Booting from external NVMe drive

[TheBrett]

Hello, I am trying to create a boot drive on an external NVMe using the APFS format. It is an SSK enclosure (this one) with a 2tb western digital blue drive. I am using a macbook pro 13,3 and used Carbon Copy Cloner to make a copy of my current osX 10.14.6 install in the external. The drive doesn't seem to show up when I boot the computer unless I unplug it and plug it back it in. Unfortunately if I do this on the drive selection screen when trying to boot from an alternate drive, it just freezes the screen. This is the second enclosure I am trying this with with the same affect. Wondering if certain enclosure just don't work for this? Maybe someone knows one that does? Or even better a way to make it work with the SSK? I have also tried selecting the external from the startup disk options in System Preferences to no avail. Thanks!

 

[TonyAguila]

Hello, I am trying to create a boot drive on an external NVMe using the APFS format. It is an SSK enclosure (this one) with a 2tb western digital blue drive. I am using a macbook pro 13,3 and used Carbon Copy Cloner to make a copy of my current osX 10.14.6 install in the external. The drive doesn't seem to show up when I boot the computer unless I unplug it and plug it back it in. Unfortunately if I do this on the drive selection screen when trying to boot from an alternate drive, it just freezes the screen. This is the second enclosure I am trying this with with the same affect. Wondering if certain enclosure just don't work for this? Maybe someone knows one that does? Or even better a way to make it work with the SSK? I have also tried selecting the external from the startup disk options in System Preferences to no avail. Thanks!

I would first try installing macOS Monterey (the max that your MBP will run) on the external drive. With it attached and running, boot into Recovery. For good measure, reformat the external SSD with Disk Utility as APFS, then install Monterey. If it works, installer will ask for the data source for migration. You can select either your current drive or the CCC clone, whichever you judge to be more current.

If you just want a plain vanilla external bootable drive, you can just opt to migrate your user account and leave the rest of your data out. Afterwards, it should reboot from your external drive.

 

[Seanog]

I had a problem with an External SSD, I used CCC but no use. Apple support put me right. Erase drive & format AFTS. Then head over to Mac Recovery(Command-R) at startup. Then choose "reinstall OS", it then asks which drive, select Target drive.............then copy what you want to the drive when it is finished..

 

[lajay007]

Carbon Cooy Cloner isn't going to work like it used to with Apple's new operating systems. Check out the blog from CCC. https://bombich.com/blog/2021/05/19...dapting-recovery-strategies-evolving-platform