Operating with TWO OS systems

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Is there a way to have two partitions on my Mac, one with El Capitan and one with the latest OS? Reason is that I have Adobe's CS 6 which may not be compatible on later operating systems
Also, would need the ability to drag stuff back and forth like photos and files. The only thing El Capitan would do is operate the Adobe product.

Searay
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OS El Capitan
 

Raz0rEdge

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Yes, it can be done and is done by people who want to play with a beta version of a new OS for example. Follow these instructions to set it up. Make sure you have a valid & verified backup before starting this process.
 
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Quick question: Would I make the partition just big enough to hold the downgraded OS and the software that would run on it?
 

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For any OS version released in the last decade, or maybe longer, you're going to want to leave some blank space on each parttion. The OS will use that soace to write data that can't be held in memory as memory fills up.
 

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Whatever principals apply when you are operating a single OS applies in this dual-boot scenario. One of the key ones is leaving at leas 20% of the disk free for the OS to be happy. So ensure that your partitions are large enough to support that.
 
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Question:

After partitioning, I want to run only my Adobe products on the older version.... assume I load them into the partition with the older OS?

And once done, can I have both OSs operating seemless, so I can create something in Adobe, and pull that file into the other OS to use on another software. Eg would be to create a picture in Adobe, and use it in Word or Excel on the other operating system.

Thx
Searay
 

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You can indeed create the file using a program on one partition and full the file into a program on the second partition if you choose a file format that both programs support. Each time you want to switch to a different OS you have to reboot the Mac.

If I am understanding what you want to do correctly you could install the second program and the software that you want to run in a virtual machine. Done that way you do not have to reboot the Mac just to run the program that you want to run.

Edit: The disadvantage of running a virtual machine is that some programs do not run very well in those circumstances -- especially if the program is very graphics or CPU intensive.

If you can give us your Mac specs and which program you want to run perhaps we can give you an idea of the best way to do what you want.
 
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You can indeed create the file using a program on one partition and full the file into a program on the second partition if you choose a file format that both programs support. Each time you want to switch to a different OS you have to reboot the Mac.

If I am understanding what you want to do correctly you could install the second program and the software that you want to run in a virtual machine. Done that way you do not have to reboot the Mac just to run the program that you want to run.

Edit: The disadvantage of running a virtual machine is that some programs do not run very well in those circumstances -- especially if the program is very graphics or CPU intensive.

If you can give us your Mac specs and which program you want to run perhaps we can give you an idea of the best way to do what you want.

Slydude,

Thx
I have Adobe Creative Suite CS6, which works well on older OSs, but not so well on the current ones and use it a fair amount, but no longer professionally like I used to. Adobe has raised their prices brutally and only offers a subscription. You can't just purchase the software and upgrade it occasionally. The monthly costs are just out of sight for a weekend designer. So, upgrading is not much of an option, so I'd like to explore two operating systems, but need to go back and forth between them. Rebooting each time wont work.

Thx
 
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Is there a way to have two partitions on my Mac, one with El Capitan and one with the latest OS? Reason is that I have Adobe's CS 6 which may not be compatible on later operating systems
Also, would need the ability to drag stuff back and forth like photos and files. The only thing El Capitan would do is operate the Adobe product.

Searay
Iphone 6+
OS El Capitan

In short, no.



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@SeaRay I can certainly understand your situation. If this is something that you do quite a bit rebooting so often would quickly become very annoying. At least it would for me. I'm not always a patient person.:)

There are a few options for virtual machines. Some of them are free and others paid.

@rachalmers Can you clarify your response a bit? I'm confused.
 
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I can verify that Parallels will install Mojave as a guest (from the host machine's Recovery Partition). You can then install PS in that virtual machine. You will probably have to unregister it from the current installation and re-register it in the new as Adobe is pretty restrictive about that sort of thing. Definitely cannot have two copies, one the host, one the guest, unless you have two licences. The beauty of using Parallels is that you can then move files from the guest to the host on the fly (drag and drop), which is what you say you need to do. Parallels isn't free, but it's not fiercely expensive, either. I cannot speak to the speed or quality of PS in the guest Mojave system, but I do have a copy of CS6 in a Windows guest under Parallels that works very well.
 
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@SeaRay I can certainly understand your situation. If this is something that you do quite a bit rebooting so often would quickly become very annoying. At least it would for me. I'm not always a patient person.:)

There are a few options for virtual machines. Some of them are free and others paid.

@rachalmers Can you clarify your response a bit? I'm confused.

I understand that you are wanting to have two operating systems on one machine. Operating at the same time.
This is literally not possible.

You can boot either one or the other. Store files on an external drive. Boot the other os and retrieve the external files.

You may or may not be able to partition a Mac so that you can have two options to boot from. You can do it with a windows virtual os and the Mac. Only someone who’s done it could tell you.
It seems like a lot of trouble for such a small problem?



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Is there a way to have two partitions on my Mac, one with El Capitan and one with the latest OS?

If this question was asked as little as 1 year ago (or less)...I would have said a definite yes. I happen to have a hard drive with 5 partitions...with a different macOS version installed on each partition.

What has changed within the last year or less you may ask??...Apple's newest storage device format called APFS. Before this..."Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" was pretty much the default storage device format most MacUsers used (from 1998 until now)...21 years!!!

APFS has it's advantages...but one downside to APFS is backward compatibility. Storage devices running macOS version's older than macOS Sierra (10.12) cannot read or write to an APFS formatted drive. Thus an older macOS (like El Capitan, 10.11) cannot read/write to an APFS formatted drive.

Thus the answer is...officially according to Apple...a hard drive split into two partitions cannot run both El Capitan & Mojave (since this hard drive would be formatted with APFS...which El Captain can't work with).

But unofficially...I have seen that there is some sort of "Mojave Patcher" out there that somehow allows Mojave to be installed on storage devices formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)...and there can be some performance issues with this patcher setup.

HTH,

- Nick
 
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I understand that you are wanting to have two operating systems on one machine. Operating at the same time.
This is literally not possible.
Technically, maybe, but practically, it's totally possible. Using a virtual system (Parallels, VMWare, etc) you can run an OS as an application on the booted machine, in effect having two or more running OSes at a time. I have had as many as four operating simultaneously (MacOS on the hardware, Windows7 as a virtual machine along with Ubuntu and a second instance of Mojave). It was ugly-slow with all four up and going, but ran.
 
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Nick, I think one could have two partitions on the hardware, one formatted for HFS+ and the other for APFS. So technically, you could still do what you said. However, older versions of the OS (Pre-High Sierra) cannot read APFS. But you can do a hardware partition still and have two distinct formats in the partitions and two distinct operating systems. Once in APFS, then the "partitions" there are really containers, of course.

That is, of course, how Bootcamp works. The Widows partition is formatted NTFS, the Mac partition is APFS.
 

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... I think one could have two partitions on the hardware, one formatted for HFS+ and the other for APFS.

I guess after 21 years of Mac OS Extended (Journaled)...and not doing much multiple formatting on the same drive (different formats on different partitions)...having two different macOS formats on the same drive is a bit foreign.;)

But yeah...if one drive partition can be Mac OS Extended (Journaled)...and a 2nd partition be APFS...cool...that works perfect! I'll have to get on that ASAP...and give it a try!:)

Thanks,

- Nick
 

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@Nick
Thanks for bringing up the APFS issue. I had not thought of that although that's yet another reason to need to know which OS versions the OP is using.

@Jake I haven't been able to get BootCamp working properly since maybe Sierra so the following i strictly for my edification: When you set up the NTFS partition i it actually a separate partition or is it a container as APFS calls them? I suspect which it is depends upon how you create the partition.
 
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Sly, I can't speak to Bootcamp. Don't use it. Tried it once, didn't like it, moved to Parallels instead and run Windows as a guest. As for the two partitions, I will see if I can find the article I read on how to have two partitions, one HFS+ and one APFS, on a single drive. As I recall, you partitioned the drive into two using the older version of Disk Utility, formatting one of them for HFS+ and installing the OS, then booted from a USB drive, used Disk Utility to select the unformatted partition and formatted it with APFS. Might be some other details in there, but that's what I remember. I do a bit of searching to see if I can find it again and get the link.
 

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As for the two partitions, I will see if I can find the article I read on how to have two partitions, one HFS+ and one APFS, on a single drive.

I did a brief amount of searching earlier today on this...but it was by no means an exhaustive search.;)

Your earlier example of having Windows & macOS on the same drive (separate partitions)...was a perfect example. Thus HFS+ and APFS should also be possible on the same drive (different partitions).:)

- Nick
 
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Slydude

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I'm pretty sure you're right about how to set that second partition up. I remember reading something like that.

Don't bother looking too hard. I can find it if I decide to torture myself a bit.
 

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