Boot Problems on LaCie Firewire Drive

[michael k]

Hi Dave: I have been using a 250 gig LaCie hard drive as my bootable clone for the past couple of years. I am running Tiger. I have never had any problem booting from the clone. For the last six months or so, things have been going so smoothly that I haven't checked its boot capability. But every week, I Smart Update the bootable clone. Today, just to be sure that I could boot from it, I tried to do so -- and couldn't. System Preferences recognizes it as a bootable drive, but setting it to boot from that drive results only in a boot from the internal drive. Likewise, if I restart and hold the options key, the only bootable drive I get is the internal drive. I can read and write without any problems to the bootable clone.

Any ideas? Somewhat troubling to think that I was protected against a hard drive failure only to discover that my bootable clone doesn't boot.

michael

[dnanian]

Assuming the drive is properly partitioned (as "GUID" for an Intel Mac, or "APM" for a Power PC), try powering everything down and disconnecting the drive from the Mac and AC.

Get the Mac to the Option+Boot screen and wait for it to 'settle'. Then, plug the drive into AC and the Mac. Wait for it to spin up audibly, then press the Refresh (Circle-arrow) button. If it shows up, select and boot.

[michael k]

Hi Dave: Thanks for the suggestion. Alas, it didn't work. I have an older LaCie drive that houses my "Sandbox" and I am perfectly capable of booting from that. But I can't boot from the bootable clone. Since the drive mounts, and can be read from and written to, I wouldn't think there is a physical problem with the drive. Kind of stymied -- and frustrated.

michael

[dnanian]

What's the partition scheme used from the drive?

[michael k]

How can I determine that?

[dnanian]

Open disk utility, select the external drive (not the volume, but the drive hardware), look at the lower right side of the window next to "Partition Scheme".

[michael k]

oops -- it just says "Apple Partition Scheme"

michael

[dnanian]

For the external drive?

[michael k]

ok, so I will follow the directions to partition my external drive using the GUID Partition Scheme and we will see what happens!

michael

[michael k]

It works! Thanks Dave.

michael

[dnanian]

A pleasure, Michael.