Installing OS X on external HD

I have an external hard drive, and I want to install my OS X on it, because I have Final Cut HD and I don't want to uninstall Final Cut Pro from my laptop. I was wondering if it was possible. Otherwise, can I just uninstall Final Cut Pro and reinstall it eventually (with the updates) My fear is, because Final Cut 6 came out a while back, that if I uninstall FCPro, I won't be able to re-update it.

Thanks

Coppola said:

I have an external hard drive, and I want to install my OS X on it, because I have Final Cut HD and I don't want to uninstall Final Cut Pro from my laptop. I was wondering if it was possible. Otherwise, can I just uninstall Final Cut Pro and reinstall it eventually (with the updates) My fear is, because Final Cut 6 came out a while back, that if I uninstall FCPro, I won't be able to re-update it.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Yes, you can. When going thru the installation process, it will ask you to select a HDD. It should be selectable.
You can also clone your HDD to an external. Two good programs to use.

SuperDuper!
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Ok, so it's ok to restart the computer and proceed with the installation, or can I install it without restarting the computer?

You still need to boot up from the install disk, so yes it's ok. Just make sure you pick the correct HDD to install to.

Alright, thanks

I tried to install OS X on my external HD but when choosing the HD, it give my an error, a red ! over the HD, telling me I can't install OS X on this Hard drive... do I need to format the HD before installing, because otherwise, I just can't install it...??!!

After selecting languages, go to the menu bar-utilities-disk utility. You'll be able to initialize it from there. (hfs+)

Soulwar, I tried what you said but I can't find a way to «install» OS X. I have to select the HD, then I have in the middle board either Erase, Restore, Partition and something else. I tried Restore but it copied what's on the CD on my HD. My HD is already journalised, so do I have to create a partition and then I'll be able to install it or is there some hidden way to do it? It's seems a bit more complicated to install the OS on Mac then it is on PC

Try this way.
Have your Mac startup normally. (without the install disk) Connect your external HDD. Go to Disk Utility. (applications/Utilities) The external should be selectable. Choose to format the external with HFS+. (erase option) It should format the drive.
Afterwards, when starting from the Install disk, it should be selectable to install the OS.

I have a LaCie external, that I have installed Panther and Tiger on it before. I actually have 3 seperate partitions. One with Tiger, one with Panther (just installed Panther on it a month ago) and the other is a cloned backup of my iMac HDD. (Tiger)

EDIT: were you refering to the external in the last post? Choose the Erase option. Sorry if I confused you!

Looks harder than it seems... I've done what you said and still unable to install. I actually dont see an option to select HFS+ anywhere... I've tried the Erase option, as it's doing it, it says partitioning but when I startup with the CD, it still give me the red ! Also, whether I choose Erase or Partioning, there's this option checked, Install Mac OS 9 Drivers, which I uncheck but it recheckes everytime. Unless theres something I don't get or something I've done wrong, I dont understand why its that hard to install something from a Mac!

I included some pics, so you didn't think I'm crazy...
As you can see, it shows the format, too. The Mac OS Extended is the HFS+. Might be part of the confusion.?

Just a thought, but are you using a retail version or the restore disks?
I haven't tried my restore disks in awhile, but I'll try it and see if that's the problem. (gotta dig them up)

I'll post back in a few!

I'm using the CDs that came with the computer, I have 2, MAC OS X Install Disc, part 1 and 2. It's for Macbook, maybe it could be a reason why it's not working, but I can't see why... And also, do I absolutly need to create a partition, because I want to use my whole HD, which is 153gigs, to do editing, so I don't want to create 2 or 3 partitions. I'll take a further look at the pictures you posted, obviously if you can post more that be helpful, and if I still have problems (... ) I,ll come back here

Are you using USB or FireWire? I was under the impression you can't use a USB disk, but I might be wrong.

As far as I know, Intel Macs can boot from USB2.0 PPC Macs can't.

Did you ever get the external formatted in Mac OS Extended? If so, then I would assume its due to the restore disks.
If that's the case, use one of the programs I mentioned for cloning. It will duplicate your HDD and be bootable as well.

I tried to get my Wife's Intel Mac to boot from an external USB with OSX and wouldn't boot. I have heard that Intel boxes could also boot for USB but have yet to see it actually done. FW worked fine though (Same drive, different case).

baggss said:

I tried to get my Wife's Intel Mac to boot from an external USB with OSX and wouldn't boot. I have heard that Intel boxes could also boot for USB but have yet to see it actually done. FW worked fine though (Same drive, different case).

Click to expand...

Reminds me of bypassing open firmware protection. Everybody says it can be done, but never seen it happen.

Soulwar, I'm using my HDD with a firewire plug. When I got the HDD, it was a plug-and-play situation, when I connected the HDD and I started using it to store my video shooting and work with Final Cut. I had no problems, until I tried to install Mac OS X in it, it gave me the error message, that's why I thought of formating it, but I didn't think I needed to do it, since it was already plug-and-play. So maybe it was already formatted as HFS+ but I dont get why it didnt want to install it.

OSX can ONLY be installed on a HFS+ partition. What format is/was the drive?

I am writing this while running OS X from an external connected via USB 2.0. The trick is, when you format the HD in disk utility, make sure you go to options and select GUID Partition Table if you want to boot from an intel mac or Apple Partition Map if you want to boot from a Power PC mac. Of course OS X will run a bit slower when run from an external, but it is cool to be able to plug the external into any mac and have "your mac" boot up!

Hope that helped!

So could this be a connection problem? If it works with USB 2.0 but not with firewire...