Q: I have a few questions regarding partition and internet recovery
I have completely deleted OS X Yosemite and only have Windows left. Now that I'm quite fed up with Windows and want to use my Macbook Air for real, I'm thinking of using internet recovery (Command and R) to reinstall OS X.
I have backed up all my data and don't need anything stored in my Macbook. My questions are: (I know they're long but they're quick to answer)
1. I want to erase everthing on my Mac. I now have 3 partitions. After booting and pressing Command + R, I would use disk utility to erase everything, like this
.
After clicking erase, would my 3 partitions be merged into 1 and I could repartition my Mac?
2. I want to create a partition for OS X Yosemite (and possibly updating to El Capitan). What is the minimum/recommended size for OS X Yosemite partition? (Because my SSD is only 128GB)
3. Let's say I create 3 partitions, let's name them A for OS X, B for my data, and C for reinstalling Windows. If I boot into Windows, would I be able to use (read and modify) the data on B, or only OS X could do that?
4. How much data would I have to download during Internet Recovery? I suppose a lot since I'm downloading the whole OS X, but my internet is quite slow, so I want to know how many GBs would I have to download.
5. If I'm asked to enter Apple ID to download OS X, would any Apple ID works?
Thanks for reading. I would be extremely grateful if you answer my questions. Cheers
MacBook Air, Windows 8
Posted on Dec 19, 2015 6:19 PM
- 0: Have backups of everything you care about, and disconnect all external disks save those you are specifically using. While it's not supposed to, repartitioning should always be assumed to cause total data loss. Corruptions can and do occasionally happen, unfortunately. Errant user commands can sometimes target the wrong disks for erasure or repartitioning, as mistakes can happen. Don't connect anything unnecessarily.
- 1: Yes. You will want to create a GPT-partitioned volume.
- 2: Let Yosemite size and add its own partitions.
- 3: Use Boot Camp to add the Windows partition. With a disk as small as this, I might well park Windows out on an external storage device, and/or use a virtual machine and Windows as a guest. In general, adding additional user-defined partitions are not something I generally recommend. Resizing and adding and deleting partitions can end up with corruptions, have backups.
- 4: That depends on various factors, not the least of which are how busy Apple's servers are, and how fast your network link is. I usually create a local installer and use that. That also makes recovery and other operations faster, at the cost of a few $ for a USB disk of sufficient size. Recent OS X releases are ~six gigabytes in size, based on the local installers.
- 5: Any Apple ID will work, but having more than one Apple ID active for OS and app purchases generally leads to hassles figuring out which bought what, and which can update what.
Posted on Dec 19, 2015 6:49 PM