Hard Drive Partition Problems

I recently installed a new HD in my iMac DV SE. I thought I'd be clever and make three partions, 2 8GB OS drives (one is blank - I was thinking about Linux, but too lazy to do it and don't need to right now) and one ~100GB for my music, files, etc. that I can share without too much worry.
The problem I'm having is that Tiger uses a lot of virtual memory and if my computer is on for awhile, or I'm doing multiple things, my OSX drive fills up with VM (I think) and I get the "Your HD is almost full" (the error that originally drove me to buy a new HD)
Of course quitting out of programs and restarting fixes the problem, but sometimes my computer slows down so much I find myself using that magic little button on the side and restarting it (how bad is this really?)
What I want to do is take the extra OS partition and combine it with the other OS partition so that the OS can use as much VM as it pleases. Can I do this without wiping the whole drive?
Also, if I have to wipe the whole drive, what is the best way to store my data so that I can put it back how it was, maybe an image file (never done this before)? Maybe a link to a site that explains it or something?
I know that buying more memory would also solve this problem, and I plan on doing this in the future, but I'm a poor college student, so that isn't an option for awhile
Thanks,
Eric

Choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu and then type or paste in /private/etc/ as the folder's location. Make two copies of the file rc inside that folder, and put one copy on the desktop, and the other in the Documents folder of your home folder. Open the copy in the Documents folder with a text editor and locate the text swapdir inside. After the =, replace /private/var/vm/ with /Volumes/volumename/vm/ . Replace volumename with the name of the the partition; this requires that the partition's name doesn't contain spaces or other special characters. Once done, replace the existing file and restart the machine to change the location of the VM swap files.
If you encounter any problems after doing this, you can restore the original rc file by restarting your machine from the Mac OS X install disk and opening the Terminal application. Enter the following: "mv /Users/yourname/Desktop/rc /Volumes/diskname/private/etc/rc" without the quotes, and after replacing yourname with the short name of your user account and diskname with the name of your normal partition. If either contains spaces, you will need to enclose the whole path in quote marks.
(8904)

Similar Messages

MacBook Pro hard drive partition problems

I installed Windows XP through Boot Camp just fine. Then I installed Ubuntu on the same partition as XP and that was fine as well. When I tried to restore a backup of my Ubuntu file system it went all beserk. The restore process was going fine in Ubuntu until it kept saying that it is out of disk space. It still worked until I rebooted my computer. It wouldn't let me start up Ubuntu or Windows XP, but thankfully OS X was all good. After changing the partitions around in Disk Utility the same error occurred when trying to boot into Ubuntu or Windows XP. It said that one partition was the size of the entire disk, while the other partitions kept their original size. I erased all partitions except for Mac and now what remains is my "Macintosh HD" partition which is 97.71 gb and a "disk0s5" partition that it 120.3 gb. The size of the entire hard drive is 120.3 gb. It wont let me change anything from here or install Windows or anything with the partitions.
Incase it matters the computer is a 17" MacBook Pro 1,2 (2.16ghz, 120gb HDD etc.)

Hi Michele,
Sounds like a corrupted partition map. Can you run the Bootcamp Setup Assistant again to restore the drive to a single volume? Otherwise, I'd backup the OS X side and then re-partition the drive and start from scratch, then restore your backup so at least you'll be back up and operational on the OS X relatively quickly.

How do you increase the volumne size of a hard drive partition?

how do you increase the volumne size of a hard drive partition? the drive is set up into 3 partitions C, HP_tools and, recovery, C has space and would like to move some to HP_tools that is full. when I run backup I get drive full. I have run backup now to an external drive so that is not an issue.

Hi,
Firstly please don't keep anything in HP_TOOLS except things have been there. You can use Windows systems tool called Disk Management. Please use the following tutorial:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/
Regards.
BH
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Make it easier for other people to find solutions by marking a Reply 'Accept as Solution' if it solves your problem.

PB G4, hard drive partitioned

Hello, My PB G4 has its hard drive partitioned into 4 equal, separate discs. Can I merge 2 or more of these to make a larger disc? Thanks.

Allan,
I "inherited" this partioned disc and computer from my work, from which I've retired, but was allowed to keep. The IT guy who initially set it up partioned it for reasons that elude me. My problem is with iPhoto; I have too may pictures and it has used all the space in the partition. Is it true that the iPhoto app and its picture folder need to be on the same disc? I've been working under this assumption, and this is the reason I need to create a larger disc, by merging 2 or more other discs, to handle the iPhoto picture folder. I ope this makes a bit of sense. Thanks again for your help.
Mike
PS I would fix the optical drive, but I'm hoping to get a newer computer in the not so distant future and will then relagate this old fellow to my wife for her e-mails.

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/

Is Removing or Modifying the HP Tools hard drive partition possible?

I am trying to dual boot WIndows 7 Home Premium and Ubuntu. Windows 7 is already installed and I was trying to create a hard drive partition for Ubuntu. However, why I try to create a partition, I cannot create another primary partition because I can only have 4 primary partitions on my hard drive. THe four I have right now are:
(C
HP_TOOLS
RECOVERY (D
SYSTEM
I was wondering if there was a way to merge any two of these partitions so that I will only have 3 primary partitions. Or would simply deleting the HP_TOOLS partition be wroth it? ANy help would be great.

Hi MNJC,
Thank you for you inquiry. I will do my best to assist you.
I understand you would like, a dual boot system and want to know about partitions. Here is a Microsoft document on Dual boot windows 7 and windows 8 that I think will help you. Please let me know if you are successful.
Sparkles1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Hard drive formatting problem

Hi there,
I've been stupid and I'm looking for some advice. What happened was I went and tried to install Windows 8.1 on my iMac, had a problem with the installation process and whilst in the Windows installer, I ended up screwing up a partition which has ended up as free space which OSX disk utility won't let me format, delete or repartition. It won't work either from within Mavericks or when booted from either a recovery disk or a USB drive Mavericks installer. I've got everything backed up so a complete hard drive format is fine, in fact I already tried that, so starting from scratch might be easiest. If anybody has any ideas how I could fix this I'd be grateful.
At the moment the drive is showing four partitions, Macintosh HD is 2.5TB OS Extended (Journaled), disk1s4 is 314.6MB OS Extended (Journaled), disk1s6 is 134.2MB OS Extended (Journaled) and Free Space is 499.98GB Free Space.
Macintosh HD is working fine.
disk1s4 I'm unable to delete, merge or reformat.
disk1s6 is between a rock and a hard place, because...
Free Space is just flat out unusable.
System is 27" iMac 3.5GHz Core i7, 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3, 3.12TB Fusion Drive
Any help would be appreciated, I'll try not to screw up this time...
Thanks,
Kev

Hi malevolus,
It looks like the partition map of your iMac’s fusion drive is corrupted. Fortunately since you have a backup of everything, we don’t have to worry about data loss. Reformatting of a fusion drive does require some special steps though. See this article -
Mac mini (Late 2012), iMac (Late 2012 and later): About Fusion Drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5446
In Particular -
Troubleshooting
The version of Disk Utility that comes with Fusion Drive is unique. Earlier versions of Disk Utility can't be used with a Fusion Drive.
If your system will not start because you see a flashing question mark or another alert:
Press the Power button and hold it down to power off your system.
Press the Power button again. After you hear the startup chime, press and hold Command-Option-R to start up to the Internet version of Mountain Lion Recovery.
A globe should appear with a "Starting Internet Recovery" message. It is now OK to release Command-Option-R.
A progress bar should appear and Internet Recovery should start and ask you to select a language.
Once you select a language, click Disk Utility in the window that appears and then click Continue.
If your Fusion Drive can be fixed with Disk Utility, you'll see a Disk icon with red lettering. Click the disk icon.
A dialog box appears offering to fix the Fusion Drive (shown above). Caution: Clicking Fix will erase your Fusion Drive. If you have a Time Machine backup of your Fusion Drive Mac, see Mac 101: Time Machine for information on how to restore from a Time Machine backup once the drive has been erased.
8. After the process is complete, the volume will change color to black. Quit Disk Utility, click Install Mac OS X, then click Continue to reinstall OS X Mountain Lion.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

External Hard Drive - Partition or Not?

Ok, I have looked everywhere for the answer and everyone has a different opinion. So, I'd like to get opinions on my situation because the Discussions have always been the most helpful.
I recently had a post about whether I should upgrade my Powerbook's hard drive or just get an external Firewire drive to transport files here and there. In the end, I decided to get a 400GB internal drive (for storage) and bought an enclosure for it, since my hard drives only seem to be shrinking. I got an amazing price so I went for it - the other thing will just have to wait. I decided to keep my iPhoto Library on it, backup of important files (also burned to cds)... you get the point.
Up until now, I have only been backing up my user folder because I was only interested in keeping those files. After visiting the Discussions, I've learned a lot (what can I say, I'm young and I know my way around a computer, but I still have A LOT MORE to learn). Ok, so now I guess it's time to make a bootable copy of my hard drive (at least the Mini, because that's where all of the files are).
To the point... Should I partition my 400GB drive into 2 sections: one for a backup and one for all the other storage? Can I boot from this if my Mini's hard drive fails? Or is it best to leave the 400GB as storage and get an 80GB solely for bootable backup?
The problem is I don't have a lot of money to spend on this. I was looking forward to getting the new 30GB iPod (for music and files), but protecting my files is more important. There are so many options, but they are expensive options (to me, at least). I would be so grateful if anyone has suggestions on the best way to go about this. Thank you!!
12" Powerbook G4, Intel Mac Mini, iPod Nano Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Personally I would choose no. 2 primarily because I like to keep backups separate from regular working drives to minimise risks of mishaps, problems, theft etc.
If something happens to the single 400GB drive you could, potentially, lose both stored data as well as the backup. Ultimately it might cost more to have two drives but when it comes to backups I prefer not to cut too many corners.
15" 1.25GHz/12" 1GHz PBs, 2xPPC Mac minis, 12" iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.6) Cube, 2xTAMs, iPods 2G/4G, iPs, AEBS, AX

Hard Drive Partition not recognized

I have a brand new hard drive with 3 partitions on it. fdisk displays all of the partitions on sdb but only 2 of them show up in /dev.
[benine@comp ~]$ ls /dev | grep sd
sda
sda1
sda2
sda3
sda4
sdb
sdb1
sdb2
[benine@comp ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes, 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000bdcbd
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 58589054 29294496 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 58589055 58878224 144585 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 58878225 77433299 9277537+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 77433300 117231407 19899054 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes, 78142806 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x128c26ad
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 718847 2867200 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 718848 81922047 324812800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3 81922048 625139711 2172870656 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
This all started when I replaced the hard drive in a laptop and installed Windows 8 on it. I tried connecting it to my desktop, on which I'm running arch, to load a bunch of backed up files on the 3rd partition, however this partition wasn't showing up.
I tried using mknod to create /dev/sdb3.
[benine@comp ~]$ sudo mknod /dev/sdb3 b 8 19
[benine@comp ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sdb3 /media/flash
mount: /dev/sdb3 is not a valid block device
I tried deleting that partition and creating a new one in cfdisk, but was left with the same result. So I tried deleting the entire partition table and creating 3 new partitions. Still only two partitions show up in /dev. I tried this setting the type of partition as both NTFS and Linux. Between each of the actions I would detach and reattach the hard drive both internally and externally, and I would also restart the machine. I tried setting up two partitions and could see both. When I set up 4 partitions I could still only see two. I tried setting up one partition, formatted it, then set up 3 partitions and could still only see 2.
I can't mount the other two partitions. When I try with either -t ntfs or -t ntfs-3g I get the error:
[benine@comp ~]$ sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb2 /media/flash
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
I don't know if this error has anything to do with the problem but figured it probably did. I have read that that error typically means the hard drive is corrupt but I assure you it's not. I just got done installing windows on this hard drive, that I got this week, for the second time and it is completely usable. I can even access the 3rd partition when I boot into windows. This could be fine as I can access the files through samba, but that is slower and this is a problem that I'd like to find a solution to.
The original partitions were set up by the Windows 8 installation disk. I created one 40GB partition which automatically created a 370MB system partition in addition. Then I used the rest of the 320GB disk as another partition.
Can anybody offer any suggestions in addition to what I have already tried?

I just had same problem with a USB pen, mobing it to another port helped.
Have you tried using a different storage controller? IF you motherboard have more than one that is.

Hard Drive Ejection Problem

I have a 2 tb western digital external hard drive that ejects from my mac almost as soon as I put it in. I formatted through the mac disk utility with 2 partitions... one htfs for time machine and one fat for transfers between windows and mac. Now every time I plug in my hard drive it loads the time machine then immediately fails and gives me the disk was not ejected properly error right after. I cant see the drive in the disk utility but the fat partition works when I plug it into windows. It is really annoying can someone tell me whats going on ??? Please help.

You may have a problem with that USB port.

[SOLVED] Arch won't mount my hard drives correctly, problems at boot.

Sometimes (only sometimes) Arch Linux will have an error during bootup because my Linux drive gets mounted as sdb instead of sda. My NTFS Sata storage drives gets mounted in its place as sda.
When this happens, Arch Linux will stop booting at the "checking filesystems" step:
:: Checking Filesystems [BUSY]
/dev/sda3:
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a corect ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
[FAIL]
**************** FILESYSTEM CHECK FAILED ****************
* Please repair manually and reboot. Note that the root *
* file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount *
* it read-write type: mount -n -o remount,rw / *
* When you exit the maintenance shell the system will *
* reboot automatically. *
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):
And from there i have to remount my drives manually or restart the computer. Everytime I start the computer, I simply have to hope that my Linux drive will mount as sda. It's totally hit and miss.
Now, I know that my superblock is not corrupt. fsck is failing because it is looking for my linux filesystem on sda. It is encountering my NTFS Sata drive on sda instead of the expected Linux ext filesystem.
So how do I know that this is happening?
Well, after giving the root password, it shows the root prompt
[root@(none) ~]#
and i proceed to use the lshw command to see what's up with the drives:
[root@(none) ~]# lshw -short | grep /dev/
/0/6/0.0.0 /dev/sdb disk 120GB WDC WD1200JB-00E
/0/6/0.0.0/1 /dev/sdb1 volume 101MiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/6/0.0.0/2 /dev/sdb2 volume 258MiB Linux swap volume
/0/6/0.0.0/3 /dev/sdb3 volume 7506MiB EXT4 volume
/0/6/0.0.0/4 /dev/sdb4 volume 104GiB EXT4 volume
/0/6/0.1.0 /dev/sdc disk 81GB Maxtor 6Y080P0
/0/6/0.1.0/1 /dev/sdc1 volume 76GiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/8/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 640GB Hitachi HDT72106
/0/8/0.0.0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 596GiB Windows NTFS volume
So, clearly, this shows that my Linux drive has gotten mounted as sdb and my NTFS Sata drive has gottem mounted as sda. It's totally random: sometimes they mount vice versa and the system boots just fine.
When Arch does happen to mount itself properly as sda and the system starts successfully, then the lshw command shows this:
[root@(none) ~]# lshw -short | grep /dev/
/0/6/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 120GB WDC WD1200JB-00E
/0/6/0.0.0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 101MiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/6/0.0.0/2 /dev/sda2 volume 258MiB Linux swap volume
/0/6/0.0.0/3 /dev/sda3 volume 7506MiB EXT4 volume
/0/6/0.0.0/4 /dev/sda4 volume 104GiB EXT4 volume
/0/6/0.1.0 /dev/sdb disk 81GB Maxtor 6Y080P0
/0/6/0.1.0/1 /dev/sdb1 volume 76GiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/8/0.0.0 /dev/sdc disk 640GB Hitachi HDT72106
/0/8/0.0.0/1 /dev/sdc1 volume 596GiB Windows NTFS volume
The above correctly mounted format shows the drives in the same order as my Hard Disk boot priority in BIOS as well as in the same order as during the initial drive detection directly following the memory test (don't know if it has anything to do with it though).
So my question is this. How do I ensure that Arch Linux mounts itself as sda ALL of the time, and not randomly?
Or should I remove my sda entries in etc/fstab and let Arch determine where my Linux filesystems are? If so, how?
It's interesting to note that GRUB is set to boot Arch Linux from hd0, which should be sda.
It's also intriguing to note that if I take out my Sata drive, I never encounter this problem.
Last edited by trusktr (2010-06-15 07:49:31)

Thanks kgas, here's what i found out so far:
Alright so after rebooting, this is what i determined:
When Linux mounts the drives incorrectly (take note of the parts in bold, the short numbers are NTFS filesystems, long numbers the Linux filesystems):
[trusktr@rocketship ~]$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 01CA836D8BE82040 -> ../../[b]sdc1[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 0ddf0e41-e7e6-4af5-b0e9-bc79a91b12eb -> ../../[b]sdb1[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 92b88528-dd0f-4c1b-bcce-54084ef2aceb -> ../../[b]sdb4[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 C838CF5838CF4462 -> ../../[b]sda1[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 cdb33de5-0100-4c5f-a9b1-5c1a444e6eac -> ../../[b]sdb3[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 d0a5d49d-169d-43ce-af0f-216dc4a9f604 -> ../../[b]sdb2[/b]
So an NTFS filesystem is mounted in sda instead of the Linux filesystem
When Linux mounts everything properly:
[trusktr@rocketship ~]$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 01CA836D8BE82040 -> ../../[b]sdb1[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 0ddf0e41-e7e6-4af5-b0e9-bc79a91b12eb -> ../../[b]sda1[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 92b88528-dd0f-4c1b-bcce-54084ef2aceb -> ../../[b]sda4[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 C838CF5838CF4462 -> ../../[b]sdc1[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 cdb33de5-0100-4c5f-a9b1-5c1a444e6eac -> ../../[b]sda3[/b]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 14 21:08 d0a5d49d-169d-43ce-af0f-216dc4a9f604 -> ../../[b]sda2[/b]
This doesn't tell us much except that I indeed do have uuid's for all the drives.
So, i guess as kgas said, i probably need to use the uuid in fstab so that Linux always knows which hard drive is the linux drive! In that case, only the uuid for the Linux drive will be necessary. For the other drives it wouldn't matter so much i guess since they don't contain the operating system.
Alright, i'll be back to determine if this fixes it!
Last edited by trusktr (2010-06-15 06:41:25)

Hard Drive Format Problem

I wanted to move my Aperture Library to an external Hard Drive but when I select it it tells me it has an unsupported file system. My iPhoto Library happily resides on a HD with the same file system so I did not expect this problem.
The HDD is a Samsung S2 Portable USB 640GB HDD. If I try to format it as Mac OS Extended whether journaled or not, Disk Utility fails to format these HDD but it is able to format them as MS-DOS (Fat). This is not a problem for iPhoto but Aperture will not accept it.
Any suggestions as to how I can make this work either by forcing the HDD to accept Mac OS Extended or by forcing Aperture to accept the Fat 32 file structure? Having bought two of the HDD I cannot afford now to buy any more. I needed the HDD to be a 2.5inch portable so that I can take it with me as I travel and my MacBook Pro HDD is too small for the job at 320 and has less than 100GB of free space even 500 would be too small)

I may not have formatted hundreds but certainly a couple of dozen, although I have always had more than one partition. These HDD are ultra small even for 2.5inch HDD. I had two of them which iPhoto accepted as FAT32 for iPhoto Library and back up so bought two to work with Aperture but Aperture will not support anything other than Mac OS Extended. So the fault if any, could also be said to be Apple's since Apple software normally works fine with FAT 32 formatted hard drives. Whatever is going on it is annoying.
These are the Samsung HDD in question:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152200
The customer reviews tend to happy with performance but complain unreasonably about getting 'only 596GB' when they paid for 640 which is an indication that a lot of people still get confused about disk capacity conventions.

Solid State Hard Drive Installation Problem

Hi, I am trying to install an Intel 520 series 480GB SSD into my late 2008 MacBook Pro. I am running OS X 10.8.3. I used Super Duper to make a bootable copy of my primary disk and installed the intel drive correctly. When I boot from my external drive, I am queried about a hard drive I need to "initialize" which opens Disk Utility when I click it. It appears the drive is completely recognized by the system. I am trying to partition the new internal drive into a single partition in the GUID Partition Table so that I can use Super Duper to transfer my HD contents back.
The problem I encounter at this step is an error message that says "Partition failed - Partition failed with the error: Couldn't Open Device."
Does anybody have thoughts about what might be causing this or what I can do to fix it? The hard drive is brand new out the box, so I believe it should be working appropriately. Thank you!

Never mind, the hard drive magically initiated after several restarts. Almost like it needed to be primed like a pump. Now this darn negotiated link speed issue....

Swapped hard drive boot problem

Swapped hard drives between 6530b and 6535b, neither boots. What did I miss? (Toshiba MK3255GSX and Hitachi HTS543223L9A300)

Disk Utility - Erase (drive, not volume) and make sure it is now GPT/GUID and not old Apple Partition Table format.
Even though it is data only, there can and are some problems (the older it was last formatted the more so perhaps).
Just pull the data off if needed. Handy to have a FW drive case for SATA laying around.
Migrating OS and apps from G5 to Intel is full of potential pitfalls.
Depending on the drive age, size, performance, I'd probably go for a WD Caviar 640GB $75 to transfer files onto, and then wipe the Maxtor and use it for an emergency backup drive off which you can run Disk Warrior and such.

New Serial - ATA Hard Drive Partitioned with OS 10.5.4 and OS 10.3.9

Dear forum,
I'm looking at this Internal Hard Drive - 609480 Hitachi T7K500 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM - I need to obtain the 4 guide screws before I fit it in the lower bay of my G5. Is this hard drive approved by Apple?
I need to verify with the forum that if I partition the new 320GB HD in two (2 x 160 GB partitions) and run OS 10.3.9 Classic environment on one partition and 10.5.4 on the other partition that this will present no technical problems for my G5 Dual Processor computer.

There should have been screws already in your G5.
I would not mix Leopard and Panther on the same drive. Even Tiger used a different partition table than Leopard now does. Could run Panther from 2nd drive or FW800 as an option.
Best drive I have come across for now:
http://www.barefeats.com/harper14.html
Sells for $79 @ www.macsales.com and lower than Newegg
As long as it is a bare or white box drive it should be fine (sometimes Dell and HP get customized drives that are more system specific though usually not a problem).

Hard Drive Partition Problems

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