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iMAC 2012 Mid 21' not booting after installing new SSD

I upgrade my Imac 2012 Mid 21'. 8Gb ram to 16Gb and HDD to SSD..

I Plug my old HDD as external hard and make a clone on new SSD which is installed in the iMac.

I boot Os from new SSD, everything go well untill i remove the old HDD.

Now iMac not booting from internal hard (SSD) until or unless i plug my external (Old HDD)

Posted on Oct 26, 2024 11:55 AM

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5 replies

Oct 26, 2024 1:11 PM in response to M254j

You need to set the internal SSD as the startup drive in System Preferences if you have not already.


Also, you did not explain how prepared the SSD, did you format it first and if not, what is it's current format scheme?


When you cloned the HD to the SSD, you did not explain how you did that so you may have done it wrong. Please explain in detail.


When you create a post, please be specific. We have no idea how you did things so without an explanation from you we have to guess what may be wrong. Please remember we were not there to supervise what you were doing so we rely on you to write an effective question. Perhaps looking over Writing an effective Apple Support Communities Question will provide some hints on what we need from you in order to help.

Oct 26, 2024 1:37 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Yes i set the internal SSD as the startup drive in System Preferences.


I restart my imac, went to the recovery mode - Utility - select my new SSD (internal) , formate SSD (APFS) same as HD (APFS) .

After format i select the new ssd. Then i select restore option which was on the panel, select HD and click restore (HD to SSD) .

After it done i reboot the system while my HD is still plugged in. OS boot from SSD works fine but when i again reboot without external HD it didn't show any os to boot..

Then i again plug-in old HD and it again start booting from ssd.


Oct 26, 2024 9:10 PM in response to M254j

M254j wrote:

Both HD and SSD is APFS..
And if the recovery is not done properly how can it start working just plugging the old HD as usb

I am not sure that using the Restore function booted into Recovery will create a bootable drive.


I am suspecting that the internal SSD is not bootable and your Mac is booting from the external (old) drive.


How about you try this: download SuperDuper, you can use it in free mode for this. Install it on your external drive. Then run SuperDuper to make a bootable clone from the HD to the (target) internal SSD. Tell SuperDuper to erase the SSD (target) first, then perform the clone from the old to the new drive. It will make it bootable.

iMAC 2012 Mid 21' not booting after installing new SSD

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