Cheshire_MD
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Booting from external hard drive on intel-based MacBook Pro

Good day everyone. I know similar questions were raised in this community, but I still have some questions.

 

I have MacBook Pro(late 2011) with OS X 10.7.5 and external hard drive with Ubuntu 13.04, from wich i can boot succefully on my PC. But MacBook Pro will not boot from my external drive, no matter which key/combination i use during restart.

 

After googling I found some answers to my initial question, how to boot from external hard drive

 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1852633?start=0&tstart=0

 

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/faq/macbook-pro-boot-from-exte rnal-firewire-or-usb-drive.html

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1948

 

As I understand I need to format my external hard drive into GUID partition type and this will be enough to be able to boot from it on my mac?

 

With this new partition type, will I be able to install ubuntu again on my external drive?

 

Does GUID partition type supports NTFS, ext4 and FAT32, linux swap?(I use ntfs for big files, ext4 as partition for ubuntu and fat32, because i use windows, linux and osx)

 

Will I be able to boot from my pc from my external drive with this new partition type?

 

What are downsides, if any, to GPT?

 

here is info on my e-driveScreen Shot 2013-09-10 at 13.34.08 .png

MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Sep 10, 2013 10:36 AM

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Cheshire_MD

Q: Booting from external hard drive on intel-based MacBook Pro

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  • by Stark Industries,

    Stark Industries Stark Industries Nov 12, 2013 9:52 PM in response to Cheshire_MD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 12, 2013 9:52 PM in response to Cheshire_MD

    Perhaps I need to look in another thread for more details, but do I (or anyone else) really need to partition the HD into GUID into to boot it on the Mac? For some reason I thought that with Intel processors Mac could interpret / use NTFS now and not just need GUID or FAT32.

     

    If I'm wrong please let me know! I'm trying to get this all setup so Jarvis isn't so confused.

     

    thx. TS

  • by LowLuster,

    LowLuster LowLuster Nov 12, 2013 9:58 PM in response to Stark Industries
    Level 6 (12,074 points)
    Nov 12, 2013 9:58 PM in response to Stark Industries

    The only OS that will boot from an external drive is Mac OS X or maybe Linux. For OS X to be installed on any drive it need to be formatted Mac OS Extended and have GUID partition table.

     

    As for Linux I'm not that familiar with it but again for a Mac to boot it need an EFI partition on the drive and I don't think that is possible with NTFS or FAT32 let alone the native Linux format.

  • by Cheshire_MD,

    Cheshire_MD Cheshire_MD Nov 13, 2013 11:54 AM in response to LowLuster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 13, 2013 11:54 AM in response to LowLuster

    LowLuster wrote:

     

    The only OS that will boot from an external drive is Mac OS X or maybe Linux. For OS X to be installed on any drive it need to be formatted Mac OS Extended and have GUID partition table.

     

    As for Linux I'm not that familiar with it but again for a Mac to boot it need an EFI partition on the drive and I don't think that is possible with NTFS or FAT32 let alone the native Linux format.

    Went to wiki to learn more on efi but found artice on uefi.

     

    Operating system loaders are a class of the UEFI applications. As such, they are stored as files on a file system that can be accessed by the firmware, called EFI System partition (ESP). Supported file systems include FAT32, FAT16 and FAT12, and supported partition table scheme is GPT only. UEFI does not rely on a boot sector, although ESP provides space for it as part of the backwards compatibility.[26]

    Here is FAQ on official uefi website.

     

    Can UEFI Secure Boot be adopted and implemented by a variety of operating systems?

     

    UEFI specifications are platform-independent, supporting multiple platforms and architectures. In addition, UEFI specifications are designed to promote cross-functionality, as well as to support broad adoption across multiple operating systems, including Windows as well as Linux-based operating systems. The specifications are robust and can potentially complement—or even advance—other distributions, such as Linux-based distributions.

     

    And here is wiki article on GPT expaining OS support.

     

     

    It is obvious both uefi and GPT are ok with Linux and file systems such as FAT32, ext4 and NTFS.

    I guess there is no much difference(or is that the same thing?) between uefi and efi used in Macs.

     

    In your answer to Stark Industries you said that mac can boot linux from external hard drive, well this is not the info i got of official website and it is still my question, because your answer is very inconclusive and your info is partially incorrect

  • by LowLuster,

    LowLuster LowLuster Nov 13, 2013 12:01 PM in response to Cheshire_MD
    Level 6 (12,074 points)
    Nov 13, 2013 12:01 PM in response to Cheshire_MD

    I said "Or Linux Maybe".

     

    Oh and thanks for pointing out my limited knowledge on this subject.

  • by Cheshire_MD,

    Cheshire_MD Cheshire_MD Nov 13, 2013 12:18 PM in response to Stark Industries
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 13, 2013 12:18 PM in response to Stark Industries

    Stark Industries wrote:

     

    Perhaps I need to look in another thread for more details, but do I (or anyone else) really need to partition the HD into GUID into to boot it on the Mac? For some reason I thought that with Intel processors Mac could interpret / use NTFS now and not just need GUID or FAT32.

     

    If I'm wrong please let me know! I'm trying to get this all setup so Jarvis isn't so confused.

     

    thx. TS

     

    As it says in official article that i posted in my first post:

    Intel-based Macs support starting from an external USB storage device's volume that:

    • Has been formatted with a GUID partition type
    • Contains an installation of Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later, or Mac OS X 10.5 or later, which is compatible with (or shipped with) the Mac that the USB device is connected to. Note: You should not use a version of Mac OS X that is earlier ("older") than the version your Mac shipped with.

    intel-based mac can READ ntfs partition, i can confirm that. Without any additional magick it can NOT change anything on ntfs partition of my external HD. It can copy files off NTFS partition, but i can not confirm if your can write any data to it.I don't have mine external HD with me, so sorry. If you need this info confirmed you have to pm me, cause i will probably forget to check it.

     

    About booting off the NTFS partition, well, what r u trying to boot from NTFS partition?  I assume your r trying to boot windows from ntfs partition of your external hard? are my assumptions right? I am trying to find out myself if i can boot ubuntu from my external HD, does not seems like my mac book would permit it.

     

    P.S. are u asking your question in my thread which contained only my unanswered question? smart move.

     

    P.S.S. What are you trying to set up and who is jarvis and why this info is revelant?

  • by Cheshire_MD,

    Cheshire_MD Cheshire_MD Nov 13, 2013 3:06 PM in response to LowLuster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 13, 2013 3:06 PM in response to LowLuster

    LowLuster wrote:

     

    I said "Or Linux Maybe".

     

    Oh and thanks for pointing out my limited knowledge on this subject.

    well, if u don't know for sure, why mislead people?

     

    I'm not trying point out anything, on a contrary, i'm trying to educate and provide info on a topic in one place for anyone with the same questions. I'm sorry if i offended u.

  • by K311yC00k,Helpful

    K311yC00k K311yC00k Dec 17, 2013 6:56 PM in response to Cheshire_MD
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 17, 2013 6:56 PM in response to Cheshire_MD

    Hey Cheshire -

     

    I've been playing with this for a while too. I bought a mid 2012 macbook pro with the super drive, removed the super drive and added a second SSD. I then formatted the second SSD to boot windows so now I have two internal drives - one mac and one win64.

     

    As far as external drives, I tried many different configurations and the BIOS of the macbook pro just doesn't like non-GUID non-Mac OS drives. I finally settled on a solution: VMWare Fusion. Yes, it costs money, but it is very good and it allows you fine grained control over the host and guest OS. I can also use it to mount and boot my windows SSD as a VM under Mac and vise-versa from Windows. It really is the best compromise solution.

     

    Let us know what you land on. 

  • by Cheshire_MD,

    Cheshire_MD Cheshire_MD Dec 26, 2013 9:59 AM in response to K311yC00k
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2013 9:59 AM in response to K311yC00k

    Thanks for the reply!

     

    I tried to do many things with my usb drive and i think it didn't desrve all that formatting, but i failed miserably, trying to start from usb drive and even gave up this idea. And then i saw ur response. Actually i had only vague knowledge of virtual machines and had no idea what they are capable of, so i was not even looking into it, but thanks K311yC00k, i already got VirtualBox running on my mac just for trying and i might switch to paid versions if it really works for me.