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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > If you got an external HD and Powerbook I need your help!!

If you got an external HD and Powerbook I need your help!!
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iREZ
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Jan 13, 2005, 08:00 PM
 
I'm thinking of getting an external drive and I wanna boot from it to take advantage of its speed compared to my 4200RPM basically I wanna use my PB as a portable but have a buff HD when I sit infront of my external monitor at home while working on PS and ILL files. Why not upgrade the internal you ask? I don't wanna spend extra cash on having a "Certified Tech" do the install to keep my Applecare in tact, not to mention how they have the tendancy to not give a crap on how they treat your machine. My question is how would I share files between the two (PB and ext HD) when I boot from the external, and if indeed the process of using an external to boot is as practical as it sounds to me? Thanks in advance.
NOW YOU SEE ME! 2.4 MBP and 2.0 MBP (running ubuntu)
     
romeosc
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Jan 13, 2005, 08:18 PM
 
You can keep your files in a folder on the desktop of internal drive and have them in the sidebar, so you can use them at your whim. I do one better and keep a copy of my files on a 1GB usb flash ram, so I can take it and use on anyone's computer!
     
iREZ  (op)
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Jan 14, 2005, 01:15 AM
 
Yeah but how would you transfer files from the internal to the external and vice versa without shutting my computer off. If I boot from my external will I see my internal HD on my desktop? I don't understand how it works if I want to share. My take is that two seperate HD's are treated as two different computers......I also don't understand what the sidebar your refering to is.
NOW YOU SEE ME! 2.4 MBP and 2.0 MBP (running ubuntu)
     
urrl78
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Jan 14, 2005, 09:11 AM
 
With Techtool pro I have created an e-drive on my exterior HD. I can hold down the option key when booting in order to choose which drive to boot from. Once the desktop for the exterior drive shows up there is the interior HD icon on it. I can drag files from one drive to another. There is also a dock showing disk utilites and a few other essential icons like trash.
     
reemas
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Jan 14, 2005, 10:32 AM
 
i made the same post about half a year ago, or less. i got tons of great responses. see if you can find it, if not, email me or PM me and i'll find the link.

many people recommeded several programs and their pros and cons. ( i think)
     
JKT
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Jan 14, 2005, 12:11 PM
 
When you boot from your external, you will see your internal as a mounted disk drive on your desktop much as you would see the external when booted from the internal. Moving files between the two is easy.

One word of warning, make sure you use your PowerBook software restore/installation disks to install MacOS X Panther - if you don't, and use the standard Panther install disks the 10.3.0 version will not be bootable by the PowerBook (at least that was my experience). When you do the install from the PowerBook disks, have your external connected and mounted on the desktop - you can then choose it as the installation location

FWIW, f you have .Mac you can use it to sync your address books etc between the two - they will appear as two different computers if you name the disks differently etc.
     
iREZ  (op)
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Jan 14, 2005, 12:33 PM
 
Originally posted by: JKT
When you boot from your external, you will see your internal as a mounted disk drive on your desktop much as you would see the external when booted from the internal. Moving files between the two is easy.
Exactly what I wanted to hear, I really hoped it'd be that easy. Thanks to all and I'll look for the thread reemas, although I did search two or three times to no avail.
NOW YOU SEE ME! 2.4 MBP and 2.0 MBP (running ubuntu)
     
reemas
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Jan 15, 2005, 01:24 AM
 
its mentioned in this post:

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=214991

but i dont know if thats the post i remember posting, might have been the apple forums...
     
SEkker
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Jan 15, 2005, 11:41 AM
 
I've done this tons of time -- the easiest way to do this is to CCC your internal HD onto the external. Then set the OS to boot off the external, should be just like booting off the internal drive. [this is how I know any replacement HD for the PB is ready to go before I do the swap, BTW].

The other way is to use the internal HD as a boot drive, but be sure to set your apps to use the external drive as scratch disk and to store all files. This way you don't have to waste space with an extra system folder, etc.

I did this when I had a 4200 rpm internal drive; I've upgraded to 7200, and the external drive is still invaluable -- I usually need more than 20-30 GB for a video project. In this case, I actually have both FW400 AND FW800 drives for use on on my PB17; the FW800 drive is super fast, and I recommend this approach to any that have a FW800 port on their PBs, if you can afford it.
     
Dr.Michael
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Jan 15, 2005, 12:27 PM
 
Originally posted by SEkker:
I've done this tons of time -- the easiest way to do this is to CCC your internal HD onto the external. Then set the OS to boot off the external, should be just like booting off the internal drive.
Thats it.
I have an external 160GB/7200 rpm drive and had exactly the same thing in mind like you, iRez.
The external boots the Powerbook indeed faster and makes it a little snappier. But in the end, its not practical BECAUSE of the problem with syncronizing files. I did not find a good solution.

Maybe it could be a way to use the two drives as a software raid. But I would think that the slowest drive will then set the speed limit.

In the end you need a lot of discipline (work on the internal and synchronize it with the external afterwards or work with the external and synchronize with the internal afterwards).
If you forget to synchronize, its likely that you will lose data!!!!!!!!!!

I ended up with using my external as a backup and sometimes as a reserve if I need a lot of space for intermediate data.

Yes, the internal drive will mount on the desktop, like the external does when you boot from the internal.
And I also use Carbon Copy Cloner for backup and synchronisation. A great tool. Don't forget to send some money. Its abashing to use such a great and useful tool for free.
     
iREZ  (op)
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Jan 15, 2005, 02:51 PM
 
Well I wanna use the external and keep all the files that I work on with my external on my external and whatever I work on with my internal kept on my internal, but I want to drag files from one to the other once in awhile and that's what my plan was. Almost like having a seperate Mac at home by using the external on it's own and being able to share files between the two. Also how many gigs can Mac OS X recognize? I'm lookin at 150gig but I see huge deals on 250gig HD's and was wondering if Apple could recognize all 250gig's (I know that 250gig's is actually something like 235gig's)?
NOW YOU SEE ME! 2.4 MBP and 2.0 MBP (running ubuntu)
     
Dr.Michael
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Jan 16, 2005, 06:47 AM
 
Originally posted by iREZ:
Well I wanna use the external and keep all the files that I work on with my external on my external and whatever I work on with my internal kept on my internal, but I want to drag files from one to the other once in awhile and that's what my plan was. Almost like having a seperate Mac at home by using the external on it's own and being able to share files between the two.
That sounds as if it could work.

Also how many gigs can Mac OS X recognize? I'm lookin at 150gig but I see huge deals on 250gig HD's and was wondering if Apple could recognize all 250gig's (I know that 250gig's is actually something like 235gig's)?
250 is no problem. hfs+ can manage terabyte drives. Just have a look at the xserve. They come with 250 or 400 GB drives.
If the drive would really be too large, partitioning is always a solution. But it will work with 250GB also on one partion.
( Last edited by Dr.Michael; Jan 16, 2005 at 06:04 PM. )
     
Randman
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Jan 16, 2005, 06:54 AM
 
Don't partition, it's a waste of time.

You can make CCC to create a bootable copy on your external. That's what I do.

I have a PB17 and two external HDs, one I only use for backup and storage (unedited video, Toast-ed copy of disks for gaming, Garageband stuff, etc).

I use CCC to make a bootable clone (with the option to have permissions repaired). Then I simply delete whatever apps I don't want/need from the PB. When I do, I can either hook up the external and run them off of that (often for gaming and apps I don't use often) or I drag them back to my PB in case I need them on the go.

I also do this for my music. I keep my music folder on the PB so I can have it on the road but as a backup, I copy music over from the PB to the external music folder weekly or so, just in case something happens.

And finally, I keep some things backed up on my iPod photo in case I need them on the go as well.

This is a computer-generated message and needs no signature.
     
iREZ  (op)
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Jan 16, 2005, 03:34 PM
 
Thanks for all the help guys.....exactly who I wanted to hear from too. Looks like the deal is sealed pretty much.
NOW YOU SEE ME! 2.4 MBP and 2.0 MBP (running ubuntu)
     
   
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