Mac OS X Software install on external HDD

[daweeze02]

A friend of mines son has a macintosh which only has a 10 gig hdd with 2 gigs left. He has some studio software for his guitar that he is trying to install but he doesnt have enough space. So i got them a 30 gig hdd and a vantec external enclosure, we got the mac to recognize the external fine, but everytime we try to install software on the external it says we either need OS X on the external or it has to be the startup disk. Now I have no knowledge of macs, but I can remote into there machine to figure this out so if any of you have experience with this situation lnk, thanks.

BTW i tried copying all the system and library files to the external but that did not work.

 

[lilstewart92]

Ok.

What you need to do is install Mac OS X on the external HD. The HD is FireWire, right? Then, after you're done with that go to Apple -> System Preferences -> Start Up Disk -> Select your 30GB HD.

That will work, trust me, I'm a mac expert. 😀

Install Mac OS X on the 2nd drive as in... putting the disk in and installing; transferring files might work, but no guarantees. 😉

 

[daweeze02]

Originally posted by: lilstewart92
Ok.

What you need to do is install Mac OS X on the external HD. The HD is FireWire, right? Then, after you're done with that go to Apple -> System Preferences -> Start Up Disk -> Select your 30GB HD.

That will work, trust me, I'm a mac expert. 😀

Install Mac OS X on the 2nd drive as in... putting the disk in and installing; transferring files might work, but no guarantees. 😉

they dont have the os x disc, the computer was given to them from a friend who got a new one. i am going to try carbon copy cleaner first and see what happens.

 

[flyers1]

I think Disk Utility will also let you copy one drive to another. Then Change your system preferences->Startup Disk and boot from the external drive...

 

[timswim78]

Carbon copy cloner should work just fine. However, the external disk needs to be a firewire disk because OS X will not boot from a USB hdd.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: timswim78
Carbon copy cloner should work just fine. However, the external disk needs to be a firewire disk because OS X will not boot from a USB hdd.

You're wrong. I've did it when my install got trashed on my powerbook. Booted from a USB hard drive to recover files off the internal hard drive.

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: timswim78
Carbon copy cloner should work just fine. However, the external disk needs to be a firewire disk because OS X will not boot from a USB hdd.

You're wrong. I've did it when my install got trashed on my powerbook. Booted from a USB hard drive to recover files off the internal hard drive.

I'm glad that it worked for you. I've tried to boot OS X off of several USB hdd's without any success. What chipset were you using, and what version of OS X was on the USB drive?

My lack of success, combined with this article, led to me to believe that OS X will not boot from a USB hdd.
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/06/usbharddrives/index.php

Apple's stance is that they do "not support starting up from USB devices Although some configurations may allow a USB volume to be selected as a startup volume via the Startup Manager, this may not work for all configurations, and Apple is unable to provide assistance in troubleshooting such configurations."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474

 

[daweeze02]

The drive he has is vantec usb(cypress chipset), I ran carbon copy but it just stayed at copying the "usr" folder for about 24 hours and never got past that folder.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: timswim78
Carbon copy cloner should work just fine. However, the external disk needs to be a firewire disk because OS X will not boot from a USB hdd.

You're wrong. I've did it when my install got trashed on my powerbook. Booted from a USB hard drive to recover files off the internal hard drive.

I'm glad that it worked for you. I've tried to boot OS X off of several USB hdd's without any success. What chipset were you using, and what version of OS X was on the USB drive?

My lack of success, combined with this article, led to me to believe that OS X will not boot from a USB hdd.
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/06/usbharddrives/index.php

Apple's stance is that they do "not support starting up from USB devices Although some configurations may allow a USB volume to be selected as a startup volume via the Startup Manager, this may not work for all configurations, and Apple is unable to provide assistance in troubleshooting such configurations."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474

I have no idea what chipset is in the USB enclosure, it's a Seagate 100GB mini thingy. 😛

OS X 10.4. I just had to hold the option key during boot to get to the boot selector, and chose the USB device.

 

[daweeze02]

also will a nec 3550 in an external usb 2.0 case work with his mac?

again thanks for the help guys

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: daweeze02
also will a nec 3550 in an external usb 2.0 case work with his mac?

again thanks for the help guys

You'll just have to try and see what happens.

 

[chcarnage]

Ho Hum. Sorry to ask basic stuff, but before you run CCC, did you even change the format of the external disc to HFS+? CCC may copy some stuff on a FAT32 formatted disk, but OS X won't start.