How do I back up files to external hard drive in order to upgrade operating system?

Buy yourself a portable hard drive from WD or the like. It should have a capacity at least twice that of your machine hard drive. Then follow the instructions that come with it; it is quite straightforward.
I have a similar machine to you by the sound of it. After the initial back up, it is just a matter of topping up every couple of months or so, plus whenever you do to back up any major upgrade.
A portable one is good because you can store it with relatives when not in use which gives protection in the case of fire or theft.
I use two backups. One, an external HD permanently connected for my Time Machine and the second, a portable for the reasons I gave.

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HT1766 How do I back up onto an external Hard drive?

I am trying to back up my iphone 4 but my computer does not have enough space. I need to back up onto an external hard drive. How do I do that?

Have you considered using iCloud 5GB free
How to set up
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4436
See here for guidance on how to use
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4859
and how iTunes backs up your iPhone
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

How to back up files to external hard drive?

How can i back up my computer files and downloaded programs to a generic external hard drive?

In addition to the suggestion by fane_j,
try Carbon Copy Cloner from http://www.bombich.com/

How do I back up ipad to external hard drive?

I want to back up my IPad (without the cloud) to an external hard drive that also will back up my IMac using Time Machine. How can I do this? Thanks!!

There are some wireless external hard drives that can be used with the iPad.
The Kingston Wi-Drive, which costs $50 for the 16 Gigabyte, and then $30 more for every 16 gigs more. It works by you turning it on and then accessing the files on it from an app that you download on your iDevice. You can access music, movies, and other stuff. No connections or anything, it works like a WiFi connection, you connect to it from the setting on the iPad under wireless networks.
Then there is the Seagate GoFlex, which some would recommend over the Wi-Drive. But this one costs $199 and had 500 Gigabytes of storage. It works the sameway as the Kingston: no wires, runs over its wireless connection. You can actually fit up to 300 HD movies on it.
Another option:
Expand your iPad's storage capacity with HyperDrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1153935/hyperdrive.html
On the road with a camera, an iPad, and a Hyperdrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1160231/ipadhyperdrive.html
Mac - How to Move the iPhone & iPad iTunes Backup folder to an External Hard Drive
http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/05/how-to-move-the-iphoneipad-itunes-backup-folder-t o-an-external-hard-drive/
Windows - Change iPad default backup location
http://apple-ipad-tablet-help.blogspot.com/2010/07/change-ipad-default-backup-lo cation.html
Windows - Changing IPhone and iPad backup location
http://goodstuff2share.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/changing-iphone-and-ipad-backup- location/
 Cheers, Tom

How do you move video files from external hard drive?

I moved video files that were originally from Flip Video recorder and uploaded to my Macbook to an external hard drive to save space. However, I can't seem to figure out how to get them back onto my computer, so I can start burning DVDs. I tried dragging and dropping, but that doesn't seem to work. Please help!!

Copy /Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library to your external drive. Delete the one on your internal drive. Now create an alias to the iPhoto Library's new location and put the alias in the original location. Be sure the alias is named "iPhoto Library".

How do I back up music to external hard drive

Hi!
The recent loss of some music and the instablity of the iTunes program I have on my machine leads me to believe that I need to delete the program completely and then reinstall.
Instead of goign through the motion os burning 500+ songs to CD's, I'd like to back-them up to an external hard drive.
Is this possible? Will the crypto-license protection built in allow for something like that? If so, then how do I do it?
Did I miss the instructions on the main page as I only saw instructions on how to back-up to CD's?
Thanks.

plug in your external harddrive via usb or which ever way you connect yours then use the backup facility and it will ask you where you want to back up to then click on the respective drive letter for your external hard drive.
alternativly you can open my computer double click on the external hard drive ( if only 1 internal hdd and 1 cd rom it should be the "e" drive ) and selct the itunes folder and right click then copy, cllick onto the external hdd and right click in the display window for your e drive and right click then paste it will then copy all the files to your external hdd

Backing Up Files to External Hard-Drive

I own a Acomdata External Hard-drive
Amazon link to product
And I want to back up my music files on it. (I have 9900 songs exactly on my iTunes) Before, I started by dragging all my music files into the external drive, and then I set "Deja Vu" to automatically update the new files in my music folder to the external drive. But, "Deja Vu" never seems to actually go through with updating my files, it only says it does, but when I go to check they aren't there.
So, my question is, how do i get my data on to my external hard-drive without dragging every new file in there, or without wiping it out, and dragging all of them in there again. Help appreciated, thanks.
1.6 ghz powermac G5 ( 1.25 gb ram ) Mac OS X (10.4.8)
Message was edited by: Host

I stopped using Synk which I liked but the new versions and changes - and bugs - and have been using SuperDuper ($29)
Some history. I use to use Synk for years but it has changed too much and would be another "upgrade fee" so I went shopping and settled on SD!
Synk use to be really simple and clean and do its job. I've used and switched backup programs way too many times in the last 20 yrs and wish HFS Backup which became Redux (same author, great program).
There are a couple comprehensive reviews of backup software.
Real World Mac Maintenance and Backups (Real World)
by Joe Kissell
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0321492188/ $19
MacIntouch reader feedback backups
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
Reliable Backups
Cloning Tools OS X
Also worth mention:
Synchronize-X and Synchronize Pro
http://www.qdea.com/
Mac Pro 2GHz 4GB 10K Raptor 23" Cinema Mac OS X (10.4.9) WD RE RAID Aaxeon FW800 PCIe MDD-G4 APC RS1500 Vista

How to save Flip video files to external hard drive (and need new vid camera rec)?

I am trying to back up my Flip videos from my MacBook OS X 10.5.8 on to my external hard drive. They will not drop & drag directly from the flipshare software and I did locate all the mp4 files in my finder under "All Videos" where I think I can copy them over but they are not organized by title or anything and I only want to back up the clips I've edited and the movies I've created, not all the raw footage.
I'm wondering if I'm going to have to import all of these files into iMovie in order to do this in a way that will be helpful? that seems like it will take forever since *I think* you have to do them one at a time and I have almost 2 years of footage of my kids...Is there a quick way to import video into iMovie?
Side bar, anyone know of a good video camera that is small & easy like Flip but not part of a phone? My flip has died & since Cisco is abandoning the brand, I need something new.
Thank you!

I am trying to back up my Flip videos from my MacBook OS X 10.5.8 on to my external hard drive. They will not drop & drag directly from the flipshare software and I did locate all the mp4 files in my finder under "All Videos" where I think I can copy them over but they are not organized by title or anything and I only want to back up the clips I've edited and the movies I've created, not all the raw footage.
I'm wondering if I'm going to have to import all of these files into iMovie in order to do this in a way that will be helpful? that seems like it will take forever since *I think* you have to do them one at a time and I have almost 2 years of footage of my kids...Is there a quick way to import video into iMovie?
Side bar, anyone know of a good video camera that is small & easy like Flip but not part of a phone? My flip has died & since Cisco is abandoning the brand, I need something new.
Thank you!

Backing up files on external hard drive... do I need to keep render files?

Hi, I back up all of my video work and files onto DVDs and to a Lacie external hard drive. I am filling that up quickly and would like to know if I need to keep copies of the render files, which are quite large. Will it save me that much time later? Or are they simply taking up much needed space?
thanks in advance
Rob Grossman
Monrovia, Liberia

Welcome to the forum!
Render files can always be regenerated if needed. I dump them before backups.
If you keep your original footage on tape, the only stuff you need to back up is the FCP project file, any still images, AE files, etc. This takes VERY little space in the scheme of things.
The final quicktime video file (if that is what was created) can also be sent back to tape.
Good luck.
x

Adding back deleted files to external hard drive

I have about 17 G of photos on my external hard drive which I don't want to lose. Since Time Machine erases everything could I drag the photos to my desktop and then add them back after the first backup? Or is the only thing you can use your external hard drive for is Time Machine backups?

TM will not erase your selected Volume.
If you use the DVD Installer's Utilities->Restore from Time Machine backup then yes the Volume you restore will be erased and replaced by the Time Machine's 'complete' backup data. This is different from selecting a volume for TM to perform backups to.

How do I back photo events to external hard drive?

I am a fairly new mac user and finding IPhoto very difficult for filing pictures and folders.
I have now got all my pictures in Events and in date order ( I used to have a folder for each year with a sub folder for seperate events in the good old PC days but dont seem to be able to do that)
Now i have an external hard drive I have copied the Iphoto library across and it has all the eevnts listed as they should. However when I create a new event and try and copy that to the external drive it copeies the pictures seperately and not in a folder.
What am I doing wrong?
I was going to set up Timeline but although I have a 500GB machine that is barely half used the 500GB external drive wasnt big enough!

Hi Mike, I'd use a backup tool to update that folder, like...
Get carbon copy cloner...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

HT4889 I am trying to migrate my back up files from external hard drive to my MAC

How to migrate back up data to my mac from external HD?

Drag and Drop via the Finder?
Applications -> Utilities -> Migration Assistant?
The backup program's restore functionality?
Those are all guesses, as we do not know how the files were backed up, what kind of system they came from (Mac, Windows, Unix, Other,...).

Can you install windows from a back up file on external hard drive?

I originally received Windows 7 Professional from a friend who was in computer sciences at the local university and received free software as a perk. It was downloaded and burned onto a disc, which she loaned to me so I could use it with Bootcamp. There were some issues with the registration, but after some time with Windows tech support everything was set up and working well, fully legal. I am no longer in contact with the friend, and I returned the boot disk to her, hence my current problem.
Today I decided to expand my bootcamp partition by using winclone to create an image, then merging the partitions and repartitioning with boot camp assistant. Unfortunately winclone didn't work for some reason. When creating the image I got an error message telling me to check the logs, which I unfortunately ignored since it appeared to have worked anyways. Now when I try to restore the image to the botcamp partition I get the error "Image file not found."
I did a back up of my windows partition before I started everything, so I still have my data. The problem is getting it back into the partition... I have a blank partition sitting there with no operating system. Is there some way to completely reinstall windows onto a blank partition using only the back up files?
As far as I know none of my friends have a start-up disk that I could borrow, and being a poor student I don't have the $300 to buy another copy of the operating system.

Martin_Had a écrit:
Thank you Andaleeb. I appear to have an old backup of a year ago, and a more recent full back up plus an incremental backup.
Regrettably I don't really understand what is going on because firstly the restore does not complete its cycle so I cannot see what that backup file contains and secondly all I have read would suggest that the .tly file is the full backup and the catalog.buc file is the incremental backup. For the present, the catalog shows the photos for 2014 which makes me think I might have backed from the old back up file.
I am minded to create another catalog and try again.
Any views on what I can do?
A backup (full or incremental) is a folder, not a file. It contains renamed pictures file copies as well a copies of the files and subfolders of the original catalog. The catalog.buc is a renamed copy of the database of your original catalog while the backup.tly. That backup.tly file contains the information to restore the renamed pictures where you decide, the original location or a new custom one. You can't do anything with the backup yourself, only the restore process can do the job if it finds the backup.tly file. In the case of an incremental backup, you have to tell the restore process where to find the incremental backup folder; it finds the backup.tly file in that folder and finds what is to restore there; then it asks you for the previous backup folder (in your case the full backup); you then browse to that full backup folder so that the restore process can find find the backup.tly there; the restore then deals with the rest of the files to restore.

Backing up files on External Hard Drive

I attached a Seagate 3TB back up Hard Drive to my desk top MAC and Have now backed up all my files including iMovies[ using Time machine ] .. I now want to delete some of the i movies on my MAC to make room to add more. Is this O.K. to do? Any other options? Thankyou!

The option I would take is have an additional drive that I would export .mov photos music to as a easy way to access them, using time machine is best left to a be restoration device for recovering your data (hence back up) and not as a storage drive. Using this approach allows to access the movies and such at will with out disturbing the back up system, after putting the stuff on a storage drive you can delete them from your internal HDD. (After confiming of course)
Drives are cheap these days
Hope this helps

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up. I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.
I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?
When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups. It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.
Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up. Instead, it took 30 minutes. That can't be right. I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that. Please help.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil compare -E
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

How do I back up files to external hard drive in order to upgrade operating system?

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