Can't boot external USB hard drive on 2011 MacBook Air

[neko girl]

Hi,

I've created a drive copy using Carbon Copy Cloner. Here's details:

• I've done everything the CCC help pages advise regarding drive preparation, including making sure I format using GUID partition table.
• I'm running Lion on my 2010 MacBook Air
• I can boot with my copy plugged into either USB port on 2010 MacBook Air
• When I try to boot the same drive on my 2011 MacBook Air it gives me a symbol - circle with a slash through it. It then shuts down.

I'm baffled by this behavior. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[tom vilsack]

yes...2011 air runs a different copy of lion...rather then the retail one that you download from the app store....try making a carbon copy on your 2011 air onto your external usb drive and then try booting usb...bet it works.

 

[deeddawg]

yes...2011 air runs a different copy of lion...rather then the retail one that you download from the app store..

Yep. Apparently the retail copy of Lion doesn't have some drivers or something necessary to boot a 2011 Macbook Air. Thus it won't work.

There's speculation / expectation that in a revision or two we'll see the two versions merged as it wouldn't make sense to maintain parallel versions any longer than necessary.

 

[neko girl]

Yeah that seems to be the case. Different drivers. I guess I'm at a loss as far as moving settings over. I tried transfer settings & Apps option at first boot, I've tried system assistant. Seems like Launchpad looks like I never touched it before, and all programs behave like they're new (even MobileMe is logged out).

@tom vilsack, yeah it does work I tried it. It makes sense, but I'm not sure why Apple is doing things this way. Makes migration a big point of frustration..

 

[halledise]

Hi,

I've created a drive copy using Carbon Copy Cloner. Here's details:

• I've done everything the CCC help pages advise regarding drive preparation, including making sure I format using GUID partition table.
• I'm running Lion on my 2010 MacBook Air
• I can boot with my copy plugged into either USB port on 2010 MacBook Air
• When I try to boot the same drive on my 2011 MacBook Air it gives me a symbol - circle with a slash through it. It then shuts down.

I'm baffled by this behavior. Anyone have any ideas?

by all means download Lion again only this time use this link's method and you won't have to download it again:
http://goo.gl/yszMx

also this may be useful to you:
http://goo.gl/DyJTd

 

[jamesr19]

by all means download Lion again only this time use this link's method and you won't have to download it again:
http://goo.gl/yszMx

also this may be useful to you:
http://goo.gl/DyJTd

Great info, especially second source..thanks for your help!!