How to USE an external hard drive...?

A

Al3xa2

Registered
This seems like it is a simple question but its so simple that i cant find an answer on this forum. I almost know nothing about Macs and the vocab (partition? no idea it is and why i would want it)

I bought a new MyBook external HD 500Gb. Basically all i have done is plugged it in, my MacBook recognized it, installed it and is now using it with TimeMachine to back things up. thats great and all, but thats not why i bought it...

How do i transfer files from my Mac to the HD? Time machine has basically taken it over and renamed the whole entire HD as 'Time machine backups'. Do i start a new folder within it that time machine wont mess with? I need to make more memory on my computer by transferring files to the HD. How do i get my HD back so i can use it the way I want too?
 
Well you have to act like a geek for a couple of minutes. Steps to do:

1. Navigate to the Time Machine disk and backup (if you have enough internal hard room) and copy the sparsebundle to your hard disk.

2. Quit Time machine.

3. Launch /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and reformat the external with TWO partitions paying attention to the size for each partition making one partition for Time Machine (using the same time machine name you had before) (larger the the sparse image) and one to use just as an external disk.

4. Put the backed up sparsebundle in the partition for your Time Machine partition (then delete it on your internal).

5. Turn Time Machine back on and point it to the Time Machine partition (with the sparse image) and use the other partition the way you want (keeping an eye on space in the hard drive).

Lastly you could do one of two other things. One is to use the hard drive just like a hard drive (just saving space for the Time Machine backups) or the other is to buy another external and use the that separating each hard rive for different functions.
 
Thanks so much! But now i want to be able to save my itunes, iphoto extras to the hard drive. Is it possible to save photos to my computers hd and the external hd with them both working off of the same application?

I tested it out and tried to save a song or two on the external hd and deleted them off of my itunes. when i played the song it just imported it into the itunes application back to where it originally was.

Is there a setting i need to change? Do i need to download a separate copy of these applications specifically for my hard drive?

thanks again for any advice!
 
To change the location of your iTunes and iPhoto libraries you need to launch both programs and go to each program's preferences and there you can find the tab to point the program to look for it's library wherever you want. to easy.

As a new Mac owner I urge you to get the book Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual. It is a very easy read and will make you almost a Mac expert.
 
i-Tunes Advanced Preference has a check-box called "Copy files to i-Tunes music folder when adding to library" that is checked by default at installation. Un-checking this check-box will let you keep you music on a USB drive and only set-up pointers in i-Tunes. Must make sure you don't rename folders or move the music files around on your USB drive.
 
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