[chihiro]

hi
i just bought an external hard drive 500GB/gtech
do i have to Partitioning the external Hard Drive, for better use or it doesn't matter?

thank you

[Simon]

What are you going to use it for?

[chihiro]

to backup my computer,and make it bootable

if i partition it on 2 volumes ,for what I can use the second volume,please?

for what circumstances is useful to partition it,plz?

[chabig]

Normally you don't need to partition. But in the case you describe, you might make a small 20GB partition and install OS X on it to make it bootable. The remaining large partition would make a good backup disk.

[chihiro]

because i have never made a bootable disk before can you please expalne me how to do it.

I know from where I can portion the hard drive from The Disc utileties.
but after in that 20 GB how do I install OS X and make it bootable?
do I put any personal files or ather softwares on the site where is the OS X ,please?
if no,where do I copy all the ather applications the I use such as adobe cs3?

I am planing to use the Superduper appl.

thank you

[Simon]

Originally Posted by chabig 

Normally you don't need to partition. But in the case you describe, you might make a small 20GB partition and install OS X on it to make it bootable. The remaining large partition would make a good backup disk.

I second this idea. You can install OS X onto a small partition. Use the larger partition as a TM backup. That way you will be able to boot from the external drive.

Use Disk Utility to make two partitions on the external disk. Install OS X with the installer DVD onto the smaller partition just as you would on any internal disk. After the installation that partition will be bootable. You can either select in in the Startup Disk system pref or by pressing option during boot time.

If you want to clone, you can use Apple's built-in tool. Forget about SuperDuper or CCC. The included tool is Disk Utility in the Utilities folder (or in the utilities menu if you've booted from the installer DVD). Select the Restore tab. Chose "Erase destination" to get an exact clone.

[chihiro]

hi
Could you please tell me whats the best format to re-format g-tech external drive;

thanks

[shifuimam]

It depends. If you're going to be using with non-Macs, you're going to want at least a small FAT32 partition for sharing files across multiple operating systems.

Otherwise, HFS+ Journaled should be adequate.