Mac can i partition drive with data

You can allocate a set amount of space for your Time Machine backups and for your file storage so neither one hogs the available storage. After you partition a hard drive, your Mac sees each partition as a separate drive.

They have distinct names, varying amounts of storage, and can use different formats. You even need to eject each partition separately before you can safely unplug your drive. Unfortunately, creating a new partition often erases your external drive. That means you may lose any existing Time Machine backups. You can make a Time Machine backup after partitioning the drive, but your backup history will restart from that point forward. When you partition your hard drive , you get to choose how much space to allocate for your Time Machine backups.

We recommend that you allow two to four times the size of your Mac's internal drive. If you don't want years' worth of backups, you can reduce this size as you see fit.

However, you shouldn't go smaller than double the size of your Mac. If you can spare more space, definitely do so. After partitioning your drive, you need to set up Time Machine again. Click Select Disk and choose your new Time Machine partition to start creating a backup.

Remember that your Time Machine backups will start from scratch from this date forward. Also, don't forget that you need to create separate backups for anything in your file storage partition.

I cannot get the drive to mount no matter how many times I following this process. I am using Mac OS Mojave Hi JP, thanks for this — really great. Quick question. I did mine the first way. After working well for a year its now failing to back up and trying to figure out why. You can change the volume of each of the partitions such that one volume is reduced to almost nothing. Its a workaround…..

You will need to back up your data though as you can only do it through erasing and reformatting. To remove partitions: -back up your data -erase and reformat the drive as a single partition in the format you want -restore your backed up data to the drive. You can copy the files on your external HD elsewhere, then format it or delete the partition s. After which you can transfer your files back on it. Hi JP, Your advice on formatting the external hard drive is rather insightful.

I hope you can help me here: I would like to format my external hard drive so that I can edit in on my macbook pro. If you want to partition, please check: 1- Do you have View All Devices selected under the View icon top left side of the Disk Utility window ; 2- Is the device itself selected i. Seagate… instead of the partition on the device. Hope thus helps. Every time I try to erase to reformat, it says the process has failed. What should I do?

I have erased an USB drive as you have recommended, it was successful however after the action I cannot mount the drive I can see ii in disk utility. Can you advise me where is the pb?

I wanted to use FAT. But that was the reason why it stayed grey. Greetings to everyone with the partition button greyed out. Under External in the left pane of Disk Utility make sure you select the drive it should have the name of the drive, including the brand. The left display HDD. And you show you the partitions under the external HDD. Then click the HDD and erase. I can only select either one but partition icon is grey.

Thanks for all the advice above. I was caught out and had to start all over again. The word scheme does not appear in the drop down menu and therefore partition is permanently greyed out. I am about to get a new hard drive and appreciate all this information. Thanks for any advice!

I am using Mac Catalina I want to partition my drive. I need to partition the disk so I can use as a bootable installer. Thank you. Does it give you an option of which to back up if you partition the drive?

I have the same problem. Partition greyed out. Can anyone advise how to deal with this issue. Your email address will not be published.

JP on December 19, at am. Mona on March 14, at pm. Fortune on July 6, at am. The partition button is unavailable. Christopher Shirley on August 10, at am. Hi Mona. Andres on April 6, at am. I have a 1TB FireWire hard drive that is about a quarter full. Is there a way to safely partition it with my data still on it? Mount your hard drive and launch Disk Utility.

Any ideas about how to solve this error? Try the following steps to solve "cannot partition a hard drive on Mac" error: 1. Press Enter, and then type in reboot. Press Enter and you computer will restart. Now, try Boot Camp Assistant again. Digiarty Software, Inc. MacXDVD is a leader in delivering stable multimedia software applications for worldwide users since its establishment in Using Boot Camp built into Mac requires partitioning hard drive on Mac, which allows installing Windows on the separate partition without Mac superdrive.

If you have many types of backup, such as a huge collection of DVDs backup on Mac , Android iPad iPhone file backup, you can partition a hard drive on Mac to store these backups on different partitions and manage them more easily and efficiently. Partitioning a hard drive on macOS makes it easy to reinstall operating system if you don't want to backup Mac data.