Partitioning harddrive with time machine?

I've just purchased a macbook along with a 500 gb hard drive to accompany it and to store my loads and loads of music files that would otherwise clog the space on my computer. I've come to the realization though that I would like to use time machine to backup my files, but seeing as I only have 160 gb's on my computer it seems pointless to utilize this whole hard drive for time machine solely. I would much rather put my music files on the hard drive outside of the realm of time machine. I realize that this way my music files would not be backed up with time machine, but having them archived on the hard drive would be safe enough for me anyway since I have all the cds if something were to go wrong. Is there anyway that I can use an external hard drive for both time machine and file storing?
thanks!

Paul Quemades wrote:
Hi. Not sure if this is relevant but...I'm not sure about the extra space needed for back ups. I just got a new external drive, a G MINI 500 GB. The 500 GBs aren't the space quota you actually have available for storage as it takes something like 35 for operation. When I backed up my system, calculated on the Mac at 210 GB, onto the Drive, that same amount was what was subtracted from the available space,neither more nor less.
The 2-3 times is because Time Machine stores multiple copies of your system-kind of.
See: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14 for details.

Similar Messages

How can I set up an external harddrive with time machine that already has data on it without losing the data?

I have an external hard drive that I use to hold photos and other files on that no longer fit on my macbook. I also use the external hard drive for back ups set up with time machine. I don't believe I ever did anything to partition it, I've just always had separate folders (Photos, Music, etc) with one being called "Back Ups" (or Backups.backupdb) that my time machine back ups would automatically go into. Recently, I made the switch from my HDD in my macbook to a new SSD of the same size. I used the back ups on the external hard drive to restore all my content, which all worked out fine. My problem now is in using my external hard drive. When I plug it in, it no longer seems to be working with time machine. Also, I was organizing some files within the external hard drive, and when I dragged one into a folder, it took a while to load. Before, it was instantaneous moving a file already on the external hard drive to another location within it. Can anyone help me in getting the external hard drive to work with my new SSD? I don't want to delete any of the folders or back ups that are already on it, since that's the only place I have some of those files. Please let me know if you need anymore details. Thanks! (sorry if this is posted in the wrong forum)

First, she has to be logged in to the same iTunes account as she used on the old computer.
Second, when she plugs the iPhone in to iTunes, right click on the phone name and select transfer purchases.
Third, enter one contact and one calendar entry into the new computer's addressbook/calendar.
After that, she should be fine.

Partitioning a disc already in use - for use with Time Machine

I just bought the upgrade to 10.5 Leopard, and I want to use my external disc (LaCie 500GB - a couple of months old) to back up using time-machine. The thing is, I've already been using it to backup manually, and to be sure, I want to keep that possibility.
But when I open TimeMachine, it says it will delete all contents and format my external disc if I want to use it as my TimeMachine-drive. Could I solve this by partitioning it using disc utilities so that, say 150GB's is for TimeMachine and the rest is for manual backup and temporary backup? Or will this delete the other contents I already have on the disc (about 200GB) that I want to keep there?

I had nothing but nightmares with my LaCie 500GB drive and Time Machine. I had it partitioned, and I could never go back to previous backups to restore a file. After finally reformatting the drive back to a singe partition, I got it to work. But then a month later the drive gave out and I almost lost 250GB or my media. DIskWarrior saved that catastrophe. I ended up getting the drive repaired. LaCie would not replace it, even though it was only 3 months old. Other people with LaCie drives have had issues with Time Machine also. I went back to using SuperDuper and doing scheduled backups with a new Beyond Micro drive I purchased. I don't trust this Lacie drive anymore for backups, especially it's partitioned.
-Bmer
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Partitioning an ext. HD for use with Time Machine HFS+/FAT32

Hi, I hope that this question is not already answered somewhere - I did a couple of searches but couldn't find the answers I need.
I'm setting up an external LaCie 500GB HD (USB 2.0) for a friend, in order to use it for Time Machine backups (one partition) and as a non-backuped "data dump" (music / films etc.).
My plan is the following: Partition the ext. HD into a 200 GB HFS+ Journaled partition for use with Time Machine, and a 300 GB FAT32 partition for data (FAT32 to ensure the interoperability with PCs).
I have a couple of questions (apart from if you think the proposed setup is good in general):
1. The Time Machine partition would be used to back up a MacBook with a 120GB HD - in your opinion, is 200GB too much/enough/too less space?
2. In general, does Time Machine work with partitions on ext. HDs as seen in the setup I propose? (or should I use a drive with only one partition?)
3. are there any possible problems I might run into when partitioning a drive into two different file systems as HFS+ and FAT32?
4. Is it OK to use the Leopard Disk Utility for this or should I use another application?
thanks a lot for your answers!

Hi,
Could you please share the answers you found?
I'm going through a very similar situation...
Thanks!
Beto.

Partitioning an External 320gb drive for use with Time Machine and...

I want to be able to use my Western Digital 320GB external drive for use with Time Machine and to use as extra storage space on both my Mac and when I boot into Windows Vista.
Is this possible?
I was playing around in Disk Utility and would I partition the part I want to use for Time Machine with the Mac OS Journaled, and whatever I want as space for windows, use a MS - DOS format?
Has anyone done this before?
Cheers-

Unless you are using 64 bit version of MSWindows (64 bit XP/Vista), it won't be able to handle a disk with GUID partition table (GPT). Disks with Apple Partition Map (APM) or GUID partition table are the only ones that Time Machine will work with (not MBR disks). Note also that the MBR/APM/GPT are at the DISK level and not the partition level, so don't mix the format with partitioning scheme. Time Machine disks are meant to live in the Mac universe (for now, anyway) and sharing with the MSWindows 32-bit universe is not possible.
See http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=macpcdiskdd06sv8.png for some additional background.

Can time capsule be partitioned so as to back up osx with time machine and bootcamped windows drive with win 7 ulyimate

have imac 27 inch. I plan to bootcamp the drive and install win 7 ultimate to run AutoCAD. I want to backup the imac using time machine and the boot camped drive to one device. Can time capsule be partitioned to use time machine for osx and win 7 backup for bootcamp drive.

You cannot backup a Windows partition or system using Time Machine. Nor can you partition a TC as far as I know although Airport Utility may allow that now. See:
A whole lot about Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
Of course you should carefully read the documentation that came with your TC to find out what options are available.

New to Mac, Help with Time Machine! Partition External HDD or not?

Hey Guys I'm a new mac user
I need help with time machine
I wanted to know how time machine works and what all does it back up?
I have 2 hard drives one is of 1TB and one is of 320gb
In the 1TB hard drive i store all my music videos and work stuff it is windows formatted
The 320gb hard drive is mac formatted and I was thinking of making a partition on it one with 250gb for time machine and the remaining 70 gb for mac softwares and files. The ssd of my mac has a capacity of 256gb. I have read for time machine you need at least 2x the space of your ssd on your external hard drive but i don't understand if my ssd is only 256 and can store files worth 256gb why do i need double the space? Secondly if I choose to use the complete 320 gb for time machine will that be okay or even if i choose to partition it to 250gb for time machine will that be fine too? Or will I need to format my 1TB hard disk out of which currently only 300 gb is empty and partition that to 500 gb for time machine?
I'm really confused every tells me to use time machine but do I need it? And what does it exactly do?
Your input will be really appreciate thanks

The reason that you want a partition (or drive) of 2-3 times the size of your boot drive for Time Machine is so that you can keep backups further back than just the current boot drive state - for that you'd need to make a clone of the drive rather than using Time Machine (see -> http://pondini.org/TM/Clones.html).
For more information for backups in general, see -> Most commonly used backup methods.
Note that you can't use Time Machine to backup a Windows partition.
Good luck,
Clinton
MacBook Pro (15” Late 2011), OS X 10.??, 16GB Crucial RAM, 960GB M500 Crucial SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

Backup my bootcamp partition with time machine ?

I have read a few discussion about this subject here in Apple Support Communities but none of them was really new.
I read that it is not possible to backup my bootcamp partition by using time machine. Does anyone has any up to date ideas on how to make this work in the best possible way ? I am on os x 10.8.4 and I use bootcamp with windows 7. I want to abe able to backup all my osx data, all my bootcamp data + an external hard drive data that I use for my windows files.
Alltogether in one hd.
Thanks in advance.

Look at CopyCatX to do a whole drive backup. If you want to include an external hdd then get a large external drive and make two partitions, one for the Mac including Boot Camp backup and one for the external hdd backup.
http://subrosasoft.com/software/copycatx

I had to put new HD in macbook, backed up with ext HD with time machine, what doi do now? possible to partition so i have not all the old 'junk' on clean drive?

i had to put new HD in macbook, backed up with ext HD with time machine, what doi do now? possible to partition so i have not all the old 'junk' on clean drive?

Do you have the OS 10.6 disk? You can run Disk Utility from that disk and format and partition the new drive.
If you don't have the disk you can buy it from Apple for $20.00
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
Post back when you are ready to proceed.

I'm not bald yet, but will be after messing with Time Machine

Intel iMac Rev B. Two external drives, both less than 6 months old, one less than a week old. Maxtor 750GB, Seagate Freeagent Pro 1TB (bought last week).
Per previous support posts, Time Machine stopped working smoothly after my update from 10.5.2 to 10.5.3. After working that issue out, it seemed to be working again.
Long story short, I can't get TM to work on either drive. I have erased, re-partitioned (in the correct format for the Intel iMac), restarted TM and I get a multitude of issues. Sometimes the initial back up goes through, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the backups work as they should for a week, and sometimes, stop working after the first incremental backup.
I went out last week and bought the Seagate to confirm the problem wasn't a hard drive issue. I'm finding it next to impossible that I've got two bad drives that won't work with Time Machine, so I clearly think this is an Apple Software issue. As now I've got the Maxtor drive partitioned and doing A and B backups with SuperDuper.
It's getting expensive buying external harddrives. What other support for Time Machine is out there?
**Note - I have not applied the latest 10.5.5 update yet....anybody find that Time Machine works better with that update??**
Thanks.
CP

I let TM run through the night, here are another set of errors:
9/17/08 8:27:45 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Starting standard backup
9/17/08 8:27:45 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/17/08 8:27:51 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Backup failed with error: 18
9/17/08 8:28:41 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Backup requested by user
9/17/08 8:28:41 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Starting standard backup
9/17/08 8:28:42 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Backing up to: /Volumes/Untitled 1/Backups.backupdb
9/17/08 8:28:42 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
9/17/08 8:28:43 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
9/17/08 8:28:48 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Backup content size: 225.7 GB excluded items size: 2.1 GB for volume Macintosh HD
9/17/08 8:28:48 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] No pre-backup thinning needed: 268.30 GB requested (including padding), 931.15 GB available
9/17/08 8:28:48 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Waiting for index to be ready (909 > 0)
9/17/08 8:30:13 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Error: (-36) copying /Applications/Amadeus II.app/Contents/Resources/spec.icns to /Volumes/Untitled 1/Backups.backupdb/cpstaley/2008-09-17-202843.inProgress/C156F7E0-03C5-4759-A57 4-17A29DFC28AA/Macintosh HD/Applications/Amadeus II.app/Contents/Resources
9/17/08 8:30:13 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Stopping backup.
9/17/08 8:30:14 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Error: (-8062) copying /Applications/Amadeus II.app/Contents/Resources/spec.icns to /Volumes/Untitled 1/Backups.backupdb/cpstaley/2008-09-17-202843.inProgress/C156F7E0-03C5-4759-A57 4-17A29DFC28AA/Macintosh HD/Applications/Amadeus II.app/Contents/Resources
9/17/08 8:30:15 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Copied 6 files (184.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
9/17/08 8:30:15 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Copy stage failed with error:11
9/17/08 8:30:21 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4519] Backup failed with error: 11
9/17/08 8:39:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4552] Starting standard backup
9/17/08 8:39:08 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4552] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/17/08 8:39:13 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4552] Backup failed with error: 18
9/17/08 8:50:31 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup requested by user
9/17/08 8:50:31 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/17/08 8:50:44 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backing up to: /Volumes/Untitled 1/Backups.backupdb
9/17/08 8:50:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
9/17/08 8:51:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup content size: 225.7 GB excluded items size: 2.1 GB for volume Macintosh HD
9/17/08 8:51:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] No pre-backup thinning needed: 268.30 GB requested (including padding), 930.96 GB available
9/17/08 10:55:09 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Error: (-36) copying /Users/cpstaley/Desktop/Downloads Folder/Mid-A 2007/Pictures/mida06plcv.tif to /Volumes/Untitled 1/Backups.backupdb/cpstaley/2008-09-17-202843.inProgress/8BE09425-3E04-4BB8-A73 2-B4ED95F162E1/Macintosh HD/Users/cpstaley/Desktop/Downloads Folder/Mid-A 2007/Pictures
9/17/08 10:55:09 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Stopping backup.
9/17/08 10:55:09 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Error: (-8062) copying /Users/cpstaley/Desktop/Downloads Folder/Mid-A 2007/Pictures/mida06plcv.tif to /Volumes/Untitled 1/Backups.backupdb/cpstaley/2008-09-17-202843.inProgress/8BE09425-3E04-4BB8-A73 2-B4ED95F162E1/Macintosh HD/Users/cpstaley/Desktop/Downloads Folder/Mid-A 2007/Pictures
9/17/08 10:55:09 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Copied 96097 files (22.9 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
9/17/08 10:55:09 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Copy stage failed with error:11
9/17/08 10:55:15 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 11
9/17/08 11:39:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/17/08 11:39:19 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/17/08 11:39:24 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 18
9/18/08 12:39:06 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/18/08 12:39:18 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/18/08 12:39:23 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 18
9/18/08 1:39:06 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/18/08 1:39:18 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/18/08 1:39:23 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 18
9/18/08 2:39:06 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/18/08 2:39:18 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/18/08 2:39:23 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 18
9/18/08 3:39:05 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/18/08 3:39:18 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/18/08 3:39:23 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 18
9/18/08 4:39:05 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/18/08 4:39:17 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/18/08 4:39:22 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 18
9/18/08 5:39:05 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Starting standard backup
9/18/08 5:39:17 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled 1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
9/18/08 5:39:22 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4563] Backup failed with error: 18
I'm backing up again with SUperDuper and then will move onto 10.5.5. Hopefully the errors are resolved with the update.
CP

Help with Time Machine Backups not working..

Let me preface this by saying I have spent the last day scouring the internet for solutions to my problem. I have tried every option that I have run across and have had no luck in resolving my problem. As a last resort, I'm turning here in hopes that you can be of help.
I have a 2012 Macbook Pro running Moutain Lion. I use an external HD for my time machine backups. I am having an issue with Time Machine not functioning. The initial error message I receive when I attempt to use TM to backup is: "Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
I searched the forums and net and found several things to do to try and resolve this issue. My computer will freeze out and not let me erase, or re-partition the the hard drive, so I switched it over to an older macbook of my girlfriends and am successfully able to erase, and re-partition the drive (using disk utility) as suggested by several forum postings I have read. I am able to run disk verify and disk repair and both say the disk is "ok" with no issues. The moment the erase and partition is done, her computer prompts a message : "Would you like to use this disk for Time Machine Backups" which tells me it is working properly. When I move it back to my macbook pro and attempt to run TM backup, it will now work and copy about 10g of my 120g before shutting down with this error message:
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Rick's Backup Disk". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk."
If i attempt to re-run TM at that point, I get the original error message:
"Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
If I move the TM back to my Girlfriends computer and attempt to run TM, it will function properly and backup her entire harddrive. When I erase and try again on mine, I always end up back with the same issues. It's clearly something in my macbook that is screwing it up. Can anyone please offer some help! I'd be much appreciative.

rcury4 wrote:
"Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
See #C10 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Rick's Backup Disk". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk."
Not one of Apple's more informative messages.
There's a problem with a file on your system. See #C3 in the above link. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, what you've done, and the results.

Kernel Panic while backing up with Time Machine - now everything is GONE!

I got a kernel panic while i tried to back up with Time Machine....when i shut down the computer, and restarted it (with the external still plugged in, and on), it came up with an error message that said
"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
And my three options were to "Initialize...", "Ignore", or "Eject"...
I didn't hit either of those buttons, i was trying to contact apple for support only to find out that i am just a week past my minimum 90 day telephone support, so i am trying to scrape up enough to order the APP immediately.
However, in the meantime, everything on my external harddrive is gone...Disk Utility doesn't even see that there was once a Partition on that drive, and thus, it is not showing up on my desktop, and there is no information to be recovered...everything is gone.
This is kind of ironic because i was just reading an article about how people are losing their info on their User account after having the Guest Accounts enabled....logged into guest, and back out of guest...
I am a part of one of those statistics because i do NOT have the Guest account enabled at all...
Can anybody else help me with this?

where can i find the panic.log?
I did a spotlight search with no results.
I checked /Library/Logs, and didn't see a panic.log
I also checked ~/Library/Logs and didn't find a panic.log either....i was unable to find anything related to a kernel panic log, or anything.
Could you point me in the right direction for this please? Could it be that i had a kernal panic, and it did not record the log?
So what can i do to correct this?
Disk Warrior didn't detect the drive, and zapping the PRAM didn't correct it either.
I keep getting the error message i posted previously.
I even tried to plug the drive into my old 15" PowerBook G4 running 10.4 tiger to see if i could see the drive appear on the desktop, and i also got the same error there as well.
If i go into Disk Utility, into Partition, i have to create a Partition. There is absolutely nothing on the drive at all. Everything is gone because of a kernal panic - which happened when i was trying to use Time Machine to back up the drive.
I'm 1/2 afraid to do anything at the moment because i want to figure out what happened to the data i lost on my Time Machine backup drive, and how to get it back...at the same time, i'm afraid of losing all my information on my computer as well since people are having issues with the so called Guest Account issue that wipes everybody's user account's information.
Is there another scenario for this, could it be not just Guest Accounts deleting a users home folder, but also kernal panics related to Time Machine, which end up erasing your entire Time Machine backup drive too?
Apple really needs a fix for this and should somehow reward us with something for the unprofessionalism in their own technology.
Message was edited by: tool

Restore Mac with time machine, consequences for itunes library

Ok, here is the problem, if there is one. (Using SnowLeopard)
(I want to restore my Mac because I want to install Windows 7 as additional OS. However, therefore have to install OS X once more because otherwise partitioning the disc does not work).
I want to set up the computer completely in a new way, but with the help of time machine, so that the computer looks exactly the same as before with the only difference that I will be able to partition the hard drive afterwards.
I am in particular concerned about how Itunes will behave in this situation:
Since I have a very huge Itunes library and it took me a lot of time to create it, I want to be absolutely sure, that it works afterwards in exactly the same way as it does now, that means basically: Not being necessary to import any music into itunes library again, instead the music should appear in exactly the same way as I see it now when I open Itunes with all the artwork etc. This should normally be the case with time machine. But it is getting more complicated now and this challenges me regarding my itunes preferences:
I did NOT go for "organizing itunes library by itunes" + did NOT go for "copying files to itunes library when importing music". THis basically means I use my own structure of folders, some of the music is located extern, same is located on the mac. Itunes work perfectly fine with this preferences until now. Timemachine does only back up the music located on the mac harddrive of course. However Itunes on the other hand can reach the extern music and play it in the same way as the music located on the mac. Me as a consumer, I do not realize when using itunes where the music comes from.
So if I restore my computer and using timemachine to set it up, will itunes still work in the way it works now? In particular will itunes still know where all the different media files are located and that some of them are located extern? I do not want to import 200 albums once more. Otherwise I forgo installing Windows.
I am not exactly sure how Itunes works and how timemachine behaves in connection with itunes (especially with my settings), thus I would rely in your help now. I would appreciate your comments. Thanks for your help.

christian111113456 wrote:
Thanks for the hint.
However, does this safe my problem? When trying to partition my harddrive, it always says that a file has been changed and thus partition is not possible to proceed. So if I clone this harddrive and then reclone it back, woudn't I get the same error?
not if you have enough space on the drive overall. the most common reason for this error is hard drive fragmentation. cloning to an external, reformatting and cloning back defrags the drive as the cloning is done on file level not block level. I thought that's what you were trying to do. doing a full system restore will achieve the same thing as it also defrags the drive. and the end result will be exactly the same if you do a full system restore or clone. why did you think doing a TM restore would work when cloning wouldn't? of course, you need enough free space overall to do it. how big is your hard drive, how much space is used and how big do you want the bootcamp partition to be?

How does this work with multiple systems backing up with time machine

I was wondering as Apple states that this will do multiple time machine backups as in multiple computers, how does this do this? I am assumng that it will require me to partition the srive in the unit as multiple partitions. 1 for each time computer with time machine running.

I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure how to interpret your answer so I'll ask for clarification.
Do you mean that the backup belonging to each user will be protected by filesystem perms? In other words Alice's backup will be owned by Alice and only readable by her, ditto for the hyperthetical Bill?
I guess in other words, does Time Machine preserve file ownership perms?

Time Machine on a WD Smartware drive? Converting a WD Smartware back-up harddrive to Time Machines

How do I convert a WD Smartware back-up hard drive to TimeMachine software? That is, how do I delete the WD Smartware software sothat I can then load Time Machines onto that hard drive and turn it into a timemachines drive?
I ask because the WD Smartware software is terrible and itappears to not work since I updated to Lion. And it wasn't great softwareto begin with. So I really want to convert this hard drive to TimeMachine. Someone told me that it is possible, but I am not clever enoughto figure out how. I recall something about "disc utility" butI can't figure out either 1) how to erase the WD software on the drive and 2)how to install Time Machine software or to use it with Time Machine.
Thank you!

You don't have to install Time Machine on the drive. TM is already part of OS X. What you want to do is repartition and reformat the drive:
Drive Preparation
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.
You can now use the drive as a Time Machine backup drive by configuring Time Machine preferences. See Mac 101- Time Machine.
You will find a wealth of help with Time Machine at Pondini's Time Machine FAQ.

Partitioning harddrive with time machine?

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