Suggestions for TM+CCC in a 160GB external disk

Question

Hi,
I am new to macs and to this wonderful discussion foruns. Just to make sure I will have no surprises in the future, I wanted to run in a newly purchased 160GB USB external disk both Time Machine and a bootable clone of the system (size is about 52 GB) using Carbon Copy Cloner. Presently, the 160GB has two partitions: one with 140 GB, already used by TM, and the rest is FAT32 formatted being presently used for transfers between mac and windows.
I understand that in order to do what I am planning, I have to resize the partitions and maybe changing the formatting of the smaller one, so my questions are:
1- How can I resize the partitions using the Mac OSX?
2- A 50/50 resizing between the 2 partitions would be ok bearing i mind that my system should not be larger than 60 GB?
3 -Does this resizing may affect the TM backups already made?
4- Do I need to change the type of formating of the smaller partition?
Thank you.
ss

Answer 1

That disk is not suitable for TM if you had Windows on a partition. TM will try to initialize the entire drive because the drive must be partitioned and formatted properly. And, yes, formatting will result in losing all data previously stored on the drive. Rather than using TM you need to use Disk Utility as follows:
Extended Hard 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. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.