Backing Up Files, Checking Hard Drive Health

I recently was told by Disc Utility that my startup disc is failing... I got scared and brought it back to Apple but since SMART doesn't check my external drives, I'm afraid that my other HDs may be in bad shape. Is there a way to check the health status of an external drive? I have 4 WD MyBooks...
Also, I want to back up files multiple times, I have them on a HD but was thinking about backing up on BluRay discs as well, do BD-R's every fail or go bad? Is it a secure and good way for backing up? I have a ton of video projects, I want to save the raw footage. Thanks.

Disc utility

Similar Messages

  • How to check hard drive health

    My mac pro starts up and shuts down very slow. Anyone know how to check hard drive health?

    Normally if you have a hard drive problem it manifests itself with delays, periodic locks-ups, I/O errors, etc.during notrmal use, not just start ups and slow downs.
    Never the less, you asked how you check the health of a drive, so I'll answer.
    You can check the SMART status of your drive with Disk Utility or a free tool like smartctl in the smartmontools package. Disk Utility will typically report the SMART status of your drive as "verified" or a message associated with a type of failure right in the Disk Utility window. SMART status will be reported on most internal drives and Thunderbolt drives. More elaborate SMART information can often be obtained with newer OS versions by clicking on the "info" button. SMART is a reporting technology and will only report on errors after they occur. Many in the industry are highly critical of SMART, with a recent study by Google on hard drive problems indicating that it did a poor job indicating impending problems.
    Other tools such as Scannerz (http://scsc-online.com/Scannerz.html), TechTool Pro (http://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro) and Drive Genius (http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php) do, IMHO, a better job of testing because surface scans can detect errors not detected by SMART yet, and all three of them do those tests. Personally I like Scannerz myself because it's to the point, hardware testing oriented, and can expose other system problems like cable problems, whereas the others are more like swiss army knife tools with a lot of features that may or may not be of use to end users. Some of the people on this site will swear by these tools, whereas others will swear at them. All three of these also monitor SMART status in one way or another.
    With software tools out of the way, I'd have to agree with all previous posts, because it doesn't sound like it's probably a hard drive problem. Yes, it possibly could be, it's just that slow start ups and shutdowns are usually caused by too many apps being saved in an "on" state. Any time the system starts, it has to re-load them and resume them as best as it can, and then any time it gets shut down it must save all that information  and this all takes time. (I'm assuming Lion or newer operating system is in use). This is often the most likely cause in Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.
    There are other possibilities, but you should probably ellaborate on the problem a bit more.

  • PC back up files -- External hard drive -- Mac?

    I just reformatted the hard drive on my Mac Book (running Mac OS X 10.5.8), and plan to use it as my primary machine. But I've got system back-up files from an old PC on an external hard drive (was running Windows 7) that I'd like to transfer over if possible. Mostly .mp3 files and documents. The hard drive itself is compatible with both platforms.
    Is this even possible?

    Is this even possible?
    Yes. Hook it up and copy the files over.

  • Disk utility recomends backing up files after hard drive can not be repaired?

    My Mac mini will not complete the boot process. I am able to get to the disk utility by using the Snow Lepard disk that I recently purchased and pressing the option key. Disk utility is telling be that my disk can not be repaired and I should back up as much data as I can and reload the software.
    Is there another disk repair program that could possibly fix what disk utility can not? Is it worth a try?
    If not...
    How do I back up data on the mounted disk since I can not access it? Do you recommend a perticular external hard drive and software to manage my backups?
    Thank you.

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities allensood!
    You will get a wider audience and won't confuse the original poster with solutions that don't apply to them, if you start your own topic here
    https://discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/mac_mini?view=discussi ons
    Unless you have a solution to try for the original poster, it is always best if you start your own topic.

  • Hidden back up files on hard drive

    Hi all,
    I am trying to free space on my 256GB flash drive to speed things up and so moved 40GB of movies to my external hdd. However, it doesn't free up any space when I jump to About this mac - More info - Storage. It still displays the same disk usage. I noticed after deleting, I now have 40 GB of back up's on it. I assume these are the files I have just deleted. I can't find the folder where they're located in and Spotlight can't either.
    Can anyone clarify and help me out on this one? Why does my laptop back up these files which I drag to my bin to be deleted?
    MBP Retina '13 - 256GB flash
    I Couldn't find a similar discussion, if one exists already please ignore this topic and provide link please if possible.
    Your help is much appreciated.
    Thanks

    If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.

  • I had all my iTunes music backed up onto a hard drive; but the hard drive was stolen along with all the files I backed up onto it. However, the songs I had in iTunes still show up (I just can't play them.) Would it let me get them back?

    I had all my iTunes music backed up onto a hard drive; but the hard drive was stolen along with all the files I backed up onto it. However, the songs I had in iTunes still show up (I just can't play them.) If I were to use iCloud, would it still take those songs and let me listen to them (and maybe re-download them?) Or am I out of luck?

    Open iTunes, go to the iTunes Store, and then go to Purchased on the right hand side under Music Quick Links.
    You can re-download all the songs, apps, or books you have previously purchased.
    I'm not sure if this is a requirement, but just in case, make sure you download the latest version of iTunes (v10.3) too.

  • Hard Drive Failure - Music Files backed up to external hard drive ...

    i reinstalled itunes and successfully copied over the music folders. i can play all of my music in itunes except the purchased music. an error comes up that says the original file is missing.
    if i plug in the external drive i can search and play the file from there.
    weird! b/c the external drive is a copy of what was on my old hard drive?
    also it is the EXACT folder that i copied back to the new hard drive.
    any advice? is there a way to 'unlock' the music? is there a 1 time copy allowance? anything?
    thanks!

    Set the iPod to manual to prevent any erasures (not sure this is essential, but I only ever use mine in manual mode). It's ages since I did mine - can't remember if it happened as soon as I connected the iPod to iTunes or if I had to do right mouse and choose a menu item but it was straightforward.
    I also don't remember if I reimported my iTunes library from the back up hard drive before I connected the iPod to the PC, I suspect I had put most of the library back before connecting.
    Don't forget you can look at the files on the iPod itself and copy them over, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention third party software on here so I won't but an internet search would give you the information you need.

  • Can Time Machine back on one external hard drive (work files) to another external hard drive (back up)?

    Can Time Machine on a Mac Book Pro 10.5.8 back up an external hard drive (working files) to another external hard drive (WD dual backup)?

    I have Mountain Lion here ready to upgrade, but I'm scared of what will happen - there's always something when you upgrade, but I guess that's for a different post!
    Yes, it's a different post, but let's make a comment any way.
    Your power pc apps will not work when you upgrade to Mountain Lion. You will have to replace all the apps you use.

  • Backed up on external hard drive now missing songs

    Hiya,
    pleases help me as im going crazy!
    bought a new lacie hard drive, copied the folder on the internal hard drive with music in onto the external hard drive. redirected itunes....everything seemed fine, then deleted the folders off the internal hard drive leaving them only on the external and itunes went blank.
    checked itunes preferences and it was directed to correct folder but still nothing.
    went through a really irritating process of copying folders back onto the internal hard drive and then redirecting itunes once again and have recovered most files but some tracks that i have had on my itunes for ages have dissappeared - i played maps by yeah yeah yeahs earlier today and its gone off the comp - not in any files with other music and not in the trash!
    please help me, iv lost all my playlists and last played counts etc and now i seem to have misplaced i dont even no how many music files! where could they have gone.....what have i done and how can i get everything back to the way it was but with the tunes running from the external hardrive!
    please help!
    cheers
    g5 desktop   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

    I honestly thought they were backed up, along with a few hundred pictures. I actually went in and manually did a back-up a couple of months ago, because it didn't appear that it was following the schedule & auto-backing up. I'm just a 55 y/o, non-computer-literate mom, who now has adult children & am doing this computer thing on my own!! My computer is really old. Bought it when Windows ME came out!! HA! Saving for a new one, but our daughter's wedding this summer got in the way.
    I thought about the delete-thing. Wasn't sure if that would work. Going to try (test) that now.
    Thanks for your quick response & help.

  • 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.

  • How do I back up one External Hard Drive to another?

    I have two identical partitioned WD External Drives.  Drive 1, Partition 1 is a Macbook Pro Time Machine backup. Drive 1, Partition 2 is for photo & video storage uploaded directly from the camera or disk (so I don't overload my internal storage).  How do I backup Drive 1, Partition 1 & Partition 2 onto the partitioned External Drive 2? 

    I should back up my Internal Hard Drive directly to each of the 2 external Hard Drives, right?
    Yes.
    Since the External HD's are typically not plugged into the computer, should I not use Time Machine?
    When the drives are connected, the backups will take place. If you rarely connect the drives, then you should also back up over the network to a Time Capsule, a hard drive connected to a current-model AirPort base station, or another Mac via File Sharing.
    See also:
    Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac
    iPhoto: How to move the Library folder to a new location
    iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

  • Backing up an external hard drive and internal drive to Time Machine

    Hello!  I have had my new iMac (21.5 inch, 10.6.6, 2.5 ghz Intel Core i5) for three days now.  I am really nervous about losing my files.  One thing I was really looking forward to on the Mac is Time Machine.
    Here is my current setup.  Time Machine is backing up my internal hard drive (500GB) to an external hard drive (500GB).   Lets call the Time Machine backup drive "black" for simplicity.  I have another external hard drive connected as well (500GB).  Let's call it "silver."  The silver drive has all the files I created on various PC's and Macs.  It is formatted so that it can work on both PCs and Macs (MS-DOS FAT 32).  There is 350GB on the silver drive, leaving 149 GB available.  The black one is the Time Machine backup; it was formatted by Time Machine into Mac OS Extended journaled and is currently using 31 GB.
    I would really love for Time Machine to back up the Silver drive (that has all of my files) and the internal Mac drive to the Time Machine black drive.  In Time Machine's exclude list, it shows the Silver drive, but will not let me exclude it (it will not let me select it at all).
    Is there something that I am missing?  Why won't Time Machine include the Silver drive?
    P.S.  I am new to Time Machine, and most of System Preferences, so a little more explanation may be needed.
    Thank you in advance!

    Just curious, why is it a bad idea to share with Windows?  The files I created on Windows that I want to use on the Mac are things like PDFs, JPGs, MP3s, Adobe Creative Suite files, etc.   I don't know very much about cross platform files other than I haven't had issues over the last four years sharing files with a PC here and a Mac at school (and now this Mac that I own).

  • Can I recover lost library from Windows backup file after hard drive crash?

    I'm sure this has been visited before, so I'm sorry if this is redundent.
    My daughters Windows notebook had to be reformatted because of a severe virus. I had all important files including iTunes songs backed up onto portable Hard Drive. Got her notebook up and running and then restored her songs back to her computer (but not into the original location). Plugged in her iPod Mini and now it shows no files at all on the Mini and iTunes will not access or recognize the songs that I restored
    Prior to the restoring she was able to listen to her complete music collection on the iPod Mini.
    I still have access to the backup files either on the Hard Drive or in a separate folder from which I restored the first time. Should I completely erase the songs from the notebook now and then access the backup file?
    And how do I get the Mini and iTunes to recognize the music once and for all?
    Thanks for any advice, help, and suggestions.
    Tony
    HP Pavilian Notebook   Windows XP   iPod Mini.

    What you will do depends on if you have the "iTUnes Music Library.xml" file on backup. By default this file is stored on
    C (Or the drive windows is on)/documents and settings/............/My Documents/My Music/iTunes
    If you DO have this file on backup, then you will have to set all the music to its EXACT location it was before reformatting

  • Using TM to back up an external hard drive to another external hard drive

    My question/problem is as follows: I have two external hard drives--one a LaCie 500GB and a new Western Digital 750GB (which I bought because I thought that the LaCie had crashed but, as it turns out it was just the power supply that went out). I have set up Time machine to back up my internal hard drive on my Mac Mini to the Western Digital drive, but I also want to back up the LaCie drive(where I keep my iTunes library) to the Western Digital hard drive. I was recently on the phone with an Apple technical guy who said that it can be done but he told me that he couldn't help me because Apple does not "support" that set up. They only "support" backing up the internal to an external.
    Any guidance that someone may be able to provide would be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks.

    Simon,
    Time Machine uses a lot of internal tools within the system files, so it's never a good approach to begin to fool it with duplicates, renamings the exact same names etc such tricks.
    Better handle TM the "official" straight way:
    Plug both external drives, and tell Time Machine through its normal Preferences, that you are now moving your TM backup routine to the other external drive.
    Let it do the first backup then one next, and then only, unplug the first drive so you can send it for repairs.
    When you get it back, use TM Preferences again to tell it to backup now back on the first drive again.
    That's what I would do personally, or another simple solution:
    set Time Machine OFF temporarily while the first drive is being repaired, and use
    SuperDuper!
    to make daily clones of your Mac on the temporary second drive.

  • Is it possible to back up an external hard drive to Time Machine from two different computers without creating two different records?

    I have an external hard drive that I do my work on. I use it on my office MacPro and on my MacBook Pro. I have Time Machine setup on both computers to back up the external hard drive to a remote backup drive, but when it backs it up, the backup goes into either the MacPro record of it, or the MacBook Pro record. The effect of this is that if I'm at my laptop and I need to access an earlier version of a file that existed when I was working on my MacPro, I can't access it.
    Is it at all possible to create a universal record (or Sparse Disk Image Bundle to use Apple lingo) for my external hard drive?

    Hi BDAqua,
    Thanks for your help as always, sorry I never thanked you earlier, finally got some time to attend this.
    I'm in the mail folder in the library of my user name. Just to make sure I get all my mail boxes I'm going to archive simply the whole 'Mail' folder after going in to the library of my unsername.
    I notice you mentioned about importing there .... I've seen the .emix files you mention .... i have 30,000+ of them.
    What I find helpful in mail is that if I type a client's second name, in this case 'Lopez' I can pull up all the mails relating to him in an instant, around 450. Obviously it would be impossible to pick through 30K .emix files to find the right ones .... so could I easily import them in to my Mail on my new computer?
    Could I select the whole lot of them, then drag and drop them in to my new Mail on the new computer, and then use the search function on Mail? ... the normal desktop search function doesn't seem to look through the emix files, or emails for that matter.
    Also, just as an extra precaution, could I make a smart folder in Mail with the name of said client for example for, then archive that folder separately?
    TY
    Message was edited by: Scottishengineer

Maybe you are looking for