RAID 1 of boot drive without reformatting?

Hello,
Under Leopard, I was able to enable RAID 1 on a boot drive without having to move data, reformat, move data back, etc., using:
+diskutil enableRAID mirror disk0+
This has worked for me many, many times without issue.
I'm now attempting this on a Mac Pro boot drive running 10.6.2 using:
+diskutil appleRAID enable mirror disk0s2+
But, it's not working. Actually, it's working in that it enables RAID 1 on the drive, but as a result, the Mac Pro will no longer BOOT from the drive. The drive is available (ie. I can access it if I boot from another drive with an OS on it, etc.) and the drive shows up in Startup Disk (in System Preferences) as a bootable drive, but it DOESN'T show up when I boot the machine holding down the option key. As soon as I delete the RAID, the drive is bootable again.
Does anyone know if there's a way to enable RAID 1 on a boot drive under SL without the need to reformat? Other options/solutions (3rd party, etc.)?
Regards,
Kristin.

Hi Kristin,
I'm seeing exactly the same problem, but I thought it was limited to having two raid sets and bless getting confused.
My MacPro3,1 has two RAID mirror sets and it appears the wrong Boot OS X partitions are used.
The volume I would like to boot from is a mirror of disk0s2 and disk1s2 and mounted at /Volumes/srvosx. Disk Utility successfully created the two Boot OS X partitions disk0s3 and disk1s3.
Then I restored a working system onto the raid volume using asr.
However, when using bless, it activates the Boot OS X partitions of the other raid set, which has no system installed. So this choice makes no sense at all. The other raid set is composed of disk2s2 and disk3s2 and mounted at /Volumes/data.
This is the output I get from bless:
bless --folder /Volumes/srvosx/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --setboot --verbose
EFI found at IODeviceTree:/efi
Mount point for /Volumes/srvosx/System/Library/CoreServices is /Volumes/srvosx
Common mount point of '/Volumes/srvosx/System/Library/CoreServices' and '' is /Volumes/srvosx
GPT detected
Booter partition required at index 3
System partition found
Booter partition found
Returning booter information dictionary:
<CFBasicHash 0x100601210 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{type = mutable dict, count = 3,
entries =>
0 : <CFString 0x100019a60 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{contents = "System Partitions"} = <CFArray 0x100600c90 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{type = immutable, count = 1, values = (
0 : <CFString 0x1006016a0 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{contents = "disk2s1"}
1 : <CFString 0x10001a2c0 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{contents = "Data Partitions"} = <CFArray 0x1006012d0 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{type = immutable, count = 1, values = (
0 : <CFString 0x100601830 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{contents = "disk2s2"}
2 : <CFString 0x100019a20 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{contents = "Auxiliary Partitions"} = <CFArray 0x100601280 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{type = immutable, count = 1, values = (
0 : <CFString 0x7fff702ae5b0 [0x7fff702c5f20]>{contents = "disk2s3"}
Substituting booter disk2s3
I can get it to boot just fine by manually populating the Boot OS X partitions, but this is a pain.
I have tried to figure out what is going on from the bless source code at
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/bless/bless-71.1/libbless/RAID/BLGetRAIDB ootDataForDevice.c
But since bless seems to get the information about the Boot OS X volumes from IOKit, I also checked the device tree with IORegistryExplorer (Developer Tools). Everything looks fine though.
I wonder where the linking between the raid volume and its boot helper partitions is done. Clearly it does not work right in my case and I suspect it could also be the same problem in your case.

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Partitioning the boot drive without wiping it clean

Hey all,
I was wondering if it is possible to partition the boot drive (in my case, the only drive - running a mid-2012 MBP) without wiping it clean during the process. Basically, I need a small (50/500GB) partition that I can install Fedora on so I can use my Linux dev tools while away from home.
I've seen information that says a couple things, which are either conflicting or very ambiguous as to the results.
a) I've read that Fedora can be installed via Bootcamp through use of Bootcamp's partitioning, but Bootcamp Assistant won't allow me to make a partition without a Win7 install disk. Is this a component that was removed through a version?
b) I've seen answers on here that state that partition w/o wipe works if the new partition is created using the default filestructs (Mac OS X Extended or w/e), but doesn't go into much detail after that. Are we talking Disk Utility here?
If b) is true, then can someone confirm that? This is a computer I use for work, so I'd rather not end up with a complete brick for the next few days.

@blasthash:
It's interesting to see VikingOSX' suggestion, because I'm in the process of adding a LM OS to my MBPro, so I'm going to check out VB . . . . I've done a dual boot set up before using rEFIt as boot manager, which now apparently doesn't work with Mtn Lion . . . it's now rEFInd . . . so having to figure that one out. Viking's suggestion might indeed be safer, the problem with that is then the Linux system is "virtual" rather than the boot system . . . which uses memory. In my case I only have 4GB on my MBPro.
It's very easy to partition the HD using DU . . . select the HD in the left side DU window, click the >partitions tab and select the number of partitions you want, and >click apply . . . viola . . . HD is partitioned . . . . The original boot system remains intact, and you can install or do what you will with the other partitions--the size of them is by dragging the "borders" to the size you want.
That's the easy part--of course you should do a cloned back up before you do anything--the Linux install part you could look at rEFInd's support page or search "rodbooks" and find his dual boot instructions. I did that with my dual boot set up -- using Bootcamp -- which went OK until I wanted to get a third partition, but Bootcamp had locked the HD . . . so I had to wipe the HD to get my now dual boot 10.6.8 & 10.8.5? system set up with a third partition set as "Freespace" . . . ready for a Linux OS install . . . using DU this time.
So, VikingOSX's advice is probably the easiest, possibly the safest . . . but it depends on using a lot of memory . . . it's like "Classic" . . . "you're in 10, but you're in 9" . . . as an old hippie guy said to me when I got my first G4 . . . . You'd be running Fedora within OSX and there ****might**** be a speed differential. Booted up as the root system Linux is pretty fast . . . gltichy, but fast. It takes a bit of work to get the boot manager rEFInd set up, but once that's done the installation into "Largest freespace" is usually pretty easy, I 've done a lot of Linux installs now and I mostly use the "automatic" option and let the system set it up. Point being, the other way, the dual boot "dark side" way is a tad more complicated, but more fun.
It just depends on whether you just need to do a "few things every now and again in Linux" . . . or whether you want to be able to run the full capacity of your machine using Linux . . . . Up to you . . . OSX probably still remains the best OS, but because Linux isn't perfect, it's "interesting" . . . to DIYers.
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Back up to an external HD without reformatting the drive

I've got an iBook G4, running MacOSX/ Tiger,for three years now, and it's doing extremely great, but something tells me it's time for a back up. I have a WD Passport Essential 250GB connected with a power booster cable (dual usb) on both usb ports with my iTunes Library and my Home folder in it (approximately 60GB). Nothing is in my Macintosh HD apart from what is necessary; System Folder,apps,Library etc., some photos and audio files. Now what I am thinking is, in short, to back up what is left in my Macintosh HD, so as to be able to restore it (applications etc.), in case something goes horrible wrong, but without having to reformat my Ex.HD (already formatted in HFS) due to lack of other external drive. (I understand there might be some issues related to my external drive not having a firewire). I've looked in a few forums but none of them matches exactly my case so I basically need some instructions on how to do that, if it is possible at all (apparently it is possible to add a volume in a drive without reformatting in Leopard but that is as far as i know).

Thank you for your time and reply
..I suspected it was going to be easy, but it's those times I really f*up :s !
There is just a few more things I am not quite sure of yet: when you say internal drive I suppose you mean what appears in Disk Utility as Fujitsu not the MacintoshHD one (which I know as "boot drive") ?
Plus, what kind of Image Format shall I use in my case?
Any ideas and recommendations would be very much appreciated
Thanks again!

Partitioning Mac for Bootcamp Without Reformatting HDD

Hello, I hope this is the correct area to start this discussion.
I'm trying to figure out how I can install windows via boot camp, without reformatting my HDD (or use of installation CD).
I'm currently on tour around the U.S., and my installation disks are at my home address.
As a roady photographer, access to my computer and Photoshop is essential to me, and its very important that i can continue to use my mac pro through out the remainder of this year, it is how I make most of my living wile out on tour, so I hope this explains how important it is that i do this right the first time.
Its kind of overwhelming, and I don't know where to start.
I am Tech savvy, but not qualified, my experience has been the above average consumer working around tech problems since AOL launched, so I will try my best to explain what I can, and understand what anyone here try's to offer.
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Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB
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I work with Final Cut, Photoshop, Adobe Aftereffects, and a few other heavy duty programs, I'm an Artist and love working with Music and Media.
Some may say that my specs can handle all this, but if it where up to me I would rather have a Tower, but traveling on the road limits me to using the Pro.
On my free time im an avid gamer, At first I was ok with apps, later on I wanted to play some old games like LOTR Battle for Middle Earth, I know my laptop was good enough to play, but I had to get windows so it would be compatible.
I have Parallels 7 from my work, and a copy of Windows 7, and i was able to create a virtual machine to play some PC games.
All was fine until I got into bigger games like ARMA2,
It felt like my laptop was going to die from parallels, so i decided to install Windows on bootcamp because i use it very often. (best of both worlds)
Because of the programs i use on OS, i don't want my computer to Run a virtual machine anymore, i feel like its very unhealthy.
I want my OS to run full power flawlessly without the stress of virtual machine, and i want Windows to run full power flawlessly without stressing out OS,
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I Have Decided i will attempt to Clone my mac to my External Hard drive.
I have an External 2T Lacie Drive that has lots of space.
Can someone explain to me in light detail how cloning works when you try to reformat your mac off an external Hard drive?
From what i understand you can do it this way.
Also, If i can manage to Clone my mac to my ExHD, will i be able to partition my hard drive for windows, and Re clone my mac back onto one of the partitions?
If this process will work, what steps should i take first?
Clone, then Boot camp?
can i partition my hard drive, add my Mac back onto a partition, then add Windows CD at a Later time? (i dont have the CD on me atm)
i apologize for the length of this post. Its very important that I can continue to access everything on my laptop, i wont be able to have my installation CDs until this October.
Thank you.

you are fine.
Upgrades from 10.6 to Lion with existing XP or Vista present was/is/can be an issue.
Lion 10.7.0 and Boot Camp 4.0.0 were not working (why? oh, "never use dot zero?)
Lion adds Recovery Partition.
CCC now can clone that partition as well as your HFS volumes.
Lack of contiguous free (unfragmented) storage, with no "locked" files or that fragment the free space.
Shrinking the HFS volume and then stretch it back out to consolidate to get around the free space issue.
Not realizing just how large to make Windows volume (double best estimate rule) or aim for 60GB.
XP only needed 10-16GB or 32GB at top usually. Microsoft and Apple have this "16GB for 32-bit Windows 7" is the OS size, not the size of the partition needed to function (20GB for the base OS for 64-bit).
Add in page, hibernation, temp, cache, and that 10GB just for 'shuffle" files around during updates.
SSDs need space to allow for good background garbage collection and TRIM (a month's worth of writes is a good rule there).
Not documented: you need to get the audio driver on your own along with current graphic driver after you install the OS and Apple drivers.
"Boot Camp" is overused, misused, treated as if people are running BC instead of just running Winidows natively, with all that entails.
Apple Software Update for Windows will update everything except Boot Camp drivers, whereas it could update itself like it has in the past, and could have been the avenue for getting all the drivers into Windows itself.

Selecting a boot drive for Hyper-V 2012 server - is a boot drive performance important?

I'm setting up a new Hyper-V 2012 server dedicated to virtualization and I'm trying to determine the best choice for the boot drive.
I have 2x250gb SSD drives i'm considering for storage pools for VM's
I have an old 80GB SATA drive
I'm wondering how important the primary boot drive is in a Win 2012 Hyper-V setup. I can partition one of the SSD's to provide a boot partition, or I can just dedicate the 80GB SATA.
What do you think would be a better choice?
Edit: A more precise question, why not partition the SSD for boot? Is there any benefit for separating the disks for boot vs just the partition?
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Deco

Hello,
I hope you are having a great day!
What resources are available to you? If you have hardware RAID, it would be best to configure the SSD drives for RAID 1 (mirrored) and run everything from that. This will provide you fault tolerance in the case of a drive failure.
If hardware RAID is not available to you, then definitely use the 80GB SATA drive as the OS Boot Drive, without a hardware RAID for the OS disks you will have a single point of failure no matter what disks you use. Yes with SATA drive the system will boot
up slower :-( , but that is about the only negative.
This will also enable you to leave the SSD's as RAW un-formatted disks which can then be configured in a Storage Pool with mirroring if you wish and then have the VHD's reside there.
Absolutely, dedicate the SSD's for the placement of the Virtual Machines Config and Vhd/Vhdx Files.
For absolute best performance results use VHDX Fixed disks for maximum performance.
Dynamically expanding VHDX will have a minor almost unnoticeable performance hit (depending on the purpose of the VM) and help ensure that the amount of hard disk space the VHDX file is occupying is kept to a minimum. An example of degradation in performance
would become noticeable if for instance, the VM is being used as a file repository and users are constantly uploading files.
The bottom line is, if you don't have hardware RAID for the OS you always have a single point of failure, so hope for the best and keep great backups.

Partition a drive without reinstalling??

Hello,
I currently am running Mac OS X Leopard with the following configuration:
Macbook, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
I want to run Windows on my Macbook, but want to install Windows on a separate partition. Currently, my hard drive is not partitioned. So my questions are:
Can I partition a hard drive without reformatting it? If so, how?
Can I run Windows using Bootcamp from the second partition?
Can I run Parallels simultaneously with Mac OSX if the Mac OS and Windows are installed on separate partitions?
If there is a guide somewhere on the net or a previous discussion thread that explains the process of installing Windows on a Mac and answers these questions I would be happy to read it. Thank you very much,
-AD

AD,
If you want to install Windows, use the Bootcamp Assistant, located in your Utilities folder.
Bootcamp Assistant will partition your hard drive for you (the drive must have only a single partition, so you cannot partition it yourself first). Then, it will get you booted to your chosen Windows installation CD.
Once Windows is installed, your Leopard DVD contains a Windows installer that will install all the drivers Windows needs to access all of your Mac's hardware (GPU-specific drivers, iSight drivers, keyboard, etc., etc.).
Parallels can use a Bootcamp installation, on the secondary partition created by Bootcamp, to run in the virtual machine. The "guide" you need is right there in the Bootcamp help files (Actually, Bootcamp will instruct you to print a PDF with explicit instructions, prior to continuing through the Bootcamp process).
Scott

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My internal 1TB hard drive on my iMac is dead and I don't have the money to replace it at the moment.
I have everything backed up on an external 1TB drive using Time Machine. As a workaround for the time being,
Is there any way I can install the system on the external drive and use that as the boot drive without erasing the Time Machine
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one for Time Machine. But is there any way to add a partition without erasing the existing one with
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Sorry if line breaks here are weird. Doing this from iPhone.

Neil , I have a mid 2010 27" imac running 10.6.8 and i want to install Lion , when i purchase Lion from app store will it give me any install options as I would like to be able to dual boot using SL and Lion , I have 500 gigs left on my 1 tb drive (should I do this) or would I be better of using an external bootable drive as I also want to use Ubuntu and or Linux down the line.
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How to install a larger boot drive

I have a mac pro 1.1 and am looking to install a larger boot drive without satrting over from scratch. In other words i want to migrate all info from current boot drive to a larger capacity b/c i have run out of space on the current boot drive. I would like to know the most effecient, stable and painless way to go about this process. Of course ensuring I retain ever bit of my data.

Either Disk Utility, or my choice would be Carbon Copy Cloner (it's free). Install your new drive in a spare sled, partition and erase it (use GUID format partition map) and clone with CCC. Make sure the drive is named something appropriate before you do this process (eg New Drive). Then reboot holding down the Option key, and Bob's your uncle.
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Today the the original 250Gb SATA drive in my G5 started making some awful clicking sounds and seems beyond recovery. Backups are about 2 weeks old, not too bad.
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Can I simply add the new drive and create a RAID mirror, or do I need to reinstall everything after creating the mirror? I wasn't able to find anything that mentioned that process.
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Problem with mirrors is it instantly copies everything that's written to the first drive and people have had problems booting from a mirror.
What you need instead is to auto-clone your boot drive occasionally and make daily auto-backups of certain folders.
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How do I reformat hard drive without affecting recovery partition?

I would like to know how I can reformat my Toshiba hard drive without affecting the hidden recovery partition? I would like to get rid of the preinstalled Windows 7 OS and replace it with Windows XP, which is not as bloated. Also, does anyone know of a good 'free' disk scrubber program? I actually have the original 'disk scrubber' software, but the software disk just won't work any more. Finally, I tried to get the computer ready for the drive scrubbing, but I still can't change the disk order on my Toshiba laptop. I did get into the 'bios' screen by hitting the F8 key on startup, which did bring up the 'boot menu' screen. When I selected the cd/dvd drive and then hit the F10 key to save the change, nothing happened! I put in a data disk, but the laptop still booted into the Windows 7 OS. If I can't get the laptop to boot into the cd/dvd drive, I don't think that I can erase the hard drive and put Windows XP on since I wouldn't be able to boot up the laptop with the Windwos XP disk. Is that true? Anyway, without changing the boot order, I can't do anything. Please help! Thanks!

If you use the recovery that is on the hidden partition (hold down the zero key while starting up computer) then your OS reinstall will not affect that hidden partition, just overwrite the c: drive.
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Setup RAID: boot drive is F, not C???

HI,
I configured my RAID to work as stripe (0) but the boot drive becomes F. I want it to be C.
I have the following:
old HD and CD burner at IDE 0.
SCSI DVD at acsi contoller.
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I never have tried the built-in RAID, because I hadn't needed to, for any reason. But now, I need the enhanced speed and performance that (supposedly) a stipe RAID can provide. So, while trying to re-load Windows XP with my 2 WD 30GB drives attached to the RAID IDE slots, I get error in setup stating that the partition is either invalid or damaged. Prior to changing from regular EIDE to RAID slots, there was NO DAMAGE OR PROBLEMS WITH EITHER DRIVES. I was working with the "one for all" Promise FastTrack Lite driver from a third-party site, simply because my diskette from the MFG is in storage in another location. What can I do to get the RAID stripe to work? The error occurs, by the way, while windows setup is formatting the system partition. I really would like to use the capabilities of my MB, since that's part of the reason why I purchased this particular model (even if it was a while ago) and it is still a considerable investment, especially if I am going to have to replace the mainboard and/or RAID controller.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am asking for replies to be sent to my email address, below. Thank you in advance. This note is also being copied and sent to the folks at MSI, in hopes that someone will be able to help me soon. I cannot afford to be without a working PC for more than a period of two full days, otherwise I lose too uch time, which translates directly into money, if you get what I mean. THANKS,
Dusty S.
[email protected]
Sacramento, CA.

Possible to convert a mirrored RAID boot drive to a single disc boot drive

hi ... i made the mistake of installing my Macpro with a RAID on the first two drive bays as a startup disc. Although this doesn't pose any problems per se i would like to have a single disc startup drive now but i do not have the time or courage to re-install and re-configure everything (installation&config with all software takes 3 days due to the huge number of software i have on this machine).
is it possible (and how) to get rid of the RAID and convert one of the discs to a normal startup volume so i can reformat the second disc and use it as a work drive ? Since the 'mirrored' drives both contaion a full startup drive this should be possible i think but could not find any info on this.
thx for any help with this ...

hey .. funny how expert opinions vary ... i have a handfull of IT and software RAID experts who disagree with you ... in my case, i'd rather get rid of it ... ( however i still have to find a solution to clone my boot drive that works flawlessly with all my software ... )
anyways ... how exactly do i go about splitting the RAID, to make sure i don't mess it up ....
1. restart from CD
2. Delete the mirrored RAID set
3. remove one of the HDs with the raid slice on it (i'll keep it as a backup 4 the moment just in case)
4. restart from the remaining slice disc
5. ... ?
do i need to do anything specific ... ? what about the name of the Volume .. for the moment my startup disk (the RAID) is called 'BootRAID' ... the slices are called 'RAID Slice (disk0s2)' and 'RAID Slice (disk1s2)' .. in order for everything to work properly, don't i have to rename the new startup disk ?
i'm scared ...
here's a screenshot of my setup: http://kinkajou.net/diskUtility_RAID.jpg
<Edited by Moderator>

Is it possible to disable raid without reformatting?

I'm currently running 2 Seagates in RAID striping mode (raid 0?), but I'm having some issues with my second HD, which is smaller and older than the MAIN drive. Is it possible to disable RAID, and go back to normal mode (C: and D: drive) without doing a complete reformat or losing anything that's already installed on the HD's? Thanks for any help
i'm using a k8n Neo2 Plat.

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My ipod was set up on a Mac. Now I have a PC and want to sync my music on iTunes, but I can't without reformatting my drive and losing my music.

My ipod was set up on a Mac. Now I have a PC and want to sync my music on iTunes, but I can't without reformatting my drive and losing my music. Help. I no longer have a Mac. I want to keep the music and videos I purchased. Since it is an iPod classic (80GB) I cannot even use the iCloud. Is there a way to move my ipod's music so I can reformat it to my pc?

WIndows is asking you to reformat the iPod's hard disk because it's probably in the Mac OS X Extended Journaled file system format which the Windows OS can neither read or write to. Reformatting will erase all content from the device and rebuild the filesystem as FAT32 unless you specify it as NTFS (which you shouldn't do).
If you want to be able to use your iPod to copy music from your Mac to your PC, you'll need to either pre-format it as FAT32 using Disk Utility on your Mac and then copy everything over to your PC, or use third party software such as XPlay that allows a Windows PC to read and write to a Mac formatted iPod.
Perhaps you could take a look at this article for other ways to copy your iTunes library and files from your Mac to the PC.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
B-rock

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how can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
It's impossible to format a hard drive without losing the data. One thing you can do before formatting is to copy the files from the external drive to your internal drive, and then, format the external drive. After formatting, copy the files to the external drive again, and everything will be as before formatting it

RAID 1 of boot drive without reformatting?

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