Startup Disk Woes on my New Mac Pro

[Just sayin...]

So, my new Mac Pro arrived today. 2.8 / 8800. First thing I do is install my Samsung 500 GB and Samsung 1 TB drives, boot the system and download all patches. So far, so good.

Now comes the problem. I downloaded a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner and cloned the Macintosh HD to the new 500 GB drive. Again, so far, so good. However, when I try to go into System Preferences -> Startup Disk, it doesn't show up! OK, maybe I didn't understand the other messages on posted here on Mac Rumors. Being a n00b and anticipating getting flamed by the more senior members for not using the search function, I searched. No love.

So, I booted up the MP, while holding down the option key...and viola! There is the new drive. So, I selected the drive and booted - it works. When I go into System Preferences -> Startup Disk now, there is the new drive. So, I rename the old boot drive "Macintosh HD-prev" and then rename the new boot drive "Macintosh HD" and reboot. The system comes up on the old drive. OK, I can fix this. I reboot again (this time on the new drive), go into Disk Utility, run repair permissions on the new drive (largely OK), then delete the partition on the old drive - just so the system won't come up running the wrong image.

Well, you can now guess where I'm going. Now, the only way the system will boot is by holding down the option key and selecting the only drive available! So, how do I make this drive "auto boot" - that is, how can I make the system boot up automatically on the new drive. BTW, I've rebooted and used the Startup Disk function so many times, I'm starting to go insane.

Other than that, everything else seems to be working fine. 8 GB RAM is due tomorrow...

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Just sayin...]

Well, I seem to have figured it out. When I initially partitioned the disk, I just accepted whatever default there was. Turns out, that you have to go in and do something like set GUID or something. Long story short, the disk I was trying to use was defaulting to a non-Mac (i.e. DOS) permissions scheme - or something.

So - I'm re-installing from scratch - which is what I should have done right from the start. Would have saved me several hours if I would have just followed my instincts and done a clean install.

Lessons Learned: when somebody on an internet chat site says "just do so-and-so - it's easy" take it with a grain of salt.