Simple bootable photo drive

Parsa9

Registered
I bought a portable 500 GB Mercury On-the-go drive and want to use it to store photos and other images that are taking up a lot of my main laptop drive. I have no problem dragging the files over, but would also like to have a minimal system software setup or booting and checking the main drive on the road. What's the easiest way to do this?
I don't want to clone my whole drive. I've done that on a large external using SuperDuper. I just want the minimal boot software and the rest for storage.
Should I just load from a disk, or is there an easy way to do this from my computer?
 
Partition the external drive into two partitions: a small, 15GB partition for booting, and the rest for data.

Install a minimal Mac OS X installation on the 15GB partition -- you may even be able to get away with a smaller partition -- and load your favorite maintenance utilities on that partition.
 
My large HD is partitioned with a bootable clone, as well as other partitions I use for various storage purposes. But what is the main purpose of the smaller bootable partition? What are the advantages? For repairing the other partition?
 
Are you wanting some kind of bootable partition that is significantly smaller than a regular, minimal OS X installation?

I just want the minimal boot software and the rest for storage.
Should I just load from a disk, or is there an easy way to do this from my computer?
I think the way I explained is the easiest way to accomplish this... or are you looking for something different?
 
No, not particularly small. I was just wondering about the advantages over have a single-partition drive.

I don't have an OS 10.5 DVD, but I have my install disks for my Macbook Pro. I suppose I can use that as long as I'm using my MBP to do it, right? I can then upgrade to the latest version.
 
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