External HDD on HFS+; creating a new partition

[flowagner]

Hi there.

I have a WD Passport 320 GB external HDD with one partition on it. It's HFS+ and it's mainly for my TV shows and music.

Now this is what I do: I created a .dmg from my Leopard disc because I am one of those idiots who cannot take care of his discs. I basically want to create a little 8GB partition where I can store my OS X on ... just in case something happens.

My problem is that I do not know if that is possible: I do not want to delete the files on my external HDD in order to reformat and repartition it. Is there any way I can resize the current partition I have and allocate the rest for another partition?

Thanks a lot,
Flo

 

[misterredman]

Hi there.

I have a WD Passport 320 GB external HDD with one partition on it. It's HFS+ and it's mainly for my TV shows and music.

Now this is what I do: I created a .dmg from my Leopard disc because I am one of those idiots who cannot take care of his discs. I basically want to create a little 8GB partition where I can store my OS X on ... just in case something happens.

My problem is that I do not know if that is possible: I do not want to delete the files on my external HDD in order to reformat and repartition it. Is there any way I can resize the current partition I have and allocate the rest for another partition?

Thanks a lot,
Flo

In Leopard you should be able to repartition the drive without erasing.
1)Select the disc on the left panel
2)select the partition tab
3)select the partition on the diagram from which you want to take the space (that is the only partition you have)
4)click on the plus button below.
5)Disk Utility added a partition while keeping the data in the old one.
6)you can move the division betwenn the partition to match the desired size or select the partition and enter a size manually on the right.
7)when you are satisfied click the apply button
8)done

 

[flowagner]

In Leopard you should be able to repartition the drive without erasing.
1)Select the disc on the left panel
2)select the partition tab
3)select the partition on the diagram from which you want to take the space (that is the only partition you have)
4)click on the plus button below.
5)Disk Utility added a partition while keeping the data in the old one.
6)you can move the division betwenn the partition to match the desired size or select the partition and enter a size manually on the right.
7)when you are satisfied click the apply button
8)done

thanks very much mate! much appreciated.

the problem i encounter is at 3). when i select the diagram (volume scheme, right?), the + button doesn't activate.

FYI:
Disc Description: WD 3200BEV External Media
Connection Bus: USB
Connection Type: External

Write Status: Read/Write
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Not supported
Partition Map Scheme: Master Boot Record

 

[misterredman]

Partition Map Scheme: Master Boot Record

I think the problem is there. I am not sure you can repartition the drive if the the partition scheme is MBR without losing data. At least not with Disk Utility.

I think we will need the help of someone who already tried, I don't want to make you loose data, since I never did it myself.