new ext. harddrive

firehc

will get my ext. harddrive 80G tomorrow,

just wondering the following:

1. use disk utility to format it? but there is no format option in disk utility, so how do i do it?

2. is it advisable to partition it? i am a newbie, i dont need OS9 and the ext. drive is purely for backup and video editing use. again, use disk utility? if yes, should i partition it or format it first or it's done at the same time automatically?

3. can i install osX in the new drive and make it a bootable disk?



thanks in advance

i have the 'first generation' imac flat panel 800Mhz

aslan^

I dont think you can boot from a firewire drive, someone please correct me if Im wrong.



I formatted my external HDD FAT32 with a windows computer because windows will not recognize the mac file system, you might find it useful if you ever think you might want to plug your drive into a windows computer. If you do, you'll have to make it into 20 gig partitions or else OS X will have trouble mounting it.

the pie man

[quote]Originally posted by AsLan^:

<strong>I dont think you can boot from a firewire drive, someone please correct me if Im wrong.



I formatted my external HDD FAT32 with a windows computer because windows will not recognize the mac file system, you might find it useful if you ever think you might want to plug your drive into a windows computer. If you do, you'll have to make it into 20 gig partitions or else OS X will have trouble mounting it.</strong><hr></blockquote>



You can boot from a firewire HD - I did it just the other day. Coolest thing with that is using CCC you can clone your system drive and have your computer with you anywhere you can find a Mac with firewire! (which might not be the easiest thing exactly, but still cool in my book).

gsfmark

very true, i am in college, and over christmas break, i brought my tower home, but didn't have a monitor to hook it into... (car was too full to bring mine, and at home, we have a 2 iMacs and one eMac ... and a performa 575. ALL 4 COMPUTERS ALL-IN-ONES!)



so i just used firewire target mode with the emac, and booted my hard drive whenever i wanted to use my computer.



it was really handy being able to do that, Firewire target mode is amazing!

aslan^

[quote]Originally posted by The Pie Man:

<strong>



You can boot from a firewire HD - I did it just the other day. Coolest thing with that is using CCC you can clone your system drive and have your computer with you anywhere you can find a Mac with firewire! (which might not be the easiest thing exactly, but still cool in my book).</strong><hr></blockquote>



What is CCC ? I would like to try cloning my system drive, as well as booting from firewire.

Oh and is there some kind of key you have to press during startup to boot from a firewire drive ? Im considering taking OS X off my ibook and installing linux which I guess wont boot from firewire (thats what the yellow dog distro says) but it would be nice to have OSX on an external drive in cases i needed to use the iApps.



[ 02-06-2003: Message edited by: AsLan^ ]</p>

firehc

guys, so how do i get it formatted in the first place?

mountainyeti42

I seem to remember that when I first plugged in my external harddrive it asked me if I wanted to format it. Othewise you can use disk utility, under the tab "Erase" you can choose how to format the disk.

CCC is Carbon Copy Cloner, a program that allows you to clone your harddrive and create bootable copies of OSX and OS9 System folders. Search on versiontracker for it.

firehc

thanks and will give it a try later today!!