Delete MacOS from Time Machine drive?

[Doc69]

In my 2010 Mac Pro, I have the main system (Sierra) installed on an SSD. On another internal drive I have a test installation of El Capitan. On the same drive I also have my Time Machine backup. I now want to remove the El Capitan installation from that drive while leaving the Time Machine backup intact. How would I do that? Can I just delete everything except 'Backups.backupdb' from the root of the drive in the Finder? Since I want to make sure all system files are gone, I imagine hidden system files would be left if I did that?

 

[MacForScience]

So you have a backup running to the root of a boot volume? No partition?
Yes you can delete the OS, but there a lots of hidden files you have to get rid of. Unless you are really desperate to keep your backup history–I would just wipe the disk and start over on the backup.

Cheers!

 

[Doc69]

Unless you are really desperate to keep your backup history–I would just wipe the disk and start over on the backup.

Cheers!

Thanks, I wanted to keep the backup history, so I ended up copying the 'Backups.backupdb' folder to another drive, then formatting the old drive and copying the 'Backups.backupdb' folder back again.