Partitioning RAID Master

Oops. Accidentally posted this in the wrong category. Now, I hope it is in the right one...
When I was on OS X 10.3.x server, I was able to mirror my 2 250g HDs and partition the RAID master. It seems I am unable to do that with 10.4.3.
I can partition each drives with the exact same partition table. Then, I try to mirror the partition. I can do that with 1 partition. When I try the second partition, it fails.
They are partitioned thusly:
/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: Applepartitionscheme *233.8 GB disk0
1: Applepartitionmap 31.5 KB disk0s1
2: Apple_Boot 128.0 MB disk0s2
3: Apple_HFS Classified 29.9 GB disk0s3
4: Apple_HFS Composing 119.9 GB disk0s5
5: Apple_HFS News 59.9 GB disk0s7
6: Apple_HFS Systems 23.6 GB disk0s9
/dev/disk2
#: type name size identifier
0: Applepartitionscheme *233.8 GB disk2
1: Applepartitionmap 31.5 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_Boot 128.0 MB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS Classified 29.9 GB disk2s3
4: Apple_HFS Composing 119.9 GB disk2s5
5: Apple_HFS News 59.9 GB disk2s7
6: Apple_HFS Systems 23.6 GB disk2s9
So, I issue the command:
diskutil createraid mirror Classified "Journaled HFS+" disk0s3 disk2s3
No errors on this. A diskutil checkraid says that all is online.
So, I issue the command to RAID the next partition:
diskutil createraid mirror Composing "Journaled HFS+" disk0s5 disk2s5
And I get this:
Marking partition 'disk0s5' for RAID
Marking partition 'disk2s5' for RAID
Preparing partition 'disk0s5' for RAID
2005-12-12 10:12:47.459 DiskManagementTool[2707] Made bootable had an error on disk disk0s5 Composing {
Error = 16;
MapChanged = 0;
NewName = "AppleRAID_OfflineV2_Untitled2";
NewSlice = 5;
Adding disk 'disk0s5' to new RAID set
2005-12-12 10:13:19.613 DiskManagementTool[2707] Could not find disk with partition map name, we will not make it bootable disk2s5 Composing BuildRAID1
Preparing partition 'disk2s5' for RAID
2005-12-12 10:13:36.787 DiskManagementTool[2707] Made bootable had an error on disk disk2s5 Composing {
Error = 16;
MapChanged = 0;
NewName = "AppleRAID_OfflineV2_Untitled3";
NewSlice = 5;
Adding disk 'disk2s5' to new RAID set
Creating RAID Set
Bringing RAID partitions online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Waiting for new RAID to come online
Error -9983 encountered updating or creating raid on disk
and a diskutil checkraid only shows the previous RAID.
If I use the gui DiskUtil, I can add the 4 RAID sets, but after it creates the first one, the Create button is no longer active.
I would really like to have 4 volumes (Since users in News tend to let things fill up, I don't want them bumping into Composing...
Thanks in Advance,
Chris

This isn't a solution to your partitioning problem...
But perhaps you should consider using Disk Quotas.
It's a lot more flexible than having partitions, you can make adjustments as needed where you can't do that with pre-set partition sizes.
Jeff

Similar Messages

Disk Utility : Partition / Raid or Raid / Partition ?

I have two external USB drives that I'm attempting to set up using Disk Utility.
I'd like to create either
- one RAID1 set with two partitions, or
- two RAID1 sets with one partition
however I'm not having much luck with either option. Is either scenario possible?

After some experimentation, I seem to have come up with a kludge ...
Partition both disks into identical volumes (A1 = B1, A2 = B2)
Using Disk Utility :
- create RAID Set 1 ( A1 + B1 = RAID1)
- create RAID Set 1 ( A2 + B2 = RAID2)
Error message 'Creating RAID set failed'
Restart ...
Using Disk Utility :
- click on partition A2 (now renamed RAID Slice)
- Erase partition
Upon erasing the partition / RAID slice will remount and the Disk Utility should show two RAID sets. A cursory examination of each RAID set's behavior leads me to believe it is simply a bug in Disk Utility that prevents the creation of two RAID sets on the same disk pair.

2 channel "multi-partitioned" RAID 5...Is it possible?

Hi folks,
I own an XserveRAID. I'm definitely not a network administrator. I use this XserveRAID for storage only for a video editing system. It is loaded up with 8x500 Gig drives (4 on each side). I currently have the whole things set up as a 1 (2.7 TB) partition RAID 5 configuration (I want the protection in case one of my drives should fail on me during a project.)
Now, here's my problem.... As I have begun filling up my XserveRAID with media, my editing system is upset that it is having too many files to keep track of on a single large partition. I've recently discovered that it is recommended, by my editing software, that I use a multi-partitioned RAID with each partition being no greater than 300 gigs.
So, my question is this.... (a) Is there any way that I can maintain the fast 2 channel fiber data rates, (b) in a multi-partitioned RAID and, (c) still have the same sort of RAID 5 protection I feel is necessary for putting so many valuable eggs in one giant basket such as this?
If so, how? How would I configure it? In what order?
Thank you very very much for your time and help,
Sincerely,
Rob

300GB isn't large by many video editing standards, so I'm surprised your software suite is having issues at that level.
That said, it's entirely possible to do, but you're going to need to backup your data and reformat your arrays in order to do it.
From your description it sounds like you're using 3 active disks and one hot spare disk on each side and then you're using software RAID 0 to combine the two halves into a single volume.
It's entirely possible to divide the array on each side of the XServe RAID into multiple 'slices' (up to 6 per side).
This means you'd take your three-disk array (approx 1.4TB) and slice it into 6 parts of about 230GB each. You'd repeat that for the other side of the array, so now you have 12 slices (which will appear as 12 separate volumes on your desktop).
You can then use software RAID 0 (if required) to combine multiple slices (one from each half of the XServe RAID) into RAID 50 volumes of about 450GB each. When done you'll end up with 6 volumes, each using two slices of RAID, one from each side of the XServe RAID.
Now, of course you'll have to deal with configuring the application to use 6 volumes of 400GB each rather than 1 volume of 2.7TB but if they're limiting you to 300GB volumes I'm assuming they have some mechanism for managing that.

K8N Neo 2F - Rebuilding WinXP with Raid and partitions

Hey;
I am having to rebuild this machine. I have 2X250GB (X 4 partitions) raided already, but need to reload windows. When I use the floppy disk F6 function for the SATA raid drivers, will I loose info on other partitions?
Also, there are two versions of the floppy disk raid driver files for this board. One old (the one I have installed now, I think), and one newer. Do I need to use the original drivers, or can I also upgrade the drivers at the same time as well. (And NOT loose info on other partitions?)
Thanks for your expert opinions

Quote from: losmeme on 08-February-08, 02:56:21
Hey;
I am having to rebuild this machine. I have 2X250GB (X 4 partitions) raided already, but need to reload windows. When I use the floppy disk F6 function for the SATA raid drivers, will I loose info on other partitions?
Nop, you will not loose them. Do install(or re-format 1st) in your primary boot partition from XP installation, your others partitions will be intact.

Partitions on external hard drive. Need advice, PLEASE!

Can someone explain to me about partitions on EHD's. I have just installed Leopard, and at present I have 3 partitions on my LaCie 250Gb Firewire external drive. I need to create enough space to allow TimeMachine to do a backup (about 120Gb).
I know that I have to use Disk Utility to do this, but can someone tell me if there is a minimum number of partitions to have on a volume like this? What would be your recommendation?
Also, could someone tell me if it is possible to run Tiger on an external drive? Or would that have to be run from the Mac HD? I have some software and games etc that will only run on Tiger. A step by step guide would be much appreciated.

Hi! You can have many partitions on an external drive. One for Leopard, Tiger, Panther, OS9 (if capable) data, pictures, music....you get the picture. I'm not sure what you are using the partitions for now but remember usually reformatting into another partition scheme erases everything. As an example you can have a partition for Time Machine, another for the Tiger OS, and one for a Leopard bootable clone for use in an emergency. I'd recommend that if you plan on changing your current scheme that you do so with disk utility in Leopard. Create your partitions in the disk utility and then clone to the partitions. When you choose two or three partitions then you can grab and drag the bars to change each one's size. Again remember that if you already have a Tiger partition that reformatting will erase the data.
In Leopard open the disk utility and on the left side you'll see a disk drive such as 279.5 GB Maxtor and then listed under that and indented to the right will be the volumes or partitions with the names you have assigned to them. To partition click on the drive itself (not the volumes under it) and then on the right side of the pane will be listed first aid,erase, partition, raid, and restore. Then click on partition and the pane will show the current partition scheme such as only 1 volume (partition) or as many as you currently have. In Leopard you can resize the partitions but that gets a little complicated. If you click on current the tab pops up listing up to 16 partitions that can be created. When you select the number you want and then click apply the new scheme will be formatted erasing the current data on the entire drive. You can assign the names you want to the volumes such as Time Machine, Emergency Drive or whatever you want. Just remember you're erasing the drive so be sure that's what you want to do. Resizing partitions depends on how full they are, what size you want to change them to and takes some practice to master. I typically have soemthing like the following:
300 gig Main Drive with Leopard
300 gig drive with bootable clone of Leopard as a backup
400 gig drive with 2 partitions (1 for time machine and 1 for an emergency
Leopard clone with no added apps and only
utilities such as TechToolPro.
120 gig drive with three partitions
1. a previous system (Panther in my case)
2. a 9.2.2 System
3. a data partition for a quick data backup of something important
Your scheme can vary but give it some thought before you embark on something you're not going to want to change tomorrow. Tom

Problem while dropping partitions

Hi All,
I'm using oracle 11g. I have 2 tables A and B. A is the master table and B is the child table. Both the tables are partitioned based on month. Now when i have to drop partition for previous month, i first drop partition from table B then from table A. With table B the partition is getting dropped successfully. But when i try to drop partition for A it gives an error as it is a master table. Table A does not have any data in the partitioned to be dropped that is being referenced by table B. How do i drop the partition for master table.
Thanks in Advance

Hi,
There may be Chance of Have some rows .. just find out the rows existing in the partition of master table with existence of records in Child table that makes it clear clarificaiton...
- Pavan Kumar N

How to lock a partition on an external hard drive?

I have an external hard drive, formatted GUID, Mac OS X Extended (journaled); Can I lock the drive to require a password to open it?
If I Get Info, I seem to have the ability to give Staff and Everyone Read & write, Read only or Drop Box access.
I don't see a way to rquire a password.

I know this issue is 14 months old, but perhaps someone else will read it in the future. I ran into this problem of needing to resize an external drive and discovered that Mac's Disk Utility program, built into the Mac OS, allows you to do this without losing data or needing to buy additional software.
Here's how:
1. Open Disk Utility and select the root diretory of the external disk you want to resize. (If the disk is partitioned, it will have a subdirectory for each partition.)
2. At the top of the dialog box, select Partition.
> You should see five buttons across the top of the dialog box: First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID, and Restor
> If you select a subdirectory, rather than the root directory, the Partition option is not displayed, because you can't partition a subdirectory.
3. On the screen you should see the disk split into the different partitions. Select the partition you wish to resize.
4. That partition will be highlighed and the lower right part of the box should have a little triangle-like series of lines. Click and hold this triangle, then drag it down to make the partition larger, or drag it up to make the partition smaller.
5. When you get to the size you want, hit apply.
6. Disk Utility should do its thing and your disk will be resized.
Viola. You are finished.
Take a look at http://macs.about.com/od/applications/ss/diskutilitysize_3.htm for pictures of this process.

How to enlarge a partition on an external hard drive

I backup with Time Machine to an external hard drive. It is currently configured into two partitions, one being used to backup and the second used for other purposes. I have maxed out the backup partition and wish to expand its size by eliminating the second partition. Disk Utility allows the elimination of the second partition, but when I attempt to enlarge the backup partition to include the now unused space on the disk I get the following message:
Partition Failed
Partition failed with the error:
Filesystem resize support required, such as HFS+
with journaling enabled.
What does this message mean and how can I accomplish my goal?
Thanks.

I know this issue is 14 months old, but perhaps someone else will read it in the future. I ran into this problem of needing to resize an external drive and discovered that Mac's Disk Utility program, built into the Mac OS, allows you to do this without losing data or needing to buy additional software.
Here's how:
1. Open Disk Utility and select the root diretory of the external disk you want to resize. (If the disk is partitioned, it will have a subdirectory for each partition.)
2. At the top of the dialog box, select Partition.
> You should see five buttons across the top of the dialog box: First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID, and Restor
> If you select a subdirectory, rather than the root directory, the Partition option is not displayed, because you can't partition a subdirectory.
3. On the screen you should see the disk split into the different partitions. Select the partition you wish to resize.
4. That partition will be highlighed and the lower right part of the box should have a little triangle-like series of lines. Click and hold this triangle, then drag it down to make the partition larger, or drag it up to make the partition smaller.
5. When you get to the size you want, hit apply.
6. Disk Utility should do its thing and your disk will be resized.
Viola. You are finished.
Take a look at http://macs.about.com/od/applications/ss/diskutilitysize_3.htm for pictures of this process.

FastTrak 376 RAID on KT4 Failure?

My System Specs.
MSI KT4 Ultra A6590VZ2 V1.3B1 121702
AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2200+
AMI BIOS 12/17/2002
PC2100 DDR Ram 3(512meg)
Radeon 9700 Video
Audigy 1 Sound
Sony DRU500a DVD-r-rw+r+rw (Primary Slave) IDE1
Maxtor 20 gig ATA/100 (Secondary Slave) IDE2
Maxtor 120 gig ATA/133 (Raid Master) IDE3
System fully operational for 6 months. Yesterday Morning BSOD from Windows XP Kernel_Inpage_Error. Power down machine, and power back up. Boot Failure. Seems as if the FastTrak RAID controller isn't reconizing my Maxtor 120gig ATA/133 Hard Disk. Reboot a few more times, same problem.
Download PowerMax from Maxtor's website to determine what hardware is failing. For me to run these diagnostics, I have to plug the Maxtor 120gig onto the normal IDE channels. The drive is reconized by the Primary IDE channel (interesting). If the drive is reconized by the standard IDE channels, why isn't the FastTrak controller reconizing it? I run diagnostic checks on hard drive. It seems to pass the tests.
Out of curiosity, I plug my Maxtor 20 gig into the RAID channel to see if it reconized it, it didn't. So this leads me to beleive that the RAID controller isn't functioning properly. I tried it in all Master/Slave jumper configurations as well.
I saw in Promise Technologies FAQ that it is possible to access the data from a standard IDE channel, with RAID 0 mapped drives. In this case, mine is RAID 0 with no array. Just 1 drive to the EIDE interface on the KT4 ultra board. Is this possible? How is it performed?
Any inquiries would be of significant help!
Thanks.
FastTrak 376 (tm) BIOS Version 1.00.0.18
Scanning IDE drives . . . . . .
No drive attached to FastTrak controller, The BIOS is not installed.

Quote
Originally posted by christop
All i can say is make sure the Jumpers on the HDD are set right for the way you have it set up
Well, jumpers shouldn't be an issue. This confuration has worked for six months. RAID 0, and Windows XP installation. Flawless and fast, even. , just yesterday morning, Kernel_inpage_Error BSOD, and now the FastTrak Controller won't reconize any drives. All HardDisks pass the manufactures diagnostics, plus, the drives work on the Primary/Secondary IDE channels.

Partition with Disk Utility?

I just got a 500gb external drive that I want to partition. Disk Utility is supposed to be able to do this. The help file says "Click Partition" in the Disk Utility window. I see nothing in the window with "Partition" on it. A screen shot I've seen (from LaCie's hard drive manual) shows five buttons across the top of the window: First Aid, Erase, Partition, Raid, Restore, but my Disk Utility only has 4 buttons. The "Partition" button is not there.
Any ideas what's up? This is crazy. What am I missing?
I've clicked on the external drive icon along the left column but nothing pertaining to partitioning shows up.

That is because you have your boot volume selected in the left hand column, select the Hard drive itself, the one with the Manufactory ID number. It should be at the very top.
Joe

Setting RAID stripe size?

Does anyone know how you can set the stripe size used for a RAID 5 setup? Even just knowing what the default stripe size used would be helpful.
I have searched in the forums and user manual but I have not found the ability to do this anywhere. Thanks in advance.

Don't use partition magic. You can't partition RAID. Cluster size of 128 is good. After making the Raid 0 array your bios will then have the option to boot from the array as if it were one HD instead of two. Install your OS. While windows is loading the driver data base you need to press f6 to load third party SCSI or RAID drivers. You should have a floppy with the drivers. After that your done. Make sure there are no boot partitions on the single drives before you configure the array, you might have problems installing Windows. At least that's been my experience.

Recreate JUST x86boot partition

How can I recreate just my x86boot partition, without reinstalling all of solais 8 x86?
I managed to nuke the info in that partition. sigh.

To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [solarisx86] Re: mboot doesn't show x86 partitions and hangs
I got it working with additional steps and information source (
http://forum.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=11&thread=2558 ) documented
below. Thanks for your help!!
Juergen Keil wrote:
To reinstall the boot manager in the x86 Boot fdisk partition
mkfs -F pcfs -o b=BOOT,B=/boot/mdbootbp,s,i=/boot/strap.com
/dev/rdsk/c0d0p0:boot
I found another reference which suggested having a 'S'. I don't know
what it does but I used it and it worked out. Perhaps it calls the
DCA? I'm not sure.
mkfs -F pcfs -o b=BOOT,B=/boot/mdbootbp,S,s,i=/boot/strap.com
/dev/rdsk/c0d0p0:boot
>>>
>>>
I'm not sure about the difference between /boot/mdboot and the
/boot/mdbootbp file. I copied that command from Mariuz'
multiboot.solaris-x86.org site.
I guess one version is intended to boot from a FAT12 pcfs filesystem
inside an fdisk partition (X86 Boot fdisk partition), and the other
one tries to boot from a FAT12 pcfs filesystem that is not contained
inside an fdisk partition (floppy media does not use fdisk partition
tables).
Btw. running strings on /boot/mdboot and /boot/mdbootbp reveals that
mdboot contains the string "Solaris Boot Sector Version 1" while
mdbootbp contains "Solaris Boot Sector Version 2" !
If you're sure that the system reported "Version 2" before
HDD booting stopped working, then mdbootbp appears to be correct.
Is it possible that
<URL:http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/817-1658/6mhcgstor?a=view> has
the descriptions for the /boot/mdboot and /boot/mdbootbp file
swapped?
You are right, they have it wrong. mdbootbp is correct, because I now
have it working with mdbootbp!
>
>
>
Then mount the FAT filesystem and copy the /boot files from the
CD to it:
mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c0d0p0:boot /mnt
cp -r /boot/* /mnt
Do not overwrite strap.com!
I think this is the likely reason I had trouble before when following
the directions at http://multiboot.solaris-x86.org/iii/1.html .
I created a /tmp/boot.copy directory with everything in /boot except
'strap.com'.
cp -r /boot.CopyWithoutStrap.com/* /mnt
echo "/boot/ / p"> /mnt/solaris.map
It depends on the fdisk partition type you're booting from:
booting from X86BOOT fdisk partition
====================================
1. master boot record (MBR, sector #0) is loaded (contains mboot)
2. mboot looks at the fdisk partition table and loads the first
sector from the active fdisk partition (partition boot record, PBR)
With an X86BOOT fdisk partition this is the mdbootbp (or mdboot?)
code.
3. mdbootbp loads the hidden system file "strap.com" from the
FAT12 pcfs filesystem
4. strap.com shows the fdisk partition boot selector menu, if there
are two or more fdisk partitions on the disk
5. if you continue to boot from the x86boot fdisk partition, then
strap.com loads and runs boot.bin from the FAT12 pcfs filesystem.
6. boot.bin mounts the FAT12 pcfs filesystem from the X86Boot fdisk
partition to get access to the rest of the files under /boot
(it seems your system stops/hangs at step 3. or 4.)
booting from SOLARIS fdisk partition
====================================
1. master boot record (MBR, sector #0) is loaded (contains mboot)
2. mboot looks at the fdisk partition table and loads the first
sector from the active fdisk partition (partition boot record, PBR)
With an active SOLARIS fdisk partition this is the pboot code.
3. pboot loads the rest of the boot code from the solaris fdisk
partition (bootblk)
4. bootblk loads and runs boot.bin from the ufs partition that is
tagged as "root" (see format command: partition -> print)
5. boot.bin mounts the UFS filesystem from the "root" tagged slice
inside the Solaris fdisk partition to get access to the rest of
the files under /boot
Should I also be using intallboot? The docs only give
examples for use on a solaris partition, not on a X86 boot partition.
For example:
installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/pboot \
/usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c0d0s2
installboot is not needed when you boot from an X86BOOT partition.
installboot is needed when you boot from a SOLARIS fdisk partition.
It does not hurt to have valid bootcode on the solaris fdisk
partition installed by installboot, when your system is using
an X86BOOT partition. Think of it as some kind of backup boot code,
in case the X86BOOT partition is damaged :-) This needs a copy
of the the /boot/* files installed on the "root" ufs filesystem to
be usable.
But this would likely destroy my Solaris partition!
No, it shouldn't destroy the Solaris partition. If you look at the
solaris slice table from the partition submenu of format
you should see a small slice tagged "boot" (typically slice s8),
right at the start of the solaris fdisk partition on cylinder 0.
This is where installboot writes the pboot and bootblk code.
Filesystems / swap space should start at cylinders > 0 so nothing
gets destroyed by writing the boot code to cylinder 0.
I did it and it did not destroy the partition! I'll use it later if
needed. Thanks!
Here's an example: Note the boot slice s8:
partition> print
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 524 + 2 (reserved cylinders)
Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 root wm 1 - 490 3.75GB (490/0/0) 7871850
1 swap wu 491 - 523 258.86MB (33/0/0) 530145
2 backup wm 0 - 523 4.01GB (524/0/0) 8418060
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 7.84MB (1/0/0) 16065
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
9 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
pboot is written to sector #0 of slice 8.
sector #1 contains the SunOS disk label.
sector #2 is unused (?)
bootblk is written to sectors #3 and following on slice 8.
On a HDD that can boot from the Solaris fdisk partition, the
following commands should report no cmp differences:
# dd if=/dev/rdsk/c0d0s8 count=1 | cmp /usr/platform/`uname
-i`/lib/fs/ufs/pboot -
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
# dd if=/dev/rdsk/c0d0s8 skip=3 | cmp /usr/platform/`uname
-i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk -
cmp: EOF on /usr/platform/i86pc/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk

Sort of off topic re: raid drive

i just bought a GRaid2 hard drive,
to use with FCP.
I've never had a raid drive,
so I know nothing about partitioning a drive.
If there is a link or someplace online where I can
learn more about partitioning a raid drive, please let me know.
I already googled, and found a few sites that talk
about partitioning raids, but honestly,
it was all Chinese to me.
Is there any specific software that will partition the drive
for you? does Disk Utility in the Mac do that?
thanks to all

Don't partition. Leave it one big drive. The G-Raid is a hardware raid, meaning that the two drives in the case show up as one. Use the Disk Utility to format it MacOS Extended (journalling off) and you are set.
Shane

Encrypted disk image partitions

I wish to create an encrypted disk image using Disk Utility. One of the menus, labeled Partitions, contains 8 choices, 5 of which begin with the words "Single Partition." The 3 that I think I need to consider are:
Apple Partition Map
Master Boot Record Partition Map
GUID Partition Map
I have no idea which to choose to simply store personal data files. Is there some place where all of this is explained, or can someone please explain it here.
Thanks, Ralph

Thanks to both responders. Assuming that I only wish to install data files, I don't care about booting an operating system from the disk image that I wish to create. Therefore, I assume that V.K.'s response answers my particular needs.
However, that brings up another question. If one chooses a GUID Partition Map to be able to boot in an INTEL Mac, does that mean one cannot boot from that partition with a PPC Mac? Also, the same question with an APM Partition Map. In other words, does one have to choose one or the other and there is no way to do both, that is, be able to boot from the same partition with either PPC or INTEL? Just wondering...

Partitioning a disk using disk utility

I bought a rather large capacity external hard drive for use as a Time Machine backup drive along with MacOS 10.5, and figured I'd partition off 100GB of it for use as a bootable partition. So, I looked up how to partition a drive in Disk Utility, and it said:
"*To partition a startup disk:*
1) If you’re partitioning an external hard disk, make sure it’s connected to your computer. If you’re partitioning the disk you are now using as a startup disk, you must start up using another disk such as your Mac OS X install disc.
2) Open Disk Utility. If you’re in the Mac OS X Installer, choose Utilities > Disk Utility. Otherwise, double-click Disk Utility, located in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder.
3) Select the disk in the list that you want to partition, and click Partition.
4) Choose the number of partitions from the Volume Scheme pop-up menu.
5) If you can’t choose the number of partitions, you may be trying to partition your startup disk. Start up your computer with another disk, such as your Mac OS X install disc."
The external hard drive showed up in the side bar, but there was nothing in the disk utility window called "Partition" for me to click on. Nothing called "partition" existed in the menus either. I tried to customize the toolbar, thinking that "Partition" might be a button not currently on the tool bar, but I found nothing.
(I would attach screenshots of both the help window and Disk Utility, but I can't do that here.)
How do I partition a disk using Disk Utility?
Message was edited by: Berkana

3) *Select the disk* in the list that you want to partition, and click Partition.
When you select a disk that DU can partition, that is, not the volume currently booted from,
you can see the five buttons
First Aid | Erase | Partition | RAID | Restore
Also:
Don't forget to choose the "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" formatting option.

Partitioning RAID Master

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