Using my Seagate portable drive for other files besides laptop backup

[Sossity]

I will have this as my backup for my mac laptop, but I would also like to use it as a transfer drive, to burn onto blank DVD's of my DVD movies I ripped with mac the ripper I will be ripping & archiving some of my movie DVD's, & would like to have them on an external hard drive to be burned to blank discs, & the disc images of these movies would take up too much space on my mac's internal hard drive.

can I use it along with the clone of my mac hard drive? would the other files interfere with the clone?

& how would go about formatting the new drive to mac before I can clone it?

also, will I have to have it on every time & all the time when I am using my laptop? or just when I want to do a backup or write other files to it?

[admin]

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Originally Posted by Sossity

Can I use it along with the clone of my mac hard drive?

No.

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would the other files interfere with the clone?

Yes.

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& how would go about formatting the new drive to mac before I can clone it?

Applications > Utlities > Disk Utility

Pick the drive you want to format, and then format it as a HFS+ (Extended/Journaled) disk on the Erase tab for that disk.
However, when you clone a disk, the TARGET disk must be wiped/erased/formatted anyway.
Be very sure to NOT pick the wrong disk (like the main drive of the computer).

format-mac-drive.jpg

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also, will I have to have it on every time & all the time when I am using my laptop?

No.

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or just when I want to do a backup or write other files to it?

Yes.