Partitioning a Hard Drive

I will be upgrading to OS X.4 and will also replace the hard drive in my powerbook. Therefore I understand that I will be partitioning my new hard drive upon installation of the new OS. That is where my question arises.
I do not know much as to why we partition hard drives. Can you please explain it to me in a nut shell or refer me to an article that will?
I will be upgrading my internal hard drive for video editing and music recording purposes. Not sure if that helps in regards to how I should partition it.
Thanks for your help.
Powerbook G4 1GHZ 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)
Powerbook G4 1GHZ 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I do not know much as to why we partition hard drives. Can you please
explain it to me in a nut shell or refer me to an article that will?
When partitioning your harddrive, you "prepare" it for storing data. Spoken generally, it will create the necessary data structure on the harddrive that holds the directory index (where to find particular data on the drive).
Usually one single partition that spans over your entire harddisk is all you need. This is the shipping default on most (all) Apple computers and works.
In the past (so say mid 1990s), it was good practice to divide the harddisk into at least two partitions - one for the operating system and one for the applications and data (sometimes data got an own partition).
Today file systems have become much more efficient in data management, so all this can be considered as history.
You may check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing) for more information. Although I don't like Wikipedia (much wrong information out there), this article seems (at first glance) being more or less accurate.
I will be upgrading my internal hard drive for video editing and music
recording purposes. Not sure if that helps in regards to how I should
partition it.
Maybe it is a good idea to use two partitions, one for the operating system, apps and general data and the second partitions for your raw video and music files. This could increase performance of data transfers.
However maybe you should invest some money in an external harddrive used to store your raw video and audio files, especially since 2.5" harddisks may not reach the capacity of external 3.5" ones.

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Can a use a partitioned external hard drive to create a disk image? I tried, doesn't seem to work using disk manager.

Can a use a partitioned external hard drive to create a disk image? I tried, doesn't seem to work using disk manager.

OK, it's very bad computing to use a backup disk for anything but a backup. The reason being is if/when the HD crashes you will have lost not only all your backup but the data files. While I commend you for wanting redundant backup, you really need separate EHDs for doing so. Format each EHD using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using the GUID parttition. When you connect, OS X will ask if you want to use that drive as a Time Machine backup drive, select yes and then let it backup. On the second EHD format the same way however do not use TM as a backup, this time I'd suggest an app such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of the internal HD. Leave both EHDs connected and TM will backup new or changed files automatically on a hourly basis. The clone you will need to set to backup on the schedule you want. For example I have my SuperDuper EHD set to backup only changed or updated files at 2AM every day.
The advantage of a clone is that if the computers internal HD crashes you can boot from a clone and continue working, TM will not do that but it's great for keeping an archive of all files. So if you want a version of a file from many months ago, TM will help you locate and restore it.

Can I partition my hard drive to hold Windows 8 (Beta), instead of Windows 7, and can I do this with an external CD drive?

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion installed, but my CD drive inside my computer is damaged*, and it's far cheaper to buy an external CD drive than to repair it entirely. Before I do either, I would like some grasp of whether or not it's worth my time and money, as I've yet to order the external drive or make a genius bar appointment.
Also, the reason I'm choosing Windows 8 (Beta) is because it's free.
*I dropped my computer once two years ago. I haven't even used my CD drive until recently when trying to install Windows 8. I assume the drop was the issue. I've used compressed air to remove dirt/dust as well as resetting the PRAM multiple times and nothing seems to work, but I'm not worried about it.
Thank you.

Can I partition my hard drive to hold Windows 8 (Beta), instead of Windows 7, and can I do this with an external CD drive?
No and No.
1: Apple only supports Windows 7 at this time in BootCamp (direct install into a bootable partition) because Win 8 is in Beta and no Mac hardware drivers are available yet from Apple for Windows 8.
2: You can't install Windows from a external cd drive into BootCamp, it has to be a internal one far as I know, perhaps a USB will work I don't know.
Yes:
1: You can download and install Windows 8 Beta into a the free virtual machine software called VirtualBox, which Windows 8 will run in a window in OS X. This is better as it's still in Beta and Windows Beta releases will expire. Plus Windows 8 is a pain in the behind and you will want to be able to have VirtualBox or OS X be able to regain control over the computer.
http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/03/try-windows-8-consumer-preview-virtualbox/
Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?

HT4818 When I try to partition my hard drive for Windows 7, I get an error saying The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. I have a 2006 Macbook Pro I believe and I really need assistance as soon as possible.

I have Windows 7 Premium Home and I have downloaded the Drivers and when I click Boot Camp Assistance to partition my hard drive, it says, "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again." I can't do any backup really because I don't have an external hard drive to work with. I tried repairing disk permissions but that did not do anything. I really need a lot of help with this with some easy, step-by-step tutorials or something. I believe I have a 2006 version of Macbook Pro(4,1).

Once you have obtained an external drive and connected it you will 'clone' your internal drive to it.
Download Carbon Copy Cloner (it is not free but there is a fully functional trial version which is). Use it to clone your internal drive to your external drive. When that is done you will reboot from the clone and use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive (choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) as the format (this is normally preset, but check). Make sure to give the external drive a 'distinctive' name, don't want to get drives mixed up in this process.
Once that is done you will use Carbon Copy Cloner (from the clone) to restore the external to the internal.

Do I need to partition my hard drive to use Airport to back up my files on my iMac intel?

Airport Utility was pre-installed on my iMac (Intel) and I don't know how to use Time Machine with Airport. I want to backup my hard drive and thought that Time Machine would do this. I receive a message to select a Backup Disc. Do I have to partition my hard drive to have the backup on my iMac? Alternately I could purchase an external hard drive with USB 3.0. Would Time Machine detect the USB external drive so that I could select that as the Backup Disc? Are there any cons for Apple wireless hard drives?

The idea with Time machine is to use it to back up to an external drive. Once connected you would tell Time Machine to use that drive.
However before you do that, connect the external drive and open Disk Utility
1. Click on the external drive
2. Click on the Erase tab and select Mac OS extended, Journaled.
3. Click Apply
When finished it will be formatted correctly and then open Time machine and tell it to use it as the Time machine backup disk.
a handcrafted note by roam

Do I need to partition my hard drive on Mac as I used to on my old PC?

Kindly provide me with your advise. On my old Windows OS pc it was a good practice to partition my hard drive to (e.g. C: and D:) where C: was for system and D: for data (pictures, music, documents etc.). If anything went wrong with the system (virus, any other issue) I simply reinstalled C: from my last restore point done by my back up software (from an external HD) and all was fine. Data on D: were not harmed at all.
DO I NEED TO CARRY THIS PRACTICE OVER TO MAC OR CAN I SIMPLY JUST HAVE ONE DRIVE(NOT SPLIT TO TWO OR MORE)?
PS: I know there are almost no viruses or malware for Mac so no need to point that out. Thank you

Thank you for both of your answers. At the same time I am back to square one
David, yes I do know back up. I have Time Machine running and backing up to my external HD as I type. I am also considering starting to use CCC to create an alternative to TM (as there seems to be a bit of confusion as to how it works, what it keeps and what it eventually dumps. It appears to work in a way where if you want to make sure your data is REALLY backed up you have to have the file on your primary HD at least 8 days so they make it to the weekly back up which stays until your back up drive fills up).
Anyone, any thoughts on the partition on Macs? Go for it or do not worry and keep just one?

How do I partition my hard drive on the MacBook for 2 operating systems?

I am looking to partition the hard drive on my MacBook, so that I can use Leopard on half, and Windows on the other half. However,I don't know how to do this?
I personally would like it to be all Mac, but as my work applications and operating system is windows, I need to be able to do my work in windows...Help!
Also, I am looking to buy a new internal hard drive for my MacBook, somewhere between 250 GB and 500 GB. I wonder where I could get a good quality, and affordable MacBook hard drive from? It must be an internal hard drive, and must be a good quality product that doesn't hurt my machine.
All help and thoughts are appreciated!
Regards

[HERE'S|http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ne=5000&Ntt=2.5harddrive&Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Price%7c0&N=6892] a site that I like for finding HD's and memory.
As far as windows goes, you need to decide how you're going to run it on your machine. Duo-boot like BootCamp or virtualization like Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. Once determined, they each have their methods for allocation of disk drive space for windows. BootCamp works you through partitioning your drive while Parallels and VMWare sets up a virtual drive in the size you determine.
From experience, you will need less space for windows than you think. I made a 30GB virtual drive for xp and ended up cutting it back to about 8GB.
-GDF

How do I partition my hard drive for boot camp?

Model Name:          MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:          MacBookPro1,2
Processor Name:          Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed:          2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          2 MB
Memory:          2 GB
Bus Speed:          667 MHz
Boot ROM Version:          MBP12.0061.B03
SMC Version (system):          1.5f10
Serial Number (system):
Hardware UUID:          00000000-0000-1000-8000-0016CB982183
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State:          Enabled
Okay so this is my machine. I want to run Boot Camp and to install Windows XP onto the machine as I need to use certain windows programmes for my business as well as the Mac stuff.
I have no idea how to partition some of my free 26gb space to create a drive to install windows onto?
Can any help please?

dpx wrote:
If you do really want to partition your hard drive then you need to look in your utilities folder for disk utility.
Once this is open, click on your hard drive image in the left hand column and then you will see a partition tab. Here you can split your HD into two partitions. Call one of them XP or something like that so that you know where to install windows.
It's quite safe and you can always go back to one big partition if things do not work out.
Remember though to backup first...
To the OP
Do not heed this advice, you should use Boot Camp Assistant to create the partition for Boot Camp, do not use Disk Utility.

How to Backup & Partition Internal Hard Drive

I have a macbook pro 2.4ghz. I need to partition my hard drive to have a separate volume for photoshop scratch disk. How do I actually back up the drive prior to the reformatting? Do I create a bootable clone to restore the main volume.
Specific steps would be very helpful. Thanks

So, using Carbon Copy Cloner I first do a full copy of my internal drive (the one I will partition). This will copy any data files as well, correct? I then format the internal drive, creating the partition I need (making sure one is adequate to hold my back up/full copy). How do I then restore the full copy from the external drive to the internal partition? Does this include the OS or do I need to reinstall that and run for all of the updates, etc?
The basic thing to keep in mind is if you want to clone a complete, bootable copy of your drive, the +target partition+ (regardless of how big whole drive is) has to be at least as large as the items on the partition you are copying. With this mode of copying it is all or none but you need to use it to get the bootable option.
Cloning will copy your data files, OSX, OS9, updates, etc., everything. It makes a _complete, bootable duplicate_ of your internal drive when used in full copy mode. So you need to start off with the external firewire empty, or not care about anything on it because it will all get erased.
First, repair permissions on your internal and make sure it is in a healthy condition. Then use CCC as I instructed in an earlier post and clone your internal to the external. Run Disk Utility and verify the external drive just to make sure there weren't any problems while cloning. Then go into your System Preferences, Startup Drive, select OSX that should now appear on your external, and restart. This does double duty of making sure that your clone really is bootable, and you are now working off your external drive so you can work on your internal drive from the external drive (no need for startup disks). Things should look pretty much identical to how they looked when you were working off your internal except your external drive will probably be positioned in the upper right hand corner instead of your internal.
Oh, if you have like 90 GB of files this can take quite a while.
Once you have established the external drive is working you can start up Disk Utility and partition your internal drive. Unless you need me to I will have breakfast now instead of doing a blow-by-blow account of that. Just keep in mind that if a "get info" of your external drive says you have xx.xx GB of stuff then you need to make sure one of your internal partitions is at least that size. Oh, it is probably a good idea to make the first partition on your internal drive the one to which you will re-clone (if that is a word) your original drive contents; the one with the operating system.
Once you have partitioned, you run CarbonCopyCloner and again use full copy mode to copy the things on your external onto one of the internal partitions. Run verify on the internal partition just to make sure all looks good. Use Startup disk to choose the internal's copy of OSX as startup and reboot.
At this stage you have one bootable internal partition with everything that used to be on that drive, and an external drive that is bootable. I find the latter very handy because Disk Utility requires you be booted from a different drive that that which you are repairing and using startup disks is slow.
You also now have a backup of your internal drive. If you want to, in future you can use CCC in non-full mode to backup your main internal partition. It will just copy off modified files, but you can read the details in the CCC Readme.
Brian

Hi. My iMac hard drive is running Mavericks. I have an old version of Quark Xpress (3.32) which won't run in Mavericks. Can I partition my hard drive and run an older system on one partition, so I can access my Quark? Is that possible?

Hi. My iMac hard drive is running Mavericks. I have an old version of Quark Xpress (3.32) which won't run in Mavericks. Can I partition my hard drive and run an older system on one partition, so I can access my Quark? Is that possible?

Hi ancelau,
QuarkXPress 3 is a Classic Mac OS application, so you need a version of OS X that still supports Classic. I believe 10.4 was the last one.
So if you have an iMac that boots with 10.4, then yes that is possible. I doubt though that newer Macs boot with OS X 10.4.
So why don't you upgrade QuarkXPress 3 to a newer version? I am not just asking that because I want you to spend money with us.
Typically using software that was released almost 20 years ago is just feasible when you keep an environment that was current at the time of release or a few years after, so an older Mac with a operating system present at that time. 20 years in IT is a lot.
So my opinion is that on a new Mac with a brand new operating system you need to use something a bit more current.
How about QuarkXPress 9 (released 3 years ago) or QuarkXPress 10? You are better off with v9, as QuarkXPress 10 only opens v7 and higher (whereas QuarkXPress 9 opens v3.1 and higher).
Or - I am even happy to make an exception - upgrade to 9 and we give you 10 for free? Let me know please.
Thanks
Matthias

I have a 15" MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion installed. I have partitioned the hard drive into two partitions. Is it possible to install Snow Leopard on the second partition? If so how do I do it?

I have a 15" MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion installed. I have partitioned the hard drive into two partitions. Is it possible to install Snow Leopard on the second partition? If so how do I do it?

If your MacBook Pro had Snow Leopard on it at one time then sure. (Early 2011 or earlier)
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
Obviously choose the second partition to install into. It has to be OS X Extended journaled formatted in Disk Utility (BootCamp software makes it a MSDOS/FAT32 formatted partition if you used that to partition with)
If it's a Early 2011 or Late 2011 that came with 10.7, it's possible, but it's not easy.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3264421?start=0&tstart=0
If you can't install Snow Leopard, there is a thread over at MacRumors how to run Snow Leopard in a virtual machine program under 10.7 or 10.8

Hi, I have macbook Pro, running Leopard OS X. I partitioned my hard drive a while ago to install windows and only allowed myself 10 Gig of data. Anyway, i deleted windows and want another OSX on there instead. How do i make this partition bigger please??

Hi, I have macbook Pro, running Leopard OS X. I partitioned my hard drive a while ago to install windows and only allowed myself 10 Gig of data. I deleted windows after i realised i wasnt enjoying using it at all and wasted my hard drive. I now decided that i want another OSX on there instead yet i have only allowed myself 10 gb on the partition. I have ben thru some programms but am struggling on making this partition bigger.
I only want it at 20gb but cant seem to make the partition bigger, only smaller or split it into further partition.
Is there a way to do this, i have all installation discs from original OSX so think this could help.
Any help please would be fantastic.
Thanks Chris

Hi, dragging the partition will only make smaller, not larger. In disk utility you can only split or make smaller the partitions. Yes i booted from installation disks also but still no help.
And Brody, I am willing to erase the disc completely, infact jus started doing a backup in order to do so but that failed also. And the information you gave on partition a hard drive, Although very simple and i already know how to do this, but it wont let me make the partition bigger, and i dont want to make a new partition, just enlarge the one i already have, which i dont see possible from disk utility.
Getting really frustrated now, even backing up is saying no to me. **** external being a douche.
I dont mind erasing the hard drive but surely this must be doable without deleting the secondary partition back t a single volume, and re partitioning into 2 volumes again.
Thanks again

How to partition the hard drive in Mac OS 9?

I have a 366 MHz iBook Clamshell, and to install Yellow Dog Linux without wiping OS 9, I must partition the hard drive. It does not have any CD tray, and the hard drive is 10 GB.

If you are trying to partition the disk you are booting from, then no, it cannot alter it's partition map while booted. You will have to use some alternative boot device (ordinarily this would be a bootable CD, but you'll need to find some workaround like an external device).
Also, the utilities in OS 9 will only repartition that drive by erasing the whole thing. You will need to boot into a Linux OS with one of the Linux partition tools if you want to non-destructively alter that discs partition table (use something like GParted on a bootable UBuntu disc or something like that).

Can I partition a hard drive and keep files on separate partition?

That is, can I partition a hard drive and have the system software on one drive, and everything else on the other? That is, have the system software on one drive, and on the other have pictures, music, documents, and all other files other than the system software? Thanks. David

Hi GK1951, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Great question, as a matter of fact it does... or would, but the Devil is in the Details as they say.
IME, OSX works best with 100+GB free disk space, so if that partition scheme cuts that down then you'll lose speed, but ony a few would notice the diff until you get down to 30 GB free space.
I can't say much, but my VM at the moment is 143.55 GB, I've been told that isn't a real number, but hey, it means something!
But there are so many factors affecting this that really, the only rule that seems to hold is Give OSX as much HD Free Space as you can & it'll be happy.
I imagine on the MacPro you could say use the outer Partition of several Disks... one for the OS, one for VM, one for APPs, etc. and gain the most!
Maybe these will help...
iMac/24"/2.4 GHz/4GB RAM/320 GB SATA drive, You can see that Cached values account for more than the Zone on the HD really.
Little 4K Random R&Ws suffer greatly no matter what...

Partition of hard drive to run 10.7 on one and 10.10 on the other

Anyone know if I can partition my hard drive on my MacBook to run OS 10.7 on one and
OS 10.10 on the other?
The reason is that I have business programs that will not run on the latest version
without an expensive upgrade.
And one program is not written yet for the upgraded OS.

If that's true, then do not disturb the 10.7 partition. Instead you want to divide it to create space for another partition. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder. You will see two entries in the sidebar list - an outdented one and an indented one. The latter is your Lion volume. But you need to select the outdented entry then click on the Partition tab in Disk Utility's main window. You should now see a partition map. Part of the map is blue (this is the used part) and part is white (this is the free space.) At the bottom you will see two buttons. Click the Add [+] button. Disk Utility will divide your disk space in half if it can. You must then select the lower rectangle and re-size it to what you want to allocate to Yosemite. I suggest it be no smaller than 50 GBs. Leave the upper portion for your Lion installation. However, be sure you are not over-writing an of the blue part in the partition map or you will lose data. Last click on the Apply button and wait. It may take a while for the process to complete so be patient.
When it's done you can now install Yosemite on the new partition. If you have the Yosemite installer then when you run it be sure to change the target drive to the Yosemite partition on your drive so it doesn't overwrite the Lion partition.

[SOLVED] I can't get GParted to partition my hard drive

I want to install Arch Linux. However, I am unable to partition my hard drive so Arch can have it's own partition.
I currently have Xubuntu installed on my laptop but I'm using the Gnome Classic Desktop. In GParted, I am unable to resize my 200GB+ ext3 partition, /dev/sda1.
e2label: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open /dev/sda1 Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
dumpe2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
dumpe2fs: filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open /dev/sda1
What can I do to resolve this issue? I really want to use Arch Linux because I'm sick of Ubuntu. However, I want to dual boot Ubuntu in case I screw something up in Arch so I can have something to fall back on.
I have searched Google a little bit but all I can seem to find is information about RAID drives. I am fairly sure I never setup anything as raid on this laptop.
Last edited by kenny09 (2011-10-01 21:06:47)

You can only resize unmounted partitions, so you will need to start from a livecd (the archlinux install-cd can be used for that). You may then use parted from the cli to resize the filesystem plus partition.
If that fails, you might want to perform these two separate actions yourself manually. Have a look at resize2fs to resize the partition. Then use fdisk/cfdisk/parted to recreate the partition (just delete it, then recreate it using the same starting point and you should be fine)

Partitioning a Hard Drive

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