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Booting From External Hard Drive

chas0001 said:
Thanks.

If you had no data you wanted to keep on the USB drive then it would be much easier. Unfortunately that is not an option, unless you have other storage available. The whole problem is that you do not have enough space to keep a complete backup (including the stuff on the SUB drive) of your system should something go wrong!

OK...

1. Reclone your internal drive to the USB drive so that you have a complete, up to date backup.
2. Run Migration Assistant from your /Applications/Utilities folder.
-- We want to check that the USB drives contents are recognized by this program
  • Click Continue
  • Enter your admin password
  • Click Continue
  • Choose 'from another volume on this mac'
  • Check the next screen to see if the cloned OS appears on the USB drive
  • If it does then thats good and continue. If it does not then your screwed.
3. -- Now we have to reinstall os x on the internal drive - by wiping your internal drive!
  • boot from the OS X Install DVD (press and hold C during startup)
  • After choosing the language select UTILITIES and DISK UTILITY from the main menu.
  • In disk utility select your INTERNAL disk and click on the partition tab. Restore your internal drive to 1 partition and name it eg. Macintosh HD. Remember to click on the options button and ensure that GUID Partition Table is selected. Now click on the Partition button.
4. Now close Disk Utility and continue installing OS X onto your INTERNAL DRIVE.
  • When it completes your computer will reboot.
  • When it has booted the 'Startup' Assistant will run and your will be asked to enter some personal information.
  • It will then ask you if you want to migrate your system from another computer (this is the Migration Assistant).
  • Say yes and tell it that you want to migrate from another volume on your computer.
  • It should now list the backup you created in the USB drive. Select it and then let the migration assistant copy everything back to your internal drive. This may take a while.
  • When it has finished restart the computer and make sure that everything is there that should be.
  • now run Software update and get your computer up to date. There may be quite a few updates to install depending on the version of your OS X Install DVD.

This is the only method I can think of that will always ensure you have a backup of your internal disk should anything go wrong. There may be other options. e.g. buy another external HD.

Good Luck :)
Click to expand...

It worked!!! Thanks All!!!
 
Thats good news.

I would wait a week before you do the next step. Just to ensure the everything is working and complete on your internal drive.

What you should do now is sort out the USB drive i.e. format it as GUID so that you can boot from your backup volume in the future.

1. Close all open applications, especially ones that rely on data from your USB drive e.g. iTunes.
2. Create a new folder on your internal drive e.g. USB BACKUP
3. Connect the USB drive and copy everything in FILES partition into it. (you should have enough free space now!)
4. When that is successful verify the files take up the same amount of space.
5. At this point you will need to reformat the USB drive. This means that you will loose your backup.
  • Open Disk utility and highlight the USB drive.
  • Click on the partition tab. Choose 2 partitions and give them the same names as before. Make sure that the backup partition is big enough to store the clone of your internal drive and that the FILES partition is called FILES (for itunes)
  • Now click on the options button and ensure that GUID Partition Table is selected. Now click on the Partition button.
6. When the partitions have been created open the USB BACKUP folder on your internal drive and choose EDIT, SELECT ALL from the menu. Now click on the FILES partition on the USB drive and choose EDIT , PASTE. You must ensure that it looks exactly the same as it did before. Verify everything is copied!
7. Open and verify any applications that reference the FILES partition on the USB drive e.g. Itunes. Your music library should be OK.
8. If all is OK you can now delete the USB BACKUP folder on the internal drive.
9. Clone your internal drive to the backup drive.

Good luck. hopefully after all this you will be back to normal :)
 
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's what i did: Use drive genius, try to resize partition, ERROR! Then the whole drive shows blank, will not mount, oh no! My itunes library, all my files!!!:eek: Can I get them back? Please Help!:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
I made 2 partitions on internal drive and then copied all the files over. I tried to resize one and it crashed. When in disk util, it shows no partitions, just the drive. Man, everything is going wrong this month, my laptop's hd went out, these two hds went out, rrrrrrrrrr!
 
I am still not sure what you have done. From your post earlier you had restored the internal drive to 1 partition that contains OS X that was migrated over using Migration Assistant. The second part was to change the partition scheme of the USB drive so that you can backup from it.

Why on earth are you messing about with drive genius. As I pointed out before you must ensure that you backup the data before mucking about with the hard drives and using third party utilities.

Your posts dont really explain what you have done.
 
chas0001 said:
I am still not sure what you have done. From your post earlier you had restored the internal drive to 1 partition that contains OS X that was migrated over using Migration Assistant. The second part was to change the partition scheme of the USB drive so that you can backup from it.

Why on earth are you messing about with drive genius. As I pointed out before you must ensure that you backup the data before mucking about with the hard drives and using third party utilities.

Your posts dont really explain what you have done.
Click to expand...

When I installed, I made 2 partitions One for Mac OS X and the other for the files I had on the external hd. I copied them over and then repartitioned the external hd into two partitions. One for the CCC Clone and the other for just in case I wanted to put something else on. When booted to the clone, I opened up Drive genius to resize the partitions so there would be more space for the files. I selected the drive and hit the repartition button. Then, selected the partition and hit resize. It gave me an error and did not mount the partitions back...attached are the images of the disk utility
 

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Drive genius (not a name I would use) must have damaged your partition table on the internal disk. I have never used the software before. Don't touch the internal drive and call the Drive Genius support. They may be able to help you recover the data on the disk (it is after all what the software is about).

If you ever want to repartition PLEASE use iPartition. I have never had it fail once.
 
chas0001 said:
Drive genius (not a name I would use) must have damaged your partition table on the internal disk. I have never used the software before. Don't touch the internal drive and call the Drive Genius support. They may be able to help you recover the data on the disk (it is after all what the software is about).

If you ever want to repartition PLEASE use iPartition. I have never had it fail once.
Click to expand...

i will use ipartition next time. Do you know Drive Genious's phone number?
 
IMcD23 said:
I rebooted and got this
Click to expand...

Looks like the partition table table has been wiped so os x thinks that its a new drive. Whatever you do dont initialize.

Tell Drive Genius support exactly what you did and she should be able to help. That is what you are paying for after all.
 
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