[andydude117]

I have a G5, and I want to dual-boot OS X and Ubuntu. I wanted to install ubuntu on my external HD, but there's a bug in yaboot that doesn't allow that. So unfortunately, I need to create a couple new partitions on my internal drive, but I don't want to have to go and reinstall OS X.

Is there a program out there that will let me do this?

Thanks,
Andy

[Chito]

Clone your internal drive to your external with Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper, format and partition the internal, and clone the external back to your new partition.

[angelmb]

Yes, SuperDuper! works fantastic, I did a 'clone' yesterday (because my hard disk partiotion was running out of space) choosing "Backup - all files" to another bigger partition and it worked flawless.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDup...scription.html

I only know an utility that claims to be able to partition your hard disk without erasing it, DiskStudio, but I have never tried it.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20044

[andydude117]

It seems like Carbon Copy Cloner does pretty much the same thing as SuperDuper, and it's 30 bucks cheaper, so I think I'll use that one. I'm in the middle of copying everything to my external HD. Now what do I do after it's done? Do I boot from the OS X install disk and partition from there? And what do I do after that?

Thanks,
Andy

[Chito]

I should have mentioned to be sure to check the make bootable box in CCC before starting. I hope you found that on your own
Make sure everything works from your external clone first. Then you can either start up from that disk, providing it's a firewire disk, or your OS X install disk. Run disk utility and select to partition your internal drive. Decide how big to make each partition depending on the disk space you're going to need for each os. Name the partitions and let disk utility do it's thing. Then clone your external back to your OS X partition. Be sure to check make bootable. Once again make sure everything works ok and then you can erase your external.

[andydude117]

Yes, luckily I checked the bootable box.

But I now I have a few more questions:

1. How do I boot from the external drive?
2. How do I clone it back to my OS X partition?
3. Once I have all my stuff back on the OS X partition, how does it know to boot from that partition first?

And thanks again for all the help!

-Andy

[Chito]

1. System prefs - startup disk - restart
2. Exactly the same way you cloned to the external.
3. See # 1
Its easy and you're welcome.

[reader50]

There are several utilities available that claim they can repartition a live drive.

$45 iPartition
$60 VolumeWorks
$25 Partition Toolkit (can only shrink partitions, not expand them)

I have not tested any of these. Partition Toolkit seems the most limited, and has not been updated in a long time, and the company's own website www.fwb.com has vanished. The other two look promising. I've had good luck with the defragger made by the same people who make iPartition.

[Maflynn]

Only one piece of advice I'd add regardless of what suggestion you use - backup. If re-partitioning failed for some reason your data is lost.

[andydude117]

Every thing worked great and I partitioned everything up, and now I'm having problems again with ubuntu.

I think eventually I'll figure out how to get it to work.

Thanks,
Andy