Dividing the iMac’s Hard Disk Drive (HDD) into discrete sections of different sizes is not something a lot of us enjoy to do. However, we have our reasons to partition the hard drive.
For instance, I divided my HDD into three separate volumes with Snow Leopard installed on one, Mac OS X Lion installed on the second, and the third one is used as a backup clone. Movies, files, etc. are dumped in one of the volume while the other volume is solely used for the purpose of blogging and testing apps.
Partition Hard Drive in Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion
If you are looking to prepare for a fresh, clean install of your Mac OS, then partitioning the HD is the alternate, and perhaps the easiest, way around. Also, I can always expand the size, delete the partitioned space, and merge volume with a couple of clicks.
The process of partitioning hard drive is exactly the same for Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7. The only difference is the interface of the Disk Utility which has seen a positive makeover over the years. In this article, we will use Mac OS X Lion’s Disk Utility to partition the hard disk drive.
How to Partition HDD in Mac OS X
— Launch Disk Utility. The first step is to launch Disk Utility program. You can do this by typing “Disk Utility“ in the Spotlight, or you can navigate to Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.
— Navigate to the Partition tab to create or delete the hard drive partition. The short video below should be helpful to locate the right settings required. After following the video, click on “Apply” and the partition of your iMac’s HDD will begin. The video explains the whole process clearly:
