Back up failed to external drive (formatted to MAC OS Extended)

I have recently bought an external drive, have used disk utility to format it to MAC OS Extended (journaled).
I have then used Time Capsule to complete a back up, but it fails every time I try.
The error message says" The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the back up disk"
I have then tried to repair the disk and it says the drive appears to be fine.
I cannot understand why the back up wont work.
I am still on snow leopard, but need to back up before I update to Mavericks.
Plrase help.

Hi there Shainj,
You may find the troubleshooting steps in the article below helpful.
Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3275
-Griff W.

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Cannot backup Windows 7 (dual-boot) image to external HD (formated as Mac OS Extended)

I cannot backup my Windows 7 (dual-boot) image to my external HD (formated as Mac OS Extended). I installed MacDrive 8.0 hoping to solve the problem but Windows 7 gives me an error when I try to create a backup: "...drive is not formatted as NTFS, cannot use as backup...".
I also tried making an Image of the Windows 7 partition through Disk Utility but was not allowed to do so.
I am not sure where else to go from here. I need to keep my external hard drive formatted as Mac OS Extended but I also need to backup my Windows 7 partition. I only have the single external at the moment. Is there a way to backup my Windows 7 partition?
Thanks

Winclone will backup your Windows partition to a Mac formatted drive.
Just search for Winclone on this forum and on Goggle.

Drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Thanks Neil, So I have to buy one? From an apple shop? What is the cost? Is there another way to backup?

I think you missed the thread..
You can use any external drive.. plug it into the Mac and use disk utility to format it, Mac OS extended.. etc.
You do not need to buy it at apple shop.. they do sell a range of products.. so impossible to tell you .. look it up.
But if you want to run Time Machine backups then use either a network drive like Time Capsule which is the easiest.. or connect external drive to the computer and format it correct way.
Read to understand how TM works and the requirements.
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Sorry I am not Neil.

TS1550 Time machine failed... has backed up before. Have 235 GB uses on LaCie 1 TB drive - format is Mac OS Extended (journaled). Any ideas or help appreciated. Worked OK until today,

Back-up has worked fine until today. Cannot completelately -"Back-up failed. Stopped all programs and tried again - no go.Have LaCie 1TD drive, 235GB used.
Format OS extended (journaled) on the drive.
Mac OSX 10.8.8.
iMac 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
Any ideas appreciated.
Have same drive on newer iMac - appears OK.

Hi Joseph, was hoping the resident TM expert Pondini would drop in, but I guess not.
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
Repair the external/backup drive also.

My 2007 Macbook pro Intel Core 2 Duo   Processor Speed 2.33 GHz has power issues with one or some of my USB powered devices. Last night I could not back up my Lacie external drives with software SuperDuper, hard drive copier. I also had a message that Tim

My 2007 Macbook pro Intel Core 2 Duo   Processor Speed 2.33 GHz has power issues with one or some of my USB powered devices. Last night I could not back up my Lacie external drives with software SuperDuper, hard drive copier. I also had a message that Time machine failed. I have two powered 12V USB
routers that are plugged into a 550VA CyberPower surge protector. I often receive these insufficient USB power for devices messages a dozen times even when I do not have devices like camera, Ipad, Ipod, and Tascam digital audio recorder plugged in. Is there a way to troubleshoot these USB routers or should I consider that one of the routers may be defective and replace them?
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My 2007 Macbook pro Intel Core 2 Duo   Processor Speed 2.33 GHz has power issues with one or some of my USB powered devices. Last night I could not back up my Lacie external drives with software SuperDuper, hard drive copier. I also had a message that Time machine failed. I have two powered 12V USB
routers that are plugged into a 550VA CyberPower surge protector. I often receive these insufficient USB power for devices messages a dozen times even when I do not have devices like camera, Ipad, Ipod, and Tascam digital audio recorder plugged in. Is there a way to troubleshoot these USB routers or should I consider that one of the routers may be defective and replace them?
David

I would like to know if you have to back up a macbook hard drive, can I use a external hard drive that has been previously used to back up several pc 's, or is it best to have a separate external drive for the Mac?

I would like to know if you have to back up a macbook hard drive, can I use a external hard drive that has been previously used to back up several pc 's, or is it best to have a separate external drive for the Mac?

In the Mac side of things, backups usually come in two flavors: clones or incrementals.
A bootable clone is a bit-for-bit copy of all essential files in the startup volume. If using the Lions, clones can be made using CarbonCopyCloner or just plain old Disk Utility. These backups represent the safest protection of your info, but take the longest to do. Recovery is an inverse process: you copy the clone back into the internal drive.
Incremental backups start with a complete backup of the startup volume and only copy whatever changed from the previous run. OS X includes the fully integrated Time Machine backup utility to do this. It is extremely easy to do and takes the least amount of time. Recovery is another matter altogether since you have to start with a freshly installed instance of the OS and have to apply all intervening backups to bring the result to the latest saved version.
As for where the backup takes place, the recommended media is an external dedicated drive or drives connected via the fastest interface available on your Mac: Thunderbolt, USB3, Firewire, or USB2. Network-based backups, wired or wireless, are attractive but may not offer the same performance and hence take longer. Also important to note that the entire drive need not be completely dedicated to a single backup. The Mac's EFI firmware infrastructure allows for an unlimited number of partitions on a hard drive and each can be used for either type of backups.
Holler if you need specifics on how to do each. This was just an executive summary.

External Drive Format - Mac Extended vs Fat32

Hi
There seems to be a general consensus that if you are saving iMovie projects to an external hard disk, the format must be Mac Extended (Journaled).
There is an Apple support article from July 2003 saying that this is the case.
However I have experimented, testing an imovie 6 project saved on both a Mac Extended partition and a Fat32 partition on my external drive.
Both appear to run perfectly.
Does anyone know whether the article / idea that iMovie needs Mac Extended format is out of date? Has subsequent releases of iMovie fixed the issue with using Fat32?
Any experiences/thoughts anyone? I'd ideally prefer to keep my external as all Fat32 seeing as I want to swap files with my PC.....

Why not partition the drive, one partition Mac OS Extended, one partition Fat32, as suggested in another thread?
BTW, I wouldn't rely on your experience storing an iMovie project on a Fat32 drive to prove much of anything. If Apple says not to use it, I wouldn't use it. There's no way any one of us can test all the conditions that can and will arrise.
One such condition, if memory serves, is that large clips — longer than 20 minutes — do not import correctly with Fat32. Something about a 4GB limit, if I recall. Users have reported other problems too. A search for "Fat32" in the iMovie forums should reveal several.
Karl

HT201250 Can I use Time Machine on two different Macs to back up to one external drive?

Can I use Time Machine on two different Macs to back up to one external drive?
I have one 1T Western Digital backup drive that works well with Time Machine and my MacBook Pro. I now want to back up my wife's MacBook Air using Time Machine on her Mac and want to know if I can use the same WD external drive or if I need to get a 2nd back up drive? If I can use one external drive for the two Macs do I need to do something special on the drive or will Time Machine do it automatically?

Yes. You will need to configure Time Machine preferences on each computer to backup to the same drive. Note that you cannot connect the backup drive to both machines at the same time.

How do I move a back up to another external drive and how does the Mac Book then find the new back up?

how do I move a back up to another external drive and how does the Mac Book then find the new back up?
I currently have the back up on a Time Capsule, I want to move it from the Time Capsule to another external hard drive.

Did you read the link to the Pondidni website? You will have to select the Time Machine HDD for the new MBP and the old one in System Preferences>Time Machine:
Ciao.

Had to wipe my drive so I could do a clean install of snow leopard Now I look every where on how to move bookmarks, address book and I cal settings. I have them back up on a external drive with Time machine but can not move, copy or restore my old sett d

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Use migration assistant to move your files. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889

Most suitable external drive format for pc/mac

hope i've posted this in the correct forum.
i've formated an external OWC mercury 500GB drive to use with my desktop asus P4 and my macbook pro 17"
i formated in fat 32 in order to be able to read/write data files from both systems... so far things work ok with the exceptions being the trashes and ds files that the apple OS X litters the drive with... only the pc (explorer can see them) i've not yet had time to install and try and configure blueharvest (an apple program to fix it's mess).
moreover, i find i'm unable to copy large files like movies etc. because of a file size limit engendered by fat 32
i've just purchased another 500GB external drive and would like some advice on a 'POSSIBLE' better way to format this drive so the two systems can read/write data files.
any help would be appreciated... perhaps a link to a more detailed thread on this vexing problem of getting drives to pair (GLITCH FREE)...
thanks,
O

The easiest way is to format the external drive in either HFS (Mac) or NTFS (Windows)---connect the drive to the compatible computer (Mac for HFS; PC for NTFS) and then access the drive through your home network (assuming that you are networking your computers).
The reason this is the easiest is because across a network, the file system makes no difference--the network protocol and the built-in SMB file sharing protocol automatically do the necessary translations to allow you to read and write to any computer on the network as long as sharing and permissions are correct. This all happens in the background--you won't notice it---and the result is that your Mac computer can read and write to any PC drive, and your PC can read and write to any Mac drive.
I do this all the time on an eight computer home network of mixed Macs and PCs. I format the external drives in HFS (Mac) because I like using Spotlight (although Vista search is quite good)---and then transfer files from the PCs onto the external Mac drives.

External drive format to be used as iTunes library and media folder

Hi everyone, I want to transffer my iTunes to an external drive, do I need to format my external drive to Extended Journal or will an Appleshare be alright? Thanks!

Thanks for the reply, good! I only asked because I read that if you transfer you iPhoto Library you need to have your external drive formatted to Extended Journal so I thought that it might be the same for iTunes. And I only read the post after I started to transfer the iTunes to an external drive. Thanks again!

Best way to transfer time machine back up files between external drives

I have to move my time machine backup files from one external drive to another. I was planning to simply move it through finder, but it has been "preparing files" for 2 days straight. The number of items sowing in the status bar with the status of "preparing to copy XYZ items" has continued to stadily grow. Is there a better route or should I let it run till it is complete?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
That's exactly the way to transfer Time Machine backups to an external drive, so let the Finder do its job. See > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096
Note that the destination's external drive must be formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac

With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac. The record contained files windows. How to recover?
Serious mistake: to connect a Mac to an external drive with data (important!) Windows, the warning appears: "You want to use the disk for Time Machine?" Wrong button, so in 2-3 seconds, the disk is formatted. Now Mac "sees" the disc but empty, Windows does not see it under "My Computer" but in "Disk Management" is reported as "hard core", "healthy", "GPT protective partition" Is there a way to retrieve the files? Sorry for my English Thanks

I'm having a difficult time following, I understand English isn't your native language. You may have good luck with Google Translate.
Also please read Pondini's Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting.

, I-tunes can no longer 'locate' my library , after a botched cut & paste attempt to back-up onto an external drive. Still syncing with i-Pod but playlists lost , podcasts no longer syncing, Can't play music .. how to restore back to original state .

I-tunes can no longer 'locate' my library , after a botched cut & paste attempt to back-up onto an external drive.Cant play any music as it "can't find" the library Still syncing with i-Pod but playlists lost , podcasts no longer syncing. How to restore back to original state . I have tried re-installing - with no change

I do the same thing as you do...
My music is on an external drive as to not use up gigabytes of storage that need not be used for media.
There are a couple basic principles to iTunes that I believe you should know.
1. iTunes is not a media storage program. It does not store your media "in iTunes". It simply is an organization tool for your media already on a hard disk.
2. As iTunes is not a storage mechanism, it has no way to "know" whether or not the media that is listed is actually there. This is where the "design" of iTunes comes into play.
I like to think of iTunes as a bread-crumb trail. The "music" in iTunes, isn't actually there. The bread crumb is the location on the external hard drive.
If that bread crumb trail disappears (in this case the external drive you use). If said external drive is not plugged in, that bread crumb trail is not able to be followed. iTunes is "lost" and unable to find the media. The only way to remedy this is to place the media on your local drive.
To address your issue of the library. If you hold down shift, you can select your library on your external drive. It will be a file with an .itl extension. The folder name will be your external drive.
I go into edit > preferences > advanced and set my library to the correct location. Make sure you check the box "Copy to iTunes Folder when importing" (or whatever it says).
You can't fix the issue of iTunes not seeing the media if your drive is unplugged unless you physically move the content to your OS HDD...Or any other HDD you use.

Back up failed to external drive (formatted to MAC OS Extended)

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