Bootscreen Hangs with External Hard Drive Plugged In

[trickybreeze]

I have my hackintosh working perfectly using all the components from tonys new mac mini build using unibeast and multibeast with Lion 10.7.2. The only problem that i CAN NOT figure out how to fix is that whenever my external hard drive is plugged in it hangs on the black bootscreen with the spinning slash mark in the upper left corner (the slash stops spinning). Ive searched every hackintosh forum imaginable but the only results it returns is how to boot from an external (not helpful). I even changed my bios boot order to Hard Disk for all selections 1 through 3. No combination of selections works. Any suggestions? It boots fine when I unplug the hard drive, its just annoying to unplug and plug in everytime. And it looks stupid plugged into the front of my case.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[SnapMan]

You might want to check in System Preferences/Startup Disk to make sure your internal HDD is selected.

Do you have an OS installed on the external HDD? If so, have you run MB and installed Chimera on it?

 

[trickybreeze]

Yes its the only hard drive listed in my system pref/startupdisk. All that is on my external is my time machine backups and a file for photos.

 

[SnapMan]

So, it works as long as you startup with the external unplugged....

You might consider trying to run Disk Utilities and verify disk and verify permissions to see if it has any issues. While there, click on the info button and see if the drive is reported to be bootable, if so, that might be part of the problem.

If the only startup disk visible is your internal HDD and it is still trying to startup from the external.....I wonder if there is a BIOS option to prevent it from trying to boot from an external drive?

You might want to more completely fill in your system profile.....makes it easier to see what hardware you are using.

 

[mrdeeno]

Just finished my build yesterday...have the same problem and the external drive is a time machine backup drive.

Gonna try out the suggestions later today to see if anything works, or I may just shove it into the case and make it an "internal" back up drive.

 

[karacho]

I got exactly that on my other rig (GA-P55A-UD3) everytime when i make my clonedrive bootable using chimera. With one difference...mine stuck at the Bios POST screen if the USB drive is connected. If i install chameleon instead all went fine. In my case it's the Bios...the F11 is a bit buggy i guess.

 

[mrdeeno]

I ended up just tearing the drive out of the external case and installing it internally. Also did the same with my external 3tb drive.

Everything seems to work fine now, and dont' have to deal with separate power supplies for the external drives now either.

 

[trickybreeze]

Ok so I have a workaround. If it is plugged into one of the FRONT two USB ports on my case it boots fine. When it is plugged into one of the BACK usb ports it hangs. Still annoying since I have a chord sticking out the front of my computer. Not a huge issue but maybe this will give some insight as to why it hangs if its plugged into the back? I still dont have anything but "HARD DRIVE" listed in my bios boot priority so im not sure why plugging it into the different USB ports would matter since it shouldn't be checking them. Anyone have thoughts on that?

 

[::::::::::]

Just wanted to add that this is happening to me on my new CustoMac Pro build (GA-Z68-UD3H-B3 with F10). The strange thing is that mine will sometimes boot up and other times it won't despite nothing seeming to have changed. I have 2x normal external HD plugged in and a 1TB Time machine backup.

Sounds like it could be a time machine thing??

EDIT: Going through the other thread and turning off USB Storage in the BIOS worked for me. No problems booting since