Boot from external HDD if internal is broken

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Boot from external HDD if internal is broken

Hi all,

I have a 2006 Intel Macbook with a crashed hard drive. I'm kinda broke right now, so instead of buying a new hard drive I loaded ubuntu 10.4 onto an external hard drive (USB) and tried to boot the macbook from it. (Failed). I hold down option to launch Startup Manager and all it shows me is a cursor (no drives). I know the external drive is bootable because I a) booted the laptop from a LiveCD and used it to create the hard drive and b) I booted a Dell from the external. I've tried moving the drive to a different USB port, but no chips. I don't have anything else connected to the computer.

Soo... my question is: Can I boot the macbook from the external hard drive if the internal hard drive is shot?

Thanks for looking!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on May 31, 2012 1:26 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

May 31, 2012 1:29 PM in response to pattiobear

Yes, if you have a bootable OS on the external drive then you can boot from it:

Boot Using OPTION key:

Restart the computer.
Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
Release the key when the boot manager appears.
Select the desired disk icon from which you want to boot.
Click on the arrow button below the icon.

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