Installing Mountain Lion on a partitioned hard drive

babowa wrote:

I have three partitions on my hard drive - one Snow Leopard and the other two with recovery partitions, all created automatically when the OS was installed.

Are the recovery partitions "real" partitions, or just hidden folders on a partition. Because, if they are real partitions, you have 5 partitions.

Thanks, Niel,

It's losing the data that was a concern to me.

babowa wrote:

Already answered, but I'll add: yes, they are partitions, albeit small ones and they are hidden (that's why they're greyed out). I created 3 partitions and the installer automatically carved an apprxo. 670 MB large partition out of each one for the recovery.

Actually, your original post says you have 3 partitions, not 5. 🙂 And IMO, the graphical representation of your drive's structure is poor, it wouldn't be acceptable to me. To each his own, though.

I'm guessing the installer first determines there's enough room in the desired partition in order to be able to carve out the recovery partition. Otherwise, something has to go wrong.

At any rate, data loss was my main concern, as I've been there done that too many times in the past. Finally learned, and have Time Machine running here, and that just saved me with a bug in an email application that lost the contents of one of my inboxes.

babowa wrote:

Actually, your original post says you have 3 partitions, not 5. 🙂 And IMO, the graphical representation of your drive's structure is poor, it wouldn't be acceptable to me. To each his own, though.

Well, I created and have three usable partitions; the recovery partitions are not usable and are carved out of the existing ones. No need to pick that apart.

The key word here is "usable", which is isn't in your original post. I wouldn't have questioned your response about that at all. Recovery partitions should never be used, and we obviously know that. But I've seen Windows users put data on that partition because they didn't know any better, and the mfgr. didn't bother to hide it from the casual user.

Presuming things behind the scenes in Mountain Lion work the same as in Windows, you could unhide the partitions and use them, removing any read only flags. And of course, someone wanting to install some version of Linux on a Mac, totally removing anything OS X related, those partitions will be gone.

As for the "poor graphical representation", I simply took a screenshot of the left hand column in Disk Utility. Sorry it didn't meet with your expectations.

Now, that is a big disappointment if that's from Apple. 😟 They should be ashamed of themselves.

I've avoided upgrading because Apple, and now MS, are moving more and more to cloud related products, where I'm sure they will no longer sell you the apps for a fixed price, but make you pay a repetitive subscription fee if you want to use their products. I make little use of the cloud, and never will. It's a potential threat to my personal info and records if my data is stored there, and I make use of the cloud while working with the cloud based applications. I never signed up for Mobile Me and iDisk either.

My impression is, both Apple and MS are moving their systems towards the ignorant users, not the knowledgeable user. Meaning you and I as knowledgeable users will be unable to make our computers "personal" to us. We do it the way Apple and MS want, or we don't have a computer. For MS, look at the UEFI interface that's required to be activated if a computer mfgr. wants Windows 8 certification. I tell folks looking at new Windows 8 computers make sure of two things before they buy:

1. Ensure the UEFI system can be turned off so you can install a different OS if you don't like Windows 8.
2. Ensure you have rights to move back to Win7 as part of the purchase of the computer, in case you don't like Windows 8.

I played with Mountain Lion for the first time today at a Superstore. Could not find the System Profiler. If that's gone, it will be a mark on the negative side of the ledger for Apple's OS for me. If I don't like Mountain Lion, I'll have no qualms about reinstalling Snow Leopard.

All in all, with the routes Apple and MS are apparently taking, they are making me an eventual Linux user.

Niel wrote:

It's become System Information in Mountain Lion, and is still located in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder.

(74639)

Thanks. In Snow Leopard, the More Info button in About this Mac opens the profiler, and that's the only place I checked, didn't have the time to spend in the Superstore.

Glad to hear it's still available.

babowa wrote:

You cannot install a Mac OS version older than what your Mac came with. If you purchase a new Mac today you will not be able to install Snow Leopard.

Thanks, I didn't know that. My Mac came with Leopard, and I'm not anticipating purchasing new Mac in the near future. If I were to purchase a new Mac, it would likely be the top of the line. 😀

Except, possibly, a splurge for an iPad-Mini.

Csound1 wrote:

<snip>

Why are you here? this post is of no use to the OP and boring as it is possible to be for the rest of us.

If you would kindly scroll back to the top of the thread, you'll discover I am the OP.

I got a piece of advice from a municipal Fire Chief many years ago, which has served me well. "He who stays in his own backyard, wallows in his own ignorance." I'd like to suggest you think about that.

Along with that, if you don't find it interesting, no one forces you to read it. 🙂

Csound1 wrote:

I believe there are Linux forums, how come you are not there?

I am. 🙂 But unlike many users of a given OS, I don't believe any of them are perfect.