OS X :: Partitioning An External Drive Without Erasing
Nov 3, 2007
In the effort to use Time Machine, I want to partition my external drive. I have 500 gig external, and would like to have one partition of 480 and one around 20. This way, Time Machine will only back up onto the smaller partition, not endlessly backing up until all 500 gigs are used. The reason I need to partition without erasing is my 170 gig iTunes library. Its too large to transfer to my internal HD, and I have no other drive to store it on.
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Mar 24, 2012
I have a WD external drive that was set up as my time machine backup disc with Leopard. I want to erase the disc, but when I try to erase it using disc utility, it tells me "Disk Erase failed with the error: Unable to write to the last block of the device".
Info:
iMac, Related to an external drive
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Jun 11, 2012
Since I activated FileVault 2 on my Mac boot drive without initializing it, I'd assume that the same thing could be done for any other drive. I've got some external drives with hundreds of GB of data which I'd like to encrypt. Disk Utility lets do it by erasing the drive and encrypting the data written afterwards.
Is there any hidden feature that allows one to convert the drive without erasing it first, like the FileVault utility did for the boot drive (even when working on it!)?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Apr 1, 2012
how to properly format and partition an ext drive using Disk Utility. I will be making a clone using CCC.
Info:
iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Jan 19, 2008
I have an external hard drive that I was previously using on PC, having attempted to use it on a Mac, it will not write to it. I've found that I have to format to FAT32, which I think i can just about manage (yes, im a girl) but my concern is, if i format through the MAC, will i then lose what's on the hard disk as the tab says 'erase'? I have a lot of images on the hard disk so am a little petrified! Any advice for this really basic question would be appreciated!
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Nov 22, 2010
I've got a 500 GB HD in my Intel iMac. I've got a a 500 GB external HD that Time Machine keeps maxed out. I want to partition the external HD to make room for my iTunes music file. I know that partitioning will erase everything. Questions: 1.
When I start up Time Machine after partitioning, will it do a full back up? 2. How do I move my iTunes music file to the external HD? 3. After I move it, will it still behave the same? Any other tips about what I'm wanting to accomplish will be appreciated.
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Aug 20, 2010
Awhile back I bought a 500 GB Seagate FreeAgent Go external hard drive to backup my 218 GB PC. I used the automatic backup software that came with it and it works fine. After all this I purchased a MacBook Pro and now, instead of buying another drive and also considering there's plenty of space on the one I already have, I was wondering if I could possibly partition half the drive to be used as a backup with Time Machine without touching the other half. I plugged in the drive to my Mac and opened Disk Utility. It says it is a NTFS file system (I suppose that's normal).
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Apr 6, 2010
My hard drive currently has 2 partitions, one for time machine and the other for everything else. I would like to repartition so that I can have 3 partitions but without erasing everything. Is this possible?
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Oct 22, 2010
I have an External 1 TB HDD where 250 GB of it is dedicated to Time Machine back-ups. I only have about 25 GB of space left but Time Machine won't update .. says there's not enough space. I thought that TM auto-deletes the oldest entry? Well it's not working. What should I do? Do I need to do into Disk Utility and just highlight my TM Partition and erase it then start over? There's nothing on it that I need.
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Nov 9, 2010
I'd like to partition my external HD into two parts: one for Time Machine and one for storing photos and other files so I can free up some space on my internal HD.
I've been using it out of the box for Time Machine for about a month now. I'm just wondering if I can partition it as it is with the backups on it already or do I have to wipe it clean, partition it, then start over with Time Machine? I would just like a 200 GB partition for Time Machine and the rest for storing data.
Also, Disk Utility is a little confusing. It has my external HD in there and then there is a "sub drive" (not sure the technical name.. sorry) under that? That's just drive that Time Machine made more or less? And every time I partition it, there will be a "sub drive" for each partition?
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Jan 9, 2010
I have a 250 GB external I've been using for Time Machine since late 2007. I happened to check it today and it was nearly full~so I'm in that process of deleting some of the older data (that process is taking forever).
I would like to partition this external and use some space for iPhoto since my main HD is getting full. Is this a fool's mission? I can understand if I started from scratch but with a nearly full one is it possible?
I do have backup off site (Carbonite)~~maybe it would be easier to erase the external and start fresh?
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Mar 11, 2012
Still new to iMAC (1TB). I have an external HDD 1.5TB and initiated TimeMachine (seems easy and fit for purpose) to keep a backup of everything on the iMAC. The iMAC did not come with an installation disc - apparently I would need to download the OS again should it fail or corrupt - unfortunately I have a VERY slow net connection - is there any way of backing it up to the external HDD to avoid having to download?
I believe I can purchase a copy of Lion in a flash drive - but I have already paid for Lion when I bought the machine? Would cloning sort this issue? If so - should I put the clone (Using something like CCC) in a separate partition? Have come across Recovery Agent - does it need to go in a separate partition? Finally - for now (!!) if I have to create any new partitions on the external HDD will it erase existing files, meaning I have to restart Time Machine?
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Nov 10, 2010
I purchased a Seagate 500GB external drive for my father to use for Time Machine backups. I can't find anything conclusive on whether I need to monkey around with the partitions in disk utility, or just send him home with it and let him say "yes" when he plugs it in and OS X asks if he wants to use it with Time Machine.
Apple's knowledge base has an article that makes a passing statement that "GUID Partition Table (GPT) or Apple Partition Map (APM)" is recommended- but it pretty much stops there. Should I do something to this drive before giving it to him to take home, or shouldn't I? I mean, either it is compatible as-is, or it isn't, right?
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Jun 16, 2012
I realized Mac OS X 10.7.4 will only read NTFS partitions (can't write to it). I could install a third party driver or use FAT32. I decided to split the external Seagate HDD into two partitions (NTFS and Mac OS Extended FS).
I went to Mac OS X's Disk Utility, but there was no way to partition the current single 500 GB NTFS partition with my existing data. It seems like I have to erase it with my data, and then partition into two. Is that how it supposed to work? This was on a new Mac Mini with all updates.
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Mar 22, 2012
I have royally screwed up! I want to erase the hard drive on my Power Mac G4 to prepare it to go to my son. I thought I was doing it right, but had forgotten to put the energy saver on "never turn off" so the screen dims when I try to continue with the erasing. Tried to start over with an install disk in the tray. Now can't access the original disk.
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Apr 10, 2006
Im really close, well just about done on selling my powerbook and I want to erase my HD so I can give it to the buyer by "factory settings", especially by erasing all my keychain passwords.
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Jun 20, 2009
I was doing a 7-Pass Erase of a hard drive that I had switched out of my MBP. During the process, the USB cable connecting my hard drive to my MBP got disconnected. Now, whenever I connect this external drive to my MBP, it doesn't show up in the desktop or under disk utiltiy. How can I can continue the process of erasing and formatting the drive? What do I have to do in order for OS X to recognize it?
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Mar 31, 2012
I have a 2007 white MacBook that I am going to be selling. I want to erase the hard drive. I have gone into utilities but it won't let me erase the h ard drive completely.
Info:
iPad, iOS 5.0.1
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Mar 31, 2009
I've been backing up my Powerbook G4 for a few months using Time Machine to an external firewire drive with two partitions; one for the backups, and a much larger one for all my music, video, pictures, etc. I got a new mac mini over the weekend and I want to format the Time Machine partition without erasing the one with all my other files so I can start backing up the Mini.
Is this possible using Disk Utility? If so, how?
Both computers are running Leopard.
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Apr 29, 2012
I shut off my iMac the other day and now when it boots I get a start up bar that looks like on my iPhone when uploading new os. And then it gets half way and starts over. It seems that my hard drive has an issue. I tried booting from snow leopard DVD. But I can't remember how to install a new system folder without erasing the drive. I tried making a bootable DVD of tech tool pro on a friends windows machine but it doesn't seem to work.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 4GB ram. 3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo
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Aug 21, 2014
I recently had to erase my hard drive because it failed and my computer wouldn't start up. When I try to reinstall Mavericks it just goes back to disk utility and I still can't start up my computer.
Info:
iMac
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May 14, 2010
I have an old iBook that I just want to completely wipe clean and install windows XP on (I know...blaspheme). Before people start questioning why I would do such a thing...it's only because I need the laptop for DJing in which I have an external sound card that only works with Windows. The main problem is that the CD drive doesn't work so I am uncertain how to go about erasing my hard drive and installing XP via USB.
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Jul 12, 2009
so I got OS X Leopard. I had a copy of Windows Vista, and decided to try out the Boot Camp Assistant. Didn't have a problem partitioning the drives and installing Windows. However, I now find it entirely pointless to have Windows on my Mac being that I have a PC now. I tried doing it myself at first, and ended up erasing the Windows partition, and now I'm having troubles combining the drives into one. I saw something about running an uninstaller through the Boot Camp Assistant, but I think erasing the Windows partition ruined that for me. Whenever I try to use the BCA while the drive is mounted I get this error message: The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows. When I unmount the Windows partition, I get THIS error message: Boot Camp Assistant cannot be used. This startup disk is not supported.
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Aug 17, 2009
I tried to use Bootcamp to install Windows XP Professional. When trying to partition through bootcamp I got this error:
"The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. Backup the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Volume. Restore your info to the disk and try using bootcamp assistant again."
I tried to create a journaled partition after using the disk utility to fix any problems which it found none. The problem was that the partitioning never stopped it went on for hours till I finally canceled it. I also have a problem with VMware Fusion which you can find here: [URL]
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Dec 11, 2009
I recently put a 320gb drive into my macbook and partitioned it into 3 drives one for the OS, one for apps and one for data, eg photos, music etc. Is this necessary? It's what i do on windows based pc's but not sure whether i need to do this on the MAc in quite thae same way. Does anybody have any recomendations for partitionig this drive, i don't intend runnig bootcamp or similar, just snow leopard.
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Feb 18, 2010
I'm on a 15" macbook; 128 SSD with a single MAC OS Extended (Journaled) partition of size 120.99GB with 44.52GB of free space.I would like to install Windows 7 on my computer, and so I went to make a small partition for it. Using Bootcamp in an attempt to create a 30GB partition, I got an error message saying that some files could not be moved, and so the partition failed. I have no idea what those unmovable things might be.Using Disk Utility, trying to partition the drive results in a failure. In response to some threads I was able to find, I tried partitioning the new drive as free space, as well as trying for 30GB, 25GB, and 20GB... all met with failure.I have a time capsule, but my attempt to back up my computer seems to stall at the point of checking for changes (no change after 30 minutes, get pinwheel, tried repeatedly)How can I go about making a little partition for a Windows install? I've never felt so failed by OS X
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Jun 14, 2012
After backing up my data and then swiping my hard drive using Disk Utility, my OS seems to have been uninstalled as well. Is there a way to recover the deleted information and go back to the last working configuration? I'm on a MBP IC2D 2.16 w/ Lion.
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Jun 24, 2014
After deleting about 500 emails and going to erase deleted messages the memory available on my hard drive did not change. Should it? Do emails not take up any memory?
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Apr 27, 2009
Does anyone know if I can partition a hard drive to put Tiger on the new MBP along with leopard. I want to maintain funcitonality of my old Minolta Film Scanner that only works with Tiger.
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Jun 14, 2009
So I've got a unibody MBP and connected to this I have a 320gb external drive I use to back up, but I only back up music, movies and documents so it's got 50 free gigabytes. I was hoping to partition off say 30gigs, install tinyxp and play games off this partition. But when I try and partition off 30, 25 or even 20 gigs Disk Utility tells me there's no free space on the hard drive.
So my questions are, how can I solve this issues, and would this idea work for playing games through windows anyway? I initially tried to get a bootcamp partition on my main Macintosh HD, but apparently there are files that cannot be moved in the way, and the only way to solve said issue is a complete reinstall of leopard, which I can't be bothered with seeing as snow leopards only a couple of months away.
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