Using Partition Manager to Create Partitions: Experience with Mac Mini Part 3

Before starting I would personally like to thank this utility  because of it me and my wife can spend more time together. Even we have decided not to use different Mac while at home. We can happily manage our works in single Mac.

As  promised, I am here with my experience with partition manager at my 10-12 days old Mac mini!!
I am sure you still remembered that I have to create two partitions of 250 GB each. But as we was working on boot volume we had to create boot DVD (which we had already created in my last post: Partitioning Boot Drive).  Now I booted my Mac with boot DVD (for which press and hold “option” button and select boot device).

As soon as I booted Mac welcome screen of partition manager appears in front of me welcoming and introducing the software.

At the welcome screen it tried to educate me about what the software can do. (No doubt it also showed whole information before creating the Boot DVD).  It said partition manager can:
Create new Volume
Delete  exiting volume
Resize exiting volume (without data loss)

with clicking “continue” the screen I landed upon is software initial process screen.

The screen showing the list of the drives present in my Mac and as soon as when I clicked one of the drive the screen in front of me was saying thousand of words about the drive. It showing drive information (Description, Size and partition map) and also educating me how to use perform next operation by saying select the volume to make changes. Also I saw some of the options present at the top of the screen as:

• Add                                       
• Format                                            
• Delete Hide Reveal                         
• Start                                                
• Stop                                                
• Roll Back                                         
• Refresh                                          

My common sense started working and I clicked on Add (as I need to do partition of drive) and I saw software asking me to decide the size and name of the volume which I wanted to add:

I adjusted the size of the volume and click on “Tick” and I have my drives listed in front of my eyes. What I saw was that software started making list of every operation which I love to perform on the drive.  As tried I reduce the size of one volume and add two new volume just to test. SO screen was saying exactly shown is screenshot:

After performing all the operation I wished to do what I need to do all is click on “start” button. The screen actually was showing me the preview before starting any operation. I liked this feature the most software clearly saying “Is it something you thinking to have” if yes go for it else rollback and do operations again.

Soon after the whole process complete I have two drive one for me and other for my wife I simply quit the software and my Mac booted again and with “option” key I manage to boot it via Mac hard drive instead of boot DVD.

Now, I got two partitions of 250 GB that I was expecting to do.  The experience was so nice with the partition manager. It actually made the task so much interesting that I could never even imagined!  

Partitioning Boot Drive: Create Bootable DVD - Experience with Mac Mini Part 2

I was enjoying my brand new Mac mini got on 26th of June. Only in two-three days, we become very good friends!! But yesterday one cruel thing happened with me. The Mac of my wife  has been crashed down I did not know why? How? But system support said they will need four-five days in repairing her Mac. And most cruel thing for me was to share my Mac mini with her because she need to finish some project in two days maximum. So I decided to make one more separate partition for the project of my wife  to separate data of both because  my MAc mini have 500GB of hard drive, read my first experience with Mac Mini.

My wife recommend me use stellar partition manager to make partition as she is Mac application specialist so without any if or but I started partitioning Mac drive.  But as soon as I selected the drive for partition, it ask me to “Create Boot able DVD” with an message as shown in figure below:

“You have selected a hard drive boot volume. To make change in this drive boot the system from volume on another drive”

Reading the full information present in the screen I come to know that I have to create boot DVD if I want to partition my hard drive at which boot volume is present and so I started searching my shelf for R/W DVD. With the next span of second I clicked “continue” to create boot DVD. Next screen in front me is asking me permission to  create image and its destination  where I want to put that image. With in next second the screen appears in front of me is:

 It started creating image in the “Fun Drive” I have created before (I have two partition in my hard disk: Work Drive (250GB) &  Fun Drive (250 GB)). The software screen now telling that this image will work on all computers having same configuration similar to mine. It needed at least 5 GB space in destination drive.  It was bit time taking process, I thought,  because it need to read and write 5 GB of data. At this point I was bit upset because I have to give 5 GB of the drive space just for image. But seeing the intensity of time, I did not stop the process.

 Now I inserted the DVD and with in next second the message flashed as shown in screenshot:

Partition Manager actually asking me permission to erase the data, if any in the DVD. With the press of erase it erased whole data and started burning the image, it itself take the image from “Fun Drive” and started burning with progress bar in front of me:

After few minutes of this process the DVD came out and message flashed in front of me is: Burn Successful!!

I booted the Mac using the bootable DVD, I have created just now and partition manager welcome screen is in front of me. Now I can easily increase or decrease the size of any drives. I just make my fun drive of 200GB and bit trimmed the work drive to make a drive of 200 GB for my wife.

After finishing the partition task I booted my Mac using its own drive and what I found was relaxing for me, I saw that the image I have created in the fun drive is not there. This image is used by software with the purpose of only to burn the DVD. After creating boot DVD that image has been removed from the destination drive by the software itself.

My wife was happy to have this software as she always used to say that  we  should work together so that we can spend more time together. This software made her wish come true and I was happy because my wife was feeling so. Don't you like to know how I made partitions how  partition manager look like when partitioning don't worry I have some screen shot  yet to come in next post, so just wait I have something more interesting to share..  To be Continued...