Can I do Mountain Lion on SSD and Lion on HDD?

[applephysci]

I have a mid-2009 MBP that I am now installing a Samsung 830 256 GB SSD in the optical bay, while leaving the HDD in its main bay.

I currently have Lion on my HDD but plan to to do a fresh install of Mountain Lion on my SSD (using a USB key). I only plan to move my pictures, music, and movies to the HDD (not my whole home folder) and leave the rest on the SSD. I have a current backup on an external HD, which is what I will use for the process.

The question I have is on how I should format my HDD after I have installed Mountain Lion on my SSD. Do I not need an OS on my HDD as well? If so, can I leave Lion on my HDD, and have Mountain Lion on the SSD. Anyone?

 

[bwillwall]

I have a mid-2009 MBP that I am now installing a Samsung 830 256 GB SSD in the optical bay, while leaving the HDD in its main bay.

I currently have Lion on my HDD but plan to to do a fresh install of Mountain Lion on my SSD (using a USB key). I only plan to move my pictures, music, and movies to the HDD (not my whole home folder) and leave the rest on the SSD. I have a current backup on an external HD, which is what I will use for the process.

The question I have is on how I should format my HDD after I have installed Mountain Lion on my SSD. Do I not need an OS on my HDD as well? If so, can I leave Lion on my HDD, and have Mountain Lion on the SSD. Anyone?

What you can do is boot from the USB and open disk utility, go to erase on the new SSD and chose Mac OS Extended (journaled) on the drop down menu. Just name it whatever you want that's different from what you have (Macintosh HD 2 is what I use) and just install mountain lion there (Reinstall OSX, choose new hard drive, continue, continue, continue blah blah you know) Then to boot from one that isn't default just hold option as you turn it on and it will let you choose what one you want, like with bootcamp. Congrats, you have Lion on your HDD and Mountain Lion on your SSD

 

[mwhities]

What you can do is boot from the USB and open disk utility, partition the new SSD to Mac OS Extended (journaled) and name it whatever you want that's different from what you have (Macintosh HD 2 is what I use) and just install mountain lion there. Then to boot from one that isn't default just hold option and choose what one you want like with bootcamp. Congrats, you have Lion on your HDD and Mountain Lion on your SSD

Make sure to select Options and set it to GUID (although, now that I think about it, it's like that by default if you partition it with OS Extended (Journaled)).

 

[bwillwall]

Make sure to select Options and set it to GUID (although, now that I think about it, it's like that by default if you partition it with OS Extended (Journaled)).

Yeah thanks I forgot about that.