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Posted: Jul 26 2011 04:22 pm

I have an external hard drive that connects to my mac via firewire. It is formatted FAT32. I have 47.7 GB of space available on the drive. I was wondering if I would be able to use the extra space to create a new partition (mac os x extended journaled) so I can boot os x from it. I do not want to delete any files on the hard drive if possible. I just want a new partition on the drive that I can boot from. The computer I am using is running os x 10.4.11, if that is any help. I am only trying to create a partition that is around 5GB in size for booting from.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

I don't know the order of operations on this one, but the answer is yes. You can create a bootable drive by splitting the partition. You would boot up while holding the Option key to select the drive as the booting one.

In my mind, the easiest way to do this would be to install OS X on another system and then run System Restore with a capture and then push it to the partition on the external drive.

I am not sure how to do it another way. Space wise, I think you'll need more than 5GB though.

If you are truly interested I can ask our Mac expert when I get back from vacation next Monday.

Posted: Jul 27 2011 12:59 pm

I just want to be able to split the partition without losing any of the data that is on the hard drive already. I already know how to do everything else. The entire hard drive is formatted FAT32, but it is not completely used up. I just want to split a small unused portion (if possible) into a new partition and I can't recall how to do that on mac os x without wiping the hard drive completely, which I do not want to do.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Disk Utility -> Click on the hard drive (not the partition) -> Click the Partition Tab -> Reduce the size of the primary partition (this won't delete it). Click the + button to create a second partition.

Posted: Jul 27 2011 10:08 pm

Well, I did some researching and it turns out I may not be able to do this because the partition is a MBR. If you know of any way to work around that, let me know. If not, no big deal.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

What do you mean? Resizing a partition can be done without destroying it. There should be no trouble with that.

Does it tell you that it can't be resized?

Posted: Jul 28 2011 05:20 pm

The mac is running 10.4.11 and it does not give me the option to resize the partition. I did some research and what I found told me that you cannot resize a MBR without losing all of the data on it. What I read also said you could only resize a partition if it was os x extended, but since the partition I was wanting to resize is not, I have no way of knowing. Maybe it has to do with it being an older version of os x. I followed all of the steps you gave me.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

I suppose it might be something with 10.4...

All I know is that any OS that supports BootCamp must also support resizing the primary partition. This is necessary because the BootCamp partition will be formatted NTFS and the default partition will start at 100% of the drive size.

Are you sure you can't resize the partition by dragging the graphical image? 10.4 is now 4 revisions old and 6 years behind, so I'm mentally blending OS's and Utilities in my head. I have at one time or another used every version of OS X, so honestly, beyond the major theme change in 10.3, most of the updates are small as they come along since they get tweaked with each revision.

Posted: Jul 28 2011 11:40 pm

Yes, I am sure you cannot resize the partition by dragging the graphical image. I believe BootCamp was introduced in 10.5

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Upgrade to 10.5?