Backing up data to external drive windows drive.

You can't start a Mac up from any drive that has an NTFS format, so cloning to your NTFS drive would be pointless. If you can't reformat that drive, you can't repartition it. Get another one to use for your Mac backup, and use the NTFS drive for extra data storage or selective manual backups of specific data.

To do this you will need to store your old files somewhere else temporarily, eg on a friend's Windows drive. Then reformat the drive according to Apple's rules for a startup drive but create at the same time 2 partitions, more if you want. The Windows file partition should be FAT32 for windows & Mac capability. Copy back all your old files to this partition. This can't be used to startup in Windows yet. Use the Apple partition for a cloned copy of your Mac HD if you want. This will be able to be used as an Apple OS startup if you want.

Neville

If you want to be able to use the external drive to start your computer, ie the Mac partition you create, you must use the GUID partition scheme and the standard Apple drive format. A partition you want just as backup storage for your Mac need not be bootable. The second partition can be formatted to be compatible with windows files, FAT32 - so that the files can be read/written by either the Mac or a Windows computer.

A partition ("drive") that you want to use now & then as an alternative startup, eg use a clone for startup, must be formatted to be bootable. A Time Machine backup is not bootable whereas a Carbon Copy clone can be as also can a SuperDuper. TM retains incremental backups for as long as there is space whereas CCC basically just maintains a current copy of your drive, not any older versions of files.

I have a bootable backup (SuperDuper), a TM backup (not bootable) and a Windows backup (not bootable) on my external drive, ie 3 partitions. The 1st & 2nd partitions are Mac OS Extended (Journaled), the 3rd is MS-DOS (FAT). This was all done with Disk Utility. Note that if you subsequently want to change the size of partitions you can lose the data on the FAT 32 partition though there should be no problem if it is just moving the slider between the 2 Mac partitions. So choose the sizes wisely!

Once the drive is formatted you can copy your Windows data back to the FAT32 partition and direct CCC &/or TM to the other partition(s). The drive is attachable to either a Mac or Windows computer.

Neville

When partitioning the external you will select the external by its maker ID. On mine it's 1TB WD. My corresponding computer drive is 250.06 GB ...(serial number I think). This is the leftmost name for the external.

Click once on this. In the RH window of DU select 'Partition' at top. For Volume scheme select 2 partitions. Under the boxes showing the partitions click Options and choose GUID partition scheme. Then click on the 1st partition and give it a name. This is the drive name that will show on the desktop. Select Format and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Repeat for the 2nd except choose MS-DOS (FAT) for the format. Then click the Partition button at the bottom.

When this has finished click once on each partition to verify that your choices have been applied and quit DU.

I think if you use the DU method for backup described in the article you will just have a disk image, .dmg, on your external which can't itself be used as a startup directly whereas if you use CCC directed to this partition it will look just the same as your internal drive with the same login details, passwords, screensaver, Mail details, etc., and you ought to be able to start the computer from this. With DU's disk image you would need to 'install' it on a drive first. I'm not too sure about this as I didn't read the reference to restoring from the article.

Neville