Need help with Apple's way of disks formats...

I was trying to re-partition a 128 MB sdcard into a ~100 MB & ~25 MB partitions and never found a way to format one of them as FAT 32, which was my intention. There're other formats that aren't accessible for me either (ext2, ext3, etc.).

What I have now is shown below (don't understand the info here): see attachment.

Was trying to upload an image but it didn't work out.

PS. If I use the DiskUtility for showing info on the mounted disk it says ...Journalled..., which I don't understand. Is it an Apple thing?

Thanks in advance for any help on this!

Edit: Are those '10' entries under /dev/disk0 partitions?

I trust Benny you do mean a 128GB card?

For what it is worth, with the cards being so cheap and likely to fail, I use one for Mac and one for PC. Yes Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or +HFS is Mac formatting. And suggest keeping out of Terminal unless you know precisely what you are doing. Powerful black magic lives there.

harryb2448 said:

Powerful black magic lives there.

Click to expand...

Yes it does! lol

- Nick

So, it would appear as though your SD card is indeed formatted such that there are two partitions, one of 100MB and one of 20MB. They are both formatted as journaled HFS partitions (to answer your other question, no, journalling is not OS X specific). What do you see in Disk Utility?

Thanks for replying, harryb2448, pigoo3 & vansmith!

The size of the sdcard is in fact 128 MB. What can I do to format a partition as a FAT32 system?

Since I'm trying to dual doot with Lubuntu at the HD I need to repartition the HDD and, according to some web sites info, I need to use the Terminal. I know it's dangerous but necessary.

I can't retrieve the DiskUtility info now because I'm posting from a tablet but later I'll send the required info.

Edit: Although a little bit out of tangency with this thread I would like that you take a look at the following and then comment something about it here:

="http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthr...ted-live-for-iBook-G4-Mac-OS-X-10-5-2-exists"

This article outlines how to use diskutil from the command line to do, among other things, format partitions. If you're uncomfortable with the command line, make a full backup before giving this a try.

If I'm understanding the question correctly…here's an article I think applies…and hopefully helps:

Create a Dual-Format Drive for Mac and Windows

The article discuss's formatting a hard drive with two partitions (each partition with a different file system). But the process should work for an SD card as well.

- Nick

Thanks for the link you provided, vansmith!

Was reading it and suddenly felt as if the quoted text below also apply to me:

[With the introduction of OS X Lion, your Mac's hard disk is split into two partitions with two corresponding volumes. The first is hidden and named Recovery HD for OS X Recovery, allowing you to reinstall OS X without needing any physical media. The second is the more familiar Macintosh HD]

Click to expand...

Am I right on this? I already tried to repartition the HDD but it was after booting OS X from the HDD itself; this fact might have prevented me to complete the task. If I boot the computer with linux, can I then repartition it from linux and, if nothing is lost in the process, I might be able to dual boot here, no?

I would like to understand better the hd organizing sheme that Apple uses in this iBook G4. If you look at the attachment (first post) you will notice all those entries under the heading Type, starting with Apple_partition_scheme and ending at Apple_patches; are each one of these entries a partition (volume)? What would happen if one moves the contents of each one to its' own folder at a new created partition and then remove those partitions that have become in fact duplicates? How one can visit (reach) all those partitions? Are these so special that the OS will block owr access intentions to these?

If I need to make new partitions, their required sizes should be taken from the last one appearing there (Apple_HFS)?

Thanks in advance for any info on the above issues!

I would like to understand better the hd organizing sheme that Apple uses in this iBook G4.

Click to expand...

Actually, the terminology is the partitioning scheme you're referring to. On PPC Macs, the partitioning scheme is always "Apple Partition Map" and with Intel Macs it's GUID. They are not interchangeable.

And just an unsolicited opinion here... I would never use an SD card as a hard drive to create a bootable anything. SD cards (even the best) are unreliable and have a limit to the number of read and writes they will sustain.

Thank you for replying, chscag!

It is curious that on these forums it has been so hard to obtain answers to my questions... I've made some questions that are continuously evaded. Here I'm coming again, does my hdd contain 10 partitions? Is there a "safe" way of resizing my 'main' partition (lossless) if I don't have a startup cd? Can I make one (cd)?

Are those 'partitions' (#1 to #8) unreachable with the apps Apple has put on this device?

Thanks in advance for any info on the above issues!

I'm sorry vansmith for been so late in supplying you with the requested info! It's shown below:

I hope the supplied info is exactly what you requested, some changes to the device file contents has been included here that weren't present at the beginning.