[fobside]

I have a PowerBook and I don't want to wipe the drive, but I do want to create a partition. Is there any way to do this? Free is always best. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Randman]

Why do you want to partition?

[fobside]

I want to take my single PowerBook drive and partition it into two partitions. That way if I ever want to wipe my system, I can do it without worrying about the backup.

[chabig]

I don't think you can create a partition without wiping the drive clean and starting over. You can try iPartition but I would be very cautious. At a minimum, make sure you have a good backup of your data. But if you have a good backup, then I would recommend just creating your partitions in the normal way.

Chris

[fobside]

Well, thus far it seems the consenus is that it's not possible without wiping the drive. How would I go about doing this? I looked at Disk Utility and it just tells me the drive is my boot drive, so I cannot touch it. I don't think I've ever seen it in the Mac OS X setup. Maybe I've missed it.

[starman]

It's possible. Do a search on these forums. I think I asked the same question a few months back. There are two apps - iPartition and another whose name I can't remember. I haven't tried either one but as stated above, ALWAYS BACKUP FIRST.

I think doing a search on "iPartition" should get you what you want.

Mike

[chabig]

Originally Posted by fobside

How would I go about doing this? I looked at Disk Utility and it just tells me the drive is my boot drive, so I cannot touch it.

Think about it. If you're going to erase your hard drive during the creation of partitions, you certainly can't be booted from that very drive. Here's what you do...

1. Make a bootable backup on an external drive (I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner)

2. Boot your computer from an OS X install CD/DVD or the CD/DVD that shipped with your machine.

3. Don't run the OS X installer. From the main screen, go the File Menu and choose Disk Utility.

4. Now you will be able to partition the drive

5. Finally, use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore your backup to the partition of your choice.

Chris

[ginoledesma]

The easy but non-free way is to get Micromat's DiskStudio. I played with this back in Macworld Expo and it works just as expected. If you've ever used PartitionMagic for the PC, its very similar in approach.

[TETENAL]

Don't partition your drive. It causes more problems than it solves.

You can reinstall the operating system with "Archive & Install" and reimport of user settings. This way you get a clean system and keep all you data. Nevertheless "without a backup" is the wrong strategy in the long run. Make regular backups of your data.

[Norm Nager]

Originally Posted by ginoledesma

The easy but non-free way is to get Micromat's DiskStudio. I played with this back in Macworld Expo and it works just as expected.

I donated by time as a volunteer beta tester and put DiskStudio through its paces on a G4 and old Beige G3, early in the testing running Panther's 10.3.8 and then OS 10.3.9.

DiskStudio allowed me to do re-partitioning on the fly when launched from another hard drive and when launched from TechTool Pro 4.0.4's eDrive. It worked like a charm.

But before I would ever do any re-partitioning, I would make sure Permissions were repaired and that the volume directory was tested or rebuilt with either TechTool Pro or DiskWarrior. Before and after partioning, I ran Repair Permissions, just to make sure.

I would NEVER do any re-partitioning without having a very recent backup set or a bootable clone on another hard drive. I never had to rely on my backups or clones while testing DiskStudio but I still would insist upon backing up first just in case.

I can only speak or how DiskStudio works with OS 10.3.8 and 10.3.9 on my G4 and old Beige (on which Panther was installed and enabled by XPostFacto software. I will not intall Tiger until after it's release on April 29.

Respectfully, Norm

[starman]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Don't partition your drive. It causes more problems than it solves.

In 8 or 10 years, I've run partitioned drives. Never had a problem. Ever.

Mike

[tooki]

I'd say "inconvenience" more than "problems".

tooki