YDL on formatted drive?

[Derick Centeno]

Hi Ian:
Is it possible, given that you have "many" drives, to use just one
solely for YDL? This strategy would avoid the situation of using Apple's
Disk Utility to format two partitions at once and instead you could then
be free to format the entire drive as Free Space for YDL.

YDL needs to have the partition formatted as Free Space, not hfs. If, I
understood you correctly, you formatted that partition to be hfs
instead, yes? I think however the entire drive may have to be
reformatted anyway. I hope I am misunderstanding you but it sounds like
there was a Mac partition and a Free Space partition and you reformatted
the Free Space partition to be hfs? If that is what you did then the
entire drive needs to be reformatted anyway. There may be some
information on the OS X side, but it may not be readable. And even if it
is, it can't be relied upon. Apple's warning regarding Disk Utility is
quite clear.

You could use tar or other utilities within OS X for back up (I
believe), if you don't have Retrospect from Dantz. Try turning this
situation into an advantage... you could use this drive as a dedicated
Linux drive for YDL. If that drive is a Firewire drive, great! YDL can
boot from it.

If you are interested you can contact MacMall or MacConnection (or
elsewhere) and ask if they sell hard drive enclosures providing
Firewire/USB ports which would allow you to take an internal drive you
may have available (such as this one) and give it new life as an
external drive. Although YDL will only boot from a Firewire drive, the
USB port may prove useful later. Just some ideas....

Good Luck...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

t4ch1b4n4 at ybb.ne.jp wrote:
> Derick
>
> Many thanks for your reply.
>
>   
>> Your statement suggests that you have more than one partition on your 
>> drive, together with the partition formerly reserved for YDL (which you 
>> apparently wiped out accidently).
>>     
>
> No, it's still an HFS partition.
>
>   
>>  If my interpretation is correct, it 
>> may be best to reformat the entire drive using Apple's Disk Utility.  
>>     
>
> I already have ALOT of info on the OS X drives so I want to format the
> ydl as free space without interfering with them.
>
>   
>> Format one partition (as hfs) for the Mac OS (whichever you were using)  
>> and the other (as Free Space) for YDL -- at the same time.  Although the 
>> discussion within the installation manuals on this information is very 
>> brief, it is assumed that one is familiar with how this utility works 
>> and how to get it to partition a drive into different formats.  
>>     
>
>   
>> http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/installation/
>>     
>
> I'll have another look but I CAN'T lose my OS X data
>
>   
>> If you are not familiar with Apple's disk formatting utility then before 
>> you begin this process of partitioning your drive for YDL (or  anything 
>> else) get more familiar with how this utility works and what it can do.  
>> Remember that when you are finally ready to use it you should:
>>
>> 1.  Backup whatever Mac files you need.
>>     
>
> Unfortunately not practical.
>
>   
>> 2.  Remember to use that utility from within the Apple Install CD which 
>> came with that Mac; this also means that you are booting from that Apple 
>> CD to create the Mac and the YDL partitions -- at the same time.
>>     
>
> I was hoping to be able to wipe the ydl partition of Apple's HFS file
> system ... maybe it's not possible
>
> Thanks a lot for your time. I really appreciate it. But I think I'm fugged.
>
> Ian
>
>