Parttitioning a Mac?

[JJMc]

Can anybody learn me up on how to do this? Do you need any special software? I'm willing to pay if necessary. -Jim

[Jobber of the Week]

Hook up your drive via IDE/Firewire/USB2 however it works.

 

Go into Applications -> Utilities, folder and start up Disk Utility. Click the drive in the list for your new drive, click the Partition tab, and there you are.

[JJMc]

Thanks. But the drive I want to split says "this drive contains the boot volume and cannot be partitioned." Any other advice?

[Jobber of the Week]

Are you trying to partition your own drive that already has Mac OS on it?

 

Because that's a lot more different than trying to partition a new hard drive or something. I think I only ever heard of one utility that allowed you to change the partition table of the system disk, but they were unreliable.

 

Your best bet is to get a dumpy drive that you can boot from, put the system on it, and boot off it while working on your main drive. Or, if you're using a recent laptop and have another Mac nearby, you can activate a mode at startup that allows the whole computer to become a FireWire external drive for another Mac for a whole boot.

 

But even then, repartition space that's already been partitioned is just an iffy matter. You would be wise to simply burn everything of value to disc, reformat it, and then partition it then.

 

Since I'm not the king of OS X (I know a lot more about the old system than I do the new one), you may also want to try calling up the nearest Apple store and asking them. There's some smart people there usually.

[JJMc]

Are you trying to partition your own drive that already has Mac OS on it?

Yes. I'll just take it to a shop and ask them. Thanks for everything, though. -Jim

[Steviekick]

It won't let you do that. Your best bet is to backup your data and reformat.