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Can I also have Snow Leopard boot external drive?

Can I also have Snow Leopard boot external drive? I have Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard and need Snow Leopard for several applications that will not run on higher systems. I Cloned snow leopard to external drive and boots fine. Can I also then install Mountain Lion on the internal drive and switch back and forth with no problems? Realize I will have duplicate Documents and Applications which I would have to keep organized.




John

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), MacBookPro, iPhones

Posted on Aug 25, 2012 7:00 PM

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8 replies

Sep 10, 2012 6:34 PM in response to John Butt

Did this work for you? I'm trying to do the same thing with a Late 2009 iMac 27" and I can't get it to boot to the external Snow Leopard drive. I've tried using both Firewire and a USB 2.0 drive to no avail. The option key sequence at restart doesn't give me the option to choose the startup disk. Do you know what I may be missing? Thanks!

Sep 10, 2012 7:05 PM in response to jnberry

Do you have a bluetooth keyboard? The problem with any key sequence at startup is the absolute exact timing required for it to work - the keyboard is off when the Mac is off or being restarted. You're supposed to hit the key during the startup bong; the problem is that the little light on the keyboard (indicating that it's on) doesn't come on until the very end of the bong or right after it. So, you need to keep a finger perched above the key you need and watch for the light on the keyboard - hit it as soon as it comes on. Or, to get around any of this, simply plug in a cheap USB keyboard......


Or, another way: Open the Startup disk Pref Pane in System Preferences, choose the external drive, and hit restart - no key sequence needed. If the external does not show up in that pane, then there is a problem with it (i.e. it isn't bootable).

Can I also have Snow Leopard boot external drive?

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