partitioning query

[bobmanuk]

hi all,

 

just a quick question for you all who have done this many times

 

i have a compaq 110c-1110sa (basically a hp mini 1000) and i have 2 partitions on it, one XP one windows 7, I want to be able to install os x, im not entirely bothered about loosing windows 7, but i REALLY dont want to loose windows XP.

 

so my question is, if i install os x on here, does disk util allow me to choose which partition i want to blitz or does it force you to blitz the entire drive?

 

any help is appreciated.

 

thanks

 

Bob

[srs5694]

OS X does let you choose to which partition to install; however, OS X 10.6 will only install directly to a GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk, and your disk is almost certainly a Master Boot Record (MBR) disk. This problem definitely does not exist with 10.5 distributions (iPC, Kalyway, etc.), but I'm not sure about 10.6 distributions (Hazard, etc.). I've heard there's a modified 10.6 installer that works around this problem. Two other options are to install to another disk and then copy that installation back to your main disk, or to use a hybrid MBR configuration. The latter is very popular, but as I describe on the page to which I just linked, it's risky.

 

If you need more details, you'll need to post more information, such as what version of OS X you want to install, how you plan to install it, and what additional resources you have (spare hard disks or big USB flash drives, etc.).