[MacDV] Partitioning a hard drive

[Mark M. Florida]

You shouldn't need to reinstall anything -- you should be able to copy your
current drive to an external and back again with no ill effects.

Here's how:

If you're running under Mac OS 9, just install a minimal system folder on
your external FireWire drive then start up from that and copy your entire
internal hard drive to it by dragging your hd icon (this will copy all
invisible root-level folders as well).  Then to restore onto your new
internal hard drive, just drag the folder created from copying your old hard
drive back onto your new one, putting the folders back at the root level of
the drive (after partitioning if that's what you want to do -- I would
recommend it in this case, maybe 20/60).

One tip -- you may want to drag the folders back onto your new drive in this
order:  System Folder, Applications (Mac OS 9), Documents, (then the rest)
-- this will put your System Folder on the fastest part of your drive with
the Applications and Documents folders on a fairly fast part as well.

If you're running under Mac OS X (or if you dual boot between 9 and X), you
should use the great "donation-ware" app Carbon Copy Cloner --
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html -- and make sure to make a donation
if you use it...  ;-)  Basically, you would (first move all existing files
currently on your FireWire drive to a single folder for easy identification)
use CCC to clone existing internal hd onto your FireWire drive (make sure to
enable the option for booting in CCC) -- and you do this while booted from
the drive you are copying FROM.  Next install the new hd and startup from
your FireWire drive (that should now be a clone of your old hd) -- use Disk
Utility to format/partition your new drive (make sure to install Mac OS 9
drivers if you dual boot).  After you new drive is set up, just use CCC to
clone from your FireWire drive back to your system partition on your new
internal hd (make sure to exclude the folder you made for your FireWire
drive files so you don't copy those as well).

That's it.  (and that's enough, eh? -- I'm good at making a simple process
seem complicated by possible over-explanation -- but some details are
critical to this process).

Hope that helps.

- Mark

> I'm getting an 80GB hard drive for my G3 600MHz iBook.  I've heard that
> it's good to partition the drive (e.g., 40GB for video editing, and 40GB
> for everything else) so that if it gets too fragmented you can wipe the
> DV partition to defrag it.
> 
> Is that still the recommended procedure? Obviously it's a little bit
> more convenient to just have one partition, since you don't have the
> problem of running out of room on one partition when there's still
> plenty on the other, and you don't have the problem of files getting
> "copied" from one partition to the other instead of just moved.
> 
> I've heard discussion here about running the daily/weekly/monthly
> scripts to do defragmentation.  Is that sufficient, or is a partition
> really needed?
> 
> Also, any tips on moving to a new hard drive, i.e., should I start from
> CD and re-install everything fresh, or can I somehow grab a snapshot of
> everything I've got and put it on my external firewire drive, and then
> somehow copy everything back to the new drive? [I don't have an external
> case for the iBook's little hard drive, so that's not an option at the
> moment].
> 
> Thanks for your help!