Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with partitions

More MacBook Questions

Effigy2000 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:14:57 -0800

I now own a MacBook Pro 17". And now I have some questions relating to MacOS and Windows 7, hardware upgrades and getting Applecare-on-the-cheap. And those questions are...

1. I've installed Windows 7 on the machine, and that's pretty much all I ever intend to run on it. Can I delete the MacOS partition to get some space back? Or is it vitally important that I keep it around?

2. Perhaps related to question 1, Apple has said they intend to properly support Windows 7 with an updated Bootcamp later this year. When this is released, will I just be able to download this from Apple via the Apple Software Update program in Windows, or will I need to go into MacOS first?

3. I really, really, really want to upgrade the hard drive. I've found a 750GB 2.5" drive I could buy, but the description on the store's website says that it's 12.5mm thick. Is that too big for a MacBook Pro 17", or will it fit?

4. I'm also interested in upgrading the CPU. Not necessarily now but someday. Is this possible? The salesperson I spoke to said no but he didn't seem positive.

5. My MacBook Pro is supposed to have two video cards, namely an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and a 9600M GT. How do I switch between the two video cards in Windows 7? I can't figure this out.

6. In my last AskMe question, it was suggested that rather than buying AppleCare from Apple, I should buy it from eBay. I checked out eBay and there were some really good prices for Applecare on there. But my question is, how did these eBayers get these AppleCare products? I had always been told that whatever Apple charged for one of its products was what Apple charged, no discounts entered into. Are the eBay Applecare’s legit, or did they fall of the back of a truck or something?

7. Finally, I'm running the computer in its native res of 1920 x 1200. While surfing the net, images on the net seem blurry somehow. It's the same for Firefox as it is for IE8 and the latest drivers are installed. Photos saved on my hard drive don't seem to be affected. Any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks in advance for your help everyone!

How to partition 2 Hd for 2 Os

madeinitaly — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:29:14 -0800

I am getting a new computer, and the infinite possibilities on how to partition two hard drives to put two operating systems is keeping me up at night. Hello everybody. This is not a "how to" question, but just a "how would you recommend" one.

I currently have all my data in a 320 Gb FAT32 hard disk. This drive contains all music, videos etc that are accessible from my two operating systems (XP and ubuntu 9.04) who live on the 80Gb hard disk.

I am getting a new system (without OS) and I put a 1Tb hd there. I want to install the 320GB in there as well.

My initial thought would have been to install the two OS (win7 rc and ubuntu 9.04) on two partitions of the 320 Gb and use the 1TB for the data, but I have been told I might miss out on performance, as the new SATA drive should be much faster than my old IDE.

So I was planning on booting the first time with ubuntu live cd and transfering all the data from the 320 Gb to the 1Tb (and format it NTFS or FAT32), then splitting the 320Gb into two partitions, one with W7RC and one with Ubuntu - using all the 1TB for data.

Is this the best way? How else would you partition the Hdds and split the OSs ? Do I need to install W7 in the first physical HD? and which one should it be?

Any suggestion appreciated!

PS: I would just use Ubuntu if I could, but so far no luck with iTunes (which i need for the iPhone), I will try virtualbox but my current system is not powerful enough to do it. And I got a 780g chipset (ATI radeon) for the new one which i heard is supported so-so by Linux. If Win7 is good i might abandon Ubuntu in the future.

Sliding Walls.

arha — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:55:34 -0800

Can anyone point me to good examples of the use of sliding partitions in an modern residential space? I know there have been a few recent apartment designs that have utilised sliding walls to partition up the space in a flexible way, but I'm having trouble tracking them down. Is anyone able to point me in the right direction?

Mounting problems in Win 7

Aanidaani — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:39:36 -0800

Windows 7: Is there any way to mount ext3/ext2 partitions in Windows 7? I would use Ext2 IFS but it's not compatible with the beta.

Change drive letters on XP

edbyford — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:14:12 -0800

I need to change nearly all the drive letters on XP, including the system partition. How do I do this? I have two hard drives, both split into two partitions. I recently reinstalled Windows, and my drive letters are all changed round! The partition which I store my documents on is now C:, while my system partition is K:.

I found this, but I've heard that it can seriously mess up your computer. How do I change the letters around?

Flash Drive FUBAR

spartacusroosevelt — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:29:49 -0800

My Flash drive has gone screwy. I think its partitions are gone. Lst night I was working with some documents on my Arcdisk 4GB flash drive. I was opening some documents and went to another program and my machine froze. I am due for an XP reinstall as this freeze is becoming common and I had just been working with other documents on the drive. I say this to stress I don't think the drive caused the freeze.

Now when I put the drive in my PC nothing happens. Not in disk admin, not in my computer. The light on it does come on initially and go off. I tried my ibook and Disk Utility sees it but freezes during the Erase.

Suggestions to get it operational? I have already worked through the fact the data is gone.

Help Me See What's In The "Hidden" Partition

Gerard Sorme — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:34:33 -0800

My laptop comes with a "hidden" partition that is approximately 1.5GB in size that contains drivers, configuration settings, recovery utilities, etc. How can I see what's inside and browse that partition? I have tried assigning a drive letter using Partition Magic - but that returns error messages. I would like to take a peek for a couple of reasons, but the major purpose would be to grab the drivers and perform a clean install of XP, free of all the "crapware" that is all over the C: drive. Any ideas?

All I want is my music back.

Mijo Bijo — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 17:50:35 -0800

Partition ~~Magic~~ Tragic destroyed a partition on my hard drive, is there anyway to get the data off of it? Months ago, I migrated from Windows XP to Linux. Using Partition Magic, I created separate partitions to dual boot my computer. I fell in love with Linux and have been using it ever since. Unfortunately, my large MP3 collection was still on the Windows NTFS partition and new music I added was in a separate directory on my Linux partition, it was time to consolidate. I had been accessing the NTFS partition as read-only through Linux to play the music as to not foul the NTFS partition.

Today I decided to "clean house" on my computer and make a separate partition for my music. While resizing my Windows partition to have a 35GB partition (The total amount of free space available), Partition Magic threw up an error stating that a file size was too large (I don't have any files over 1GB as far as I know). The computer rebooted and when I try to get back into Windows XP it throws up a brief blue screen and reboots. My Linux partition is fine (I'm using it to type this), but it will not mount the NTFS drive. It gives me this error:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1, missing codepage or other error

All I want to do is grab the music off of the partition, I don't care about anything else on it. Any suggestions?

Dual boot - XP and Ubuntu

lunkfish — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 02:38:26 -0800

How can I set up my dual boot system with Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux? I've got a dual boot system at the moment with 2 Windows XP partitions and 2 partitions for data and audio files. I use partition magic 8 to manage partitions.

I want to replace one of the XP partitions with Ubuntu, and give also juggle the partition sizes around. I understand that during install I will have the option to give Ubuntu it's own data partition.

What utility can I use on startup to select which OS partition to boot? I've got a utility with partition magic, but have had problems with it.

Will partitions created with partition magic and those done with Ubuntu be 'compatible' i.e. will they all be seen by both OS's or do I have to do this from scratch with a different program somehow?

help partitioning hard drive

martinX's bellbottoms — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 14:30:32 -0800

I'm trying to install Red-Hat Linux on my computer but I'm having problems when I get to the step about partitioning the hard drive. I previously had created an 870 mb partition in my hard drive to install it on and when I try to further partition it using disk druid I get an error message that says something to the extent of "boot partition>1024 cylinders" when I choose a linux native partition type. (the swap partition works okay)

Separation of data and program files

parma — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 16:55:28 -0800

Is it true that good practice dictates one ought to separate program files from data files (onto different partitions)? What are some good ways you accomplish this? What about the problem of WinXP putting the "Documents and Settings" folder (containing user desktops, outlook .pst file, etc.) in the same partition as the "Program Files" and "Windows" folders? (Got a new SATA hard drive and trying plan the partitioning / future file organizing.)

Advantages to partitioning Windows XP?

tranquileye — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:45:32 -0800

Are there any real advantages to running Windows XP on a partitioned hard drive, with a different partition each for Windows, programs, and files?

Free & easy partition manager for OS X?

thebwit — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 12:17:27 -0800

Is there an easy (free) way to create partitions in Mac OS X without having to erase and create? I heard there is a way to do this via the command line, but my googling has not turned up a good result.