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General discussion

New drive

Feb 27, 2008 3:43PM PST

I recently purchased a 250GB external drive, primarily for Time Machine. My system has a 150GB drive of which 50GB is used (and 100GB is free).

How should I allocate space on the new drive?

Based on past discussions on this BB the suggestion was to allocate 200GB for Time Machine. Should I just have:

1. one 250GB partition on the new drive and allocate it all to Time Machine or
2. should I have two partitions: a 200GB Time Machine partition and a 50GB partition for other uses?

In case 2, could I put a bootable partition on the drive to be used if the drive inside the imac fails?

Note, partition is probably not the right word.

I'm not sure how to any of the above. The drive (a Seagate FreeAgent) worked right out the box when attached to a USB port. A reboot was not necessary, and an icon for the drive appeared on the Desktop.

The drive includes manuals and software for mac formating. I have not read the manuals yet, and please excuse this post if all the answers are in the manuals.

My system is now OSX 10.4.11 with 512MB RAM and 150GB internal and 250GB external drives.

Soon, the system will be OSX 10.5.? with 2GB RAM and 150GB internal and 250GB external drives. (? is the current release of Leopard; I don't remember if it's 1 or 2.)

Discussion is locked

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250Gb Drive
Feb 27, 2008 8:56PM PST

How you partition the external drive is entirely up to you but case 2 is a good way to go.
Partition the drive with a 200GB and 50Gb (give or take) and use the 200 for Time Machine and the 50 for a Bootable partition.

Although the drive worked straight out of the box, it will need to be formatted as HFS+(Journaled) using the GUID partition table.
This will ensure that the drive is capable of booting an Intel Mac. If formatted in using the previously normal Apple table, the drive will only be capable of booting a PPC Mac. Disk Utility will take care of that for you, it's under options in the Partition tab.

Disregard the software that came with the drive if you plan to use the drive for Time Machine. Only format and partition the drive using the Disk Utility in OS X.

If you need any more information, just holler


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How?
Mar 22, 2008 12:20PM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry for the lateness of this response. (I had lost the notification of your response.)

How do you do the two items mentioned in your mail?

1. Format the drive as two partitions?
2. Make the drive bootable? (I have three discs: OSx install discs 1 and 2 (for OSX 10.3.5), and disc 3: additional SW and hardware test.)

And a third question:

3. How do you boot from the external drive? (Does holding done the "c" help?)

My system is now an iMac G5 running OSX 10.5.2, with 2GB RAM, a 150GB internal drive and a 250GB (actually 240GB) external drive.

Thanks.

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Interesting
Mar 22, 2008 11:20PM PDT

First a question from me.

Why do you not have installation disks for OS X 10.5?

Now yours.
CAUTION: Partitioning will DESTROY ALL DATA currently on this drive.

1. You would format the drive using Disk Utility. (applications/utilities)
Your new HD will appear in the LH pane of the window. Select it.
Choose the Partition Tab and select 2 partitions from the drop down menu
Choose Mac OS Extended (journaled) from the format type drop down
Click in the top partition and move the dividing bar, under volume scheme, so that 50GB is the size of the first (top) partition
Click options and choose Apple Partition Map. Drives formatted like this can boot a PPC Mac but not an Intel one.
Back at the main window, click the first partition and give it a name
Do the same with the second partition. Different name though. Time Machine is good
Click Apply

To make the drive bootable, it must have an operating system on it. Insert your OS X 10.5 disk, and run the installer. Install the OS on the small partition of the external drive.

To boot from that drive, choose it from the Startup preference pane in System preferences.

If there are no other valid systems available, like if you internal HD crashed, the system to go find another one and end up with your external drive.

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Re: Interesting
Mar 23, 2008 2:58AM PDT

Thanks much for the reply.

I don't have the 10.5 install discs because I purchased 10.5 as an upgrade to 10.4. I don't remember how I got 10.4. The only discs I have are the 10.3.5 discs that came originally with the imac.

How can I proceed?

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Even more interesting
Mar 23, 2008 4:53AM PDT

I'm not so sure that there was actually an "upgrade" from 10.4 to 10.5. I think it was a complete install and should have cost you around $110. (Your price may differ but not by a great deal) Where did you get it from?

Do as I suggested but use the "upgrade" disk. Don't forget to choose the external drive as the drive to install on.
If the installer balks and says that it requires 10.4 to proceed, so be it. If it doesn't, just go ahead and install it on the external.
Do not install all the extra languages, it says many GB's if you don't

Let us know how you get on

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Re: Even more interesting
Mar 23, 2008 10:31AM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Thanks for the reply. You've been great and you're absolutely correct! The "upgrade" was only in the pricing, and I have a 10.5.1 disc.

Two groups of questions (and then I'm done - unless something goes wrong):

1. Do I:
partition the external drive as in your last message
boot from the 10.5.1 disc
install 10.5.1 on the external drive?
2. Do I need to keep the external drive updated to the latest OSX release, which I believe is 10.5.2 + one update (which didn't seem to have a number, but included security fixes)? To do this, I guess I would boot from the external drive and run software update there. Yes?

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Answers
Mar 23, 2008 9:52PM PDT

1. Yes.
Yes,
Yes.

2. While this is not absolutely necessary, you would be well advised to do so.
Yes, exactly the way you said it.

On that external drive, you should also put any utilities that you have, Techtool Pro, Disk Warrior, Drive Genius, etc. so that you can use them against the internal HD.
You can on fix a drive if it is NOT the boot disk.

Good luck

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Re: Answers
Mar 24, 2008 8:51AM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Thanks for your reply. Sigh everything looked so well at hand. I partitioned the external drive into two partitions, 50GB (intended as a bootable backup) and 182.6GB (intended for Time Machine), each formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Then I booted with the 10.5.1 CD, and tried to install OS X 10.5.1 on either of the two drives. I got the message:

You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume.

Please help! What am I missing?

Thanks.

Cheers!

Dave

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Start Up
Mar 24, 2008 10:10AM PDT

You can only start up a PPC Mac, with an external drive, when that drive is connected via Firewire.

USB boot is not supported in PPC but is in Intel powered Macs.

Does that drive have a firewire connection too?

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Re: Start Up
Mar 24, 2008 12:26PM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm confused; my external is connected by USB. Three questions:

1. Are you telling me that I can't boot from my external drive?

2. Does this mean that I have to boot from my internal drive?

3. Does it mean that I have to upgrade the internal drive to 10.5.2 to get the features of 10.5.2; now only the external drive has been upgraded?

Thanks.

Cheers!

Dave

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Again
Mar 24, 2008 3:37PM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Please ignore item #3 in the message above. I don't know what it means, i.e., what was I thinking? Moreover, my internal drive is running OS X 10.5.2 (with a security patch that doesn't seem to be numbered).

So, I'm looking for an answer only to #1 and #2.

Cheers!

Dave

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Answers
Mar 24, 2008 9:59PM PDT

You have a G5 Mac that uses a PPC (POwer PC) processor.

PPC Mac's do NOT support booting from an external USB device, no matter what version of the OS they are running.
Therefore, you cannot boot from your external drive if it is connected to your G5 via a USB cable.
However, you CAN boot from your external drive IF there is a Firewire port on the back of your external drive AND you connect the external drive to your G5 with a Firewire Cable. (No changes necessary to the contents of the drive, this is purely a connection thing)

If the answer to #1 is "Yes, you cannot boot from your external drive if it remains configured as it is" then the answer to #2 is "Yes"

The internal drive should be at 10.5.2 already.

Hope this sheds some light on your problem.

Does the external drive have a Firewire port?

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Re: Answers
Mar 25, 2008 2:53AM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Thanks for the reply. My external drive is a Seagate FreeAgent. It supports USB only, not Firewire.

I mainly purchased it to support TimeMachine. External boot just popped up as feature one might want to have.

Do you know of external drives that support Firewire?

I don't know if I'm within the return window of my Seagate drive.

Thanks.

Cheers!

Dave

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Firewire Enclosures
Mar 25, 2008 4:34AM PDT

there are lots of Firewire enclosures.
Seagate make one,
La Cie too.

Take a look at MacMall, CDW, Tiger Direct to name but a few.

The drive itself will be fine for the job you purchased it for.

An external boot alternative is also a good idea.

You can buy a very cheap Firewire enclosure, an inexpensive 40GB IDE drive and be good to go at a price much lower than most of the commercial products.

One of the reasons that your drive worked, straight out of the box, was probably because it was formatted as FAT as opposed to HFS+ (Mac) or NTFS (Windows).
It works but is notoriously unstable.

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Re: Firewire Enclosures
Mar 25, 2008 11:58AM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Thanks for your reply. Assuming I can still return my drive, I'll look at the sites you mentioned for a firewire drive.

On another track (which I'll need if I can't return the drive), I noticed some devices that at first glance appeared to be Firewire to USB

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USB to Firewire
Mar 25, 2008 12:15PM PDT

I'm afraid you are reading that page completely incorrectly.

What you are looking at is a USB hub and a FIrewire hub. The Firewire and USB are completely separate and there is NO conversion going on here.

There is a Firewire in and out and a USB in and out. What goes in, comes out of the corresponding port.

USB in = USB out, Firewire in = Firewire out.

Sorry.

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Forgot to ention
Mar 25, 2008 12:16PM PDT

There is no USB to Firewire converter.

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Re: USB to Firewire and Forgot to Mention
Mar 25, 2008 12:52PM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

Thanks for your responses. Guess I'll need to either make the return happen or live without booting from my external drive.

It would have been nice if Apple had provided a boot from USB drive on power PC systems. I hope there are not more features than are Intel only.

Thanks.

Cheers!

Dave

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To be fair
Mar 25, 2008 10:36PM PDT

The only reason there is now USB boot support is because of the Intel processor.

I don't think it was an actual decision NOT to allow USB booting.


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Re: To be fair
Mar 31, 2008 7:59AM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

I checked with the vendor. They allow returns only within a 15 day window, which I wasn't close to. So, I'm going to live with the current drive, without a boot capability.

It's only a matter of time before I replace my mac with an Intel based one. However, nothing is urgent, and it will take some very desirable application, with Intel only support, for me to make a switch.

The newest releases of iListen (speech recognition) are available Intel only. So, if I get heavy into speech recognition, I may need to switch to an Intel platform. This hasn't happened yet.

Cheers!

Dave

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Re: Firewire Enclosures
Mar 31, 2008 8:11AM PDT

Hi mrmacfixit,

In an earlier post, you mentioned:

"One of the reasons that your drive worked, straight out of the box, was probably because it was formatted as FAT as opposed to HFS+ (Mac) or NTFS (Windows).
It works but is notoriously unstable."

How should I format the drive so it is stable?

Thanks.

Cheers!

Dave

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Using Disk Utility
Mar 31, 2008 9:50AM PDT

you would format the drive as HFS+ (Journaled) and all will be rosy for you.

BEWARE: Formatting the drive will result in ALL the data, on that drive, to be destroyed.

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