Backing up files/folders

I know this is going to sound like I'm a bit dim, but I just want to check first.
I have all my photos on an external drive, which is backed up by time machine to another external drive.
Now I want to make yet another backup of the photos to a third drive and have been looking for software that will do this as an automatic schedule.
I've read a little about superduper, but most of the info is talking about making bootable clones of the mac HD. Will superduper do what I want or is there something else I should be looking at.
Many Thanks
Mark

SuperDuper makes scheduled backups too. I use it all the time .vs Time Machine. The developer gives great support too. IMHO, well worth the investment.
Dave M.
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Similar Messages

Look at your iphoto 'page'. On the left is a margin running vertically down the page and within that margin are shown your files/folders - e.g 'events', I can't get that margin contents back

Look at your iphoto 'page'.
On the left is a margin running vertically down the page and within that margin are shown your files/folders - e.g 'events', 'last 12 months', 'anniversary' etc etc.
Now visualize the 'page' but WITHOUT the margin and the entries in it. It just disappeared while I was editing photos.
I've tried all the 'File', 'Edit', 'View', 'Share' 'Window' & 'Help' options, but no success.
There is no apparent way of calling up onto the screen any photos, folders etc. because I can't get the margin and its contents back onto the iphoto page.
I've tried restoring the page from my backup, where it is all perfect, but that didn't work.
Help please!

Move your cursor to the extreme left hand side of the iPhoto Window until it turns into a '+' and then click and drag right.

I just up dated my I Mac. The file folders for G mail have been changed to Z to A. How do I get them re arranged back to a to Z?

I just up graded my system and my G mail file folders are now organized from Z to A how do I get them back to A to Z ?

It's the headers marked above as From, Subject, and Date Received.

Disk Utility says "drive can't be repaired, disk and restore your backed up files."

My Mac Book Pro froze yesterday and I had to force restart it. It had been showing me messages that my hard drive disk was full for a while and I was in the middle of transferring files to my external hard drive and I accidentally put a huge large file from my external hard drive into the trash on my laptop which makes me wonder if that means I added more GB to a computer that was already very full. Anyway, after freezing I restarted it and the desktop wouldn't load properly. The desktop picture was there, but folders on desktop did not appear, finder bar was missing and the dock was acting super slow and nothing worked when clicked on. Then the next few attempts were around the same result and eventually became stuck on the apple logo, spinning gear and a progress bar that was not loading at all.
Here's what I've tried so far:
Safe mode- nothing happens
Command + R - I am unsure how to work this since I can't seem to find an internet connection when it prompts for one. None of the internet connections have much signal and my own information doesn't seem to load since the gear spins to find the internet connection name and password I typed to load it but can't seem to find it. Perhaps I have the wrong internet information, but I don't think so.
I tried Command + S to use in single user mode and type in a command to help fix the drive, BUT, even though the black screen and white lettering mode did show up, it remained in a place where I was not allowed to type anything and the last thing written at the bottom of the screen was something about set up for bluetooth, I think. I tried this twice and both times it stopped in the same place and I could not type a command.
Disk Utility using installation dvd to verify and repair disk. Verify says disk needs repair and then repair has some red colored phrases: Invalid volume file count. (It should be 786374 instead of 786274) Incorrect number of thread records. And there was another problem listed but I do not remember it. Then, near the end of repairing it says: "Disk Utility stopped repairing Macintosh HD." It tells me it couldn't repair the disk and that I should back up as many of my files as possible, reformat the disk and restore backed up files.
That would be fine and dandy, but I have no idea how to back up my files and do all this. I have no idea how to exactly get the data off my hard drive. If someone does, please list a step by step guide for me on how to do so.
I have an external hard drive and I tried plugging in and selecting the hard drive and making a "New Image" to copy to the external hard drive destination, but it just stops a few seconds into it and tells me there is an input/output error. I tried read only, read/write only, compressed options for making a copy and all yield the same result.
In Disk Utility, I believe I have a partition -the Macintosh HD. I have listed on the left hand side: 320.07 GB Hitachi HTSS45.....etc. and below it in non-bolded, grey lettering it says "Macintosh HD."
The Hitachi, when clicked upon, shows the S.M.A.R.T. status as Verified and the Macintosh HD doesn't show much in details except for "Not mounted."
At one point, the Macintosh HD was in bold lettering and seemed to be mounted for a few minutes. When that happened, I was able to see the details reading: Mount Point: /Volumes/Macintosh HD, Capacity: 319.73 GB, Available: 11.92 GB, Used: 307.81 GB, etc.
I'm getting nervous to keep turning on and off the computer on force start and shut downs, especially since I have been reading up that the longer the computer is on, the more the hard drive is in use and the more chance for it to start deleting or overwriting my files. Is this true?
It's not mounted anymore since it was momentarily mounted. I just want to get my files off the disk and save them to my external hard drive. That is my main goal right now. What can I do?
Thank you in advance for your help!

If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to fully boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup) or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Loop Browser - Removing files/folders not indexed in the Apple Loops Index

Hi...
I experimented with dragging in a SFX folder to the Logic Pro Loop Browser window. It asked me if I wanted to copy files to the Apple Loops folder or reference the original files, and I selected reference the originasl files.
The SFX files were then listed under the OTHER area of the View menu.
Question... HOW do I remove these SFX files/folder from the OTHER view menu?
I have tried deleting all of the Apple Loop Index files and that did not work.
I have tried deleting the actual SFX files/folders, and after they disappear, but when I restore the SFX files/folders to their source location they reappear in the logic browser view menu.
Is there some where else Logic stores Loop Browser reference data which can be deleted to remove these OTHER files/folders from the Loop Browser view menu?
Thanks

Success...
OK I found the solution.
1) I deleted the SFX audio files from the referenced HDD source location.
2) I opened Logic and re-index the Loop Browser.
3) I quit Logic and copied the SFX files back to the HDD.
When I opened Logic this time, the SFX files/folders referenced under the OTHER menu were gone.
Because I have a huge production music & SFX library, the best way to audition these sources for use in a Logic project, is to audition in iTunes and then just drag whatever I need right from within itunes into the Logic project.
That keeps my Logic loop browser more manageable and focused on composing.

Back-up file exists on my computer but iTunes can't browse it

Hi all,
I am having a problem with finding my backup data. Hope to find someone who can help this.
So this morning, I decided to restore my iPhone 5 to the default setting. I backed up all the data in my iPhone to iTunes before restoring. After restoring, iPhone was rebooted, white screen showed up with greeting, and it asked for settings such as language, country, network setting those kinds of stuff. iPhone was still connected with iTunes, and iTunes asked me if I want to restore data from back up file. I hit yes and iPhone started getting restored the backup data.
Problem happened here: iPhone accidentally disconnected, and iTunes stopped restoring and iPhone was rebooted again. I connected iPhone with iTunes again, and it started synchronizing instead of restoring backup data. And at the same time iTunes backed up data of iPhone which has not been restored the backup data yet. So a new backup file, which is just default status, was created and it was overwritten on the actual backup file that contained all my photos and everything.
I went to Edit-Preferences-Devices menu, and the original backup file (which contains all data) doesn't show on the list.
But I found a little hope:
This is the capture of back up folder where the backup files are stored (Sorry I use Korean version of Windows 7)
The location is: Users\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\backup
This is the capture of Edit-Preferences-Devices menu on iTunes (Sorry again, it's Korean version of iTunes)
As you see, there are 6 backup files showing on Edit-Preferences-Devices menu. One is from my previous iPhone 4S, and two were created back in Febraury, and the last three backup files are created today at 11:24AM, 11:37AM, and 7:58PM.
But there are 8 folders in backup folder. One folder on the very top were created back in 2012. I guess this is the backup file for my previous iPhone 4S. Two folders under it were created back in Feb. This makes sense because there are 2 backup files which were created in February showing on Devices menu. The bottom three folders were created today at 11:34AM, 11:37AM and 7:59PM, which matches to the backup file list on Devices menu.
There are extra 2 folders created at 10:50AM and 10:52AM today. (See red box) I believe the one created at 10:50AM is the original backup file that contains all my data because the size of that folder is 5.20GB. The one created at 10:52AM is 0kb. And none of the folders created at 11:34AM, 11:37AM and 7:59PM exceeds 10MB, which makes sense because these backup files were created after restoring. Doesn't have any data.
So here goes my question: how can I restore data from the back up file created at 10:50AM?
I would really appreciate your help.

Updates:
I found why the original backup file is not showing on iTunes. Becuase it is corrupted.
All other folders contains Infor.plist, Manifest.mbdb, Manifest.plist and Status plist files.
But the folder that contains origianal backup files does not have those files above.
I think the only way I can restore the data is using third party extracting software.
Do you know anything about that kind of software?

Lightroom - how to restore backed up files (not Lightroom catalogue) from one external drive to another?

How to restore backed up files (not lightroom catalogue) from one external drive to another.
I recently backuped my photo files from one external drive to another. The backup (carbon copy cloner) pointed to some corrupt files on the original drive.
I have deleted those files and am finding good copies of them in Time Machine backups.
I want to get rid of the original external drive; use the recent backup as my main external and then back it up onto a brand new drive.
What I am not sure about is how to point lightroom to the backups so it knows to look on the new drive instead of the old drive and all those exclamation marks and question marks go away.
There are close to 60,000 images in numerous folders all with one 'parent folder.'
My best guess is from Lightroom Help - Create and Manage Folders - Locate Missing Folders
Can I point to the one parent folder and all the subfolders will come back?
Is this the process to recover files into lightroom and will there be a problem with so many photos?

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

I need some help to create more space on my hard drive-what can I delete? I have my external G-DRIVE connected as a back up, so i think I'm duplicating a lot of back up files, mostly photos through Lightroom on my Mac HD. Only 9GB left out of 297GB...

Have never had to retrieve backed up files so I think I'm just chicken to delete files on my Mac. Is everything on my back up if I need it? Even photos that have been processed in Lightroom? Could I delete all older photo folders from my Mac and still get them from external drive if I needed them down the road? I have run a GrandPerspective scan and it appears most of my disk space is used for photo files and back-ups...probably have 30,000-40,000 photos. Thanks!

Look at getting Onyx, as you have alot of photo's, and so do I. Onyx will help clear somethings from you Mac, all you have to do is run Automation, and or Cleaning. Is that 30,000-40,000 Photo's Duplicates? if so, you might want to delete as many as the those duplicates as possible. i see you use Lightroom, are you useing that to import your images or are you useing something else like Iphoto, or just importing them to your mac. if you are using something else to import your photo's and then reimporting them, this might create duplicates of images. also sometimes when you delete images you dont want, they might not be acctually deleted. so clear you Trash, and run onyx to help clear these things up.
I know there are a few different programs out there that will help clrear out duplicates of items, and help you reduce space.
Duplicate-Annihilator Looks for images in Iphoto that are the same, and allows you to change them or delete them.
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/18748/duplicate-annihilator
TidyUp ($$) Will look for Music, Pictures Documents, or any duplicates.
http://www.hyperbolicsoftware.com/TidyUp.html
Hope This Helps you.

HT201250 Time Machine can no longer back up files

I was using Time Machine to back up files to a WD Elements hard drive. Lately I started to get error messages the back-up failed. Previously Finder would list back-up files for that drive, but now it only shows empty folders. Get Info still shows 60 GB of used space on the external drive. Can I retrieve those files, or is all lost and I must reformat the hard drive?

I would connect the Time Machine HDD to your Mac and open Disk Utility and select First Aid, Verify the disk and run a Repair if necessary. If that does not solve the problem, I suspect that the HDD is failing. Then I suggest transferring the backup data to another HDD, or perhaps just start from square one with a new HDD and back up the entire internal HDD.
Ciao.

Time Machine Duplicates and How to Delete a Single Copy of Backed Up File ?

Here is the puzzle pieces , then the questions I'm asking
Example - my iPhoto Library file (its 36 gigs and yes I do create separate libraries)
If you add a single photo - Time Machine rightly sees a changed file and backs it up
Now I have Multiple Back ups of this large file
I want to delete only single back-up of this iPhoto file, NOT all instances of it
Here is the dilemma that I am having
according to a previous post
How to delete a Time Machine-backed up file on an external HD
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8799363&#8799363
you have to
1 - Have a finder window open
2 - launch Time Machine
3 - find the file you want to delete in the finder window
4 - go to the Gear Icon in the finder window
5 - Pull down menu for
6 - drum roll please! 'delete all backups of <filename>
Well I DO NOT WANT TO DELETE ALL BACKUPS!!!!!!
I want to keep some of the back ups of that iPhoto file - not all of them
I want to manage my files individually, and delete those and only those necessary
I can only hope there is a simple and easy solution,
If someone could just point me in that direction I would greatly appreciate it
Cheers , Don

donaldo777 wrote:
I want to manage files individually because:
I am running out of HD space
I want to have some measure of control of my backed up files
You'll find that rather difficult -- TM was specifically designed to manage space and backups automatically, as most users won't, or don't have the patience.
If it's only your photos you want to do this way, you might consider excluding them from TM and using a different app that will do traditional archive backups. CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper, for example, are mostly used to make bootable "clones" of your whole system (I use CCC for that in addition to TM). But both of them (and others) can also be used to back up only specific files/folders, and, optionally, retain archive copies of changed items. Just how that works, I can't tell you, but for details see their documentation (Google or VersionTracker).
CCC is donationware, SD has a free version, but I think you'd need the paid one, about $30.
Thanks for your response, and I have a question, when you say be careful of deleting thru the finder
because TM will get cranky - Do you mean TM gets 'confused' where is the location of its back-ups
when TM scans backward in TIme?
No, it's apparently got to do with the way it manages it's actual files vs. hard links (sort of like aliases), and picking one hourly backup to be the daily, then one daily to be a weekly. It seems to require some shuffling around. I don't know the details (not publicly available, I think).
Eventually, I don't care of TM gets cranky as long as I can access my data and still reach my original goal
You will care when it gets so cranky it stops backing-up, or you can't find what you want to restore.
I want to have control of my files, they are huge in size and number and eventually
Even Terabit drives are filling up on me.
Then as mentioned, you may need different strategies, and perhaps different apps, for different types of data. Such complex strategies are actually quite common in medium to large data centers, but again, TM was designed mostly for not-so-savvy home users.

Can Time Machine Be Used to Back Up Files from An External Hard Drive?

Please let me provide a little more information to clarify the question.
The hard drive on my computer is not large enough for all my photo and video files so I am planning to purchase a new external hard drive and move my "Pictures" and "Movies" folders to the new external hard drive as a way of freeing up space on my computer. A different external hard drive is now used for backup of the computer's hard drive.
My question is about how backups will be handled if I upgrade to Snow Leopard.
I understand that Time Machine will take the place of the software now being used to back up the MacHD, but back up is still needed for the photo and video files which would be moved off of the MacHD. Will Time Machine back up those files too? That is, will Time Machine back up specified folders which are being stored on one external hard drive and place the backups on a different external hard drive? And, will Time Machine do that in addition to backing up the MacHD? If so, are separate partitions needed for the MacHD and the Photo/Video backups, or will Time Machine put everything in the same partition?
Any advice and/or suggestions for handling this in would be most appreciated.
Thanks for your help.

As captfred says, yes (as long as the drive is formatted for a Mac, not Windoze).
You might want to review the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

How to restore my 2 mail acc. after incorrectly moving back .plist file ?

This morning my Mail was quitting 5 sec. every time time I opened it. I moved com.apple.mail.plist file to trash, started Mail. I got a message that one of my mail boxes(don't remember which one..) will be renamed.
I guess I made a mistake by opening Mail and not Mail.app ?
Closed Mail and moved back .plist file into Library/Pref.
Here I made another mistake by dragging incorrectly, it was placed into some other program. I deleted the other program, and moved the .plist into Library/Prefer.
As the result, my both Mail accounts are gone, and instead I have now MobileMe in my Inbox.
How to restore my accounts now please ???
Thanks!!!

I have both POP accounts in Library/Mail. What should I do to have both POP in the Mail ?
To drag both to desktop and then to Mail? how and exactly where ?
or to create these two POP again in Mail and then drag both POP folders there ?

Files/folders created in Windows share are read-only... why and how to fix?

Client: MacBook Pro running 10.7.5
Server: Windows 7 desktop
I'm sharing a folder from the Windows 7 machine and mounting it on my Mac using Finder's "Connect to Server..." and an smb:// URI. I'm providing a user ID/password for an account on the Windows 7 box that has full control over the shared folder, via smb://userid:password@server/share.
The volume mounts properly on my desktop, can I can see files/folders there as expected. However:
If I create a folder, it's read-only. I cannot create any files inside (or even see inside), rename the folder, or delete the folder. The folder has a badge: red circle with bar.
If I create a file, it's read-only. I cannot rename it, delete it or edit it.
If I examine File Info via Finder on any of these files or folders, under Sharing & Permissions it says "You have custom access."
If I try to delete these files/folders, I get error code -8072. I can delete them from the command-line, but I can't otherwise manipulate them.
I've verified on the Windows box that the user ID I'm using has full control of the folder. I've also set it so Everyone has full control, with no difference.
This seems to have been a recent change in behaviour (a few weeks ago I was copying data to this drive, no problem), and it's driving me crazy because I can't figure out how to fix it.

L145:
It is always good counsel to Repair Disk Permissions (from the internal HDD) before and after any new installation.
To change permissions in our Applications Folder:
Select Applications Folder.
Get Info (Command + i)
Go down to Ownership & Permissions
Click on arrow next to Details to expand.
Click on lock and authenticate
Owner is system
Group is admin
Change all permissions to Read & Write except Others
Other can Read only.
Please do not hesitate to post back should you have any further questions or comments.
Good luck.
cornelius

Restoring backed up files to new laptop hard drive

I recently upgraded from 10.3 to 10.5 (skipping Tiger), all the while backing up to an external Maxtor drive. Then my hard drive started dying. So I bought a new hard drive and put it in an external 800 FW enclosure. I formatted the new drive and installed 10.5, by-passing the dying drive but using the install CD. Then I installed the new drive into my laptop. Now I want to copy the backed up files on my Maxtor HD onto the new hard drive. I've spoken to an Apple guy, couldn't help. Went to Genius Bar, got wrong advice. Went to Maxtor web site, couldn't find answer. I have used the application "Backup" that came with 10.3 while doing backups; continued using this after upgrading to 10.5. Have not used Time Machine! I was able to copy and paste from the old drive which I put into the external enclosure, but couldn't read all the files. Home folder wasn't even listed. All my iTunes library is on Maxtor, but can't get to it. Need help on this, please!

I believe that Apple's "Backup" application uses a special storage scheme that normaly requires Apple Backup to restore the backup items. There may be a problem, though, because your screenshot shows the backup items as ordinary folders. I don't use Backup any more, but I have some old storage items made with Backup 3, and my full and incremental backup items look like single files in Finder. They actually are packages, "special" folders with the same internal structure as the one you posted, but which look like single files in Finder. Maybe you used an earlier version of Backup that creates folders instead of package files.
I don't know if Backup 3 will be able to open and use the "normal-looking" folders that you do have, but it's worth a try. If you don't have Backup 3 on your current Leopard installation, you can download it at
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL184
You need a MobileMe subscription to make new backups, but I think you can restore old backups even without a subscription. There is a Help menu in Backup 3 which includes instructions on how to restore things when you no longer have the backup plan used to make the backups. You would normally use Backup 3 to open the most recent IncrementalBackup file if there is one, otherwise the FullBackup file. In your situation I would try to open the folder with those names, not the folder contents.
If this doesn't work try double-clicking the "backup.sparseimage" files in the Folder>Contents>Contents subfolders. If the disk image mounts, look inside the mounted disk for your stuff and drag the contents back to your internal HD. Don't try to restore "settings", just datafiles.

Restoring backed up files requires a password

Just updated my iPad 2 32GB with iOS 5, the problem is when i am now in the process of restoring the backed up files, it requires a password which i didn't put any when i'm in the back up process. How could this be? please help me. i need to restore all the stuffs in my iPad

I believe that Apple's "Backup" application uses a special storage scheme that normaly requires Apple Backup to restore the backup items. There may be a problem, though, because your screenshot shows the backup items as ordinary folders. I don't use Backup any more, but I have some old storage items made with Backup 3, and my full and incremental backup items look like single files in Finder. They actually are packages, "special" folders with the same internal structure as the one you posted, but which look like single files in Finder. Maybe you used an earlier version of Backup that creates folders instead of package files.
I don't know if Backup 3 will be able to open and use the "normal-looking" folders that you do have, but it's worth a try. If you don't have Backup 3 on your current Leopard installation, you can download it at
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL184
You need a MobileMe subscription to make new backups, but I think you can restore old backups even without a subscription. There is a Help menu in Backup 3 which includes instructions on how to restore things when you no longer have the backup plan used to make the backups. You would normally use Backup 3 to open the most recent IncrementalBackup file if there is one, otherwise the FullBackup file. In your situation I would try to open the folder with those names, not the folder contents.
If this doesn't work try double-clicking the "backup.sparseimage" files in the Folder>Contents>Contents subfolders. If the disk image mounts, look inside the mounted disk for your stuff and drag the contents back to your internal HD. Don't try to restore "settings", just datafiles.

Backing up files/folders

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