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How to run OSX from a USB drive

The Problem:

If you've read some of my previous posts, or followed my twitter feed, you'll know that my iMac died.  After running as many hardware tests as I knew how to run, I determined that the hard drive was dead.  It then sat on my shelf for a few months and I finally decided to fix it so I could either use it (to keep the kids off the other computer) or sell it.  I took it to my local mac shop (no Apple store out here), and wouldn't you know it, they claimed that the file system structure was hosed, but that they fixed it.

Unfortunately, they were full of hot air and I was left (again) with an iMac-shaped paper weight.  I ran a few more tests and found that yes, I was right, the drive was toast. So I did what any rational technologist would do, I googled the ever-loving goodness for how to run OSX from an external hard drive.

What I was left with was rather disappointing, a deluge of how to put the installation of  Snow Leopard on USB drives and install from them (yes, I know it's not actually disappointing , it's really a rather cool thing, and a good solution to backing up your installation DVD, but that's not what I needed). So taking a blind stab in the dark, here's the method I came up with.

What you'll need:

• Your Leopard or Snow Leopard Installation DVD(s) - "Your" implies a legal copy! (I used Leopard because I misplaced my Snow Leopard copy)
• A size-able USB drive (minimum 20GB, and no it doesn't matter if it is currently FAT, FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, etc. and seriously, use at least a 60GB drive. I tested successfully with both a 60GB and a 160GB drive)
• 1-3 hours (I recommend having a kindle/nook/kobo/ipod/kids to cure your boredom while you wait for the install to complete)
• Intel-based Mac (I used an iMac (circa late 2007-2008), but any intel mac *should* work)

Lets get it started:

Plug in your USB drive, insert your installation DVD and turn on your mac. Hold down the 'option' key and wait for the boot loader to appear.  Choose your install dvd to boot from and wait for the OSX installation screen to appear.

Select your language and click the next arrow button.

When the pre-installation environment has loaded, click on Utilities -> Disk Utilities

When Disk Utilities opens, click on your USB drive and then on the menu to the right click on the "Partition" button.

Choose "1 Partition" from the drop-down menu, then label your drive (or don't), and make sure you choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".

Before you click the "Apply" button, click "Options".

This part is very important, if you pick the wrong type you won't be able to boot from the drive, so make sure you choose "GUID Partition Table".

Click "OK", then click "Apply". The partition should not take too long.  When finished, close Disk Utilities and lets start the installation!

If you did everything correctly, after you click the Continue button you should be able to choose your newly partitioned USB drive as the installation target.

Click the drive, and click Continue, then sit back and enjoy as OSX is lovingly installed onto your USB drive.

When all is said and done you will be gifted with the glorious Welcome to OSX screen/video and you can begin setting-up/registering your mac.

Final Thoughts:

Running an entire OS from a USB drive is not ideal, you are going to lose speed, and you are going to lose bandwidth.  Think about it, you are forcing everything through that little Universal Serial Bus.

That being said, I was able to watch Hulu (it did bug at first, but stabled out), fire up iTunes, use Photobooth, and more importantly I was able to install Mac the Ripper and rip 3 DVDs to my hard drive, yes I ripped them to the same drive that OSX is running from. Each movie had a running time of about 120 minutes and it ripped them in about 30 minutes per movie.  I could also watch DVDs without skips (in the default DVD player program) and even watch them in VLC (again without skips).

Oddly enough I could not get Handbrake to rip the movies that I had decoded with Mac the Ripper. Which brings me a little off subject for a moment.  I found instead another program called Winx DVD Ripper for Mac.  Oddly enough while the free version can't rip from disc-to-mp4, it has no problems what-so-ever of ripping from drive-to-mp4 (the free version does not remove copy protection).  It's a little more "windows-y" of a design, but if you can use handbrake you should be able to get around in it.

Alright, well I hope that helps at least a few of you out there, if you have any questions or think I missed something, shout out in the comments.

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