Partitioning, Panther and Tiger

[gn0m3]

Hi Folks,

I have Panther (10.3.9) running on a G4 on 1 partition, is there an easy way of creating a new partition so i can install tiger as well but without losing the Panther install and all the apps? Also will this work running Panther and Tiger on one machine (obviously not at the same time)???

Thanks a lot,

gn0m3

[John A]

Hi Folks,

I have Panther (10.3.9) running on a G4 on 1 partition, is there an easy way of creating a new partition so i can install tiger as well but without losing the Panther install and all the apps? Also will this work running Panther and Tiger on one machine (obviously not at the same time)???

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If you install Tiger, there's an option to "Upgrade", which will preserve all your data, applications, and settings. In fact, you'll hardly notice you've upgraded. I've upgraded my iMac G5 from Panther to Tiger, and installation/upgrading went without a hitch.

Now if there's some strange reason why you still might want to dual-boot Panther and Tiger on the same machine, yes it is possible. But you can't nondestructively resize the Panther partition using Panther, as you'll need Tiger for that. So if you want to do it, you'll have to backup everything, and then reformat and repartition the entire drive. Ouch.

(Tiger does have a nondestructive repartitioning tool, diskutil, but that isn't included with Panther, so it isn't an option until you've installed 10.4)

[gn0m3]

Thanks for that. the reason i need to have both is because we have 10 macs running Panther and 10 running tiger so for testing and troubleshooting purposes i need both! there isnt a lot installed the drive so a reformat is fine.

thanks again,

gn0m3

[John A]

So basically you should boot off the Panther disk (after you've backed up your hard disk), choose Utilities->Disk Utility. Delete the Panther partition, click 'Yes' to the warning, and then add an HFS partition that doesn't take up the entire drive. You'll then have room to add a second partition, which can be used to install Panther on.

Hope this helps

[MacJunkie]

I use VolumeWorks to create and delete new partitions without loss of data. Works like a charm. You select the size for the new partition and it will create it without deleting your current partition. The big advantage is when your deleting a partition and want to reclaim the space into your main partition you can do so without deleting the main partition too and totally repartitioning the drive.