booting from external

[iTwitch]

I just created a bootable backup on an external fw drive and tested it by selecting it using 'System Prefs->Startup Disk' and all went well.

My question is would I been able to boot from the external if the internal was bad and left in the iBook?

Thanks in advance.

 

[iMeowbot]

If you hold down apple-option-shift-delete at startup, you'll get a little menu to choose the boot drive.

 

[BengalDuck]

Can you explain to me how to make a bootable backup? I need to reinstall by OS... just too many problems recently... but I don't want to have to reinstall Office and all of my programs (assuming I'd even be able to install them).

 

[iTwitch]

If you hold down apple-option-shift-delete at startup, you'll get a little menu to choose the boot drive.

I got that part, but would having a non-working drive still in cause problems. Thanks again.

 

[iTwitch]

Can you explain to me how to make a bootable backup? I need to reinstall by OS... just too many problems recently... but I don't want to have to reinstall Office and all of my programs (assuming I'd even be able to install them).

If you've got a PPC setup you'll need a firewire external, for the software I'm using Carbon Copy Cloner.

Just tell CCC the drive to backup and where to put the backup and in prefs click 'bootable', that's about it.

 

[iMeowbot]

I got that part, but would having a non-working drive still in cause problems. Thanks again.

If the funky drive is still half-alive, there might be some delay before you get to that menu, but once you're up on the external you can set the startup drive to avoid that problem.