Installing on External USB Drive - Help Needed

[SuBDivisions]

I have searched for 2 days, let me breakdown my problem.

 

I posted 2 days ago asking for help with my alienware laptop, and to no avail i never got a single response (I was unaware of the rampant sata issues out there).. so after finding that out, I decided to try installing on a 250 gig External USB 2.0 drive.

 

My setup is as follows:

 

Alienware m5790 Notebook

Core 2 Duo T7400

2 gig Ram

2 - 100 gig SATA Drives on a Via6421 Raid Controller

ATI x1900 mobile

PhoenixBios

Western Digital 250 Gig Sata Drive in USB 2.0 External Enclosure

Bootit NG 1.81

 

1 drive has XP, other drive has Vista/30 gig free for other os (the internal sata's).

 

I plug in the external drive into the laptop, the Bios sees it as a 250 gig "USB KEY" which is weird... but i digress. I am able to boot to the mac osx DVD fine, i go into the disk utility menu, and i can partition the drive with no problem. Install runs straight thru with no problem either..

 

THe problem is , after the install it WONT boot of the usb drive. Bootit NG wont see the drive as a bootable option, even tho the bios does. When i change the boot order in the bios, it looks like it skips over the drive and boots to either the cd or the internal drives.

 

Now i had partitioned the whole 250 gig drive as a mac osx (journalized) parition.. I didnt see anything for MBR, but i will lok again.. I just am looking for some assistance so when i get home I can continue my work.

 

Thanks everyone.

[Guest Ramm]

Try booting with the DVD in the computer. Also, make sure you erased your drive with an MBR partition, not a GUID. Try Acronis or EasyBCD as a bootloader.

[SuBDivisions]

I didnt see an option in the mac disk utility for "MBR or GUID", just wipe the drive and create an OSX Journalized Partition? I looked in options ( i will look again).. Also since im already using Bootit NG I cant use another boot loader, unless that bootloader would load off the external drive, but thats moot since i cant get it to Boot off the external drive to begin with??

[realitypixie]

I am having the same issues, different setup though.

 

Did this get resolved??

 

Is it possible to use the DVD to boot from the USB ?

[realitypixie]

I installed jas 10.4.8 for intel. No problems.

Mac Disk Utility recognises it as a bootable USB 2 HD

My bios recognises it as a bootable device...

 

OSX is installed on a single primary partition.

 

There must be some people who can help.

 

Just tell me what more information you need to help.

[rschultz101]

There is a built-in Unix utility in MacOSX that can be used to set your partition "Active". It is called Fdisk

 

 

Setting Your Partition "Active" Using Fdisk

 

Words in bold below are things you must type (followed by Enter).

 

1. Boot your Mac OS X install dvd

2. Once the installer is running, go to the Utilities menu and open Terminal

 

3. Determine which disk your MacOSX partition is on

 

 

Type diskutil list

 

Verify which disk number holds your partition (disk0, disk1, etc.)

 

 

 

4. Start using Fdisk

 

 

Assuming the MacOSX disk is the first disk ("disk0"), then

type fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 <== use "rdisk" with your disk number here !!

 

Ignore the error "fdisk: could not open MBR file ..."

 

 

 

5. Determine which partition for MacOSX needs to be set "Active"

 

 

Type p

 

Verify which partition is for MacOSX (1, 2, 3, etc.)

 

 

 

6. Set the partition "Active"

 

Assuming it is partition 1, then

type f 1 <== use your partition number here !!

 

 

 

7. Save and exit

 

 

Type write

 

Type y (yes you are sure)

 

Type exit (to quit)

 

 

 

8. Remove the install DVD and reboot

 

 

,.... question, how to boot/install from flash drive, ...? anybody tried ? any speed difference ?

is there a way to take the install dvd and put it on a usb drive ?

[realitypixie]

Thanks for your reply.

 

I will give this a go. I have erased the partitions from the external drive, so I will have to start again.

 

Will report back soon.

[flow]

you need HP usb tool to make it bootable

then you can install your osx86

[realitypixie]

OK so HP utility has recognised my HDD as a USB key. Now formatting to fat 32. Then will re-install OSXSee what happens.Ok so.... I might be a dumb ass n00b and all but how do I use this utility to make it bootable with osx ?

[realitypixie]

Ok I'm reading the thread Rammjet posted about making partition active... just to see if there is anything to miss..

 

Just a word of helpful advice. If you are going to quote from somebody elses post, please also include the link!

I had to search google before I could find the original post!

[realitypixie]

Have set the partition to active... can't take pics sorry... but still not loading up.

 

How do i use the HP boot key to make it boot ?

[TheCoolNerds]

okay dude, im going to just break it to you... you can follow the advice of all these guys here... and guess what? it still wont help you out... let me just put it in words you will understand...

 

YOUR SCREWED!

 

Your about as screwed as i was when i was trying to boot off a external USB 2.0 DVD-BURNER that i bought trying to install OSX on my GATEWAy 8510GZ notebook. Sure, the bios recognized it. But i took me 2-3 days to learn that the stupid bios doesnt support booting off EXTERNAL USB OPTICAL DRIVES... sucks... i set it to BOOT USB drives and it just by-passed it and off to the HDD it went.

 

what my notebook bios does support booting off is my PNY ATTACHE USB FLASH DRIVE and EXTERNAL USB 2.0 HDD's. MY friend bought a MAXTOR EXT. 160 gig USB drive and I asked him to let me borrow it and he did and i was successfully able to boot to it right out of the BOX, it said of course NO OPERATING SYSTEM found. But it worked.

 

guess what also worked. This El-CHEAPO notebook 2.5" HDD to USB 2.0 converter that i bought off of EBAY. it let me boot my notebook HDD in the external case...

 

you should also, try to boot off it on a desktop... desktop mobos have way more options... if you can boot to it on a desktop and not on your notebook then ur notebook is the culprit...

 

after you install OSX it should easily create a new MBR and allow you to boot to any OS that you had previously installed after the installation is complete.. yep yep yep...

[realitypixie]

Well quite honestly I have no idea... Thanks for the help@!Well, I can't boot the external HD from laptop or desktop. ALso I can boot from a USB flash drive on my laptop. So obviously it's the external HD/enclosure that doesn't want to boot. Going to check if it is on slave for some reason... I'm guessing that will make a difference?

[AntarcticP]

Hi, I'm booting from my external USB drive since version 10.4.3 of MacOsX.

Problem with booting from USB drive is that, while installing OsX, the Darwin bootloader does not get installed on the external drive.

So, you can put your drive on Active, but it won't help, you need the Darwin bootloader.

 

I've already replyed to a lot of people booting from USB drives, look for my answers.

 

You have some options to make it work:

-install another bootloader (with a Linux live CD for example)

-install MacOsX on an internal drive and clone the drive to you external drive with CloneTool hatchery (bootloader gets copied to)

-take your external drive apart and install the HD internally, install MacOS. (that's how I did it some years ago)

 

grtz, AntarcticP

[realitypixie]

If I install on my Desktop can I boot on my laptop??

[realitypixie]

ALso downloading Hope this works!!

[realitypixie]

I thought I might just add that, although I am trying to read up and learn as much as I can, it really helps if you can explain the techniques you are using, so I don't have to spend the next 5 hours searching search engines just to work out what you are talking about.

 

As anyone who has done this before, the intsall procedure takes alot of time...

[realitypixie]

Have downloaded damn small linux and will try to use that to setup a boot partition.... God knows what I'm supposed to be doing though!!

 

There must be some people who actually for real know what they are talking about though. I am quite happy to tell you any information about my computer...

 

I have UTFSE and been reading about this for weeks waiting for my download. I promise I will spread the vibe and help everybody I possibly can... If I can get somebody who knows what they are on about to help me.

[realitypixie]

Wooo. My hard drive is now {censored}ed

[realitypixie]

If anyone knows what would cause a Disk I/O error... ?

 

My external HDD is no longer detectable in windows Disk Management or OSX Disk utilities.

 

However it still shows up in Bios. Whenever I try to format the disk it says "write protected".

 

Any hints??

 

Seeing though all i have done is follow what people have been saying in this thread and on the forum

...I hope somebody can tell me what might have gone wrong.

[vin]

If anyone knows what would cause a Disk I/O error... ?

 

My external HDD is no longer detectable in windows Disk Management or OSX Disk utilities.

 

However it still shows up in Bios. Whenever I try to format the disk it says "write protected".

 

Any hints??

 

Seeing though all i have done is follow what people have been saying in this thread and on the forum

...I hope somebody can tell me what might have gone wrong.

try use windows xp installation disc. It works for me that sometimes my partition can't be reformat. Just boot winxp disc, and choose delete partition

[cyberslice]

To start, I am new to the osx on pc deal but am very eager to do it. I have an inspiron 1420 and here are the essential components:

core 2 duo t7300

nvidia 8400 m gs

160 GB sata hard drive

 

I am using the uphuck 10.4.9 v1.4i r3 install disk.

 

So I set up a 10 GB partition, but when I tried to find it in diskpart I couldn't see it. I could clearly see it in disk mgmt and though this was odd. So I extended the volume and then shrunk it again to 8 GB. Once again, I could not find it in diskpart. Once again I extended the volume and this time wanted to make a 10 GB partition. However, it now said I only had 9 GB available to shrink which is very odd because I have 40 GB left on my hard drive. I made this 9 GB partition hoping it would work. I launched diskpart and still could not see the partition. So, I decided to not shrink or extend anymore because I was afraid I would never be able to do it again.

 

Now, I decided to install osx on my external HD because I read that I could install it here and then make a copy with carbon copy cloner. So I erased the entire drive using the disk utility included while trying to install osx. After this was completed, a screen appeared with the installation options. I check every box to make sure everything was installed. Installation completed and I restarted as it said. When trying to boot from my HD, all these great install lines scroll through my screen when suddenly it stops. I read through what I could and came upon this line which stood out to me "panic(cpu 1 caller 0x003810c5)".

 

Now I don't know what to do. Anything i did wrong? should i try something else? any help is greatly appericiated.