Recently had an older MacBook Air die. Replaced it with a new MacBook Air running Catalina. Would like to also be able to occasionally boot up in High Sierra in order to run some older 32 bit software. Decided to just take the SSD drive out of the old MBA (that was running High Sierra), put it in an external enclosure, and try to boot from the external drive. Disk reads fine but I get a message saying I can’t boot from the disk. Am I missing something or is there some reason this isn’t possible?
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Steven
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External 32 Bit Startup Disk Possible With Catalina?
Comments: 8 Responses to “External 32 Bit Startup Disk Possible With Catalina?”
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Was Catalina the version of macOS that your Mac came with. If so, then it can only ever boot from Catalina or newer. Maybe have always worked that way (or at least since OS X).
Argh. Thanks for the quick response. Not what I wanted to hear. (-; Any other options? Parallels?
Steven: What software, exactly, do you need to run?
Primarily CS6 and various PS plug-ins, etc.
Steven: Well there are tons of alternatives to Adobe CS6. You can go with the current Adobe software, or many alternatives like Affinity or Pixelmator, Acorn, etc. Depends which apps in CS6 you use. If they are still of value to you now, then why not get an Adobe sub? Otherwise, the alternatives. Much better than booting an old Mac into an old OS just to run those.
Well, yeah, you're right, but I've been working with (licensed) Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc. for thirty years. I've got a lifetime of files in those formats. Now I'm retired on a modest fixed income. I can't afford all the monthly subscriptions everyone wants just so I can access my own art files that I created and paid for. An Adobe sub isn't a business expense any more, it's a personal expense. I shouldn't have to pay Adobe a subscription just to access my own files.
Steven: By formats, do you mean Photoshop .psd files? You can open them with many other things besides Photoshop. Just to view, even Preview will do it. But I just tried Pixelmator Pro and Acorn on some .psd files and they gave me layers and all. Probably no substitute for odd filters and such, but at least you can get to your files.
Thanks for your advice. I'll give it a try.