A confusing Partitioning question

I am partitioning all of the tables in my database into 6 partitions. It is based on a "District ID." Each table has this column, but the Company that is populating the database is only populating this field in one table(LOCATION) and leaving it null in all of the other tables. Can these other tables be partitioned on an update to this "District ID" field after all records have been inserted? Or can I have the database automatically partition these tables based on the foreign key relationship between the LOCATION.District ID field and the other_tables.DISTRICT_ID field? Essentially saying the LOCATION.DISTRICT_ID is in this partition so new record go to the same partition. Sorry for the confusion. yes the partition key can be null. so you can create 6 partitioned tables and they will automatically
be managed by oracle. so when you insert the data into the child tables based on the district_id they will
go to a particular partition. you need not write any piece of trigger/update statement to manage this.
oracle will do this for you. the only thing is if most of the values for
district_id are null then you lose the advantage of using the partition
as most of the rows will end up in one particular partiion.

Similar Messages

Data Warehouse Partitioning question

Hi All,
I have a data warehousing partitioning question - I am defining partitions on a fact table in OWB and have range partitioning on a contract number field. Because I am on 10gR2 still, I have to put the contract number field into the fact table from its dimension in order to partition on it.
The tables look like
Contract_Dim (dimension_key, contract_no, ...)
Contract_Fact(Contract_Dim, measure1,measure2, contract_no)
So my question:
When querying via reporting tools, my users are specifying contract_no conditions on the dimension object and joining into the contract_fact via the dimension_key->Contract_dim fields.
I am assuming that the queries will not use partition pruning unless I put the contract_fact.contract_no into the query somehow. Is this true?
If so, how can I 'hide' that additional step from my end-users? I want them to specify contract numbers on the dimension and have the query optimizer be smart enough to use partition pruning when running the query.
I hope this makes sense.
Thanks,
Mike

I am about to start a partitioning program on my dimension / fact tables and was hoping to see some responses to this thread.
I suggest that you partition the tables on the dimension key, not any attribute. You could partition both fact and dimension tables by the same rule. Hash partitions seem to make sense here, as opposed to range or list partitions.
tck

LPAR - LOGICAL PARTITION QUESTION -

Hello SDN Experts.
LPAR (LOGICAL PARTITION QUESTION)
Our current Production Environment is running in Distributed Installation on
IBM System P5 570 Servers AIX ver 5.2, each node is running two Applications: SAP ERP 2005 SR1 (ABAP + JAVA) and CSS. (Customer Service System)
Node One
u2022     SAP Application (Central Instance, Central Services)
u2022     Oracle 9i Instance for CSS Application.
Node Two.
u2022     Oracle 10G Instance for SAP Application
u2022     CSS Application.
To improve performance we are planning to create a new LPAR for SAP.
According to the IBM HW Partner LPAR is logically isolated with different HW/SW resource(CPU/Memory /Disk resource, IP/hostname/mount point)...
Question:
I have this two possible solutions to copy SAP instances (app + db) to new LPAR, can I apply SCENARIO 2, which in my opinion is easier than SCENARIO 1.
SCENARIO 1.
In order to migrate application and database instances to the new LPAR do I need to follow the procedure explained in the guide:
(*) System Copy for SAP Systems Based on SAP NetWeaver 2004s SR1 ABAP+Java Document version: 1.1 ‒ 08/18/2006
SCENARIO 2.
After create all file systems (required in AIX) to copy data from Applications and Database Instances to their respective LPARs and change the ip address and hostnames in parameter files according to the following SAP Notes:
Note 8307 - Changing host name on R3 host
Note 403708 - Changing an IP address
Which is the best scenario SAP recommends in this case ?
Thanks for your comments.

If your system is a combined ABAP + Java instance you can´t manually change the hostname. It´s not only those places that are listed in that note but much more, partially on filesystems in .properties files, partially in the database.
Doing that manually may work but since the process is not documented anywhere and since it depends on the applications running on top of the J2EE instance it´s not supported.
For ABAP + Java instances you must use the "sapinst-way" to get support in case of problems.
See note 757692 - Changing the hostname for J2EE Engine 6.40/7.0 installation
Markus

[SOLVED] Longwinded beginner - Dual-boot & partition questions

Hello,
I'm interested in installing Arch Linux alongside Windows XP (dual-boot). I have little previous linux experience, although I have rented some servers that have used it in the past, as well as compiling some stuff with it while at University (studying Computer Science). Nevertheless, I am relatively confident that if I can still boot into XP, I will be able to acccustomise myself and like the fact that this distribution seems to be hands-on and leaves a lot up to the user.
I've been reading the Beginner's Guide and the dual boot guide, and I would like to get started, however, I'm not going to go ahead with this until I am certain that I will be left with a system that can still boot into Windows XP. I assume that it'll take me a while to get to grips with Arch, and in the meantime it would be massively inconvenient if I couldn't work/play/etc...
What I already know
Anyway, currently I have a 250GB hard drive that I use for Windows (as well as 3 other hard drives full of stuff). I have partitioned the drive with Windows XP on it with gparted like so:
(in order)
UNALLOCATED 32GB
SDB1 (Windows XP) 50GB
SDB2 (Downloads) 150GB
I hope to use the unallocated space to hold linux (and then have access to my other windows drives in the future, using ntfs-3g), however, I am a little confused over what partitions I 'should' have and how large they should be, considering that I will use the OS to mainly develop, browse the web, listen to music, etc...
I was thinking:
/boot -- ext2 -- 100MB
/ -- ext4 -- 15GB
swap -- -- 1GB
/home -- ext4 -- 12GB
/var -- ReiserFS -- 4GB
Questions
• Is 30GB too little, even though most of my stuff is on other NTFS hard drives?
• How large should / be? I've read that it contains /bin, /dev, /etc and others. How do I know how much space these need? Am I misunderstanding things?
• Is a /var partition unnecessary? How large should it be?
• 10GB for /home, 1GB for swap, 100MB for /boot?
• Do I need a /tmp or /usr? This is a single-user machine, but I don't want it to get messy!
• I was thinking of giving /boot ext2, and /var ReiserFS, and then giving every other partition ext4. That okay?
• Do I need to set these partitions up when installing, or can I set them up in advance with gparted - it might be simpler.
• Due to already having 2 NTFS primary partitions on the hard disk, I presume that some of the above will need to be logical partitions in an extended partition? How is this done?
Once the partitions have been set up, and linux is installed, I presume it's just a matter of completing the rest of Part I of the guide, and then ammending /boot/grub/menu.lst to include 'Windows XP'? At that point I am able to restart Windows XP, and only delve into Arch when I want to continue with the configuration, fixing, and so on...
Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for your patience. (:
Last edited by Bedtimes (2009-09-27 14:21:55)

That's the thing, I expect that I'm doing something wrong with the GRUB loader - and I admit my hard disk layout has been quite strange for a long time before installing linux.
Basically, it currently looks like this:
/dev/sda1 ntfs Music 250GB
/dev/sdb3 ext2 /boot 120MB
/dev/dsb4 extended
---- /dev/sdb5 linux-swap 1GB
---- /dev/sdb6 ext4 / 20GB
---- /dev/sdb7 ext4 /home 12GB
/dev/sdb1 ntfs Windows XP 50GB
/dev/sdb2 ntfs Downloads 150GB
/dev/sdc1 ntfs TV & Movies 950GB
• This list is in order that the entries appear on the hard disk, hence /boot is in the first 1024 cylinders of the hard disk, but as you can see the sdb numbers are actually in the chronological order that I created them.
• I used an extended partition with logical partitions inside since I had read that there was an issue with more than 4 partitions in a hard disk, and I already had 2 NTFS partitions.
• When it asked me to install GRUB to the MBR, I installed it to SDB as opposed to SDBx as it asked me to in the manual. This is the drive that contains /boot!
• I just managed to amend something in the menu.lst, in order that I can boot into Windows XP. Therefore my machine is not totally fucked up any more. (: Unfortunately, what I changed doesn't make sense to me, since I would have expected Windows XP to be on a different hard disk.
The contents of sdb3:
grub kernel26-fallback.img kernel26.img
lost+found System.map26 umlinuz26
When typing the command /sbin/blkid:
/dev/sda1: UUID="D0..." LABEL="Music" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="A8..." LABEL="Windows XP" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="557..." LABEL="Downloads" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="2676..." TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="0474..." TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="0886..." TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb7: UUID="519becf..." TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="46AC59" LABEL="TV & Movies" TYPE="ntfs"
Inside /boot/grub/menu.lst:
timeout 5
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# (1) Windows XP
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
# (2) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd1,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0886... ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (3) Arch Linux (Fallback)
title Arch Linux (Fallback)
root (hd1,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0886... ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
edit: I'm able to access all of the installation partitions with gparted-live's terminal (by mounting the devices I need to access into folders in my root folder), so is there anything else you want me to check/change in order to find my linux root/boot partition?
Last edited by Bedtimes (2009-09-27 12:54:24)

Recovery Partition Questions

I'm trying to install windows 7 via bootcamp but the disk utility cannot partition the drive because it is fragmented.
the error message says to reformat the drive.
I'm ok with doing this but i have a few quesitons and want some clarity:
1) I'm fully backing up my computer with time machine
2) I have Lion, so by restarting and holding command+r I'll access the Recovery Partition?
3) HERE IS MY MAIN QUESTION, if I select "reinstall OS X" will it reformat my drive??? This is my main issue so I want to make sure it actually reformats the drive into a non fragmented drive.
4) I do not have a bootable OS X disk, but because this is lion it will download and reinstall the os x over the internet correct (through my apple ID login)??
5) To restore my back up, I wait until the new os x is finished installing, restart then access the Recovery Partition again and select "Restore From Time Machine Backup" correct??
or do I:
1) Back up with time machine,
2) restart and hold " command+r"
3) erase drive with disk utility,
4) exit disk utility
5) Select "reinstall OS X" which will reinstall Lion (i have a pre mountain lion comp)
6) select "Restore From Time Machine Backup"
Thanks -Ian

1) Back up with time machine,
2) restart and hold " command+r"
3) erase Macintosh HD partition with disk utility,
4) exit disk utility
5) select "Restore From Time Machine Backup", without reinstalling
6) Choose your last backup date.
If you select "reinstall OS X", you will use the Setup Assistant (the "Migration Assistant") at the first boot on the new system.

Simple UEFI GPT Dual boot with windows 8 boot partition question.

Hi everyone,
I think it's obvious from the quuestion that I'm a newbie here (and from the location of the post) but I have read (several times):
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI_Bootloaders
and the incredibly helpful:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginner%27s_Guide
along with many forum posts. unfortunately this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … _Dual_Boot
appears out of date and so I need to ask you fine people my question.
If I want to dual boot Arch with my Windows 8 my question is on the boot partition. I have an existing windows EFI boot partition. should I mount this partition to my "/mnt/boot/efi" folder and then copy the files to this partition when I am setting up rEFInd (my chosen bootloader from wiki page, comments/suggestions are welcome) or should I setup a separate boot partition for my arch installation. I assume from reading about rEFInd that the former is how I should do it as this seems to be how refind would be able to "see" my windows bootloader.
The reason I am double checking and asking here is I know that windows can be a temperamental beast and is very prone to not booting so I don't want to mess with the windows boot partition unduly.
Thanks in advance guys, looking forward to getting my arch working!
Last edited by crashandburn4 (2013-03-03 13:42:43)

$esp = EFI System Partition?
also, ok, gummiboot, I'm glad I can mount the esp as /boot (that was my original thought but reread the tutorial and wasn't sure) just double checking, it is the esp created by windows 8 that I mount?
in addition, as I am slightly new to this is there any tutorial that can tell me how to set up gummiboot? I've looked here:
http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/gummiboot
but don't see anything in the way of detailed instructions.
from your post: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=159061
I'm gonna guess it's something like this (please let me know if this is right)
/mount $ESP /mnt/boot
pacman -S gummiboot
(after chrooting)
//exit chroot
gummiboot
*stuff saying gummiboot is not configured*
gummiboot install
is it something like that? can anyone point me towards a manual
Last edited by crashandburn4 (2013-03-03 14:58:53)

Mac OS X, User Folder and Case-sensitivity (plus a Partitioning Question)

Hello everybody.
Today, I'd like to start a new thread regarding the configuration of OS X and the formatting of the drive with a HFS+ (case-sensitive, journaled) file system.
There is a problem that has been tormenting me for quite some time now, and so far I haven't been able to find a losution yet.
Here is the issue. When I bought my MacBook Pro (early 2011), I changed the main dirve to an hybrid SSD destinating the original 750GB to a Time Machine backup disk. As a consequence I had to make a fresh install of OS X. When it came the time of formatting I've opted for:
Creating two partitions: 1 for the OS and 1 for the user folder (I have only one admin-user). Back then, I was coming from a Win enviroment and having two partitions seemed to be the best option for me. (Less chanche of user-data corruption in case something goes wrong in the OS partition).
Chose a HFS+ (case-sensitive, journaled) file system. It seemed to be the more complete alternative.
Everything was absolutely for a couple of months then I encountered the first issue: Adobe products don't work on a case-sensitive fs.
I managed to get Photoshop to work eventually (manually correcing folders name) and didn't care too much about the rest.
In the meantime over a year has passed and I kept the mentioned configuration, uptdating to Lion and ML. Recently another couple of isses have appeared: AutoCAD presents the same problem as Adobe and there is an issue in the keyboard balcklight control (from forums seems that ML is not able to store any information in System Preferences regarding the backlight).
Despite the fact that case-sensitive fs seems to be the future solution chosen by Apple, it is still premature to have it as OS fs unless you are an hard-core developer that don't care about tons of programs that would eventually miss from your application folder.
Being decided to move back to a case-insesntive fs, I need wish I could calrify a couple of doubts before proceding:
(Not relatete to fs) Is it a good practice to keep user folder on a separate volume? Does it generates any issue on the base of your experience?
Is it possible to have the OS on case-insensitive fs and the user folder on a case-sensitive one? Does the OS have an issue with that?
The second point is the most critical as my data are now on a case-sensitive volume. They mostly consists in documents, images and music which should be migrated on a case-insensitive volume seamlessy, however, I'm not 100% sure about what happened during the last year (i.e. if there has been the generation of not-unique names).
Furhtermore, I wish I could keep a case-sens volume as I plan to be dealing with a Linux enviroment soon. If that could be the user volume, this would be amazing.
I'd also like to ask personal opinion on advantages of having case-sens fs.
I understand I asked lots of questions in a single post. I hope, however, that this thread could be a base to collect some of the quite dispersive topics related to case-sensitivity present on the web.
Best Regards,
Alexander

alexanderxc wrote:
Linc, in the provious post you said there might be issues having user data on a separte partition.
Which kind of issues are you tihnking of? Have you ever encountered such problems?
The biggest risk is that poorly written software will assume your home directory is at /Users/you and will fail (or worse) if it doesn't like what it finds there.
I really appreciated if you could be more specific and don't worry about being too technical.
There are two ways you can go about it.
1) Set everything up normally as if you only had one partition. Create your user on that one parition. Then, copy all the real user data to the 2nd partition. Using your admin account, make sure that all the permission on the user folder on the 2nd partition are the same as on the original partition. The, use System Preferences > Users & Groups > your account > right/control click > Advanced > Home directory and change it to the home directory on the 2nd partition. Log in to that new account. Make sure everything works. Then delete the user directory at /Users.
2) A even more robust, old-school option is to create an /etc/fstab file and have your 2nd partition mounted at /Users. Then, everything will function normally and your user home directories will all be at /Users. /Users will, however, be on a different volume.

Partition Question

Hi,
I have a MacBook with a 80GB HDD, 5GB of it is partitioned by bootcamp and has Linux installed on it. My first question is will I be able to unpartition the HDD without destroying my data? Secondly, Now that bootcamp is over, is there any other applications that I can get for free to do the above. Finally, If I cant get an application to do that, If I get Leopard will it definatly be able to unpartition the HDD?
(If i set my clock date backwards I am told by bootcamp:
The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows. )
Would I be able to unpartition without loosing data if I get leopard even though I have that message?
Thanks and sorry about all the questions.
Looking for a quick reply please

You might find this link to about the same question. I detailed the persons answer and how to go about it. Hope this helps you.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6100000#6100000

Partitioning Question - range partition?

Hello all
we have an issue with the amount of data we have in a particular schema that we are using to store production metrics. I have looked at a few options and are now trying to design a solution using partitioning. At a very high level we have data in 7 tables that need to utilise partitioning:
JOBS
FILES
MAILPIECES
MAILPIECE_DETAILS
TNT_DATA
BAGFILES
POSTAL_BAGS
Ideally I would like to use a RANGE partition as I can fairly easily use a date as the range - my issue here though is that only the FILES table has a DATE column on it.
So my question is, for the other tables, is it best practice to use the same 'sort of' partitions - in which case I would need to add a DATE column to each subsequent table and populate it correctly (based on the date in the FILES table - as the FILES table is acting as the PARENT table for all the other tables). Or, should each table be treated individually and partitioned using whatever method is appropriate for that table?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
Paul

Hi,
if you are running 11g and all other tables are indeed children to FILES then consider reference partitioning.

Boot Camp partition question...

i plan on installing boot camp and using windows only for my XP copy of Adobe CS. so here's my question...
how many GB's do you think is necessary to partition for this operation? i dont want to partition too much, because i know i wont be using XP a lot, but CS files can get big.
also...i have a 40GB external USB hard drive at my expense as well. could i possibly revert XP to that disc instead of partitioning?

You can refer to this forum for all of your BC questions:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1165

ALI 6.5 | CSS folders confusion| Detailed question

Hi All,
i am using ALI 6.5 portal env deployed on WL10.0. I am pretty much new to this ALI Portal. I am very much confused with the css folders and files residing under PT_HOME folder.
Can anyone please explain about these folders and files. Please find my questions below.
a))
In 'PT_HOME\ptimages\tools\cssmill\css' folder i can see css files with the following naming convention.
d_mainstyle##-**.css
mainstyle##-**.css
mainstyle-**.css
What is the significance of these file types.
b))
We have css files in the following locations
PT_HOME\ptimages\imageserver\plumtree\common\public\css
PT_HOME\ptimages\imageserver\plumtree\portal\private\css
The first folder has copied files from CSS mill and pretty understandable. The second folder is having only one file 'mainstyle.css'. What is the significance of these CSS files and In which scenarios's styles from these files will be used.
Thanks in advance,
Gowtham J

its all quite simple really...
many years ago, long before the dinosaurs, the plumtree people developed the CSSMILL tool to generate stylesheets so you could basically have different colors for different areas of your portal. (Unfortunately, they didn't use any of the "C" in CSS mill, resulting in huge onerous stylesheets) These stylesheets generated by the cssmill are supposed to be copied over to PT_HOME\ptimages\imageserver\plumtree\common\public\css after you make updates. I think in practice, many people skip this process and just edit the few stylesheets that they need directly.
Fast forward to the present day, when the BEA (formerly plumtree) people are creating adaptive layouts. They have to add the styles for the new adaptive layouts and sexy new look of the 6.5 portal into the existing stylesheet. Instead of using the CSS mill, they put the new styles in its own stylesheet, but decided to name it so it is confusingly similar sounding to the existing stylesheets. This is PT_HOME\ptimages\imageserver\plumtree\portal\private\css\mainstyle.css.
as far as your question here:
d_mainstyle##-**.css
mainstyle##-**.css
mainstyle-**.css
if i understand it correctly.... the mainstyle-**.css are never actually used...they may have been used in the past, but nowadays teh only stylesheets that are used are mainstyle##-**.css. The d_ is for 508 compatability mode.
http://edocs.bea.com/alui/devdoc/docs60/Customizing_the_Portal_UI/Modifying_Portal_Style_Sheets/plumtreedevdoc_customizing_cssmill_intro.htm

Sharing the /home partition and general partition questions

Hello, I'm new to Arch, but have been using Linux for a few years (albeit still at a beginner level). I'm going to be reinstalling Arch on an old computer that has a 40GB main drive so dual boot a "operational" OS for day to day stuff that I want to make sure will be running well and then another OS that I can test on or just have for trying new distros. I also have an 80GB that I'll use for data (but I don't think I want that to be my home drive).
My question is: If I have two different installations of Arch, (or a second distribution) should they share the same /home partition? My thought is "no", but I didn't know.
Also, I'm planning on splitting the 40GB drive the following partitions. Do these make sense, or would there be a better way to do this?
5GB = / (OS #1)
14.5GB = /home (OS #1)
5GB = / (OS #2)
14.5GB = /home (OS #2)
1 GB = swap (both OSes)
I have an ancient P4 w/ 512 of RAM.

sharing /home drives would NOT be a good option in your case simply because you are going to use the 2nd OS as test/trials. Those other OSes may have different ways of storing config files etc which may lead to having a lot of junk to parse through. and if you ever use any configs for the Test OS, and they are somewhat in conflict with Arch - in any way - you might end up having to re-configure settings for your favorite apps in Arch.
I have a 30 GB HDD on a 10 yr old laptop which has Arch. This is the partition scheme I have
╔═[16:10]═[inxs @ arch]
╚═══===═══[~]>> df
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 ext3 7.0G 1.7G 5.0G 25% /
none tmpfs 125M 100K 125M 1% /dev
none tmpfs 125M 0 125M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda4 ext4 16G 850M 14G 6% /home
/dev/sda6 reiserfs 5.1G 558M 4.5G 11% /var
/dev/sda1 ext2 61M 12M 47M 20% /boot
╔═[21:16]═[inxs @ arch]
╚═══===═══[~]>> fdisk
Disk /dev/sda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3648 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000080
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 8 64228+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 9 726 5767335 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 727 1640 7341705 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 1641 3648 16129260 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 9 73 522081 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 74 726 5245191 83 Linux
╔═[21:18]═[inxs @ arch]
╚═══===═══[~]>>
Since you have 10GB more than I do, you can adjust accordingly and make partitions for your test OSes as well.
Last edited by Inxsible (2009-10-08 01:22:30)

Partitioning Question

How does a range-hash partition work with a local index?
I have rebuilt my sales table which was range partitioned by ORDER_DATE (with local index on ORDER_DATE).
The new sales table is now range partitioned by ORDER_DATE with 4 hash sup partitions on CUST_ID...this was done for performance reasons due to both these columns being used in the majority of queries on this extremely large table.
When I recreate the index on ORDER_DATE as LOCAL, does this index then also have sub partitions? I am struggling to find documentation on local indexes for composite partions.
Also, the old table had a non-unique index on CUST_ID. Should I recreate that index as it was or should this also try make use of the new hash sub-partitioning somehow...and if so, how? Can you also create it as local?

Thanks Nurbs92.
Any suggestions on part 2 of my question...the CUST_ID column being used for the hash sub partitions. What do I do with the non-unique index that was on this column?
Do I create it as it was or could I get better performance making it a local index (if that's possible which I can't think that it is...)
What about a GLOBAL index? Not too familiar with this though...

Partitioning Question - Add/Remove

Please forgive any naivety throughout this post - I've never had to partition before without being handheld via BootCamp.
I'm currently on a MBP 2010 with a 500GB stock HDD. The HDD is not partitioned - excluding the main 'Macintosh HD' one which contains all of my stuff, including OS X SL.
However, I'd quite like to give Lion a whiz-around before updating...so:
1. Could I partition my Macintosh HD without erasing it? Disk Utility seems to think so, but I don't want to hit Go and see my data get forgotten...
2. Could I then remove this secondary partition without erasing my original to give the original all 500GB back? Essentially reverting question 1.
Assuming the answer to both of the above is yes, could I then take this a step further...
3. Could I move all my stuff across to the other partition, via various methods, and delete the original 'Macintosh HD' one to essentially replace it with the new Lion one?
As I said, forgive me if these are silly questions but I'm new to this. Answers, suggestions and advice much appreciated.

So, with externals out of the question - what would you suggest?
That you do nothing, don't mess with Lion without a external bootable 10.6.8 clone, unless you like the hours long painful rebuilding from your 10.6.8 install disks because that's what it's going to come to. And you'll lose all your files because you have no external backup.
CCC is free, a external hard drive is about $100 for a 1TB. You can be up on the 10.6.8 clone in the time to takes to boot and be erasing Lion from your internal and reverse cloning all while watching TV or going out for dinner.
If you can't spring for that then I don't know what else to say but just leave things alone.
Lion is going to cost $29, your third party programs will likely not work and perhaps even require a paid upgrade.
Your looking at spending money in any case, if you don't want to spend money then do nothing, leave your machines alone and let them run as long as they can without messing with them any.

Partitioning question [Resolved]

I hope this is a simple/silly question, But I'm running into some issues partitioning my drive for dual boot with Windows 7. Unfortunately, my new job requires me to use Windows so I've decided to go down the dual boot option rather than using virtualbox (due to system requirements of some of the software packages i'll be using). But anyways,
Here is what I did, in chronological order.
1. Installed Windows 7 on /dev/sda1/
2. Loaded Arch Linux Live CD (2010.05)
3. Booted to the Live CD, and began /arch/setup
4. Loaded ethernet, set the date and time, selected packages
5. Ran cfdisk using the "Manually Partition Hard Drives" option such that the cfdisk configuration looks as follows:
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
sda1 BOOT Primary Hidden HPFS/NTFS 435580.7*
sda2 Primary Linux 98.71*
sda3 Primary Linux 149996.21*
sda4 Primary Linux 164478.29*
The plan is to use sda2 for /boot, sda3 for /, and sda4 for /home and not use swap (I shouldn't need it).
After using cfdisk to create the new partitions, and select the FS type, as outlined in the Beginners guide, I proceeded to Step 3 of Hard drive preparation, "Manually Configure Block Devics, filesystems and mountpoints".
My understanding is that now that I've created the partitions, I must specify which partition will be /boot, /, /home, etc.
However, when I select this option, I get the following output:
I've detected you already have blockdevice definitions in place: /dev/sda raw no_label no_fs /dev/sda1 raw no_label no_fs /dev/sda2 raw no_label no_fs /dev/sda3 raw no_label no_fs /dev/sda4 raw no_label no_fs /dev/sdb raw no_label no_fs /dev/sdb1 raw no_label no_fs
Do you want to use these as a starting point? Make sure your disk(s) are partitioned correctly so your definitions can be applied on the disk. Pick 'no' when in doubt to start from scratch.
Assuming that I did partition them correctly, I selected yes to proceed. I select Partition Access Method as dev (directly by /dev/*) at which point I'm brought directly to "Manage filesystems which looks as shown below:
/dev/sda raw->no_fs
/dev/sda1 raw->no_fs
/dev/sda2 raw->no_fs
/dev/sda3 raw->no_fs
/dev/sda4 raw->no_fs
/dev/sdb raw->no_fs
/dev/sdb1 raw->no_fs
DONE _
If I select, say, /dev/sda2, which will be the /boot partition, I'm given the following message:
Do you want to have this filesystem (re)created ? If not, make sure there already is a filesystem!
I opened up a new terminal, ran fdisk -l and saw that there was indeed a /dev/sda2 which indeed is partitioned as 83, or ext3. So I hit yes. And then I get this:
Automatically picked the filesystem. It's the only option for blockdevices
At which point I can select /boot, but then nothing happens. I'm then returned to the manage filesystems page which looks exactly as it did above.
Basically my question for you guys is, what am I doing wrong? It seems to me like cfdisk is making the partitions correctly but the installer isnt able to give the partitions labels for some reason. I also tried opening a terminal and making the partitions manually via mkfs -t ext3 but that yielded the same issue as above.
Any suggestions are much appreciated. Happy Holidays.
Last edited by eldubsports (2010-12-23 23:56:48)

If I select, say, /dev/sda2, which will be the /boot partition, I'm given the following message:
Do you want to have this filesystem (re)created ? If not, make sure there already is a filesystem!
I opened up a new terminal, ran fdisk -l and saw that there was indeed a /dev/sda2 which indeed is partitioned as 83
say yes to the filesystem (re)created ...
cfdisk only creates the patition
after which you tell it the mount point & filesystem (ext2, ext3,reiser or whatever)
you dont need to manually configure block devices unless your really sure of what your doing

A confusing Partitioning question

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