Using Disk Utility to create a partition on an external drive

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Using Disk Utility to create a partition on an external drive

Hi Everyone

I have a 250gb external HD drive which is currently split into two partitions of Fat32. I'd like to use this drive for storing images of OS X, but when I tried to create an image using the OS X startup DVD, I was told that FAT32 didn't allow large enough file sizes (or something along those lines) in order for me to backup my OS X.

Disk Utility appears to offer the ability to split partitions on the external drive, i.e. I can select the largest of the two partitions and choose to split it into two 96gb partitions. However, will this be a destructive partition process, and can I reasonably expect my external hard disk to be reformatted with a 96gb Mac OS X formatted partition whilst still keeping two FAT32 partitions and all the data that resides on them?

Any help is much appreciated!

MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Sep 15, 2007 4:45 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 15, 2007 5:57 AM in response to N.Cauldwell

If you change partitions using Disk Utility, ALL data on the hard drive will be lost.

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Answer 2

N.Cauldwell Author

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Sep 15, 2007 6:02 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Ok - that shouldn't be too bad seeing as I've just copied over everything that I would need to keep on the drive. So, if I do the split on the second partition, and format this partition into Mac OS X (so I can make my OS X images), I'll end up with two partitions of FAT32, one partition of OS X, and all will be clean of data. Am I right?

I'm trying out Super Duper as we speak, just going through the PDF.

Thanks!

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Answer 3

Sep 15, 2007 6:32 AM in response to N.Cauldwell

You will not be splitting existing partitions. Instead, you will be creating a new partitions from scratch.

Run Disk Utility. Select the hard drive to be partitioned. Make sure you select the hard drive in the sidebar, not the volume indented below the drive. Go to the Partition tab. If you want one or more of the partitions to be MS-DOS, you must first click on the Options... button. Select the Master Boot Record option and OK. Select Volume Scheme of 3 Partitions. Now set up your three new partitions as you want them, in terms of size and format. For the Mac partition, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format.

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