I have a 120 GB external firewire drive that I would like to use as a startup-and-repair disk for a mixed group of Macs, some of which have Intel processors and are running Leopard, others of which have PowerPC processors and are running Tiger (and don't have enough RAM to run Leopard).
My intention was to have two partitions on the drive. On one of those partitions I would install Leopard and use that partition when starting up one of the Intel/Leopard machines; on the other partition I would install Tiger and use that partition when starting up one of the PowerPC or any machine that didn't meet Leopard requirements. That's when I discovered Disk Utilities' different partition schemes, GUID and Apple Partition Map, and the ramifications of each for startup disks. From reading their descriptions it sounds like I can either choose GUID and have a startup disk for Intel machines or Apple Partition Map and have a startup for PowerPC machines. Then I read in an online discussion that Apple Partition Map could work as a startup for either Intel or PowerPC. Does anyone have the lowdown on that, or know whether it is possible to create a two-partition external drive that could work as a startup disk for both Intel and PPC machines, with 10.4.x on one partition and 10.5.x on the other? Another impediment I ran across: When I insert the Tiger install disk in my Intel MacBook Pro, intending to install Tiger on my external drive, it would not allow me to restart the computer and boot up the install disk, giving me a message saying that "Mac OS X 10.4 cannot be installed on this machine" that had only a "Quit" button. I don't want to install 10.4 on that machine, I want to install it on an external hard drive. How can I do that without being able to boot up the Tiger install disk? (And yes, I tried doing a restart and holding down the "C" key -- it just spit the disk out and started up from the internal HD.) As always any enlightenment will be appreciated. Dan _______________________________________________ The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will be November 25 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. Posting address: [email protected] Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
