iMac with newly installed hard drive won't boot from external drive

[chaunce322]

The hard drive in my parents' 2007 iMac finally gave up the ghost, so I replaced it with a drive from OWC.

I made an El Capitan bootable disk on an external drive, but when I try to boot my from iMac it just hangs at the loading bar with the Apple logo.

I plugged the external drive into a newer MBP, and it worked just fine.

Any ideas...?

Sean

 

[harryb2448]

What are the specs of your iMac? How did you make the bootable copy of El Capitan and how are you trying to boot from the external?

When you formatted the external Mac OS Extended (Journaled) did you go into Partition > Options and ensure GUID was selected?

 

[pm-r]

The early 2007 iMacs also need to have at least 2 GB of RAM installed to boot OS X 10.11.x.

 

[techiesteve]

The basic memory spec for the 2007 iMacs's was a single 1GB DDR 667 MHz module. El Capitan will eventually run on 2GB, but will have awful performance. When the boot problem is resolved go for 4 or 6GB.

 

[chaunce322]

What are the specs of your iMac? How did you make the bootable copy of El Capitan and how are you trying to boot from the external?

When you formatted the external Mac OS Extended (Journaled) did you go into Partition > Options and ensure GUID was selected?

It a mid-2007 24" iMac - 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB graphics card.

I built the bootable copy of El Capitan using these instructions - http://www.macworld.com/article/298...le-os-x-10-11-el-capitan-installer-drive.html

Like I said, when I plug the external drive into another MBP, the bootable drive works just fine.

And yes, I formatted the external drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and verified it's GUID.

I replaced the hard drive with this model - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST2000DM001/

Sean

 

[pm-r]

Is the new drive a USB bus powered unit only or does it have an option to accept AC power adapter?? And I'm assuming you're using the same cable and have also tried other USB ports???


EDIT:
Also, have you tried resetting the SMC and or even a Safe Boot Mode, but the latter shouldn't be necessary if it was a clean virgin install.

 

[chaunce322]

Is the new drive a USB bus powered unit only or does it have an option to accept AC power adapter?? And I'm assuming you're using the same cable and have also tried other USB ports???


EDIT:
Also, have you tried resetting the SMC and or even a Safe Boot Mode, but the latter shouldn't be necessary if it was a clean virgin install.

I assume you're referring to the external drive I'm attempting to boot from? In that case, yes, it requires an AC adapter, which I had plugged in. I also tried various USB ports on the iMac to connect the drive.

Can you reset the SMC or boot in Safe Mode if the iMac's HD is completely blank...?

Sean

 

[pm-r]

… … …

Can you reset the SMC or boot in Safe Mode if the iMac's HD is completely blank...?

Sean

Reset SMC = yes
Safe Boot = No, not without a valid bootable OS X.

Is there an internal drive still connected to the iMac, and does it have an invisible Recovery HD partition you could try booting from? (Command + D or press+hold Option key on restart). It would have been installed with OS X Lion or later.

 

[chaunce322]

Reset SMC = yes
Safe Boot = No, not without a valid bootable OS X.

Is there an internal drive still connected to the iMac, and does it have an invisible Recovery HD partition you could try booting from? (Command + D or press+hold Option key on restart). It would have been installed with OS X Lion or later.

OK, I'll try resetting the PMC.

No, there is no internal drive with the Recovery HD partition on it as the iMac's internal HD is the one I replaced with a new, blank drive as the previous one had failed.

Sean

 

[pm-r]

OK, and I've just been trying to recall a very vague thing about some Macs not being able to boot without an internal drive installed, but maybe that was just a bad dream or was it….

Sort of like some portables wouldn't boot without a battery being installed…

You never know and I can't recall…

 

[chscag]

OK, and I've just been trying to recall a very vague thing about some Macs not being able to boot without an internal drive installed, but maybe that was just a bad dream or was it….

Must have been a bad dream because he does have a hard drive installed but it has not been formatted or setup because he can not access it..

@chaunce322: Go over your take apart and put together steps for the iMac. I suspect that something has not been connected or you may have accidentally broken something during the re-assembly of the iMac. You should be able to easily boot that iMac with the external drive and setup the new internal drive. Taking apart an iMac and putting it back together is not an easy task.

 

[pm-r]

Hmmm… I guess I really missed the part that they just can't access the drive. Bad, must be age…

 

[chaunce322]

Must have been a bad dream because he does have a hard drive installed but it has not been formatted or setup because he can not access it..

@chaunce322: Go over your take apart and put together steps for the iMac. I suspect that something has not been connected or you may have accidentally broken something during the re-assembly of the iMac. You should be able to easily boot that iMac with the external drive and setup the new internal drive. Taking apart an iMac and putting it back together is not an easy task.

I followed the instructions on ifixit.com

This is the 2nd time I've had to replace the drive in this iMac, so I've done it before. I don't deny I could have improperly seated a connector or something...just wondering if there's any diagnostics I can do without have to rip the thing open again...

Sean

 

[chscag]

I followed the instructions on ifixit.com

This is the 2nd time I've had to replace the drive in this iMac, so I've done it before. I don't deny I could have improperly seated a connector or something...just wondering if there's any diagnostics I can do without have to rip the thing open again... Sean

That's fine. The instructions by ifixit are the best, but there are no diagnostic programs outside of what Apple has and you're never going to get access to them.

 

[chaunce322]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the tips.

I reset the NVRAM, and the installation went through after that.

Now I just have 9+ hours of restoring a Time Machine backup over wifi...

Thanks again for the help!

Sean