[mackandproud]

I just setup a new external drive as a backup. I used carbon copy cloner to create what should've been or what I thought would be a bootable external drive. Yet, now that I've created the backup, the external drive does NOT show up as a startup disk. Only the original internal disk can be used in preferences. What gives?

[Simon]

Forget about CCC. It has caused others trouble in the past. Instead I suggest you use OS X's built-in cloning tool. It's rock solid, it's very fast and it's of course free. You'll find it on every OS X installer DVD and on every OS X installation.

/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility > Restore.

Select erase destination to get a bootable clone in block-copy mode (fast!).

[reader50]

Did the external drive come preformatted? If so, you need to use the Partition function of Disk Utility. If the drive came preformatted as FAT32, or even an NTFS partition that you subsequently erased to HFS+ ... in either case, the partition map is likely Master Boot Record. It has to be Apple Partition Map (PPC, Intel) or GUID (Intel) to boot a Mac.

[mackandproud]

Oops. I forgot to restart my computer.

I knew something was up when my older external drive didn't show up as a bootable drive either under preferences.

I restarted my comp and now I have TWO, count 'em TWO, bootable external drives! Awesome!

Lesson to be learned is: if you want your external bootable firewire drive to be bootable, you must restart your computer after cloning the main drive.

I am so happy!

edit: next project: a new internal drive to replace the nearly topped out 250 gigger purring inside my macbook right now...