Hopefully most of you will find this one easy. It does require a little Terminal usage, but I'll step you through it.
[robg adds: I haven't tested this tip. If you do so, be careful with it, especially if you choose to later remove it -- any files not backed up from the 'partitions' will be lost when you delete them. I don't think this will work as described in Tiger, due to changes in handling diskmounting, but I'm not positive.]
Installation
- Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder (inside the Applications folder).
- Without having any drives or volumes selected, click on the 'New Image' button. This will be your partition; choose a size accordingly. (I recommend read/write disk image, but sparse should also work)
- Save it as 'Partition' and save it to your Desktop
- Open Terminal in your Utilities folder, and type the following commands (you will be prompted for for an admin password). You can copy and paste things into the Terminal -- this will make things immensely easier.
This moves the partition file you created off your desktop and makes it a hidden file. If you wish to make additional partitions, use Partition2.dmg then Partition3.dmg and so on.sudo mv ~/Desktop/Partition.dmg /.Partition1.dmg
This will make a script that can be run before login. Skip this step if you have done this at least once already.sudo mkdir /Library/Hooks; sudo echo "#! /bin/bash" > /Library/Hooks/MountFakePartition
This will make the script executable. Skip this step if you have done this at least once already.sudo chmod +x /Library/Hooks/MountFakePartition
Enable disks to be mounted without user intervention. Skip this step if you have done this at least once already.sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool true
Have the script run right before login. Skip this step if you have done this at least once already.sudo /usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/Hooks/MountFakePartition
This will add the mounting of the partition to the script. Change /.Partition1.dmg to whatever is necessary if this is not your first time to do this.sudo echo "hdiutil mount /.Partition1.dmg" >> /Library/Hooks/MountFakePartition
What's the deal? Okay, Juz10mac, you said this would look and feel like a real hard disk partition, but it doesn't look like one. The solution to this is easy, and optional:
- Control-click on your hard disk and choose Get Info. Click on the icon in the Get Info window then do an Edit -> Copy.
- Control-click on your new partition and choose Get Info. Click on the icon in the get info window then do an Edit -> Paste.
Open Terminal in your Utilities folder, and type these commands (you will be prompted for for an admin password):
$ sudo rm -f /.Partition*
$ sudo rm -f /Library/Hooks/MountFakePartion
Enjoy!

