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powermac G5 starting on wrong hard drive

S

Shane0123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 6, 2011
7
0
So I add a new HD and the copied the old one too it by drag and drop. I went into disk utility and told it to boot from the new HD. But now it wont boot it all it just gives me a flashing emblem of the new drive. How do I get it to boot from the old drive again? Any help will be appreciated! :eek:
 
Right after switching on the PowerMac hold down the OPTION/ALT key and select the right (old) HDD to boot from.
And as simply copying the contents from one system HDD to another via Finder will not work, as hidden files and folders are not included that way, you have to make a clone.
Use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to make a 1:1 copy.
 
Thanks for the help

so i should go back and erase the new drive and use the program to clone the drive and then tell it which one to use through disk utility is that correct?
 
Shane0123 said:
so i should go back and erase the new drive and use the program to clone the drive and then tell it which one to use through disk utility is that correct?
Click to expand...

Use Disk Utility to ERASE the new HDD using the "Mac OS Extended (HFS*) Journaled" format, then use CCC or SuperDuper to clone the old HDD to the new HDD.
In CCC you can select the old HDD as source and the new HDD as target. SuperDuper will be similar.
To select which HDD to boot from you can use System Preferences > Startup Disk.
 
still trying to pick correct boot drive

So I restarted the mac and held down the option alt key I get a icon with a curved arrow one with a straight arrow and one with a picture of the correct drive on it the mouse arrow has turned into a watch. What do I do next? :(
 
So you have used the OPTION/ALT key method instead of the System Preferences > Startup Disk method I presume?
Can you select the correct HDD using the arrow keys on your keyboard and then verifying your selection via pressing the ENTER key?
 
used the option/alt key at start and now the arrow has turned into a stop watch and all keyboard functions don't work . I can move the watch icon with the mouse but cannot click on anything. with the keyboard or mouse.
 
Press the power button and hold it for some seconds to turn off the Mac and press it again to boot up. This time don't press any key until Mac OS X has been loaded. Then you could try the System Preferences > Startup Disk method and see if it works. To make sure you booted into the right OS, maybe you could change the wallpaper on the OS you are then currently booted in before doing the Startup Disk method.

If that does not work we may need to try other things.
 
Did that but the system does not load from any hard drive I just go back to the flashing Icon of the new drive i told it to go to before the problem started. Is there another way to change the start up disk back to the old one if the computer will not boot up other than pressing the option/alt key at the start?
 
tried that but it still does the same thing, which makes no sense to me, but I will try again.
 
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