Need Help Formatting Startup Drive on Mac Pro

[djcream]

Hi. This is a totally noob question(s) but I gotta ask. I just got a new Mac Pro and some new hard drives too. I want to use one of the new drives as my startup drive so I need to format it but I'm not sure how. When I go to disk utility help there are instructions for just about everything else but this.

I want to use the new drive as a startup drive and maybe partition it and put Parallels or Bootcamp on it too. Is this a good strategy? Meaning is it OK to put Parallels etc on another partition on the startup drive? Or should it be on a seperate drive? I don't have Parallels yet so I'm not sure how much space I should partition for it.

Let me put it like this:
How do I -
1. Format a drive.
2. Partition a startup drive to have OS X & Parallels or Bootcamp on it & how much space for each partition. The new drive is a Samsung F1 750 GB.
3. Move everything from the original startup drive to the new drive (I have SuperDuper - is this a good way to do it?). And then erase the original drive to use in another bay.

Sorry for the dumb questions & I'm hoping this is posted in the right place. Thanks for any help! Detail is good.

 

[Nermal]

1. Open Disk Utility, click the drive on the left, go to the Partition tab and select your partitioning options. For VMware or Parallels I recommend sticking with one partition. Click the Options button and select GUID, then Apply your changes to partition and format the drive.

2. Unlike a VM, Boot Camp requires its own partition. Boot Camp Assistant will do the partitioning for you.

3. In Disk Utility, click the new drive on the left, go to the Restore tab, and drag the old drive into the Source box and the new drive into Destination, then click Restore.

 

[djcream]

Thanks. I just copied the original startup drive to a new drive using superduper. Then I choose to use the new drive as the startup drive upon completion of the superduper copy.But when I restarted I got the grey screen/apple/spinning circle. I restarted again holding down the option key & was able to startup from the original drive. Then I went to system prefs & chose the new drive as startup drive. Again when I restarted I got the grey screen.

So now I'm stuck. What do I need to do to use this new drive as my startup drive?

By the way, when I used disk utility to copy the drive it seemed incomplete - the new drive had about 2 gigs less on it than the original. That's why I decided to use superduper. I also migrated my powerbook G4 HD to the original Mac Pro drive before I copied the whole thing to the new drive - in case that matters...?

Thanks agian for your help!

 

[Nermal]

Did you select GUID when partitioning the drive?

 

[djcream]

Yes I did. I formatted/partitioned all 4 drives in GUID.
I'm thinking maybe it's because I migrated my Powerbook HD (running Tiger 10.4.9) and some of the software is not Leopard compatible...?
I'm going to try doing a clean install on the new drive & see if that works.

Update: Well that didn't work at all: I got "Install Failed" window during installation. "The Installer could not install some files in "/Volumes/Mac Pro". Contact the software manufacturer for assistance."

Also I was not given any options when I began the install from DVD. Such as Archive & Install or Erase & Install options...?

Any ideas?

 

[Nermal]

I didn't notice that you were coming from a PowerBook until now. That definitely won't work. Boot from the Leopard DVD and begin reinstalling. At the screen that asks you to select a hard drive, click the Options button to find the Archive and Erase options.