[Thain Esh Kelch]

I planning to put a 20 Gb 5400 rpm drive in my imac, to replace the stock 4 Gb model.
But I've read that if you want OSX til install on it, you have to partion it, with 8 Gb on the first partion. Are there any way I can get around this?

Its my mothers iMac, and it took me 2 years just to get her to stop asking "Do I turn it on by pressing the round thing on the front of the screen?" (Powerbutton)
And she is still asking how to access the harddrive.. "Just double-click the box in the top right corner mom!".

So Im not gonna have two partions on the desktop or in any Finder windows for that matter, so I've come up with 3 ways, and I need some info on these:

1. Ask i started out by asking, are there ANY way that I can get it to work with OSX, withouth having to do partions?

2. Can I format i to 8 Gb, and just let the last 12 Gb be 'unused', and not show up?

3. If i format it to 2 partions, can I rename the 12 Gb partion ".something"? Would it then be invicible in the Finder and everywhere else? I would then place the entire system cache on the secondary partion by doing some hacking....

And plz, no "Just learn your mom to use 2 partions damned"-solutions... Teaching my mom any post 1990-techniques is like asking a 3-year old to do nuclear physics..

[tooki]

1. Yes, it can be done. But it's a high-risk choice, and likely to cause problems in the future.
2. Absolutely.
3. You can't make it invisible like that, as far as I know. But assuming OS X behaves even remotely like a "normal" UNIX, you can mount a disk to any part of the file system, so it should be possible to somehow prevent OS X from automatically mounting the second partition, and then mount it onto some other part of the filesystem (/Users would be a good choice: make the second partition be the /Users directory).

tooki

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Originally posted by tooki:
1. Yes, it can be done. But it's a high-risk choice, and likely to cause problems in the future.
2. Absolutely.
3. You can't make it invisible like that, as far as I know. But assuming OS X behaves even remotely like a "normal" UNIX, you can mount a disk to any part of the file system, so it should be possible to somehow prevent OS X from automatically mounting the second partition, and then mount it onto some other part of the filesystem (/Users would be a good choice: make the second partition be the /Users directory).

tooki

Regarding number 3... Are you telling me that the system should appear to use one disc, but the entire /users/ is actually located on another partion it just wont look like that?

[austeros]

Originally posted by tooki:
You can't make it invisible like that, as far as I know. But assuming OS X behaves even remotely like a "normal" UNIX, you can mount a disk to any part of the file system, so it should be possible to somehow prevent OS X from automatically mounting the second partition, and then mount it onto some other part of the filesystem (/Users would be a good choice: make the second partition be the /Users directory).

tooki

hmmm that would be cool, but does anyone know how to do this? sucks having my home directory on the first partition, and i can easily see how it would drive his mom nuts.

few things for thain though
1. you will have to partition for any Mac OS to work with a drive bigger then 8gigs, not just OSX
2. if you can get a 7200 drive in stead of that 5400 you will get a nice little speed boost. (i know because i made that same upgrade 4 years ago)

i figure you probably have an old 20 laying around that you plan to use, but a 20 gig 7200 drive is certainly a sweet spot for this machine. i went to 80 gigs, but its noticably slower accessing data, then again the drive was built for an ata 100 machine not my old ata 33 bondi

[Thain Esh Kelch]

I recall the bondi being ATA66, but I might be mistaken.

Anyway, yes, it is an old 5400 rpm 20 Gb disc I have. It looks like I have to do a 8 Gb format, and then just ditch the rest..

[austeros]

its ata 33 alright

dude, just set up some alaises for your mom. put the downloads folder on the second partition, the music folder etc, set it up on the sidebar of the finder and she will never know the difference. put them in her home directory and you should be set. just remember to set up her preferences first (for downloads, etc)

You can turn off the ability to mount them on the desktop easily enough

[tooki]

Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch:
Regarding number 3... Are you telling me that the system should appear to use one disc, but the entire /users/ is actually located on another partion it just wont look like that?

Assuming OS X behaves like other UNIXey operating systems, yes, that's exactly how it would work. But I don't know how to set that up.



By the way, people: Tray-load G3 iMacs do not have Ultra ATA/33 (much less ATA/66 or /100). They have 16.7MB/sec non-Ultra ATA.

tooki

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Originally posted by tooki:
Assuming OS X behaves like other UNIXey operating systems, yes, that's exactly how it would work. But I don't know how to set that up.

Could someone please fill us in on this one? It would be major cool!