08-21-2011, 02:52 PM

I would like to know If I can create a bootable partition for the Lion image on my external hard drive. The thing is that I have already used that external drive to make several time machine backups. My question is, will creating a partition for Lion in the external drive mess up the already backed up time machine backups?

08-21-2011, 07:59 PM

It won't disturb the TM backups provided you don't overwrite them when creating the partition. However, my recommendation is to use a separate USB flash drive or DVD to create a bootable Lion backup. I've made both and they work fine.

08-22-2011, 12:06 PM

It won't disturb the TM backups provided you don't overwrite them when creating the partition. However, my recommendation is to use a separate USB flash drive or DVD to create a bootable Lion backup. I've made both and they work fine.

ok, that makes sense. Although I'd rather go and create a partition within the external drive. Its a 500GB drive and I have about 350GB left so creating a 4GB partition shouldn't be a problem. Thanks

08-22-2011, 02:34 PM

That's fine, but make your partition slightly larger than 4 GB, say around 5 GB to make sure the installation files fit.

08-22-2011, 02:45 PM

Need to make sure you are resizing the existing partition to create enough room for another partition. Not going to the partition tab in Disk Utility and using the drop down menu and selecting 2 partitions - that will delete your existing partition to create the two new partitions.

While it should work without problem, you just need to be aware, playing with partitions can have disastrous results. Have seen it enough times that I never touch any partition that has data I care about without a backup. Have yet to see (knock on wood) a failed resize using Disk Utility, but it's always better to be prepared than not.