Partitioning - + Asking Advice

[JeramyPWNs]

I have been a PC for many years now, and I recently made the jump to OS X. I am really loving everything about the OS, and I learn about new software every day that I'd absolutely love to have.


I do have the question though: What software do you guys run? What widgets could you not live without? My Mac setup now is pretty standard - I haven't even found some cool wallpaper yet!

I have Macjournal, Parallels, Evernote, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Office in my toolbar at the bottom, but I see some Macs that are just lit up with icons! I'd like to know what I can do to make my Mac more graphically appealing - I love the look now but maybe a colorized Safari (may need Firefox for that) or some plugins to add toolbars/sidebars to Safari. And I'm still kind of unfamilar with how Widgets work? Do they pop up only when you hit F12 for the dashboard, or can they be floating around the desktop screen?

Question number two:

I have done Googling, and have used Seagate's partition manager and such before, but I think I need something new.

I'm looking for a partition manager that is effective with cross platform. I need to partition a hard drive so it's readily readable by PC and Mac OS. I like Mac's built in drive utility, but it only formats FAT, and I'd like it to be NTFS on certain partitions that I create.

I acquired a 250GB USB powered external, so I'm debating on whether or not I want to use 160GB as my time machine, and the remaining 90GB as file storage/portability.

I just purchased my Mac and have two other desktop PCs and a laptop, but I need a way so the hard drive is effective by both machines.


I'm asking based on experience,so if you have something you like to use please let me know. I'd like something that I can boot to from USB, because I may end up needing to partition a booted hard drive. However if there's something out there that lets me partition the hard drive I'm currently running on that'd be great.

Thanks!

 

[gatepc]

I have been a PC for many years now, and I recently made the jump to OS X. I am really loving everything about the OS, and I learn about new software every day that I'd absolutely love to have.


I do have the question though: What software do you guys run? What widgets could you not live without? My Mac setup now is pretty standard - I haven't even found some cool wallpaper yet!

I have Macjournal, Parallels, Evernote, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Office in my toolbar at the bottom, but I see some Macs that are just lit up with icons! I'd like to know what I can do to make my Mac more graphically appealing - I love the look now but maybe a colorized Safari (may need Firefox for that) or some plugins to add toolbars/sidebars to Safari. And I'm still kind of unfamilar with how Widgets work? Do they pop up only when you hit F12 for the dashboard, or can they be floating around the desktop screen?

Question number two:

I have done Googling, and have used Seagate's partition manager and such before, but I think I need something new.

I'm looking for a partition manager that is effective with cross platform. I need to partition a hard drive so it's readily readable by PC and Mac OS. I like Mac's built in drive utility, but it only formats FAT, and I'd like it to be NTFS on certain partitions that I create.

I acquired a 250GB USB powered external, so I'm debating on whether or not I want to use 160GB as my time machine, and the remaining 90GB as file storage/portability.

I just purchased my Mac and have two other desktop PCs and a laptop, but I need a way so the hard drive is effective by both machines.


I'm asking based on experience,so if you have something you like to use please let me know. I'd like something that I can boot to from USB, because I may end up needing to partition a booted hard drive. However if there's something out there that lets me partition the hard drive I'm currently running on that'd be great.

Thanks!

Widgets only work on the dashboard ( IE F12 ) also you will need firefox any toolbars or graphic options. As for partitioning I only know of the built in drive utility. You can get drive utility to work with NTFS if you download a program called NTFS 3g which you can get here Also you could leave it in HFS format and share it over the network ( and even if its in HFS format for some reason it shows up and works fine on windows computers through the network)

 

[-tWv-]

Question number two:

I have done Googling, and have used Seagate's partition manager and such before, but I think I need something new.

I'm looking for a partition manager that is effective with cross platform. I need to partition a hard drive so it's readily readable by PC and Mac OS. I like Mac's built in drive utility, but it only formats FAT, and I'd like it to be NTFS on certain partitions that I create.

I acquired a 250GB USB powered external, so I'm debating on whether or not I want to use 160GB as my time machine, and the remaining 90GB as file storage/portability.

I just purchased my Mac and have two other desktop PCs and a laptop, but I need a way so the hard drive is effective by both machines.


I'm asking based on experience,so if you have something you like to use please let me know. I'd like something that I can boot to from USB, because I may end up needing to partition a booted hard drive. However if there's something out there that lets me partition the hard drive I'm currently running on that'd be great.

Thanks!

Well you could use disk utility to partition and format as FAT and then plug the drive into a windows box and format it as NTFS. If you do this you are going to have to install ntfs-3g on the mac if you want to be able to write to it.

For the time machine question. How big is your internal HD? Because in order to use time machine the external hard drive has to be at least as big as your internal HD. Like if you had a 250GB internal you would have to have at least a 250GB external drive. But it is recommended to have 1.5-2x the capacity on the external drive as you have on the internal drive. This creates the ability to have more backups and go "farther back in time."

You can partition the drive you are currently booted on within disk utility, but I just use the install disks to be safe.

If you want to modify you internal hard drive, you can use the restore disks that came with your mac. This option is good for just doing partitioning or doing disk maintenance like verifying and repairing the disk, or repairing permissions. You could also install a Linux Distro like ubuntu on an external HD and then install rEFIt on your mac to boot from it.

Remember, always have a backup strategy of some sort. You need to back up your drive before doing any maintenance with it and especially before partitioning.