Question about booting from an SSD

[Ravich]

In a few days, I will be receiving a few HDDs, one of which is a 60GB SSD I plan to boot from, and I have some questions.

1) In order to have all of the OS and applications on the SSD, while everything else, including the desktop, is on another drive, is there any way to configure this during the installation?

2) If I want to also have a partition reserved for windows XP, do I need to configure this before I install OSX?

3) Will time machine know how to back up properly if all of my OS and other files arent on the same HDD?

 

[Hellhammer]

1. No, you have to move the Home folder manually after the installation

2. No, you can do it at any time with Disk Utility or Boot Camp Assistant

3. Yes, just make sure they are not excluded

 

[Ravich]

Great, thanks!



I also forgot to ask about transferring over from my current MBP. I'm running 10.5.8. Does anyone have recommendations as to how to approach this? Like, would cloning the drive and then upgrading from 10.5 to 10.6 be a bad idea for any reason? Does a clean install have any significant benefits I should keep in mind? I'm just not looking forward to dealing with certain installations all over again.

 

[Hellhammer]

Great, thanks!



I also forgot to ask about transferring over from my current MBP. I'm running 10.5.8. Does anyone have recommendations as to how to approach this? Like, would cloning the drive and then upgrading from 10.5 to 10.6 be a bad idea for any reason? Does a clean install have any significant benefits I should keep in mind? I'm just not looking forward to dealing with certain installations all over again.

You could just put the old drive in an enclosure and use Migration Assistant to migrate your data or just drag&drop them

 

[Ravich]

I tried following the instructions on moving the home folder, but it doesnt make sense to me. When I go to system preferences, my account is not shown. If I click on accounts, and then right click on my account, nothing happens. Anyone able to link me to different instructions?

 

[tjb1]

You need to click the lock on that page first unlocking it so you can access advanced preferences by right clicking on your account in the left pane

 

[Ravich]

Ah, got it. Thanks.



I followed the instructions and it restarted. I think it worked. Out of curiosity, why are the documents and downloads folders in the dock now question marks with no function?

 

[Ravich]

Question: does using migration assistant negate the effect of having a "fresh start"?