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External drive as start up disk doesn't work

I've installed macOS Catalina on an external disk and it works. Now I want to use it as start up disk. When I try to do that I get the error: The security settings don't allow that this Mac is being used as an external drive". Then it says I have to reboot my Mac and press Cmd-R to go to the Disk Utility program. When I do this it seems that nothing happened. What do I do to get it to work?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 13, 2020 11:26 AM

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Posted on Aug 14, 2020 4:07 PM

Hi, bas039! We're hope you're doing well today.


It sounds like we need to make some adjustments to your Startup Security Settings in order to let your Mac boot from the preferred external drive.


Try out the steps listed here:

Specifically, you'll want to enabled "Allow booting from external media" under the section "External Boot" in the Utility window.


We hope that helps!

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1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 14, 2020 4:07 PM in response to bas039

Hi, bas039! We're hope you're doing well today.


It sounds like we need to make some adjustments to your Startup Security Settings in order to let your Mac boot from the preferred external drive.


Try out the steps listed here:

Specifically, you'll want to enabled "Allow booting from external media" under the section "External Boot" in the Utility window.


We hope that helps!

External drive as start up disk doesn't work

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