07-30-2008, 06:09 PM

Ive been trying to install OSX 10.4 on my WD hard drive for some time now. its a 160gb WD ide hard drive. I was wondering if anyone can explain how I can install the OS on my hard drive externally using this: POWMAX SATA/IDE TO USB 2.0 ADAPTER/CABLE KIT. When I try to install OSX 10.4 my mac recognizes the HD but it says it cannot install the OS on to the HD, it has a red caution sign on the bottm right corner of the HD Icon in the installation process. Does anyone know why? the HD is for my cube, I tried replacing the old HD for the new HD and when I press and hold down the C button after the intro "chime" it does not read the dvd and goes to a flashing folder mac/? icon but when I reinstall the old HD and press down the c button after the "chime" it reads the OS DVD and proceeds to the install process. Anyone know whats going on?

08-04-2008, 03:50 AM

If I'm understanding you correctly, changing hard drives causes the computer to not find the CD/DVD drive, yes? In this case, you should verify that the jumpers are correct (hard drive should probably be set to slave or cable select). I usually press the ALT/OPTION key, because sometimes the computer is very picky about me pressing C at the right time. Doing this will show you all available boot options.

08-04-2008, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by emadrid007

Ive been trying to install OSX 10.4 on my WD hard drive for some time now. its a 160gb WD ide hard drive. I was wondering if anyone can explain how I can install the OS on my hard drive externally using this: POWMAX SATA/IDE TO USB 2.0 ADAPTER/CABLE KIT. When I try to install OSX 10.4 my mac recognizes the HD but it says it cannot install the OS on to the HD, it has a red caution sign on the bottm right corner of the HD Icon in the installation process. Does anyone know why? the HD is for my cube, I tried replacing the old HD for the new HD and when I press and hold down the C button after the intro "chime" it does not read the dvd and goes to a flashing folder mac/? icon but when I reinstall the old HD and press down the c button after the "chime" it reads the OS DVD and proceeds to the install process. Anyone know whats going on?

You've given good information except for two things:
1. What file format is on the new WD drive? For MacOS it needs to be HFS+.
2. What are you using as your OS source drive ie. is it another computer or is it an external optical drive?

I think you'll find that you can't install OS on an external HD via an adaptor cable, it has to be firewire I believe. But then you appeared to have covered that issue by putting the old HD back in - but back in to what?