Partition on 1TB firewire drive

I have ordered a 1TB firewire harddrive as I am out of space on my iMac (250gb). Is it best to leave the drive as one volume or partition it. In other words, what is the point of partitioning a drive? Benefits, shortcomings etc etc
Thanks for any advice...

I like Partitions for the fact that it let's me help organize things about like Master Folders would... Pics... Movies... Data... etc.
It also seems that there's a slight less chance of losing ALL data if something happens, sometimes I've been able to recover 3 out of 4 partitions, but the 1st one, which would've been the only one if I only had one, would've made nothing recoverable... doesn't always work that way though.

Similar Messages

How do I back up my Boot Camp partition to external firewire drive?

I have a 15 GB Windows XP Boot Camp partition (FAT32). I want to back it up to a 120 GB external Firewire drive. (I know the backup won't be bootable). In OX X Disk Utility, I formatted the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT). I planned to do the backup using the Windows Backup utility.
However, when booted into WinXP, Windows will not recognize the external hard drive. I thought I might need to create a FAT32 partion of 32 GB or less on the external drive, but I apparently can't do this in OS X or Windows (since Windows doesn't recognize the drive).
Any suggestions on how to backup the Boot Camp partition will be appreciated. I'm mainly interested in preserving all programs and data. Ideally, a clone could be created that could be restored back to the original partition in bootable form, but from studying this and other forums, it dosn't seem to be easy to do this for a FAT32-formatted volume.

My goal was to create a bootable clone of my FAT32 Boot Camp partition, while at the same time increasing the size of the partition from 15 GB to 32 GB if possible. This is what I did:
1. As suggested in this thread, I used Disk Utility to create a disk image. I formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT), and made it 32 GB in size.
2. Used the Finder to copy all files from my 15 GB Windows XP partition to the new disk image.
The following steps were only to determine if the disk image is a viable backup:
3. Removed the internal hard drive with my original Win XP partition, and installed a new internal hard drive.
4. Used Boot Camp Assistant to create a 32 GB Boot Camp partition on the new internal drive.
5. Inserted my Win XP installation disk and started the Windows installation. Formatted the new partition as FAT32. (I used the long rather than the quick format method--not sure if this was necessary.)
6. Continued the Windows installation to the point of restarting the computer, at which time I used the Option key to boot back into OS X.
7. Used the Finder to copy all the files from the 32 GB disk image to the new Boot Camp partition. (This overwrote a few Windows files installed by the aborted Win XP installation.)
8. Restarted and used the Option key to select the new 32 GB Boot Camp Partition. Windows booted as usual with all files, programs, etc. from the original 15 GB partition. Windows did complain about "new hardware" and required a restart, but all appears normal.
This indicates that the disk image containing all the files from my original Boot Camp partition is a viable backup, and can be used to restore the partition if necessary. I'm not sure if formatting the disk image as MS-DOS (rather than Mac OS extended) was necessary, or not.

Partitioning an external Firewire drive

Hi,
I'm trying to partition an external 150gb Lacie Firewire drive with the Disk Utility under OSX10.3.9 and I've gone through the Erase procedure and DU is telling me I'm left with 149.1gb after formatting.
So now under the partition tab I'm trying to set out the size of each partition and I know these sizes are gonna sound a bit random but bear with me so I want :-
3 partitions of 10gb = 30gb
6 partitions of 8gb = 48gb
1 partition of 71.1gb
After setting, naming and locking the first 9 partitions, when I get to the final partition, which I want to be 71.1gb, DU won't let me set a figure above 16.81gb.
Now I fully appreciate that disk sizes are, to a degree, 'approximate', that after formatting you do 'lose' a few gb's and that each partition will have a filesystem installed on it but where the heck am I losing 54.29gb of storage space from ?!!
I have experimented with fewer partitions and, to be fair, it seems you lose less space with less partitions but is it really the filesystems on each partition eating up that space ?
I'm using HFS+ (journalled).
Many thanks for any help you can give as this has been a real headache today !
Nick

Hi roam,
Many thanks for your continued input into this thread and my apologises for the delay in replying to your last post.
Anyway, I thought I'd give SuperDuper a go and downloaded v2.1.4 as you suggested and must agree that it's very simple to use. The backup took twice as long as my old way of backing up (restoring from the internal drive to the external drive) and I checked the log file for any errors and there weren't any, so all good there.
I again restarted with the option key held down and yet again I'm only ever presented with one drive icon to boot from, not two, so I'm really not sure why this is happening.
However, I've been giving this quite a lot of thought and I've come to the conclusion that if my internal system drive was to suffer a catostrophic failure (I'm touching loads of MDF here as I type that !!) and the drive is either wiped clean or damaged to the point that I replace it, I wouldn't be booting from my Firewire drive anyway, I'd be restoring from it, so I'd insert my install CD and reboot whilst holding down C, I'd then run Disk Utility and restore from my Firewire drive to the new internal drive.
So what I really want is a mirror image of my internal drive which is what my method of restoring via the restore route gives me.
Is that a correct hypothosis of have I missed something ?
Nick

Lion mysteriously erases SSD partition on external FireWire drive.

I'm not sure whether this is a problem with OS X, my SSD, or my external FireWire drive, so please bear with me.
Recently, I have been having some hardware problems on my MacBook Pro, and decided to send my computer off to be repaired. Before doing so, I took my Corsair Performance Pro SSD (still on firmware 1.0) out of my machine so that I could boot it from my FireWire 800 drive (Oyen Digital Minipro) onto the school computers.
Both times I have tried this (and on different machines!) I was able to successfully load my laptop installation. Then, after a few minutes, everything would suddenly freeze up (beach balls, et al) and I would have to shut down the computer. Afterwards, the system would not let me boot back into the external drive, and Disk Utility in the host OS would show that my partition had been completely erased, and that I would have to reformat the drive and restore from Time Machine.
Is it possible that Lion doesn't like being booted from FireWire drives? My OS X installation is still on 10.7.3 (as I have not had a chance to update yet) so maybe the FireWire driver has been fixed since then? Could this be a problem with my SSD? Or could my FireWire drive be malfunctioning? I have used this enclosure with a non-boot hard drive without any problems in the past.
Sorry this question is so broad, but I am at a complete loss.

In the "Current" Volume Scheme, the 8GB partition is on top. The 85GB is below that. Originally, the 20GB partition was between them. There is no grey mass i.e. free space in the middle.
Is there a grey mass anywhere? top? bottom?
In other words, do the two white sections that represent the active partitions fill the entire block, or is there any other space that's vacant?
All volumes on the drive are/were formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I'm not sure but, I think that corresponds to "GUID"...right?
No, Mac OS X Extended (whether journaled or not) is independent of the partition scheme in use.
The bottom of the Disk Utility window should report the partition format.

Can I partition a 1tb hard drive and also run time machine on that hard drive

I have a 1TB external hard drive which s currently running for Time machine only.
I was hoping to be able to partition the EHD so that 500GB would be for the Time Machine side and the other 500GB would be used as an ecternal storage [ a friend of mine has just lent me a 250gb hard drive with a load of tv series which i want to be able to copy].
Can anyone tell me if this is possible and if so how do i do it.
I know that Time Machine is running now but I don't mind starting all over again.

Yes it is possible, but it is generally not a good idea. That being said, if you decide to use the EHD for another purpose, partitioning it is the best solution. How big is your internal HD? It is recommended for a TM partition to be 2X as large as your internal drive, and it must be at least the size of your internal HD in order to be used.
In order to partition:
1) Connect the EHD
2) Open Disk Utility and select the drive
3) Click the "partition" tab and drag the original partition to its desired size.
4) Click "Apply" to create the secondary partition.
Resizing the TM partition will not erase it.

Partitioning a 1TB hard drive - need help!

i would like to partition a 1 terabyte external usb hard drive into the following partitions
1 partition to hold a bootable snow leopard installation (so i can reinstall via usb, install bootcamp, add stuff, etc)
1 partition to hold a tiger installation (for my ageing g5 imac)
1 (largest + what remains of the 1TB) partition formatted in ntfs to put the rest of my multimedia/documents to be read by a pc (running XP or windows 7), ps3 + xbox 360.
would appreciate some help here as i have no clue where to begin.
i am running snow leopard on a macbook. thanks!

The program you're going to need is called Disk Utility - it's under Utilities in the Applications folder in Finder.
There's a Partition tab in the utility, which is where you'll start. You'll see your external disc, which you can carve up into various pieces. It's all pretty self-explanatory from there on.

Starting up from external partitioned firewire drive

Hi all,
I have a lacie external firewire drive. I have it partitioned. One partition has a copy of OSX. If i start up on my main drive and set the "start up disk" preferences to the OSX partition on the external drive my G5 will start up on the OSX partition.
However, if i don't set the "start up disk" preferences to the partitioned firewire drive and i try holding down the "option" key during a cold start the G5 won't recognize the partitioned OSX as an option.
I want to have this external copy of OSX as an emergency start up using the "option" key during a cold start.
For the last two years i've used a non-partitioned external firewire drive with OSX installed as an emergency start up disk and the G5 has always recognized the drive while holding down the "option" key from a cold start.
Now that i have OSX on a partitioned external drive, a cold start holding down the "option" key won't recognize the external OSX.
Any ideas?
Also, if i'm not able to start up from this partitioned firewire drive, are there any special instructions for creating a DVD copy of OSX to use as an emergenct start up disk?
Paul

Allan,
I can boot fine from the external, partitioned firewire drive if i first set my "start up disk" preferences to the external drive.
But i if have my "system startup disk" preferences set to the internal drive (as it is normally), shut the machine down, then try a cold start holding down the "option" key, the G5 won't recognize the external drive (partitioned) as an optional system from which to start up from.
In the past, i've dedicated an entire external firewire drive (NOT partitioned) as my emergency start up disk and when i did a cold start of the G5 holding down the "option" key, the G5 had no problems recognizing the external (not partitioned) drive as an optional system for start up.
I'm wondering if by partitioning the external firewire drive i have some how rendered the external drive useless as an alternate start up device.
Questions, questions ...
Paul

Can't properly open fcp6 project on firewire drive on another computer

I have a long and complex fcp6 project that I have been editing with fcp6 on my piwermac g5 quad running leopard. The media and render files are each split between my boot drive and a second internal drive. I copy both drives onto a partitioned FireWire drive and then plug it into my macpro 3.1. The names on the FireWire partitions are exactly the same as the powermac drive names. The project opens perfectly on the 8 core macpro from the FireWire drive and I am able to render and other things much faster . However, I am about to outgrow the 1TB FireWire drive, so I got a larger one. I duped both partitions onto the similarly partitioned and identically named new bigger firewire drive....but when I go to open the project half the media filess are disconnected and even after I manually reconnect all kinds of error messages come up and the project is totally unworkable. So, why does the first firewiure drive work perfect but not the cloned nee FireWire drive? I even put an extra internal drive in the macpro and cloned the original FireWire to it but it does the same thing as the new FireWire, totally unworkable. I don't understand why things work perfectly with first FireWire but not with any other internal or external drive. Any help would be tremendously appreciated.

The original fiteewire which does open on the mac pro was partitioned apple partition map. The new FireWire drive that doesn't open properly is also apm, but I've erased and partitioned i GUID. I've tried using both disk utilities and superduper for the cloning in the past. I'm doing the cloning onto the guid partitions right now and will let you know if it helps in the morning. At any rate I appreciate your help.

Trouble formatting a 1TB external drive

I am unable to format or partition a 1TB external drive, connected by fire wire 400. My computer is a Power Mac G5 (not intel), 1.6 Ghz, and 1.25 RAM. I am running OS 10.5.6.
When I first plugged in the TB drive, its icon displayed on the desktop. Under Get Info, it was formatted Windows FAT 32. So I opened Disk Utility and attempted to erase and reformat the drive for Apple. I selected the disk drive icon in the left sidebar window of Disk Utility, clicked on Erase, and selected Mac OS Extended (journaled) and clicked to proceed. After a moment I got an error message that the formatter had failed. The help menu stated that this will happen when trying to format a disk larger than 500 GB. The instructions were to partition the disk, and then, presumably, format the partitions. The disk's icon will no longer show on my desktop, even after a restart. However it still showed in the Disk Utility left side window. So I selected it and clicked the Partition button. But all I get is a window that says this disk cannot be erased. All the partition buttons are grayed out. After trying a few times, the Partition button itself is grayed out and causes the spinning beach ball, and I have to force quit disk utility.
Any suggestions on how I can get this 1TB external disk formatted for Apple?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Uhg... is it too late to return it?
Do no Firewire things show up?
The My Books have had far less than glowing reviews for Macs...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2191614&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1543028
http://x704.net/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3219&p=42023&hilit=western+digital#p420 23
http://x704.net/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2939&p=34120&hilit=western+digital#p3412 0

How do I install a bootable copy of Tiger to an external Firewire drive?

I've got a problem with my optical drive and cannot boot from a CD or DVD on my 17" flat panel iMac, running 10.2.8. I have bought Tiger and would like to upgrade my OS but want to be able to run some disc repair utilities on the iMac prior to doing the upgrade but can't run them on my boot disc.
I'd like to be able to install Tiger on my external FW hard drive, install Techtool pro on that same drive and then try to repair the internal drive on my iMac by booting from the external drive. Is that possible? Is it a good idea? Can I install to the external drive from my internal Superdrive without being able to boot from the install DVD? How should I do that?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Michael

Because you must boot from the Tiger DVD in order to install Tiger I'm afraid you are somewhat out of luck. However, with no guarantee either express or implied here's something you can try:
First, download a freeware utility called Carbon Copy Cloner from www.versiontracker.com or www.macupdate.com. Second, connect your Firewire drive and insert the Tiger DVD into the optical drive. Be sure it mounts on the Desktop along with the Firewire drive. Third, open your Disk Utility from the Utilities folder and use it to format or erase the Firewire drive. If you prefer you may wish to partition the Firewire drive to allocate a partition for the Tiger DVD (you will need about 6 GBs.) Fourth, open the CCC utility and click on the Lock icon beside the grayed out Clone button and authenticate. Then click on the Preferences icon. In the section labeled "Target Disk Options" be sure that the box labeled "Make bootable" is checked. No other items should be used. Click on the Save button. Fifth, select the Tiger DVD as the Source Disk, select the partition on the Firewire drive as the Target Disk. Now click on the Clone button.
Go away for a while because the clone process will take time. Once it finally completes you can eject the Tiger DVD. You now should be able to boot the computer from the Firewire drive partition. Open your Startup Disk preference pane, select the Tiger partition on the Firewire drive from the icon list, then click on the Restart button.
If this works your machine will boot into the Tiger installer from the Firewire drive. You can then install it onto your iMac. I would suggest you use the Archive and Install option. You may find the following helpful:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607363&#607363

FireWire drive keeps unmounting when nobody's logged in

I have a Core Solo Mini I am using as a server for various purposes (shared iTunes and web server, with another partition reserved for Time Machine once Leopard comes out) as well as for normal desktop use for my wife and kids. The server partitions are all on an external 400 GB FireWire drive, since the mini's internal drive is so small.
[FWIW, I used to use a Cube in this fashion, but came up against its 120 GB limit for internal drive]
Anyways, even though I have it set to share the FireWire partitions via AFP, and even though I've pointed Apache over to directories on the FireWire drive as the root directories for various virtual hosts, the machine still has a habit of unmounting the FireWire drive if nobody's logged in and I'm not actively using the net-mounted drive on another machine (eg, if I'm not playing iTunes off of it).
When this happens, trying to browse its drives from another machine only shows the internal partitions, not the FireWire drive, and Apache barfs up errors like "document not found for /".
This kind of s*cks. Is there any way I can get OS X to never unmount the FireWire drive?
To answer the obvious question: yes, the mini is set to never sleep.
Thanks in advance.
--Chris
Dual 1.8 GHz G5 Tower, PB G4 1.33, G4 Cube 450 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I had a similar unmounting issue with one of my internal hard disks that I was using for nightly backups. I discovered that when no one was logged in the backup would fail. I have to look up the required fix to keep the disk mounted, someone here gave me the method for changing that default behavior with a simple terminal command. Don't have it handy with me right now, but I think this should be fixable by the same method for your FW drive. I'll post it later, if someone else hasn't before me.

Use Firewire Drive with both OSX and XP

Hi,
I am in the process of migrating to a Mac from Windows XP. I have an external hard drive (WD MyBook Pro 250gb) which I have been using to backup data to from Windows. The device is currently formatted to 120gb using NTFS so that Windows can backup to it. The remaining space is currently unformatted.
I need to keep my Windows data for a period while I become comfortable using the Mac before decomissioning the PC. I had assumed that I could maintain the XP NTFS partition, and simply partition the remaining space as an HFS/HFS+ partition using the Disk Tool in the Utilities folder. However, when I attempt this, I don't get any option to format the remaining space - not even as FAT.
Previous experience with Linux led me to believe that this would be easy to accomplish on Mac OSX, but it appears not to be the case.
I have searched Google and other Apple Support forums. At this point I am unsure if it simply a lack of knowledge on my part, or if this just flat out cannot be done with OSX.
Once I am happy that the migration is successful, then I will trash all partitions on the Firewire drive and simply have one HFS/HFS+ partition, but I'd like to have the extra comfort of keeping my data in the interim.
Many thanks for your effort on providing guidance.
Mark

Why not format the remaining space in Windows as FAT32? That way both your XP and your Mac can read and write to the FAT32 space, XP can read and write the NTFS space, and the Mac can read and copy from the NTFS space. The reason I suggest doing the FAT32 format in Windows is because I have had number of cases where Windows (both XP and Vista) simply would not recognize a Mac formatted FAT32 partition, whereas the Mac has never had a problem recognizing and using Windows formatted FAT32 partitions/drives. Once you are quite done with the Windows XP machine and have transferred all the data off the drive, you can then select the whole drive and do a low level reformat. At that time you'll want to change it from the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme it undoubtedly currently has, to the GUID Partition Table that is preferred for Intel machines and Leopard.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Installing on External Firewire Drive

Hi-
My Mac has started doing some funny things recently; I cant connect any USB devices, MobileMe refuses to let me delete any items from my iCal and other little irritations.
I have an external 4Tb Firewire Drive which has loads of space on it free, so I want to do a complete re-install of OS X and boot from from the external drive. I can then reinstall my apps and stuff bit by bit and see what is causing the problems.
The question is: when I install the system onto the FW drive, will it erase what is already on there? I have some important work on it and don’t want to lose it! Does the installer need a ‘clean’ disc to install?
Thanks, Andy

Disk utility's Restore function (and other copying apps such as CCC) will make a bootable installation of Snow Leopard on an external firewire drive that already contains data. Just remember not to check the erase disk option for the firewire drive.
It's most convenient if you first collect all your user material on the firewire drive into one folder. And there is possibly a risk of something bad happening if some files in your user material have names identical to the names of files in the Snow Leopard installation. That may be unlikely. But you'll have to judge that.
If that worries you, before you do the Snow Leopard installation on your firewire drive, you can use disk utility to repartition your external drive without erasing any of its data. See this: http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1395749. With such a large firewire drive, a number of partitions would seem desirable.
Then you can install a bootable Snow Leopard on an empty partition of the firewire drive for which you do check the erase disk option. With that option checked, the copy is performed as a block by block copy. Otherwise it's performed as a file by file copy. The block by block copy goes faster and is supposed to be identical in all respects to the original. That's not so with the file by file copy -- though both provide equal functionality.
Your firewire drive should be partitioned GUID. You can use APM (and the copy will still be bootable) but you will not be able (I've read) to install Snow Leopard updates. You can't, alas, change the partitioning scheme without erasing your firewire drive.
Message was edited by: Roy Vincent
Message was edited by: Roy Vincent

Add firewire drive to network

Hi,
I've got two emacs connected together via an ethernet router. File sharing is on. I both emacs can see each others sharing folder on the desktop and iTunes music sharing also shows up in both emacs.
I've just added a la cie firewire drive and I am trying to get one of the partitions which is on my desktop to be available to the other emac. But I can't work out how to do this. I've changed the permissions to owner/system and everyone has read/write but that didn't help.
Any help appreciated

Hi,
Okay, the best way to do this is to first go to the Finder. Then, Connect to Server from the Go menu. When the Connect to Server window appears, click browse and double-click on the other eMac's name. Now, you can log into the other eMac just as you would if you were physically on it. After you type in your name and password, click connect and select the volumes you wish to mount. (In your case, you would choose a partition of the firewire drive) You should now be able to access everything on your firewire drive through your local network.
-Jason

Booting from external Firewire drive--possible?

If I add a USB/Firewire card to my Beige G3 minitower (300MHz), can I then boot from an external Firewire hard drive on which I have installed Panther? A comment by Tina Garfield in another thread seems to suggest this is indeed possible. (I didn't want to "threadjack" that discussion, so I created this new one. I hope Tina sees it and can help me.)
Tina wrote the following:
Having Firewire allows you to have external drives,
which you will be able to boot from, and make
backups and maintenance especially easy.
I was under the impression that the Beige G3 can't see iadd-on Firewire/USB cards until the machine has booted from the internal hard drive. I really hope I am wrong! If it is indeed possible to have the machine recognize the external drive at startup, and there is something I need to do to enable this, please let me know.
Thanks!
GeeKay

Hi GeeKay,
Ditto to everything Grant posted, with an extra reminder to be sure to download XPostFacto 3.1 and not version 4. I believe on the XPF page ( http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Framework.cfm?page=XPostFacto3.ht ml ), the download for 3.1 is a little bit down the page.
If/when you buy an external FW drive be sure it has an Oxford chipset. If the description does not include mention of the the Oxford chipset, I would strongly recommend finding another external drive that does specify this. Our Beiges are very particular about what they will accept for external booting, and the Oxford chipset is a critical component.
Also, I've found, since I do partition my external firewire drives, that I can boot only from the first partition of the external drive, similar to the behavior of our internal drives. In addition, with one of my Beiges, my "helper" disk that I specify to XPostFacto to allow me to boot externally must be the first partition of my internal drive.
I don't believe that you can actually INSTALL to an external drive. I simply cloned my internal drive's system over to the FW drive. This can be done with software such as the free Silverkeeper ( http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/ ) or with shareware SuperDuper ( http://www.shirt-pocket.com/ ) which are both great for all backups. I happen to prefer SuperDuper because of its redundancy -- it explains EVERY step before you take it and then, even after you tell it to go ahead, it asks you again to be sure That's what you want to do.
Once set up, however, it is extremely cool, and helpful, to be able to boot externally. If your external drive is dual USB/FW, you will only be able to boot when connected via Firewire. None of the Beiges are USB-bootable.
Hope this helps, and keep us posted,
Tina

Partition on 1TB firewire drive

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