Cloning an OS to an external drive - partition order question

Hi
when you clone your internal OS to an external hd which is for example, has partitions - does it matter which of the three partitons you should clone your OS to (to make it bootable) ? Does it have to be in a particular positioned partition on that disk - eg first or last ?
Also is it okay to clone two bootable OS to that example external HD
for example - one OS being a bootable clone of my current internal and the other OS being a bootable clone of my previous OS (panther)
thanks for time
d

it doesn't matter what partition you clone it to-the system will just view it as multiple disks attached to the Mac.
Good luck!

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<BUMP>

Pondini, I beseech thee....Time Machine won't back up external drive partitions

Pondini (or anyone else that would like to help),
I am running Mac OS X 10.7.5. At my edit bay, we utilize a Facilis Terrablock 24D for storage, which connects to our system via fibre cables. Before upgrading to 10.7.5, Time Machine would back up all of our drive partitions on the Terrablock. Since the upgrade, Time Machine still recognizes the drives, we can add or subtract files from the drives, and it appears to make and save the changes, but when Time Machine backs up, it will only back up the local hard drive. No error messages come up. It just does its thing but only for the local HD.
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I have contacted Facilis and their technical support claims that they never tested their products with Time Machine (as they sell their own backup equipment) but in theory that it should work.
I'm not sure what other information you might need but please let me know and I'll do my best. I was wondering if anyone else has come across an issue like this? Thank you for your time.

LALB wrote:
Upon including this partition and all of its contents, it disappears from the exclusion list as it should AND its size is reflected in the Estimated size of full backup. But this is the kicker! Upon clicking "Save" and starting Time Machine's backup, I receive the error "Time Machine could not complete the backup. There are no disks available to be backed up." Upon going back into TM Preferences > Options, I find that the external drive / partition has been put back on the Exclusion list. It's like it is automatically rejecting the partition after I have saved my exclusion list.
That's quite strange.
TM does that if you try to back up a USB Thumb drive (I've filed a bug report), but this is the first I've heard of it under any other circumstances. Then again, I don't recall a post by anyone trying to back up from a drive connected this way.
If a drive isn't formatted for a Mac (ie, FAT32, ExFat, NTFS, etc), Time Machine cannot back it up, and will list it in gray on the exclusion list (same as the backup drive), and won't let you remove it from the list, so it's clear.
This sounds like a "cousin" of the way it treats a thumb drive, so sure seems like a bug. TM will back up USB, FireWire, and Thunderbolt drives without a problem, if they're formatted right.
If you have any Macs under 90 days old, or covered by AppleCare, a call to them is free, and the best way to get a quick answer (you may have to escalate to a "specialist" however, and it still may take a few days for something unusual). Otherwise it's $50 U.S.
An alternative is to file a Bug Report, per the green box in Reporting a Problem to Apple. That most likely won't get a response for quite a while, though.
Sorry, wish I had a fix!
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How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

see this
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Peace, Clyde

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I just picked up a LaCie 250G external firewire drive. The drive came pre-formatted and is about 230GB.
Are there any advantages to partition this drive ?
Maybe something like:
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I have 3 partitions on my external drive:
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This system works for me, but I like having things neatly organized.

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External Drive Partition, Lost Files

As the title suggests, I made a mistake that "erased" all my files on a backup external hard drive, after splitting a partition in two and installing Mac OS X Leopard on the new partition. I use quotes in "erased" because the data itself is still there, but the access to it isn't anymore. Before thinking about using recovery software and going through the harsh process of churning through hundreds of GB of data to recover files that could be corrupted in the end, I wanted to seek the opinions of more knowledgeable people to see if there are alternative solutions that could be more simple.
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http://www.cleverfiles.com/partition-recovery.html
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Estimated Time Remaining: 3h 20m
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How do I Install OSX to an External Drive Partition?

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Is the external drive prepped correctly?
Drive Preparation
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Or you can clone your current system to the partition:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

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Hello,
I have a 120gig external HD partitioned into three. Two of the partitions mount just fine. However, only recently the 'second partition' does not mount - you should know a couple of weeks ago in order to consolidate my music I changed the settings on the 'second partition' to read-only so that my music would not be copied into that 'second partition'. This is because my music library spans several drives.
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I have a 1 TB LaCie drive that I am currently using with a MBR partition scheme. It has two partitions: one for time machine and one for windows.
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External drive partition is recognized but won't mount.

I've searched the support forum and I can't seem to find this problem... MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz Intel Core2Duo. External LaCie 500GB drive. I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive. Everything went smoothly and no errors occurred. So, I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair. Using Tech Tool to rebuild the volume checks out as well. I'm stumped!! Any ideas? I'm sure it's some silly thing I've just never heard of, but I don't have any ideas left in me. Thanks for any info.

Kujawa wrote:
I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive.
I'm curious why you didn't try to use Disk Utility to do this.
I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair.
In Disk Utility, when you select that volume in the "sidebar", under the "File" menu is the "Mount ..." menu item available? If so, what happens if you invoke it?
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Booting system from an external drive; Folder with Question Mark

Hello all. I am trying to setup an external USB hard drive as a bootable device for my Tiger install. This is on a Core Duo Mac Mini. I have successfully partitioned it using GUID into two partitions; A small 5gb partition for the minimal OSX install, and the remainder for data. I installed OSX onto it via my included Tiger discs that came with the Mini, no problems. However, when I try to boot from it I get a Folder icon with a question mark in the center. I can boot the Mini normally and browse the external partition. It shows no problems. Disk Utility also shows no errors on the drive. What have I missed?
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Sorry, this is a long one....
First off, my Mac consists of the following:
iMac with 1 TB HD running OS 10.6.8
500 GB External for Music
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I recently purchased another 2 TB external hard drive to back up my digital photos, which I was going to do manually. I came across some info that leads me to believe that time machine will do this external drive to external drive photo backup for me automatically. Assuming this is the case, I would like to make this new 2 TB drive my time machine drive.
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Cloning an OS to an external drive - partition order question

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