I just got a new iMac with Snow Leopard. My old G4 has 10.5.8 and the drive is partitioned into Boot (HD) and Data. How do I partition my iMac to have these drives? I tried using Firewire but my G4 has an HP external monitor. Do I need to start over with the startup disk and partition then? I tried to currently partition but cannot.
Thank you.
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
You can resize/downsize the current OSX volume and make a second partition in the new free space with Disk Utility.
Refer to the Disk Utility Help on how-to.
But you have to do it while booted from the OSX Install DVD since DU cannot partition the disk from which your Mac is currently booted.
Plus you shouldn't do it without backup of your OSX.
Stefan
There is no benefit to partitioning your HD to a Boot sector and Data sector, if anything it will slow the system down.
rkaufmann87 is correct, in my humble opinion. Following is the logic I have used in managing 3 self-built desktop towers and multiple disks (especially after disk failures):
Partitioning used to be necessary when putting very large disks in systems that could not handle the full physical disk size. But that has not been necessary for years, and certainly not for any new Mac.
Partitioning is a risky way of making things *appear* separate. It is risky because the loss of the common single-disk means the loss of all partitions. Some people think "ah ... more than one physical disk". But if all disks are in the same enclosure (MBP, desktop tower, etc) you run the risk of losing all disks at the same time still.
There is good reason to use separate storage from the boot disk:
The disk for sharing or backup should be an external disk to prevent catatrophic loss of all disks from a single power spike or theft.
This has allowed me to recover at least reasonably gracefully from most disk failures.
partitioning hard drive
