Dual boot with 2 versions of Snow Leopard? Is this poss?

Hi,

I like to create music. I take this quite seriously.

As much as my Mac Book Pro is superb (had it a month now) I do think for semi pro use a spereate machine is always best as opposed a machine you use for the interntet, email, documents and everything else that usually results in clutter.

For Music I like a very minimum install. IE only what I require.

Ideally Id like to get a whole separate iMac specifically as a music PC, but then were talking big bucks!

Next best thing I figure is to use my MBP but reformat it and have two partitions. One for music and one for everything else.

Can I reformat my MBP to allow 2 partitions of Snow Leopard? I know this can be done with windoze and mac OSX but never heard of 2x SL before.

Also, I have a Time Capsule always backing up my MBP. Can I restore everything to the new working partition so it is just as it is now?

Thanks for any advice..

I don't think 2 different installs of Snow Leopard on 2 different partitions is really necessary. What I would do in your situation is create another user account for your Macbook Pro. So you have one for your every day use and the 2nd for your music making hobby. And at log in you just pick which user account you want. Everyday use or Music hobby.

Then you can set up your music making account just how you want it, as minimalistic as you want. And this way you would not lose Hard Drive space with a 2nd install of Snow Leopard.

And trust me your MBP even with junk on it will mske music in Logic Pro just nicely. I from time to time use Logic Pro and it works just fine on my old 2.0 ghz imac and I only have one account.

Just remember the basics. I'm sure you know this already but for the benifit of anyone else reading this topic I'll list them.

1. Remember to keep a decent chunk of your hard drive space free. like 5-10% maybe. For system virtual memory needs. And also as space for a scratch disk so whatever music creating application you use have the space to store your work in progress till you save it.

2. Watching your memory usage with "activity monitor" or "istat pro" and getting more RAM if you need it.

3. Download "Onyx" for snow leopard.
Titanium Software
With that you can make sure your Mac is at peak fitness. And can make music without any huccups for you.

And to directly answer your questions. I'm sure if you made 2 paritions with "disk utility" and booted up your MBP with the 10.6 dvd you could select the 2nd partition to install OS X a 2nd time. But in saying this what is stopping you to having 2 user accounts as I explained above and having all your music stuff on the 2nd partition. I just do not see the need for the 2nd install of SL.

Can I restore everything to the new working partition so it is just as it is now?
Yes. In disk utility you have 3 options when partitioning your hard drive.

Partitioning a disk
If you want to reuse a disk, you can partition it, which erases all of its data and creates new partitions.

Enlarging a partition
You may be able to increase a partition’s size without erasing its data by erasing another partition and combining them.

Creating new partitions
You may be able to create new partitions on a disk without erasing any of its data by creating new partitions from the unused space in the existing partitions.

And if anything goes wrong you have your time machine backs to get all of your data back onto your hard drive.

Hey thanks man for that detailed and informative reply.

Some great points. Things I had not considered.

I hear you loud and clear re the new account. It certainly wont hurt to try this out first and if I dont like it resort to 2 partitions.

Re creating new partitions. Is it possible to make a new partition out of my current instal as opposed to wiping everything and starting a fresh?

Thanks once again

Kola said:

Is it possible to make a new partition out of my current instal as opposed to wiping everything and starting a fresh?

Click to expand...

Yes. I've had a look at "Disk Utility". And when you try to ad a partition to your hard drive, it will let you. But it will only let you make the first of the 2 partitions equal to or larger then the amount of data you have now. You can have a look and I think this is pretty easy to work out.

So to answer your question. Yes.

Thank you