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Time Machine external hard drive question - AppleCare Expires so urgent!

K

ksanyee

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 13, 2010
2
0
Hi everyone,

I have to back up my macbook on an external hard disk in the coming two days to send in my laptop for repair. My 3 year applecare expires in 3 days so this is very urgent.

I was told to reformat the external harddisk to the apple/mac journal format before saving my backup on it. My question is: Can do this with an external hard drive that already ahs data on it- and a different formatting?

I want to borrow my friend's external hard drive but she has lots of files on it. I assume that reformatting the drive would result in her losing all her files. Is there any way to backup your mac to an external harddrive that ahs other stuff on it and not solely dedicated to the great purpose of backing up your macbook?

Thanks a lot!
 
B

bluespaceoddity

macrumors regular
Jun 14, 2009
131
0
Depends on the way that external hard drive is currently formatted and what kind of computer(s) you have at your disposal to perform the reformatting but the most important consideration is imo if the data on the external drive is unique. Non-destructive Repartitioning* and Reformatting of partitions is possible on some systems but there is always a risk involved. Unless the files on your friend's drive are backed up somewhere else as well I would look for a different solution for your own backup.

In fact I suggest getting a relatively cheap USB enclosure with a disk big enough to continue backing up after you get your Mac back. Shop locally or get overnight delivery from an online vendor.

*Non destructive Resizing of [an] existing partition(s) is probably a better way to put that.
 
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