Boot from partition?

[marieboyer]

I need to buy a new backup drive. For some reason my Maxtor is not bootable all of a sudden. On my most recent backup, Superduper copied everything over but the drive will not boot even though it has booted before. (I got the following message: "The disk you inserted was not readable by the computer.")

I was looking at a 500 gig hard drive today for a good price. Can I partition that drive and make a bootable drive on it or is it preferred to boot from a non-partitioned (and therefore smaller) drive?

Thanks for your help. Hope I am posting this newb question in the right place.

-- iMac intel. brand new Mac user.

[dnanian]

Partitions are no problem. I suggest a number of brands in my User's Guide -- readily available ones include the Maxtor OneTouch III, Western Digital MyBook Pro and LaCie (non-Porsche). Get a FireWire drive!

[marieboyer]

I am about to order this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1134698030541

Will it be bootable? Ya think?

Thanks in advance!

[dnanian]

As long as you partition it appropriately for your Mac (GUID for Intel, APM for Power PC), yes.

[marieboyer]

Thanks Dave!

p.s. The whole idea of getting me logged-into the forum was so I would not bother you with emails! I guess you da man!

[dnanian]

Yep. All roads seem to lead to me.

[transco]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Partitions are no problem. I suggest a number of brands in my User's Guide -- readily available ones include the Maxtor OneTouch III, Western Digital MyBook Pro and LaCie (non-Porsche). Get a FireWire drive!

OK, so I'm going blind. I went through the Users Guide and can't find the list of recommended drives. Page #?

[chris_johnsen]

Originally Posted by transco

OK, so I'm going blind. I went through the Users Guide and can't find the list of recommended drives. Page #?

I a short list of recommendations near the top of page 5, in the section titled Backing Up Your Macintosh for the First Time:

Our general advice is to get a FireWire drive from Other World Computing, WiebeTech, LaCie or a Maxtor OneTouch. We have tested these drives for compatibility, and all work well with the Mac.

--
Chris