Have new Macbook Pro 13 inch with 2 internal Hard drives...How do I.... ?

[Goldentiger]

Have new Macbook Pro 13 inch with internal Hard drives...How do I.... utilize both drives? The seller told me to hold option key when booting to switch
between drives; I tried that and always ends up... the same drive as before is booted from. One problem both drives ( 512 gb solid state primary) and
the (750 gb hybrid) have the same name and I have tried to change the name of one of them to no avail.

My objective is to transfer 200 gb of photos (that were copied from iPhoto on 2008 macbook), now on an 1TB external HD by Seagate for Mac onto this
second hardrive, (and to be able to access them there without using my space up on the 512) to date unsucessfully also. This is a lot to ask someone!,
but thanks if you can help. "goldentiger"

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[JezzerP]

Is this a 'brand new' MacBook Pro? I'm not sure why you were told to hold down a key whilst booting. Surely the Mac OSX operating system is only installed on one drive, the solid state drive, and the standard large capacity sata drive should be used as storage. When the machine boots into OSX can you see the other drive listed in Finder?

[Goldentiger]

Yes it is brand new.... he told me to hold the option button down, when I want to be able to switch to other drive when booting....and yes I can see them
in Finder window if I click on Go and "Computer"

[JezzerP]

OK, that isn't how I'd thought they would configure things, but there you are!!

If you just let the Mac boot without holding the option button, can you tell which drive OSX boots from?

[Goldentiger]

First of all, though the macbook is new.....it was purchased from a seller that did all the upgrades and he took out the dvd bay as you might know to put in the hybrid drive. He said it took less than ten min. I am fairly certain it is booting from the 512 Solid State, although they both have about 150 gb used
space on them?....

[JezzerP]

OK, if you go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities, this will give you a list of the drives and partitions on each drive. If you click and select each Named partition and then click the Info button, a dialog will pop up with a whole pile of information about the partition, one of which is whether it's 'Bootable'....can you let us know that this gives you?

[Goldentiger]

I can NOT find anything once selected that says..."info! I did two screen shots but can't figure out how to add them here.... and I could NOT find "bootable on either one, so I am not looking in the right place....

[Goldentiger]

I did see where the 512 said...this is a start up partition and the other drive does not say that.....

[JezzerP]

Personally, what I would do is take it back to where you bought it and ask them to configure it how you want...it's a brand new machine after all and as it stands is not fit for purpose...they should be obliged to do so free of charge.

We could try and walk you through reformatting the larger drive as a storage drive rather than a boot drive if you want, but if you are not comfortable with Disk Utility etc, we may end up doing more harm than good.

[JezzerP]

Here is a screenshot of Disk Utility showing what I meant in terms of the Info Button and the new dialog that opens up showing whether or not a partition is bootable or not. Hope it makes sense.