Can't boot Macbook from external firewire drive.

[reubs]

I'm having a hell of a time getting my macbook to boot from a bootable CCC backup. I've got it hooked up, and I've selected "Boot from firewire" from the install disc, but it automatically boots from the install disc every time. Do I need to take that out?

Also, I've searched for solutions, and I haven't found something that works, so any info would be appreciated.

BTW, I'm trying to boot from an external so that I can copy the contents onto a new HDD to use as my source HDD.

Thanks for any info.

 

[Cave Man]

When you initialized the Firewire drive, did you do so with GUID partition table? If not, it won't be recognized as a bootable disk with your MacBook.

 

[f1]

Just turn on your computer while holding down the option key. It will then allow you to select any bootable volume. If your CCC Clone on your firewire drive doesn't show up that means your external drive is not partitioned in GUID.

 

[reubs]

Sorry, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about.

What happened was I upgraded CCC to 3.1, and when I cloned my Macbook HDD there was a green light saying, "This disk is bootable." From there it cloned the entire contents of my internal HDD onto my external firewire drive.

I'm think now I might need to just reinstall 10.4.x onto the new drive, and then clone the FW onto the new drive inside my Macbook.

Would that work, and do I need to have the system upgraded to the 10.4.x that my firewire clone is?

 

[Cave Man]

When you buy a new hard drive today, most of them are preformatted as NTFS. When you connected your drive to your Mac, did you initialize it from the Finder, or did you use Disk Utility? Did this drive come already assembled in the firewire enclosure, or did you assemble it yourself?

 

[reubs]

Alright, here's what the HDD looks like.

I got an internal and plugged it into an enclosure. From there, I have it formatted for "Mac OS Extended (journaled)".

I might be about at a restarting point. I can't reformat the external right now b/c there are a lot of files on there that I need to back up first.

Here's the grab of what the CCC screen looked like that I used.

 

[f1]

shut down your computer, and just turn it back on while holding the OPTION key, this will give you the bootloader where you can select any bootable volume to boot from, if you CCC does not show up, something is wrong.

 

[heatmiser]

If you go to system preferences->startup disk, there should be an option to select your external as the starter, provided it is plugged in, turned on, and loaded with a bootable image. from there, you can select the external, reboot, and run the image on the external.

 

[Cave Man]

shut down your computer, and just turn it back on while holding the OPTION key, this will give you the bootloader where you can select any bootable volume to boot from, if you CCC does not show up, something is wrong.

If you go to system preferences->startup disk, there should be an option to select your external as the starter, provided it is plugged in, turned on, and loaded with a bootable image. from there, you can select the external, reboot, and run the image on the external.

He will not be able to boot from a firewire drive (or any other drive, for that matter) with a MacBook if the drive was not initialized with a GUID partition table. All Intel-based Macs require this table for boot drives. You can do all the CCC, Option keys, Startup Volume Preferences you want, but it will not boot. Until the OP tells us specifically how the drive was initialized, we cannot help him.

 

[heatmiser]

He will not be able to boot from a firewire drive (or any other drive, for that matter) with a MacBook if the drive was not initialized with a GUID partition table. All Intel-based Macs require this table for boot drives. You can do all the CCC, Option keys, Startup Volume Preferences you want, but it will not boot. Until the OP tells us specifically how the drive was initialized, we cannot help him.

I agree. However, I don't believe CCC confirms a drive as potentially bootable unless it's formatted in HFS+ (and not NTFS or FAT). Presuming it didn't warn him otherwise when he made the clones, the drive should already be formatted properly.

 

[Cave Man]

I agree. However, I don't believe CCC confirms a drive as potentially bootable unless it's formatted in HFS+ (and not NTFS or FAT). Presuming it didn't warn him otherwise when he made the clones, the drive should already be formatted properly.

As far as I'm aware, CCC does not check the drive to determine if it's initialized with GUID or APM, both of which are available with HFS+ initialization (for Intel or PPC Macs, respectively). From the Disk Utility help:

Partitioning a startup disk into several volumes
If you’ll be using a volume as a Mac OS X startup disk, click Options, and choose the appropriate partition scheme. To use a volume to start up an Intel-based Mac, choose the GUID partition scheme. To use a volume to start up a PowerPC-based Mac, choose the Apple partition scheme.

 

[heatmiser]

As far as I'm aware, CCC does not check the drive to determine if it's initialized with GUID or APM, both of which are available with HFS+ initialization (for Intel or PPC Macs, respectively). From the Disk Utility help:

Partitioning a startup disk into several volumes
If you’ll be using a volume as a Mac OS X startup disk, click Options, and choose the appropriate partition scheme. To use a volume to start up an Intel-based Mac, choose the GUID partition scheme. To use a volume to start up a PowerPC-based Mac, choose the Apple partition scheme.

Ah, I didn't think of that. Good points.

 

[UltraNEO*]

Please open up Disk Utility (Root/Applications/Utility) to check the drives partition table type... only then can we move forward.

 

[logana]

I don't really understand why he needs to boot from the firewire drive - boot from a Mac OSX dvd - cancel the installation go to disk utility and then restore the back-up from the firewire disc to the new HD whether it is in the MacBook or a USB external.

I have used SuperDuper this way and CarbonCopy must be able to work in a similar manner.

Should be straightforward enough - if the new HD is an external he can just boot his machine as normal and then restore the new HD from the image on the firewire disc.

 

[reubs]

Wow, thanks for all of the overnight replies. It looks like I made a mistake way back when I initially formatted the disc. It is partitioned an "Apple Partition" instead of the GUID setup. I was hoping I wouldn't have to repartition the external b/c I've got a lot of files on there that are not on my laptop.

Thanks for the info and the help diagnosing the problem. I'll see what I can figure out here.

Thanks again for all of the replies!

 

[Cave Man]

It is a glaring omission in Disk Utility, iyam. When one initializes a hard drive with HFS+, Disk Utility should automatically set the partition map based upon the computer (Intel vs PPC) and display that info prior to initialization (and, thus, providing the opportunity to change it, if necessary).

You're not the first to have this issue, any you certainly won't be the last. It'll probably happen again today or tomorrow on these forums.

 

[reubs]

Thanks, Cave Man, for all of the info. I'm guessing a partition of any kind will completely wipe my external even if I set up multiple partitions in there.

Would it make sense to try to boot off of a formatted 5G iPod and then restore the installed (new) HDD from a disk image on the external, or does the external need to be formatted using GUID no matter what?

 

[Cave Man]

Thanks, Cave Man, for all of the info. I'm guessing a partition of any kind will completely wipe my external even if I set up multiple partitions in there.

The partition map is a drive-level event, not volume-level. You can only set one for a physical drive.

Would it make sense to try to boot off of a formatted 5G iPod and then restore the installed (new) HDD from a disk image on the external, or does the external need to be formatted using GUID no matter what?

If you are wanting to boot from the drive, it needs the GUID table for your MacBook.

 

[logana]

Hi - yes you can boot from the iPod - but why not use one of your OSX install discs - then go to disc utility.

And yes you will never be able to actually boot from the clone on the firewire until you restore it to another hard drive (and then you will be fine)

Hope you manage it !

 

[reubs]

I don't want to use an install disc because last time I did that my Airport utility started really acting up, and I had trouble getting everything updated. I'd like to skip all of the updating headache when trying to get things reworked.

I'll post back with my results later on.

Thanks again.

 

[logana]

I don't want to use an install disc because last time I did that my Airport utility started really acting up, and I had trouble getting everything updated. I'd like to skip all of the updating headache when trying to get things reworked.

Hi - nobody is asking you to install from the OSX disk - as I said several posts up - use the OSX disk to boot from, then cancel the installation and go to the utilities menu then disc utility.

From there use the restore from disc image facility.

You can boot from the install disk without having to install or re-install anything !!!

 

[reubs]

Thanks for the extra info. I'm now trying to figure out how to create a DMG from my current internal HDD to preserve the complete set-up I currently have. I'm not finding anything that is helping me out, but I wonder if I should be trying to create an image of the "Macintosh HD" while booting from another disk since right now when I try to create that image I get a message saying, "Resource is busy."

 

[logana]

Thanks for the extra info. I'm now trying to figure out how to create a DMG from my current internal HDD to preserve the complete set-up I currently have. I'm not finding anything that is helping me out, but I wonder if I should be trying to create an image of the "Macintosh HD" while booting from another disk since right now when I try to create that image I get a message saying, "Resource is busy."

Yes - you need to boot from something other than the disk you want to copy - either a cd or the ipod. Resource is busy means you cannot clone the disc you have started up from - because files are being used.

Then use either CarbonCopy or Superduper to make a complete copy of your normal start-up disc - your HD in the MacBook. Both programs will show you what to do - just ensure that it is bootable.

In your case it will probably be to copy the internal HD to the firewire drive.

Once you have created the clone you can then restore it to the new hard disk.

I think the confusion is that although you have created a clone on the hard disc you cannot boot from it.