About to Partition / Clone Powerbook to a New Formatted Drive (question)

[zeeb]

Hi Dave & All ---

As predicted, I'm back with questions......

I really just need confirmation on the best way to go about prepping a new Ext. HDD before using Superduper! ---

Within Disk Utility on the Powerbook, I can partition the External Drive as needed, correct? The Lacie External HDD (500g) is already formatted & prepped for use (AppleHFS+) - should it be necessary to re-do this?

My current 'Get Info' usage / available sizes are as follows;

Capacity > 74.52 gig
Available > 32 gig
Used > 42.51 gig

I'm planning on partitioning the drive so there will be a separate BootableDrive area from future file/info saves. THE BIG QUESTION IS.... What size do I make the partitions on the Ext. Drive?!

I've read two pieces of info. One suggests a partition for a Clone/Bootable Drive Copy only needs to be as large as the 'Used Amount' on the Source/HomeDrive/Powerbook (i.e. 42.51 / 43gigs in my case). Other info suggests having a partition as large as the Source Drive itself (i.e. 74.52 /75gigs my case)... uh, anybody?

I'm thinking of creating one partition for the Bootable clone (43 or 75gigs) and dividing the remaing space with two more partitioned sections - not sure what sizes. Maybe in the future I'll want to clone a shiny new MBP, etc...

Suggestions, anyone --- what do you do?

Thanks loads in advance for any info!

Cheers,

John

[dnanian]

Hi, John.

Yes, Disk Utility on the Powerbook can partition the drive, no problem. Make sure that the partition scheme used at present is "Apple partition Map" for your PowerBook (it likely is).

I'd suggest making a partition as large as your capacity, since things always grow. Definitely do not make it only as large as the space that you're taking now -- that's far too little.

[zeeb]

Thanks Dave ---

I'm going to re-format the drive even though it is prepped for action.

The options under 'Erase' are;

> 'zero' disk

> Erase Eight times... (or something like that)

Should I check/use both of these? I will choose Mac Extended Journaling and give it a name also. Once Erased/Zeroed, I assume it will automatically format the drive for me ( i.e. there seems to be some space used for this - about 60mg?)

Also, there are two Lacie HDD icons in the left hand column, Which one do I apply the process to, both of them or just the top one?

you'll have to excuse the point by point newbie questions, Dave - its first time out for me and I really need to get it right...

many Thanks for the help ---

John.

[dnanian]

I'd use Zeroing, sure, but the 8 time is likely entirely unnecessary.

You'll want to do this to the drive (hardware) not the volume (below).

[zeeb]

Many Thanks Dave, i'll give it a go ---

cheers,

J.