Formt for ex hard drive for use with time machine?

[RzrbldeSuitcase]

Hi all,

I have a new MBP and have recently bought a WD My Book 500gb USB hard drive, and after using it to transfer some files from my old PC, want to use it now as a backup with time machine for my MBP, so just wondering what format to put the drive in and how to do it?

I heard that there is a mac format which is more stable than NTSC or FAT but if possible would like to leave open the option of using it with PCs in the future for file transfer too.

I'm pretty new to all this so any help is much appreciated,

Thanks guys!

 

[dotcomlarry]

I believe Time Machine will format it for you automatically.

 

[rkdiddy]

I actually tested out a lot of combinations of drives, TC, AE, etc and arrived upon an AE with a MyBook (from Costco). You can't beat Costco's warranty!

Anyways, what you need to do is partition the hard drive into two areas - 1 as you listed NTSC and 1 Fat32. TM will only back up to a NTSC formated drive. So, what I did was partition 150 gigs to NTSC and the remainder as Fat32.

I share files between Mac and PC on the Fat32 partition and strictly use the NTSC for TM.

I hope that helps...

Cheers.