Need to know how to boot from back up drive

A

april womack

Registered
I am running tiger os x and my internal hard drive is clicking like crazy and window shades me. I had previously backed up my system onto an external drive using super duper. I thought I could hold down the option key at start up and access all my drives ( have 3, an omega which the system is backed to, and a my book where my data files reside) and be able to select the omega to verify start up prior to replacing the faulty drive. When I hold down the option key, the only drive that appears on screen is the internal primary drive. what am I doing wrong?
 
If your Mac is PowerPC-based, then you cannot boot from a USB drive.

If your Mac is Intel-based, then you can boot from a USB drive.

What kind of external drive is it, and what connection type does it use (FireWire, USB)?
 
Thanks for your quick response. I fished thru the other posts and many pages back I got a hint about how to access my back up drive, and joy! it worked! I even booted from the back up. But thank you for responding.
 
I went into the system prefs and all my drives popped up on my desktop allowing me to select the drive I wanted to boot from. All I had to do to get back to my primary internal drive was to reboot. For whatever reason on my system, holding down the c key at start up did not open a window to allow me to select an alternate drive, only my primary drive. I still have not gotten the nerve to replace my internal drive by myself, I am going to have a friend help me. Then since it is a mac, and it seems all drives are formatted for fat 32 and not generally complatible with the mac, I will have to reformat the new internal drive so it runs smoothly. With 500 gig, I guess I will set it to format at the end of the day and let it do its thing overnite. It is allllllways somethin'.
 
Then since it is a mac, and it seems all drives are formatted for fat 32 and not generally complatible with the mac, I will have to reformat the new internal drive so it runs smoothly. With 500 gig, I guess I will set it to format at the end of the day and let it do its thing overnite. It is allllllways somethin'.
Click to expand...

There is one answer. Make sure it is "journaled." My Ex-HD was not, for some reason, and my Macbook had problems trying to recognize it as well.

--J.D.
 
april womack said:
For whatever reason on my system, holding down the c key at start up did not open a window to allow me to select an alternate drive, only my primary drive.
Click to expand...
Holding the 'c' key boots from the optical drive, such as the Mac OS X Install CD/DVD (back in the day, when we only had CD-ROMs -- that's where 'c' comes from).

Holding down the 'option' key allows you to choose which volume to boot from.
 
I did that with both my external drives, but I know the internal drive was not. The repair guy came to my home, installed and transferred my info in a short time. That may be why it occurred. Thanks for the follow up, you just keep learning about these crazy machines all the time.
 
Thanks for the follow up, you just keep learning about these crazy machines all the time.

Sacriledge.. PC's are crazy machines.. MACS are HEAVEN!
 
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