henky Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Hello:) Please help with my question., I have windows vista installed on my internal HDD, now I have an external harddisk on which I have some valuable files, what I would like to do is partition my external HDD so that 1 partition remains NTFS with my files, and the other unused space for mac installation files. is this possible? thanks:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJMoose Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 The partitioning is the easy part. You can use something like Norton's Partition Magic or Acronis Drive Manager to repartition the drive without losing any of your data. You need to find out whether your system will boot from the external drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henky Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share Posted August 30, 2007 The partitioning is the easy part. You can use something like Norton's Partition Magic or Acronis Drive Manager to repartition the drive without losing any of your data. You need to find out whether your system will boot from the external drive. yes I can boot from external/usb, so I just free up some space in acronis, (6gb or more) and then what? what do I have to do in mac disk utility? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJMoose Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 yes I can boot from external/usb, so I just free up some space in acronis, (6gb or more) and then what?what do I have to do in mac disk utility? 6gb is okay if you only want to experiment with the OS. If you want to install major software and have it as a usuable system, you should think about having 50+gb available for the OS. For the partitioning, create a free space at the front of your drive (whatever size you decide on). That will push your NTFS partition to the back of the drive...again, your data will be safe. Now you create a FAT32 partition in the free space that you have. Make sure that partition is primary and active. This is necessary for OSX. Now with your drive connected, use the OSX86 install disk to begin the installation process. When you get to setup page go to utilities>disk manager and select the new partition you created as the on which to install your OS. Erase in OSX is similar to format in Windows. Format the new partition as OSX Journaled and give it the name of your choice. Hit erase and the drive will format much more quickly than in windows. Then proceed with the installation process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henky Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share Posted August 30, 2007 6gb is okay if you only want to experiment with the OS. If you want to install major software and have it as a usuable system, you should think about having 50+gb available for the OS. For the partitioning, create a free space at the front of your drive (whatever size you decide on). That will push your NTFS partition to the back of the drive...again, your data will be safe. Now you create a FAT32 partition in the free space that you have. Make sure that partition is primary and active. This is necessary for OSX. Now with your drive connected, use the OSX86 install disk to begin the installation process. When you get to setup page go to utilities>disk manager and select the new partition you created as the on which to install your OS. Erase in OSX is similar to format in Windows. Format the new partition as OSX Journaled and give it the name of your choice. Hit erase and the drive will format much more quickly than in windows. Then proceed with the installation process. ok did it! now trying to install I'll report back:) thnx for all of your help LOL it's gonna take half an hour! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJMoose Posted August 31, 2007 Share Posted August 31, 2007 A little tip for installing the OS if this is your first time. There will come a point as you begin the install that it will begin a dvd disk check. That check in itself seems to take more time than the actual installation. I'm guessing you can knock off 10+ minutes off the install process by hitting 'skip' when that begins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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