Can I Still Use My Hard Drive For Other Things After I Do A Time Machine Backup?
I'm currently in the process of backing up my imac with time machine using a Western Digital My Passport 1TB hardrive. My total back up is just about 600GB. I've read that I will still be able to use my hard drive for backing up or transfering other files but I should partition my hard dirve. Now that time machine back up has started, will I still be able to partition my drive or is that something you must do before using time machine?
-Gabrielle
macjack has a very valid point, so you might want to consider a second drive for files.
To partition, you need to boot into the Recovery Volume (command - R) on restart. Select Disk Utility.
Step 1 - select the hard drive.
Step 2 - select the Partition tab.
Step 3 - select the current partition and then use the lower right corner to push up and resize the partition.
Step 4 - click the plus sign to add a partition. Then select the new partition.
Step 5 - Name the new partition and select the format. The one shown in the screen shot is generally recomended.
Step 6 - Hit apply.
This procedure can be reversed at a later date if you find your Time Machine backup needs more space.
Similar Messages
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Can I use the hard drive for other stuff once I've Time Machined it?
Firstly, apologies if these questions have been answered elsewhere. I have searched but feel I need a post in its own right.
I've bought a new 1TB Western Digital 'My Passport' hard drive. I've plugged it in and it is busy creating a time machine back up right now. It is going to use about 60GB once done.
Will I be able to use the remaining 940GB when it's finished backing up?
Will my HD behave just like a regular USB storage device after this?
Will it work with my windows PC as well?
I have an older, smaller HD drive with backups of all my pictures/docs/music on. Can I easily transfer those onto my new hard drive?
Many thanks in advance for any answers that may be forthcoming.dughall wrote:
Will I be able to use the remaining 940GB when it's finished backing up?
Yes. However, this is not recommended. Time Machine makes duplicates of your entire system. Each identical file is only on disk once, but there can be many, many file and directory pointers. If you ever want to blow away your Time Machine drive and start a fresh one, it will take forever and then some to delete all those files. It is far easier to just erase the partition. If you have other files on there, you have to remember to move them elsewhere before erasing the partition.
I suggest giving Time Machine a 500 GB partition and using 500 GB for yourself.
Will my HD behave just like a regular USB storage device after this?
Yep
Will it work with my windows PC as well?
Only if you format the other partition as FAT or NTFS. There may be software you can get to make Windows understand the Mac HFS+ format, but I wouldn't want Windows near my Time Machine drive. Be aware that if you format as FAT, you may have trouble writing some Mac files to the volume.
I have an older, smaller HD drive with backups of all my pictures/docs/music on. Can I easily transfer those onto my new hard drive?
Time Machine backups? In theory you probably could, but it wouldn't be worth the effort. Just copy those to your other partition. -
Hi, I have been using an external hard drive as a backup for my Mac using Time Machine. I was under the impression that once the backup drive became full, it would start to delete previous versions of the backup. However, instead of doing that, it has just stopped working and I now cannot access the hard drive via a Mac or a PC. On the PC, it does at least show up in that it will allow me to disconnect it safely but I cannot do anything else with it.
I am now looking to reformat it, and start again from scratch - but can't do this as it doesn't show up anywhere. Does anyone have any advice about how I can get this working again?
Thanks.Can you see the drive in Disk Utility? If so, try selecting it and using the Mount button in the top menu. You can also run repair disk and repair permissions.
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My new LaCie external hard drive is 'seen' by my iMac and I can go into the Finder and open files and folders. I am using the hard drive for Time Machine back up. However Time Machine says it can't find the drive.
The same thing happened recently between Final Cut Express and my other LaCie external hard drive used as the Scratch disk. It fixed itself.
I've run out of ideas. Help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.have you done some searches on FCPx and time machine? Is there a known issue with using a TM drive with FCPx? dunno but ...wait...I'll take 60 sec for you cause I'm just that kind of guy.... google...." fcpx time machine problem" Frist page link
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/fcpx-bug-best-practices-for-using-external-hard- drives-and-final-cut-pro-x/
You cannot have time machine backups on your hard drive if you intend to use it in FCPX.
booya! -
I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them? No, they were not part of previous Time Machine backups, and I have checked both the hard drive the documents were lost on and the new one that I now use for backups. Any suggestions would be helpful, as the lost files are old pictures that are gone forever. :[ Thanks!
1. Yes, if both drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
2. Reformat the drives if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, and remove the drive with the pictures from the list of items set to be excluded.
(110331) -
Can I use one hard drive for two computers? Newbie here.
Newbie here.
I currently use Time Machine for my iMac (Intel)
I've been using my Macbook Pro (Intel) a lot lately and would like to back it up from time to time as well.
Can I simply attach the external hard drive to my Macbook Pro and set up Time Machine?
Can use the external hard drive for both machines?
Will Time Machine recognized that my Macbook Pro is a separate computer and set up a separate folder on the external hard drive automatically?
ThanksHi,
you can use the drive for as many Macs as you like, just make sure it's big enough. Time Machine will create separate folders for your Macs and will "know" which one you're using.
Björn -
I am trying to confirm the time at which a particular backup occurred using an external hard drive that I have since misplaced. Although time machine lists the backup times for some backups, it does not list them for all, including the one in question. Can someone help?
Okay, I've sussed it. I saw a link to another discussion that hadn't turned up in any of my searches before I posted the question above.
My Tosh HDD was formatted to FAT 32 and therefore would not be backed up by Time Machine. I removed all data from it - nightmare as I hadn't enough space to put it on the macbook HDD, but, after trawling through numerous photos and deleting rubbish for hours, I finally made enough space and copied all data across. Then, after clearing the data from the Tosh HDD, I used disk utilitity to reformat it to Mackintosh OS Extended. Chose the option without kournalling because I'm not baking up onto this disk and so don't need it - according to some other discussions I found.
When it was done I check on time machine in system prefs and once I selected options, I was able to remove it from the excluded from backups list. Hey presto. Now I'm moving my photo library and my music library onto the Tosh HDD and my macbook should start to breath again. Hurray. -
Can i still use Fast Web View for PDF/A files?
Can i still use Fast Web View for PDF/A files?
In other words, just becasue I am using PDF/A, can I still select the page i need in a long document and see it before the entire file has loaded?macjack has a very valid point, so you might want to consider a second drive for files.
To partition, you need to boot into the Recovery Volume (command - R) on restart. Select Disk Utility.
Step 1 - select the hard drive.
Step 2 - select the Partition tab.
Step 3 - select the current partition and then use the lower right corner to push up and resize the partition.
Step 4 - click the plus sign to add a partition. Then select the new partition.
Step 5 - Name the new partition and select the format. The one shown in the screen shot is generally recomended.
Step 6 - Hit apply.
This procedure can be reversed at a later date if you find your Time Machine backup needs more space. -
How can my daughter use the hard drive in the Time Capsule ...
So, I am in Oklahoma and my daughter is in Tennessee...
She has a Time Capsule where the Wi-fi base station quit working, but the hard drive may be OK.
She bought an Airport Express to use as a wi-fi router.
The question, then, is:
How can my daughter use the hard drive in the Time Capsule to do Time Machine backups?
Thank you very much for your insights.
RobertoIt can be done but is very messy. That is assuming the TC is still functional which I kind of doubt.. the wifi is seldom the only thing that will die .. so whatever problems it has the wifi would be the least of it.
Anyway.. do a factory reset to get started.
The Factory Reset Gen1-4.
Unplug your TC. Hold in reset. and power the TC back on.. without releasing reset for about 10sec. When the status light flashes rapidly; release it.
Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.
TC will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations.
No files are deleted on the hard disk.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.
If the LED is not lit then the TC is dead, not just the wireless.
The setup for using the TC is explained in the bottom of this thread.
TC in a second local network.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4817218?tstart=30
The idea is to set the TC to provide router function.. and the computer plugged in by ethernet to as a second network.. but there are rules on how this is done which I have explained in that thread.
I notice that Mountain Lion deals better with order of network priority than Snow Leopard used to .. so it might not need to have manually set gateway and dns.. although I would still recommend it. It simply stops the second network causing issues.
It is much easier to simply purchase an external drive and plug that in.
It is cheaper, faster and more reliable than using the TC for TM anyway.
Plus a lot of the later machines no longer have ethernet ports.. and using dongles is far from neat.. although thunderbolt to ethernet is IMHO necessary accessory for anyone without ethernet. -
Can i use my time capsule to wirelessly backup my macbook and its external hard drive, which up until now was it's time machine and storage? How?
The external drive must be connected to the Mac using either USB or FireWire
You must remove the external hard drive from the list of items that are "excluded" from backups in Time Machine Preferences.
Here's how:
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
Open Time Machine
Click Options
Look for the name of the hard drive in the list of "excluded" items and click on it to highlight it
Click the -- (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the hard drive from the list of "excluded" items....so it will now be backed up
Strongly recommend that you do the first backup using Ethenret from your computer to the Time Capsule since the entire contents of the external drive will be copied on the first pass. Ethernet will be 3-5 faster than wireless.
Once you have the first backup done, you can use wireless for subsequent backups since they will nornally be much smaller....unless you add large files to the external drive. -
Where can I buy a larger hard drive for my late 2008, 15" macbook pro? From reviewing questions and answers on the support community it would appear that having Apple remove the old and install the new hard drive is recommended. But how/where?
Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You can install the new hard disk yourself if you want to. You just need a 2'5" SATA II hard drive, which is compatible with your MacBook Pro. You can buy one at OWC > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/ You can filter hard drives by computer, so press a "Click to view all...", choose your computer in the sidebar and it will give you the compatible hard drives.
There are different brands for the MacBook Pro. The most recommended are HGST and Seagate, which have good reputation. A 7200 rpm hard drive will give you extra performance -
I buy adobe creative suite for teachers and students about one year ago but now i'm not longer a student. Can I still use this programs legally for commercial purposes or do I have to buy some upgrades or something like this? Please help
The license did not have use restrictions Licenses and terms of use | Adobe
BUT... when your one year Education account ends, I do not think you will be able to renew at the Education rate -
Can i reconfigure my ss hard drive for more space
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I know it sounds daft but when i purchased this mac book air it said on the packaging hard drive can be "reconfigured" to double its capacity, just wondered how
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Using Multiple Hard Drives for iTunes Storage
I am running out of room on my current hard drive and want to use a new external hard drive to add space. My problem is I want to use both hard drives for storage (not the same music). Is this possible as I have only been able to direct iTunes to one hard drive? Thank you.
Dual G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5) 400GB Raid setWhen you change the location in iTunes preferences what you are doing is telling iTunes where ripped music should be put. It isn't changing where iTunes should look for music that is already in the library. So go ahead and change the location to where you want music to be stored from now on. iTunes won't lose the other music. (At one times my iTunes library was spread over 4 drives.)
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First time using external hard drive for backup of computer....
First time using external hard drive for backup of computer....it asks "Do do you want to erase disk?" In order to proceed, I have to say "yes" ... is that what I want to do? ...Seems like I'm skipping a step...
To use Disk Utilities, attach the drive, open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities and then highlight the LaCie drive in the left panel of the DU window. In the right panel, choose the Partition button top center of the pane. Then decide how many partitions you want on the drive, one is just fine.
Then choose the format, the default is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) which is prefered.
Then name the partition or drive.
Then choose the partition table, the default is GUID which is prefered.
Then Apply and you will get to confirm that you want to erase and format the drive.
Quit DU and you are ready to go.
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