[voicebox]

Hi there,
First of all my apologies if this post is in the wrong forum!
I have a LaCie d2 300Gb external HD which I have partitioned 3 ways. Two of those partitions are used as back up for (1) my G4 PowerBook 10.4.10 system and (2) my G4 iMac 10.3.9 system. The other partition - 100Gb - is used for my picture collection and other sundry files - no apps. In short - a PPC external HD!
Recently I bought a 17" Intel MBP - and my questions are these: Is there any reason why I can't use the picture/files partition for backing up my Intel MBP system? Will there be any sort of conflict when booting up my PB G4 or my iMac G4 from the external drive? Or, will I have to invest in a new external HD just for use with my Intel MBP?
I know I am not be able to boot into those partitions from my MBP and visa-versa!!
All three partitions are and will be individually named so there will be no confusion.
Thanks for any help and advice,
best
voicebox

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

A Intel Mac will have no problem reading a PPC HD, because there isn't such thing. Everything is HFS+.

Whats this about booting from the external?

[wulf]

I'm assuming (I know, never assume) that voicebox is acknowledging that one can't boot up a PPC from an Intel install, or vice-versa.

Although the disk format is HFS+, OS X prefers to use a different partitioning scheme - GPT - for an Intel OS X install, than for a PPC install - which can use the older APM.

So voicebox, while you can backup your Intel Mac to the third partition on your drive, my understanding is that you wouldn't be able to install Intel OS X onto it directly, unless it had been partitioned using GPT. Since you've been using it with your PPC Macs, the partitions are most likely APM.

Whether you could boot the Intel Mac from the backup on the APM partition is dependent on how the backup is done, there's more info on this topic here.

Hope this helps…

[voicebox]

Apologies - been off line due to attending an important Test Match ..!
Hi wulf,
All I want to do is backup my new Intel system to the third partition of my LaCie external HD which already has 2 other PCC partitions on it.
In this case, before backing up, should I or inded can I, re-format the target partition ...?
In the 'unusual' case of an internal HD failure I would want to boot my Intel MBP from that partition.
In short and to 'cut to the chase,' can I have an Intel system partitioned on the same external drive that already has 2 PPC systems in 2 diferent partitions ..?
best
voicebox

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by voicebox 

In short and to 'cut to the chase,' can I have an Intel system partitioned on the same external drive that already has 2 PPC systems in 2 diferent partitions ..?
best
voicebox

No. When you use disk utility to partition with the GUID option in order to boot intel, it will wipe your all your partitions and make them all GUID. I'm not sure if a third party partition app would let you do just one partition.

[Big Mac]

Good information seems to be here: rentzsch.com: Intel-based Mac Boot Incompatibility

[Art Vandelay]

To sum up, you'll be just fine with your existing hard drive. You won't be able to instal OS X for Intel with the Install DVD to that drive, but you will be able to back up your Intel Mac to that drive and boot from it, provided you use a backup mechanism that creates bootable backups.

[voicebox]

Thank you all for your help - and for the link Big Mac, very interesting information - thanks. I'd forgotten that Intel based Macs can boot from a USB HD with no need for FireWire.

I'll use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my system across sometime over the next day or so and see what happens ...I'll let you know the results.
If I do have to buy a new external HD, at least a USB HD only will be easier on the wallet!
best
voicebox