# Partition external hard drive



## PWeston (Jun 14, 2008)

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
How do I format and partition an external hard drive for Time Machine and storage?

Thanks,


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Well, the 1st time you plug it in, if it's not a Mac drive, it will ask you if you want to format it, which will do the whole drive, and erase anything on it. Then it may also ask you if you want to use it for Time Machine. But if neither of that happens, you can open the Disk Utility app in the Utilities folder and format the drive that way. Then open the System Preferences, and click on Time Machine when the drive is connected, and set it up to use that drive.


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## beeh (Jun 17, 2008)

not smart to split a drive and use TM on one half of it. if drive goes - u loose both partitions... i tell all my clients to stay away from partitioning Tm or TC.
ps 
10.5.1 and on, you can partition your hard-drive while the OS is running... as in the HD your sys is running from...


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