External Startup HD driver problem.

PBulkens wrote:

Hi, as a freelance soundengineer I used to travel to recording studios with my external startup HD. ... But now I have a major problem: a silicon Mac Studio with OS Sonoma doesn’t recognize my older OS on my startup HD.

If the installation on your external HD was created on an Intel Mac, it will not run on an Apple Silicon Mac. (I assume you mean you are trying to boot from the external HD.)

There is also a potential problem if the version of macOS on the external drive is earlier than whatever version of macOS was originally factory installed on the Studio. (i.e. if the Studio came with Sonoma preinstalled, you cannot install Ventura or earlier versions of macOS on it ... and it may also not be able to boot an earlier version.)

I decided to make a new one but it seems impossible to install the audio drivers because the “allow” knob doesn’t appear in the privacy security settings.

Did you build it on the old Mac or your new Mac Studio? What model is the old Mac? What versions of macOS are on your two Macs? And on the external HD?

PBulkens wrote:

It’s Sonoma 14.8.3. And yes, after that I installed the same OS on my external drive, I restarted the Mac with the external HD and changed the security settings in safe mode (as I had to do with the internal HD.

Which security settings? Why Safe Mode? I can think of no security settings that need to be done in Safe Mode unless you have some third-party system modifications that are interfering in normal mode.

Then I installed Pro Tools on the external HD but couldn’t connect to my Thunderbolt interface. It’s got nothing to do with any plugin. The same problem when I installed the UAD 2 Satellite interface.

Does the installer tell you where it is installing? Maybe it is installing on the internal drive because it is hard coded to do so. Try ejecting the internal startup volume and data volume using Disk Utility, then try installing.

…So that I can use Pro Tools on any computer with all my plugins included .

I don't think you'll be able to do that with Apple Silicon. The external startup drives on Apple Silicon must be blessed by that Mac and I don't think you can move them around to different computers, even if they are all Apple Silicon. As already noted, you can't start up an Apple Silicon Mac with a drive created for Intel and vice versa.

Are you saying that your Studio has macOS Sonoma on it and you used it to install Sonoma on the external HD? (BTW, exactly what version?)

And after installing Sonoma on the external HD you ran into trouble installing either ProTools or certain plugins or audio drivers on the external HD? Which one(s) exactly? Did you boot from the external drive before attempting to install the apps, plugins or audio drivers on it?

Please describe your whole setup more fully and exactly what is the problem you are trying to solve.

You just wrote that you "couldn't connect to my Thunderbolt interface" and "same problem when I installed the UAD 2 Satellite interface" ... those are external hardware devices not mentioned before ... but your original question was about not being able to install Avid audio drivers.