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smacj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 20, 2009
9
0
I have a Seagate External HD which I used to backup my windows PC. I just brought a Mac and want to use the same External HD for time machine, but its asking me to reformat it? Is there a way I can keep my files on the HD as well as use it for Time Machine?
Thank you in advance.
 

sickmacdoc

macrumors 68020
Jun 14, 2008
2,035
1
New Hampshire
I have a Seagate External HD which I used to backup my windows PC. I just brought a Mac and want to use the same External HD for time machine, but its asking me to reformat it? Is there a way I can keep my files on the HD as well as use it for Time Machine?
Thank you in advance.

To use that disk with TM it must be formatted as Mac OS Extended with a GUID partition table map (assuming your new Mac is an Intel based Mac and not a previously owned PowerPC based Mac that is).

You still would have the option of making two partitions on it and making the second partition FAT32 for your PC backup pretty easily, but there is no way around totally formatting the disk first to replace the partition table map (your PC formatted disk uses Master Boot Record for that) since that applies to the whole disk, not just on a partition by partition basis. :(
 

skorpien

macrumors 68020
Jan 14, 2008
2,339
0
If you have enough space on your PC, it would be possible to first copy over all of the files, format the drive using your Mac, then copy back the files onto the FAT32 partition.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I have a question for you sickmacdoc: Would it be possible to first create one FAT32 partition onto the drive and later use a PC to format that partition as NTFS?
 

sickmacdoc

macrumors 68020
Jun 14, 2008
2,035
1
New Hampshire
If you have enough space on your PC, it would be possible to first copy over all of the files, format the drive using your Mac, then copy back the files onto the FAT32 partition.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I have a question for you sickmacdoc: Would it be possible to first create one FAT32 partition onto the drive and later use a PC to format that partition as NTFS?

I believe so, but I have not actually tried it (just added it to the list) so am hesitant to say for sure. Somebody else has probably already done this, so will leave it for them to answer definitively for the moment.;)
 

skorpien

macrumors 68020
Jan 14, 2008
2,339
0
I believe so, but I have not actually tried it (just added it to the list) so am hesitant to say for sure. Somebody else has probably already done this, so will leave it for them to answer definitively for the moment.;)

Alright sounds good :p I'm just curious is all considering I'm running both platforms. If you or anyone else can verify this, that'd be great. And if I get the opportunity myself, I'll try and tinker around with this too.
 
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