Cannot resize Time Machine partition

Hello all,
I currently have a hard drive split into 2 partitions (both Mac OS Extended (Journaled)). One of the Time Machine partitions is far too big (for the backups it contains) and I want to reclaim some space as a regular data partition (for my windows PC). Unfortunately I can find no way to resize the existing partitions. There is no "corner to drag" in my disk utility. 617GB are free in the 697GB partition.

Time Machine likes to be the first partition, otherwise it will continually ask you where?
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/how-to-resize-a-live-pa rtition-in-snow-leopard-and-lion/#.
http://osxdaily.com/2009/11/20/resize-partitions-in-mac-os-x-with-disk-utility/

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Disk utility won't let me resize Time Machine partition

My Time Machine is a 400GB partition of a 1 TB external HD. There is another 600GB partition that is empty. In Disk Utility I was expecting a dot/divider between the two partitions so that I could resize them. It is not there and and when I select the TimeMachine partition is says 'This Partition will not be modified'.
Can I re-size ( increase) the TimeMachine partition? or do I have to delete and recreate?
My Timemachine backs up a 500MB HD in my iMac (40% full) and a 500 MB external HD for iTunes (22% full) (including AppleTV content).
I was thinking of making the TimeMachine partition 1TB? does that make sense?
..Bob

bobwild wrote:
My Time Machine is a 400GB partition of a 1 TB external HD. There is another 600GB partition that is empty. In Disk Utility I was expecting a dot/divider between the two partitions so that I could resize them. It is not there
what do you mean? what's not there? the divider? that can't be. please explain exactly what you are seeing in disk utility. first, you can only increase the TM partition using DU if it's the upper partition when viewed in DU. if it's the lower one then you can not increase it with disk utility. secondly, the other partition should be deleted, not just empty. you can delete it using the minus sign in the partition tab in DU. then grab the lower right end of the TM partition and drag it all the way down to cover the free space left by the former 600GB partition. then click "apply".
and and when I select the TimeMachine partition is says 'This Partition will not be modified'.
Can I re-size ( increase) the TimeMachine partition? or do I have to delete and recreate?

Resizing a Time Machine partition

Hi,
I have 3 partitions on my external HD and one of them is a Time Machine partition. I would like to erase the other two and use the entire HD as the Time Machine partition. I cannot do this using the Disk Utility because "You can't resize the partitions on this disk because it uses the Master Boot Record partition scheme".
Any suggestions?

Where is this partition? Are you removing it in order to enlarge an adjacent partition?
The tool for all of this is Disk Utility.
1. Open Disk Utility and select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.
2. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. Select the partition you wish to remove by clicking in its space. Click on the Delete [-] button to remove the partition. Click on the Apply button. When the process is completed the partiton will be removed and a gray area will replace it.
4. Select the sizing gadget in the lower right corner of the remaining partition and drag it down to the bottom as far as it will go. Click on the Apply button. When completed the space will be added to the existing partition returning the drive to a single volume.

Time Machine Partition Corrupted on External Hard drive

I have a external hard drive partitioned into 2 sections, one for storage and the other for time machine back up of my macbook original hard drive. One day the time machine partition stopped being recognized so I tried verifying and it told me it needed to be repaired. Now it says the disk cannot be repaired and to reformat my disk. I do not want to do this because I don't want to lose whats on the other partition and I have no where else to put the data. It won't allow me to just remove the time machine partition, when I try it comes back with "disk cannot be opened". I'm lost here, is there anything that I can do without reformating the whole external hard drive?
Oh and I'm fine with losing whatevers on my time machine back up

Erasing one partition should not affect another one; however, the drive has had at least one major malfunction already, and should be expected to have more. You should immediately back up all data to another drive, including the data on the non-backup partition of the problem drive. Then, and only then, you can try fixing the unmountable partition. If the drive ever malfunctions again, replace it.

Backup to Ext. Hard Drive/Time Machine - Partitions??

I have a MacBook Air that is almost full and I need to back up to an external hard drive. Mainly, I have photos and videos that are taking up the majority of space. I have a Seagate 1TB, and am ready to do this, but cannot decide how many partitions to have. I was told to have two: one for Time Machine and one as a Backup.... Is this a good suggestion? If so, how large should each partition be?
Once I get it all set up will the MacBook Air take over and regularly back up my files? Also, I was told that I could use the same external hard drive to manually back up a pc's files.....??

If you wish to have a permanent storage of the data on your computer, then you cannot use Time Machine for the backup. The question then is what is the purpose of the external drive - storage or backup. It should not be both even if you partition the drive. If the drive should fail or become corrupted and require repartitioning then you have lost both the stored files and your backup.
You should use a separate drive for each purpose. If you need storage now as well as a bootable backup, then you can clone your computer's drive to the external drive for now which will also serve as a backup of all your data:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
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. 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.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
You can incrementally update this clone using one of several backup utilities:
Suggested Backup Software
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Data Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

Using the same external hard drive to host a Time Machine partition + a test recovery partition: no longer possible?

In 10.7, I used to have one external hard drive with two partitions:
1) a Time Machine partition that I used to back up my internal hard drive;
2) another partition that I used once a month as a target partition to test the restoration of my Time Machine backup (because having a backup is a good first step, but regularly making sure it could be usable for a full recovery in case of a failure of my internal hard drive is important as well).
After upgrading to 10.9, my first backup restoration test failed with the error message "An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk." I found the following discussion:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4370294
which suggests that I need to make sure my external hard drive is formated using GUID and/or that I need to install 10.7 on the target drive. I checked in the Disk Utility, and indeed my external hard drive is formatted using Apple Partition Map rather than GUID.
I also found the following KB article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5911
which suggests that, to be able to install 10.9 on the external hard drive, I need to configure it to have only one partition.
Can anyone confirm that it is no longer possible to perform a backup recovery test on the same external hard drive as the one hosting the Time Machine partition? Do I now need a second external hard drive if I want to perform such a restoration test?
Thanks in advance for your insights.

Answering my own question: I managed to perform the restoration test on a second external hard drive. The trick was to make sure it was partitioned using GUID. I didn't even have to first install OS 10.9 on the second partition (I had an old restoration of 10.7 on there).

How to remove a encrypted Time Machine partition from external hard drive?

I encrypted my Time Machine partition and i want to delete it and make a whole new Time Machine partition that isn't encrypted, please help.

Launch disk utility
Click on the name of the disk (not the partition) in the left hand pane
Click on the partition tab (top center)
Click on the partition to delete
Click the - sign under the partition layout pane

Mavericks refuses to mount Time Machine partition

Hi there,
Two days ago, my MBP crashed, kernel panicked. Since then, it has not been able to mount my external Time Machine partition. Notice that the external drive has two partitions in it, MBP is happy to mount the other partition, but not the TM one.
I ran Verify Disk and Repair Disk with Disk Utilities First Aid, and everything came back fine "The volume Work Time Machine appears to be OK." But then if I try to mount, I get "The disk "Work Time Machine" could not be mounted.
What can/should I do to mount/recover this?
Thanks!

Launch/Utilities/Terminal and copy & paste this command at the prompt:
diskutil list
Press return.
If it sees the disk, note the number of the disk (far left column) you want to mount.
Then, enter copy & paste this command:
mount /dev/(number of disk)
Put in the number no parenthesis.
Press Return.
Also might try
mount force /dev/(number of disk)
And see...
http://pondini.org/TM/C14.html

Time Machine Partition Randomly Disconnected

I have an external HDD partitioned in to two disks: Time Machine and My Book.
After upgrading to Snow Leopard, my Time Machine partition suddenly became screwy and I received a message that I would be unable to write to the drive, but I could still read from it. I went through the normal steps of trying to repair in Disk Utility, as well as repair off the 10.6 DVD, but nothing would repair the drive.
I did a clean sweep of the drive, re-partitioned and everything seemed to be working fine. After a day though, the Time Machine drive will randomly become unavailable (the dialog says that it was disconnected) but the icon will remain on the desktop. I can unplug the drive and replug it back in and it will work again for a while, but I will eventually get the same error again.
I have tried multiple USB ports and experienced the same problems on each. My Hard Drive is still within warranty, so I'm wondering if this is a hardware issue, or if other people have had similar experiences since upgrading.
If it helps, the drive is a 500GB Western Digital My Book Office Edition.

I tried trashing the Time Machine preference file and restarting and it didn't help. Since my last post, I reformatted again and this time wrote zeros to the whole drive. Once again the initial backup worked fine, and I can directly access the contents of both partitions, but Time Machine will no longer backup files.
I've run the drive through Disk Utility and when checking for errors it finds an invalid sibling link and is unable to repair the drive, even when booted from the SL install disk. I ran the drive through Disk Utility right after zeroing the drive and it checked out just fine.
At this point I'm at a loss, but I don't want to send the drive in on a warranty claim and find out that there is nothing physically wrong with the drive.

When I try to install Time Machine update I get this message: You cannot install Time Machine and AirPort Updates on this volume. This update requires Mac OS X 10.5.2 or newer. I have OS X 10.5.8.

When I try to install Time Machine update I get this message: “You cannot install Time Machine and AirPort Updates on this volume. This update requires Mac OS X 10.5.2 or newer.” I have OS X 10.5.8.

It's bundled with 10.5.3 and newer and can't be installed separately on those OSes.
(59310)

Disk Utility and Time machine partition

Ran a Disk Utility check on my Time Machine volume (internal drive - and yes I stopped Time Machine first).
It Came back with error messages something like this:
Verifying volume “Leopard_2”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Incorrect number of file hard links
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking multi-linked directories.
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998962)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998964)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998966)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998970)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998972)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998974)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998976)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998978)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998980)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998982)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998986)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 998988)
(It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
{ Edited for Brevity }
Stopped by user
Well, the first time I Used repair mode and it wrecked my backup. I had to reformat the partition. Even disk warrior couldn't undo the directory damage Leopard's disk utility reeked on my partition. The irony of it is, I doubt very seriously that anything was wrong with the backup partition before Disk Utility assaulted it.
I ran time machine again and checked (verified this time) the partition after it completed and Leopard's DU reported the same errors as before.
Then I checked the backup partition with Tiger's DU:
Verifying volume “Leopard_2”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Leopard_2 appears to be OK.
Mounting Disk
1 HFS volume checked
Volume passed verification
Tiger found no problems.
I also checked the partition with Disk Warrior and got a good report.
If I'm not the only one that has this problem then it looks like Leopards DU is an accident waiting to happen when someone uses it to "repair" their Time Machine partition.
Has anyone else experienced this?

FYI, I have a TM partition sharing an internal HD with a FAT32 formatted partition. Here's my Verify output. I did not stop TM while running Verify
Verifying volume “MacTimeMachine”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking multi-linked directories.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume MacTimeMachine appears to be OK.

Time machine partition, need help here!! please help!!!!!!!

I have a 250gb western digital hard drive, and somehow when I start with time machine...the external hard drive will not be detected in windows computer. Although I have files and backups.backupb in my external hard drive, I am just wondering how can i be able to let the external hard drive to have 2 partition? and while adding another partition do i have to backup all my files first? will it erase the whole drive? I just want to have one partition that works in mac and windows, and one partition is with time machine!

See # 6 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
It details how to add a partition for +Time Machine+ to a disk that already has other data on it, but you can use the same procedure to add a Windoze partition to one that's already set up for Time Machine. Select +MS-DOS (FAT)+ for the Format of the partition you want to use with Windoze.
You should then copy the "other" files from the Time Machine partition to the new one (or even a third), since Time Machine will work best if it has it's own, exclusive partition. See #3 in the FAQ Tip. Also be sure you allow enough room in the +Time Machine+ partition (see #1 in the FAQ Tip.)

External HD Time Machine partition shows in Desktop but not in Finder

I have a External HardDisk with two partitions, one for Time Machine and other for Data.
Until now when I power on the disk two icons appear on my MacBook, one Orange with a USB logo for the Data partition and other Green with Time MAchine logo for the Time MAchine partition.
Suddenly when I power on in FInder I can see only the Data Partition. while in Desktop I can see both, but now the Time Machine Partition is orange with the USB logo (just like the Data partition).
On the other hand everytinhg seems to be workning, I can acces both partitions and Time Machine apparently works Ok, but don't know if something is happening in the background, and I have all my data in that Disk!!!!!

David Casillas wrote:
I can see and use both partitions, but in Finder under DEVICES only DATA partiton shows.
If a navigate in Finder to MacBook for example I can now see both partitions.
Excuse me if my explanation of the subject is not clear. Here is a screenshoot of what happens. In the left you can see the Finder window with just Data Partition, on the right Desktop with both.
If you haven't yet, from a Finder window's menubar, select +Finder > Preferences > Sidebar.+ Un-check the +External Disks+ checkbox, wait a moment, then check it again.
Try going to TM Preferences, de-selecting the drive (select "none"), waiting a moment, then re-selecting it.
Try deleting the file <your home folder>/Library/com.apple.Finder.plist and either relaunch the Finder (from the +Force Quit+ menu) or Restart.

Time Machine partition doesn't mount

Hi,
I partitioned from windows (BOOTCAMP) a hard drive that have a Time Machine partition along with a NTFS partition, so I could have three partitions on the disk. The surprise was that when I tried to back up the data from TIme Machine to my Mac, it doesn't appear anymore. I've installed Mavericks on another drive to see if OS X recognized the TIme Machine back up, but it doesn't, it only shows the NTFS partition. The other one (I supose is the time machine one, because the third partition is empty) appears unmounted on Disk Utilities. In windows I can see the Time Machine partition, so I think that partitioning on windows have caused some kind of damage to the partition table or something
I've googled a lot and this problem is quite similar to mine: http://superuser.com/questions/342876/adding-ntfs-partition-to-disk-in-windows-m akes-hfs-partition-on-same-disk-invis
When I run gdisk it says:
and disk util list:
I think the partition scheme shoudn't be fdisk.
Well, I don't know what to do from here, the drive where I have my personal data broke and this Time Machine backup could save me from losing my photos from the last two years.
Thank you, ask if you want more information, I think my explanation has not been very accurate but I'm not a native English speaker, sorry.
PS: Mac Mini mid 2011

And this is what I see on Windows:
It says HFS, although in OSX says ExFAT, and as you can see the size is different.
This is what I have...
Explaining a little more, the hard drive at the beggining (when everything works) had three partitions, I did four. Then I wanted to make another one and did a logic one accidentally (didn't know the maximum was four primary partitions). After realising that, I erased the logic one and the other two and kept "TimeMachine" and "2TB".

I cannot get time machine (with airport) to back up my mac. It worked previously but not now. It is working on my macbook. the message i get is "Time Machine couldn't back up to '(airport network name)'"

I cannot get time machine (with airport) to back up my mac. It worked previously but not now. It is working on my macbook. the message i get is "Time Machine couldn't back up to '(airport network name)'" Any help is appreciated.

OS is important.. What OS is on Mac and what is on the working macbook?
Was the Airport setup from the Macbook? That might be why it works from there..
Does the AE show up in Mac airport utility?
Can you mount the disk in finder and copy files to it/from it??
Did you try a TM reset after mounting in Finder.. so you know it is available?
What about a network reboot.. does it work post a restart for a few minutes/hours/days???

Cannot resize Time Machine partition

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