This is becoming so much more complicated that I thought it would be...
I have a 2010 MBP and the internal drive is basically full. I wanted to get an external drive for extra storage so I could clear off some space from the internal drive. I also have an old Windows XP computer with two internal drives, and I wanted to backup those drives just to be safe, even though I haven't used that computer in about 5 years.
I bought a Seagate Expansion Desk 5TB. I figured I would create three partitions: 2 NTFS and clone the PC drives (these would be my backups), and a 3rd partition for HFS+ for mac storage on my current MBP.
Well, I plug the drive into the old XP computer, and the drive wont show up under My Computer. It shows up as a USB Mass Storage Device in Device Manager, but it doesn't show up under Disk Management.
This seems to be because the Seagate drive is GPT, and XP can only read MBR? I called Seagate, and he explained I probably wouldn't be able to clone the drives anyway because the sector size of the Seagate Expansion is different from the sector size of the old PC drives. In fact, he said the Expansion drives are meant only for storage, and because of their sector size, they don't work with Windows Backup or Time Machine. For that, you need a Seagate Backup Plus, which are compatible.
He also said I would need a 64-bit OS to use the GPT anyway, although I don't see how that makes sense, since a different Windows 7 32-bit PC was able to see the Seagate Expansion. He suggested sticking to 2TB and below for XP computers.
Is this accurate? Or can I reformat the Seagate Expansion as MBR, and then create my three partitions as expected?
The Seagate rep told me I should get a 1TB Backup Plus for the cloning of the PC drives, and then whatever size Backup Plus for the mac storage.
I am just looking for a simple solution to 1) get more storage for my mac, and 2) backup all of my old computers which are all Windows XP. Is cloning the best method? I thought I could accomplish all of this with one very large drive, but so far it's not working (not even showing up in XP).
Thanks
I have a 2010 MBP and the internal drive is basically full. I wanted to get an external drive for extra storage so I could clear off some space from the internal drive. I also have an old Windows XP computer with two internal drives, and I wanted to backup those drives just to be safe, even though I haven't used that computer in about 5 years.
I bought a Seagate Expansion Desk 5TB. I figured I would create three partitions: 2 NTFS and clone the PC drives (these would be my backups), and a 3rd partition for HFS+ for mac storage on my current MBP.
Well, I plug the drive into the old XP computer, and the drive wont show up under My Computer. It shows up as a USB Mass Storage Device in Device Manager, but it doesn't show up under Disk Management.
This seems to be because the Seagate drive is GPT, and XP can only read MBR? I called Seagate, and he explained I probably wouldn't be able to clone the drives anyway because the sector size of the Seagate Expansion is different from the sector size of the old PC drives. In fact, he said the Expansion drives are meant only for storage, and because of their sector size, they don't work with Windows Backup or Time Machine. For that, you need a Seagate Backup Plus, which are compatible.
He also said I would need a 64-bit OS to use the GPT anyway, although I don't see how that makes sense, since a different Windows 7 32-bit PC was able to see the Seagate Expansion. He suggested sticking to 2TB and below for XP computers.
Is this accurate? Or can I reformat the Seagate Expansion as MBR, and then create my three partitions as expected?
The Seagate rep told me I should get a 1TB Backup Plus for the cloning of the PC drives, and then whatever size Backup Plus for the mac storage.
I am just looking for a simple solution to 1) get more storage for my mac, and 2) backup all of my old computers which are all Windows XP. Is cloning the best method? I thought I could accomplish all of this with one very large drive, but so far it's not working (not even showing up in XP).
Thanks