I have prepared my external hard drive to be used for Time Machine backup by erasing and creating a new working recovery partition on it. I am ready to start the first backup, which I want to be encrypted. The message says this will erase the disk. Does this include erasing my recovery partition? If so, how can I both encrypt my backup drive and retain it as a recovery disk?
Mac – Does encrypting Time Machine erase the recovery partition
encryptionrecovery-hdtime-machine
Related Solutions
No, the backups will not be encrypted automatically, but it's very easy to enable for directly attached disks. Just check "Encrypt Backup Disk" in the Time Machine disk selection settings.
If you're backing up to another Mac, you can use Disk Utility on that Mac to erase non-boot drives and put an encrypted partition on them:
Make sure that your partition scheme is GUID, not Master Boot Record (MBR) or Apple Partition Map.
To enable encryption, the partition map must be changed to GUID. Note that this will make your drive invisible to older PCs and will wipe all of the data on the drive.
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Best Answer
If you make your Recovery partition as Hidden partition, then the Time Machine wont touch it since it does not see it as available disk space.