Trouble installing macOS Ventura on external SSD

Question

Level 1

4 points

Trouble installing macOS Ventura on external SSD

iMac 2017 2.3 GHZ Dual-Core Intel Core i5

16gb memory

Ventura 13.7.4

No luck trying to install macOS on a external SSD. I had to start in recovery mode as my computer is not running well, and Safari won’t open. After starting in recovery mode I used disk utility to erase/format the SSD. Made sure to show all devices in disk utility, used APFS and GUID Partition Map.

Click re-install MacOs Ventura, choose SSD and continue. Says Ventura will now be installed on the disk SSD. They lied.

No welcome screen. Computer re-started on it’s own and the old hard drive started up the computer. So, I restarted, held down the option button, picked install macOS ( SSD) and hit restart. Still no welcome screen.

1st picture, screen shot of SSD after recovery mode.

2nd, screen shot of SSD after option/instill mode.

Hope that made sense, and someone can help me figure out what I did wrong.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Mar 30, 2025 2:02 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

213,247 points

Apr 2, 2025 2:35 PM in response to digger31

Does hour internal boot drive work OK? If so you can easily clone your boot drive to the external drive. I have the same model iMac and cloned my boot drive to it. I can boot and run from it.

Here's how to clone your boot drive: Using Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable external SSD of an Intel Mac boot drive.

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Answer 2

digger31 Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 1, 2025 5:58 PM in response to rkaufmann87

I followed the steps in the link you sent me. It all seemed to go well, but after the last re-start the internal HD

re-started the computer.

I went to system settings, picked the start-up disk, picked the SSD, restarted, and got this message.

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Answer 3

digger31 Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 29, 2025 8:34 AM in response to Old Toad

In case this helps someone else, I was finally able to install and run Ventura on the external SSD. I read that someone was able to accomplish, after having all the issues I was having, by using a USB connection into the computer with the USB-C end connected to the SSD. Worked on the first go around. After a day or so, I shut down the computer and installed the original USB-C cable with no problem.

Hope that made sense.

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Answer 4

digger31 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2025 7:56 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

The SSD was connected with the USB-C cable that came with the LaCie SSD. Make no sense to me either. But after trying to install numerous different ways, I figured I had nothing to lose. I'm just happy it worked.