[FAQ] Installing OS X on an external HD

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OldScratch

Registered
Okay here's my deal. I've got this G3 Mac upgraded to a G4 (it's the blue & white). Got plenty of RAM (over 700 I think) and I'm trying to install OS X on an external SCSI HD. This external HD is used as a system backup drive. It has OS 9 already installed on it; a fresh version. So when I install X on the external, it works just fine. When I switch back to the internal HD running OS 9, the computer refuses to start up from the external drive, in either OS 9 or X. If you set it to start up from X, it'll just start up with the internal's OS 9. If you set it to start up from the external's 9, it freezes at the happy mac screen.

Anyone have any input? I know it's sort of vague and all, but if anyone has any ideas, they'd be appreciated. Thanks.

(I think this topic is a FAQ, but if it should be a how-to, let me know and I'll change it.)
 
i assume you are switching startup disks thru system prefs and the control panel. have you tried starting up while holding the option key and getting a choice of available systems?
 
I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty certain I tried that and the icons didn't show up at boot time, it just went to whatever system folder I was already running. But, I'll try that again.

Yeah, I always switch the startup disks thru the control panel and system prefs, cause I've had problems with earlier versions of X if I did the option thing.
 
yea, i always switch thru them as well. i have 10.2.4 on my internal, 10.1.5 on my external FW and 9.2.2 on both. i know i've had problems if the copy of classic selected wasn't on the same disk as the os x. i've also had problems with it recognizing any system after booting from an os 9 cd. but the option trick has always saved me. sometimes i can avoid that if i unplug the FW drive so it only has one disk to search. unfortunatly, you can't do that with scsi.

and this isn't an every time thing, just every so often. i know that if os x can't find something or is confused about where to look, it will keep trying to look and not find anything for a long time.
 
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