Comments on: Dual partition a USB drive for Time Machine and Windows

By: Wesly

Wesly — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:31:38 +0000

The Same. Thank for the solution

By: Reg

Reg — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:57:51 +0000

I have the MiniMax 2TB drive with 1.7 TB partition for MAC OS (journaled) and 300 GB for Windows with exFAT format (IMac OS X don’t give me other choices than exFAT).
I would prefer FAT32 or anything that Windows XP or Vista can see. Windows XP/Parallels doesn’t recognize the 300GB drive and neither my other PC with Vista. I downloaded Iomega FAT32 Formatter but it doesn’t see the drive therefore no luck with this.

Can you please help?

By: SWC

SWC — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:00:15 +0000

Great info, to the point and simple.

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By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:21:41 +0000

Colin,

Great– that sounds very straight forward (and only four clicks away from backing up).

Thanks!

Paul

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:41:57 +0000

Paul,

Yes, that’s very easy, in fact, I’m rocking that setup right now. In Disk Utility, set up a three partition scheme (two Mac OS Extended partitions, one whatever you want for storage).

Click on the Time Machine icon in the status bar (or go through System Preferences), click “Open Time Machine Preferences” and select one of the partitions when your USB drive is plugged into the MBP and the other one when you are connected to the MBA. If you own an Airport Extreme, you can even plug the drive into the back of the router, access the partitions in Finder, and go into Time Machine Preferences and backup that way.

HOWEVER, you don’t even need to do this. You can back up two Macs on the same drive (or even same partition) because the software will create a different sparebundle (backup file) for each system. The advantage to partitioning is that one backup file (say you use your MBA way more than your MBP) won’t grow too large and crowd the drive.

Cheers,

-Colin

By: Paul Cunningham

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:34:12 +0000

Dear Colin,

Great instructions–Thanks! Say, would it be possible to created three partitions (one for storage, and two for Time Machine backups) and use the same HD and Time Machine to backup up two Macs? I would like to use one HD to back up my MBP and MBA using Time Machine.

Paul

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:27:12 +0000

Thanks for the instructions.

@shak Make sure you erase you old partition, and then create 2 partitions. If you did that I don’t know how to help. GL

By: shak

shak — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:37:27 +0000

hello there, i tried doing exactly what you did , but when i went to the format select drop down menu there was no ‘fat’, why is this?

By: Colin

Colin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:55:51 +0000

Cecil,

You should be able to see the drive on the iMac by using Finder and then Go -> Network -> “Insert your Airport Name.” Type password and it should allow you the option to click and mount the volume.

In Windows, you merely have to make sure network volumes are enabled and it will show up in Explorer (below all your other Windows, FAT drives).