Why won't my imac boot when my USB hard drive is plugged in?

[tombarnes]

My imac doesn;t even get to the apple logo bit, it just lingers on the grey screen.

Any solutions? (other than switching it off before I boot up each time!)

Cheers!

Tom

 

[emptyCup]

If you turn the USB drive on after your iMac is booted, can you see it? Is your internal drive selected as the startup drive? Go to System Preferences > Startup and check.

 

[littleb2005]

since u not also stated that you done a bootable backup

belive me you can't just copy single files over that won't work there hidden files that need to be copyied to do a proper bootable backup use

SuperDuper

 

[tombarnes]

since u not also stated that you done a bootable backup

belive me you can't just copy single files over that won't work there hidden files that need to be copyied to do a proper bootable backup use

SuperDuper

You've misunderstood me.

This isn't a backup disk, this is a USB hard drive which I have to store additional data. When this hard drive is plugged in and switched and I switch my mac on, my mac lingers on the grey screen and doesn't boot.

That's the issue. I was wondering if there is a solution. Nothing to do with backup or startup disks, that's all sorted!

 

[kheller2]

You've misunderstood me.

This isn't a backup disk, this is a USB hard drive which I have to store additional data. When this hard drive is plugged in and switched and I switch my mac on, my mac lingers on the grey screen and doesn't boot.

That's the issue. I was wondering if there is a solution. Nothing to do with backup or startup disks, that's all sorted!

Boot up the system w/o the drive. Plug the drive in. Go to system prefs->startup disk and pick the internal drive. (Btw there should only be 1 or 2 icons here.. the internal drive and perhaps netboot). Restart.

See if that fixes it.

 

[BadgerMac]

You've misunderstood me.

This isn't a backup disk, this is a USB hard drive which I have to store additional data. When this hard drive is plugged in and switched and I switch my mac on, my mac lingers on the grey screen and doesn't boot.

That's the issue. I was wondering if there is a solution. Nothing to do with backup or startup disks, that's all sorted!

I have the same issue on my 20". Had the issue on my previous 20" white C2D Imac as well. Unplug the drive and it boots fine. Here's a question - is that external drive hooked through a USB hub?

 

[Jasonbot]

Mine does that when my 5G iPod is plugged in.

 

[BadgerMac]

I dont' know the iMac version of the POST and boot process,but I think it may have something to do with the systme scanning the other disks perhaps for boot drives and then ultimately looping out if the drives are large enough. I've got 500GB and a 250GB external drives. Sometimes it hangs, sometimes it doesn't. If I power the drives while booting it will sit and scan and the drive spins and it goes nowhere. A simple reboot (like if I did it right now) no problem.