[Battlesoaked]

I have both PCs and one of the new MacBooks. I also have a Seagate 200GB USB external hard drive, and I want to use it to image the MacBook before I partition for a Windows installation using Boot Camp. After I install XP on the Mac, I want to image again so that, on a restore, I'll be re-installing the dual-boot configuration. I also want to do individual file backups from both the Mac and the PCs to that EXHD. Right now, that EXHD has both file backups and images of my PCs on it. And it's formatted NTFS.

The MacBook says it wants to reformat that EXHD to SATA before it can use it with Time Machine.

1) Do I have to reformat to SATA (from NTFS) in order to use it to image the Mac and use Time Machine?
2) If I do reformat, will I be able to use the drive to re-image my PC's?
3) Can I partition the EXHD and have two file formats, one for each partition?
3) Do I have to buy another drive? (I.e., use one drive for the Mac and another for the
PCs?)

The MacBook can read all the Windows documents I have backed-up on the drive.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Scott