External Hard Drive/Start Up

Hi All

I have a external hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro by USB for back up (time machine)

All works fine apart from when I restart the mac. It gets stuck at the apple logo.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Try booting without the external HDD plugged in...

benparko said:

Try booting without the external HDD plugged in...

Click to expand...

Sorry I should have said. Yes when I unplug it it starts fine.

I do not wat to have to un plug it every day.

Thanks

Is your internal drive selected as the startup drive? Go to System Preferences > Startup and check. You may have your MacBook trying to boot off your external drive.

Incidentally, using Firewire 800 would give much quicker backups.

Collin Bl said:

Incidentally, using Firewire 800 would give much quicker backups.

Click to expand...

However, totally irrelevant..... He's not asking about fast backup options. He's asking for some help with boot issues....

benparko said:

Is your internal drive selected as the startup drive? Go to System Preferences > Startup and check. You may have your MacBook trying to boot off your external drive.

Click to expand...

Thanks but this did not work.

Any other suggestions?

Is it connected directly to your MacBook or via a USB hub?

When did you get your MacBook Pro?? Is it still covered by AppleCare? If so... give them a call.. It's a bit harder if I'm not there. But AppleCare would get these type of problems all the time and the can help you sort it out.

Hope all goes well for you mate.

-Ben

Is the external drive always powered on, or does it have to come up to speed when you boot the MBP? If it's powered on, but gone into a sleep mode itself, it may not be waking up when the USB line becomes active on the MBP. So, it would work if you booted and then plugged in, but maybe not if you booted with it plugged in. I've had the problem with a Seagate FreeAgent drive that spins down when not accessed in a while. I get the beachball when Finder needs it. Eventually it wakes up and responds, but it can be as much as 10-15 seconds of beachball first.

benparko said:

Is it connected directly to your MacBook or via a USB hub?

Click to expand...

Direct to the MBP.

You macbook will scan the external harddrive during bootup to see if there's a bootable partition on there...

Depending on the size of the harddrive, it could take a fair while...
How is the drive formatted and partitioned? GUID or Apple partition map? (Disk Utility will tell you)