iMac, PC, Time Machine

[iqwertyi]

Hi,

I'm pretty new to Macs and had a question about Time Machine setup.

So, I have a 2 TB Western Digital USB Drive. I use it to back up data from my PC's, I've only used about 1 TB worth.

Is it possible to use the same drive and connect it to my iMac and use it for Time Machine?

When I connect the drive, I see something that says I need to format the drive, which I obviously don't since I want to still keep my PC data there.

Can this be done? Use one drive for both my PC backups and as an iMac Time Machine Drive?

Thanks

 

[leman]

Yes, it is possible, but you will have to divide the drive into two partitions. One (mac formatted) can be used to store the TM backup and another (Windows formatted) can be used to store the data from your PC.

This implies that you will have to reformat your disk, unfortunately. You can copy the data to your PC temporarily and repartition the drive, then copy them back. Or your can find some software which is able to repartition a drive without deleting the data (OS X's disk utility can do it, but not with NTFS partitions).

 

[FrankHahn]

You can make your hard drive into two partitions without affecting your current data. And then use the partition with your PC data for the Time Machine.

 

[leman]

You can make your hard drive into two partitions without affecting your current data. And then use the partition with your PC data for the Time Machine.

Care to name a (preferably free) tool which does that? I take that OP's HDD is formatted as NTFS. Disk Utility can't resize an NTFS-formatted partition.

 

[FrankHahn]

There are many partition tools in the PC world, for example, the MagicPartition. They can be downloaded from the internet for free. Please search the internet using Google or other tools. No matter which partition software you use, please back up your data before you partition your hard disk!

 

[iqwertyi]

Ok.

So, my iMac has a 1 TB drive. How much should I partition for Time Machine? I probably only have 250 GB used.

As far as Free Partition Softwares (PC based)

EASYUS (Free for 32 bit, paid for 64 bit) non-destructive partitioning. This one I've tried myself with the 32 bit

Partition Wizard (Free for 32 and 64 bit) I believe also non-destructive, but I haven't tried yet.

 

[basher]

Be sure to backup your data before you go mucking with partitioning.

 

[iqwertyi]

Agreed! Please backup, backup, backup before trying any of those partitioning software.

It seems if I have a 1 TB drive on my iMac and I'm down to 1 TB on my usb drive, it may be best to buy a dedicated drive just for my iMac if I want to continue using my existing USB drive as backup for my PC.