Partitioning external HD with Disk Utility

Heyup everyone,

quick question regarding partioning an external hard drive using Disk Utility...

I have a 320GB Western Digital passport USB external HD, with 6-7 Time Machine backups stored on it. Some of them from my previous Leopard installation and some since I have upgraded to Snow Leopard. I have heard that Time Machine can be quite problematic with restoring files / backups and have been recommended 'Carbon Copy Cloner' instead.

I would like to create a complete backup of my system using CCC to my external hard drive, but do not want to erase the Time Machine backups that are already stored on it. I'm guessing the answer to this dilemma is to create a separate partition on the external HD in order to store the CCC backup, without affecting the Time Machine backups, right?

The only thing that worries me is that Disk Utility states that the hard drive will be erased when I create a new partition.

My question is:-

Will creating a new partition on my external hard drive (using Disk Utility), erase the Time Machine backups I have already stored in it? Any advice for doing this procedure.

Many thanks to the community in advance, for any help you can give me.

Cheers,
Lugz

The problem with using Disk Utility to partition a drive which already has data is that if you incorrectly create or move the partition(s), data will be destroyed. A better tool for partitioning a drive which already has a partition in place with data is "iPartition". ($44.95)

I do not advise keeping Time Machine backups and a CCC clone backup on the same drive as there is no guaranty that CCC won't overwrite the TM backups. Of course having them separated by partition is OK.

I personally (just my preference) use two external hard drives for my backup strategy. One for TM, the other for CCC. Having both is a good idea because TM can be used to restore after an upgrade install i.e.: Leopard to Snow Leopard or from a clean install. Whereas CCC will be able to restore the entire system since the CCC backup drive is bootable. TM backups are not bootable.

Regards.

I agree with chscag I keep both tm and ccc and keep them both on seperate drives. To me it just makes no since to keep to different back ups where they can both be lost by the same problem.

Ok, thanks for the advice guys.

I guess it would have been nice to avoid having to spend more money on an additional external hard drive, but I guess it makes more sense to do it that way.

As an additional idea, I do have a second external hard drive (another Western Digital) which has back up files from my Windows PC. Do you think it would be better to create a partition on that one and have the CCC back up on there? That way, there wouldn't be any danger in the CCC backup wiping the Time Machine backups, as they would be on a different external hard drive.

Does that sound any better?

Thanks,
Lugz