Visualization at External HD files / Storage capacity after Time Machine

Question

Hello,
I’m new at this forum and I don’t know if this is the right place to ask, but I hope it is ok.
The question is a little bit complicated, so I will divide it in two points:
1) I’ve bought one external 1TB HD and I plugged it in my Macbook via USB to use it with the Time Machine for Back-up, when I did it the Time Machine took care of it, formatted it to be useable and everything works fine; besides the back-up, I put in the external HD other files to be use that were not in the MacBook. The problem is: when I connect the same external HD to be use as well in one PC, doesn’t matter the OS (XP, Vista, etc), nothing appears, not even the drive itself, is it possible to solve it?
2) After a while, I decided to “upgrade” my back-up with the same external HD doing it wireless via Airport Extreme, I had some problems at the beginning with the first back-up, velocity of connection (still have) and so on, but in the end it is working acceptable. The problem is: as it created another backup modus (before was a direct folder structure and now it is a “disc Image”) all of sudden my external drive is full, just 50Gb free, I’ve checked it using even “JDiskReport 1.3.1” and “OmniDiskSweeper-1.7.1”, the “disk image” shows 0kb and the other files about 300Gb, my first back-up via USB I deleted, but nothing changed and the second via wireless connection should not have more than 200Gb (the first back-up that takes two days to do it was 130Gb), and it is not more than 1 month and no “big” file was add to my MacBook since then. P.S.: I still can not see the files at the PC via network.
Sorry for this complicated question, but these are two questions that I need your support, if possible.
Thank you in advance,
Clayton

Answer 1

claytonos wrote:
besides the back-up, I put in the external HD other files to be use that were not in the MacBook.
Not a good idea. Time Machine works best if it has it's own, exclusive space (see #3 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.)
The problem is: when I connect the same external HD to be use as well in one PC, doesn’t matter the OS (XP, Vista, etc), nothing appears, not even the drive itself, is it possible to solve it?
Alessandro is correct; your drive is now formatted for a Mac, and Windoze can't use it.
You can, however, use part of your disk with Windoze. You need to make another partition on it, formatted +FAT 32.+ Both Windoze and Macs can read or write to it (although there is a 4gb limit on file sizes).
See the instructions in #6 of the FAQ Tip; it shows how to add a TM partition to a disk that already has data on it, but you can use the same procedure to add a +FAT 32+ partition to your TM disk.
2) After a while, I decided to “upgrade” my back-up with the same external HD doing it wireless via Airport Extreme, I had some problems at the beginning with the first back-up, velocity of connection (still have) and so on, but in the end it is working acceptable. The problem is: as it created another backup
Yes, that's correct, too. When Time Machine does backups to a Time Capsule, or a USB drive attached to an Airport Extreme, it puts them in a sparse bundle; when backups are done to an internal drive or an external attached directly, they're in a normal folder. So TM started over with a new, full backup. I'm not sure just why this is done differently, but there must be a good reason why Apple needed it. The two setups are not compatible; you're going to have to do it one way or the other.
You can speed up the initial backup by connecting to your AEBS via an Ethernet cable; that will go in a sparse bundle, then you can run backups wirelessly and they'll be added to the sparse bundle.
But you do need to know that Apple does not officially support doing backups that way: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038, although many of us (including me) are doing it anyway.
Since you're just getting started, your best bet is probably to completely erase and reformat your drive, per #5 of the FAQ Tip.
You'll need 2 or 3 partitions; one for Time Machine.
Then either one for the additional files mentioned earlier, on a +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ partition; and a second to use with Windoze, formatted +FAT 32;+ or a single +FAT 32+ partition for both.
Two more considerations: be sure to allocate enough space in your Time Machine partition (see #1 of the FAQ Tip), and be sure to have some other way to back-up those other files.