Macbook will not boot on USB thumbdrive...

hi all,

i was able to upgrade successfully from leopard to snow leopard with a USB thumb drive when my internal HD died in my macbook pro.

i am now trying to upgrade my wife's macbook to snow leopard (from tiger) but i cannot get startup manager to recognize the drive!

the bizarre thing is that the thumb drive is recognized just fine in finder (this includes disk utility) on her macbook. i can even double click the mac os x icon on the thumb drive and it will ask me to press restart to proceed with installation of snow leopard.

however, after the computer restarts, it just loads right into the desktop.

i've tried holding down the option key, resetting the PRAM, etc. nothing works.

does anybody have any ideas? thanks very much in advance..

Why don't you just install it from the retail install disc that you bought?

i am currently overseas right now and i don't have the disc with me....

I'm not up with either Leopard or Snow Leopard, but when experiencing similar problems with booting from earlier OS disks, I've used the Startup Disk from System Prefs to select the volume. Perhaps that, if applicable, will work in your situation.

Hughvane,

I have tried that - I am able to select the thumb drive in system prefs but upon bootup, it does a regular boot straight into the Tiger OS....

Instead of using Restart after selecting a startup volume (the thumb drive in your case), press the Return key (that advice comes from Apple's site).

If that doesn't work, try to 'trick' the Macbook by holding down the C key upon restart. I know that's meant for optical disk reboot, but it may work with the thumb drive as well.

USB boot *should* work with an Intel processor, but just to be sure in my mind, it is a Macbook and not an iBook you're working with - right?

A suggestion from left field. Insert the thumb drive immediately AFTER the startup chime. That may persuade the hardware to use the USB source as a startup volume.

If none of the above work, try a different thumb drive. Yes, I know the present one is recognised and mounted by the computer, but we're looking for ways to get around the startup problem.

hughvane,

thanks for the message

yes, it is a macbook and not an iBook.

i will try your suggestions and post back. thank you for your help.

hughvane,

tried all your suggestions and none of them worked....

Forgive me if you have mentioned this already but it is a bit early for me. Is her machine perhaps a bit older than yours? Which specific models are we dealing with here. I am not sure all of them will boot from a thumb drive. Good to know some do. I had never tried that.

Surething Sly,

Here is the info from system profiler.

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B07
SMC Version: 1.13f3
Serial Number: 5C64701ZWGL
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

I think maybe I didn't explain things very well. I wonder if there has been a change in the boot rooms to support this. If, for example, one machine is from '06 and the other '10, there might be differences in the roms that are contributing to the problem. That might not be the issue but it is something to rule out.

hmmm.....how can I find out what the ROM is?

As far as upgrading from Tiger to Snow Leopard, it is 100% possible...

Someone else may have a better idea for identifying the rom version but one clue might be the model identifier which as you have discovered can be found in System Profiler. My '08 MacBook Pro, for example, has an identifier of 5.1. Compare the identifier on the two machines and we'll go from there.

I know the jump from Tiger is possible. Didn't think that was the issue.

Thanks for responding sly. According to system profiler, I have an identifier of 2.1...and the ROM is MB21.00A5.B07.....

--------------

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B07
SMC Version: 1.13f3

Is hers the the same or different (particularly the Boot Rom)?

xiaobao12 said:

Surething Sly,

Here is the info from system profiler.

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B07
SMC Version: 1.13f3
Serial Number: 5C64701ZWGL
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Click to expand...

It's a Core 2 Duo and running Tiger? I thought that only the Core Duos ran Tiger...

The boot ROM is IDed under the main system info after you click "more info" to get into system profiler.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MB51.007D.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.32f8
Serial Number (system): 739150TH1AQ
Hardware UUID: 19F1C409-A0F9-5170-B801-A8A31A90F93F
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Click to expand...

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Sly, the info that I posted was from her machine - the Macbook.

Here it is again:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B07
SMC Version: 1.13f3
Serial Number: 5C64701ZWGL
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

I installed Snow Leopard onto a blank HD because my HD had died....hope that clarifies the situation.