I just attached a Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD (using a Delock External enclosure) to my 2011 iMac and it says 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" with options "Initialize", "Ignore", "Eject". Anyone know why it's not readable??
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Setting up an external SSD as my boot drive
- Thread starter musiclvr
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Brand new? You have to initialize and format it
Yes, brand new. If I am using as external boot drive, should I format as 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'?
Got it, thanks!
Now for the hard part...getting it set up as my boot drive. I have a 2TB internal HDD in my iMac so I can't clone the entire drive and move it over (using Carbon Copy Cloner). Basically I want to install the OS and applications, and run a .pvm file. I'm thinking a clean install might be the best option for installing the OS and applications. But I also don't really want to re-install all my apps. What would you recommend? If I do a clean install of my OS, how do I go about that? From what I've read, TRIM needs to be enabled? Any guides/tutorials out there for moving the boot drive to an external SSD (including instructions for installing the OS on the SSD)?
You could always shrink you internal bootable partition, a little smaller than the SSD just to make sure, clone it and after expand it to the full SSD size.
Glad to hear you got your Delock. I've got the exact same setup with the 500GB 840 EVO.
What I ended up doing was moving all media files (iPhoto, iTunes libraries, etc) to an external HDD. Once this was done, the Macintosh HD partition was down to about 120GB. I then used Carbon Copy Cloner to dupe it onto the SSD and then set it as the default boot device.
As for enabling TRIM it's a one time setting which I used Chameleon SSD Optimizer for. You can grab it here.
What I ended up doing was moving all media files (iPhoto, iTunes libraries, etc) to an external HDD. Once this was done, the Macintosh HD partition was down to about 120GB. I then used Carbon Copy Cloner to dupe it onto the SSD and then set it as the default boot device.
As for enabling TRIM it's a one time setting which I used Chameleon SSD Optimizer for. You can grab it here.
How exactly do you "shrink" the internal bootable partition?
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Yep, I ended up getting it in less than 3 days from Amazon after I had to cancel my order with MemoryDepot.
Is it possible to clone only a select part of the HD?
Thanks...is there any difference between Chameleon SSD Optimizer and Trim Enabler (http://www.cindori.org/software/trimenabler/)? Do I enable it after I've got everything else set up?
I am assuming here most of the space on your 2TB internal is in the Music and Pictures folders? Just use CCC to clone the internal to the new external. When you select the internal on the left scroll down and click the triangle expando by Users then also expand your user account then scroll down to Music and Pictures (see screenshot) and UNcheck those two. That should get you down to a size that will fit on the new SSD. Then select the new drive on the right side and do the clone.
Now after you do the clone reboot and hold the option key as it boots then select the SSD to boot from. Now go to System Prefs and in the Startup Disk pane select the SSD as the boot drive.
Now install and run TRIM Enabler to turn on TRIM on the SSD.
I don't understand what you are trying to have the OP do here? You can't shrink a partition in Disk Util smaller that the amount of data on the partition.
Yes, probably the majority of space is being used by pictures and music. But I've had this computer since 2011 so it's been collecting a lot of junk over the years and I'm not entirely sure what all is on here. That's why I kind of want to do a clean install. I'm downloading the Mavericks installer from the App Store and going to put it on an flash drive and install from that. But I'm hoping there is a way to copy over my applications. Can I do that with Migration Assistant? Or does that migrate everything over?
Of course you can't, I know that.
I wrote that assuming his data would all fit on his SSD.
Last time I cloned my Hdd to an SSD, it was from the internal 2TB to an external 1TB ssd (I have about 500gb data total) it would not let me copy because the destination partition was smaller than the source, even if the data would fit.
After I shrinked the partition, I could clone it.
I wrote that assuming his data would all fit on his SSD.
Last time I cloned my Hdd to an SSD, it was from the internal 2TB to an external 1TB ssd (I have about 500gb data total) it would not let me copy because the destination partition was smaller than the source, even if the data would fit.
After I shrinked the partition, I could clone it.
Yes, MA can selectively copy things over to some extent.
When you run MA you will get this screen where you could uncheck Music and Pictures if you wanted.
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Ahhh... gotcha... but it sounds like the OP has more data on the internal than space on the external so needs to only move over some of the data.
I'm guessing you used Disk Util to clone and that does require you to shrink the source smaller than the target even if there is not that much data on the source.
OP wrote above:
[[ Now for the hard part...getting it set up as my boot drive. I have a 2TB internal HDD in my iMac so I can't clone the entire drive and move it over (using Carbon Copy Cloner). ]]
CCC allows you to select folders/files to "not be a part of" the clone.
See all the checkboxes on the "source drive side" of the CCC window?
It may take some time, but you can use this method.
[[ Now for the hard part...getting it set up as my boot drive. I have a 2TB internal HDD in my iMac so I can't clone the entire drive and move it over (using Carbon Copy Cloner). ]]
CCC allows you to select folders/files to "not be a part of" the clone.
See all the checkboxes on the "source drive side" of the CCC window?
It may take some time, but you can use this method.
I copied the Mavericks.dmg file onto my flash drive (formatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled)). Tried to run it and it gives me the following message:
"The Mavericks.app application can't be used from this disk.
Copy this application to a writable Mac OS Extended formatted disk and reopen it to continue installation."
I thought it would open the installation and let me pick where to install to. What am I doing wrong?
"The Mavericks.app application can't be used from this disk.
Copy this application to a writable Mac OS Extended formatted disk and reopen it to continue installation."
I thought it would open the installation and let me pick where to install to. What am I doing wrong?
Copy the Mavericks installation file to your internal HD and try it again; it should give you the option of installing to your new SSD.
I've copied to an external flash drive, and I've copied to the external SSD. I've also tried running it from my internal HDD. I open the dmg fileand try to install the Mavericks.app and still get the above message no matter where I open it from.
I suggest attaching your external SSD and boot using your current OS, and verify that OSX "sees" the SSD. Go to the Apple Store and re-download Mavericks, and open the newly downloaded copy.