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OK, I have a mac G4 (800 mhz, 1 gig ram) that I have had for about 3 1/2 years - I finally bought tech tool 4 to optimize after having poor performance using DP 4.5 -

It failed so many tests that I just decided that maybe it was time to "rebuild the hard drive" and partition part of it for DP alone -

The last time I did this was pre OSX and I looked in Disk Utility and didn't see a initialize option - I know I gotta boot up from the system CD and then I figured I would initialize, partition, and then load the system and then the software.

Could someone tell me if this is the correct order and what software I should use to initialize since that option isnt in the disk utility?

My jaguar cd offers the "erase" option before installing the system - is that the same as intializing??

thanks to all

It's been a while since I've done this so I may be missing a step.

1) Boot up off the Jaguar CD.

2) Launch the Disk Utility (I belive you can access this from the apple menu) and initilize and partition the hard drive.

3) Go Back to the installer and run the install.

Hope this Helps

-Matt

Erase and initialize are not exactly trhe same, but accomplish the same loss of all your data.

You don't mention your HD size(s) or the kinds of files are clogging DP. Large stereo files will slow performance on a single, smaller drive.

If you are tight on hard drive space, you might try what I did (I have the same system). Add a large internal drive. Install a new system on that and clean up the old drive.

Also, for a few hundred $$$ you can put in a processor upgrade to 1.2 or 1.4 gHz. That will make a big difference in DP as well. RAM should be fine at the current size. I use a Sonnet 1.4 I bought a few years ago and it has kept my QuickSilver purring. Just as fast as my wife's 1.4 MINI...

There are lots of differences between erase and initilize, most of which are technical but for your purposes you must initialize if you want to partition the drive.