Booting iMac from ext. USB2 HD

[Andrea]

Hi all,
a friend of mine has bought the external USB2 (only) HD Porsche Design (from LaCie). If he try to install a brand new OSX on it from the CD the Installer says that it is not able to install the System on it. If he tries to clone his System disk to the external HD select it from Startup Disk panel, and click the reboot button, the iMac plays the error sound and doesn't reboot at all.

What is the problem here? Are the USB2 drives bootable?

Thanks,
Andrea.

[yellow]

What kind of Mac is he using? Is it USB2 compatible?

[bobw]

Beginning with the Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) and the iMac (Slot-Loading), two new features to USB are most apparent: support for USB audio devices and booting from USB drives.

[Andrea]

It's the last released iMac (G5) with OS X 10.3.7 installed.

[yellow]

Perhaps your buddy could not install OS X on it because it wasn't formatted in HFS+? It's possible it came to him formatted as FAT32. Try reformatting it as "Mac OS Extended" and reinstalling OS X on it.

Also, it could be that unless your buddy is using the Generic Panther installer (which I doubt) that you cannot install OS X on anything that is non-iMacG5. I assume that he's using the DVD that came with his system?

[Andrea]

The external HD is HSF+ formatted (I verified by myself). But you are right when you suppose he uses the dedicated CD installer. Anyway if he tries to clone his OS X drive (tried with SuperDuper!) on the external drive it doesn't boot... :confused:

Any suggestion?

Cheers,
Andrea

[yellow]

Try Carbon Copy Cloner. Make sure the 'make bootable' box is checked.