Can I use my Time Machine USB drive as extra storage

Hi everyone!

I'm a new switcher from the Windows world, and extremely excited about my first Mac! Although the switch has been a little rough (lost all of my home videos when deleting a partition...), I have one question that I've been trying to find an answer to.

I am currently using an external 200GB USB hard drive as my Time Machine disk and would like to use the free space on the external disk as I please. If I copy something to the root of the external drive, and boot up Time Machine, it just sits and prepares the backup.

Can I not use the extra space?
Thanks!
Andre

I think the best way to make use of that extra space would be to partition the drive you are using as a time machine.

eliehass said:

I think the best way to make use of that extra space would be to partition the drive you are using as a time machine.

Click to expand...

I getcha. The last time I messed with some partitions in OSX, I deleted a partition that was going to be used for an XP Boot Camp, and ended up deleting all of my home movies.

Is it possible to partition this external drive even though there is a month or so of backups already sitting on it?