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.
Here's my situation and all the steps that lead to my current state. I have a iMac with Core 2 Duo Intel processor, 2.66 GHz, 2 GB of RAM and an internal hard drive of 320 GB, with Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.8) installed. For backup and temporary transfer of files, I use an external USB hard drive, a Seagate FreeAgent with 500 GB (500 billion bytes = 465 GB actually).
I wanted to boot from my external hard drive to do some maintenance on my iMac's hard drive. So I used Disk Utility to split the current partition (the only one) on my external drive. The drive had 465 GB, give or take, with approximately 50GB free. The other partition to be created was 10GB. I know this is the kind of delicate operation that should be done with caution, but Disk Utility was saying explicitly that "this partition will not be erased", refering to the big partition that will become approximately 455 GB, the one that contains all my files. I say to myself, okay, that is safe.
Now, here comes the thing that I'm not 100% sure about. At this point, I don't know if the big partition was already erased. Both partitions (455GB and 10GB) always mounted on the desktop just fine. I was probably just "presuming" that everything went fine.
Then I proceeded to install Mac OS X Leopard from the installation DVD on the small 10GB partition, which went fine. It's only at this moment that I realised that my big partition was empty. Shortly after, I set the permissions of the big partition to read-only, assuming it would minimize further damage.
That's about it. At this point, my first thought was, what exactly just happened? In my mind, playing with one partition should not affect the other ones, but apparently, something did anyway, for a reason that is beyond my knowledge. Right now, I'm still wondering what operation did do the damage, the partition split or the installation of Mac OS X? Why would any of these operations erase the big partition?
And here's another important point to ponder. Before the partition split, my external hard drive was formatted as APM, Apple Partition Map. After the split, or after the Mac OS X installation (which one, I don't know), the partition scheme had changed to GUID. Maybe this is the key to solve the problem.
I know that my data is still intact, at least in most part, and I know that the file structure (B-Tree information, and stuff like that) seems to be intact (completely or partially) as well, because I visualized some sectors of my drive with a tool called iBored, and I recognized some folder and file names.
That's all the details I can provide. Right now, I feel like any low-level operation on my external drive is like defusing a bomb. One little mistake, and boom! So I prefer to do nothing until I can get some advice from others.
Thank you for your help!

I had the EXACT same issue last night.
Today, I downloaded Disk Drill and it is scanning and recovering my lost files from my external hard drive.
http://www.cleverfiles.com/partition-recovery.html
I thought I was going to have a heart attack when none of my files showed up on my Finder and I did not have a clue what I was going to do as my hard drive has practically my whole life on there!
As we speak, disk drill is in the process of scanning my hard drive and locating lost files.
Next step is to recover the files..
Estimated Time Remaining: 3h 20m
I will let you know if this was fully successful. It looks like it wil be though so I say you do what I'm doing and start recovering!

Similar Messages

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partition?

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partitioned Time Capsule? I understand that the Time Machine (software) cannot backup a networked drive (the external) and that Time Capsule (the router/wireless hard drive) does not have its own backup software... so it won't backup the connected drive. What I would like is an alternate solution for having an automated backup of a networked drive. A 2TB Time Capsule has more than enough space for Time Machine backups of my family of Macbooks, so I had hoped to mirror a 500GB external drive (with shared media files) to a portion of the Time Capsule internal hard drive. I assume this would require a partition of the Time Capsule drive. If not, would the sparse file from the various computers being backed up need to be copied to the external drive as part of the RAID1 setup? This seems like overkill for the Time Machine backup, but it would cover the media files.

The complexity with this idea is the software has to run from a Mac computer on your network.. so you need a Mac turned on, probably most of the day.
It isn't possible to partition the TC although you can create a image area.
The software would have to copy the material, that means all files to be copied, go from USB drive, back to the Mac, then back to the TC, and written to the drive. In other words you have just added Network congestion, although a proper incremental backup type software will not actually use a lot of capacity.
Finally it will be slow.. network drives are slower than internal drives. Well USB connected drive is much slower than the same drive connected directly to the computer.. and if the drive is connected directly to a computer it can be shared with the network.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Read carefully the speed of the USB drive plugged into the TC.

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.
All of the drive partitions are Mac OS Extended Journaled. All of the permissions seem to be in order.
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!
Let us know what, if anything, you find out.

Record drive/partition "Audio Files /Audio Recording" not found!

HAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!! I get this message every time I want to record audio !!!!!
Record drive/partition "Audio Files /Audio Recording" not found!

myrna wrote:
Any idea what path blogger Jim Frazier uses? BTY, only the audio portion does not record; the >instruments record just fine. If this is indeed a bug, is there a workaround that will get me recording >until a fix is found...
I actually have not had this happen to me in several months, and in fact, haven't even thought about it in a while.
But back when it would happen, I would be working away, recording audio without any problems, and then I'd hit record again for something, and out of nowhere, get a message like this:
"olumes/Audio Drive/Album Projects/John Doe/Song title/Audio Files" not found.
When the first word should have been "Volumes".
So I would click and hold the record button to get to reset my audio pathway, and the proper path would already be listed. I would then merely click the "Set" button, and be back in business.
And there were even a handful of times when I would get that message with the full name listed, the V was there in "Volumes', and everything listed correctly, and going to the record settings, everything was set properly. But I'd still have to hit "Set" to remind Logic where the pathway was pointed to.
Definitely a bug.
But... this bug never happened to me in Logic 7. It was only since installing and using Logic 8, that it occurred. And as I mentioned, it now hasn't happened in months.

External Hard Drive Partition, Erased Files. HELPPPP!

Something went wrong and has now "erased" all my files on my external hard drive (used for backing up with TM), after adding a partition second partition. I did not install anything onto the newly created partition as my focus was then distracted by the fact that all my data had now been erased.
This should not have happened as I followed every step carefully and thoroughly from this link: http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU3.html
I wanted to boot Snow Leopard from my external hard drive. So I used Disk Utility to add a partition on my external hard drive (clicking the + sign). The drive had around 264 GB (shaded in blue), with approximately 34GB free. So I type the newly desired partition of 8GB. Disk Utility was saying explicitly that "this partition will not be erased", referring to the original partition of 264GB that will become approximately 272GB, the one that contains all my files. I say to myself, okay, that is safe as it is telling me my files will not be erased.
With the partitions split and my original data of 264GB still shaded in blue, I click apply.
A box prompts me to confirm partition, reading:
"Partitioning this disk will change some of the partitions. No partitions will be erased"
This partition will be added:
"Snow Leopard HD"
This Partition will be resized:
"My Passport"
So obviously I confirm and click Partition...
It took about 30 seconds or under to partition and then I noticed my original partition was no longer shaded in blue but was completely empty
I open my external hard drive in Finder and none of my files are visible.
I open Time Machine and it is not displaying any of my back ups and will no longer back up. Its says Latest Backup: Failed i
So I click on the i button and it says:
Time Machine Error
The backup volume could not be found.
At this point I am panicking! I followed every step correctly and it clearly stated no files would be erased.
What has happened here? and how can I retrieve my lost files?
Disk Description : WD My Passport 071A Media
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partion Table.

JOHN YOU ARE A GENIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!
I AM USING DISK DRILL RIGHT NOW AND IT IS SCANNING AND LISTINIG ALL MY FILES! EXCUSE THE CAPITALS BUT I AM SO THANKFUL FOR YOUR HELP! AHHH
NEXT STEP IS TO RECOVER IT ONCE SCANNING IS DONE! IT IS LOOKING PROMISING AS I AM LISTENING TO THE MUSIC FOUND ON MY HARD DRIVE WHILE SCANNING IS TAKING PLACE
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!

ITunes Library on External Drive - NO .xml file

i recently had some serious hard drive corruption on my old computer, and figuring it was time for an upgrade anyway I decided to buy a new MacBook.
i had been storing all of my iTunes music on an external hard drive. i'm trying to figure out how to get my new MacBook to be able to access the music. I've changed the location of my library to the external drive in iTunes preferences, but no luck.
I know that iTunes has an .xml file where it stores things like song titles, data, etc etc -- unfortunately, that .xml file is on my old, ruined hard drive -- all i have is my external drive with my MP3s.
what do i do at this point? how can i access all of these songs using iTunes on my new MacBook without that .xml file?

There are 2 files that give iTunes and other apps the info the need to perform. The files are iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml.
The default location of the 2 files is HD>Users>User Account>Music>iTunes - do not move regardless where your actual tunes are located. If the files are not present in the default location then iTunes will create new files with no info in them until you add the tunes back to the library.
This is from the iTunes Help Menu with a search for "files":
What are the iTunes library files?
The iTunes library is a database iTunes uses to organize your music. Two iTunes library files are created and maintained by iTunes for different purposes. They're both in the iTunes folder.
Mac OS X
/Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library
/Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml
Microsoft Windows
\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl
\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml
The two different iTunes library files serve different purposes.
iTunes Library (iTunes Library.itl in Windows)
This file is a database of the songs in your library and the playlists you've created. Some song-specific data is saved in this file. If you delete the file, iTunes creates a new, empty copy when you open the application, but any playlists, song ratings, comments, or other information you created is lost. The iTunes Library file is only used by iTunes.
Note: The library file name for versions of iTunes prior to 4.9 was "iTunes 4 Music Library" for Mac OS X and "iTunes 4 Music Library.itl" for Windows. After upgrading to iTunes 4.9 or later, the older library files are moved to a "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder.
Tip: New versions of iTunes sometimes include enhancements to the iTunes library. When you open the new version of iTunes, iTunes upgrades your existing library to the new format and places a copy of the old library in the Previous Libraries folder. If everything goes fine during your upgrade to the latest version of iTunes, you can delete the older iTunes Library files.
iTunes Music Library.xml
This file contains some (but not all) of the same information stored in the iTunes 4 Music Library file. The purpose of the iTunes Music Library.xml file is to make your music and playlists available to other applications on your computer. In Mac OS X other iLife applications (like iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie) use this file to make it easier for you to add music from your iTunes library to your projects.
MJ

External Drive with invisible files

I have a MAC OS Extended format hard drive that I am attempting to clean up to make room for transfering some data. I have removed all the visible folder and files, but both finder and Disk Utility show that there are over 173 GB of data (over 2 million files) still on the volume. The drive is a 500 GB LaCie that I partitioned into two equal parts of 250GB. The other Partition was used exclusively for TM Backups. I want to reformat the drive ( the old back up partition I dont care about). but I am afraid of erasing files that I can't see.
Is there such a thing as an invisible file?
How can I find out what they are and why they are taking up so much of the drive?
I did run DU to Verify the volume and it checks out with no errors.
It is possible that they could be windows files that we used with Parallels at one time. But we no longer use Parallels. I would think that I would be able to see them even if I can't open the files.
I am running Lion on an iMac. The external drive is connected with firewire.

If you want a cleared (erased) unpartitioned 500 GB drive, then do this:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select the hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
Yes, there are invisible files. The OS has thousands of them that are kept invisible to the user.

Format External Drive Partitioned OSX extended and FAT32

I am new to the concept of partitioning a drive and have found information mentioning that disk utility has a MS-DOS option for partitioning a drive. I do not have this as a drop down choice in my Disk Utility options. I have read that this is format equivalent to FAT32. I would like to partition this drive half OSX extended and half FAT32. How do I get the drop down choice and is this possible.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
• Both volumes on the new ext. driver were HFS (from my last attempt the other day) so I looked into a simple erase of one partition/volume into a different format, but DU did not offer a way of erasing it into MS-DOS(FAT32). But I think I did a simple HFS erase anyway of the volume I wanted to format to FAT32. There was nothing “in” that volume because this was a new external drive but I figured it could not hurt anything.
• So then, I think I went back to Partition, locked the partition/volume that I wanted to keep in HFS+ for my Mac files, and (re)partitioned the other just erased volume to MS-DOS. I think I did it under the MBR option.
• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

I changed the format to an external drive and lost everything that was on it.

I changed the format on an external hard drive and lost everything that was on it. Is there a way to recover what was on it?

1) Partition your hard drive or add an external drive and install Snow Leopard (with the Optional Rosetta) into it and then you can dual-boot (System Preferences:Startup Disk) into Snow Leopard and run FCE 3.5 there.
2) Use one of the following methods to install FCE 3.5 into Mavericks:
a) Pacifist: http://www.charlessoft.com/
b) Jeremy Johnstone's Terminal method: http://www.jeremyjohnstone.com/blog/2012-03-11-installing-final-cut-pro-studio-2 -0-on-mac-os-x-10-7-lion.html
Reports on this forum seem to confirm that Final Cut Studio 2 will continue to operate in Mavericks once it is functionally installed, albeit some plug-ins may fail to function. FCE 3.5 is the same generation as FCS2, and presumably will continue to operate in Mavericks, as well.

Can i install leopard on external drive to recover files from internal hard drive

Ok i am havinga problem with laptop ... wont restart. Power on and mormal grey screen appears ... then a bar appears below the spining dashes and after a few increments the laptop automatically shuts down. Now is it possible to install OS on extrenal to allow me to access the laptops internal drive to save files?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Yes you can do that, though I'm not too sure that Iomega's firmware is up to date to do it. Be sure that any data you have on the Iomega is backed up elsewhere before attempting it. Some Firewire drives without up to date firmware from the manufacturer may become invisible and unusable after a software update on Mac OS X 10.3 or later. Also an AGP PowerMac needs its firmware updated while booted from Mac OS 9 before installing Mac OS X 10.2 or later:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
That said, if after testing you find it does work, you can switch booting between both drives using the Option key booting as described in the Startup Manager article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178
Leave OS 9.2.2 on your internal, and 10.4 on your external. That will be a lot easier than partitioning. Some information I wrote for others which can help you on your migration to Mac OS X is provided in this link below:
http://www.macmaps.com/macosxnative.html
If you really want to partition, be aware that only third party software is available to partition without erasing the entire drive, and you'll want to make sure additional partitions that will boot Mac OS 9 have Mac OS 9 drivers installed as my link above states. Whatever you do, be sure you have at least two copies of your data at all times:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
Disclaimer: Reference to links I make to my Macmaps.com website are a for your information only type reference. I do not get any profit from this page, and it is open to the public.

Backed up iTunes on external drive and lost my playlists

Hey Everyone,
So here is my issue. I use my macbook for DJing purposes and decided to backup my iTunes library to an external hard drive incase of a crash so I dont loose my precious music. So I went into my preferences, Advanced, and changed the iTunes folder location to my external, and consolidated the library which backed up my files to the drive but did not delete them from the internal drive, However whenever I would click a song to play it said it could not find the file. So I went back into preferences and changed the folder location back to iTunes music but that still didnt work. To make a long story short, I ended up Re importing the playlist (From internal Drive) back into itunes which worked fine. Here is my main issue.... All of my playlist folders are there but they are all empty. I have about 100 of them and are very very organized. I am wondering since I backed up the library to the external drive, Are the playlist folders on my external hard drive and how can I retrieve them if they are? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in Advance!

decided to backup my iTunes library to an external hard drive incase of a crash so I dont loose my precious music. So I went into my preferences, Advanced, and changed the iTunes folder location to my external, and consolidated the library which backed up my files to the drive
This is not a backup. This copies everything in iTunes to the new location and iTunes will use that location from now on.
The music located in /Music/iTunesiTunes music/ folder is no longer needed or used by iTunes.
However whenever I would click a song to play it said it could not find the file
iTunes was looking for it on the external (which you probably unplugged/umnounted).
I am wondering since I backed up the library to the external drive
You did not back up the library to the external.
You consolidated everything in iTunes to the external and iTunes will use that.
As Jim noted, if you want to to backup, copy the entire iTunes folder.
Jim'
If you somehow lost it, look for it in the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder in your music folder.
The itl file gets copied into the *Previous iTunes Libraries* folder only when you update iTunes.

External Drive Partition ?

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:
Partition 1: 80 GB to rsync my Mini internal drive
Partition 2: 10GB Scratch disk
Partition 3: Data
Partition 4: Data Backup
It does not sound sensible to me to have a data backup paritition on the same phsysical drive but I have no funds to buy another drive at the moment.
How is everyone else setting up their external (1) drives ?
Thanks.

I have 3 partitions on my external drive:
1) my main boot partition (50 GB) - contains Tiger and all my software (neatly organized in folders - games, graphics, etc.)
2) a backup partition with a clean Tiger installation - I use this partition only as an emergency backup and to save copies of valuable software files (30 GB)
3) a data partition - this one is used for all my data files (Word, etc.) and my downloads (I download all software to this partition) (30 GB)
My Mini's 40 GB drive is used as an emergency backup drive - I cloned my main partition to it after I had that partition set up. I keep a copy of Disk Warrior on the main partition of the external, the backup partition, and the Mini drive. When I want to or need to rebuild my main partition's directory, I boot into the backup partition or the Mini and use Disk Warrior - it works much quicker than using it from a CD.
I like having two backup Tiger partitions because I have a tendency to try out a lot of software and I know if I mess up my main partition, I can either save it with Disk Warrior or at least still have another clean boot system.
This system works for me, but I like having things neatly organized.

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?
I'm not suggesting that you use this approach every time, but it might provide additional information that would help others solve your problem.

Reliably use one external drive with iTunes files with two computers?

Hi all,
I have an iMac with a 200GB external firewire drive as my main desktop. I also have a 12" Powerbook that I use around the house. I've also used the PB to stream music from my iMac to my stereo. I have the odd bit of trouble with this, music stopping and not reconnecting etc.
We had a party last weekend and to stop the problems with wireless streaming occuring, I unplugged my firewire drive from my iMac and plugged it in downstairs to my Powerbook.
To get the files to appear in iTunes on the PB, I had to drag everything across to from the finder to iTunes. After a while everything was there.
The party went well: one visit from environmental health telling us to turn things down, and one visit to accident and emergency.
Next day, I returned my firewire drive to to my iMac and now every track in itunes has an exclamation mark next to it.
I know how to sort this out, and I'm not bothered about losing my playlists: what I want to know is a safe method to allow me to move my harddrive around and make sure it's all OK when I plug it into my iMac again.
Any ideas?
I suppose I probably left on the "Organise the music into folders" option when I first plugged in the drive to my PB and the files have actually moved a bit. Would making sure that this was set on both machines be a food thing to do?
Cheers
Stuart

I suppose I probably left on the "Organise the music into folders" option when I first plugged in the drive to my PB and the files have actually moved a bit. Would making sure that this was set on both machines be a food thing to do?
That probably changed the file locations, presumed the 'Organize' option was turned off on your iMac.
Now your 'iTunes Library' file (iTunes' database) on the iMac can't find the files.
It's a good thing to have the option turned on (or off) on every Mac you connect your external drive to.
I used to have my library on an external disk too. The only thing I had to take into account was to copy the 'iTunes Library' file from one computer to the other when connecting my external HD.
Never ran into problems.
More info about the library files here.
If you're running OS X 10.4, you could create an Automator workflow to copy the file to your external HD and another one to copy it from the external HD to the Powerbook.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

How do I Install OSX to an External Drive Partition?

I have an external FW800 drive that I've made two partitions on. One partition I want to install OSX to, for external booting; the other partition is just for storage. I'm trying to use the SNL install disk but It's not installing, it just stalls out. I must be doing something wrong.
Thanks,
John

Is the external drive prepped correctly?
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.
When formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.
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.

External Drive Partition, Lost Files

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