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dhamon · May 4, 2004, 05:55 PM

Can a drive be partitioned without data loss?

OreoCookie · May 4, 2004, 10:59 PM

On the Mac: I don't think so. On Windows, there's Partition Magic.

Partisan01 · May 4, 2004, 11:25 PM

Originally posted by dhamon:
Can a drive be partitioned without data loss?

It is possible, but you have to be very careful and know what you're doing. If you are adding partitions in areas where no data lives and you do it through fdisk you'll be fine. Download the OpenBSD-ppc iso, it is bootable and includes fdisk. Just boot off of that, and then partition away. You can set up Apple Partitions through it, so you'd be fine. Just in case I would backup important data beforehand. I have actually done this procedure you talk about though on my B&W without a problem.

If you're looking at doing it on a older Classic Machine you should be fine also as long as you don't set your MacOS partition to take up the whole drive. If there is any open space HD SC will have no problem adding and deleting partions while you happily chug away in MacOS. Hope this helps.

Nate

OreoCookie · May 5, 2004, 12:37 AM

Originally posted by Partisan01:
It is possible, but you have to be very careful and know what you're doing. If you are adding partitions in areas where no data lives and you do it through fdisk you'll be fine. Download the OpenBSD-ppc iso, it is bootable and includes fdisk. Just boot off of that, and then partition away. You can set up Apple Partitions through it, so you'd be fine. Just in case I would backup important data beforehand. I have actually done this procedure you talk about though on my B&W without a problem.

If you're looking at doing it on a older Classic Machine you should be fine also as long as you don't set your MacOS partition to take up the whole drive. If there is any open space HD SC will have no problem adding and deleting partions while you happily chug away in MacOS. Hope this helps.

Nate

I thought this is exactly what he's talking about: resizing a `life' partition. Typically, the partitioning scheme is such that it spans over all of the HD. You can add partitions with the usual Disk Utility as well. But resizing -- even in the Windows world, a backup and a clean start is considered the better alternative.

dhamon · May 5, 2004, 12:56 AM

Well, I have an external drive to back up to, I'm just a tad anxious about losing the stuff on my internal drive and having to depend on the backup, especially if I have to reformat the internal drive before I start. I want to make a bootable Linux partition of say 2GB or so, and keep the stuff that's on the drive already where it is. Will Disk Utility let me create a new partition in that manner, or will I lose what's on the drive right now?

OreoCookie · May 5, 2004, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by dhamon:
Well, I have an external drive to back up to, I'm just a tad anxious about losing the stuff on my internal drive and having to depend on the backup, especially if I have to reformat the internal drive before I start. I want to make a bootable Linux partition of say 2GB or so, and keep the stuff that's on the drive already where it is. Will Disk Utility let me create a new partition in that manner, or will I lose what's on the drive right now?

No, it won't.
Even if you could, those utilities are usually not too safe. It should be easier to backup and to start from scratch.

Partisan01 · May 10, 2004, 03:23 PM

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
I thought this is exactly what he's talking about: resizing a `life' partition. Typically, the partitioning scheme is such that it spans over all of the HD. You can add partitions with the usual Disk Utility as well. But resizing -- even in the Windows world, a backup and a clean start is considered the better alternative.

If you want to use the Unix tools you can still do it to a live partition that takes up the whole hard drive. Be very careful if you go this route, it's easy to mess up. I would recommend backing up just in case. If you have the external hard drive, maybe backup first, go this route, if you screw up then start from scratch.

nate

chalk_outline · May 23, 2004, 02:49 AM

Originally posted by dhamon:
Well, I have an external drive to back up to, I'm just a tad anxious about losing the stuff on my internal drive and having to depend on the backup, especially if I have to reformat the internal drive before I start. I want to make a bootable Linux partition of say 2GB or so, and keep the stuff that's on the drive already where it is. Will Disk Utility let me create a new partition in that manner, or will I lose what's on the drive right now?

I could be wrong but Linux needs multiple partitions. For example a different one for swap. Then you have to hope the Linux installer doesn't wipe the wrong partition. I don't blame the installer but **** happens.

Go for it but make sure you have a good back-up. It might take some time but it is a good idea to get some of your important data on cd's.

OreoCookie · May 23, 2004, 05:23 AM

Originally posted by chalk_outline:
I could be wrong but Linux needs multiple partitions. For example a different one for swap. Then you have to hope the Linux installer doesn't wipe the wrong partition. I don't blame the installer but **** happens.

Go for it but make sure you have a good back-up. It might take some time but it is a good idea to get some of your important data on cd's.

Linux doesn't need multiple partitions anymore AFAIK, but usually it is recommended in `bigger' setups. FreeBSD does this by default and it can be very helpful if you do.

You also don't have to hope, because it never happened to me that `Linux' (or FreeBSD for that matter which is more complicated than Linux in this respective) messed up, but is was rather me

Seriously: backup + repartitioning of the hd is the best option.