Time Machine setup question

[master7045]

I have a 2011 Macbook Air and have never used Time Machine before. I do not have any other Mac compatible hardware in the house, just 2 Windows 7 boxes. I have set up a partition on the windows HDD to use exclusively for the TM backups. I know it has to be in HFS+, which I found a utility that will do that. However, when I go into TM, for the life of me, I cannot find the partition over the network. Can anyone help walk me through this?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

File sharing has to be configured right - Windows won't be able to do it.

Just use an external HDD.

 

[master7045]

File sharing has to be configured right - Windows won't be able to do it.

Just use an external HDD.

Good advise! I did figure out, after many more hours spent reading that TM needs AFS, which windows doesn't support.
Ended up buying a 1TB external HD and hooked it up to my router an Asus AC68U (the T-Mobile version) and am doing a backup now.

New Question for the masses: I never re-formatted the external drive to HFS+, is that necessary for this to work or does the router do that for me? The TM setup found the disk right away and is doing a backup now, so I don't think it matters, but wanted to ask.

 

[ViRGE]

New Question for the masses: I never re-formatted the external drive to HFS+, is that necessary for this to work or does the router do that for me? The TM setup found the disk right away and is doing a backup now, so I don't think it matters, but wanted to ask.

If it's working then you should be okay.🙂 Everything is stored in sparse bundles anyhow.

 

[master7045]

I did end up having to reformat it. The drive came with a small HFS+ partition for the Western Digital supplied apps and the backup failed when that got full. After the reformat, worked like a charm!