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How long does it take to boot from a USB drive?

MacOG728893

MacOG728893

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 10, 2010
1,716
114
Orange County CA
New Problem: Read through the thread PLEASE, I am getting frustrated with myself, not the community of course..

Edit: When I go to boot from the flash drive, it start up normally for 30 seconds with the Apple logo and spinning loading wheel and then after 20-30 seconds it sounds as if the HDD just goes to sleep or turns off and immediately I get the little circle with the line through it.. Ugh.

Installing OS X from USB drive, when I click on it starts with this and has been hanging for 15 minutes.

Should I restart it and try again? Or will it damage my bootable USB drive? Or is this normal, thank you!

img0637nk.jpg
 
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I don't know if it will damage it, but it should not take 15 minutes. It sounds fairly absurd.
 
jessica. said:
I don't know if it will damage it, but it should not take 15 minutes. It sounds fairly absurd.
Click to expand...

Why would it read and then go to this screen? I followed all the instructions for making a bootable USB drive with OS X correctly.. I am so confused but I guess I have no option but to hard reboot.. :(
 
Please define USB drive. HDD or flash, USB 1.1 or 2.0...

This doesn't seem outrageous for flash over USB. i.e. a "thumbdrive"

B
 
balamw said:
Please define USB drive. HDD or flash, USB 1.1 or 2.0...

This doesn't seem outrageous for flash over USB. i.e. a "thumbdrive"

B
Click to expand...

USB thumb drive 2.0 .. it was actually more like 25 minutes..

Is that the normal screen that it starts to boot from?
 
Really depends on the drive.

I had SL on a fast (class 10) SD card in a USB reader just for a laugh and it ran like molasses. I'd hate to think what it would be like on a Class 4 or lower.

B
 
balamw said:
Really depends on the drive.

I had SL on a fast (class 10) SD card in a USB reader just for a laugh and it ran like molasses. I'd hate to think what it would be like on a Class 4 or lower.

B
Click to expand...

Is there somewhere I can check to be sure?
Also is that the normal wait screen before entering instillation?

Thanks for the input and help though, much appreciated.
 
balamw said:
I don't recall or like the circle with a line through it, but the spinner at the bottom seems to indicate something is going on...

B
Click to expand...

You know what, i just remembered I have a super fast UDMA compact flash card.. Can I do the same setup with that card like I did with my thumb drive?

Edit: Scratch that, I don't have that one here with me, just an old Extreme III 30Mbs
 
MacOG728893 said:
Installing OS X from USB drive, when I click on it starts with this and has been hanging for 15 minutes.
Click to expand...

Startup takes only 1-2 minutes. I use a USB 2.0 flash memory device as an emergency disk. Mac OS X 10.6.8 is very fast on a 16 GB Kingston USB 2.0 flash memory device, which can read data with 24 MByte/s. The main reason is, that flash cells have nearly no noticeable access time, compared to HDDs and CDs/DVDs. Let us assume a low-end flash memory device can read 8 MByte/s. Then it takes 100 seconds to read 800 MByte from the device. Mac OS X 10.6.x loads much less than 800 MByte, IIRC.

Your screen looks like a permissions problem (kernel extensions or other parts) or like you used a machine specific (grey) disk. In both cases, the kernel does not load the required components and displays the "no-startup-disk" sign.

----------
MacOG728893 said:
You know what, i just remembered I have a super fast UDMA compact flash card.. Can I do the same setup with that card like I did with my thumb drive?
Click to expand...

You have a software, not a hardware problem.
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
Startup takes only 1-2 minutes. I use a USB 2.0 flash memory device as an emergency disk. Mac OS X 10.6.8 is very fast on a 16 GB Kingston USB 2.0 flash memory device, which can read data with 24 MByte/s. The main reason is, that flash cells have nearly no noticeable access time, compared to HDDs and CDs/DVDs. Let us assume a low-end flash memory device can read 8 MByte/s. Then it takes 100 seconds to read 800 MByte from the device. Mac OS X 10.6.x loads much less than 800 MByte, IIRC.

Your screen looks like a permissions problem (kernel extensions or other parts) or like you used a machine specific (grey) disk. In both cases, the kernel does not load the required components and displays the "no-startup-disk" sign.

----------



You have a software, not a hardware problem.
Click to expand...

Okay, possible solution?
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
Use the restore function within Disk Utility to preserve permissions and do not use a grey (machine specific disk).
Click to expand...

I've tried this and cannot do anything. I also cannot erase or partition my HDD. It tells me that it couldn't be unmounted. I cannot go into the OS becuase no OS is loaded..

I am so frustrated right now, I am sorry if I come off blunt I am extremely grateful for the help.. I don't know what to do!

Edit: I am in the recovery partition of Lion right now and my Snow Leopard retail disk keeps getting spit out of my optical drive that was just serviced by Apple.

Edit 2: I even tried moving OS X leopard from the thumb drive to the HDD with restore. It seems like it's working and then just boots to Lion Recovery where I cannot not fix anything in Disk Utility. When I try to unmount the harddrive to erase, it says unmount failed: make sure all applications and files are closed. I cannot close applications or files because I have no access to the OS. I also cannot install lion from my account, it says my HDD is locked.. Geez..

Edit 3: I read some people saying the drive has failed then and needs to be replaced. Problem. I just got a new HDD put in 3 days ago directly from apple. When I go to boot from the flash drive, it start up normally for 30 seconds with the Apple logo and spinning loading wheel and then after 20-30 seconds it sounds as if the HDD just goes to sleep or turns off and immediately I get the little circle with the line through it.. Ugh..
 
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I have read the thread and I am now thoroughly confused......

What are you trying to do here ?

You have Lion installed on your 3 day old hard disk ? but for some reason you want to boot from a USB drive that has 10.6 installed on it ??

Why ?

Does the MacBook boot fine into Lion or not ?

Are you trying to reinstall Lion onto this new hard disk ?

Are you trying to install 10.6 onto the MacBook ?

Just because the hard disk is 3 days old does not mean that it actually works....

Are you using the boot loader screen to pick the USB drive ?

What happens when you boot from the Snow Leopard disk in the optical drive - can you not run Disk Utility from there. Remember to select the dvd from boot loader screen - if you boot while holding down the c does Lion not boot to the recovery partition instead ?
 
logana said:
I have read the thread and I am now thoroughly confused......
Click to expand...

I am sorry, I completely understand I took this all over the place, let me try and clear things up!

logana said:
What are you trying to do here?
Click to expand...

I am try to load Snow Leopard from a USB thumb drive over lion. I had previously erased my HDD before trying to load SL and it cleared the OS completely, which isn't a problem if it would just load from the USB drive.

logana said:
You have Lion installed on your 3 day old hard disk ? but for some reason you want to boot from a USB drive that has 10.6 installed on it ??
Click to expand...

Well it says 10.7 is installed but there is no OS actually installed, when I boot it immediately takes me to the Lion recovery partition. Holding down option shows me my HDD, Lion Recovery and my bootable USB drive. I had erased the drive in disk utility (recovery partition) to rename it (it was called untitled) and install 10.6, but I get this line through circle every time it tries to start the loading process from the USB drive.

logana said:
Why ?
Click to expand...

Well, I totally forgot I didn't want Lion on my desktop, only on my MacBook, so I wanted to revert back to 10.6

logana said:
Does the MacBook boot fine into Lion or not ?
Click to expand...

Trying this with the same USB drive won't delete anything right? I can just try to boot from it and then see if it works and quit the instillation right?

logana said:
Are you trying to reinstall Lion onto this new hard disk ?
Click to expand...

Trying to install 10.6, but I tried 10.7 seven as well and it does the same thing. I cannot install from recovery partition via my Apple ID because it says the HDD is locked.

logana said:
Are you trying to install 10.6 onto the MacBook ?
Click to expand...

My MacBook is fine, I was just asking if I should use it as a test dumby or something to make sure it was a specific problem with my iMac.

logana said:
Just because the hard disk is 3 days old does not mean that it actually works....
Click to expand...

It works just fine, booted perfectly into 10.7 until I had erased the HDD in disk utility (lion recovery) and now it won't start the install process for 10.6 or 10.7!

logana said:
Are you using the boot loader screen to pick the USB drive ?
Click to expand...

Yes sir, I am and the drive is completely bootable. I have done it multiple times before and know how to do it correctly.

logana said:
What happens when you boot from the Snow Leopard disk in the optical drive - can you not run Disk Utility from there. Remember to select the dvd from boot loader screen - if you boot while holding down the c does Lion not boot to the recovery partition instead ?
Click to expand...

My optical drive spits out both the retail copy of SL and the iMac grey install disc. This was suppose to be fixed and I tried other DVD's and it works fine, but just not with these. I tested the retail SL in my MacBook and it reads it just fine. So the point is I cannot not boot from either of these discs.

Thank you for the help and let me know if I should clarify anything else!
 
MacOG728893 said:
Thank you for the help and let me know if I should clarify anything else!
Click to expand...

The one thing that is still not fully clear to me is the nature of the desktop. Since that seems to be the machine you are trying to install on. I take it that since you tried grey iMac discs that it is an iMac? If so, which one. Or is it something else...

B
 
balamw said:
The one thing that is still not fully clear to me is the nature of the desktop. Since that seems to be the machine you are trying to install on. I take it that since you tried grey iMac discs that it is an iMac? If so, which one. Or is it something else...

B
Click to expand...

Yes, I have tried the grey iMac disk specifically for my iMac as well as the retail disc.
 
So it is an iMac? Which one?

One thing that works sometimes with finicky super drives is to reboot without the disc in place. get to the boot loader menu and only then insert and select the optical disc you want to boot from.

B
 
balamw said:
So it is an iMac? Which one?

One thing that works sometimes with finicky super drives is to reboot without the disc in place. get to the boot loader menu and only then insert and select the optical disc you want to boot from.

B
Click to expand...

Got off the phone with Apple Care, you cannot downgrade from 10.7.2 anymore. But that still leaves me with the problem that I cannot boot from a USB drive with Lion or reinstall from the recovery partition because it says my HDD is locked.

Oh well, I live in So Cal and am blessed to have many local Apple Stores. I got an appointment an hour from now. I'll keep you posted.
 
UPDATE: Took it an to Apple. They wiped it using their server so I guess it can easily overwrite it or something.

Who knows what it was ultimately..? It works now and I am happy.
Thank you everyone for your input!
 
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