Another external drive question

Question

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've partitioned my WD 500 GB firewire 800 external drive into three partitions. My intention was to obtain a bootable backup in the first partition (100 GB) and have the other two as supplemental strorage for future use (200 GB and the remaining approx. 165 GB). After performing an immediate backup of the Macintosh HD into the first partition, I read that a "duplicate", not "backup" was required for boot purposes.
I'd really appreciate some suggestions here from those with more experience in these matters. My internal 500 GB HD has approximately 28 GB of used capacity currently (this will grow, of course, over time). Should I have created a partition for a bootable start up and "duplicated" the internal HD? Then, should I use a second partition for normal backups? What size should these partitions be configured to allow for maximum future storage, without pushing the limits on the backup/startup partitions? And finally, what are the steps to re-configure the external to achieve my desired intentions?
This is a lot of question, but I certainly appreciate the guidance provided me thus far in my early days of Mac enjoyment. Thanks.
iMac 24 2.33/3G Ram/500G HD/7600GT/BT K/M /WD 500GB FWHD   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Answer 1

Hello! Sounds like you have thought it out well. All you need now is to clone your main drive so it will be bootable. You can do that using CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper, or you can use the Apple Disk Utility you already have. A lot of people use SuperDuper and others swear by some of the others. Below are listed Kappy's steps to do it using the disk utility. I use several bootable backups just for peace of mind. I generally clone to one and then the other so if something happens during the cloning (such as a power outage) I'll still have a drive that works. I usually make a clone about once a month and then backup any important documents every day to a flash drive, cd/dvd, or another hard drive volume. Once you make a clone you should always boot from it to make sure it's booting ok. Sometimes a clone will fail to boot. I also HIGHLY recommend obtaining and using DISKWARRIOR. Diskwarrior is the "gold standard" for disk drive directory maintenance which is the leading cause of hard drive problems. Using DW about once a month or after any force shutdown, forced re-start, or power outage will head off most disk problems. Tom
Kappy's Steps to Produce a bootable clone
Prep external FW drive:
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.
For added precaution you can boot into safe mode before doing the clone.