Format external harddrive

[Koefod]

Hello

I have a 250 gb external harddrive working as my Time Machine backup. I have 100 gb free disk space on it, and would like to reformat some of the space so i can use the drive as a normal external harddrive.

Is there any way of doing this, without having to delete my time machine backups?

- Morten

 

[djtrippin]

iPartition

 

[windowpain]

Try using Disk utility to non-destructively create a new partition on your time machine disk?

Should work ok.

 

[logana]

Hello

I have a 250 gb external harddrive working as my Time Machine backup. I have 100 gb free disk space on it, and would like to reformat some of the space so i can use the drive as a normal external harddrive.

Is there any way of doing this, without having to delete my time machine backups?

- Morten

You do not need to do anything - you can use your hard drive as normal - Time Machine will work fine. The only problem would arise if you fill up the disk then Time Machine will start to delete the oldest backup files.

You don't need a separate partition for Time Machine and another for your other files.....

 

[Koefod]

I want to use the partition as a PC-external drive, and the present formatting doesn't allow that. I've downloaded iPartition, but the Demo won't seem to do the trick, and i don't want to but the 35$ program just for the one formatting!

Haven't tried the Disk Utility solution yet..

 

[logana]

I want to use the partition as a PC-external drive, and the present formatting doesn't allow that.

Ah - that is different !!

You can use Disc Utility to create a FAT 32 partition on the disc - as long as you don't have files larger than 4 GB you will be ok.

Disc Utility will allow you to create another partition on the disc without destroying all your data. I would play safe though and copy the Time Machine back-up to the hard disc on your Mac just in case anything goes wrong.

 

[Koefod]

I've tried looking at Disc Utility, but it won't let me split the drive without me having to delete the Time Machine backups.. So i think a program like iPartition is the way to go, just trying to find one for free

Thanks for your help