Should I keep a clean install of Leopard on an external...just in case?

[davidg4781]

I have a 250GB HDD in my MacBook, a 60GB in an enclosure (original Apple HDD), and a 250GB FreeAgent Go that I use for Time Machine.

I really don't touch the 60GB one, but I was wondering if it would be a good idea to keep just a basic install of Leopard on it. Recently, I had deleted my Windows Boot Camp partition and tried creating a new one to install Windows 7. It's basically saying I have to wipe my internal hard drive to do it (sorry, not really related to this).

When I ran Disk Utility, I kept getting a lot of errors, and when I would start my Mac, I got a flash of Question Mark Folder. I fixed that, but decided to boot off the 60GB to run Tech Tools and Disk Utility, just to see if there are any other problems.

So, should I keep this copy of Leopard on this drive, or maybe use it as another back up or to store movie files (they're taking up a lot of room on my internal)?

 

[spinnerlys]

It depends on your tinkering.

I use a 465GB HDD to have a partition with Time Machine on it, to save my user folder, and also a partition, with a clone of my system files, done with Carbon Copy Cloner, so that just in case, I can revert to a better state if I frack up my system.

As this clone only eats about 30GB it is worth it for me.

Btw, my home directory (user folder) is on another partition on by MBP's HDD.

 

[davidg4781]

It depends on your tinkering.

I use a 465GB HDD to have a partition with Time Machine on it, to save my user folder, and also a partition, with a clone of my system files, done with Carbon Copy Cloner, so that just in case, I can revert to a better state if I frack up my system.

As this clone only eats about 30GB it is worth it for me.

Btw, my home directory (user folder) is on another partition on by MBP's HDD.

Are you saying you have all of that on the internal HDD? That's too risky for me. I try to keep them as separate as possible, but with the recent South Texas heat, I'm keeping the Time Machine in the house.

I really was thinking it could come in handy. For instance, right now I have a project for work due Thursday. I'm really going to get started on it tomorrow, and with all this mess with my Mac, I was thinking of doing a complete reinstall of Leopard.

Since I remembered I had this other bootable HDD, I could just plug that in and work off that. If I had iDisk, I would even have access to the files (if they were up in the cloud).

I've been a Mac user since 2006, but with Windows, you can't just grab a hard drive, plug it in a USB port, and start working off it. I just never thought about this until tonight and wanted to see what the community thought of it.

 

[spinnerlys]

I may have been unclear when I was talking about the 465GB drive.

I have a MBP with a 297GB drive and two partitions, one for the system (47GB) and on for my home directory (250GB).
Then I have several 2.5" and 3.5" HDDs lying around and one 2.5" HDD with the 465GB is connected via SATA to a USB enclosure.
This 465GB drive has two partitions, one for the clone of my system, and one with the Time Machine backup of my home directory.

I hope that version is clearer now. I should work on my explanations more thoroughly as it seems.