May082012

Will booting OS X Lion from an external had drive wreck my Mac?

Ash Beardmore asks:

I have a normal iMac, with most of my documents stored on a WD 1TB Hardrive (It has roughly 800GB left). If I downloaded OSX Lion and chose the install location as my ext. hardrive would it have any effect on how the computer works and how it sees that there are files on my hardrive?

Also, if I then decided to boot from my Mac again (So that would be Snow Leopard, right?) would the computer function normally again? and all the Lion files (assuming they were compatible) be able to function with Snow Leopard?


Browser: Chrome 18
System: Mac - Snow Leopard
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3 Answers -

0 votes

Ash

May 8, 2012

My Question^: So would it overwrite the Application, Macintosh HD, Documents folder already on the mac, because they’re still there – and I want to keep them.

0 votes

Mike

May 8, 2012

Just make sure to select the external hard drive during installation ~ nothing will change or get broken.

I myself have Mountain Lion, 10.5 Server and 10.6 Server on an external drive for testing purposes.

0 votes

zeeshan khan

May 13, 2012

It’ll be fine but I don’t recommend this. Your files will not be deleted unless you format the hard drive during the installation!