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.
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