External Hard Drive/Time Machine Questions

The hard drive on my four-year-old-plus MacBook Pro is apparently failing, and I can't afford a new MacBook Pro yet. So I bought an external hard drive, hoping to clone my hard drive and run my computer off the external hard drive if the main drive crashes.
At the moment I can't afford an Apple external hard drive, so I bought a non-Apple model. So I was surprised when it asked if I wanted to use Time Machine to back up my data while I was setting it up. I chose yes, though I'm not even sure if I've set it up correctly.
OK, let me start from square one...
My external hard drive has 1 TB of storage space, and I initially formatted it in one big block - no partitions. If I want to boot off a cloned hard drive, will I have to partition it, so I'm booting off a particular partition?
If I do have to partition it, I understand I can use Apple's Disc Utilities to do the job. Can anyone tell me if there are any special steps or conventions I need to follow? I'd probably create a partition of about 200 GB for my cloned hard drive. (I'm currently using about 120GB on my internal hard drive.)
In fact, I might make two separate 200-GB partitions, cloning my hard drive to one partition, then cloning it to the second partition a few weeks later, just for security.
My first Time Machine backup is scheduled to begin in just half an hour or so. Will it merely copy all my files to the external hard drive, or will it create an operable clone? Approximately how long do you think this initial backup will take, using firewire?
Also, once I get my hard drive cloned, I'm thinking of booting up with the clone and upgrading to Snow Leopard. If everything works fine, then I'll upgrade my main (internal) hard drive to Snow Leopard as well.
Sorry for all the questions. I think I understand the basics; there are just a surprising number of details to figure out.
When I can afford it, I hope to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro 13" or 15" and an iPad, which I'd like to take to work with me.
Thanks for any tips.

David Blomstrom wrote:
If I want to boot off a cloned hard drive, will I have to partition it, so I'm booting off a particular partition?
yes.
you would need to partition it and use one partition for cloning and the other for TM backups.
i don't recommend such a setup, however. it's like putting all eggs in one basket - if (not when) the external fails, you'd have lost both backups @ the same time !
If I do have to partition it, I understand I can use Apple's Disc Utilities to do the job. Can anyone tell me if there are any special steps or conventions I need to follow?
yes.
you can use the instructions in [this|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] user tip.
I'd probably create a partition of about 200 GB for my cloned hard drive. (I'm currently using about 120GB on my internal hard drive.)
the partition for the clone needs to be just a big as your startup disk (e.g. 120 GB). the partition for TM backups, otoh, would ideally be 2-3 times the size of your startup disk.
more information [here_|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/1.html].
Will it merely copy all my files to the external hard drive
it will back up everything on your startup disk unless you specifically exclude files from backups.
or will it create an operable clone?
no.
use software such as _*Carbon Copy Cloner*_ to clone your system.
Approximately how long do you think this initial backup will take, using firewire?
the initial backup could take overnight - depending on how much data is to be backed up.
Also, once I get my hard drive cloned, I'm thinking of booting up with the clone and upgrading to Snow Leopard. If everything works fine, then I'll upgrade my main (internal) hard drive to Snow Leopard as well.
yes, that will work just fine. in fact, some users recommend this technique even if the internal drive is not about to fail - better muck up a clone than the regular startup disk.
JGG

Similar Messages

Restore iPhotoLibrary specifically from EXTERNAL Hard drive Time Machine back up?

My laptop Photo Library is corrupted somehow. I tried to restore from a prior in Time Machine on laptop and made the mistake of not saying to keep BOTH copies, but after trying for 3 hours of telling me it was doing it through various windows, a little one popped open saying something about permissions and it opened an old iPhotoLibrary from 2 years ago! ... I do have that one now and am copying it off my laptop as fast as I can to FLICKR
cuz APPLE has become a PHOTO sinkhole... (We are talking 20,000 pics folks with scanned in family pics from 100 yrs ago!)
I think I have a good copy on my External Hard Drive Time Machine back up from about 3 weeks ago. How do I use that to Restore from
or should I just wait for this PHOTOS thing to come out?
NEXT Question is there a convenient way to split it into MULTIPLE ones..eg KEEP old stable photos in one or more.
and use another for all the new ones not editted or sorted yet? I do see there is a new Option under iPHOTO/File menu to just switch
libraries but, of course, you cant even see that if your Library wont open!

For TM help post in the forum for your OS - and see https://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/ and http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html and http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Depends on undisclosed information
With the current OS and iPhoto you switch library using the switch library command - with any version you can switch libraries by holding the option key down while you launch iPhoto which brings up the select library window
And generally it is not a smart idea to have multiple iPhoto libraries - it generally has no advantages and makes things much more difficult and complicated and often leads to user errors that cause major problems
If you want to anyway the most convent way to split libraries is to use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ -
LN

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what?

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what? I need to know what to highligh, what to click on.

hirogliffix,
take a look at this Apple page — in particular, the “Restoring data from Time Machine backups” section and its “Restoring your entire system from a backup” subsection.

External Hard drive/Time Machine backup error message

On a sidenote, I posted a question a week ago about what external hard drive would be compatible with my Macbook, and I so happened to get a WD My Passport Studio hard drive as an unsuspecting gift, so I didn't have to buy one.
Anyways, I started the backup on this hard drive and I had an error message: "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume." I searched this on the Apple Support Communities and found that I wasn't the only one who had this problem. So, I came upon one discussion that suggested downloading Time Machine Buddy (link:http://pondini.org/TM/A1.html) (link that prompted me to download: http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html). I downloaded it and found out that the error was occurring in my Library folder, specifically in the folder entitled "db" in the "Receipts" folder. There's one file in the "db" folder entitled "a.receiptdb" <----can someone please explain what the heck this is??? Lol. Anyways, I decided to exclude the whole "Receipts" folder from being backed up and now my external hard drive is backing up my files fine. My MAIN question is this: What is wrong with my receipts folder that is causing the error?
P.S. here are the error messages in the Time Machine Buddy log:
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to /Volumes/My Passport Studio/Backups.backupdb/Josh Brew’s MacBook/2012-01-29-162450.inProgress/D9F83053-7FE1-4EBE-991A-F400C35D37CC/Macin tosh HD/Library/Receipts/db
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to /Volumes/My Passport Studio/Backups.backupdb/Josh Brew’s MacBook/2012-01-29-162450.inProgress/D9F83053-7FE1-4EBE-991A-F400C35D37CC/Macin tosh HD/Library/Receipts/db
Copied 246 files (277.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
As you can see, iy is located in the "db" folder. I have no idea what's wrong. Thank you for your time! It is MUCH appreciated.

The connection to 10.6.7 may just be a coincidence. I had a similar problem with a disk and was about to throw it out but decided to try a different USB cable. That fixed the problem and the drive is still in use.
Try a new cable if you have not already done so.
Dave

Booting from External Hard Drive (Time Machine)

I just learned that my hard drive is failing. I haven't backed up my data for a while, so I bought a new 1 Terabyte Seagate Drive for Mac. It's one of the new models that don't need a power cord; you just connect it to your computer.
Anyway, a guy at the Genius Bar told me that I can use Time Machine to create a virtual clone on an external drive. I later realized that I might be able to boot up with my external drive and work with my cloned hard drive if my internal hard drive. I've done that with Carbon Copy Cloner before.
Anyway, that's my main question - can one boot up a MacBook Pro on a virtual clone created by Time Machine instead of using the internal hard drive? If so, how do you access it? I think I recall having to hold down a key (Option?) while the computer is booting up, which forces it to give you a choice of hard drives.
One more question: I've backed up some files on my new external drive - about 200 GB in several folders. My internal hard drive is 750 GB, of which about 180 GB is free. In other words, I need about 775 GB space on my external hard drive (570 GB for a virtual clone of my internal drive and 200 GB for the files I've already copied to it. Since it has 1 TB of space, that should be a breeze.
But can I use an external hard drive when it already contains files? In other words, will enabling Time Machine wipe out the files I've already copied to my external drive? Ordinarily, it wouldn't be a problem; I'd simply be replacing some folders with ALL the contents of my internal hard drive, including those same folders. However, I'm a little conerned because my hard drive is failing. I'm just worried that Time Machine might erase the files on my external drive, then poop out before it's finished creating a virtual clone.
So those are my main questions - can I enable Time Machine without wiping out files already copied to an external hard drive, and, once I've copied my entire internal hard drive to the external drive, can I boot up with the external drive and work on it? Thanks.

Hmmmm...I don't know what you mean by "restored," but it sounds like I'm out of luck (my OS X version is 10.7.5). It sounds like I need to purchase another external hard drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable clone on it, right? And could someone remind me how you access multiple hard drives when booting a computer? I remember you have to hold down a particular key(s) while it's booting.
Thanks.

External Hard Drive/Time Machine 101

I was using a 500 GB external hard drive with my MacBook Pro. I cloned my hard drive to the external hard drive, then used the remaining space to store videos, images, etc. When my aging MacBook Pro finally crashed, I was able to boot up the cloned drive and work with it.
I now have a new MacBook Pro with a bigger hard drive (750 GB, I think). I also bought a 2 terabyte external hard drive (My Book for Mac), planning on doing the same thing - cloning my hard drive, then using the remaining free space to store extra stuff.
However, I discovered that my new external hard drive is much more sophisticated than the last one. It gives me the option of using Time Machine or automatically copying all my files to the external drive. So I'd like to go back to square one, find out what my options are and figure out the best strategy.
First, if I use Time Machine to back up my files, will they effectively create a clone that I can boot up? (I've never used Time Machine before.) If so, then I'm thinking I might not partition my new hard drive. Instead, I would just let Time Machine back up my files. If it creates a 1,200 GB clone, then I could copy videos and images to the remaining 800 GB of hard drive space.
If Time Machine doesn't create a bootable clone, then I'll probably just do what I've been doing - use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my hard drive, then use the remaining space to store graphics. However, I wonder if I could still get by without partitioning my new hard drive. With two terabytes, it seems like it might be more efficient to just leave it unpartitioned and copy things into it as needed.
Any tips?
Thanks.

Time Machine does not create bootable clones. It does not even create a bootable backup. If that's what you prefer then do not use Time Machine.
If you use Time Machine then you must allocate at least twice as much space for the backups than the capacity of the drive you are backing up. A 2 TB backup drive would be suitable for a 1 TB main drive or smaller.
If you plan to create a bootable backup, then partition the backup drive with one partition the size required for the clone. Then use the other partition for you additional storage neeeds.

External hard drive time machine backups not mounting

I have used Seagate 500.11 external hard drive as a backup location for the time machine for over two years. I just got a message that it had not updated in over thirty days. It is not listed on FInder, but it is listed on the disc utility. The Time machine backups are grayed out on the disc utility screen and cannot be mounted, even after the repair and verification tests said that their volumes were ok. What should I do?

Time Machine does not create bootable clones. It does not even create a bootable backup. If that's what you prefer then do not use Time Machine.
If you use Time Machine then you must allocate at least twice as much space for the backups than the capacity of the drive you are backing up. A 2 TB backup drive would be suitable for a 1 TB main drive or smaller.
If you plan to create a bootable backup, then partition the backup drive with one partition the size required for the clone. Then use the other partition for you additional storage neeeds.

I am trying to move my old external hard drive (time machine ) to a new one

I have tried to move my old external drive time machine to a new external drive:
1. have formated the new time external hard drive
2. I have unlocked and ignored the drives ownership
3. I have turn of the new hard drive and them tried dragging the file (backups.backupdp) to my new external hard drive
when I do that a message come up that says "this volume has that wrong case sensitivity for a backup"
What does this mean and how do I fix it?
Thanks
Denise

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. All existing data on the destination volume will be erased. That shouldn't be a problem, because you don't want to mix backup and non-backup data on the same drive anyway. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

How to migrate only some photos from external hard drive/Time Machine to new Mac?

I just bought a new MacBook Air, after my old Macbook died. Luckily I had everything from the old computer backed up on an external hard drive through time machine. However, when I tried to migrate everything to my new computer, I found I do not have enough room for all of the files. I would like to import just some of the photos/albums from my old Iphoto Library but it looks like I can only migrate the entire library, or else nothing at all? Since I don't have enough space on the new computer, it's not allowing me to import any photos. Is there a way around this?

With iPhoto it's all or nothing. Therefore get a second EHD to restore the library to. Then you can duplicate the library, open the duplicated and delete all of the photos you don't want in it. When that library is small enough to fit on your MBA copy it to the Pictures folder.
Then you can use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager to copy new events from your MBA library to the library on the 2nd EHD to keep it up to date with all of your photo. There are portable EHDs that are not much bigger than a mouse (the computer kind ) that would work fine for this.

Huge iPhoto Library - 2 External Hard Drive + Time Machine

I have a massive iPhoto library on my macbook pro and am adding about 10GB in photos per year. I currently have an external hard drive used as a backup only for Time Machine.
Is it best to purchase an additional hard drive and run iPhoto directly from the external drive? Would this enable me to delete the iPhoto library from my macbook and then do a daily time machine backup for the macbook and for the external drive? Is this possible, or is their a better way to go about this?
Thanks,

I bought a new MacBook Pro in late august this year, and since then I`ve had some serious problems backing up my iPhoto library. I have searched severals forums in both english and norwegian, with no luck. But today, I found this... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4116
Thank you so much, Pondini. You made my day
Kind regards, Erlend.

How to move external hard drive (time machine) off airport extreme network?

For several years now, I've had an external hard drive connected to my airport extreme and it's servered as an awesome external back-up of my Macbook via Time Machine. However, now I've had to remove the external hard drive from my network (that's a whole other story). Anyway, when I connect the external hard drive to my MacBook, it doesn't recongize it as my Time Machine back-up. It is still looking for "My Book" on my network, which obviously doesn't exist anymore. Can I simply re-direct it to "my book" that is now connected via USB to my computer? Do I have to start over? If possible, I'd like to keep the back-ups I already had and simply continue with my new back-ups. Please advise! Thanks!

First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.

I named my external hard drive "Time Machine", and now it no longer appears on my desktop.

I attached an external hard drive to my iMac, renamed it "Time Machine", and then set it up as the backup drive for Time Machine. Now the drive no longer shows up on my desktop, tho the Time Machine backup appears to be working. Is it not supposed to show up on the desk?

Hello:
When you designate an external drive as the one to use for Time Machine backups, that volume will be named "Time Machine" and a blue Time Machine icon will appear on your desktop. In my own case, I have a two partition external disk - one for Time Machine, and one for making bootable clones.
I never name my external HDs - only the volume(s) contained on them. If that is what you did, get rid of (or change) the drive name.
Barry

Seagate FreeAgent External Hard Drive & Time Machine

I have a 1 TB Seagate FreeAgent Go external hard drive that I use for Time Machine backups. However, I get one or two backups on it and it suddenly becomes "Read only" and won't allow Time Machine to write to it. My user name is listed as having read/write permissions. I go into Disk Utility and Verfy the disk. It comes back saying it needs to be repaird, so I click Repair Disk and then after several minutes of repairing it comes back with an error that the disk can't be repaired and that I should backup the contents and reformat.
I have reformatted it a couple times and each time this happens once I attempt to use it for Time Machine again. At times it won't even mount.
Is this a bad drive and I should contact Seagate for replacement (it is only a couple months old) or is it something I'm doing/not doing? Is it Lion (though it was kind of flaky even when I was running Snow Leopard)?
I have a MBP (early 2011) running Lion with 8 GB RAM, 1 TB internal HD.

Now I have that sinking feeling.
It is plugged directly into the MBP. No power supply as it is a "portable" HD so it's powered from USB.
My sinking feeling is coming from the fact that since day one of owning this MBP (I got it in March 2011) the built in card reader has had problems. When I put a card in, it mouts and reads fine, but if I reach around and move the MBP holding onto the bottom of the case near the card reader slots (the natural place to grab it to pick it up) I get a message that I've ejected the car improperly even though the card is still seated and hasn't move. This leads me to believe that there is some kind of problem with the internal connections to the motherboard. Now with this added symptom of the disk not mounting I'm more concerned about motherboard trouble. Thankfully I have Apple Care.
But, the other thing is, when I connect the EHD and it doesn't mount/is not recognized by Time Machine, it does show up in Disk Utility as being there--indicating it connects fine as far as cabling etc--but it won't mount from Disk Utility, and I can't do disk repair. The only thing I can do is reformat it and then it will work for a while before going back through the whole won't mount, have to format procedure again. So I'm really stumped since there seems to be no clear indication if the problem is related to the card reader symptom or if it is a bad drive.

Apple Extreme - External Hard Drive - Time Machine????????

Can i connect an external hard drive to a apple extreme and use time machine for automatic back ups? If so, how?

J_Corrigan_93 wrote:
can you two speak english lol.
If you'll be specific instead of talking about "things" and "somthing" (sic) and "doesn't work."
Remember, we can't see over your shoulder or read your mind from here.
I got a usb hard drive thing
You've posted in the Airport forum, so is it connected to An Apple Airport Extreme? If so, directly or via a USB hub? If so, is it powered? Does the drive have it's own power supply?
Or is it connected to an Apple Time Capsule? Or directly to your Mac? Or something else (ie, what)?
How is it formatted?
and i try to turn on time maching it turns it self off. I try to back up it says disk cannot be found or somthing like that.
What does it actually say? If you're not sure, post a screenshot.
I tried selecting the disk but that doesnt work either.
What do you mean by "doesnt work"? What happens, or doesn't happen. Any messages? If so, what, exactly?
Or, perhaps, you might want to see one of these for detailed instructions:
How do I set up Time Machine to an internal or directly-connected external HD?
How do I set up Time Machine to back up to my Time Capsule?
How do I set up Time Machine to back up to an Air Disk on my Time Capsule?
How do I set up Time Machine to back up to an AirDisk on my Airport Extreme?

HT201250 External Hard Drive/Time Machine

Need an external hard drive for Time Machine for my MacBook Pro.
I have an old Lacie that has no more room.
Would like 3TB of space. Which one do you recommend? MacBook Pro is only 18 month old.
TIA

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Have you got the Time Machine backups and the movies in one volume? If so, delete the movies from your external drive and move them to the internal drive. On a Time Machine drive, you can't save anything different than backups. If you want to store movies, make a second volume.
If you already have two volumes on the external drive, you should know that free space in your Time Machine volume won't increase if you delete movies in the other one. You have to delete old backups. Read > http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

External Hard Drive/Time Machine Questions

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