Ever since i upgraded to Lion, i haven't been able to start up my Snow Leopard back up drive via USB anymore?
does anyone have any ideas why this is not possible, I select stratup disk in the system preferences, but when i restart
it just boots up to the iMac drive.
thanks
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7), 3.4Ghz i7 256SSD + 1TB HD
If you have access to a firewire external drive, try that instead. If you own more than one Mac you might want to try using the ethernet connection and target disk mode.
HI there. .
Sorry i dont' think i was clear - I was trying to restart using my external 1 TB portable drive using USB. I've also tried using one of my other external drives with snow leopard using Firewire 800. and that also doesn't work. for some reason Lion on my iMac will not allow me to restart using either of these external drives (which I was previously able to do). but insteads, spends a few minutes doing nothing, and eventually boots back up to the Lion Install on my main SSD drive on my iMac.
Unfortunately i only have one mac at the moment.
If you or anyone else have any other ideas, would love to hear from you, many thanks.
Try using an external DVD player/burner to boot from using either USB or Firewire. I use a Lacie combination usb/firewire dvd burner just for that purpose from time to time. It also works better than my internal combo drive and reduces heat buildup that occurs when using an internal drive for wathcing movies etc.
Good Luck
Thanks again for your suggestion, but i actually need to boot up from the USB external drive, as It has my old back up of all my files, and i want to access the Mail Application with my backlog of 10 years of emails organised in mail. that is the main reason i want to be able to log into it, as well, as re download LION (so I can install a virtual copy of OSX with all my old MAIL), since i discovered too late that the LION app deletes the trashes the Lion Intall after installing it on my iMac!!
you may ask, why wouldn't i just import into my current Mail. well. i've had consistent issues with my mac for 2 years, even after getting new macs, and reinstalling the OS, so i figured there might be some corrupt files, so i want to keep a separate install of my old system on the virtual system, so i can still access all my files conveniently and ensure my current new system will work fine and not get 'corrupted' by the old files (I've run all kinds of virus programs over them, as well, but i was still having issues). .
I guess i'll just have to wait for the lion update when they fix this issue of not being able to boot up from an external drive ;(
What were you using to clone or create those backups?
Apple Disk Utility? SuperDuper? CCC?
Do you own and use Disk Warrior 4.2 to rebuild directories?
One note I wasn't aware of: TimeMachine directory can be too large and DW is not able to work on those drives.
What if you check those drives with Lion Disk Utility and verify the drive/permissions?
I'd even try Recovery Mode and check those drives.
Did you do clone your system before putting Lion on it? erase+install or upgrade?
Make/model of external units? Were they online during use of Lion? indexed by Spotlight or anything?
Not easy but would be interesting to unplug your SSD and try, if that is only internal boot volume and only place you have Lion. Plus, I would invest in another (yes) backup drive just for Lion clone, and / or split a large drive for Lion TimeMachine and clone; and keep everything else separate.
Two OSs for now, two backup sets for each.
CCC and SuperDuper as well as Clone X 4 are probably your best way to clone Mac OS that I know of.
HI
thanks for your reply an suggestions .i think i need to be more clear:)
1. I recently bought a new iMac i7 which was preloaded with Snow Leopard
2. I Upgraded to Lion - without doing a CCC backup of the system (wish i did now!) - the only backup i have is on an External WD 2TB as a time machine back up.
3. My previous HD on my MBP 13" was duplicated to my WD 1TB portable Back up Drive using CCC
- i was previously able to boot up from this USB HD on my iMac under snow leopard, after Lion upgrade i was unable to do so.
What i want Is simply to
1. get another copy of LION INSTALLER, and
2. install a virtual LION Disk on my Mac then do a migration from the USB Backup of my Old system and files to the Virtual Lion Disk, so i can access all my old files on my new iMac.
Don't have time to make so many backups (I think i have too many backups of my system drives right now (probably over 5 backups from all the previous reinstalls and changing macbooks to find out what the problem was - these are all on external drives - mostly firewire). . I think I'll just have to wait it out for the Lion Update and hope that i'll be able to restart from the USB - or go to a mac shop and try to boot up from the USB.
I can't start up from snow leopard disk anymore
