Can I use my old windows laptop for Time Machine backups?

[PeterM11]

Alright, I'll try to explain this the best I can.

I now own a MacBook Pro 13in.
Before that I owned a 15in Compaq with Windows Vista.
Now that I have my MacBook Pro, needless to say, the Compaq is collecting dust. I want to put it to good use.

I'm open to any and all suggestions for what I should use it for but I currently have this idea in mind and need some help:
My plan is to somehow use my old Compaq laptop as a wireless network drive and use it to store Time Machine backups.

So yeah, basically here it is: I want to know how I can easily set up my Mac and my Windows machine so that I can use Time Machine to backup my Mac onto my unused laptop.
Any tips or, more preferably, tutorials and step-by-steps you guys can provide would be great. I really want to put this laptop to some kind of use and, like I said, I'm also open to other suggestions so let me hear them as well if you'd like.

Thanks!!

P.S. I couldn't really figure out which forum section this fit in so I'm sorry if it's in the wrong location and feel free to move it.

 

[VPrime]

I don't use time machine so I can't remember if this is the case..
But I remember time machine requiring the drive be an HFS Drive, or a shared volume be an AFP share volume (a shared folder/volume on another mac).

Windows sharing will use SMB so, do a search on google for Time machine SMB sharing or something along those lines. I remember some "tricks" to get it working in leopard, not sure if they work in snow leopard as well.

 

[velocityg4]

It definitely requires HFS.

I would use a program like Memeo Backup or Chronosync as they only backup/sync data files (which you can include your library for settings). It won't work with migration assistant after a drive failure but you can sync or manually transfer your files and settings back.

Plus they won't just fill up the drive with every file revision and long ago deleted files like Time Machine will.