Can't boot from external Hard Drive

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I'm trying to figure out why I can't boot up from my OWC external dual drive enclosure. So far these are the tests I have done to narrow down the issue:

On My Mac Pro running 10.6.1:
OWC hard drive with USB connection allows me to boot
OWC hard drive with firewire connection does not allow me to boot
Tried an Iomega external firewire drive and it allows me to boot

On a MacBook running 10.5.8:
OWC hard drive with firewire connection allows me to boot

On a Macbook at the apple store running 10.6.1:
OWC hard drive with firewire connection does not allow me to boot

Based on all of this, is it safe to say there is nothing actually wrong with the firewire ports on my Mac Pro? In addition, is it safe to say there is some sort of incompatibility between my OWC specific enclosure and Mac OS 10.6.1?
 
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External Hard Drive

I'm trying to figure out why I can't boot up from my OWC external dual drive enclosure. So far these are the tests I have done to narrow down the issue:

On My Mac Pro running 10.6.1:
OWC hard drive with USB connection allows me to boot
OWC hard drive with firewire connection does not allow me to boot
Tried an Iomega external firewire drive and it allows me to boot

On a MacBook running 10.5.8:
OWC hard drive with firewire connection allows me to boot

On a Macbook at the apple store running 10.6.1:
OWC hard drive with firewire connection does not allow me to boot

Based on all of this, is it safe to say there is nothing actually wrong with the firewire ports on my Mac Pro? In addition, is it safe to say there is some sort of incompatibility between my OWC specific enclosure and Mac OS 10.6.1?
 

bobtomay

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Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Note: Merged Duplicate Threads
 
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Your Mac's Specs
MBP 2.33 4GB: MacPro 8 Core 2.8, 16GB: MacMini 2.26 4GB: MacMin 2.53 4GB: iPhone3GS 32GB
What is the partition scheme you are using with the drive? Intel based Macs require the GUID partition scheme to be able to boot. From the list you posted, it sounds like you may be using the Apple Partition Map scheme. Is the 10.5.8 machine an Intel Mac, or is it PPC? Since it boots up, my guess is PPC.

Open the Disk Utility Application select the device (not the volume). At the bottom of the disk utility you should see a bunch of information about the drive. Look for 'Partition Map Scheme'. This needs to be 'GUID Partition Table' for you to be able to boot from the Volume.
 
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I double checked the problematic drive and it is definitely partitioned with GUID.

The macbook with 10.5.8 is one version old. It's the white plastic one right before the silver version came out. Not sure if that's intel or not?
 
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MBP 2.33 4GB: MacPro 8 Core 2.8, 16GB: MacMini 2.26 4GB: MacMin 2.53 4GB: iPhone3GS 32GB
Strange.

Plug the problem drive in via firewire on one of the 10.6.1 machines and navigate to SystemPreferences->Startup Disk. Does OSX even see the drive as being a valid startup volume?

I am assuming that when you have the drive plugged in via firewire you can access the device without issue, it's just booting that is the problem. Is this correct?
 
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I plugged in the drive and went to system preferences, and the drive does show up as a valid startup disc. However, when I choose the drive and restart it won't start up from the drive. I also tried holding option when starting up and the drive refused to show up.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
MBP 2.33 4GB: MacPro 8 Core 2.8, 16GB: MacMini 2.26 4GB: MacMin 2.53 4GB: iPhone3GS 32GB
Might be something to this:

Apple - Support - Discussions - I need a bootable firewire drive ...

Seems like your not the only one with an issue and an OWC enclosure.

One thing I can suggest just to see if you can get more info, select the drive as a the startup volume again, and boot using verbose mode by holding Command+v on startup,. This should at least give some clue as to what could be happening.
 
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I had the same problem with an OWC enclsoure. And what's even worse is that the tech support couldn't even help out. -_- I bought a Rocstor driver after and it works pretty well. STAY AWAY FROM OWC!
 

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