Re: The start up disk can not be partitioned or restored to a single partition

I have two suggestions.

First is use the install disc that came with the Mac. Start your computer up using the disc (hold down C), then instead of installing the OS again, go to the Tools? menu along the menu bar and open Disc Utility. See if you can repair permissions or repair the disk. Then restart and see if it helps.

If that doesn't work, then I would suggest cloning your drive to another firewire drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. When that's done, make sure that the clone worked by restarting your computer with the firewire drive plugged in and hold down Option. This will allow you to try to start up from the firewire drive. If it worked, then you can clone the firewire drive back to the internal computer drive. This will erase the drive and replace it with the clone.

The point of the second one is to free up the space correctly one the drive.

If that doesn't work, you'll probably have to reinstall the operating system completely, in which case, you can just point to the cloned firewire drive as an old computer and it will copy your files/applications over for you.

This might not make very much sense, but feel free to ask more questions if I was confusing.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Kaleidoscope Pictures
Provo, UT