Running two OS X on same machine

[caseys]

Hi everyone,

My girlfriend is moving in with me and to try and save space I'd like to migrate the mac mini that I gave her and it's contents onto my Mac Pro.

I've got my instance of snow leopard running off my first HDD and have a 2nd HDD currently installed with one boot camp partition then another standard OSX partition I'm using as a dumping ground currently.

Can I run more than one instance of OSX (I have a multi-license SL disc) on my machine and just take her time machine backup and restore it onto my 2nd drive on a partition? Then just hold down alt at startup to select whichever partition?

Apologies done a search, maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing though.

Simon

 

[Hellhammer]

Yes, you can do that.

 

[caseys]

Yes, you can do that.

Thanks for the swift response

Does it have to be the first partition on the drive though? Or doesn't matter?

 

[Hellhammer]

Thanks for the swift response

Does it have to be the first partition on the drive though? Or doesn't matter?

Nope, it can be any partition, but it has to be in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format (i.e. HFS+).

 

[ian.maffett]

Personally, I would get an external drive and clone her mini to it (with something like carbon copy cloner) and then you would be able to keep things separate yet boot to either using the option+power. Also, this provides access to both data sets at any given time.

 

[caseys]

Nope, it can be any partition, but it has to be in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format (i.e. HFS+).

Thanks chap, been very useful on a stressful day

Personally, I would get an external drive and clone her mini to it (with something like carbon copy cloner) and then you would be able to keep things separate yet boot to either using the option+power. Also, this provides access to both data sets at any given time.

We've got a time machine backup of her/my mini which I was going to restore from and then also use as her TM backup ongoing. It's a 1Tb HDD in the MP and it's got over 700Gb free... an external drive would be a bit poor performance wouldn't it though?

 

[ian.maffett]

I clone my drive for an offsite backup and have tested it out booting from it directly / externally. I didn't get crazy with it but as far as I could see, it was fine.


We've got a time machine backup of her/my mini which I was going to restore from and then also use as her TM backup ongoing. It's a 1Tb HDD in the MP and it's got over 700Gb free... an external drive would be a bit poor performance wouldn't it though?[/QUOTE]