thefighter Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 Has anybody tried installing the Mac OS X onto an External Hard Drive? If not, would this be at all feasable? Surely you could just go into the BIOS and make it load up the External Hard Drive.... Just a theory, tell me if im wrong...and the explanation please TheFighter Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuchdawg Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 It is possible, ive done it, it works i used the DD method to get it ont my hd, it works well....i hope if thats what you wanted to hear Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11460 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thefighter Posted September 2, 2005 Author Share Posted September 2, 2005 Thats definitly what I wanted to hear....Now, I just got to figure out how to do it! But thanks kuchdawg, thats one problem off my mind! TheFighter Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11461 Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadken Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 I did that to get things working, and it was fairly seemless. One thing I noticed is that it is extremely slow to load on one of my boxes. The nice thing is you can walk around with it and try it one whatever Intel box yo have access to. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11517 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr itunes Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 You'd just have to be able to boot off a USB / Firewire... So yeah, it depends on the mobo / bios Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11525 Share on other sites More sharing options...
cstrippie Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 You'd just have to be able to boot off a USB / Firewire...So yeah, it depends on the mobo / bios <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I had real problems doing it from or to my external firewire drive, but it worked beautifully on a cheap USB2 case I picked up. External drive is the method I'm using for my laptop. If you do use an external drive and end up with the dreaded "waiting for root device," let me know, as I have a workaroud. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11530 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thefighter Posted September 3, 2005 Author Share Posted September 3, 2005 Cool....well, this makes this alot easier now. Because, as you will see on my other post http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=1665 I am having a spot of trouble with getting together a New Computer. So now I dont have to worry as much, because if I buy and external then I dont have to worry about competly screwing up the computer and voiding the warrenty! lol Thanks guys...I'll browse around the forum for a nice and easy tutorial that covers the ups and downs of an external drive install. Thanks TheFighter Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11680 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mogloo Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 It seems that the ability to boot from an external USB hard drive depends on your motherboard. Mine supports booting from USB, so it started to load, but then the OS X bootloader didn't support my USB controller (at least that's what I'm guessing), and it said it couldn't find files necessary to load (specifically com.apple.Boot.plist). So give it a try, and good luck, but don't count on it working. It's worked for some and not for many. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11717 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mactogo Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I had real problems doing it from or to my external firewire drive, but it worked beautifully on a cheap USB2 case I picked up. External drive is the method I'm using for my laptop. If you do use an external drive and end up with the dreaded "waiting for root device," let me know, as I have a workaroud. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What's your workaround? I had that problem trying to install it via USB external hdd. Like you i'm using a laptop and with very flimsy bios settings to work with. This option would be ideal as it would keep data in my laptop intact. Thanks in advance! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-11736 Share on other sites More sharing options...
cstrippie Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 What's your workaround? I had that problem trying to install it via USB external hdd. Like you i'm using a laptop and with very flimsy bios settings to work with. This option would be ideal as it would keep data in my laptop intact. Thanks in advance! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I use the Darwin chain loader in the Windows Boot.ini which passes it over to the external drive with the HFS+ partition. As for the "Waiting for root device hang, if it stalls out and is not accessing, simply unplug the USB drive cable for a couple of seconds and then plug it back in: for reasons unknown to me, this works nearly every time. I suspect the USB mass storage driver gets reloaded when the drive is plugged back in. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-12016 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuchdawg Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 there is now a new guide on how to install OS X onto an external hd...but its short..and you need some previouse knowlage on how to install it.. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-12163 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thefighter Posted September 4, 2005 Author Share Posted September 4, 2005 Would this external be good enough for the job? It says its compatibility is with PC's....which I think means its got FAT32 on it. Dont know, but have a look please. Thanks http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/components...?quicklinx=3Q27 TheFighter Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-12166 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuchdawg Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 I personally like Firewiare/USB hard drives, so you can take them to other computers easily, my External HD said it was OSX and XP compatible (mabey it was because of firewire??) Correct me if i'm wrong but Firewire i think is the only way OS X will install onto it natively....i could easily be wrong....its the only time i had it show up for me at the bootloader.... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-12175 Share on other sites More sharing options...
cstrippie Posted September 5, 2005 Share Posted September 5, 2005 Would this external be good enough for the job? It says its compatibility is with PC's....which I think means its got FAT32 on it. Dont know, but have a look please. Thanks http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/components...?quicklinx=3Q27 TheFighter <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Looks like the drive would work, but I'm concerned that they don't specify USB2. Generally if it's not stated it's not there, and running an OS off of USB 1 would truly suck hard. If, however, it *is* USB2, then you're off to the races. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-12386 Share on other sites More sharing options...
cstrippie Posted September 5, 2005 Share Posted September 5, 2005 Correct me if i'm wrong but Firewire i think is the only way OS X will install onto it natively....i could easily be wrong....its the only time i had it show up for me at the bootloader.... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I ran into nothing but trouble tyring to use my firewire drive, and ended up getting a USB 2 drive to get around it. So, yes, you can use an external USB drive. Obviously it works out better if your BIOS will allow booting to USB, but this is not required. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-12387 Share on other sites More sharing options...
cstrippie Posted September 5, 2005 Share Posted September 5, 2005 there is now a new guide on how to install OS X onto an external hd...but its short..and you need some previouse knowlage on how to install it.. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Other than the drive name (I.E. /sda rather than /hda) the process is essentially identical. I originally used the "Ubuntu method," but the Windows DD method worked as well. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-12389 Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Lotharian Posted October 28, 2005 Share Posted October 28, 2005 What is the Windows DD method that you speak of? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-24907 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gehaktbal Posted October 28, 2005 Share Posted October 28, 2005 It worked for me. I Used the Generic.Installer DVD on my laptop. It seemed impossible to me to get both Windows installed and OSX on the same HD... But i can tell you it works real nicely! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-24913 Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpxdude Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I'm using a Laptop USB HDD caddy that has been working fine with both 10.4.3, and 10.4.5, As previously mentioned though, there is noticeable slowdown, the biggest being if you try to load full screen videos, or any kind of DVD, you are going to experience unbearable jerking...or if you try and multitask too, you'll likely experience a crash, which is a pain... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-72629 Share on other sites More sharing options...
opq Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 A Mac OS X installation that worked fine natively refuses to boot through USb for me. It's got 10.4.4 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-99662 Share on other sites More sharing options...
asap18 Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 yeah so i have a extra 120 gig hard drive laying around. I bought a usb ide adapter. I installed osx onto the drive but didnt catch how i could boot onto it without bios support. Is the chain0 solution compatible with external drives? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-123910 Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-Force Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Yes, Chain0 works with an external USB disk, i've tried it on my USB test drive. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/1777-external-hard-drive/#findComment-124169 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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