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.

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

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.

Error Code-50 when trying to copy or delete files on external hard drive

Hi,
I am in process of backing up large HD video files from one external hard drive to another using Carbon Copy Cloner software. I get this error message: "This file or folder is sitting on a bad section of hard disk media and is unrecoverable. Delete this item (i.e. in the Finder) and restore it from a known good backup, then try the backup task again."
I have tried to delete that folder in Finder and I get error code-50, it won't delete.
I tried to delete individual files within folder - error code 50.
I tried to "replace" folder with good copy from other external hard drive. Error code-50
I tried to "repair disk" in Disk Utility application and I get error message "cannot unmount disk."
NOTE: the files in this folder are .m2ts format, from an old PC. I converted then into .mov but want to retain originals.
NOTE: I was successfully able to copy the folder from a 3rd external hard drive to the backup disk without a problem (which makes me think it's not the files/folder but has to do with the actual disk.), but cannot fix it on the original (source) disk.
Bad disk?
Bad files?
How do you fix a "bad section of a hard disk"?
Might reformatting the entire disk fix the "bad section"?
Any advice welcomed and appreciated!
Thank you!

Hi
Error -50 paramErr Error in user parameter list
Can there be any external hard disks - if so How is/are it/they formatted ? Must be Mac OS Extended (hfs) if used for Video.
UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange - works for most but not for VIDEO.
What this means in Your situation is above me.
• free space on internal boot hard disk? How much ?
Video codec
• streamingDV, AIC etc. (not .avi, .mp4, .m4v, .wmv etc as they are containers not codecs)
Pictures
• in what format ? .jpg, .bmp, .tif, else ?
Audio
• from where/what format ? iTunes, .avi, .mp3, .aiff, else ?
The "com.apple.iMovie.plist" file
Many users has not observed that there are TWO libraries.
• Library - at root level
• Library - in user/account folder - THIS IS THE ONE to look into
from Luke Burns
I fixed the problem.. but it was very, very strange. I had a very long section for credits and set the line spacing to 1.0.. for some reason this caused it. I removed it, and it worked fine. I put it back, and I couldn't preview or play the video.
I don't know why that could cause that big of a problem, but it did..
Klaus1
You need more free space on your hard drive.
jonorparkerjon
After phone support from apple I ended up creating a new project and adding all 117 clips back in individually till I found out what clips flagged and would not allow me to export. I had 3 I deleted and replaced and everything works now 1hr after tedious work....
Where do Your material come from
• Camera
• External hard disk
• USB-memory
And all are connected so that iMovie can find it ?
Yours Bengt W

Can't delete file from external hard drive

Hi,
There is a permition problem with my external hard drive (no time mashine on it!) - can't delete certain files.
I copied my documents on my external hard drive from previous computer with windows and later with linux system on it and there had been changed icons at certain folders previously. I mention this, becouse what linux did was that it locked the changed icon files and I couldn't delete them until I unlocked them manually. But at least it showed me that i don't have permition and i could change it. Well, now I mounted the disk on my new macbook and wanted to delete some files and it seems that there is the same problem with permition, at least it seems to happen with the same files. When I want to delete them, the system asks me for admin password, I give it allright, it makes the sound as if the folder was moved to trash but that's all. the folder is still there even after dismounting and restarting. I already checked the permitions and it says in the info that i can read and write with the file so it looks as if my rights were ok...
Please help, I desperatly need more space for new backup and can't get rid of the files I don't need any more...
Thank you for any sort of simple-ish advice
Message was edited by: brevon

Thanx for such qucik reply!!! The pages were great, it had an answer for my problem, but unfortunately it also involved me dealing with it only on the MacIntosh HD itself, not on mounted external drive I suppose... So it didn't work they say that there is an icon in the left corner indicating locked folder - I don't see any icon on it. It says you can untick the box to unlock the folder - there is no tick to be unticked. Finally, they say that if I don't have permition or rights I cannot delete it. But how do i change permittion which already says that i can read and write in it? So everything appears to be normal only I cannot delete it. there is not even any warnig telling me I don't have enough rights, it just requires the password and after me typing it in it makes the sound of scraping paper but does nothing more. I aslo had some problems with emptying Trash after being seemingly succesful with one file and had got so far to have them appear in the Trash (no clue how this one actully got there though..) I followd the advice and emptied the Trash with Terminal. The Folder is still there but it shows 0 Kb... So far so good BUT: It is still on the external drive, so I obviously only managed to copy it into the Trash!!! Phew, innit a bit too tight to poor owners, this macbook?? I want my rights back!

Can't delete files from external hard drive

So here's an interesting problem that I've never run across. I have a Western Digital hard drive plugged in and I was deleting some files off it today when suddenly it started saying that there were some files in use and it couldn't delete those. I hit "Continue" which usually does the trick but it just deleted everything else and left a bunch of folders with these weird empty files in them. So I quit all programs and tried again. Same thing, "Cannot delete, file in use." Tried rebooting both my computer and the external, again "Files in use." Did a google search, followed numerous suggestions, terminal sudo rm -r +file name, a force delete app, secure delete, holding down the option button while deleting... No dice. When I try the sudo rm thing in terminal it tells me that the folder doesn't exist AND that it isn't empty and won't delete it. (I love computers) When I do a right click->Get info on it, it says that I have read-write permissions but that the files are locked but won't let me unlock them (I'm the system administrator). When I look at the files in finder, it says they're actually aliases. What's really weird is that the file names are all messed up and have asian characters and stuff in them. I didn't create these aliases or have files with those characters in them. Soooo... Any suggestions? Cause I've read the threads and tried just about everything. I'm concerned this drive is headed for a crash or maybe just needs to be wiped and then put my stuff back on cause it's gotten errors over time. I don't know, I've never had this happen before and I'm pretty good with computers. If it was a windows computer I'd be doing a scan disk and defrag on it but I don't know how to do that on a mac to an external hard drive. I honestly don't know if this is a hardware or software problem. Any help would be appreciated.

Oh... well this is interesting... disk utility is say that it IS formatted MS-DOS (FAT32). Is that what's causing these errors? This thing has been running with my mac beautifully for years. So do I pull my stuff off, wipe it and reformat it for a mac? Or since it is FAT 32 can I hook it up to a windows computer and fix the problem? Since I had the wrong format, I can delete the files but if I don't fix the format this will keep happening?
Volume repair reported:
Verify and Repair volume “750GBEXT”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
/.../SpryAssets/_NOTES has entries after end of directory
Truncate? yes
/..../My Work has entries after end of directory
Truncate? yes
** Phase 3 - Checking for Orphan Clusters
95906 files, 181003968 KiB free (5656374 clusters)
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
And thanks!

Will Time Machine delete files on external hard drive?

I have all my itunes music and videos on my external hard drive. Will Time Machine delete these files. The hard drive is already formatted for mac.

Note from Time Machine Help files:
Time Machine works best if you use your backup disk only for Time Machine backups. If you keep files on your backup disk, Time Machine won’t back up those files, and the space available for Time Machine backups will be reduced.
So it will not overwrite the files but it also will not back them up.

HELP ! DELETED FILES On External Hard Drive

Hello,
I'm going crazy - I replaced/deleted files during a back-up.
I have a G5 2.5 (Tiger OS10.4.9) with 2- Glyph GTO50-250 firewire external Hard drives. *I only use the computer for audio recording* using Pro Tools LE 7.4. One hard drive is the recording drive(Drive 1) and the other is the back-up drive(Drive 2).
I accidently reversed my back-up process and replaced(not copied) folders on my main recording hard drive(Drive 1) with older back-up folders from my back-up hard drive(drive 2) during the back-up process. I lost current session folders and now only have older back-up sessions versions.Since I did this, I have left everything on, the computer,hard drives, everything.
Is there any way to recover the files that I replaced on the external recording hard drive(Drive 1)?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you

*I select replace.
Ouch.
As for the rewriting of the file, it is possible that the actual physical sector is different, though directory scavenging won't find the old files due to the name of the replacement being the same.
Data Rescue II can be run in a free demo that will allow you to see what is recoverable.
The files may be there,, but then again, maybe not.
If it were me, I'd try the demo and look through all the files that it pulls.
You might get lucky.
You'll need a large (about double capacity) hard drive to use as a location for the recovered files and scratch.
If the data is irreplaceable, a data recovery service may be able to recover it, but will require sophisticated, expensive recovery techniques.
Good luck!

Troubles deleting files from external hard drive!!

I had my external hard drive plugged into my Macbook but i cannot delete any folder or file in it! There is not 'Move to Trash' option from the drop-down menu! Does this have anything to do with 'Folder Action' thing? please help! sorry i jst switched to Mac from Window recently so still trying to find my way through! Thanks

Hi,
Mac OSX can read and write/delete files and folders on harddisks that use the FAT32 file system.
Mac OSX can only read and not write/delete files and folders on harddisks that use the NTFS file system.
Use Disk Utility to check what file system your HD uses.
To enable write access from OSX to NTFS drives, you can either use NTFS-3G http://www.ntfs-3g.org/ or buy Paragons NTFS for OSX http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
Regards
Stefan

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

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 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/

(Error code -36) Can't delete files from external hard drive

So as I was copying files to my hard drive (Seagate Backup Plus Drive) my Macbook Pro went flat, and so the files obviously didn't get to finish copying. Now they're greyed out in my folder and when I try to move the files to the trash it comes up with this message:
"The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “-----” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)"
Does anyone know how I can fix this? I've tried a couple of different things and nothing has worked, and I don't wanna stuff around too much in case I lose everything.

Presumably you are using the Seagate as an external HD.
"my Macbook Pro went flat" means the MBP shut down or powered off suddenly for some reason?
If your Seagate was not properly ejected that would cause problems. You should run Disk Utility and Verify and Repair the Seagate, if needed. Then you should be able to deal with the uncompleted files.

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

Cant delete files on external hard drive (Mac OSX Lion, LR3&4)

Lightroom can't send items to trash when deleting files on an external drive if the trash bin is empty for the relevant drive on OSX Lion. This was in LR3 and now in 4. You can get round this by making sure the trash is not emptied after deleting a random file or folder but there has to be a better way!
Also it seems to be a lightroom problem more than OS as Bridge can delete the files with no problem.
Any ideas on this?

I'm having the same problem, but there are so many other issues with LR4 -some enormous, some just downright bizarre -that I almost forgot about this one. ;-). Good catch on the empty trash bin though. How'd you figure that out? I'm impressed.

Deleted files on external hard drive...but space isn't opening up!

Hi all,
I do my Time Machine backups to an external hd. I recently tried to do a backup and it failed, telling me there was not enough space. It told me I needed 12.something GB and I only had 10.something GB available.
I checked the amount of available space on the hd, and sure enough there was about 10GB available. I deleted about 7GB of old music files (not backup files)--and when I checked available space again...it only showed the same 10GB! I deleted a little more...same thing. I was deleting files, but for some reason it wasn't creating any space on the hd.
I thought I would just try to unplug it, restart computer, re-plug it in, and go ahead and try to do a backup with Time Machine. Well, again I got the message that the backup failed due to lack of space. Same numbers--12GB needed, only 10GB available.
What the heck is going on? Why isn't deleting files creating more space on the hd? Any thoughts on this mystery? Thanks a lot!!!

Are you emptying the Trash after deleting the files? You won't free any space until you do.
No need to look for a Trash on the external; the normal Trash in the dock will do the job.

Adding back deleted files to external hard drive

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