What does the startup Disk do ?

i'm a new mac user, and i still don't know what all the option on the mac does, one of those is the startup disk
i really like to know what does the startup disk do .
thank you

The hard drive would need to be formatted properly and have a valid operating system on it.
For example, if your computer shipped with OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), the external hard drive would have to be formatted correctly and have Snow Leopard installed on it. Once the installation is completed, the drive should be bootable.
~Lyssa

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    As it said in the link I posted:
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  • What is the startup disk

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    You may find this Link helpful...
    http://macmost.com/what-to-do-when-your-hard-drive-is-full.html

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  • What is OTHERS mean under the startup disk category???

    Hello guys, I am facing troubles with the Startup disk. I am getting the message that says " your start up disk is full"...this is not the case, the problems is the category OTHER, i could not find which files goes under that ?? the other categories such as photos, and movies are clear.
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  • Hello, Trying to run Bootcamp on my 15" Macbook Pro (Maverick).60 gig available on my computer's hard drive and 250 gig on a separate hard drive that I have attached which is single partitioned. Keeps saying "The startup disk does not have enough space"

    Hello,
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    Thanks for the advice Bob The Fisherman. I'm just reading what turbostar has kindly written and it appears that perhaps, if I take advice from you both, I need to free more space up on the computer's hard drive?
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        http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
    2. Empty Trash.
       http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806
    3. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
      Local backups
       http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
    4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
        iTunes > Preferences > Devices
        Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
        http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
    5. Re-index Macintosh HD.
        This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.
        System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
        http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

  • I'm getting this error with bootcamp "The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned"

    Here's the story...
    I had a dual boot configuration on my mac with Mac OS X Lion and Windows XP (made with bootcamp).
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    After reading several posts on this forum I decided to defrag the hard drive and try again. 
    The defrag did not work and I'm still getting the error, I have 22 gb of free space on my drive.
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    Also, I tried repair disk and repair permissions
    Hmm, my external harddrive says on the box "OS X 10.5.8 or higher (32-bit kernel only)"  Could the 32-bit requirement be an issue? Is lion 64-bit?

    Boot Camp must be able to allocate a contiguous block of space on the drive. If it cannot find 10 GBs of contiguous space, then you cannot create the Windows partition.
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    Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
    Boot from the external hard drive.
    Erase the internal hard drive.
    Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
    Clone the internal drive to the external drive
    Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
    Select the destination volume from the left side list.
    Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
    Check the box labeled Erase destination.
    Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
    Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
    Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears.  Select the icon for the external drive and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
    After startup do the following:
    Erase internal hard drive
    Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area.  If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing.  SMART info will not be reported  on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
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    Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
    Select the destination volume from the left side list.
    Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
    Check the box labeled Erase destination.
    Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
    Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
    Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
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  • I'm trying to up grade the os but I keep getting the startup disk is full I ordered more memory I was told this will not help. What do I do?

    I'm trying to up grade the os but I keep getting the startup disk is full I ordered more memory I was told this will not help. What do I do?

    I think as drive capacities increase, the old 10-15% becomes less accurate.  The amount of free space you need doesn't really have anything to do with the drive size.  So, increasing your drive size shouldn't mean that you need to have more free GB (which using a % of drive space would mean).  You need free space to accommodate page outs (the amount of which would depend on how much RAM you have installed and how memory intensive the applications are), sleep images (again, this would max out at your total amount of RAM), and a bit to minimize fragmentation.
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    With servers being more likely to run into the 16GB of RAM range, more storage would be necessary.  Most servers should be well stocked with storage, but the actual needs would vary greatly depending on what's being "served".
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  • What does the "yellow section"  "other" files mean under hard disk storage?

    what does the "yellow section"  "other" files mean under hard disk storage?

    david just to right of your initial post is a column entitled "More Like This." Check out some of the posts that seem similar.

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