Connecting external Hardrive to windows XP then to Macbook for Time Machine

[tonyae1989]

Well i have been looking all over the internet to figure out how to do this, and i just can not find anything specific enough for my situation, i would appreciate some help Thank you
Well i have a Windows XP home Computer,
a external "maxtor" hardrive, and
a macbook with OSX.
i have formatted my external hardrive to time machine's requirements,
but i have to connect it via USB every-time i want to backup.
i would like to know how can i connect my external hardrive
to the my home PC with windows XP and
then over the network backup my macbook via time machine.
(i have heard it is very slow to backup over the network,but thats okay). thank you i really need help with this one.

[ChrisA]

The trick to get TM to see an SMB mounted network drive is this.

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Google "TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes" for more information

[tonyae1989]

i was hoping for more details after i use terminal. like how do i format the external hardrive? how do share it with my macbook ? i was hoping someone could point me to a guide. thank you

[dampfdruck]

This can be done. I have a similar setup here with an external USB HD connected to a linux (samba) sever. Two Macs use it for timemachine backup. It is very sloowwww if you connect via WiFi.

The command above is required but no sufficient. You have to create a sparsebundle first by hand before you can use the share for timemachine. You need to know your computer's name and the MAC address of your ethernet port to do so.

There are many sites which describe the process. E.g. this one: http://www.readynas.com/?p=253