HT3764 How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

Use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to erase it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID as the partition map format(or APM if you're using a PowerPC Mac running 10.5).
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Can I partition my external hard drive so that one partition is for Time Machine and the other is to install Windows with Boot Camp?

I have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB USB 3.0 external hard drive that I currently use just for Time Machine backups. Is it possible for me to go into Disk Utility and create a new partition on the drive so that I may install Windows 7 via Boot Camp? Or since I am already using it for Time Machine do I have to keep it only for Time Machine?

You must install Boot Camp in your internal drive because Windows can't be installed in an external disk and Boot Camp can't do that

I was thinking about formatting my external hard drive into two partitions. HFS for time machine backup

I really want to format my MacBook after I back up and have it clean like a new machine. And I was wondering if I need to back up after a couple of months will Time Machine back it up as a new computer or will it overwrite?
Also if I do 250GB HFS+ partition for time machine & 250GB NTFS/FAT32 to use with windows. Can the HFS+ partition be used to save files from MacBook using drag & drop? I.E. without using time machine?

A data recovery specialist or some data recovery programs should be able to help. Most format simply rewrite the directory tree saying no files are on this disk. The bits that represent the files are still flipped appropreiately so they still exists, you just don't have the location info to get at them. Secure formats and erases rewrite each bit to a zero or 1 or random so the data is then truely gone. This type of format takes a long time to complete.
I'm not making a recomendation of a particular program but here is one company that does what you ask:
http://www.remosoftware.com/mac-recovery The cost is pretty high but I'm sure they don't sell many copies and need to cover their development costs.
Good luck and don't write anything on the freshly formatted disk until you decide what to do.

Does an external hard drive have to stay plugged in with Time Machine?

I have an external hard drive but I do not always leave it plugged in. I usually back up my computer every week or so and am just now getting around to using Time Machine. If i plug in my external hard drive and press "Back up now" will Time machine back up my entire computer again or just what has been updated? Do I have to leave the slider for Time Machine in the On position or should I turn it off until the next time I plug it in?
Thanks

Only if you want it to continue backing up the computer. If you eject it Time Machine will suspend backups. Time Machine will reinitiate backups when the drive is reconnected.
If nothing has changed, the selecting Back up Now will not create a completely new backup.

My backup hard drive does not have enough space for time machine to perform a back up even after erasing entire contents of bu hard drive

My backup hard drive does not have enough space for time machine to perform a back up even after erasing entire contents of bu hard drive. The hard drive has been in service for almost two years performing this function with no sign of failure. How do I adjust time machine perameters?

The only way to limit the size of the backup is to exclude data from the backup, which you can do in Time Machine preferences.
If you use multiple browsers, have you tried clearing your browser caches? However, that's just a stop gap if it works. You either need to limit what you backup or get another drive.

URGENT HELP: How to reformat an external hard drive?!

We purchased a Desk Hammer external hard drive with USB. My hubby plugged it into his Mac G4/OS 8.6 and when it was recognized, he selected to format it for Mac only. We needed it to be ISO Whatever so I can use it on my Windows systems too. The Desk Hammer people are no help with how to get access to this thing and reformat it (in fact, WARNING they say they do not even support Mac usage for these drives!). What can I do to reformat it to work on the Windows side? thanks for any help....
Mac G4 Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier Mac OS is 8.6

Windows machines support Windows formats some of the time.
The Mac formats and supports many common formats, and is nice about it.
You use the exact same utility you used to format it for the Mac, only you select MS-DOS as the type. If the drive is of a modest size, that is all you need to do.
The Mac will also happily read and write files on it, even though it is an MS-DOS drive. It may not properly show their Icons (everything may be generic MS-DOS documents) until the files are copied to a Mac drive.
A very large drive will need a third-party utility to format all the space on it into Windows format.
ISO-whatever and High Sierra and a few others are CD-only formats, you will not be able to format a Hard drive to that format.

How to reformat an external hard drive after time machine?

I have an external hard drive upon which I put movie files that I view through a Sony box (like the Roku box). I brought my MacBook in for a repair and connected the same external HD and used Time Machine to make a back up. It did reformat it in order to do so, but since the Sony box isn't a pc or mac I didn't think it would make a difference, but now the Sony box won't recognize HD. Is there a way to reformat it on my MacBook so that I can use it on the Sony box again, or do I need to reformat it with a Windows computer? I had no issues when transferring files only and using the Sony box.
If you give any instructions, please write them out specifically, don't just post "you have to partition it" and leave it at that. I am computer challenged when it comes to these things. Think instructions for a person one step above being vaguely aquainted with a Mac please. Thanks.

You can find a decent guide to formatting your drive here.

External hard drive stops working with AP Extreme after Time machine touches it

*sigh*
Ok.
I had a 1.5TB external HD connected to my Airport Extreme (henceforth to be known as APE) working fine, albeit with unexpected slow transfer speeds....not the point. Moving along.
Updated to 7.6.1 firmware. Ugh. I wish apple would have their standard idiot mode plus an advanced option.
Getting to the point.
I decide that im going to try Time Machine but there is no way that im going to try doing the inital backup over wireless. I disconnect the external hard drive from the APE and connect to my computer start the backup and decide encryption is a good idea. Turns out, bad idea as it puts some kind of encryption on the whole volume not just an image which i assumed it would do. I decide that this time machine idea is stupid and wonder why the **** its trying to backup 130GB of data after i excluded a lot of data. Anyway. I remove the time machine data, do into disk utility and remove the encryption and plug it back up the the APE.
No dice. The drive will not load at all on the APE and i believe it has something to do with some funky timemachine encryption voodoo. I want to avoid formatting this drive.
So.
Help?

I reformatted and its now working.
*Ugh*

Time capsule as external hard drive doesn't get backed up by Time machine

hi my set up is as follows:
iMac 1 TB, with a time capsule 1 TB used as an external hard drive to store media and iTunes files. My problem is that I have a 3TB external hard drive which I used to back up my iMac. I had thought it would also back up the time capsule automatically (yes it is not in in the exclude section on time machine). Unfortunately, it does not appear to recognise that time capsule is merely a hard drive. Any fixes? Help gratefully received as I really need the media files backed up in case the time capsule hard drive fails (which I believe is quite common).

I answerered on your other thread.. TM cannot back network drives.. never has been able to.. and probably never will be able to, as it depends on the HFS+ format structure.
Use a third party backup.. superduper.. CCC.. plenty of others available.. easy with media files as you are probably not changing them often.. a simply file copy via terminal can probably work fine much like we would script backup files with robocopy on windows. I am sure such products will exist.
Here we go, a script wrapper for rsync.
http://www.davidwaring.net/projects/backup.html

Switch hard drive from local to Airport Extreeme for Time Machine Backup

I have an external drive I am using for time machine backups for my iMac. I have an Airport Extreme and would like to use it to backup my iMac and my Macbook Pro (wireless). I have a PC that would be nice to backup a few things also, but not mandatory.
If I move the hard drive from the 400 FireWire port to the Airport, will it need to be reconfigured to allow for backups on teh network? Will it erase (or will I need to erase) the drive's current backup data of my iMac? Do I need to partition it to allow for multiple machine backups?
Thanks.
Matt

If I move the hard drive from the 400 FireWire port to the Airport, will it need to be reconfigured to allow for backups on teh network?
No, as long as the external hard drive is formatted in either HFS+ or FAT32 it will be recognized by the AirPort.
Will it erase (or will I need to erase) the drive's current backup data of my iMac?
Potentially, yes. Time Machine backups are stored differently on local attached drives versus those that are network-based. There is a procedure to "copy" an existing TM backup from an external drive to a Time Capsule that may work for an AirPort Disk (external drive connected to either a TC or AirPort Extreme). However, I would strongly recommend not going this route as Apple does not currently support Time Machine backups to AirPort Disks.
Do I need to partition it to allow for multiple machine backups?
For Time Machine this would not be necessary as it will create a unique "file" for each Mac. However, you may have other requirements that partitioning the drive would make sense. Note: You would have to partition the drive prior to connecting it to the AirPort, as the AirPort Utility itself does not support partition management.

Should I back up my files with another external hard drive when I am already backing up time machine with my current external hard drive? Or, should I just get a flash usb to back up my audio files?

I am not sure what is best to back up my audio lecture files?
Thank you so much for your kind help...I am very grateful and Blessings to you!

Two backups are better than one, especially if the files are important. So make sure Time Machine is set to back up your "audio lecture files", and copy them to a flash drive as well.
(Keep in mind that no-one but you knows how Time Machine is set up on your computer, or where you store your "audio lecture files", or how important they are for you.)

My external hard drive is not recognized my desktop or time machine

how can i fix this??

I tried to repair it through Disk Utility and this error message appeared
Filesystem verify or repair failed.
Invalid record count
volume check failed
It's almost full...could this be why??

How do I reformat my External Hard Drive (Seagate Backup Plus).

Hello everyone. How do I reformat my External Hard Drive (Seagate Backup Plus Portable Device). I accidentally clicked to use it with Time Machine and my hard drive is of little use now. When I open my hard drive, it just shows 'backup', the same thing when I open it with Windows. Thinking of reformatting it back to be used to Mac and Windows. And not use it again with Time Machine. New to Apple, appreciate the help

Hello,
"Thinking of reformatting it back to be used to Mac and Windows. And not use it again with Time Machine"
If you want to format the External drive as universally compatible, your best bet is to format it as exFAT. Note that reformatting the drive erases all contents of the drive.
1) Open Disk Utility located in /Applications/Utilities/ (or simply type it in spotlight and the application will show up)
2) Select the external Hard drive
3) Click the 'erase' tab.
4) Under format: select exFAT
5) Click "Erase" in the lower right hand corner to reformat the drive.

How can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

how can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
It's impossible to format a hard drive without losing the data. One thing you can do before formatting is to copy the files from the external drive to your internal drive, and then, format the external drive. After formatting, copy the files to the external drive again, and everything will be as before formatting it

How should I reformat my external hard drive?

I have just purchased a new 21.5" iMac and I will be moving from PC to iMac. I currently have a 2.5TB external hard drive which I have connected to my PC laptop that I use to store and watch movies. My question is how should I format/partition my external hard drive so that I can use it with my new iMac? The external hard drive will solely be used with my new iMac (it won't be connected/used with my laptop again) and I am ok with losing the data on the external hard drive as I have backed up the data currently on it onto another hard drive. I have tried to research what format to use but I am a little confused as to which one is the best and I am looking for some advice.

Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
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HT3764 How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

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