Question about TimeMachine

Discussion in 'MacBook Pro' started by MagnumJoe, Mar 13, 2008.

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  1. MagnumJoe, Mar 13, 2008

    MagnumJoe macrumors regular

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2008
    #1
    I'm a switcher, and enjoying my new MBP. Tonight I used my WD250 external to do a TimeMachine backup. Before I started I copied all my data to my PC computer, because before I can use TimeMachine I needed to reformat the WD250 drive. Anyway after I ran TimeMachine and my Mac backup, I then took the WD250 back to my PC to copy back the data, but it seems my PC doesn't see my WD250 drive anymore. Does that sound right?
     
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  2. tranceteria, Mar 14, 2008

    tranceteria macrumors newbie

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    Jan 15, 2008
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    San Diego, California
    #2
    Windows can only read FAT32 and NTFS formats so I you changed your WD250 HD to say MAC Format obviously Windows will not recognize it anymore. I recommend you use SwissKnife, it allows you to format partitions of up to 2024GB. Try it out. You will then be able to use it across Windows, MAC and Linux :)
     
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  3. scienide09, Mar 14, 2008

    scienide09 macrumors 65816

    scienide09

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    Location:
    Canada
    #3
    That's not necessary.

    Reformat your drive with a couple of partitions using Disk Utility.
    Leave a large chunk of it for Time Machine, formatted as HFS+ (Apple OS X extended journaled).
    Format another chunk as FAT32 (Windos/DOS file system).

    Your Mac and your PC will both be able to read and write to both partitions, though I don't believe Windows knows how to read Time Machine backups themselves.

    Limitation: FAT32 doesn't handle files larger than 4GB. One of the reasons PCs are now using NTFS instead.
     
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  4. MagnumJoe, Mar 14, 2008

    MagnumJoe thread starter macrumors regular

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    Feb 23, 2008
    #4
    Thank's guys I'll try it out.
     
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