HUGE Leopard/Time Machine Problem - iPhone 3G

reas0n · 10-29-2007, 11:34 PM

so i got leopard today in the mail and booted it up got it runnin a.o.k. and now i go to use my 500GB external HD as my back-up drive for Time Machine and its telling me in order to use it i gotta erase the whole drive...now uhhhh i dont want to do that because i have alot of stuff on it that i would like to keep...anyway around this maybe a partion or something??? please help!!! thanks!

chris · 10-29-2007, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reas0n

so i got leopard today in the mail and booted it up got it runnin a.o.k. and now i go to use my 500GB external HD as my back-up drive for Time Machine and its telling me in order to use it i gotta erase the whole drive...now uhhhh i dont want to do that because i have alot of stuff on it that i would like to keep...anyway around this maybe a partion or something??? please help!!! thanks!

I'd suggest moving the data to another drive and then partitioning your 500GB drive. When finished, move your data back to partition 1 and set up Time Machine on partition 2. Sizes will vary based upon your HD and your stuff.

-Chris

geordisjd · 10-30-2007, 02:10 AM

Just make sure you choose "Mac Os Extended (journaled)" when you initialize your drive. Partitioning is an option, but is not necessary if you have enough contiguous space on it to back up your main drive.

reas0n · 10-30-2007, 03:50 AM

ok so this is what im doing i have a PC with 200 spare gigs im transfering everything on the External to that then im gunna transfer it back once i get the External formated ( no partition) do you think i will be able to hook the external up to the pc once it is formatted to work with time machine???

geordisjd · 10-30-2007, 04:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reas0n

ok so this is what im doing i have a PC with 200 spare gigs im transfering everything on the External to that then im gunna transfer it back once i get the External formated ( no partition) do you think i will be able to hook the external up to the pc once it is formatted to work with time machine???

A PC? Are you one of those people who are installing Leopard illegally on a non- Mac machine. This is Blasphemy!
The God-of-All-Macs must be really pissed off by now!
i'm confused. Really. I thought it was your external drive that had stuff on it you wanted to preserve? It would help to use punctuation. But, yes, the point is to empty your external drive, erase it, format it and still have enough room to use it to back up your time machine after putting the stuff back on it. A simple Mac task. But maybe I misunderstood. The PC thing got me confused.

reas0n · 10-30-2007, 05:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geordisjd

A PC? Are you one of those people who are installing Leopard illegally on a non- Mac machine. This is Blasphemy!
The God-of-All-Macs must be really pissed off by now!
i'm confused. Really. I thought it was your external drive that had stuff on it you wanted to preserve? It would help to use punctuation. But, yes, the point is to empty your external drive, erase it, format it and still have enough room to use it to back up your time machine after putting the stuff back on it. A simple Mac task. But maybe I misunderstood. The PC thing got me confused.

you missunderstood...i have the external with about 190gigs of stuff then a pc with 200 gigs free space so i want to dump the external onto the pc then dump it back to the external once formatted but i dont think it would be able to since they are different formats you know

scandalex · 10-30-2007, 05:31 AM

LMAO @ The God-of-All-Macs must be really pissed off by now!

geordisjd · 10-30-2007, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reas0n

you missunderstood...i have the external with about 190gigs of stuff then a pc with 200 gigs free space so i want to dump the external onto the pc then dump it back to the external once formatted but i dont think it would be able to since they are different formats you know

I think I still misunderstand.
1. You have a computer with Leopard on it, and 200gigs of free space. What kind of computer is it? If it is a Mac that you call a PC, than it's OK, just a weird choice of letters.

2. You have an external drive with 190 gigs of stuff and it's not properly formatted

3. U transfer ur external drive stuff to your computer with 10 gigs to spare

4. You format your Ext HD with you computer (Mac extended journaled)

5. Now your computer sees a lovely virgin drive properly formatted and it's happy

6. U transfer the 190 gigs back on the ext drive.

7. U get rid of the same 190 gigs on your computer.

8. Now u all set to go to use your time machine. You have 310 gigs available on the external drive to back up the 200 gigs from your computer.

Of course, this is all assuming your computer is a Mac running Leopard, not just alien computer in Mac clothing.

reas0n · 10-30-2007, 12:05 PM

1. i have a macbook pro

2. i have a 500 gb Ext HD

3. i have a Alienware notebook with 200 spare gigs

4. i want to transfer what is on the Ext HD to the PC ^ then format the EHD to be able to use with time machine which is running on my MBP and then transfer everything that is on the PC back onto the Ext HD

geordisjd · 10-30-2007, 05:32 PM

I don't know that I know the answer to that one! Is the external drive Mac or PC formatted at this point? If it is PC formatted, then if you connect it to the PC, there shouldn't be any problem transferring all the files to it.
You can then connect it to the MBP and initialize it. You can then create 2 partitions with the Disk utility, one that's formatted for the Mac, the other one for the PC. When you reconnect to the PC, you should be able to transfer the PC stuff back on the PC-formatted part and have the other partition available for the Time Machine. I've never tried that one, but I don't see why it shouldn't be feasible.