change external hard drive for back up

[farabee]

I've purchased a new external hard drive and want to "re-do" my backups. One old drive is partitioned. I no longer want that partition.

Do I go in and delete the files on the old externals and then begin backing up with SuperDuper or should I go through some other process?

[dnanian]

Are you trying to combine the drives? Not quite sure what you're looking for here, farabee...

[farabee]

I have a firewire drive which is NOT currently what I use to back up the entire computer. Having READ the User's Manual, I want to make it the "official" backup.

I have a USB external which is partitioned and want to use it just to back up some particular files. I want to un-partition it (?).

Hope that's more clear. I don't think this was addressed in the Users Guide. ;-)

[dnanian]

OK, well... it's not that you want to "un-partition" it. You want to just have one partition, yes? You do that with Disk Utility.

And, you'll want to partition the new drive properly, also with Disk Utility, as a single partition, for your Mac type -- don't forget to click the Options button and choose appropriately!

[farabee]

So if I understand you correctly, just use Disk Utility to erase both the firewire and USB externals, being sure to note on the USB that I don't want a partition.

Thanks.

[dnanian]

No, use Disk Utility to partition and erase the drives. Don't just erase.