Starting up from External drive on O/S Sononma which volume they all look the same?

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Starting up from External drive on O/S Sononma which volume they all look the same?

Have moved Hard drive via Super Duper app to ext drive. How to descriminate which volume to pick for start up in OS Sonoma?

Posted on Jan 29, 2024 5:49 AM

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Answer 1

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den.thed

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93,166 points

Jan 29, 2024 7:57 AM in response to Spokanemac1

You can easily rename the external startup disk.

see > Rename files, folders, and disks on Mac - Apple Support

for some external SSD examples:

Macintosh Ext SSD

Macintosh SSD

External SSD

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

93,166 points

Jan 29, 2024 8:23 AM in response to Spokanemac1

To prevent confusion, it might be easier to just rename the external SSD icon on the desktop.

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Answer 3

Feb 1, 2024 3:13 AM in response to Spokanemac1

I use Carbon Copy Cloner and reformat the target volume with Disk Utility using a unique name before making a "legacy" bootable CCC clone to it. Then the unique name is preserved when Option-booting to it.

AFAIK renaming a boot disk later might be problematic because after simply renaming it in the Finder might still display the old name. One workaround I've heard is to re-install macOS on top of the old system -- after that the new volume name might appear.

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Answer 4

Spokanemac1 Author

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Jan 29, 2024 8:08 AM in response to den.thed

When I got into the system two of the same named HD's come up even as only one is connected? It is a San Disk 1TB ext drove. No matter what I name it when I go into the system it shows as named "Data" I figure restarting it will be found but it does not find it until I disconnect it and then it finds the factory system it came with, OS Catalina 15.10.7 which is working quite fine. I copied over the entire SuperDuper hard drive with bootable system and once I start up it is fine to migrate over the entire hd. *Thanks.

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Answer 5

Spokanemac1 Author

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Jan 31, 2024 4:16 PM in response to den.thed

The thing is, I name it but when I go to start up it just says "Data" and two disks are showing saying the same thing. Not the HD that came with the macmini, but the external drive plugged in with the system folder and files,

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Answer 6

Spokanemac1 Author

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Feb 1, 2024 6:43 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thanks Matt, I'll try that. :^)

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Starting up from External drive on O/S Sononma which volume they all look the same?

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