Dual boot setup with two hard drives

Hi all, I've searched through the forums but haven't been able to find an answer to what I figure is a couple pretty easy questions.
My wife has an older G4(circa 2000) with OS 9.2.x on it now. What I would like to do is put a new, larger HD in the box and install Tiger on it. I've found write-ups talking about installing Tiger and OS 9.x.x on different drives or on the same drive in different partitions. My problem is I still am not sure how you switch between Tiger/OS9 with two different drives. Is Tiger able to recognize the OS9 on a different drive and allow you to easily switch back and forth like it does when they are installed on the same drive?
My second question is hopefully even easier. Can I head on over to my local computer supply store and pick up any old ATA HD like I would for a *Nix/Windows box or am I forced to get one directly from apple like I had to with a bad power supply?
Thanks in advance for the help all.

OK, here's mine for comparison:
ibook:~ michaelc$ bless --info /Volumes/*
finderinfo[0]: 3040 => Blessed System Folder is /Volumes/OS9.2/System Folder
finderinfo[1]: 0 => No Startup App folder (ignored anyway)
finderinfo[2]: 0 => Open-folder linked list empty
finderinfo[3]: 3040 => OS 9 blessed folder is /Volumes/OS9.2/System Folder
finderinfo[4]: 0 => Unused field unset
finderinfo[5]: 0 => No OS 9 + X blessed X folder
64-bit VSDB volume id: 0x233F23EAA912CD05So it would appear this might be the problem, since you don't have a "OS 9 blessed folder".
Now, I have never had to do this, but have seen it work for others. The bless command has a lot of options, many of which we don't want here. But let's give this a try. Remember, copy and paste this command into a text editor (TextEdit will do). Then edit the command to put your volume name in it (in place of <yourvolumename>, without the angle brackets), and copy and paste again into Terminal.
You will need to be logged in to an 'admin' account:
sudo bless -folder9 /Volumes/<yourvolumename>/System\ Folder/Press return and you will be prompted for your password. This is not echoed for security reasons: just type it and press return.
Then, if you get no complaints, I would issue a
rebootcommand. Your OS 9 System Folder should now be available to you in your Classic preferences screen.
Let us know how this goes!

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Operating system not found when deploying to machines with two hard drives using MDT 2013.

Computers with two hard drives will not boot after the install OS step in the task sequence. I get the "An operating system wasn't found. Try removing drives that don't contain an operating system" error. I am able to get the
machine to boot by swapping the hard drives' boot order, but the task sequence won't complete after this. The deployment works fine on machines with one hard drive, and I'm not getting any errors from the task sequence. I'm deploying windows7
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The bdd.log file you sent does not show two internal drives, it shows only one.
Console > Please wait while DiskPart scans your configuration... ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:04 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > DiskPart has finished scanning your configuration. ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > DISKPART> ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Disk 0 Online 60 GB 60 GB ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > DISKPART> ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Volume 0 D DVD-ROM 0 B No Media ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Is this the problem?
Keith Garner - keithga.wordpress.com

Dual boot arch from second hard drive [SOLVED]

I have two sata hard drives connected. Hard drive 0 has my working updated version of arch.
I'm trying to boot off the second hard drive that has an older installation of arch. I have added this to my menu.lst of my first hard drive:
# (2) Arch Linux 2.6.31
title Arch Linux 2.6.31
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/29523114-ab52-4a9b-b93f-e2da915c0dc1 ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img
I have also tried using /dev/sdb1 on the kernel line with the same results. The uuid is correct I am able to obtain that from /dev/disk/by-uuid/
this is definately where the vmlinuz26 file resides for that hard drive. I can mount it and see it.
But when I choose this option, it tries to boot but then I get:
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
Pid: 1, comm: init not tainted 2.6.31-ARCH #1
What do I need to change? Do I need to add something to that initrd line? Thanks.
Last edited by kekules_dream (2010-01-10 21:43:31)

I had to change the uuid to that of the root partition on sdb (the second hard drive) even though I had a /boot partition on it (sdb1). It is now working.
# (2) Arch Linux 2.6.31
title Arch Linux 2.6.31
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/4a5827bc-6ace-4d4d-9ba7-24586e365c8a ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img

How best to setup a Mac Pro with two hard drives for 1st hard drive or OS failure?

My first Apple, a Mac Pro, is to arrive on Monday (1/7). I will be putting Win7 on Bootcamp and installing Parrallels. It will have two 1T hard drives.   I would appreciate
any advice on how best to set it up for best recovery in case of a hard drive or OS crash.   You can tell I have experience with Windows.    It looks like my best choices are
either disk cloning software or just installing OS X from the recovery disk on the second drive.   Apple says it is legal to do another installation.   I know the disk cloning will not work on the bootcamp partition which I plan to use for the Parallels program. Can OS X have an option to boot from two differnet disks and OS installs?
What I am really wanting to do in the event of a crash, is to just boot up on the other disk and keep working.     I try to keep data on a separate partition with backups so
that a disk or OS crash doesn't cause any data loss.

I do not use windows.
However on my Mac Pro for cloning/backups/bootable backups i use Carbon Copy Cloner.
It has an ability to clone entire disk (unless specified differently) so I can boot from another disk or restore back if I want to.

Dual Boot Selection with two SSD Installed

I have two SAMSUNG SSD's installed in the W540.
SSD #1 -- Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
SSD #2 -- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
The SSD's had a complete install of each Microsoft Windows operating system without using the dual boot manager. I select teh SSD to boot from by using teh F12 key at boot time.
On my previous computer (HP EliteBook Workstation 8560w), the BIOS had a option to display a boot selection menu for me to select from without having to manually select the option to display. The boot selection menu gave me 20-30 seconds to select a alternative boot option. If I did not respond it woudl boot to the primary drive.
Can the Lenovo W540 be setup the same way? I can find no options in the latest BIOS.

I am honestly dubious that your previous HP machine had anything in the BIOS to provide this "Boot Manager" functionality you've described. Your description is exactly what Boot Manager in Windows does, which probably what was in effect on your HP machine.
Now you say you installed two separate versions of Windows on two separate drives, and without involving Windows Boot Manager. That suggests to me that you unplugged the other SSD when you did each install, so that the Windows installer didn't even know about the other bootable OS when doing its current install. If it had seen the other pre-existing bootable Windows, then the second install would have triggered the creation of a 2-OS boot menu (identical to what you say you saw on your old HP machine). You could still have two bootable Windows, on two separate drives (or, you could also have installed to two separate partitions on one drive if you wanted to), and at boot time Boot Manager would present the menu to you and you'd select one or the other. The most recent Windows to get installed would probably have made itself the "default", so that after 10-30 seconds it would auto-boot to that Windows if you didn't arrow up/down and press ENTER to select the other Windows for this particular boot.
The BIOS of the machine has a "boot sequence" setup, and one of your two SSD drives MUST be first, in front of the other. So at boot time by default (in the absence of F12 to select a boot device) the BIOS would normally go to THAT "first" drive in the boot sequence list, locate the "active" partition on that drive (where Boot Manager is assumed to live), and start the boot process. If Boot Manager sees a 1-OS boot menu, it just goes to that partition (as C, where Windows lives on that drive) and starts Windows. If a 2-OS boot menu exists, Boot Manager presents it to you and you decide which Windows you want to boot to.
When you push F12 at boot time, you simply say to the BIOS "let me pick which of my drives I want you to go to, to then find the "active" partition on that drive to kick off the boot process". Since you did two completely independent Windows installs, I would say that you probably have a "system reserved" partition (which is marked "active") on each SSD, along with a C system partition (for Windows) on each SSD. So you can actually boot to either drive, via F12, or you can just let the machine boot to whichever one you know to be first in the boot sequence list.
But... if you'd simply installed your second Windows to the second SSD while the first Windows/SSD was still cabled and visible, the second Windows install would have done everything you're now asking to be done. The existing 1-OS boot menu (on the first SSD) would have been seen and updated by the Windows installer, to add the second Windows to the menu which would thus now be a 2-OS boot menu. The second Windows would get installed wherever you wanted it to get installed (i.e. to the second SSD), and all would be well with the world.
Note that had this taken place, no second "system reserved" partition (marked "active", and housing the second copy of Boot Manager) would have been created on the second SSD with the second installed Windows. The existing "system reserved" (marked "active", and living on the first drive in the BIOS boot sequence list) would simply have had its boot menu updated from 1-OS to 2-OS, and you'd be home free right now.
This is exactly how Boot Manager works. I'm sure your old HP machine had such a setup, with your two Windows installed sequentially over time, and with the second one recognizing the first one's existence and adding itself to the boot menu to produce a 2-OS boot menu which is what you saw. That wasn't from the BIOS. It was from Windows Boot Manager handling a 2-OS boot menu.
So, what can you do now? Well, technically, you only need one "active" partition (i.e. "system reserved", where Boot Manager lives) on the first SSD in your BIOS boot sequence list. You won't need the second "system reserved" which in my opinion was probably created (unnecessarily) when you did your second Windows install with the first SSD temporarily disconnected.
But the goal here is to get the 1-OS boot menu that's on the first SSD "system reserved" partition updated, to add the second Windows on the second SSD, producing a 2-OS boot menu. And to do that you can use a wonderful 3rd-party product named EasyBCD. It is a tool to maintain your boot menu, and you can manually do things after-the-fact (like now) which you should have done before, or simply to perform maintenance or changes.
So, with both SSD's cabled and operational (your current booted Windows will appear as C, and probably your other drive's Windows partition will thus appear as D to the current booted Windows), you run EasyBCD. It really doesn't matter which Windows is on the first SSD and that is first in the BIOS boot sequence, only that it will be the boot menu in the "system reserved" partition on that drive which will be manipulated by EasyBCD to become the 2-OS menu. You can make either Windows the default (which will auto-boot in 10 seconds if you don't select the other Windows), no matter which SSD it's on.
You can view the current boot menu (from the currently booted Windows) via EDIT. You pick which entry is to be the "default".
To add a new entry to the boot menu, push the ADD button and navigate to the drive (D) the Windows to be added lives on.
If you don't already have same, I would recommend you have a "system image" backup of both of your bootable Windows drives (to an external USB 3.0 drive, ideally), so that if you're skittish about doing this you'll at least be able to quickly and easily restore what you currently have from your backups.
But believe me, EasyBCD can be trusted to do exactly what you want to do... which is to create a 2-OS boot menu on your first drive's "system reserved" partition. This 2-OS boot menu will name BOTH of your two bootable Windows, from your two SSD drives. You won't need to push F12 to select the boot device, just let the machine go to the first drive in the boot sequence and kick off Boot Manager, and the rest will behave exactly as you are now seeking.
Let me know if you have questions. And for sure, let us know how it turns out.

WinXP dual boot Solaris on 2nd hard drive problem...

Hi there ppl,
run into a bit of a prob with dual booting winxp and solaris. I have WinXP on 1st hard drive and Solaris on 2nd hard drive 2 (Solaris - partition 1 with slice 0 x86 active, DOS - partition 2 for installing linux later, DOS - partition 3 for fat32 file storage later).
I want to boot to Solaris on drive 2 from the WinXP boot loader on drive 1. Could somebody please tell me exactly how to do this as I've copied the bootsect.sun file from Solaris via floppy to the WinXP C:\ drive, and edited the WinXP boot loader to:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)C:\bootsect.sun="Solaris/x86"
and when I select to boot to Solaris I get:
Windows could not start because the following is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the above file
WinXP still boots ok.
Any help would be much appreciated, thanks already.

I am having a same issue....
1.....1st 80 GB hard disk, I had window XP installed. (NTFS format)
2....add 200 GB, 2nd hard drive, make 3 partitions, on first 50GB partition I have install Solaris 10.....Having some issue with network config, but its resolve, thank this forum.....
Now, everytime when ever I need to go to Solarid, I have to go in BIOS screen and switch HD, I mean if I want to boot to solaris, I have to make a 2nd (200GB) hd primary..Soaris work fine, but from the GRUB menu, if I select window, its get hung up...
now if I want to boot to window, again I have to go to BIOS and need to switch around hdd.... make 1st (80GB) hdd primary, windows work fine....
Questions are, I do not want to go bacK & forth in BIOS.....
1....Can some one help me, provide me the step-by-step information that how can i set up dual boot, so I can use my 2nd drive (200GB) as a primary and from the GRUB, I select windows and its boot to windows... if its otherway around,,,its still ok....I don't want my kids mess up BIOS....
2...What is a chainloader+1...can some one explain?...what is +1 mean.
3....How to install GRUB in MBR?
Lion-O any ideas, how to boot windows bootloader from 2nd HD? Please step-by-step Instuctions....

[SOLVED] Dual-boot Arch/Windows - 2 hard drives

Hi Everyone
I've just installed Arch and I'm having a bit of a problem dual-booting between Arch and Windows XP, which are each on a seperate Hard drive.
I've done this successfully before with Mepis Linux and Windows XP, but for some reason it's not working this time.
The difference is that I've recently purchased a new computer and both Windows and Arch are on SATA drives whereas last time they were both on IDE drives. Also I'm not sure whether or not to enable SATA AHCI mode in the BIOS (apparently it doesn't work with XP anyways), or SATA port 0-3 Native mode. Although I've tried all possible combinations and it doesn't seem to work at all.
Here is my menu.lst file:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0df05d3b-537c-4576-ad36-1f90a6b01ec0 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
When I boot into Arch from Grub it works fine, but when I try to boot into Windows from Grub, I get this:
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
and then nothing....No error message or anything. It just hangs. Does anyone have any ideas as to what's happening? Thanks in advance.
edit: It seems I solved the problem by adding these lines to the menu.lst file:
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
root (hd1,0)
I can now boot into either Arch or Windows from the Grub menu
Last edited by axle (2008-09-30 02:35:54)

This is a question that can very easily be answered by doing a simple google serach. Google is your friend. I suggest you start there and come back if you run into issues.

I have a PPC G-5 running OS 10.5.8 with two hard drives

I have a 2003 G-5 PPC tower running OS 10.5.8. Since it has two 150-gig hard drives, is it feasible to load one drive with OS 10.4.11 with classic support (I have the discs from my G-4 tower). I'd like to exit OS 10.5.8 periodically & boot into drive #2 w/OS 10.4.11 when I want to run classis apps like Adobe Photoshop 7, Pagemaker 7, etc. I know the PPC G-5 will successfully run under either OS, but not sure if the use extends to the classic support section of OS 10.4.11. Before I load up an extra hard drive, has anyone try this?

Thanks, Niel. Second Question: does this involve the legendary "Disc 2" for Leopard to find G-5 classic support? On some sites it mentions such a disc exists, while on on others they only mention a single (very full) OS 10.5x disc. My G-5 came with a single disc holding OS 10.5.6, which I've upgraded via Apple's site to 10.5.8 (another software dead-end). And on that disc, it has the Accessories, Extras etc in a separate folder but no classic support that I can see. Haven't actually used the disc- it's just insurance if I do someting silly & need to reload.

Installation With Two Hard Drives

I would like to install one instance of Arch Linux on both of my hard drives. Arch recognizes both drives but, during the installation, I seem to only be able to select one. I realize I could go back later and reformat the second drive after installing on the first, but it would like the OS to perceive the collective disk space as one large drive. I know Red Hat will install on multiple drives during the setup. Can Arch?
Thanks in advance

I'll try to summerize the procedure:
1. start the system with the installmedia, (if needed: use km to select your keymap and consolefont) and start /arch/setup
2. prepare harddrive (select: partion harddrive):
1st hdd (depending on the version of the install cd you are using: hda/sda):
Partition 1: /boot ~100mb, bootable, type=83
Partition 2: swap 256mb - 2g (depending on your needs, the size of your ram and your hdd), type=82
Partition 3: lvm remaining space, type=8e
2nd hdd (hdb/sdb):
Partition 1: lvm, entire space, type=8e
3. after that, switch to another terminal (alt + f2) and create the lvm:
lvm pvcreate /dev/sda3
lvm pvcreate /dev/sdb1
lvm vgcreate <some volumegroup name> /dev/sda3
lvm vgextend <the same volumegroup name> /dev/sdb1
now you can use the following command to add as many logical volumes as you want:
lvm lvcreate --size <size of partition> --name <name of lgocial volume> <volumegroup name as above>
eg:
lvm lvcreate --size 10G --name root systemname
lvm lvcreate --size 50G --name home systemname
4. Now switch back to the installer (alt + F1) and select "set filesystem mountpoints". You see a list of partitions which the installer found on your system. And for every logical volume you created there should be an entry named: "/dev/mapper/<volumegroupname>-<name of logical volume>".
First you can select a partition for swap (eg: /dev/sda2)
Then you can select a partition and filesystem for / (eg: /dev/mapper/systemname-root, ext3), /boot (eg: /dev/sda1, ext2) and each other directory for which you created an logical volume (/home, /var, ...).
The rest of the installation should work as with any normal install, except a few things (Some of this is probably allready done by the installer):
You need to enable the lvm2 hook in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf (before filesystems)
Change USELVM="no" to USELVM="yes" in /etc/rc.conf
Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the root parameter in your kernel commandline to something like that: "root=/dev/mapper/<volumegroupname>-<root-volume>"
I hope this isn't written to confusing and helps you.
Last edited by gothmog.todi (2007-08-18 10:59:14)

Trouble with two hard drives including SMART failure

About a week ago my mac mini g4 that I've had for less than 3 years, crashed while I was using itunes and playing music off an external usb drive.
As a result there has been trouble with both drives:
*Internal hard drive failure:*
The internal drive would not boot and reported a fatal hardware error, with a SMART failure. Interestingly, when I start up the computer as a firewire target and run the same Disk Utility program, it does not report the fatal error. I was able to reformat this drive and it seems to now be booting and running fine.
*External hard drive failure*
The external hard drive worked intermittently and then died completely a few days later, where it is now unable to mount it at all.
Does this mean I have two failed hard drives? The internal one seems to work fine and has for over a week, even though it still says there was a S.M.A.R.T. failure. When Disk Utility says there was a hardware failure, it prevents me from running the verify/repair functions. Is it possible that the external drive failure was somehow attributed to the internal drive?
I think it is also strange that when I run the Disk Utility using firewire target, the internal hard drive tests fine.
The message I get is:
"This drive reported a fatal hardware error to disk utility. If the drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a working drive."
and at the bottom it says:
"S.M.A.R.T. status: failing"
Meanwhile it works just fine and my other external drive has failed altogether.
I normally wouldn't question this error message, but the fact that the other drive failed more completely at around the same time, and that the error message doesn't show up when I run the disk utility on the internal drive via firewire makes me wonder if there are other factors. It's also just frustrating that I may need to replace both.
Other things I have done is run the Apple Hardware Test, and everything passed. I also tried a PMU reset, and that didn't help.
Should I just replace the internal hard drive or should I look for other problems?
I appreciate any advice on this.
Message was edited by: biz123

I'm not aware of any firmware update for the PPC minis - I've not had any with either of my own that I recall.
Of course future reliability is something you can never really check or fully assess, but the fact the system passes the hardware test tells us that the components which could have been responsible and which are not fairly easy to replace (the logic board, disk controller, PMU are all healthy. RAM could be a problem because the hardware test is not all that capable at revealing RAM issues, but it is also not likely to be the cause of this kind of problem. The PSU is obviously suspect to some degree, but is also replaceable.
While it's not common to suffer multiple drive failures, the fact one was active and the other could easily have been paging would account for the result if either failed in that situation. Bad luck and not easy to reproduce if you tried, but not inconceivable.
The fact that the internal rendered up your files while in FW target disk mode tends to indicate that the reason it wouldn't boot from that drive was not that the drive itself was trashed, but that the drive crashed during use - a circumstance which often creates catalog and file problems, and can certainly cause the system to fail in locating the MacOS install to boot from. In that situation, unless there is physical damage to the drive, it typically can be re-used with a reformat and reinstall, since of course that corrects the kind of catalog/file issues that this sort of crash typically causes. It would be expected to report 'verified' for SMART status though.
There are a few reasons why a damaged external might not appear in Disk Utility, or refuse to mount, some of which are broad;ly similar - a crash causing file or catalog issues. The fact it was FAT32 would complicate the matter to a small degree since if the allocation tables weren't visible to the Mac due to corruption, the system wouldn't have any way to mount the drive. That said, while it would likely be visible to a PC, and may even render up files in data recovery, it wouldn't be reusable itself without a reformat, and could well produce I/O errors in the process. It would usually be amenable to reformatting though it might also need repartitioning depending on the damage done. The overheating you mention may be an indicator of a fault, or it may be that the drive is being pushed to all 3 read attempts with each data block - that would cause it to work very hard! If you have rescue the data you think you can get off it, I'd suggest you try a reformat. If that fails, use a utility such as FDISK to delete all the partitions and recreate them, then try formatting again.
In terms of iTunes, any version will work, including 7.6. If music is stored on the external and that is USB connected, that would count for some speed impediment since iTunes is fairly cpu intensive, and the USB bus is also highly variable in performance, depending on CPU activity. But no, there is nothing in the latest version of iTunes that would cause a PPC to suffer such performance problems in itself, so you can use that quite safely. All are very cautious about this aspect of software design, since updates are often released to deal with stability or security issues, and must be usable for everyone.

Won't boot up with external hard drive attached

Pavillion HPE h8-1360t, AMI 7.15 Bios, Windows 7 Home Premium x64 bit, consistently fails to boot with external USB hard drive attached (WD 500GB MyBook) attached. Have tried disabling the device in BIOS, htting f10 to apply the change and then selecting "save changes and exit", but after shutdown/powerup the BIOS returns to the old setting. Read the posting that states a BIOS upgrade will solve the problem but Support web page shows no BIOS update available. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

2Suntech,
Open up command prompt and run the following command SFC /scannow.
This will scan the system files and correct any errors that it can.
Here is a link to command prompt.
When you go to open command prompt, right click and run as administrator.
If it has not been to long since the problem started, you can run a system restore.
This will take the system back to when everything was working correctly without affecting your personal files.
Here is a link on how to do a restore.
Let me know how everything goes.

Lightroom 3 help with two hard drives that has missing folders

Ok so I am operating on Lepoard osx using lightroom 3. I have two external hard drives we will call them A and B. I have used the existing catalog for a while in hard drive B. Hard drive A is where I done the most work on photos. I have imported a ton of photos from hard drive A and exported them etc. I'm not sure what happened exactly but, the folders that should be in Hard Drve A are now in Hard B and they have question marks next to them. I then right clicked on the folders in Hard Drive B and located them in Hard Drive A. I then made a new cataloge in hard drive A and closed Lightroom. I opened up Lightroom and told Lightroom to use the new cataloge I created. when it opend the folders were back in hard drive B. What is going on? Can any one help?
Thanks
Calvin

I'm not sure why this is happening to you but I would suggest that you use Mac Finder to make sure where these folders actually are - on drive A, on drive B, or - maybe - on both?
Only when you know where the folders are can you start rectifying the situation in Lr.
If you find that you have folders on both drives - and you don't want that - consolidate all folders into one drive. Do this in Mac Finder but - at this point - do not rename folders or change the folder structure, if you can help it.
When - according to Mac Finder - everything is as it should, open LR and locate all the folders that show question marks.
Also, it doesn't help when you tell Lr to create a new catalog every time something is not right. Having more than one catalog tends to be confusing, and - unless you are very experienced in Lr - brings trouble.
Since your different catalogs are probably contradictory I would suggest that you do NOT merge them to create one catalog. Instead - after everything is fine again - move all the other catalogs into a different folder so that Lr does not find them (but memorize the location). If after a while you decide that you don't need the other - moved - catalogs, you can delete them. From then on, it would be preferable that you work only with one catalog.

Time Machine with two hard drives?

I have a Mac mini running 10.5 Server that operates as my home server.
Is there any way to assign two separate hard drives as being available Time Machine network backup drives? IOW, if I had six Macs on my network and I wanted three of them to back up to Time Machine Drive #1 and the other three to back up to Time Machine Drive #2, is this possible? If so, how? It seems like Time Machine Server will only allow me to assign one drive as a network backup volume.

OK, here's the deal with TM. First is to know to what TM will backup:
Requirements to use Time Machine
Time Machine is only available with Leopard (10.5.x)
1. External FireWire or USB 2.0 drive
2. Time Capsule
3. Drive shared by a Mac running 10.5 or later using File Sharing
4. Drive shared by a Mac running 10.5 Server
5. SAN volume managed by Apple's Xsan file system
A TM drive must be partitioned with either APM (PPC) or GUID (Intel) and formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
Second, because TM is an incremental archival backup system the backup drive should be at least twice the capacity of the total capacities of the drives it backs up.
Now, each Mac on your network can use TM to backup their computer to a drive selected in the TM preferences on their computer. Multiple machines can backup to a single TM backup drive. TM will create separate backup folders on the target drive for each computer. Each computer needs to have a unique Computer Name (Sharing preference.)
Note that this is set up on each computer on your network, not through the server itself. As far as I'm aware TM only backs up to one drive. Thus, each networked computer can backup to a drive. The server on the other hand has its own separate TM backup.
You will need to manage the exclusion list to minimize space usage on the backup drives. Most likely you would want to have each client machine only backing up a Home folder. I would set up a /Home/Applications/ folder on each client machine exclusively for third-party user applications unless all applications are installed exclusively on the server.

Two iPods One Computer with two hard drives

HELP! HELP! HELP!
I have a 20GB iPod set up on my computer using the computer's hard drive which is only 40GB.
I have just purchased a 60GB Video iPod and want to set it up with the program, a second iTunds and it's playlists on an 80GB external hard drive.
I copied the iPod program and iTunes over to the portable drive, but can't get my new iPod to be recognized. And, the iTunes on both locations shows my playlists for my original iPod. Each time I plug in the new iPod, it says there is no iPod connected. When I plug in my old iPod, it works fine.
I am not real good at setting things up and need as much detail as possible for getting this to work.
The goal is that I can choose which iPod to access and set up each play list separately. I want to have my music on my old iPod and use the new one for pictures, videos, etc.
PC Windows XP
PC Windows XP

These links should help:
Natalie Beresford: Multiple iPods/iTunes Installations
How to use multiple iPods with one computer
How to share music between different accounts on a single computer

How to configure iPhoto in my setup with external hard drive

Hi there,
I've been digging around for answers but I'm still not clear on what the right path is.
I have a new MacBook Air. For the obvious reason (space) I don't want to keep my photos on it. I have a functioning MacBook with a dead backlit screen. I can run it easily with an extended monitor. I have a new 2 Terrabyte Seagate Go Flex Home external drive that is my Time Machine backup.
I'm thinking that I should be able to have all my photos on the external hard drive and access them from my MacBook Air. But I don't know what the "best" or "easiest" or good route is to follow.
1) Can I move the my current MacBook iphoto library to the external Seagate Go Flex HD? ? There's an issue of the right formatting, yes? How would I know?
2) Should I skip using Iphoto and simply store photos? I don't love that idea.
3) Should I keep my old photos on the MacBook and access them from my Macbook Air? I have a 500 gig drive on that machine. If so, I need to make sure it never goes to sleep, yes?
4) If I do that can I set up the Air so that the photos go tot he MacBook?
4) Macbook has iPhoto '08. The Air has iPhoto '11. Is that an issue?
Is this all easier than I'm thinking? Or is is complicated?
THanks for your help,

You can move your iPhoto library to any directly connected hard drive that is formatted Mac OS extended (Journaled)
You can NOT share a single volume between a Time Machine backup and any other dynamic files ike the iPhoto library - TM continues to fill the drive until it is full and at that time iPhoto would quit working
You can not share a library with different versions of iPhoto
IMHO using a MBP as the drive for a MBA wouod not work well and might cause problems
My suggestion is to move your liberary to a new external drive -
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
And create a new library on your MBA for protable use and for current photos and use iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - to move photos between the iPhoto library on the EHD and the MBA
LN

Dual boot setup with two hard drives

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