Can't boot from an external drive

[andersonmattt]

I have a bootable partition on my external hard drive and it used to work just fine. I was using it fine when my friends hard drive crashed, but then the next time we tried booting from it, it stalled at the apple logo, and won't go further. I tried it on multiple computers and get the same result. Does anybody have any idea what's going wrong?

its connected though firewire if that helps

 

[spinnerlys]

What exact Firewire enclosure do you have and what Firewire ports does it use and what exact Mac and Mac OS X version do you possess?

Does the drive show up in Disk Utility? What does it say after VERIFYING the DISK?
What does it say at the bottom of the Disk utility window?

 

[andersonmattt]

running 10.6.4, but 10.6 is installed on the partiton. It's in GUID partition table. Its a Lacie 1tb using fw 800. the disk is verified as being ok

http://localhostr.com/files/3de432/Screen+shot+2010-08-29+at+12.39.19+AM.png

 

[spinnerlys]

Does the OSX partition show up in System Preferences > Startup Disk?

 

[andersonmattt]

Yes, it does. It will give me the option to start up from either by holding option, but ti will just stall at the apple without any sort of spinning wheel icon

 

[spinnerlys]

Could it be, that the installation on that partition is corrupt? Can you delete it and clone your working OS onto that partition?

 

[andersonmattt]

i just tried to make a bootable version of OSX startup disk on a brand new partition, and it does the same thing. So i do not think its a corruption issue.

 

[spinnerlys]

Did you try it via USB yet?

 

[andersonmattt]

No I haven't but do you really think that would make a diff?

 

[spinnerlys]

No I haven't but do you really think that would make a diff?

I don't know, but since x86 Macs are easily capable of booting from USB devices, it is worth a try, it shouldn't take longer than five minutes.