Partitioning hard drive in OSX

[surfmonkey]

Mac newbie and long time Partiton Magic user here with a question about partitioning in OSX. The online help says that the only way to partition a hard drive is to use the start up disk, which will re-format? or a least erase your hard drive when it re-partitions? Is that correct? Does that also mean that you are then locked into those partitions (i.e. sizes) unless you want to reformat your entire drive again?

 

On a side note, does anyone recommend any books to help a dope like me become more familiar with OSX? The info that came with my computer is rather light, and I just hate trekking through help files.

[Salyphus]

Yes you have to reformat if you use the Apple Utility. IMO it is the safest way to go anyway. Why not clone your current drive to an external Firewire drive (an iPod would work) using Carbon Copy Cloner . Then you can reformat, and restore the image to your boot partition (which can be whichever one you want, check Startup Disk in System Preferences).

 

You might want to consider that the first partition will have the fastest disk access times, and adjust to taste.

 

BTW I recommend sticking with the standard HFS+ file format unless you need another format for some specific reason, and enable Journaling for the boot partition, it is worth it.

[Salyphus]

For software updates and shareware:

http://www.versiontracker.com/

 

For deals:

http://www.dealmac.com/

 

For troubleshooting:

http://www.macfixit.com/

http://discussions.info.apple.com/

[where02190]

Get yourself a copy of the lateset version of "The Mac Bible". This 1000+ page book will tell you everything you could possibly want to know about your mac in a concise, user friendly format.

 

Yes unlike the PC you cannot resize partitions without reformatting, but as mentioned by the other poster, CarbonCobyCloner is what you need. It's hand for defraging discs as well, simply clone the disc, reinitialize and copy the clone back to the drive.