booting from a usb drive

[numlock]

i copied the whole hard drive of an old imac of mine from 2006 (10.5.8) to a seagate usb hard drive so that i could access the files and even boot it up if i wanted to.

i have another imac from 2006 as well as macbook from 2007 (both running 10.6.8) and i get the choose which disk to boot up option as always. i select the external drive and after a few second it turns off and then the computer as well.

anyone know what could be the reason for this? it worked fine a few months ago.

 

[Weaselboy]

anyone know what could be the reason for this? it worked fine a few months ago.

If this worked before and not does not, assuming you did not change anything, it kind of sounds like the drive died. Can you see it in Disk Utility if you just attach it to one of other machines without booting from it?

 

[numlock]

If this worked before and not does not, assuming you did not change anything, it kind of sounds like the drive died. Can you see it in Disk Utility if you just attach it to one of other machines without booting from it?

should have added that

the drive works just fine regularly. i just copied some more data to that partition few days ago. and the computers see it when they are booting up and can choose to boot up from it.

btw is there anyway to create a vmware image running from this partition so i could run it inside mavericks or yosemite instead of trying to boot from it. obviously that limits me to computers that support 10.5.8

just tried booting from the macbook and i get the apple logo and the wheel beneath starts spinning and after about 20 seconds power the drive and the computer turn off

 

[Weaselboy]

should have added that

the drive works just fine regularly. i just copied some more data to that partition few days ago. and the computers see it when they are booting up and can choose to boot up from it.

btw is there anyway to create a vmware image running from this partition so i could run it inside mavericks or yosemite instead of trying to boot from it. obviously that limits me to computers that support 10.5.8

just tried booting from the macbook and i get the apple logo and the wheel beneath starts spinning and after about 20 seconds power the drive and the computer turn off

I am not familiar with how VMWare works, so dunno.

I was asking if this worked before with the same machines because you cannot for example boot a 2012 Macbook to a Snow Leopard 10.6 disk because the drivers wouldn't be present, so I thought you might have an issue with old OS versions not worked on newer Macs... but if you are saying it has worked on those same machines but now does not, I am baffled. It does sound like a bad disk, but you seem to able to use it otherwise?

Does a Disk Util repair disk show anything odd?

 

[numlock]

I am not familiar with how VMWare works, so dunno.

I was asking if this worked before with the same machines because you cannot for example boot a 2012 Macbook to a Snow Leopard 10.6 disk because the drivers wouldn't be present, so I thought you might have an issue with old OS versions not worked on newer Macs... but if you are saying it has worked on those same machines but now does not, I am baffled. It does sound like a bad disk, but you seem to able to use it otherwise?

Does a Disk Util repair disk show anything odd?

it did work before on this particular machine. original imac is late 2006 and the macbook is late 2007. i get the same result on another late 2006 imac.

the disk otherwise seems to work fine and i just ran verify disk in disk utility and no issues there.

i dont use the disk much. its not done much more than be split into 3 partitions (1 of them is fat should that matter), store the imac backup and copied some files from an old xp computer

 

[Weaselboy]

it did work before on this particular machine. original imac is late 2006 and the macbook is late 2007. i get the same result on another late 2006 imac.

the disk otherwise seems to work fine and i just ran verify disk in disk utility and no issues there.

i dont use the disk much. its not done much more than be split into 3 partitions (1 of them is fat should that matter), store the imac backup and copied some files from an old xp computer

When did you add the FAT partition? If it was there before it would not matter, but I'm wondering if you added it later and if that could have messed up the hidden EFI partition that a Mac drive needs to boot?

 

[numlock]

When did you add the FAT partition? If it was there before it would not matter, but I'm wondering if you added it later and if that could have messed up the hidden EFI partition that a Mac drive needs to boot?

it was after i last booted from it but wouldnt that stop the mac from acknowledging it as a bootable partition instead of seeing it, allowing you to choose it and then dying halfway there?

anyway to try would you think i would have to simply format the FAT one as mac os extended again or do the whole disk again?

 

[Weaselboy]

it was after i last booted from it but wouldnt that stop the mac from acknowledging it as a bootable partition instead of seeing it, allowing you to choose it and then dying halfway there?

anyway to try would you think i would have to simply format the FAT one as mac os extended again or do the whole disk again?

Honestly, I'm not sure. This is just an idea I had and the fact it worked before and now does not since you added that FAT partition makes me think that is what broke it. I think you are going to need to clone the OS over again to restore the hidden partitions that got messed up.

Plugin the USB and run "diskutil list" (without the quotes) in Terminal and that will show you all the partitions.

 

[numlock]

Honestly, I'm not sure. This is just an idea I had and the fact it worked before and now does not since you added that FAT partition makes me think that is what broke it. I think you are going to need to clone the OS over again to restore the hidden partitions that got messed up.

Plugin the USB and run "diskutil list" (without the quotes) in Terminal and that will show you all the partitions.

i thought about that as well. But again I would have thought that disk util would do that in a way that didnt ruin something else

i formatted the disk and made a new copy of the computer and it works fine now.

thanks for you help