Slick Disk Tricks

[Jason Woodrow Ellis]

Slick Disk Tricks

I was a crazy risk taker. I loaded up the BeOS for Power Macintosh on my
8500/120 with only one hard disk drive. Luckily I already had partitioned
it when I first bought the computer. I created three partitions:
HD1=340MB, HD2= 830, HD3= 830, and an allotment of 33MB of free space.

When I installed the BeOS, I repartitioned HD1 as a łBeOS˛ partition.
Because I quickly found that I did not find enlightenment from using Be, I
wanted to get rid of it. I just as quickly noticed that Appleąs
DriveSetup application would not let me repartition without reformatting.
This was not an option. Luckily Be came through.

In order to reclaim my first partition I used Beąs included Mac
application called łBeOS Partition Utility˛ to rename the łBeOS˛ partition
to an łApple_HFS˛ partition. Then I restarted my computer and a dialogue
comes up at the desktop for me to choose to initialize the new partition
or łeject˛ it. I opted to initialize it (which took all of five seconds)
and suddenly I have my first partition back! No special programs or extra
drivers necessary. Just as a precaution, I did use Nortonąs łWipe Info˛
application to do a nice łgovernment˛ sweep of all previously stored
data. (OK, so I cheated a little bit!)

I am about to loose my internet connection at Georgia Tech, so I have been
trying to download everything under the sun to play with when I go back
home this month. This need of space reminded me of my 33MB of free
space. This takes a little bit more time and effort than regaining a
łBeOS˛ partition (but it is exactly the same procedure, almost). These
are the steps that I used. First, I used the łBeOS Partition Utility˛ to
rename the łApple_Free˛ to łBeOS.˛ Next I launched the BeOS from the
CD-ROM and initialized this the łfree˛ partition for use by the BeOS (this
gives the partition a name). Next I rebooted my computer after _not_
installing the BeOS and again used łBeOS Partition Utility˛ to rename the
łBeOS˛ partition to łApple_HFS.˛ Now one can see that this is similar to
the previous instructions. However when I restarted nothing happened!
Well, undaunted, I used Appleąs łDriveSetup˛ app to update the disk
driver. I rebooted and now my free space is a new partition asking to be
initialized. I now have my full hard disk drive available for storage
purposes.

One should realize that what I did was very perilous and down right
horrific. I donąt have any kind of backup solution or another disk drive
to keep files on. Please use caution if you try this technique to reclaim
disk space! And, remember, I am loosing my email address shortly so you
have no ability for flames or other such nonsense.

Jason Woodrow Ellis
gt0...@prism.gatech.edu