External HD erase/partition question

Just purchased a new Lacie 250gb HD. I've read where it is recommended that the HD be erased before it's used. I've read where this process takes several hours (unless I misunderstood the postings about it). Anyway, I connected it to my iMac and using disk utilities I clicked on the "erase" button, but it took only about 5 seconds! I went to the Lacie website and it suggested using the "partitions" button which will supposedly successfully erase it, too. I did that also. Again, only took about 5 seconds.
Query: Is this right? Do I need to do anything else?

If you are doing a simple erasure of the hard disk, the procedure will finish quickly, as only the disk directory is modified. Using an option such as zeroing all the data or securely erasing the disk will take several hours, as data needs to be written to every location on the drive.
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External Drive Format / Partition Question

Ok.. had my iMac for almost a week... and loving it. Starting to feel comfortable with it.
I just ordered a LaCie 750G External Drive for Time Machine and some extra storage. My question is this... I will partition the drive for 500G for Time Machine and 250G for extra storage. This looks straight forward enough in the disk utility. I know the Time Machine will show up on my desktop... will the second partition also show up as a Hard Drive on my desktop as well??
Thanks in advance for your help. Also, any suggestions on setting this up any different are welcome.

Thanks George... I appreciate the response. That is what I kind of figured it would do... but since I am new to this I just wanted to verify.
I will use the other (storage partition) and a backup for my current backup. I actually have (2) NAS units that I use for storage but have some critical files that I want to put into a third location.
Thanks again...
Ronnie

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?
For any who are curious, my goal here is to use NetRestore to make a backup image of my main Mini hard disk. Then by booting to the external USB drive, I will be able to restore the backup image (stored on the data partition of the external drive as well) to the internal Mini hard disk.
Mac Mini Core Dio Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Just letting everyone know that I am still unresolved on this one. I have tried it all; Zero-overwrite erased the external drive before partitioning it, used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the boot disk, you name it. Every situation leads to the same result; no ability to boot from the USB drive, It just acts like it can't read it. Are there "undocumented" problems booting from USB on Intel macs?

New external hd - erased but shows up as a used volume?

Hi everyone! New to this forum. I just got my self two Lacie 1TB external hard drives to backup my mac book air. After formatting them one of them doesnt show right as a drive and hasn't alle the options a the first. Here's what I did:
I ereased and formatted the first drive using mac OS extended in Disk Ulitity. Went smooth. The new volume named BACKUP 1 show up as a volume under the Lacie disk drive. All options are there (erase/partition/RAID/Restore). I also zeroed out the entire drive which took 2h.
Next, I formatted the second drive. This time I forgot to zero out the drive in security options, so I did the operation again. I also encrypted the second drive. But after the operation it looks like this:
The drive has turned into a volume with another volume inside it! And 0 bytes available. And under Partition I can only create 2 partitions?:
when I click on the volume inside the volume it shows that there is a whole lot of files ande folders on it and that appr. 1 GB is used up already:
The drive seems to be totally useful, shows up on desktop and so on. But, I may want to use 3 partitions on this one. One for Time machine, one for a clone and one for archiving. Now it seems that isn't possible with this new formatted second drive.
So the question is - can I format the drive back so that it shows as a drive with volumes on it and all the options in Disk Utility? Where there should be a drive icon, and there's now a volume icon, there's no option for erasing the drive. Or what do I do? Any opinions are mutch appreciated!
ES

Well, it shows only 'First aid' and 'Partition'.
But since yesterday I partitioned the first drive (BACKUP 1) and now that one also shows up as a volume (Logical volume group) with 3 subvolumes. So it seems now like it's all a normality, this "issue". And that the MBs of used space is used up by the partition. I now have 3 partitions on one disk and 1 partition on the other. All the volumes use up 300 - 700 MB each. Guess that's just how things work.
Thanks for the reply. I just go with it. Seems like there won't be any problem...

Disk Utility hanging on Erase/Partition OR Howto backup a dual boot Mactel?

I'm trying to use Disk Utility to format an external usb hd as HFS+ for backing up my Macbook. Running 10.4.7 and Disk Util 10.5.6 (latest version afaik)
Problem is whenever I try to either Erase format a hard drive using my usb2 external enclosure, Disk Util just kinda freaks, not really doing anything, and after a minute or so becomes the program becomes unresponsive. Luckily the rest of my system keeps on working, and I can just force quite disk util. But when I try to shutdown/restart my system I'm forced to do a hard power down.
I've tried leaving Disk Util running overnight, thinking it was just needing a little extra time to get thru the process, but nothing changed when I woke. And a gave the macbook a good hour to shutdown cleanly, but it stays stuck with the blue screen and the spinning gray wheel at the very end of teh shutdown cycle.
Looking at the disk util log (after force quiting and restarting the util) it will simply say:
Aug 12 03:24:09: Disk Utility started.
Preparing to erase : “Mb”
Creating Partition Map
Aug 12 03:25:50: Disk Utility started.
I've also tried running disk util off the osx install cd (tiger 10.4.6), but i get what seems to be identical behavior, and i have to manually turn off the macbook.
I've tried this with two hard drives with identical results. In Windows (boot camp) im able to format the partition fine, but it only does ntfs because of the drive's size (and I'm not trying to use a windows fs anyway).
I plugged the usb hd into a powerbook, and used a 10.4.0 retail cd to run disk util (no hd in the powerbook) and its able to erase/partition the disks just fine. I can then plug them back into the macbook and theyre recognized just fine. But its PPC system and doesnt offer for gtp partitioning which I'm thinking will be a problem because ultimately I'm trying to use this drive to do bootable backups of my macbook.
I'd like to figure out what is wrong with Disk Util. But even if i get the partitioning working, i have the larger problem of -how- to backup the macbook's hd onto an identical sized hd (80 gigs), that will make both osx and windows bootable backups that I can restore off of.
One thought was to use the unix utility dd, and just do a bitwise copy of one disk to another. Any idea if this would work?
Another option would be manually creating the partitions myself, and then backing up each of the drives seperately. Not sure if I could even make a bootable backup of windows from within osx.
I know I'm not the only one running boot camp and looking to have reliable backups. What are other people doing to address this issue.
Ideally I would like to find a solution that:
*creates an identical disk with two bootable partitions
*can be automated, or at best a few simple steps that can be done once and then walked away from
Thanks for the help
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I'm trying to use Disk Utility to format an external usb hd as HFS+ for backing up my Macbook. Running 10.4.7 and Disk Util 10.5.6 (latest version afaik)
Problem is whenever I try to either Erase format a hard drive using my usb2 external enclosure, Disk Util just kinda freaks, not really doing anything, and after a minute or so becomes the program becomes unresponsive. Luckily the rest of my system keeps on working, and I can just force quite disk util. But when I try to shutdown/restart my system I'm forced to do a hard power down.
I've tried leaving Disk Util running overnight, thinking it was just needing a little extra time to get thru the process, but nothing changed when I woke. And a gave the macbook a good hour to shutdown cleanly, but it stays stuck with the blue screen and the spinning gray wheel at the very end of teh shutdown cycle.
Looking at the disk util log (after force quiting and restarting the util) it will simply say:
Aug 12 03:24:09: Disk Utility started.
Preparing to erase : “Mb”
Creating Partition Map
Aug 12 03:25:50: Disk Utility started.
I've also tried running disk util off the osx install cd (tiger 10.4.6), but i get what seems to be identical behavior, and i have to manually turn off the macbook.
I've tried this with two hard drives with identical results. In Windows (boot camp) im able to format the partition fine, but it only does ntfs because of the drive's size (and I'm not trying to use a windows fs anyway).
I plugged the usb hd into a powerbook, and used a 10.4.0 retail cd to run disk util (no hd in the powerbook) and its able to erase/partition the disks just fine. I can then plug them back into the macbook and theyre recognized just fine. But its PPC system and doesnt offer for gtp partitioning which I'm thinking will be a problem because ultimately I'm trying to use this drive to do bootable backups of my macbook.
I'd like to figure out what is wrong with Disk Util. But even if i get the partitioning working, i have the larger problem of -how- to backup the macbook's hd onto an identical sized hd (80 gigs), that will make both osx and windows bootable backups that I can restore off of.
One thought was to use the unix utility dd, and just do a bitwise copy of one disk to another. Any idea if this would work?
Another option would be manually creating the partitions myself, and then backing up each of the drives seperately. Not sure if I could even make a bootable backup of windows from within osx.
I know I'm not the only one running boot camp and looking to have reliable backups. What are other people doing to address this issue.
Ideally I would like to find a solution that:
*creates an identical disk with two bootable partitions
*can be automated, or at best a few simple steps that can be done once and then walked away from
Thanks for the help
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

CAN I ERASE PARTITION BOOT CAMP IF I HAVE INSTALLED PARALLELS DESKTOP?

CAN I ERASE PARTITION BOOT CAMP IF I HAVE INSTALLED PARALLELS DESKTOP?

I think the answer is NO. Or Maybe. Or, can't answer based on lack of details. And, more a question for Parallels Support forums.
All depends on your setup. But you will lose ability to dual boot or use VM most likely.
In any event, we are not mind readers. And have some backups already.
Before you do? do this: buy WinClone 3 and make a backup image of Windows hard partition "aka" Boot Camp.

Disk erase / partition running for 30 hours and counting

Hi all !
Im posting on behalf of the logged in person
His Macbook pro 13" just started going VERY slow overnight, Startup - 10min, open app - 3/4min etc
He took it to an Apple store - they concluded the HDD is faulty
and they quoted him ZAR4000 to replace the drive ( the Samsung drive they quoted on typically sells for ZAR650 )
He rejected the quote as it was too expensive, that is when I got involved
I took the existing 500GB Toshiba drive out and put it through a battery of tests - all passed
I then took a brand new Western Digital 500 GB HDD, installed it, went through the steps to load OSX
The unmount action takes 30 odd min, the erase / partition / format runs for days
That 1st attempt took in excess of 3 days ( round the clock ) to get it running,
but with the new hdd & clean install - still as slow as ****
(any version of OSX, up to the latest - same results )
I then installed an old 100GB Intel SSD - everything was lightning fast and the system was up & running in 3 Hours
In the last 2 weeks I have tried different conventional HDD's - they all take ages to load & once done - is very,very slow
Is there something im not aware of in terms of HDD's specifically compatible with Mac ?
Any ideas pls guys

Sugith Varughese wrote:
I gave up using Disk Utility after it ran for 15 hours with no end in sight.
Upon rechecking Time Machine using the MacBook pro wirelessly, the backups appear to be available and I can restore files.
Though I don't know if I can do a system restore as per my original question.
Correct. If the backups are indeed corrupted, as they appear to be, you may or may not be able to do a full system restore. It just depends on where the corruption is, and there's no way to determine that.
An option would be to boot from your Install disc, erase your internal HD, and install OSX. When your Mac restarts, try using +Setup Assistant+ to restore your settings, apps, users, and data, per the green box in #19 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If that doesn't work, erase your disk and install OSX again, but this time don't transfer anything. Set up a temporary user account (using a different name than any that are on your backups). When your Mac reboots, use +Migration Assistant+ (per the pink box in #19) to bring things over, one group at a time. If it hangs on one group, make a note of what didn't transfer, and go on to the next. Then use the normal Time Machine "Star Wars" display to restore the missing items selectively. You may very well get most of your data that way.

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verif

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verifying and repairing it but had no luck. I also tried mounting and unmounting it but still no solution. Anyone to help please?

Looks bad. I would strongly advise backing up the stuff on the other two partitions as soon as possible in case the rest of the drive goes wrong.
Beyond that, Disk Utility has limited abilities to repair disks, DiskWarrior uses a different approach and might, emphasis might be more successful. It has certainly done the job for me in the past when Disk Utility could not.
See http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

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

Spinning beach ball while erasing & partitioning new internal drive?

Is this normal. The beachball has been spinning for the last hour. I dont know how long the erasing & partitioning should take but I cant find out if it is working okay by checking the LOG because of spinning ball. Any ideas folks? Tracy

I seem to have this problem, although I don;t get the beach ball. Whenever I want to erase a partition, I click erase and wait for what seems like hours. After hours, it still says "preparing to erase disk". Any ideas?

Can't erase anything on an external hard disk partition of bootable backup ____error message -50 "Error in user parameter"

I am using MACOSX 10.6
The data on the disk partition on my Iomega 2Tb external hard disk drive (labeled "Bootable Backup") was written by Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC ver. 3.37)
I have had problems with overwriting this using CCC, and I have also had troubles changeing the data on my "Versioned Backup" partition, using either CrashPlan or CCC
A third partition that was virgin ("Half-Tb Volume") on the same external disk drive, however, DID accept the latest CCC bootable backup of my Macintosh HD...which is the reason I want to recover rthe space on the first bootable backup partition.
I have not found any links to this error using Google search, apart from the definition.
Anyone

Do a backup using Time Machine or a clone. Then boot into the Recovery Volume (command - R) on a restart. Run Disk Utility Repair disk. If it can't repair the disk, then select the erase tab and reformat using Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Also click the Option button and select GUID. When complete, reboot normally and restore your data.
Please update your profile to reflect the OS you are running.

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!!!!!!!!!

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.

External Hard Drive Partitioned to boot both Intel and PowerPC -and backup

Have been remiss backing up drives, do it sporadically and have had a few close calls and am now trying to upgrade my skills.
I work with 3 computers - 2 intel MBP Core Duo (one Leopard, one Tiger, difference Ghz, screen size, generation) and PowerPC G4-running Tiger. I read recently you can partition a drive and format one as a bootable drive for an intel, the other for a powerPC.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006061610374449
I'll have to read the instructions a couple more times before I get it. But what do people think - have any of you done it? Problems?
I have a further question or questions: I saw an external drive for the Mac 1000GB at OWC!!! Yikes, there is also one for 1500 GB!!!
I wondered how many partitions I could make - can I create a bootable drive in three separate partitions, and use those as a backup drive for each? Money is an issue, I can't afford a drive for each computer, so this would be the most economical.
Could I create a 4th partition, just to move photos, music libraries without their being computer specific (e.g., check share library?)
Is there any advantage in creating a boot drive that just starts the computer, but keep the backup files separate, or is cloning the drive then doing incremental backups the best so it is both a boot drive and a backup?
This is beyond my skill set and I am still fuzzy about backup software and boot drives and how they all interconnect - so far I have just been saving desktops and font folders to my oh so slow USB EXTERNAL HD (200 MB) periodically, or specific key files. Is there anyone who can walk me through this?
Thanks
Annexit

Partition the drive using Disk Utility, I'd recommend one bootable clone partition per machine, one partition for archiving (data you want to keep but not on a machine), and optionally one partition for a Time Machine backup for the Leopard system. Use the Apple Partition Map (under options in the Partition tab). Note that you'll read that Intel machines require GUID partition scheme, but that's only for installing the OS from a DVD, not relevant for cloning. You'll want APM to boot the PPC machines. Bootable clones can be sized equal to the internal HDDs being backed up, or slightly smaller. Partitions should be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Personally, I have two external drives set up identically, with partitions for bootable clones of a PPC machine with 10.4 and two Intel machines running 10.5, plus an extra partition where I store movie projects. I use SuperDuper to update the bootable clones. I have two drives because I store one offsite (at work). Every few days I bring an updated backup drive to work and the other one home.

External HD erase/partition question

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