Repartitioning an external hard drive

Hi Everyone,
I have an external hard drive, which I had intended to set up with two partitions, one for my Mac and the other for a Sony Vaio with ME. But, I never use my Sony, I backed up everything on it on CD's, and I'd rather have that space available to back up my Mac. If I go into Disk Utilities and drag the bar down to the bottom, will it only format the part of the disk that's not formatted, or will it reformat the entire disk (thereby losing the data already on it)? The second partition of my HD is not formatted, because I never used it with my Sony.
Thanks,
Lizzy
Blueberry I-Book   Mac OS X (10.2.x)  

Hi Lizzy
What you are proposing can't be done in Disk Utility. Whilst there are third party applications that can combine two partitions into one without losing data, they are not available for 10.2. So as far as I can tell your only recourse is to copy all the data from your first partition back to your internal drive, assuming there is room for it.
Check that these files work, songs play, photos appear etc., then using Disk Utility reformat the external disk as one volume.
If you are not wanting to use the Sony Vaio and wish to have the external disk used exclusively by your Mac, then choose the format type as HFS+ which means it won't be seen by the Sony, so be clear about your intended use of the reformatted disk.
If you have any questions, please post back.
regards roam

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    Snowfog wrote:
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    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
    For the second alternative:
    Fix No Access Permissions on HD.

  • How do i save files from my macbook to an external hard drive

    Ive always been a PC user until recently when i purchased a macbook pro. I have an external hard drive that i used to back up all my files including word documents & mp3's etc. I now want to use the same hard drive to back up files from my macbook but i dont want to make a copy of the entire drive (like with time line) i just want to save individual files. When i go to do this, a light grey circle appears with a 'cross out' and i am unnable to copy/save the file. In the past (with PC) all i have had to do is drop and drag to perform this function. I have attempted to make an alias, copy and paste etc to overcome the problem but nothing thus far has worked.

    Your external drive is formatted NTFS which OS X can read from but not write to. You can either install third-party software on the Mac to enable writing to the drive or repartition and reformat the drive for exclusive use with the Mac. If you don't need to move files between a Mac and a PC, then I would recommend the latter solution.
    Tuxera NTFS 2012.3.2
    NTFS for Mac OS X 9.5.3
    To repartition:
    Drive Preparation
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select the external hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

  • How to stop Time Machine backing up on a specific external hard drive?

    I work on a iMac 2.66 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, with Mac OS X 10.6.8. I use two external hard drives that are the exact same model, 2 TB WD My Book 1110 Media: one is intended for back-up, the other for storing video editing files. They're both connected through USB 2.0.
    I set the "back-up" hard drive as back-up disk for Time Machine, through the Time Machine preferences. Now, everytime I connect the "video" hard drive, Time Machine recognizes it as a back-up disk, and starts backing up on it. I could delete the "Backups.backupdb" file that Time Machine had created by connecting the "video" hard drive to another Mac and moving it to the Trash, but as soon as I reconnect the "video" hard drive to my iMac, Time Machine backs up on it again.
    Is there a way to "de-select" a hard drive from Time Machine's list of back-up disks?
    Note: I should mention another thing that might indicate a conflict. When both hard drives "back-up" and "video" are connected to my iMac, if I open Final Cut Pro X, I can only see my "back-up" hard drive. To access the files I am working on, I need to eject the "back-up" hard drive, and suddenly the "video" drive appears.
    If you have any idea of how to solve this conflict... I am a bit lost.
    Thank you!

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
    Give them unique volume names using Disk Utility.
    Then set Time Machine back up to that unique volume name.
    For example, I regularly use 4 external drives (though they're not all the same model).
    The descriptions quickly tell me which drives I have connected to my MacBook when open Finder:
    My Time Machine backup volume is named 'Time Machine 1TB'.
    My iPhoto backup volume is named 'iPhoto Backup 320GB'
    My iTunes backup volume is named 'iTunes Backup 120GB'
    and the last is 'Windows 7 Backup 250Gb' but since it's a Windows volume, it is formatted NTFS.
    This likely means that you will have to erase and repartition one of your drives to name it.
    You MIGHT be able to rename it using Finder, right-clicking on the volume, and selecting Rename (current volume name).
    WARNING: I can't be certain of what just renaming it that way could screw up in the way of permissions and file links.
    Within Disk Utility, it seems it is absolutely not possible to change a volume name without clicking the Partition tab, and that involves erasing.
    Given the choice, I'd probably choose to rename (erase and repartition) the Time Machine drive. A current backup or two on Time Machine, and I'm good. I don't really need to go 'way back' to recover files, because I really don't ever erase anything. I just keep buying bigger drives!
    And I still burn the 'absolutely critical, priceless, can't ever be without this stuff' files to DVD or CD at least monthly or quarterly, in case one of my TM or backup drives fails at the same time as my primary hard drive. Call me paranoid, but I worked in Information Technology for many years: Murphy was an optimist!
    Message was edited by: kostby

  • Need to format "free space" of external hard drive for Time Machine

    I just recently purchased a MacBook Air and want to set up Time Machine with my external hard drive. I'm migrating from Windows 7 so before purchasing my new Mac, I transferred about 100 GB of data from my PC to my external hard drive that I wanted to keep. The external hard drive has a partition of 100 GB (91 GB used) and 365 GB of "free space". I would like to know how to format that free space so that I can use it with Time Machine but at the same time not lose any of my data on the first partition. I've looked around in the Disk Utility but it doesn't give any options to format the free space.
    Thanks in advance for any help.

    You should be able to repartition it, but that requires that the HD was formatted with Mac OS X Extended and journaling turned on. All I can suggest is you get another HD or move the 100 GB of stuff to the MBA, erase, reformat, and partition into two pieces, copy the 100 GB stuff back to the HD, and then it's set for TM.

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