install an Intel version of OS X. You would need to boot the installer disc on the G5 then install OS X onto your external drive. However, if you do that you will not be able to boot the Intel Mac with the external drive. The only solution to using one external drive on both computers is to partition the drive. Install OS X on one partition using the G5, and install OS X on the other partition using the Intel Mac.

IMac G5 iSight won't boot from external optical drive . . . FW or USB

Hello, all. I have an iMac G5 iSight with a busted optical drive. Every six months or so, OS 10.4 eats itself (directory structure goes corrupt), and I need to reinstall.
The issue I'm having is that the computer won't boot off of my external optical drive. It's not shown as a choice in the Startup Manager, whether it's connected via USB or FireWire. Any ideas?

Okay, sorry this took so long . . .
Reset the SMU, NVRAM, and PRAM, no luck. Tried different FireWire port on the iMac, no luck. Tried different FireWire port on optical drive--LUCK.
Ah.
Wipe and reinstall got underway, and finished the first part. Unfortunately, my OS 10.4 Disc 2 turned out to be scratched, and wiping the hard drive didn't get rid of the logic board error either.
Took it to Apple retail store, and it was BOA (bricked on arrival). Astoundingly, it would not power, POST, turn on the fans, nothing. They then replaced the power supply, so they could troubleshoot the hard drive/fan/whatever issue.
Now the computer POSTs, and they finished the reinstall, and said it passes their advanced diagnostics. I asked them to run the diags on the install CD, so they could see they fan error, and they agreed. That was around 7:00 last night.
Now, it's still at the store, and I'm eagerly awaiting word on what might REALLY be wrong. Thanks for your help so far!

LCD/Santa Rosa systems won't boot from external drives or DVDs

A critical issue with supporting the LED MacBook Pro systems is that to boot from (or install OS to) any external FW Hard Drives MUST be partitioned with the GUID Partition Table option, not the older Apple Partition Map.
This also seems to impact utilities like Disc Warrior and Tech Tool Pro -- the lastest versions of these will not boot either of the two LED MacBook Pro 15" models that I've tested. (This is confirmed on the utilities websites.)
In short, to boot from an external drive it apparently must be formatted with the GUID option (I have no un-partitioned external drives to test). And to boot from a utility CD/DVD -- I haven't found any discs other than the included Apple Software Restore DVD's that will boot these systems.
All models Mac OS X (10.4.9) Corporate support

I'm looking at 4 external FW HD's sitting on my desk
next to our second LCD MacBkPro. These drive can,
and have, booted EVERY INTEL MAC IN THE COMPANY --
with the single exception of the LCD Macs.
I'm looking for hard facts here, not theory. Yes, a
hard drive partitioned with GUID will boot earlier
Intel macs -- but IT WASN'T REQUIRED.
Those of you in theory-land can ask yourselves why
Alsoft's Disk Warrior and Micromat's Tech Tool Pro
CD/DVDs can boot every Intel mac made --- with the
single exception of the LCD Macs. Go to their
websites if you don't believe me...
Back to the topic -- the LCD MacBookPro models
require the GUID partitioning, and seem to require
something else for booting that Alsoft and Micromat
are working on right now. But for those of us who
make our living supporting macs, working with these
machines may require reformatting of external drives
(you can't reformat just one partition) and not allow
use of our standard CD/DVD bootable utility discs.
You know, you might get a bit more help if your tone was a bit more pleasant. I hope it works out for you.
One might argue that those who "make their living supporting macs" might have done better to keep themselves abreast of what was happening in "Theoryland" some time earlier - say 15 months ago when people first realised that intel macs used the GUID partition system. Then they wouldn't be too surprised. I'm not, neither are the others here who are wading in to HELP.
As for hard facts - April 2006 re: firmware updates
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303609
Best of luck.

G4 won't boot from install CD, with no startup chime

I got this G4 from my job for free, but the company erased the hard drive and I'm trying to reinstall OS 10.3. I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with the hardware because this computer worked fine until a big layoff and it's just been sitting unused for about six months.
When I try to boot from the cd holding the "c" key, there is no chime, but everything powers up, all the right lights come on inside and out, and the monitor comes up with the blinkng question mark folder. I didn't replace the battery, but did push the memory reset button by the battery procedure several times. I am suspicious of three things: a)my install cd because it is a copy of the original, b)the battery, and c)maybe the keyboard?
My original install cd's got wrecked, and these are my backups I made (like every responsible nerd does) when they were new. When I look at all the files on the CD, it looks like everything's there and there were no write errors. Since the chime doesn't sound, that makes me nervous. Does a dead battery create this scenario? The keyboard doesn't match the computer- it was part of the free package deal, a turquoise G3 unit with the teeny-tiny scroll arrows. How likely is it this busted?
Any help out there? Thanks!
G4 AGP 500 mhz Mac OS X (10.3)

Hi david,
first of all: WELCOME TO THE DISCUSSIONS!
Noo, you cannot use an external USB drive since you have to boot from the install CD and USB is not a bootable interface with MacOS X on PPC-based computers: Don't start up from an external USB device.
a)my install cd because it is a copy of the original,
This is a very likely source for your problems (besides the legal issue of pirating software).
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

Yosemite won't Boot from External SSD with Firewire Connection

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