Bootable clone drive (Carbon Copy Cloner) won't boot

[macstatic]

I created a bootable clone (Firewire external hard drive) of my Powerbook G4 internal hard drive (which I've replaced with a new, bigger drive) using Carbon Copy Cloner, but for some reason the external hard drive won't boot (I've also tried it on an iMac with the same results).

That's to say the drive comes up and is selectable in the "Startup disk" preference pane, but after rebooting the "spinning circle" on the screen just goes on forever. I've looked up the "bless" command and tried it to no avail. although something strange happened:
I entered the following command in the OSX command-line Terminal (according to a Carbon Copy Cloner help page and other sources online):

sudo bless -folder "/Volumes/EXTERNAL_DRIVE_NAME/System/Library/CoreServices/"

I expected the command-line prompt to reappear, conforming the command had gone through, but instead I just got a > (greater than character). Seems like it had gone into some different mode, because no UNIX commands (or anything else for that matter) responded, just giving me a new line with >. I was able to return to the command-line by entering CTRL-C)

I've also run Disk utility to check the drive and permissions. The latter needed some fixing, but all's well now. The drive itself checked out without any issues.

What could be the cause of this, and what can I do to fix it?

 

[DewGuy1999]

When you initially made the clone, did CCC say that it would be bootable?

Have you seen this page:
Carbon Copy Cloner: A closer look at how CCC determines the "bootability" of a target volume

 

[macstatic]

I can't remember. I thought CCC made bootable volumes by default. Having run it again (just to have a look) I can't say I found any option for turning on/off a drive being bootable either.

But since I'm able to select the drive from the "Startup drive" preference pane the drive must somehow be bootable, but perhaps only partly for some reason? I've already taken a look at the link above but couldn't find any "irregularities".

 

[entropi]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C134 Safari/6533.18.5)

this happened me at a critical moment a few years ago - since then I only use Superduper for boot-able drives and personal back up

 

[old-wiz]

are you using the right partition map?

You might have it set as GUID when it wants APM.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I created a bootable clone (Firewire external hard drive) of my Powerbook G4 internal hard drive (which I've replaced with a new, bigger drive) using Carbon Copy Cloner, but for some reason the external hard drive won't boot (I've also tried it on an iMac with the same results)."

Go back and re-do the clone. This time, choose "incremental backup" on the right side of CCC's window. On the left side, just make sure that EVERYTHING is checked.

Before you click "go", look at CCC's window and see whether the clone will be bootable or not -- CCC should tell you this.

Be aware that sometimes (seldom, but it does happen) firewire drives won't be "bootable" because of some internal hardware incompatibility. I currently have a "Voyager Quad" USB/firewire/SATA docking station from Other World Computing. It boots my Intel Mac from USB easily. But for some reason, it WON'T boot from a firewire connection (first firewire device I've encountered that won't boot a Mac). Not sure just why.

Before you fault CCC, realize that it _could_ be the drive itself (usually the internal drive controller chip) that is the problem. Another off-the-wall thought: have you tried a different _connecting cable_?