booting from an external hard drive

[texas77fj40]

i was doing an erase and install to get things cleaned up and when the installer asked me for my disk 2 i realized that disk 2 had a crack in it. bummer, but i do have osx on my external. is there any way i can tell my mac to boot from an external that is connected with a firewire 400? please help i need my mac back.

oh yah and i am in japan and the mac store said they couldn't help, and i should call apple care and order a new cd but i don't really have an adress since i'm just here for a few weeks for business, otherwise i would just get a replacement, so long story short, i need some help.

 

[dongmin]

1. if press down the option key when you boot up, you should get your choice of bootable volumes. you can then select the firewire disk or CD or whatever.

2. holding down option-command-shift-delete while booting up is supposed to bypass your primary boot volume and get you to your externals and CD.

 

[xappeal]

That doesn't really solve the problem though.......

Why don't you install OS X using none of the extras. This will only need disc one. Then, use the migration assistant to copy all the apps from your external volume over to the main hard drive.

You don't want to run your computer off an external forever.

OR

You could boot off disc one and restore your external onto your internal drive...... even better.