I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. if i just want to backup and recover my photos and movies how do i do that with time machine?

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. I did not download the software that came with the external HD. If I only want to backup my photos and movies from my Macbook how do I do that in Tme Machine with my external HD?

Format the HDD in Disk Utility>Erase to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the open System Preferences>Time Machine and set up the external disk as the Time Machine HDD. Then look at the Options, and exclude what you do not want backed up.
Ciao.

Similar Messages

Hallo ,why is it that when I delete a photo ,which is backed up by time machine and western digital external hard drive , that I am able to restore the photo okay but not the titles and descriptions . I have a Macbook 4.1, mac osx 10.5.8 . Iphoto 7.1.5 ,

QUESTION.
Hallo , my question is ;whenever I delete a photo and restore it through Time machine and Western digital external hard drive , I am able to restore the photo but not the titles and descriptions . Western Digital inform me that it isn't their external hard drive problem and suggest that it is an Apple software problem ?
I am using a Macbook 4.1 , with Mac OSX 10.5.8 . I photo 7.1.5 , last modifie4d 01/05/2010 -universal . Should I be upgrading Iphoto ?
I hope that someone is able to help in this matter , as i have to restore 12000 photos !
Thanking you in anticipation.
Alan from Wigton

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

I have a western digital external hard drive that needs to be re formatted for use on my but iMac but I do not want to lose existing data

I have a Western Digital external hard drive that needs to be re formatted for use on my iMac, but I do not want to lose existing data, is this possible ?

Formatting a disk always erases all the data on it. Your only option is to back it up elsewhere and restore it once formatted.

Formating Western Digital External Hard Drive gets an error

Hi!
I just bought a 500GB Western Digital External Hard Drive (uses Firewire 400), primarily for storing HD iMovie and Final Cut Express files. When I checked the iMovie support, it recomends to format the external hard drive as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). I opened Disk Utility, selected the hard drive (My Book) and followed the steps to both erase and reformat it. I have gotten an error numerous times that says:
Error
+Disk can't be remounted+
Something like that. I don't know why I'm having this problem, but any help would be very appreciated. I just bought a Canon HV20 and want to get to use it soon...
Thanks!
Apple.User
FYI: I have an Intel iMac and Mac OS X 10.5.2, along with any of the latest updates for it.

Try doing it this way:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

HT1452 I want to reset the permissions on a western digital external hard drive to work between mac and windows... How can I do this easily?

I have a MacBook Pro and have recently bought a Western Digital external hard drive. I used it on my windows laptop first and unfortunately now on the Mac it is read only. How can I set it so that I can use it successfully between the both the Mac and windows laptop?
Thanks

MacQuack wrote:
You will need to pull all the information off first. The formatting will erase it all.
Use Disk Utility (in Applications >> Utilities or use Spotlight to find it). On the left select your WD drive and then select the Erase tab. Where it says Format, select exFat in the drop-down menu. Next, click Erase and done. It will take approx. 5-15mins to re-format.
Cons: You will be unable to store files 4GB or larger in this format (usually only dmg/iso files or large Outlook files). Also, you will be unable to use Time Machine or other auto-backup programs.
That is not entirely correct, there is no 4G limit using exFat, FAT32 is the one with the limit.

Hp Pavilion HPE PC H8-1214 won't boot up after installing a Western Digital External hard drive

I just recently installed a 3TB Western Digital External hard drive to use for backing up photos and since then I am now having problems with my computer.
I will turn the computer on, but nothing happens. The power button lights up, but the small stack of CD's that would normally light up on the front, while it is powering on, does not light up. My monitor screen just stays blank and nothing happens.
If I turn off the desktop and unplug the external hard drive from the USB, let the the PC sit for 30 sec to 1 minute and then power it back on, it works properly.
PC is an HP Pavilion HPE PC h8-1214
Product #: qw701aa#aba
Running Windows 7
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your reply. I'll answer one at a time:
During these times when the computer seems to turn on but doesn't load Windows, do you get any type of image or error on the screen? Nothing appears on the screen at the time of boot. I don't even see the 'HP' logo or BIOS prompt.
Have you tried switching the power cable or testing the power cable in a different wall outlet (especially if it is plugged into a power strip, try it directly plugged into the wall). Yes I've plugged it into multiple outlets with and without surge protection with multiple power cables. The power supply doesn't seem to be the issue as it engages all fans etc.
If you've tried a known good power adapter in a known good outlet, it may be an issue with the power supply or a loose connection inside the computer (RAM, power, video card). I've re-seated all components, cables etc to no avail. I'm reasonably experienced in IT support and have never experienced an intermittent problem such as this.
The PC has been plugged in since I made my original post on 02/23/13. Each day I've powered it up to see if it would boot and had been unsuccessful. This evening, I walked by and hit the power button and instantly the drive 'disk' lights lit up, keyboard and mouse lit up, and it booted successfully (after 10 days of no luck). Now I'm afraid to shut it down b/c I never know when it will boot again. There are no system errors and it's running without any issues - until I shut it down again. The IT support guru's at my place of employment feel like it may be an issue with the motherboard since I don't see a bios prompt when this issue occurs. The unfortunate part is that I bought this re-furbished and the HP 90 warranty has expired...
Any further advice or troubleshooting assistance would be greatly appreciated!!

My Western Digital external hard drive suddenly stopped showing up on my Macbook Pro and disappeared from Disk Utility. It works on a PC.

My Western Digital external hard drive suddenly stopped showing up on my macbook pro and it disappeared from disk utility. I have tried making invisible files visible but nothing has worked and my hard drive shows up on a PC but not my Mac anymore.

What is the manufacturer of the external and how old is it? Does it have its own AC power supply or is it USB bus powered?

I have just upgraded from a Macbook to a Macbook Air. I have been using a iomega external hard drive for Time Machine, which use a Firewire. However, Macbook Air's do not have a Firewire port and i cannot find an adaptor anywhere. Can anyone help?? Thanks

I have just upgraded from a Macbook to a Macbook Air. I have been using a iomega external hard drive for Time Machine, which use a Firewire. However, Macbook Air's do not have a Firewire port and i cannot find an adaptor anywhere. Can anyone help?? Thanks

There has never been a reliable firewire ---> USB adapter suitable for external high speed storage. This was a major issue when the MacBooks lost the firewire port a number of years ago (Apple subsequently brought it back).
The only high speed port on the Air is the ThunderBolt port. There are external ThunderBolt drive options out there, but they're somewhat more expensive than traditional USB/FireWire options.

HELP!!!!! How do I back up using Western Digital External Hard Drive

I just bought a western digital external hard drive dual option media center and combo external storage. It came with a Dantz Retrospect Express backup software. I can't seem to get it to work. It installs ok, but when I try to open up the software it opens and closes with an error message. What am I doing wrong? How do I back up my files, programs, iTunes and Movies? Is there an easy way to do this? I've ask a lot of people and know can seem to give me a straight answer. PLEASE HELP!!

Hi Marc and welcome!
It is possible that the version of Dantz Retrospect does not work with Tiger. You do not need to use that program. In fact, a lot of people feel it is rather clumsy and feature-crippled to the point that it is not really useful.
Is that drive a combo FireWire and USB drive? IF so, there is a phenominal program called SuperDuper that does much, much more than Retrospect. It will clone your hard drive which means it will make an exact copy of every last bit and byte and then make it bootable so you can actually boot your Mac from your external drive in the event of a hardware or software problem. It costs only $27.95, but it is well worth it and highly recommended.
There are other programs that do what SuperDuper does, but I like SD best. Carbon Copy Cloner, and LaCie's SilverKeeper are the others most often mention, but their support is not as good as SD's. Both required updates to work with Tiger while SD worked from Day 1.
Plug the drive in and open your Mac's Disk Utility and partition it if you want. One it is formatted in HFS it will work fine.

Western Digital External Hard drive keeps undocking when running time machine.

I have been using a 2TB Western Digital My Book external hard drive for about a year now to run time machine and backup my files. The past month I have noticed that my backups have been failing. I try and for a backup and about halfway through it gets "delayed" because of an error. Then I have a alert pop up on my desktop with the following message:
The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off.
The disk was not unplugged from the power supply or the usb port. I am stumped. Anyone know what is going on and how to fix it??

I would avoid WD, Seagate, LaCie, and Iomega external drives, and any drive with special features such as networking or built-in backup software.

HOW DO I TRANSFER PC ITUNES FILES FROM WESTERN DIGITAL EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE TO NEW MACBOOK PRO?

I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT MY NEW MACBOOK PRO AND ITS SUPPOSE TO BE HERE TOMORROW! THERE IS ONE MAJOR CONCERN I HAVE THOUGH, I HAVE ALL MY MUSIC FILES ON MY WESTERN DIGITAL ELEMENTS HARD DRIVE (1TB). THE HD IS FORMATTED FOR WINDOWS THOUGH. I WATCHED YOUTUBE VIDEOS ON HOW TO REFORMAT THE HD TO MAC BUT IT ERASES EVERYTHING OFF THE HD. SO TWO QUESTIONS,
1.HOW DO I TAKE MUSIC OFF OF MY EXTERNAL HD AND PUT IT ON MY NEW MAC EVEN THOUGH ITS WINDOWS FORMAT AND NOT HAVE IT ERASED WHEN I FORMAT TO MAC?
2. HOW DO I REFORMAT THE EXTERNAL HD FROM PC TO MAC AND WHAT OPTION SHOULD I SELECT?
THANKS

I'm very glad your excited about getting your first Mac.
On the Internet, it's not polite to use ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT MEANS YOUR SHOUTING!!!
So with that out of the way.
efromlancaster wrote:
1.HOW DO I TAKE MUSIC OFF OF MY EXTERNAL HD AND PUT IT ON MY NEW MAC EVEN THOUGH ITS WINDOWS FORMAT AND NOT HAVE IT ERASED WHEN I FORMAT TO MAC?
First your Mac is going to need to read the external drive.
Mac's can read exFAT (since 10.6.5), FAT32 and HFS+ (Mac format) external drives.
I'm going to assume your drive is formatted NTFS, the Windows format that is also on the boot drive of Windows machines.
For that your need to install a free piece of software on the Mac here (bookmark this page!)
NTFS Mounter (for WindowsNTFSdrives)
That will allow your Mac to read the NTFS formatted drive. You then get all your files off that you want to save.
efromlancaster wrote:
2. HOW DO I REFORMAT THE EXTERNAL HD FROM PC TO MAC AND WHAT OPTION SHOULD I SELECT?
Once you have gotten all your files off, in the Applications/Utilities folder on the Mac is a program called Disk Utility and it looks like this.
You select your external drive on the left and click Erase > Format > exFAT and click Erase. A warning will pop up and you say ok.
The exFAT format can be read on both Windows PC's and Mac's. Allows for large file sizes over 4GB.
Now this format is for going between Windows and a Mac. Windows Vista and 7 can read this format fine, if you have XP you need to download a free update for exFAT from Microsoft (its easy to find, just search for "exFAT XP microsoft")
Now! however there has been one report that the exFAT formatted on a Mac didn't work on the PC. So if that happens, just format the drive exFAT on Windows first, then the Mac should see it. So check first before doing anything and have a copy of the data elsewhere just in case.
Now if you intend to use the external drive for TimeMachine or a Carbon Copy Cloner/Superduper clone (like "Ghosting") of the OS X boot drive, then you need to format the drive HFS+ journaled in Disk Utility and it cant' be read natively in most cases by a PC unless you install adiditonal software on the PC. (and likely the PC can't read a TimeMachine drive, I don't know I haven't tried it, so your on your own on that)

When display turns off system improperly ejects Western Digital external hard drive. Yosemite 10.10.2

Why does computer improperly eject my Western Digital (My Book for Mac) external hard drive when display turns off. And how do I stop this from happening.
Yosemite 10.10.2
27 inch iMac
3.2 GHz processor
intel core i5

Your External Western Digital usually has Utilities from the company that can be downloaded from their site@http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=133&sid=157&lang=en
run their scan for errors and post back. Also do you have Time Machine always running at time of incident?

Western Digital external hard drive not working properly

I have this external hard drive from western digital, 2 TB space, in wich i stored data from a windows machine.
Now i moved to an arch machine (the one i have at home) and it doesn't mount the hard drive.
I tried as normal user and as root, i tried just
mount /dev/sdc1
and most of the variants (-t filesystem, -o force and so on)
the first one obviously didn't work, the device is'n in my fstab file, but it's not my problem.
here i post the output of "fdisk -l /dev/sdc":
sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdc
[sudo] password for pertica:
Disk /dev/sdc: 1,8 TiB, 2000396746752 bytes, 3907024896 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0002de0f
Dispositivo Avvio Start Fine Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 2048 3907029167 1953513560 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
so, my problem isn't the filesystem (i think it is NTFS, but i'm not so sure after all), also.
I tried then to open /dev/sdc (the hard drive) with gparted, and it does not recognise any partition
(the only thing it says is, translated from italian: "it is not possible to have a partition out of the disk")
At first, i belived it could be something to be solved by "fsck", but it didn't seem to help.
Then, i checked more carefully the output of "fdisk -l /dev/sdc", and i found out that the end of the partition
sdc1 ("Fine" in italian) was at sector 3907029167 while the disk has only 3907024896.
Now, how can i fix this? (possibly without erasing the whole disk?)

Shh, don't spoil his reading work

On Nov. 22, after having to erase and restore my Western Digital external hard drive (per WD tech support) then rebacking up the iMac, noted that three events put in iPhoto in Sept., Oct.

On Nov. 22, after having to erase and restore my WD My Passport for Mac external hard drive (per WD tech support) then rebacking up the iMac, I noted that three events loaded into iPhoto in Sept., Oct. and early Nov. had disappeared. They certainly had been there because I printed out several images from these events. Now they have vanished but everything through August and after Nov. 22 is there. Seems impossible. How could something disappear from the hard drive? Apple tech was unable to explain or provide a solution. Has anyone else ever had something like this happen?

How did you reformat the EHD? It should be OS X Extended (journaled) with ownership set to be ignored.
If the drive is formatted correctly do the following:
1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down to open the First Aid window. Be sure to follow the circled recommendation in the screenshot.
2 - run Option #4, Rebuild Database.

Suddenly my 1 TB Western Digital external hard drive has decided to give me a "the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" error

I was playing music on iTunes (my iTunes library is stored on the hard drive) when I realized that it was running slow and giving me some pinwheels. So, I force quit iTunes, ejected the hard drive, waited a couple of seconds and plugged it back in. To my surprise it gave me an error that said "The disk you insterted is not readable by this computer" with the options to initialize, ignore, and eject. I have been searching Google, YouTube, and other forums for fixes (I am not too handy with Terminal without some assistance). I am able to go to Disk Utility and I see the drive there, and when I go to the partition is says "not mounted" I have tried repairing the disk only to get the notificiation that tells me Disk Utility is unable to repair the disk. I also ran Terminal and tried doing diskutil repairDisk and repairVolume to no avail. Below you can see the information I have gotten from Disk Ultilty and Terminal. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated as I have my music library, art projects, and other very important data on this drive! Thank you in advance!

Yikes, doesn't look too good. But there are still things you can try.
I noticed the disk is formatted as MS-DOS FAT32. While such disks can be read and used on Macs, it's better to set up your disks formatted for the Mac. For one thing, the Mac disk repair tools don't work as well on FAT32 (PC-style) disks. Which might be why Disk Utility did not succeed.
I suggest using a PC running Windows to connect the drive to and see if the data are all visible, and if not, run the built in disk check tools in Windows. Also, WD disks usually come with disk tools on the drive, did yours come with those? Either for the PC and/or Mac? You might be able to download them from the WD sites.

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. if i just want to backup and recover my photos and movies how do i do that with time machine?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for