Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

500mb My Book external Hard drive How Do I boot up from it??

S

sssail

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 23, 2008
6
0
I need to repair my hard drive.. I bought the Mybook 500GB external hardrive and cloned my hardrive to it. However, when I try to start up from it I can't. I hold down the option key it only shows Mac 10.4.11 HARD DISK and the E drive but not the external hard drive. IT is fire wire. I held down the M key no luck, the C key no luck and the option key, no luck. I went into system preferences and clicked "Mac OS X 10.4.11 on Hard disk boot" which is what I named it on the external hard drive. When I restart it starts from the hard disk internal????????
MOS X 10.4.11 Powerbook G4
The icons show up on my desk top and I can access them but they just don't show up as an option to start up from. I am not sure what I am or am not doing right! Any help, I would be grateful.
 
If the external drive is not appearing in the screen that results when you hold down the Option key at startup simply put the drive is not being recognized by the system as a bootable device since it will list ALL currently bootable devices there. Since it IS a firewire connection you are using as required by PPC based Macs to be bootable, something must have failed in the copy.

Did you use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to originally clone the drive? If it was Carbon Copy Cloner, just before you begin copying it will show a green light and a note mentioning that the copy will be bootable- did you see that?

If all else fails, use one of those two to clone the drive again and just see if something was missed in the cloning operation.
 
sickmacdoc said:
Carbon Copy Cloner, just before you begin copying it will show a green light and a note mentioning that the copy will be bootable- did you see that?
Click to expand...

I think I do remember seeing where it say this will be a bootable drive. I will try again.Oh I used carbon cloner. I partioned the external drive after I cloned it ?? I am afraid I know just enough to be dangerous! THanks for your help I will try it again.
sssail3@aol
 
Confuded

sssail said:
I will try it again.
sssail3@aol
Click to expand...

OK, I cloned it again and it did say it would be bootable! But, as before, it doesn't show up holding down the option key, the icons do show up on my desktop and I did click to erase it before it cloned :( and fire vault was off?http://images.macrumors.com/vb/images/smilies/confused.gif
I know not what to do!! Was I supposed to do something to to the external hard drive before using it??
Thanks again!!!
See attached picture!
Any Ideas??
 

Attachments

  • cloning HD.jpg
    cloning HD.jpg
    68 KB · Views: 176
what format is the external drive in??

why do you ahve to boot from the external when it seems to be working? if its not working please explain so we can answer you better(ly)
 
How is your Hard Drive formatted - unless it is partitioned as a non-Intel (Apple Partition Map) drive then your PowerBook won't be able to boot from it.
 
i would be doing this

1. Plug the drive in mac sure it is mounted on the desktop
2. Open disk utility and erase it to Mac OS format
3. Open up carbon copy cloner and clone ur hdd to it
4. Reboot and hold option key boot off the drive

If your trying to repair your main hdd, why not boot of the tiger disc and repair that way? Just put the cd in and hold C when your boot it will then boot of the cd
 
DoFoT9 said:
what format is the external drive in??

why do you ahve to boot from the external when it seems to be working? if its not working please explain so we can answer you better(ly)
Click to expand...

The format of the external drive is whatever it was when I bought it( brand new) it said it was formatted for both MAC & PC.
I have never been able to boot up from it althought the icons do show on my screen and I can click on them and get to the files and infformation. I have it partitioned into 2 sections,( hard sidk boot) & ( Bry1) both icons appear on the desk top.
I cloned my hard drive aggain yesterday, took hours, named it" hard disk boot9/2" can't find it ????
Thanks,
Bryan
 

Attachments

  • desktoppic.jpg
    desktoppic.jpg
    107.6 KB · Views: 97
sssail said:
The format of the external drive is whatever it was when I bought it( brand new) it said it was formatted for both MAC & PC.
I have never been able to boot up from it althought the icons do show on my screen and I can click on them and get to the files and infformation. I have it partitioned into 2 sections,( hard sidk boot) & ( Bry1) both icons appear on the desk top.
I cloned my hard drive aggain yesterday, took hours, named it" hard disk boot9/2" can't find it ????
Thanks,
Bryan
Click to expand...

ok geez its formatted as FAT32 then!!!

your going to have to reformat and repartion the whole thing im afraid to be able to boot through it....sorry
 
toolbox said:
If your trying to repair your main hdd, why not boot of the tiger disc and repair that way? Just put the cd in and hold C when your boot it will then boot of the cd
Click to expand...

I need to wipe my hard clean and start over and don't want to lose any of my currnet files or information.I have some bad blocks, whatever they are and disk utility as well as tech tool says to reinitialize the hard drive. I figure if I can boot up from the external hard drive wipe the hard clean then copy this one back onto the hard drive I will be ok without lossing any iformation?????? Wish I knew more about what I was doing. But my apple care ran out, I am trying to fix it myself.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
sssail said:
I need to wipe my hard clean and start over and don't want to lose any of my currnet files or information.I have some bad blocks, whatever they are and disk utility as well as tech tool says to reinitialize the hard drive. I figure if I can boot up from the external hard drive wipe the hard clean then copy this one back onto the hard drive I will be ok without lossing any iformation?????? Wish I knew more about what I was doing. But my apple care ran out, I am trying to fix it myself.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

seems simple to fix, first, i would reinstall using the "archive and reinstall" option. this method will save ALL of your files, preferences, settings, history.. the lot and reinstall just the system, applications blablabla. try that first and see how you go.

it is by far the easiest way to check if it will fix anything.

if that doesnt work, then go with your other ideas.
 
Dude if you have bad blocks on the hdd, i would be replacing it not using it. Bad sectors will spread just like the common cold. They also cause the machine to slow down.
 
"Formatted for mac and PC" translates as FAT32. Tou can't fix this by just reformatting to "Mac OS Extended Journaled".

To get round it you have to;
Open "Disk Utility"
Click on the Drive i.e. "500GB WesternDigital..." NOT the Volume, i.e. MyBook"
Click on the "partition" Tab
Under "volume Scheme" select 1 Partition
Neer the bottom, click on the "options" Button and select the appropriate partition map for your mac "GUID" for Intel Macs, "MBR" for Windows Booting and "Apple Partition Map" for PPC macs

Then clone it using CCC or your fave cloning app and make sure that you click the "make bootable" option
 
Here is where the problem may lay.....

I recently purchased a My Book Studio edition and formatted and cloned properly for my power pc processor. Couldn't boot from it. Couln't find a solution to it on any of the message boards. I went to WD site to contact them. After submitting my information their site took me to a page that stated the following:

The following external hard drives are bootable on Intel-based Macintosh computers systems through USB:
My Book Essential Edition
My Book Essential Edition 2.0
My Book Home Edition
My Book Mirror Edition
My Book Office Edition
My Book Premium Edition
My Book Premium Edition II
My Book Premium ES Edition
My Book Pro Edition
My Book Pro Edition II
My Book Studio Edition
My Book Studio Edition II
My Passport Studio

The following external hard drives are bootable on Intel-based Macintosh computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b):

My Book Home Edition
My Book Mirror Edition
My Book Office Edition
My Book Premium Edition
My Book Premium Edition II
My Book Pro Edition
My Book Pro Edition II
My Book Studio Edition
My Book Studio Edition II
My Passport Studio

The following external hard drives are bootable on Power PC based Macintosh computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b):

WD My Book Premium Edition
WD My Book Pro Edition

The following external hard drives are not bootable on Power PC based Macintosh computers systems through USB/FireWire 1394(a/b):

My Book Essential Edition
My Book Essential Edition 2.0
My Book Home Edition
My Book Mirror Edition
My Book Office Edition
My Book Premium Edition II
My Book Pro Edition II
My Book Studio Edition
My Book Studio Edition II
My Passport Studio
My Passport Elite
My Passport Essential
WD PassportWD Passport (Silver)


So in conclusion, if you are on a Power PC Mac there are only two My Books that you can boot from as the rest are just for the intel based ones (if you want them to be bootable). This is very dissapointing!
 
Upon my tests on intel mac's newer My Book Studio drives (eg: WDBAAJ0020HSL) will not boot when connected with firewire, only with usb, even with a GUID partition.
 
valexa said:
Upon my tests on intel mac's newer My Book Studio drives (eg: WDBAAJ0020HSL) will not boot when connected with firewire, only with usb, even with a GUID partition.
Click to expand...
Yeah dude, it's a known firewire bug.

Next time when you don't see your firewire drive, simply unplug it and plug it back, it should become available to boot from in a couple of seconds.

It may sound dodgy but it works, and seems to be the only solution until the problem's addressed in an update.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back