Question on creating 2 bootable volumes on the same drive...

[myke323]

The hard drive that came with my mid-2010 MBP is now out of my machine and is a bootable back up drive running Sierra.

Can I now add a partition to that drive (leaving the part with Sierra intact), and create a bootable backup running High Sierra?

I have High Sierra running on my machine currently and just want to create a bootable back up of that. So I would then have an external backup drive with two partitions, one running Sierra and the other running High Sierra. I have plenty of free space on the drive to accomodate both.

Not sure if this is possible...

 

[Amethyst1]

Yes, of course. No problem at all.

 

[eyoungren]

The hard drive that came with my mid-2010 MBP is now out of my machine and is a bootable back up drive running Sierra.

Can I now add a partition to that drive (leaving the part with Sierra intact), and create a bootable backup running High Sierra?

I have High Sierra running on my machine currently and just want to create a bootable back up of that. So I would then have an external backup drive with two partitions, one running Sierra and the other running High Sierra. I have plenty of free space on the drive to accomodate both.

Not sure if this is possible...

Yes. Use Disk Utility to add another partition, format it, then either install the OS you want or restore a disk image to that partition.

Note that while additional partitions are on the same drive, the OS will see each partition as a separate drive.

 

[myke323]

Yes, of course. No problem at all.

Yes. Use Disk Utility to add another partition, format it, then either install the OS you want or restore a disk image to that partition.

Note that while additional partitions are on the same drive, the OS will see each partition as a separate drive.

Thanks! Good to know it's doable. Will be giving it a shot in the very near future...

 

[myke323]

I was able to do it successfully! I tried booting from both the Sierra and High Sierra volumes and they both worked. Slow as molasses but should do in an emergency

 

[retta283]

Yep, this works just fine. One thing to keep in mind is if you do this to an internal drive, Bootcamp will be unavailable. It does not like more than 1 Mac partition present on the drive, though I've heard some people hacked it to a third partition. Once you have 4 I think it's impossible.

Myself I have gotten as many as 6 partitions on the same drive with every version of OS X that the machine supported. It sucks up the space of the drive big time and makes it a pain, but it was useful for the brief task I had set out to do. All of my Macs have at least 3 partitions.

 

[Amethyst1]

Myself I have gotten as many as 6 partitions on the same drive with every version of OS X that the machine supported.

One of my external drives has 10.4 through 10.14 client, each on a separate partition. You can have way more bootable partitions though.