How to delete all files in time machine...Please help :)

[Amy2005]

Hi,
I did a search for this before making my post, and I couldn't find anything that would work.

I'm in the middle of doing my final year uni project (a documentary using final cut pro) and I'm fast running out of hard drive space and thought I'd use the external HD I've been using for my Time Machine backups, but when I simply dragged the folder to the trash it wouldn't let me delete it, after hours of waiting. So I sent it all back to the HD from the trash. I tried the disk utility thing and it still wouldn't let me. I wasn't sure if I should select the actual hard drive, or the time machine logo, then which type of delete to choose...see pics below:

Is there way I can just delete everything from the hard drive? There's only Time Machine backups on there. Can I just delete all backups of 'Macintosh HD' through Time Machine, or will that still leave loads of files on there?

Thank you
Amy

 

[spinnerlys]

You can either choose the HDD icon or the volume icon, and select Mac OS Extended (NOT Journaled) and hit the ERASE button.

Check out this guide for more information: http://macs.about.com/od/applications/ss/diskutilformat.htm

 

[Amy2005]

Thank you, I'll give that a go now

 

[Amy2005]

It's worked Thank you very much. I can now move my project to the external HD now and continue...after the 7 hours it's going to take to transfer!

 

[Dave Braine]

Of course, if you're moving your project from your computer to that external drive, you'll be getting another external drive so that you can backup that project, as you wouldn't want to lose it if your first external fails.