WD My Passport 2TB USB Portable Drive

[Resist]

So I picked up a WD My Passport 2TB USB portable drive for my 13" Macbook Pro the other day. It wasn't formatted for a Mac. Upon connecting it, I was asked if I wanted to use it with Time Machine backups and I did. It seems to be working fine and yet was never formatted for my Mac.

Am I good leaving things alone?

 

[Ifti]

So I picked up a WD My Passport 2TB USB portable drive for my 13" Macbook Pro the other day. It wasn't formatted for a Mac. Upon connecting it, I was asked if I wanted to use it with Time Machine backups and I did. It seems to be working fine and yet was never formatted for my Mac.

Am I good leaving things alone?

Strange - mine came formatted for MAC and ready to use. I bought the studio version when it was first released as I wanted the FireWire for video editing etc.
Personally I would have just formatted the drive myself in HFS+ before doing anything with it.

 

[hallux]

W When you set it up for use with TM it automatically reformatted the drive to a Mac OS X format.

 

[theSeb]

W When you set it up for use with TM it automatically reformatted the drive to a Mac OS X format.

Unfortunately it only does half a job. If a drive comes formatted with Windows, then it will normally be formatted in using FAT32 or NTFS file system and Master Boot Record partition scheme. I've noticed that TM will reformat the drive into HFS+, but will not change the partition scheme into GUID.

What does this mean? Time Machine will be able to back up your stuff as per normal. It will also be able to restore from it, but only directly from OS X. A Time Machine backup can be used as a recovery partition if you lose everything, including the recovery partition on your internal storage, but the drive must be in the GUID partition scheme. Say you change the internal storage drive or have it replaced, then you don't even need to reinstall OS X first. You can restore directly from the Time Machine backup by booting into it and you won't have to go through the whole re-download/internet recovery malarkey.

Unfortunately you can only boot if you're using the GUID partition scheme.

To change the partition scheme, open Disk Utility, select the external drive itself, click on the Partition tab, change the Partition layout to 1 Partition and then click on Options... below. Now choose GUID Partition Table, OK, make sure that Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is selected as the format and click Apply.

 

[Resist]

To change the partition scheme, open Disk Utility, select the external drive itself, click on the Partition tab, change the Partition layout to 1 Partition and then click on Options... below. Now choose GUID Partition Table, OK, make sure that Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is selected as the format and click Apply.

And what should I name it? And can I change the name later?

 

[mfram]

What? I think there's confusion here. My understanding is that TM backups are not bootable whether you use GPT or not. Either way, if you re-install it will have to be over the Internet anyway.

 

[theSeb]

What? I think there's confusion here. My understanding is that TM backups are not bootable whether you use GPT or not. Either way, if you re-install it will have to be over the Internet anyway.

There is no confusion here. TM backups are bootable since 10.7.2. By bootable I mean they have their own recovery hd. If you boot into the tm, you can restore everything onto a blank partition without connecting to the Internet. I would not be writing a book about this if I was confused.

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And what should I name it? And can I change the name later?

You can name it whatever you want. I like "TM".

Yes, you can also rename the partition to whatever you want later, without erasing, using Finder.

 

[Resist]

Thanks for all the help!

Just one more question. Prior to shutting down my Macbook Pro, what do I have to do to the backup drive? Do I click Eject or can I just unplug it?

 

[theSeb]

Thanks for all the help!

Just one more question. Prior to shutting down my Macbook Pro, what do I have to do to the backup drive? Do I click Eject or can I just unplug it?

Always click eject, or shutdown first and then unplug it. Don't unplug it if your mac is sleeping. It's best to get into a habit of always ejecting it to ensure that the drive is not being accessed when you unplug it. That's one of the ways that data becomes corrupt.

 

[cocacolakid]

What? I think there's confusion here. My understanding is that TM backups are not bootable whether you use GPT or not. Either way, if you re-install it will have to be over the Internet anyway.

If you're in 10.7 or 10.8, the Time Machine disk is available under System Preferences - Startup Disk to boot directly from. No need to restore anything or re-install the OS.