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time machine, quick question

E

EEcuber17

macrumors member
Original poster
ok I have an external hard drive, but I have alot of old files, music and videos stored on it that's not on my computer currently. If I want to set it up for time machine will it leave those old files there and just use the room to back up my current computer's harddrive, orr...?

thanks!
 
from what i understand you can leave the files there , but TM only backs up whats on you mac's local hdd
 
so when i click 'set up for time machine', my files should stay intact on the external and it will make space to backup my current computer?
 
That's correct. Time Machine puts all the backup files in a folder named "Backups.backupdb" and the rest of the files on that hard drive are not affected.
 
so i go to set up time machine and in parens next to my external it says 'reformat required'.

boo
 
Old Hard drive

Nugget said:
That's correct. Time Machine puts all the backup files in a folder named "Backups.backupdb" and the rest of the files on that hard drive are not affected.
Click to expand...

Hi guys,

i have been following the forum from last couple of months and it has been a great help for me. I am going to switch over to mac in few days as leopard is going to release today and have a question about the time machine.

I am pc user right now and i use external hard drive to back up my stuff; my question is: the hard drive i use is PC formatted and i think its FAT32 format. Will i be able to use that hard drive for time machine without formatting it as i dont want to loose my stuff on it.

I asked apple tech support and they dont have any answer right now; so i think this forum has tremendous knowledgeable people and will definetly have answer to my question.

Thanks in advance.

Update: got the answer in previous post.

Anyways thanks.
 
gr8tfly said:
HFS+ is required. If it's FAT32, it won't work.
Click to expand...

Ok.. so HFS+ is required. If i format it to HFS+ format, will i be able to use it for my PC backup as well or not? i got 300GB external hard drive for my pc backups and i dont want to buy another one.
 
greatestash said:
Ok.. so HFS+ is required. If i format it to HFS+ format, will i be able to use it for my PC backup as well or not? i got 300GB external hard drive for my pc backups and i dont want to buy another one.
Click to expand...

You'd have to partition the drive and have 1 partition HFS+ and the other Fat32 (I think this is possible).

Otherwise you'd need to install software on your PC to be able to read/write to the HFS+ drive.

-Kevin
 
kbmb said:
You'd have to partition the drive and have 1 partition HFS+ and the other Fat32 (I think this is possible).

Otherwise you'd need to install software on your PC to be able to read/write to the HFS+ drive.

-Kevin
Click to expand...

Will i be able to partition the drive itself in time machine or i have do something else?
Also if anybody know which software can i install on PC so that it can read/write HFS+ drive?
 
greatestash said:
Will i be able to partition the drive itself in time machine or i have do something else?
Also if anybody know which software can i install on PC so that it can read/write HFS+ drive?
Click to expand...

use the Disk Utility that is in your application folder to reformat and partition harddrives.
 
There is also HFSExplorer if you want to have read-only access to HFS+ drives from Windows.

hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html
 
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