how to change to an external hard drive

Hello 11james,

To change to an external hard drive, you can follow these steps:

1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer using a USB cable.
2. Wait for your computer to recognize the external hard drive.
3. Open the file explorer or finder on your computer.
4. Locate the files or data you want to transfer to the external hard drive.
5. Copy or cut the files from their current location.
6. Open the external hard drive in the file explorer or finder.
7. Paste the files into the desired location on the external hard drive.

By following these steps, you can easily transfer your files to an external hard drive.

Best regards,

Hi,

If you mean you try to change start up drive to external drive, after install macOS or bootable clone copy to external drive, then change system drive at System Preferences > Select Boot Drive to external drive.

One way is to follow Jack-19's user tip.

see > Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community

Another way can be using CarbonCopyCloner.

see > https://bombich.com/

https://bombich.com/blog/2021/05/19/beyond-bootable-backups-adapting-recovery-strategies-evolving-platform

I prefer SuperDuper! for cloning; Carbon Copy Cloner for TimeMachine-like data backups.

Are you trying to boot from an external hard drive?