On Feb 6, 2010, at 2:22 PM, Clark Martin wrote:
Which volume? You have to boot (actually start up from) partition #1. The Wallstreet won't start up if certain files it needs are beyond the first 8Gb of the disk as most of partition #2 and all of partition #3 is. You can use XPF to transfer the booting process to #2 or #3 but the boot volume (as in Startup Disk) must be the one on partition #1.
No, this is NOT true. All that is required to boot from any partition beyond the 1st 8 GB is a that a "helper" partition resides within the 1st 8 GB. There is no requirement that the helper partition have any OS at all, it can be completely empty (other than space for the XPF files), and can be as small as 50 MB.
When using a helper to boot, XPF copies (synchronizes) the boot parameters onto the helper partition and then begins the boot process from the helper. As soon as the extensions are loaded, the boot is transfered on-the-fly over to the partition beyond the 1st 8 GB, and from that point onward the boot volume IS the volume beyond the 1st 8 GB, NOT the helper.
Normally it's nice to have a partition that's "directly" bootable (i.e., doesn't need a "helper"), so it's customary to have a bootable OS within the 1st 8 GB, however, with OS X it's ALWAYS best to boot from the largest available partition with the most free-space irrespective of location on the HD. Tiger has a recommended 4 GB free- space MINIMUM for VM swap files and various Temp files. This means that if you use the 1st 8 GB partition as your only boot volume it is too full right from the basic installation, and effectively has ZERO room left for anything. Of course, this isn't true, but what it means is that every little file you add will SLOW DOWN your system until it grinds to a halt churning the HD when you've got less than 1 GB free- space left.
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