No partitions for Firewire boot drive?

I've been limping along with a 40GB main drive for a while (which I could deal with since I have a 120GB drive for my audio work, which is what I mainly use the computer for) and I was going to back up everything to a 250GB Firewire drive and then install a bigger hard drive. Somewhere, though, I seem to have gotten the idea that you can't boot from a FW drive w/partitions. Am I wrong? I hope so.

wilhelm:
Dr. Smoke's FAQ Backup and Recovery has excellent advice, including a suggested scheme for partitioning. Of course, your needs are different and will dictate your scheme.
Your first (backup) partition should be approximately the size of your HDD, because that is all the capacity your backup will need. However, you situation is complicated by the fact that you are contemplating a larger internal HDD, which you will then backup to your backup partition. It might be well to go ahead and create a partition the size you will eventually need for backup when you swep out your old HDD for a new one. (Incidentally, you can then put the old HDD in a firewire enclosure for an additional HDD, which, I am sure, you will find useful in some way!)
In terms of cloning back to your newly swapped in internal HDD, that will, indeed, make the process easier. You will need to format the HDD, as you will the external when you get it, then use SuperDuper to clone everything over to it.
Here is a set of step-by-step directions for formatting and partitioning your HDD:
Formatting, Partitioning Zeroing a Hard Disk Drive
Warning! This procedure will destroy all data on your Hard Disk Drive. Be sure you have an up-to-date, tested backup of at least your Users folder and any third party applications you do not want to re-install before attempting this procedure.
Boot from the install CD holding down the "C" key.
Select language
Go to the Utilities menu (Tiger) Installer menu (Panther & earlier) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
Select Partition tab in main panel. (You are about to create a single partition volume.)
Select number of partition in pull-down menu above Volume diagram.
(Note: 1 partition is normally better for an internal HDD. External HDDs usually have more than one. See Dr. Smoke’s FAQ Backup and Recovery for tips on partitioning external HDD.)
Type in name in Name field (usually Macintosh HD)
Select Volume Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Click Partition button at bottom of panel.
Select Erase tab
Optional: (Select the sub-volume under Manufacturer ID (usually Macintosh HD).
Check to be sure your Volume Name and Volume Format are correct.
Select on Security Options button (Tiger) Options button (Panther & earlier).
Select Zero all data. (This process will map out bad blocks on your HDD. However, it could take several hours. If you want a quicker method, don't go to Security Options and just click the Erase button.)
Click OK.
Click Erase button
Quit Disk Utility.
Open installer and begin installation process.
Good luck.
cornelius

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OK to use fdisk/100% "SOLARIS System" partition for RAID6 Virtual Drive?

Solaris newb, here - I am configuring an x4270 with 16 135 GB drives. Basic approach is
D0, D1: RAID 1 (Boot volume, Solaris, Oracle Software)
D2-D13: RAID 6 (Oracle dB files)
D14, D15: global spares
After configuring the RAID's w/WebBIOS Utility, I am now trying to format/partition the RAID 6 Virtual Drive, which shows up as 1.327 TB 'Optimal' in the MegaRAID Storage Manager. After hunting around the ether for advice on how to do this, I came across http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23824_01/html/821-1459/disksxadd-50.html#disksxadd-54639
"Creating a Solaris fdisk Partition That Spans the Entire Drive"
which is painfully simple: after 'format', just do an 'fdisk' and accept the default 100% "SOLARIS System" partition. After doing this, partition>print and prtvtoc show this:
partition> print
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 59125 + 2 (reserved cylinders)
Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
2 backup wu 0 - 59124 1.33TB (59125/0/0) 2849529375
3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
7 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
8 boot wu 0 - 0 23.53MB (1/0/0) 48195
9 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
# prtvtoc /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2
* /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2 partition map
* Dimensions:
* 512 bytes/sector
* 189 sectors/track
* 255 tracks/cylinder
* 48195 sectors/cylinder
* 59127 cylinders
* 59125 accessible cylinders
* Flags:
* 1: unmountable
* 10: read-only
* Unallocated space:
* First Sector Last
* Sector Count Sector
* 48195 2849481180 2849529374
* First Sector Last
* Partition Tag Flags Sector Count Sector Mount Directory
2 5 01 0 2849529375 2849529374
8 1 01 0 48195 48194
My question: is there anything inherently wrong with this default partitioning? Database is for OLTP & fairly small (<200 GB), with about 140 GB being LOB images.
Thanks,
Barry

First off, RAID-5 or RAID-6 is fine for database performance unless you have some REALLY strict and REALLY astronomical performance requirements. Requirements that someone with lots of money is willing to pay to meet.
You're running a single small x86 box with only onboard storage.
So no, you're not operating in that type of environment.
Here's what I'd do, based upon a whole lot of experience with Solaris 10 and not so much with Solaris 11, and also assuming this box is going to be around for a good long time as an Oracle DB server:
1. Don't use SVM for your boot drives. Use the onboard RAID controller to make TWO 2-disk RAID-1 mirrors. Use these for TWO ZFS root pools. Why two? Because if you use live upgrade to patch the OS, you want to create a new boot environment in a separate ZFS pool. If you use live upgrade to create new boot environments in the same ZFS pool, you wind up with a ZFS clone/snapshot hell. If you use two separate root pools, each new boot environment is a pool-to-pool actual copy that gets patched, so there are no ZFS snapshot/clone dependencies between the boot environments. Those snapshot/clone dependencies can cause a lot of problems with full disk drives if you wind up with a string of boot environments, and at best they can be a complete pain in the buttocks to clean up - assuming live upgrade doesn't mess up the clones/snapshots so badly you CAN'T clean them up (yeah, it has been known to do just that...). You do your first install with a ZFS rpool, then create rpool2 on the other mirror. Each time you do an lucreate to create a new boot environment from the current boot environment, create the new boot environment in the rpool that ISN'T the one the current boot environment is located in. That makes for ZERO ZFS dependencies between boot environments (at least in Solaris 10. Although with separate rpools, I don't see how that could change....), and there's no software written that can screw up a dependency that doesn't exist.
2. Create a third RAID-1 mirror either with the onboard RAID controller or ZFS, Use those two drives for home directories. You do NOT want home directories located on an rpool within a live upgrade boot environment. If you put home directories inside a live upgrade boot environment, 1) that can be a LOT of data that gets copied, 2) if you have to revert back to an old boot environment because the latest OS patches broke something, you'll also revert every user's home directory back.
3. That leaves you 10 drives for a RAID-6 array for DB data. 8 data and two parity. Perfect. I'd use the onboard RAID controller if it supports RAID-6, otherwise I'd use ZFS and not bother with SVM.
This also assumes you'd be pretty prompt in replacing any failed disks as there are no global spares. If there would be significant time before you'd even know you had a failed disk (days or weeks), let alone getting them replaced, I'd rethink that. In that case, if there were space I'd probably put home directories in the 10-disk RAID-6 drive, using ZFS to limit how big that ZFS file system could get. Then use the two drives freed up for spares.
But if you're prompt in recognizing failed drives and getting them replaced, you probably don't need to do that. Although you might want to just for peace of mind if you do have the space in the RAID-6 pool.
And yes, using four total disks for two OS root ZFS pools seems like overkill. But you'll be happy when four years from now you've had no problems doing OS upgrades when necessary, with minimal downtime needed for patching, and with the ability to revert to a previous OS patch level with a simple "luactivate BENAME; init 6" command.
If you have two or more of these machines set up like that in a cluster with Oracle data on shared storage you could then do OS patching and upgrades with zero database downtime. Use lucreate to make new boot envs on each cluster member, update each new boot env, then do rolling "luactivate BENAME; init 6" reboots on each server, moving on to the next server after the previous one is back and fully operational after its reboot to a new boot environment.

Best size for SSD boot drive?

Hi,
I am looking to replace my optical drive from my iMac 27" with an SSD to be used as a boot drive and to hold my applications for faster loading etc..
I was wandering what would be the best size for a boot drive so that I dont overspend as SSD's are expenive.
Thanks for any help in advance.

The best size is the size you need to store OS X and your apps without getting the SSD full. For example, if OS X and your apps take less than 100 GB, you should consider a 128 GB SSD, and if they take 150 GB, go for a 256 GB SSD.
You can buy the SSD at OWC to guarantee the compatibility > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/

Firewire Boot Drive Strategy

The very first thing the Installation routine for my Mac OSX Install CDs tells me to do is "We're going to re-boot now..."
Confirming I will not do ANYTHING to my MacBookPRO's hard drive - and that I will be given an option to install to my external drive after this re-boot, correct?
And the discs are from when I purchased my laptop last year. How does one update/maintain this Firewire backup/boot drive copy of OSX?
Many thanks.

clint:
OK, that's a lot clearer.
May I ask what the point would be if you have a second installation of the OS on a second partition of the same HDD? If you are concerned about OS corruption, you have the original and you have a backup, and you have the install disk.
If you are concerned that your backup drive might fail, or both the internal and HDD might become corrupted/damaged the best strategy would be to have a second backup on a separate HDD, which you might keep off-site.
Now, in terms of your question, then, exactly what is going on when you try to install to the second partition?
You may already have seen this, but Dr. Smoke has some useful advice in his FAQ Backup and Recovery. The only problem I have with his advice is that he insists on Retrospect, which is not only clumsy and difficult to use, but unreliable. SuperDuper is the best there is out there.
Please post back with update.
Good luck.
cornelius
Message was edited by: cornelius

[SOLVED]Proper Partitioning for Dual-boot

I am attempting to dual-boot Windows XP and Arch, except I've left no free space...
Do I have to reformat?
Also, a question on windows. It uses 1 partition for everything, then allows you to create logical ones, right?
Last edited by Haptic (2011-06-22 04:31:38)

Haptic wrote:
I am attempting to dual-boot Windows XP and Arch, except I've left no free space...
Do I have to reformat?
Also, a question on windows. It uses 1 partition for everything, then allows you to create logical ones, right?
What Mardoct said about resizing w/ gparted is true, so unless you have the data backed-up, do it as your own risk. Can you post a screenshot of a gparted map of your drive?
As you know, Win needs to be the first partition on the drive. You are limited to four primary partitions, so if you want more, make three primary partitions, then the rest of the space an an extended partition. Inside the extended partition, you can add many logical partitions. I'd recommend doing all this from within gparted.
My 1 TB drive example:
/dev/sda1 (primary for windows), 20 gigs
/dev/sda2 (primary for Arch), 20 gigs
/dev/sda3 (backup of my Arch partition), 20 gigs
/dev/sda4 (EXTENDED PARTITION), 873 gigs
/dev/sda5 (logical for /home), 72 gigs
/dev/sda6 (logical for /var), 8 gigs
/dev/sda7 (logical for /boot), 0.11 gigs
/dev/sda8 (logical for /data), 784 gigs
/dev/sda9 (logical for swap), 8 gigs
As a side note, you can also you gparted to copy/paste entire partitions which makes keeping backup very easy. My /dev/sda3 is a periodic backup of my live Arch partition.
Last edited by graysky (2009-09-16 11:15:29)

Can I partition a Firewire 800 drive to work with Time Machine and Final Cut Pro?

Hey, I was reading that having Final Cut Projects and Events on the same external Hard Drive as a time machine backup doesn't work well together. So I was wondering if I partition a 2 TB External Hard Drive and use 1 partition for Time Machine and the other for Final Cut Pro, would it work like it should? I had thought so because it would recognize it as 2 different drives but I wasn't sure. Thank You for your time!

aside, if it is supported or not:
A backup is a crucial element in your set-up - is it wise to 'stress it' as a working drive for video-editing ...... ?
or, vice versa:
The moment, Time Machine launches, your working drive drops its performance by half or even more.
Plus, depending on your settings, the drive is forced to copy tons of data from partition I to partition II ... due to, a partition is no 'real'/physical drive, this stresses a drive extremely .....
drives are sooo cheap. and drive-space should never be an 'issue' while movie-making ..

Need generic drivers for firewire zip drive which won't mount in OS 10.3.9

I purchased an external Archos firewire zip drive which worked fine with my G4 in OS 9.2. Once I upgraded to OS 10.3.9, it stopped working consistently. Sometimes if I restart the computer, the zip drive mounts, but most of the time, it doesn't. When I contacted Archos, they said that they do not support OSX. Are there any generic drivers available that might help me? Any other ideas? Please help!
G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

jhps:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
If Archose says they don't support OS X it sounds like you are stuck with running your zip drive in OS 9. There may be generic drives, but I am not aware of any. Maybe someone else might.
You may want to post in the Using Mac OS X Forum where there may be folk who have suggestions for you.
Good luck.
cornelius

Procedure for SSD boot drive in Mac Pro?

I just purchased a 115GB SSD that I want to use as the boot drive in my Mac Pro running OS 10.6.8. I've read several articles about how to set this up but none seem to be working for me. On the SSD boot drive I want only the essentials: OS, Home Folder, Apps. Everything else (docs, downloads, music, photos, movies, etc.) needs to go on my 1TB storage HD. The problem I'm having using Carbon Cloner and Super Duper to copy the OS, HF and apps to the SSD is they're copying too much data, filling up the SSD with non-essentials (there should only be about 90GB of data being copied but much more seems to be transferred). I can't seem to lean-down what's being moved. Would doing a new install with the Snow Leopard DVD and then copying over only the essential files/folders with Migration Assistant be better, more specific?
Has anyone perfected this procedure, and can give me step-by-step instructions? All help is greatly appreciated!

There are dozens and dozens of threads, MPG, MacRumors and elsewhere.
don't move anything from "home" except the bare essential ~/Library (1GB at most) with CCC and deelect everything else. That should get you down to size.
Before you bought I hope you asdded up the /applications and good estimate. most users can get an OS/apps into 60GB or less (the max I would want to see on SSD you have) FCP and some others or if you hae a lot of large apps - some allow for installing in alternate locations as well as into system/library.
Some - there are always some - have had trouble cloning. Some had trouble with installing, too. Can't win for losing at every turn sometimes.
Been there, but look again at MPG series.
How To Clone a Volume
How to upgrade your system/boot drive
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy

Using one logical partition for / and /boot

Hi
on my pc i have windows and a linux. i want to install Arch and have all of them. there are some windows (ntfs) partition on my hard disk, a swap area and 2 linux partition that one of them is used by ubuntu (/boot, / , /home .....of ubuntu are in one partition which is ext4). is it possible to use the same method for Arch? i mean , i do not want to have a seperate /boot partition for Arch. is it possible? if yes, what is the recommended file system for that partition? can i use ext4? (some distroes do not support booting from an ext4.)
Regards

You can use one partition for arch, with no separate /boot, and arch can boot from ext4.

BIOS setup for SSB boot drive and 2 RAID 0 data drives

I'm trying to setup my new rig. I was able to get Win 7 to see all drives when plugged into the white SATA connectors. This with no BIOS RAID. If I change the BIOS from AHCI to RAID, Windows fails to boot completely.
After some research, I tried plugging the SSD boot drive into the JMicron controlled blue SATA 7 connector. It works. The 2 WD 640's are in the South Bridge controlled SATA 1-6 connectors (3 & 4). Windows sees the drives with On-Chip ATA Devices set to AHCI. I can setup the 640's with On-Chip ATA Devices set to RAID and the BIOS sees them during boot up, but Windows can't. I did install the RAID drivers as specified in the manual Appendix B.
My system specs are in my sig. I don't see them in preview, so I hope the show up.
So, what did I miss? Thanks if advance for any assistance!
Scott

I did this from the manual appendix B:
Installing the RAID Driver Under Windows
(for Non-bootable RAID Array)
1. Insert the MSI DVD into the DVD-ROM drive.
2. The DVD will auto-run and the setup screen will appear.
3. Under the Driver tab, click on AMD chipset drivers by your need. The AMD chipset
drivers includes RAID Driver.
4. The driver will be automatically installed.
Plus, I installed the JMB36x drive under the RAID button on the MSI CD.

Lost Partition Table (Non Boot Drive) on Solaris 10 x86

Hi Guys,
fdisk asked me to answer yes or no to a question (which i don't remember) after which my nicely sliced up disk became one large parition.
The drive has not been written to since and is not a boot drive.
I have no backup of this data, can i retrieve the lost partition table?
By the way, i do not know the geometry of the previous slices, otherwise i would have already rebuilt.
Any help appreciated!
Thanks
Michael

Hi Guys,
fdisk asked me to answer yes or no to a question (which i don't remember) after which my nicely sliced up disk became one large parition.
The drive has not been written to since and is not a boot drive.
I have no backup of this data, can i retrieve the lost partition table?
By the way, i do not know the geometry of the previous slices, otherwise i would have already rebuilt.
Any help appreciated!
Thanks
Michael

Is there a way to access purchased apps from the app store on windows computer? For USB boot drive

Having a problem with my Macbook (13", Late 2009 I believe) after attemption to update iOS to OS Mavericks. Have run into the grey screen of death, and have almost exhausted all options, including reseting pram, accessing fsck, and even using disk utility to reinstall the iOS. I believe that during the initial update (which is the root of the problem), there was some corruption within the directories which I believe can be contributing to my problem.
I was hoping to find a way to access my purchased apps from the app store on a windows computer so that I can make a USB boot drive in order to rule out the hardware problem that I am currently speculating.
Please advise, thanks in advance!

Yes if you have the iPod and iTunes set up to sync via wifi. However, you have to do it from your one syncing computer and the iPod and computer have to be on the same network.

Same boot info for firewire external drive?

I want to install 10.4.5 on an external hard drive so I can boot from it if I have problems on my internal drive. This is a recommended practice I believe.
Should I use the same admin/user names/passwords on the external as I use on the internal or does it matter? My preference is to use a different name/password but I don't have a real reason, just a preference with the thought that I am keeping them separate.

I want to install 10.4.5 on an external hard drive so I can boot from it if I have problems on my internal drive. This is a recommended practice I believe.
Yes it is.
Get yourself a backup app (such as CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper!, etc.) and put a bootable clone onto the FWHD. That gives you a bootable duplicate of what's already on the internal HD. Much better than reinstalling and trying to manually duplicate things.

Something annoying this way comes: target-disk MacBook for iMac boot-drive

So, this should be doable, but it's not working. Can anyone explain why, or what I'm doing wrong?
I have an Intel iMac, and an Intel MacBook - both are running Leopard. I temporarily want to use the iMac as the workstation, and the MacBook as the operating system hard disk. So, I put the MacBook in targeted disk mode, and connected it to the iMac via firewire 400. From the iMac, I option-booted to see the available boot disks. I then selected the MacBook's disk and clicked the arrow icon to boot. Once the iMac attempts booting, it displays the spinning cog on gray screen for longer than usual, then goes to a blue screen with an intermittent spinning cog. It seems to hang at this point.
I've done this with PPC machines in the past, so I'm not sure what the deal his here. The only things I can think of that would be a problem, but really shouldn't be are: 1) the MacBook is running 10.5.2 (keeping it at v2 due to the CS3 issue) and the iMac is running 10.5.3. Also, the iMac is the 24" model - so perhaps there's a screen resolution issue...
Any advice out there? THANK YOU!

Hmm, I don't think it's too outlandish of a thing to do. Let's take this example - Apple Mail on my MacBook. I'm going to totally reorganize my email life based upon the MacWorld article linked below. Anyway, this is going to be a huge task for me - I have a bazillion mailboxes and emails, etc. It would be soo much easier to do this with the big screen. My email setup is too complicated to describe here, but the purpose of my post was to figure why I can't do something that should be doable. There could be many reasons to boot the iMac using the MacBook's HD. And, it should work. So, the reason why I'm trying to do this is somewhat irrelevant. It's something that works in one direction, and I'd like to know why it's not working in the other direction. I'd be surprised if the issue is that the MacBook doesn't have the proper driver to work with the iMac's high resolution display - in that case, as with PPC machines, the usable screen would just 'shrink' to fit the maximum resolution of the OS.
Thank you for the shareware recommendation - I'll try it until I figure out why what I'm trying to do doesn't work.
http://tinyurl.com/6ru96u

Disk partition for install Boot Camp

Hi there
Finally yesterday i get my iMac 20, but with 10.4.10 installed. Now i want to install Boot Camp to install WindowsXP.
My question: I really need to make a partition to install Windows on a disk and the MacOSX in the other partition ???

junihh wrote:
Thanks XNAV for your answer but i better get Parallels, because i love the option that i can use the windows from PC as independent window, like a Mac window.
Thanks again.
LATE post - for those who come after:
Boot Camp REQUIRES a single, JOURNALLED HFS+ partition (created after midnight on a full moon's wane...*grin*...It's very Particular...) as a starting point - so you better give it one.
In response to junihh's other point: Parallels can be told to use the BootCamp partition as it's very own HDD so, my suggestion would be (as I happen to agree with you): DO IT that way and get the best of all worlds... you can STILL can use the windows from PC as independent window, like a Mac window.
DISCLAIMER:
: I've been in this Industry a loong time. I know a lot of people... I will always disclaim/note any pecuniary interest(s) which I know of (or remember) that're *closely relevant* BUT, MY advice will always be based on whether I'd recommend to Product or Company to a good friend -never- on $ or other considerations (I may dislike a bloke intensely but his Company may put out great software. If it does, I'll commend it to you)
-simple example: I have some Apple shares. I could even own soft MircoSoft shares.. or other companies... I Don't manage all that and couldn't tell you so I'm not going to Iist them. with over 35 years in, in a very Busy Oz-based career in everything from Mainframes to Micros, I've encountered just about everyone some time *grin* - some grrls n Boys I knew way back are VIPs running multnationals... many, I've lost track of. You can trust the statement above: my integrity has never been for sale (any offers ? :]) If the product's good, I'll say so - for -that- reason. (I think I'll put this Epic in my profile and simply POINT to it... :))

No partitions for Firewire boot drive?

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