I set up an external SSD boot drive... How can I see the contents on my old internal drive?

[Iphoneness]

Like the title says, I got an SSD and set it up as my boot drive and WOW what a boost that gave me! But how can I see the stuff on the now old HDD inside my iMac? I know about target mode but I don't have another Mac at the moment to do that with. Is there an option I can select while booted to the old drive to make it visible or is there a program I can use on the new drive to be able to see the old drive as if it were a flash drive? Thanks!

 

[DeltaMac]

Your internal drive (regardless of which drive your are booted from) should normally be mounted and browsable.
That drive may appear in the side bar of any finder window, or it may be an icon on your desktop - look for it!
You can go to Finder preferences (click anywhere on the desktop. You should see Finder next to your Apple menu.
Click on Finder, then Preferences. Put a check in the box: Show these items on the desktop - Hard disks
You should see your hard drive icon on your desktop.
Still can't get there?
Right-click on the name at the top of any finder window. Choose the bottom item in the dropdown list. That's the name of your computer. When you choose that the finder window will now show ALL mounted drives. You should see your internal hard drive - with all your stuff.

 

[flowrider]

Just go to Disk Utility and see if it's listed there. If so, it may not be mounted. Click the mount button.

Lou

 

[Fishrrman]

If you're booting from an external SSD, the internal drive is now "just another drive" insofar as the Mac OS is concerned.
It will behave the same as any other drive you might have plugged in and used.

What I did after I set up an "external SSD booter":
1. I partitioned my internal drive
2. First partition is the size of the SSD
3. Other partition (or more than one of them) can be whatever size you require.
4. I then used CarbonCopyCloner to "clone back" my OS from the SSD to the first partition.

WHY I did this:
I now have an immediately-accessible SECOND COPY of my OS and boot drive.
If I have any problems with the external boot SSD, I can just "switch boot back" to the internal drive.
It will boot right up in a few moments, just as before.

The remaining space on the other partition(s) can be used for whatever needed.
For example, if your movies folder gets too big -- move it back to the internal drive. You "don't need speed" for just storing this stuff. Just "room".