Hello!
Here's the short version of my question: is there a way to erase and reformat a couple partitions of an old Windows hard drive to use it as a Time Machine backup, while retaining the Windows info and files in the other partitions on the same drive?
Here's the situation:
My old computer:
Dell Dimension 4600, running Windows XP
went kaput two months ago
I removed the two internal hard drives:
Western Digital 80GB IDE (was my original "C" drive, not much on it now, so it's not important)
Western Digital 500GB SATA (non-original, this is the one I want to partially reformat for backup purposes)
Current computer:
Macbook Pro 3,1 running OSX 10.8.3
4GB memory
750GB hard drive (approx. 110GB of used space)
I bought a USB-to-IDE/SATA drive adapter, and now I hook up either of my old Western Digital drives to my Macbook, and see them fine (only one at a time, not both).
I had divided the 500GB into five partitions when I installed it:
Main hard drive (80GB, 68GB in use, this was the one running Windows XP)
G drive (100GB, 4GB in use, contains an aborted backup file, this partition can be erased)
Video_music (200GB, 105GB in use, contains audio & video files I want to keep)
Wife drive (20GB, 10GB in use, for wife's files, leave as is, formatted FAT32 somehow--all the other partitions are NTFS)
Drive H (100GB, empty)
I can read from these partitions fine on my Macbook. I don't really need to boot Windows XP--I just want access to the files.
Here's what I want to accomplish:
1. Most importantly, retain all of the information on "Main hard drive," "Video_music" and "Wife drive".
2. Create a Time Machine backup for my Macbook Pro on the 500GB drive.
3. Possibly back up the "Main hard drive" partition to the old WD 80GB drive.
None of the 500GB partitions is quite big enough by itself to hold the 100GB I have on the Macbook Pro. I'd like to erase "G drive" and "Drive H" and, if possible, lessen the amount of available space on "Video_music," and create a partition with the freed-up space.
In short, I want to keep the Windows info on the drive, while reformatting parts of the drive and repartitioning to accomodate a Time Machine backup of my Macbook Pro. Can this be done at all? Can it be done within OSX, with Disk Utility or something? Can I back up the "Main hard drive" to a spot on my Macbook Pro's 750GB, without too much fuss?
Let me know what you think or if I need to explain anything further. Thanks!
Here's the short version of my question: is there a way to erase and reformat a couple partitions of an old Windows hard drive to use it as a Time Machine backup, while retaining the Windows info and files in the other partitions on the same drive?
Here's the situation:
My old computer:
Dell Dimension 4600, running Windows XP
went kaput two months ago
I removed the two internal hard drives:
Western Digital 80GB IDE (was my original "C" drive, not much on it now, so it's not important)
Western Digital 500GB SATA (non-original, this is the one I want to partially reformat for backup purposes)
Current computer:
Macbook Pro 3,1 running OSX 10.8.3
4GB memory
750GB hard drive (approx. 110GB of used space)
I bought a USB-to-IDE/SATA drive adapter, and now I hook up either of my old Western Digital drives to my Macbook, and see them fine (only one at a time, not both).
I had divided the 500GB into five partitions when I installed it:
Main hard drive (80GB, 68GB in use, this was the one running Windows XP)
G drive (100GB, 4GB in use, contains an aborted backup file, this partition can be erased)
Video_music (200GB, 105GB in use, contains audio & video files I want to keep)
Wife drive (20GB, 10GB in use, for wife's files, leave as is, formatted FAT32 somehow--all the other partitions are NTFS)
Drive H (100GB, empty)
I can read from these partitions fine on my Macbook. I don't really need to boot Windows XP--I just want access to the files.
Here's what I want to accomplish:
1. Most importantly, retain all of the information on "Main hard drive," "Video_music" and "Wife drive".
2. Create a Time Machine backup for my Macbook Pro on the 500GB drive.
3. Possibly back up the "Main hard drive" partition to the old WD 80GB drive.
None of the 500GB partitions is quite big enough by itself to hold the 100GB I have on the Macbook Pro. I'd like to erase "G drive" and "Drive H" and, if possible, lessen the amount of available space on "Video_music," and create a partition with the freed-up space.
In short, I want to keep the Windows info on the drive, while reformatting parts of the drive and repartitioning to accomodate a Time Machine backup of my Macbook Pro. Can this be done at all? Can it be done within OSX, with Disk Utility or something? Can I back up the "Main hard drive" to a spot on my Macbook Pro's 750GB, without too much fuss?
Let me know what you think or if I need to explain anything further. Thanks!