Creating a partition for OSX/PT6

[stevegalante]

I have a Mac 867 with an internal 60G drive divided in two 30G partitions (one is the startup drive). I'm presently running 9.2.2. If I need to create a third partition for OSX/PT6 obviously without changing the actual content of the two partitions what software should I use ? Somebody told me about Partition Toolkit by FWB, any other solutions ?

[PlugInJunky]

I don't think its necessay to partition a drive in three...I have my OSX and OS9 on the same harddrive like it came from factory I just change startup disk...don't have any problems....infact I had more problems with drives partitioned....as long as you keep your drive checked regular in disk doctor and your good.(Ioccassionaly have some minor problems...and I do a Fix All in disc doctor from Norton...and my computer is always smiling)

I used disc utilities from OSX jag startup disc...to partition.(BACKUP YOUR FILES BEFORE DOING THIS....)

[Avid]

Here are some suggestions:
http://www.digidesign.com/compato/osx/dual.cfm

[stevegalante]

As Digi said :

Each OS on a separate partition of a single hard drive. This is a better way to go if you have only one internal hard drive. If each partition has a discrete OS (OS 9 on one partition and OS X on the second) then file sharing between the OS'es will be minimized.

So what I wanted to do is to use some tools to resize one of my partitions (not the startup one containing the OS 9.2.2) and make 2 of 15G each from 1 of 30G. Then install OSX in the newly created one. From what you say can I do this with some utility contained in the OSX install ?

[MarcoM]

It's not possible to resize a partition once a hard drive has been partitioned. Unfortunately you will have to erase the ENTIRE hard disk and create 3 partitions ex-novo.

Although it is a bit of a pain to do that (because you'll have to remove every single plug-in and other software authorisation you might have on the existing partitions before you format the drive), it's a very good thing to start fresh before installing OS X. To answer your question, I would start up from an original OS 9.1 CD after you've backed up the entire drive, choose the standard Apple Drive Setup to format and partition the drive, install OS 9.1 in the the second partition. Then reboot the Mac and run the free 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 updater available from Apple http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75186&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A% 2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.c om%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePa ge&searchMode=Expert&kbhost=kbase.info.ap ple.com&showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurve y=false&sessionID=anonymous|164265868

Reboot again, this time from an original OS X CD, install OS X in the first partition, then run the 10.1 updater, followed by the 10.2.3 combo updater to bring it up to the latest version, et voilà, you should have the two systems ready to go. If you've got all the parts ready, this shouldn't take you longer that 60 min. to do.

Luckily I planned my drive partitioning in advance, so when I decided to install OS X I had a 10GB partition already available. My current setup has OX 10.2.3 in a 10GB partition, OS 9.2.2 on a separate 10GB partition, and a third partition with the rest of the hard drive.

Although you can have both OS X and OS 9.2.2 sharing the same partition, I found that if something goes wrong with either of the systems, there's a good chance that this would also affect the other system, leaving me with a Mac that won't boot. By putting the 2 systems on separate partitions means I can choose which system to boot from by holding down the option key when I power up / restart the Mac.
I also believe that, should things go horribly wrong with one system, I can still safely trash the entire content of its partition and reistall it without having to do the whole lot.

I hope this helps

[stevegalante]

Marco, why do you say 'It's not possible to resize a partition once a hard drive has been partitioned '. Doesn't the FWB Partition Toolkit do this job ? Quoting the FWB site : 'With Partition Toolkit™, you can resize Macintosh formatted volumes to make them smaller, and then use the new free space to create a second volume (or more) in the format of your choice.'
By the way, are you italian ?

[Lane McGiboney]

I have a dual 867 which we partitioned and installed OSX on one partition. I used the disks which came with the computer. This also installs OS 9.2.2. The only problem is in order to install OS 9 on the other partition you must first install OSX. Now you have OSX and OS 9 on both partitions. How can I remove OSX from the 9 partition, and OS 9 from the X partition....

[Mark Reis]

Partitition Toolkit is relatively new and not many people know about it. Though I have never used it, it seems a lot like Partition Magic for the PC.

FWB says " FWB Partition Toolkit™ was created to automate the procedure of resizing and creating new volumes on the fly without the need to move your data to a temporary storage."

If you defrag your disk for partitioning (large contiguous block of free space at end of disk) and then run Partition Toolkit, you should be able to turn 1 60 gig drive into as many smaller partitions as you need. I'd probably split it as 10 Gig for OS9, 20 for OS X, and the rest for data/documents/sessions. I prefer my protools sessions to be an a dedicated hard drive, but 30gig of storage for MP3s is nice.

Mark

[Reckless Erik]

Word of warning guys. Digi suggest that if you intend to use OS 9 and OSX then you must have separate disk DRIVES, not just simple partitioning of the main internal drive. This is due to the very distinct possibility of losing floppy authorizations.Beware!!

Nick

[DigiTechSupt]

My two cents... thanks for asking...

I would stay away from any utility that resizes existing partitions. Macs can be particular about drivers on drives and partitions and you could run into problems later. If you're going to resize or create partitions, do it with the Mac Drive setup in OS X (be sure to check the box for OS 9 drivers/compatibility).

I've done several OS X /Pro Tools 6.0 installs now so, my advice is this....

1) If your internal drive is already partitioned into atleast two partitions, your set. Use one for OS 9 and the other for OS X.

2) If your internal drive is NOT already partitioned, go to your local computer store and purchase an IDE/ATA drive (size of your choice) and install it into your computer as a second internal drive. If you have a G4, it's got an extra drive bay with power and ribbon cable just waiting for a second drive. Installation is very easy and quick even if you're typically not into that sort of thing.

This way you leave your OS 9 drive intact (if it ain't broke don't fix it) and you can then install OS X and Pro Tools 6 on the second drive. Although many plugins for OS X/Pro Tools 6 are available now, there may be some that you use that are not available yet so if you need them you can easily reboot into OS 9 to get to them

In addition, you've gained some more storage space which is never a bad thing.

For the price of a drive ($100 to $300 depending on size) and the little amount of time it takes to install it, it's very much worth it to go this route.

The alternative is to remove all floppy authorizations from your current internal drive, re-initialize, partition, and then re-install everything just to get back to where you were on OS 9. Your odds of forgetting about an authorization or two or just the hassle of re-authorizing will be much more costly in terms of time and your sanity. Floppy authorizations are supposed to survive an initialization or re-partition but even then they sometimes ask to be "re-authorized" so... install a second drive.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist