Disk Utility and External Drives

[csd32]

When you use Disk Utility to restore a disk image to a partition on an external hard drive, one of the boxes open for selection is "erase destination." Will this erase just the partition, or the entire drive?

I'm guessing just the partition, but I have about 90 gigs of music on the other partition and I want to be absolutely sure I am not about to part with my entire collection.

 

[mad jew]

It depends what you have selected on the left.

 

[csd32]

What do you mean? On the left, I've selected the partition I want to restore to, not the entire external drive. I just don't want to make a stupid mistake and erase the whole drive when I'm only trying to clear one partition.

So, will "erase destination" clear the entire drive, or just the partition I've selected?

 

[mad jew]

It should just erase the partition. Naturally everything'll be backed up before trying it though.