Captian Doesn't Appear In Startup Disk Prefs

[Ormond]

Dear Mac Gods,

I need your advice please.

I've been using Snow Leopard for years, and am just now adding el Capitan. I have two partitions on my hard drive, one for Snow and on the other I just installed Capitan.

When I'm in Snow, the Capitan partition doesn't show up in the Startup Disk section of the System Prefs. Thus, I can't use the startup disk feature to switch from one OS to another, as I've been doing for many years. (When I'm in Captian, Snow does appear in the Startup Disk feature)

I can boot in to the el Capitan partition by holding down the option key on startup, and once Capitan is booted it seems to be working ok.

I did some research before posting, and can see that some others have had the same issue. Thus, I'm guessing this is not an issue specific to my setup.

Anybody know anything about this mystery? I'm trying to determine if this "feature" of this "upgrade" is something I can fix, or if there's nothing I can do but make peace with it.

Many thanks for you insights.

 

[honestone]

Not sure if this is quite the same, but I had something similar occur just now. I have an old 17" PowerBook machine with OS 10.6.8, Snow Leopard, on it, and I just booted it up (surprisingly still works!). Well, after I got the desktop, I plugged in my new external drive (has a 512 gig Samsung 850 Pro SSD) via one of the available USB ports, and just like you, the partitions containing the SuperDuper! bootable, OS 10.11.6, backups for my Mac Mini and my MacBook Air did not appear when I clicked on Startup Disk in System Preferences. (They did appear, though, on the desktop). However, and again just like you experienced, when I re-started the machine and held down the Option key, those two bootable partitions did appear.

So, I wonder if this is some kind of "restriction" with Snow Leopard. Not sure, though, about any "intervening" versions of the Mac OS (10.7, 10.8, 10.9, and 10.10).

 

[Ormond]

I think you're probably right honestone. From the research I'm doing I've learned that others experienced this too, and so far everyone seems to accept that this is a limitation of Snow Leopard, an inability to recognize the newer operating systems. I haven't read anybody explain exactly what the problem is.

The only solution I can think of so far is to put my Snow Leopard partition on an external drive, and turn that drive off when I'm focused on working in el Capitan. Or, just make peace with having to do the option key boot every time I want to boot in to Capitan. It appears that if Snow Leopard is available the machine will always boot in to that unless I do the option key boot procedure, as there's no way to tell my Mac to make Capitan the default.

According to Apple technical documents the best solution here is to whine bitterly about Apple and it's operating systems which at least makes one feel better and have a more user friendly experience. I'll probably try that next.

 

[honestone]

Not sure with whining about the limitations of an old OS will accomplish much, but have at it, if that's your desire!

 

[Ormond]

It's not a limitation of the old OS. It's a limitation of the new OSs. As usual. Thus hath I whined.

 

[honestone]

It's not a limitation of the old OS. It's a limitation of the new OSs. As usual. Thus hath I whined.

As I mentioned above, I do not know if the same issue is/was present in Lion (OS 10.7), MountaIn Lion (OS 10.8), Mavericks (OS 10.9), and/or Yosemite (OS 10.10).

 

[ᑕᐧᔐᔫᓂᑯᒑᔥ]

I've noticed this behavior as well. I've just changed from 10.6.8 to Capitan a couple days ago.
Interesting that others are having this problem and not just on my end. Would be nice to have a fix,
but not expecting one.

 

[Ormond]

Would be nice to have a fix,but not expecting one.

The "fix" was buried in the whining above.

You can boot in to the el Capitan partition by holding down the option key on startup.

 

[ᑕᐧᔐᔫᓂᑯᒑᔥ]

Yes, I know. I was just hoping for something that would be a little
less "taxing" on the desktop by using the "Startup Disk" feature.
I have Snow Leopard on a SSD and now Capitan on my main drive.