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jchase2057

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 6, 2010
234
2
Detroit
I have a 2009 Mini with a bad disc drive. I used disc utility and made a bootable usb drive with os x 10.6. Everything went well and when I go to boot from the usb drive I select it and it starts to boot then after about a minute I just get the "no access" sign. I tried to boot from it on my macbook pro and it isnt even recognized when I hold down option. It is recognized and mountable once I boot into os x. I'm using a kingston dtse9 16gb drive.
 

Omnius

macrumors 6502a
Jul 23, 2012
562
30
I have a 2009 Mini with a bad disc drive. I used disc utility and made a bootable usb drive with os x 10.6. Everything went well and when I go to boot from the usb drive I select it and it starts to boot then after about a minute I just get the "no access" sign. I tried to boot from it on my macbook pro and it isnt even recognized when I hold down option. It is recognized and mountable once I boot into os x. I'm using a kingston dtse9 16gb drive.

I'm not sure you can boot from USB 2.0 on a 2009 mac mini. I know you can boot from firewire though.
 
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
30
located
I have a 2009 Mini with a bad disc drive. I used disc utility and made a bootable usb drive with os x 10.6. Everything went well and when I go to boot from the usb drive I select it and it starts to boot then after about a minute I just get the "no access" sign. I tried to boot from it on my macbook pro and it isnt even recognized when I hold down option. It is recognized and mountable once I boot into os x. I'm using a kingston dtse9 16gb drive.

As I do not know, how you did the USB restoration, maybe tell us, what source you used to make the USB installer, if your optical disk drive (ODD) is in bad shape.

You could also use CarbonCopyCloner (3.4.7 is still free) and clone the DMG or what you have to a properly formatted* USB flash memory thumb drive and then use that USB flash memory thumb drive to install from.


I'm not sure you can boot from USB 2.0 on a 2009 mac mini. I know you can boot from firewire though.

You can boot from a 2006 Intel Mac via USB just fine, thus you can also boot from a 2009 Mac mini via USB just fine too.
 

jchase2057

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 6, 2010
234
2
Detroit
I'm not sure you can boot from USB 2.0 on a 2009 mac mini. I know you can boot from firewire though.

I can on my 2007 mini. I'm pretty sure you can boot from usb on all intel machines. And I'm certain My mbp can so I'm pretty sure its the drive. I just don't know why it's not working.

----------

I created the dmg straight from the 10.6 disc using disk utility. I then used disk utility to create the usb drive. I'm certain I did it right but it's not working. Any reason for this?
 

jchase2057

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 6, 2010
234
2
Detroit
That's the same way I did it. It's worked for me countless times too. I guess I'll just keep messing with it.
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
Was the source DVD gray? That's for a specific range of computers and won't work on other computers.

For example, your 10.6 MBP restore disk won't work on Mini.
 

tomacintosh

macrumors 6502
Aug 25, 2005
259
21
Hey, I'm having a similar problem with a Late 2006 iMac. I've tried a USB stick and a hard drive via usb. It recognises them both as bootable EFI devices, but when I select it I just get the no entry sign and the mac eventually turns itself off.

EDIT: Just had an epiphany. I was trying to install ML on a pre-2007 Mac.

My bad.
 
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