time machine/pc data on external drive

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time machine/pc data on external drive

Recovered PC data from busted hard drive. It now lives on an external drive, WD Passport/MAC. I have reviewed the data, have dragged and dropped some of it, but planned on having much of it live on the external drive and use only when needed. Went to use Time Machine. IT WANTS TO ERASE ALL MY DATA before i start a first back up. For now I copied all 50G onto my iMAC for fear i may accidentally delete it of external. Unplugged external, and can see all my recovered data now on my iMAC hard drive.

If i erase the external as Time Machine wants to do, will it just create my back-up?

Will I have to format my external? I bought the WD Passport MAC asuming I wouldnt have to?

Did the service rep(i will call them) who recovered my data, format my drive for PC and now it wont work for time capsule? Cant find info at WD drives.

Being that i copied all the PC stuff, will I be able to even use it, or did I somehow have to convert it?

I tried the Migration.....it couldnt seem to find the WD external drive.......is that what converts files for me?

I know a lot to ask....but new MAC owner and feel really clueless.

😕

iMac, iOS 6.1.3, PC crashed, have PCdata on external

Posted on Mar 24, 2013 8:59 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 24, 2013 9:40 PM in response to kkhoran

Why not just get a new external drive.. they are not that expensive.. you don't need a Mac specific one.. any USB drive that matches your computer.. ie if it has usb3 for sure buy usb3 as it is much faster than earlier usb2.

Anyhow plug the drive into the Mac and open disk utility in the applications/utilities directory.. Highlight the drive and click on it.. in the main screen portion of disk utility down below it will show you some info about the drive.

TM needs the disk formatted Mac OS Extended (journaled)

And it should be GUID partitioned.. the PC people may well have reformatted it as they cannot easily use GUID partitioned drives.

If i erase the external as Time Machine wants to do, will it just create my back-up?

IMHO you do not want your PC stuff stored in the disk under TM.. windows cannot read it at all.

You should partition the drive.. Make most of it Mac OS Extended.. but have at least 100GB as fat32 so you can copy the windows stuff there and keep it in straight file format. You are still going to wipe the disk doing it.. which is why I think it is much better to go and buy another disk.. also you want a bigger disk than 500GB if your Mac has a 500GB or 1TB drive..

Will I have to format my external? I bought the WD Passport MAC asuming I wouldnt have to?

Only if the recovery people changed it.. which I suspect they did. Or even if the original format was fat32.. TM has to have HFS+. ie Mac OS Extended Journaled (please just say HFS+).

Did the service rep(i will call them) who recovered my data, format my drive for PC and now it wont work for time capsule? Cant find info at WD drives.

As above.. look it up in disk utility.

Being that i copied all the PC stuff, will I be able to even use it, or did I somehow have to convert it?

PC cannot by default read HFS+. there are add ons to read only.. but you cannot read it inside a TM backup.

I tried the Migration.....it couldnt seem to find the WD external drive.......is that what converts files for me?

You cannot migrate files to a Mac.. that is Mac recovery for TM only.

I know a lot to ask....but new MAC owner and feel really clueless.

We all have to start from somewhere..

I am not to sure what it has to do with Time Capsule but anyway.. happy to help.

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