partitions on startup drive

[nbusse]

I have a few questions, I've never understood this completely.
I've got an iMac powerPC g4. Ideally, I want to use this primarily for audio programs. At one point I'd heard it was a good idea to partition the internal drive, which I did. It's never worked out quite as well as I thought, there's really no advantage to having seperate drives; so I'm ready to ditch it.
Here are my questions:

1. How do I un-partition?? can't find the option in disk utility, nor in a clean OS install. (disk utility, btw, also doesn't seem to let you change the size of the partition either...?)

2. OS upgrades... I partitioned it when I did a clean re-install of OS 10.3.9. I've since been trying to upgrade to 10.4.6 - have tried doing a clean re-install twice. I'm having some software glitches with my music app's in 10.4.6, just wondering if it could be related to the partition. Can a partition affect the way app's are installed/accessed? (all app's are on the startup disk)

3. Out of curiosity, I assume that the partitioned section remains at OS10.3.9; while the startup portion gets upgraded to 10.4.6 -- is that correct? So should one do an OS re-install on EACH portion of a partitioned drive, or will it figure itself out?
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Will appreciate any info from wiser folks out there!

 

[velocityg4]

There may be programs that will let you rejoin the partitions but this could potentially cause problems.

However if you do a clean re-install you can easily rejoin the partitions with disk utility in the installer.

1. When booting off of your install CD go to the file menu of the installer program and open disk utility.

2. In disk utility go to the partition tab and change the partition scheme to from current to 1 partition and choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". There is no need to select install OS 9 drivers unless you plan on installing Mac OS 9 and booting off of it. If you plan on doing so I would recommend making a small partition for to install OS 9 onto separately.

3. Hit the format button. It may be labeled "partition" or "erase". I do not recall which.

4. Install OS X on your formatted single partition drive.

The only problem with this is you will need some means to backup all of your data and you will need installers for all of your programs.

The only reason I can see for partitioning your drive is if you had multiple OS's installed. Say partition 1 Mac OS X and partition 2 Mac OS 9 or Linux.

There are some speed advantages to multiple drives those advantages are from multiple physical drives not from partitions to my knowledge.

 

[nbusse]

bad to worse--SOS!

well, thanks for the step-by-step directions for the partition questions. I didn't know about the disk utility menu. I tried a new re-install of 10.4 tonight, using the disk utility to partition to 1 partition (i.e. wipe out former division)
It told me there was a failure in software installation(? I think that was what it said...happened quickly), and now I am looking a blank screen with the lost-startup folder image.
Worst of all it won't accept the startup disk!! Have tried re-booting from the OS 10.3 install disk & OS 10.4 and it spits them both out. HELP

 

[heySparky]

I never understood what was being the perceived benefit of partitioning a hard drive on a Mac. Anyone explain why someone might want to do that other than to install windows (ick) on an intel Mac?

 

[nbusse]

why?

windows....god forbid!

As velocityg4 says, I was told that it'd be a faster way to do music app's - keep the app program on main drive, files on the other. But I never used it like that, turned out to be harder to access. and you do get that effect from seperate physical drives (which I do use)

Also at the time I still needed to access OS9 (altho the partition didn't help that either - OS9 is still in my main system drive & boots from there)

either way, it's bad news now....don't do what i've done!

 

[velocityg4]

Have you tried holding the "c" key while booting with the CD inserted? That should make your Mac boot off your cd.

You can also hold down your "option" key while booting. This will allow you to choose an OS to start off of if the c key does not work.

If neither works there may be a firmware method to force a CD boot but I would not know how.

 

[nbusse]

see my other posting for the 'won't startup SOS' info...

someone recommended starting up w/ firmware, and typing 'reset-all' then proceed to startup from the instal disk as usual.

I'm not out of the woods yet, but following that advice it allowed me to boot from the install disk & says it's re-installing now; so it appears to have worked...? fingers crossed...