[HM] hummmmmm

[Duane Murphy]

--- At Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:50:46 -0500, Robert Gray wrote:

>At 9:12 AM -0800 on 11/8/05, duanemurphy at mac.com wrote:
>
>>--- At Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:09:38 -0500, Robert Gray wrote:
>>
>>  >At 3:27 PM +0000 on 11/8/05, duanemurphy at mac.com wrote:
>>>
>>>>   > On Tue, 8 Nov 2005, michaelP wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>   >> Can you remind me how to boot from an external hard drive?
>>>>   >
>>>>>   Hold the option key at boot. A screen will come up that
>>>>   > will allow you to select which drive to boot from.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   Thanks Allan, I tried this three times and each time
>>>>   the screen came up but without the external hard drive
>>>>   showing even though it does appear in the Start-Up
>>>>   Disk control panel (it has a System Folder identical
>>>>   to the one on the internal drive).
>>>
>>>I'm not so sure you can simple copy the system folder from
>>>one drive to another.  Things have to be done; like writing
>>>a little sector which tells the system that the drive is
>>>bootable.  There may even be invisible files that are
>>  >essential and don't get included in a "finder-copy".
>>
>>While this is true for OS X, OS 9 requires no such tweaking.
>>Simply selecting the drive in the Startup Disk control panel
>>will fix the drive so that it can boot.
>
>
>All systems require that there be a disk driver available and
>that's not getting written when you drag the folder to the disk.
>
>
>>This will only work if the System Folder is blessed. A blessed
>>System Folder is identified by the Mac OS face on the
>>folder....Seeing the Finder file and the System file in the same 
>>folder helps the system recognize that this is a System folder.
>
>
>While that's necessary, it's not sufficient.  There must be a disk 
>driver available in order for the OS to be able to read the disk. 
>The OS expects that information to be located in the disk boot 
>sector.  No driver...no boot, even though there's a blessed folder.
>
>Like I said, try Disk Setup.  It may ask to update the drivers.  If 
>that works you're home free.  If not you may have to format/erase the 
>drive then drag the system folder again.  See:

Ah, radical assumption on my part that the volumes have been formated to
be compatible with OS 9. Good point. These days, it's not always
obvious. I still make a point of formatting my drives with OS 9 drivers,
just in case.

 ...Duane