New 27" iMac with Fusion drive will not boot from external devices.

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Level 1

9 points

New 27" iMac with Fusion drive will not boot from external devices.

I just recieved the new 27" iMac with the Fusion drive yesterday. I've tried several restore volumes, and bootable dirves (USB, ThumbDrive, and Firewire Drive with Thunderbolt adapter) and none of my standard externals will boot this new machine. I have it sitting next to an iMac from late 2011 and was trying to use my latest Carbon Copy Clonner drive image to boot and install this system. Nothing boots it. I restore my development machines all the time this way, and I've never once ran into an issue where I couldn't get a new Mac imaged and running in under an hour.

The next thing I tried is booting into Target Disk mode and connecting to the older iMac, I cloned the data over, and now the new iMac will not even boot from it's own drive. What is the deal here?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), fusion, not booting, external drive

Posted on Dec 27, 2012 1:05 PM

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Answer 1

MichelPM

Level 10

81,559 points

Dec 27, 2012 1:55 PM in response to Chris Born

What version of the OS X shipped with the new iMac and what version of OS X was on your cloned HD.

You need to have the same OS X version on your cloned drives as what was originally installed by Apple on your new iMac.

If they are not the same OS X version, your new iMac won't boot.

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Answer 2

RRFS

Level 5

4,522 points

Dec 27, 2012 2:18 PM in response to Chris Born

You need to restart it in Internet Recovery Mode, erase/format the drive and then reinstall the OS. Your Fusion drive has a different Build of 10.8.2 than you can get at the App Store. My Mac Mini has 12C2034 vs the 12C60 build that is the standard for older (pre late 2012) models.

Post back with your build number once you get it done, I'm curious as to the build number (for future reference).

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Answer 3

Chris Born Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 27, 2012 2:30 PM in response to RRFS

Umm, build numbers on 10.8.2 may be the issue. The build on the other machines and the external boot drives are all at 12C60. Since I can't get the new machine booted until the new recovery install is done I'm not sure about the build number there, but I suspect you are correct. My problem now is my clones, this is irritating since I've been setting up new dev machines this way for years and never once had a problem like this. Not being able to restore from the clones is just anoying.

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Answer 4

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Dec 27, 2012 2:46 PM in response to Chris Born

The suggestions are a waste of time, IMO. Contact Apple's Express Lane and let them deal with the issue, either by replacing the machine or otherwise. It's a new machine and should boot on start up.

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Answer 5

eduaed999

Level 1

135 points

Dec 27, 2012 7:26 PM in response to baltwo

Got to read the whole thread befor calling other posts a waste of time. Seems like he tried to boot a Fusion drive iMac from a non Fusion drive OS version. Appears to be incompatible.

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Answer 6

Jan 17, 2013 3:04 AM in response to eduaed999

I had this same issue, seems so far the only solution is to clone you system drive. This worked for me. Tried everything else. Go ahead and try usng either a Disk Image via Disk Utility, or Carbon Copy Cloner (I used that).

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Answer 7

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Jan 17, 2013 9:26 AM in response to eduaed999

You're right, I misread the issue. New machines normally won't boot with earlier OSs, but AFAIK, type of SSD/HD is immaterial. See these for details:

Don't install a version of Mac OS X earlier than what came with your Mac and

Computer-specific Mac OS X releases

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