Bootable Drive question

[jwgall]

I have an older MacBook(1,1) running Snow Leopard. I am having a problem with kernel panic errors. Disk utility indicates repair needed. Problem is my combodrive is not working. I was wondering if, and how, I can boot from an external USB hard drive. I have one that I use for my time machine backups. Just not sure how I can make that a bootable drive.

Thanks in advance from a newbie

 

[satcomer]

First you have to know your Mac! You have to know what is the fastest port on your Mac then you can choose the style on external. Just make that external comes with the cables for all it's ports and use a cloning program like the free Carbon Copy Cloner.

This way you can use System Preferences->Startup Disk and choose the connected clone to boot to. This is why you should have an external to your fastest port on your Mac.

 

[GGJstudios]

You can boot from an external drive, but not from a Time Machine backup. If you want to create a bootable backup, I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[jwgall]

Thanks for the help. Downloaded CCC, booted off external drive and fixed problem. Thanks again