Partition External Drive

Hi,
I am looking to create a duplicate of my iMac drive onto my external drive. My question is:
Is it necessary to partition the drive using Disk Utility or can I use a program like Disk Studio or iPartition to partition the drive without having to wipe it clean. These apps would be preferable for me because I already have stuff on my external.
In other words has anyone had experience with the above applications? Is it safe?
Thanks in advance!

If you have formatted your drive to the GUID format then you should be ok. I used the disk utility to wipe and reformat my external drive. Bring the info from your external drive to your internal. Reformat the external (GUID) and then just put the info back on your external drive.
Better yet make that external a bootable drive by cloning your startup drive. I use a program called DataBackup. It does a nice job it will compress the data and I can schedule it to run in the background.

Similar Messages

Updated my OS to Yosemite ver 10.10.3 Need to access iPhoto library in Photos. I have over 400 Mega pictures on a partitioned external drive. Tried dragging but no change.

I updated my OS to 10.10.3. but now can't access my iPhoto library in Photo.
I have an iMac (20 inch, Mid 2007) with a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDRs SDRAM and have over 400 mega bits of pictures on a partitioned external drive: 2 TB G-Technology by Hitachi connected by FireWire 800 to my iMac. My iPhoto application no longer reveals what version of iPhoto I have, but it was last updated on Dec 14, 2013 with a 1.7 GB file.
Tried dragging from its place on external hard drive.
When I go into the iPhoto it says it is not compatible with OS X Yosemite but the link offered to App Store says they do not have an update.
Help?

Apple dropped both iPhoto and Aperture with the Yosemite release, and I am not happy about that as I used Aperture, but try holding down the option key when you click on the Photos icon. That should bring up a box asking what library you want to connect to. In my case it had both Aperture and Photos. But there is also a choice called "other" that I would think would allow you to navigate to where your library is located and select it.

Format and partition external drive if you want dual use Mac / PC

I had purchased from the Apple store in France a portable hard drive Iomega eGO USB 2.0/FireWire ov 250 Go capacity (P/N 31713900; Model: RPHD-C; S/N: FEAJ02011V)
Originally formatted HFS+, it would mount on any of my Mac desktops with Firewire, easily on the iMac using USB and with great difficulty on the iBook with the two USB plugs (together). It did not mount on any windows PC I had used for tests (so reformatting it FAT(32) or NTFS was *not an option).
I had reformatted it FAT32 using the iMac under mac OS 10.5 for use on multiple computers including Windows PC's. The drive would now accept to:
Mount on the iMac and iBook using Firewire
Mount on the iMac using USB, but it will NOT:
1 - Mount on the iBook using USB, nor
2 - Mount on any Windows PC using USB
The solution was found at the office with our IT helpdesk.
Whether I format it FAT 32 or NTFS (using the Paragon NTFS for mac OS X 10.5) on my iMac under OS 10.5, including when I do the same on another external drive than the Iomega, the PC would not recognise it while it would always mount on a Mac and it was even impossible on the PC to reformat it. The solution is (at least in windows world), you need to (1) format the drive, AND (2) partition the drive, even if this involves creating a single partition. Using Disk Utility of the Mac, I had only formatted the drive and not partitioned it into a single partition and Disk utility did not request that from me. The drive as prepared was perfectly usable on any Mac anyway.
The cure was to go back to the imac which had formatted it, mount it (it mounts), (1) reformat and (2) partition, using a single partition.
Then, the drive would instantly be recognised on the PC as a F drive, whether under FAT 32 or under NTFS.
The blame is in me and on the Apple Drive utility which did not help me (trust it would have been worse in windows world, but this is a bad mark on disk utility)
My suggestion to Apple would be that Disk Utilisty should tell us, once we have formatted a drive (HFS+, FAT 32 or NTFS using Parangon) that we are not done yet and still must create the partition(s), even if we only need one partition.
HTH

Hi Michel-Ange
You are talking to other user like yourself here and not Apple. If you wish to make a suggestion to Apple, I suggest you do it at this site - http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
Allan

Using time capsule to back up a partitioned external drive

hi - I am using a 3TB external hard drive to back up my mac with time machine. I have partitioned the external hard drive so that 2TB backs up my mac and the remaining 1TB (well slightly under 1TB) is used to store media files. So far so good, everything works flawlessly. My only problem is that I would like to back up my media files. I had hoped I could use an old 1TB time capsule (works fine) via ethernet cable to back up the media section of my partitioned external hard drive. That does not appear to be possible, certainly via time machine it isn't - any solutions?
Help would be much appreciated.

That does not appear to be possible, certainly via time machine it isn't - any solutions?
Is it just excluded in the TM preferences.. the drive used for backups obviously won't be included but a partition should be possible.
If not, then just copy the files.. one disk to the other.. or use a program like superduper or CCC.. etc.

After partitioning external drive network Time Machine instance can't back up

This is a re-post with additional background information requested by several responders:
I recently added a G-Speed Q RAID array to my MAC PRO to use exclusively for back-up with Time Machine. I purchased this RAID array from the Apple store, so assume that means it's acceptable to use for this purpose. Maybe that's a bad assumption on my part. In any event, it worked great with Time Machine on my MAC PRO. The G-speed array is connected to my Mac Pro via Firewire 800 port for now. I am awaiting delivery of an eSATA expansion card for the Mac Pro which I intend to switch to when it arrives. In any event, it is not configured or capable of acting as an NAS device. It is a shared external drive on the MAC PRO.
My next step was to share the external device over my hardwire gigabit LAN with my wife's iMAC so she could back-up with Time Machine as well. It also worked great. Both Macs are connected via hardwire gigabit, supported by an Actiontec Q1000Z router. The LAN performs flawlessly for all other purposes, including over 30 network devices connected via either hardwire or 802.11n. Both machines are running Lion 10.7.4. (not server)
I then started reading posts that suggested the two Time Machine instances would compete for space on the back-up array and eventually it would fill up and I'd have problems. The solution, everyone says, is to partition the external drive and assign one to each Time Machine back-up. It makes perfect sense to me. I did this following the step-by-step instructions (#22) from Pondini's site. Both partitions are formatted with MAC OS Extended (journaled). Everything seemed to be working great until the remote client tried to run back-up. The remote Time Machine instance fails with the "Disk does not support AFP featues" error message.
Current status is as follows, local time machine back-up works fine on its partition. Remote machine finds and connects to its assigned partition once I provide correct user name and password, but fails while Time Machine is "searching for backup device" with the AFP error message. The remote (sending) machine is connecting as a dedicated user and not as "Guest".
I can write test files directly to the remote back up partition from either mac and I can read, modify and save files directly to this partition from either mac.
Please let me know if any additional information related to configuration is needed. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In my "dispute" with Pondini in the other thread, I came across some information that will certainly explain things, but not in a good way.
Apparently you cannot use an external drive as a Time Machine repository. People who use Snow Leopard and Lion Server to provide Time Machine services have already discovered this.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3327294
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2472139
It may work better when your eSATA card comes in. My theory is that a Thunderbolt RAID would show up as an internal drive and would be useable as a Time Machine repository. There is a chance that an eSATA card would do that too. You'll find out. Apparently, one of the things you get with Lion Server is a warning pop-up if you try to use an external drive with Time Machine.
While I'm a big fan of Time Machine, I still consider it Apple Black Magic. You can use it, but don't get too clever. I don't like to take chances with backups. Simple is usually better. Time Machine isn't simple, but it is so convenient that I like to ignore the incredible complexity of it.
If the other machine were a notebook with local snapshots I might say you could manually plug it in to do backups. With two iMacs, I would recommend just getting another external drive.
Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.
- Gandalf

Do I need to partition external drive?

I'm about to format my first external hard drive and am unsure whether I need to partition it as I'm new to this (my experience of backing up is limited to emailing files to my webmail provider's server). I bought the drive primarily for backup in case something catastrophic happens to my Mac but I understand an external drive has other useful functions; question is, are they useful to me?
One friend said I should make the external drive bootable.
Another said I could put my iTunes on it to free up space on my Mac. I have just over 50GB of music (but this is constantly expanding) and 147GB free on the Mac's drive.
Ideally I'd like to back up automatically every night.
All comments welcome, thanks.

Keep it simple. If you have the space just clone the entire internal drive to the external on a regular basis. Most all backup utilities have a scheduler option. You don't need to partition it. If you have a logical volume disc error the other partitions may still work fine. If you have a hard drive failure you can lose all the partitions.
Some uses for multiple partitions: different OS versions, if you want to boot in 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, or boot camp into WinXP or Vista, each of these can reside in it's own separate partition. Software developers (who can't afford multiple machines?) sometimes test software on different OS versions using a multiple boot system.
Some say that disc access times are slightly improved when searching over a smaller partition as opposed to the whole large drive, not sure if this is really true or not, or if the difference is really significant. So you might boot faster from a smaller partition with just the OS on it, and with User files on another partition, or apps might launch faster when read from a smaller partition, again that's just speculation.
(And, not applicable to your situation, but some older computers/OSs require it, for example the old out-of-production Beige Power Macintosh G3 Desktop computers can only boot OS X from the first partition <8GB in size on the built-in ATA bus. Also, OS 9 can not boot from a partition larger than 200GB.)

Partitioning External Drive w/o Erasing Data

I have one 500GB external drive (USB) that I want to partition. I have 85GB on data on it now and really don't want to copy it back to the Mac HD (if at all possible).
When I run Disk Utility/Partition and select 2 partitions, it allows me to shrink either partition to ~52GB - smaller than my current data size. So I'm not confident what I am doing will partition w/o erasing data.
The drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
My eventual goal is to use SuperDuper for a clone backup. I'm using the free version that only allows erase & copy. If I purchase SD, could I add a clone to the external w/o erasing existing data?
Any other suggestions?

yes you can.
quote from disk utility help:
Creating new volumes on a disk
You may be able to create multiple volumes on your disk without losing any data. Each volume works like a separate disk. You may need to create a new volume if you want to install multiple operating systems on your computer. Volumes can also help you organize your files.
NOTICE: Back up your data before creating new volumes on your disk as a precaution.
To create new volumes on a disk:
Select the disk from the list at the left, and click Partition.
Select an existing volume in the Volume Scheme list, and click Add .
Disk Utility splits the volume into two, leaving the data in one of the new volumes. If the volume is less than half-full, Disk Utility creates two volumes of equal size. Otherwise. it creates one volume large enough for the data, and another volume with the remaining space.
Resize the volumes as needed.
You can drag the dividers between the volumes in the Volume Scheme list, or you can select a volume in the Volume Scheme list, and then enter a value in the Size field.
Choose how to format the volumes that will be erased or created.
For each new volume, select it, enter a name, and then choose a format.
Click Apply.

Re-partition external drive for Time Machine

When I originally connected my external drive to my iMac I partitioned it for Time Machine and a media library for my iTunes. I decided to put iTunes back on the main drive to increase space on the external drive for my Time Machine backups. I have deleted the Media partition but the iDisk Utility will not allow me to increase the size of the Time Machine partition. (There is no "drag" graphic/option). Any help would be appreciated. I do not want to lose the backups I currently have on the external drive.

I've gone thru steps from this link I posted in a different forum.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11538480#11538480

Partitioned external drive for Time Machine and Daily storage

Now that I've partitioned my I Terabyte external drive to two partitions using the disk utility with one partition for Time Machine and one partition as my new "hard drive"...my internal drive on the MacBook almost filled....I wanted to move...pix, movies, music..etc to the new drive and have all future storage pointed to that drive not the internal drive....need to have space available on the original drive on the MacBook....How do I move existing stored data and point ongoining saved music..files...etc to the new drive...???
Thank you...Bob

Yogabob wrote:
Now that I've partitioned my I Terabyte external drive to two partitions using the disk utility with one partition for Time Machine and one partition as my new "hard drive"...my internal drive on the MacBook almost filled....I wanted to move...pix, movies, music..etc to the new drive
You could use an application like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to copy them to the new partition, but it's probably just as easy to drag the files/folders to the new partition, then delete the originals.
and have all future storage pointed to that drive not the internal drive
You probably don't really want to do that. Files you're using will be accessed much faster if they're on your internal HD.
Another consideration is, you really should have backups of the moved files somewhere, in case you have a problem with the new drive. Although TM will back them up unless you exclude that partition, if the drive fails, you'll lose both copies.

Can I install XP in a (partitioned) external drive and run it on my Macbook

I just bought a Macbook (late '08), but for work I need to use Windows XP. I have a 500 MB external drive, too.
Could I partition my external drive, install XP there and run it on my Macbook from there?
How would the external drive be affected as far as storing content from both OS's?
Thanks.

Hi Sergio,
Thanks. What if I partitioned my macbook's hard drive (I see everybody is talking of boot camp, but I haven't looked it up yet), say 70% mac and 30% xp, then I could run xp no problem, right?
Yes, that should work out. XP itself needs about 10GB of HD space to run perfectly and add to that the amount of space you need for your Windows applications.
BootCamp is part of OSX Leopard, see here: http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
And could I save my content from both OS in the ext drive without distinction and be able to fish it out, or should I partition my drive too?
If 'save' = backup, then you can use WinClone http://twocanoes.com/winclone/ to make an image file of your Windows partition and for OSX backup you can use TimeMachine (part of OSX) or SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner which can make a bootable backup of your OSX partition onto your external HD.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
If you simply want to save your files onto your external HD and have no single files that are bigger than 4GB you can make one partition on your external HD nd use the FAT32 file system (called MS-DOS in OSX Disk Utility).
Regards
Stefan

Partition external drive for time machine

This deals more with Time Machine in general rather than Time Capsule, but this seems like the place to post the question. Is is possible to make Time Machine only use a certain amount of space on your external drive for backups? Basically, I use the same external drive for my backups and for storing other large files and videos. Time Machine always uses up every last bit of spare space, so every time I want to add a new file I have to go in and manually delete an old backup to create space for the new files. Is there a way to allow Time Machine to only use a certain amount of space for backups, say 300GB, and leave the rest of the drive available for my other uses?

Hello coltonbh. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Yes, but you will basically only have two choices to do so:
1) Temporarily remove the TC's internal drive (voiding your waranty); repartition it, and then, reinstall it, or
2) Create a disk image on the TC's internal drive the size you need for file storage. Time Machine backups should leave this image alone. The only problem is that Windows/Linux will not be able to access these disk images ... so this would only work for Mac clients. You would create a disk image using the OS X's Disk Utility, not through the AirPort Utility.

Does Time Machine work with a partitioned external drive?

I just bought my first Mac this weekend (yay!) and would like to use the external Maxtor drive I used for backups with our Windows machines with Time Machine. The problem is we still have two Windows machines that were using this drive as a backup and I would like to continue to do so. Can I put two partitions on the drive, one for Mac and one NTFS for the Windows machines, hook the drive up to my iMac with the Firewire and have Time Machine use the Mac partition while I share the Windows partition for use by the Windows machines? Any insight would be appreciated.
Thanks,
HD

Never mind. I found a post from April 8th where a similar question was asked and it appears as though the answer is yes.
Thanks all

Partitioning external drives to increase operation speed

I just got a Lacie 250 gb external hd for my powerbook in an attempt to free up some space to allow my comp to run faster (it was getting bogged down). While i was at the mac store talking to one of the guys he said I could partition my external hd as either a "working drive" or simply just as storage space, and that making it the working drive would allow my computer to run faster(?).
So far I've backed up all my files onto the thing, but they still exist on my permanent hd (approx 40 gb) so there is no change in operating speed. Basically, my question is what process do i have to go through to make my computer run faster?

The guy was full of it. An external hard drive is not "going to make your computer run faster". How could it?
If your boot drive was very close to completely full, freeing up some drive space may make your system more stable, but it won't make it faster.
If your machine is really feeling slow, adding some RAM may well improve performance, as it will be using less virtual memory, and hence reading/writing less to swap file(s).
And I have no idea what he was talking to you about with some distinction between working drive or storage. Those terms might have some sense in how you think about how you use your drive, but an HFS+ partiton is an HFS+ partition (same for any file system), and the file system really doesn't care how you use the disk.

How to resize/erase a partitioned external drive

Just checking if I got this well before proceeding.
I have a new Western Digital external FW drive (1TB). I partitioned it in two for using with Time Machine (300GB) and the rest for my huge iTunes and iPhoto libraries.
Now I've changed my mind and I want to have a single partition (or no partitions at all ) in the WD drive and use it for my data only. I don't really care about the Time Machine partition at this time, since it's relatively new and I use SuperDuper! for my startup drive anyway. Right now I care about my libraries in the lower partition. I have another external, Maxtor 500GB hard drive that can be used for Time Machine and other backups afterwards.
The problem is: The first partition (the UPPER one) is the partition I'd like to erase, and the bigger one with my data is below. I've read there's no way to resize the lower partition without erasing it or corrupting/losing the data. I know I should think before partitioning in the first place.
So, my only choice would be backing up my libraries and other data from the WD in the 500GB drive, then erase the WD drive and copying everything back again to a single, new and fresh partition? Hope there were a better solution for this. If not, I'd appreciate a comment anyway.
Thanks for your help and comments in advance, gurus.
JJ

Now that I think of it, I can try something. Copying the lower to the upper partition is a good option, and it could be done if I temporarily move SOME of the files stored in the lower one. Then copy the rest to the upper partition and do what you suggest.
Some questions about this: Can I first erase the data in the upper partition to have more room to copy data? And... is this resizing procedure SAFE for the rest of the data?
I'll think about it before proceeding, anyway
Thanks for your suggestion, it could be the answer.
JJ

Partition external drive with files already on it - ?

I just received a 465g glyph harddrive with some video files on it from our editor that i need to convert. The idea was that I was going to use the same drive since it has 444g of free space on it, but now i realize that the entire drive is formatted to ntfs. Is there any way i can partition this without erasing/having to copy the files first?
Thanks!

By itself, MacOS X can read but cannot write to NTFS-format HD's. On the other hand, Windoze computers cannot read or write to Apple-format HD's. If you need to exchange files between the two using a HD, the only middle ground would be formatting in FAT32, which both can read and write. If you must keep the HD in NTFS format (company policy, etc.) you will need to install a third-party driver on MacOS X so it can write to that disk; for example, [Paragon makes a shareware option|http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac>.
You can erase the volume by selecting it (not the device) on Disk Utility, clicking on the Erase tab, choosing the appropiate format and applying.
You can repartition the drive (creating new volumes) by using a workaround because the Leopard Disk Utility has a bug when dealing with NTFS partitions. [Here's a writeup of what to do|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7783365#7783365].
In either case, the current contents of the HD will be lost.

Partition External Drive

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