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Doc HM · Sep 11, 2009, 06:12 AM

This is a new one on me.

Got a white MacBook. Drive was suffering from the dreaded click of death so I swapped it out for a new one. New drive shows up just fine via target mode and I've fresh installed OSX 10.5 onto it no problems at all.

But the darned thing still won\t boot. It's just showing the flashing no drive icon. I'd be happier if target mode didn't work as then it could easily be a faulty sata connection but the drive shows up just fine so it should boot!

Any ideas?

Cold Warrior · Sep 11, 2009, 07:07 AM

hold down option when you hear the startup chime. See if you can choose it that way.

Doc HM · Sep 11, 2009, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior

hold down option when you hear the startup chime. See if you can choose it that way.

tried startup manager, not showing any valid startup discs. Connected my MBP via FW and it boots up fine from that.

Wiped drive, reinstalled 10.5 and updated to 10.5.7 via combo updater, same thing, no valid boot drive found. If I boot from my MBP via firewire the internal drive shows up fine on the desktop.

Weird.

ibook_steve · Sep 11, 2009, 11:33 AM

Did you format the drive as GUID or APM?

(Though for some reason now I opened Disk Utility for the first time in Snow Leopard and there is no Partition tab! Weird.)

Steve

Doc HM · Sep 11, 2009, 01:29 PM

Checked that first thing. GUID both times.

dowNNshift · Sep 11, 2009, 09:15 PM

Can you see the drive in Start-up Manager? Just in-case you don't know how to do that, reboot and hold down the option key at boot. All drives (or discs) that are bootable will appear here.

Because you're able to write to the drive, its likely not an I/O error. That said, it's plausible the boot manager is confused to which drive is your start up drive -- especially if you've installed to it via Target drive. resetting your PRAM and booting to Start-up Manager could go a long way for ya.... try that and let us know.

Doc HM · Sep 12, 2009, 03:31 AM

As mentioned above, I've tried startup manager and it won't see the drive. Tried PRAM, no joy.

Could be that there is something wrong with the drive that prevents it booting but allows data access elsewhere.

Time to try a second drive in it.

Doc HM · Sep 27, 2009, 05:07 AM

OK now I have an answer.

I installed the drive and then hooked the MacBook up to my MBP using firewire target mode. Installed 10.5 from a disk image on the MBP.

It seems that SL (on my MBP) causes installing this way (which is much faster than using the DVD) to fail. A system is installed but the drive is rendered unbootable for no reason that I can see.

Using the original dvd in the optical drive works fine, all be it much more slowly.

hey ho.

Cold Warrior · Sep 27, 2009, 11:10 AM

where did the disc image come from and what are your steps for trying to install SL using it? If you cloned the installer DVD, then you're just restoring the installer DVD not an actual installed system.

Doc HM · Sep 27, 2009, 12:50 PM

No I have a dmg of the installer on the server. When opened you can open the package with a terminal command and run the installer from the hard drive rather than from a dvd. It's much quicker, especially with 10.5. I've done hundreds of drives this way, but as soon as I upgraded to leopard then pop, it's broken.

In case you're interetsed here's a link to macosxhints.com detailing the process. As was.

macosxhints.com - 10.5: Install OS X to a different volume without rebooting