External HD is boot drive but displays desktop from internal drive

[Not Julias Brother]

I am running Mojave on a late 2013 27” iMac with 8 gigs of RAM and 1 TB internal hard drive. Using Carbon Copy, I cloned the internal HD onto a 2 TB Toshiba external SSD. I then used System Preferences to make the Toshiba external SSD my boot drive. But, the desktop displayed is still the internal HD desktop. Can anyone tell me please how I remedy this so that on startup the desktop is called from the external SSD?
Thanks!

 

[MacsBug]

If you used CCC to clone your drive then the Desktop should be the one on the external. The Desktop will look the same as your internal drive.

To verify this you can open a folder that is on the Desktop (If you don't have one you can create a new one) Once the folder is opened hold down the command Key and click on the name of the folder on the top of the folder window. This will show you the path, you should see that its on your the drive that you booted from.

 

[TonyAguila]

I am running Mojave on a late 2013 27” iMac with 8 gigs of RAM and 1 TB internal hard drive. Using Carbon Copy, I cloned the internal HD onto a 2 TB Toshiba external SSD. I then used System Preferences to make the Toshiba external SSD my boot drive. But, the desktop displayed is still the internal HD desktop. Can anyone tell me please how I remedy this so that on startup the desktop is called from the external SSD?
Thanks!

Maybe your desktop folder is located in iCloud Drive? The quickest way to tell is to open a Finder window with the sidebar showing and then do a ⌘-⇧-D (Go to Desktop). If you have show pathbar enabled, it will show you where Desktop is located.

If you have a secondary user, you can log into that account to see if the desktop there is different. You Desktop folder is located in your own user folder, whether or not it’s located locally or in iCloud Drive.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

If you used CCC to clone your drive then the Desktop should be the one on the external. The Desktop will look the same as your internal drive.

To verify this you can open a folder that is on the Desktop (If you don't have one you can create a new one) Once the folder is opened hold down the command Key and click on the name of the folder on the top of the folder window. This will show you the path, you should see that its on your the drive that you booted from.

Using your test, the path from the desktop is off the internal drive. I have selected the external hard drive as my boot drive and yet the desktop is from the internal drive. It appears to be still booting off the internal drive. I wonder what I missed.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

Maybe your desktop folder is located in iCloud Drive? The quickest way to tell is to open a Finder window with the sidebar showing and then do a ⌘-⇧-D (Go to Desktop). If you have show pathbar enabled, it will show you where Desktop is located.

View attachment 4963

If you have a secondary user, you can log into that account to see if the desktop there is different. You Desktop folder is located in your own user folder, whether or not it’s located locally or in iCloud Drive.

No, my desktop folder is not in the cloud. Thanks though.

 

[MacsBug]

Sounds like when you selected to boot from the external it did not hold. Or that the drive is not bootable.

You can boot your iMac while holding down the option key and you will be able to select which drive to boot from.

After booting while hilding down the option key you will see all bootable drives.

To boot from the external you would seect the drive and click on the Arrow below it. If you want to set the external as the default boot drive then after selecting it hold down the control key before clicking on the arrow. You will see the arrow change from a straight arrow to a rounded arrow. If you click on the rounded arrow then that will boot from the external as well as set it as the default boot drive.

If you do not see the external when you booted while holding the option key, then you may not have created a proper clone. You need to make sure that the drive is formated as Mac OS Externded, Journalled partition with a GUID partition scheme.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

Using the option button allowed me to see the external had and boot from there.
I will try the control key procedure. Thanks for that idea.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

Sounds like when you selected to boot from the external it did not hold. Or that the drive is not bootable.

You can boot your iMac while holding down the option key and you will be able to select which drive to boot from.

After booting while hilding down the option key you will see all bootable drives.

To boot from the external you would seect the drive and click on the Arrow below it. If you want to set the external as the default boot drive then after selecting it hold down the control key before clicking on the arrow. You will see the arrow change from a straight arrow to a rounded arrow. If you click on the rounded arrow then that will boot from the external as well as set it as the default boot drive.

If you do not see the external when you booted while holding the option key, then you may not have created a proper clone. You need to make sure that the drive is formated as Mac OS Externded, Journalled partition with a GUID partition scheme.

Hi I tried to the control option and clicked the rounded button. Though it booted from the external hard drive, using the start up manager, the default start up drive remained the internal hard drive. Any ideas?

 

[MacsBug]

1st thing to try is to zap your PRAM. You do this by starting up the Mac while holding down the following 4 keys Command Otion P R and keep them held till you hear the 3rd chime and then let go.

Try setting the external as your boot drive and see if it sticks.

Also, when you did the CCC Clone, did you 1st format the SSD as macOS Extended, or APFS. Mojave will run on both, although it may not allow the drive to be selected if it is not APFS.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

I could only get two chimes though I held the keys down until the bar below the apple was almost done.
Doing this had no effect on the default boot disk. I tried to change it to the external hard drive in system preferences, but upon restart, it still went to the internal drive.
It was a week ago when I did the clone and I can’t remember what I selected but when I check in disk utilities it says APFS, so I am assuming that was what I selected.
Using the option key is not a big deal for me, but my wife is the primary user of the iMac and it is an issue for her, so I would like to keep her happy.
Thanks for your ideas.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

1st thing to try is to zap your PRAM. You do this by starting up the Mac while holding down the following 4 keys Command Otion P R and keep them held till you hear the 3rd chime and then let go.

Try setting the external as your boot drive and see if it sticks.

Also, when you did the CCC Clone, did you 1st format the SSD as macOS Extended, or APFS. Mojave will run on both, although it may not allow the drive to be selected if it is not APFS.

Tried to reset PRAM again. I unplugged all the usb peripherals and was able to get three chimes so PRAM has been reset, but still the internal HD is the primary start up disk. Using the option key and start up manager is the only way to make the external drive the start up disk.
I am perplexed.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

Is there anyway to temporarily disable the internal HD, so it is not available as the boot drive?
I say temporarily because I am nervous to just blow it away.

 

[TonyAguila]

Is there anyway to temporarily disable the internal HD, so it is not available as the boot drive?
I say temporarily because I am nervous to just blow it away.

It has been a while since I last worked on a 2013 iMac. You will need access to the inside and locate the connectors (data and power) to the drive. I think that model needs suction cups to pull back the screen in order to reveal the insides.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

I wasn’t thinking of physically disabling the drive more a software or electronic solution.
Actually, I deleted the data on the internal drive, but the computer still only boots from the external drive using the option key and start up manager.

 

[TonyAguila]

I wasn’t thinking of physically disabling the drive more a software or electronic solution.
Actually, I deleted the data on the internal drive, but the computer still only boots from the external drive using the option key and start up manager.

If you were not concerned with the data on the internal drive, and I’m assuming you have backups, I recommend reformatting the drive all the way by using Disk Utility to wipe it totally and then installing a fresh copy of macOS, and migrating data from backup if you don’t want to start from scratch. But you can do this after testing how the attached drive performs for you. I only suggested physically disconnecting the internal drive because I thought you were determined to not erase the contents. But now you have.

Reformatting the internal drive and reinstalling macOS, either from an installer drive or from Recovery, will give you assurance that if anything was “broken” in the data before would probably had been wiped out. Don’t forget to enable TRIM!

I have done this, i.e. wiping and reinstalling macOS onto my internal SSD, a number of times. The first couple of times could be daunting.

And I made sure I had redundant Time Machine backups and CCC clones of the drive.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

Thanks, I brought in a backpack from TimeMachine which seemed to have everything but my email.