How do I partition my external hdd to use in Time Machine??

[abeyk]

I have an external hard drive with files from my pc. I want to partition it so that I can use Time Machine on my mac. I tried disk utility but it told me it would erase the drive if it makes the partition. Is there a free application I can use to make a partition without erasing all my files?? I dont care if its for mac or pc

 

[plumbingandtech]

I am pretty sure (if you are on 10.5) you can repartition, without erasing the disk.

But one problem may be that your drive was orig. a PC drive.

If you do not care about the pc-ness of the drive, erase it then try the apple tools again.

(backing up any files of course before you do anything.)

 

[BobZune]

Time Machine (TM) requires the *disk* (or volume) to be partitioned using GUID or APM partitioning scheme (Intel and PPC machines respectively), and the *partition* for TM formatted to HFS+ (i.e., Mac OS X extended - Journaled). The partition schemes are problematic for windows (which uses MBR partition scheme, which is no good to use with TM), but if you have MacDrive or MacFuse on the PC, it would likely work for the PC. Experiment first before committing it to a "production" system. If the files are very important, make sure you ARCHIVE them in addition to BACKUP.