new to computers !
 

I have a power pc G4 which I have never backed up but I am going to upgrade to Tiger and was recommended Super duper. Reading through all the different threads has been very helpful as I have just realised I have ordered a USB drive which is not compatible! Could you tell me why people partition their external drives and if it is easy to do?

Hi, Mary.

I'm glad you caught your "USB Mistake" -- definitely switch that for a boot-compatible FireWire drive (see the User's Guide for some recommendations).

People partition their external drives so they can use them for backups and other things as well. For example, if you have two internal drives you want to back up, you'd want to create at least two partitions (volumes) on the external, one for each internal.

If you have extra space on the external, and you also want to store data on it, you can create a 3rd partition.

It's very easy to do using Disk Utility: just choose the drive in the sidebar, then click the partition tab, and the rest is pretty clear. The only trick is that you're going to want to make sure the "Partitioning Scheme" is "APM" -- Apple Partition Map. That's in "Options" in the Partition tab.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for that. So basically if I am just using the computer for basic things like emails and photo's I wouldn't need to. I have just ordered a macbook for my daughter for university and I would have to partition the internal drive and the external drive if she had to use Windows at all. Thank goodness it looks fairly easy to do. Thanks for your help

Actually, you don't have to partition the MacBook for your daughter: you can use Parallels Desktop, which will let her run Windows inside OS X...

Thanks for the info. I will go and look Parallels up on the internet now