HD partitioning questions

[butch]

First, I want to say right up front "THANK YOU" to all you folks who helped me recently when I had a dying HD and was beating my head against the wall trying to make the new one work properly. It's up and running now, flawlessly, and I'm extremely happy and most grateful for all of the sage (and accurate - unlike that provided by Apple and Seagate "customer support") advice.

Now, I know I should have done this before I ever booted up on the new HD, but is it possible to partition a new 120gb drive that only has about 6gb of data on it? Do I need to use Retrospect to copy my current HD over to my backup drive, then wipe the new disk, partition it (so I could install OS X to learn how to use it...but that's another story),and then re-copy the old data back to the OS 9.2 partition?

That done, if I partition it in half, with OS 9.2 on one and OS X on the other, how do I tell the machine which partition to boot to as default? If I start in OS 9.2, how do I get OS X running, or do I need to reboot from that partition?

See? I'm a user, not a techie geek (I'm a geek, just not that kind..). Please pardon the inane questions.

Thanks again everybody!

Butch

[unclemac]

Hi Butch,

Looks like this one fell through the cracks, so let's get started:

To Partition you must erase the drive, or to state more accurately, partitioning erases the drive.

Your description is correct: you need to save all data, partition and install, then restore your data.

Note: verify your backup is good before proceeding!

As to how to partition, well, that's open ended; lot's of different approaches. I keep if fairly simple. If I had a 120G, here's what I would do:

?Ģ 1 for "working" OS 10 volume, maybe 40 gigs
?Ģ 1 for OS 9 volume, maybe 10 gigs
?Ģ 1 for "backup" OS 10 volume, what ever is left, for backing up/archiving stuff, as well as another bootable system for troubleshooting, etc.

Some folks will do more or less, like this (http://forums.macgurus.com/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=40160367&f=42260229&m=893605804). More structure than I can handle http://forums.macgurus.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_razz.gif .

As for selecting which volume you want to start up from, just select it in the System Preferences for OS X, or Control Panels for OS 9. All bootable systems will show up in both, just click on the one you want and reboot. On all New World Macs, you can hold down the option key when you restart, which will take you to a simple screen with all of your bootable volumes listed (including Firewire, CD ROM, etc.). Same thing: select the volume you want to start from, and click the arrow buttom, and it will boot to that volume. Try this right now for fun - it's good to know the process before an emergency!

__________________

Charlie Don't Surf!

[butch]

Would that Apple were as helpful!

Butch http://forums.macgurus.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif