OS X and multiboot for PT10

[stof77]

Hello,

I want to jump in for PT10, and as far as I understand, the system and applications, drivers should be set to the minimum.

I bought my Imac a few months ago & have installed a lot of stuff that may cause problems with PT, so I'd like to make a fresh install of Lion or Moutain Lion (shoulg I go for ML rather than Lion ? ),

in fact I'm thinking of a dual boot , 2 OS X,

- one fo PT with only audio stuff
- and one for the everyday job : internet, multimedia, video, Open Office, a bit of web design etc...

HOw can I do that ? will Bootcamp handle it or is it just for Windows & OsX

are they other solutions/utilities for dual boot with 2 Osx ?

or do you know where I could find some infos on how to do that ?

[JFreak]

First, you need to partition your hard drive using Disk Utility. If the drive is not completely full, you may be able to shrink the original partition and create another in the end, but just as well you might be forced to erase the existing partition to be able to create two new partitions. So back up your important stuff before you even try.

Once you have two partitions, you can name them appropriately (for example, "old" for the current partition and "ML" for the new partition). Once named, you can start the OSX installation process and just choose the "ML" partition for the new installation.

Succeed in that, you have two working partitions and you can swap between them simply by choosing the boot drive from system preferences.

You can also use another physical drive for this, but I think you want to take the partitioning route as you have iMac and it's not very all-in-one anymore if it requires to have external hard drive connected at all times... But the most important thing to learn from this post is that you need a partition for every OS installation. If you only have one, you cannot multi-boot.

[bradch00]

I've dual booted off the internal drive and a firewire attached external on a 2010 single FW port iMac with no problems. Actually the audio drive (Glyph) and interface (modified ProjectMix I/O) are on the same port, I've had them daisy chained that way going on almost 3 years now. No problems.

[stof77]

Thanx guys for your answers, I think I will be more comfortable with both system partitions on the internal HD, and use the FW external for Audio & backups only.

I have 200 GB left on the internal HD, but anyway I want to start from scratch even for the everyday system.

Though, as I'm completely new to PT, I don't know yet which OS X (Lion or ML) to choose for it,

I also have yet to buy a new audiocard, but the choice is almost made :

I will go for a Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 or Saffire Pro40.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by stof77

I want to start from scratch even for the everyday system. Though, as I'm completely new to PT, I don't know yet which OS X (Lion or ML) to choose for it.

Well, it's all about drivers isn't it? IF the audio card supports ML then that's what you should install. If it doesn't, then install whatever is supported. ML works fine, and IMO better than Lion.

Anyway; once you have successfully partitioned your internal hard drive into two separate partitions, everything else is simple. (and even the partitioning itself is very simple, but if you have never done it first times might feel tricky)

The first partition boots faster than the second (because drive platters are round) so name that for the environment you're using the most.

[stof77]

I haven't done dualboot nor partitionning on a mac, but been there for PC, so this should be ok, though it always feel special, as you always want to do things the better way and sometimes you forget to do a few things,

I was thinking about the drive platters too, is it just for boot time or all the applications and the system will respond faster on the first partition

[stof77]

NOw, I have One fresh install, Lion 10.7.5, that was pretty long,

and couldn't make 2 partitions with the utility, always getting the same error message : "unable to unmount the disk", will look for some tutorial about this because I don't understand what I'm doing wrong here...

time machine backup is doing its job right now

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by stof77

NOw, I have One fresh install, Lion 10.7.5, that was pretty long,

and couldn't make 2 partitions with the utility, always getting the same error message : "unable to unmount the disk", will look for some tutorial about this because I don't understand what I'm doing wrong here...

time machine backup is doing its job right now

You need to partition when the drive is not mounted, which means during the installation process. You can start Disk Utility from the apple menu when the installer asks you questions.

But don't worry. I think you can resize the partition afterwards, now that your partition is still mostly empty. So go to Disk Utility (from the Utilities folder) and try to make your only partition smaller. If it succeeds, then create another partition to the empty space.

If it doesn't work I'm afraid you have to re-install and partition before the installation process starts copying files.