• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

Need help booting from external drive

 
Sheriff
Posts: 11343
Mac Safari Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I'm using a G-Tech 320GB mini hard drive connected via firewire 400 to my G5 iMac running OS 10.4.11. I used SuperDuper to make what is supposed to be a fully bootable clone on the external drive (following this tutorial). The volume on the external drive looks okay when accessed via Finder, but I can't seem to boot from it.

I've tried powering up with the Option key depressed, but the only choice that's displayed is the Macintosh HD. I've also tried powering up with the T key depressed, which gave me a firewire icon floating around the screen, but nothing I could apparently do with it.

This backup is mainly in preparation of upgrading to Leopard, so I would really like something to boot from in case things go bad. I don't see that using Target Disk Mode under the Startup Disk mode preferences will help, because that assumes I'm able to boot the machine normally in order to change that setting -- right?

(Note: I've also tried booting from this drive using a G4 PowerBook running Leopard 10.5.4. I get the same results.)
[ September 13, 2008: Message edited by: marc weber ]
 
Sheriff
Posts: 67746
173
Mac Mac OS X IntelliJ IDE jQuery TypeScript Java iOS
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I also used SuperDuper to create what was supposed to be a bootable disk, but never could get it to work.
 
marc weber
Sheriff
Posts: 11343
Mac Safari Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Did you find a different app that worked? Apparently, the other popular option is Carbon Copy Cloner.

But I think I found an answer. My external drive was partitioned using the GUID scheme, which is for booting Intel Macs (this was Disk Utility's default). I repartitioned using APM, which is apparently required for booting PowerPC Macs.

I'll make another clone tomorrow, and see how that goes.
 
Bear Bibeault
Sheriff
Posts: 67746
173
Mac Mac OS X IntelliJ IDE jQuery TypeScript Java iOS
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
No, I never pursued it. Please post back with your findings.
 
author and jackaroo
Posts: 12200
280
Mac IntelliJ IDE Firefox Browser Oracle C++ Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I'm glad you found an answer.

Just to clear something up (or possibly add to the confusion) - it is my understanding that pressing T at bootup puts your Mac into Target mode. That is, your entire Mac stops acting as the source of the Firewire connections, and appears to be just another firewire drive. Using this you could connect 2 Macs together using nothing other than a stock firewire cable - the Target Mac will become an external hard drive to the other Mac.

Best regards, Andrew
 
marc weber
Sheriff
Posts: 11343
Mac Safari Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Andrew, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

(The 'T' approach seemed dubious to me, but it was the best "answer" I found on the net after 'Option' didn't seem to work, so I gave it a try.)

I'm starting to make a new clone now. Give me a few hours...
 
marc weber
Sheriff
Posts: 11343
Mac Safari Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
... Please post back with your findings.


I re-partitioned the external drive using the APM scheme, then made another clone using Carbon Copy Cloner. This works!

When I power up with 'Option' depressed, I do not get the nice display illustrated in the tutorial in which the firewire clone is easily identified. Instead, I get 2 identical icons that both say "Macintosh HD." But the second of these does boot from the external drive with no problem. (To be certain, I tested this on an entirely different machine.)

Note: I'm pretty sure that the issue was the APM scheme, so SuperDuper probably would have worked just as well after fixing that.
[ September 14, 2008: Message edited by: marc weber ]
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic