Backup new hard drive without losing old files?

My hard drive has had to be replaced and I now have a new one. All of my files have been backed up to a portable hard drive using Time Machine. Since getting my new hard drive, I have created some new documents. Can I use the same portable hard drive to back these up without losing the saved backups from my previous hard drive? please help!

Yes, assuming the drive has enough space to hold both. Just set Time Machine to back up to it.
(116718)

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How to Replace existing Hard Drive with new Hard Drive, while keeping old files

Hi All,
I have recently replaced my hard drive on my Macbook Pro, with a new hard drive. The old Hard Drive was 160 GB, while the new one is 320 GB.
What I did before replacing it was clone my hard drive using "SuperDuper". I cloned it to the new hard drive and then simply removed my old hard drive and installed the new one with the clone on it. Then I booted it up and began running it. In fact I am using it right now.
My questions are:
Is this a good practice?
Will this work, without problems, indefinitely?
Is this the prescribed way to upgrade ones laptop hard drive?
The reason I did it this way was because I upgraded to Mountain Lion via the apple store download and I do not have the CD for the OS. So I figured if I could make a bootable copy, that might work. So far everything seems fine, but I really just want to know if this will last for a long time. I plan on also making a partition with Windows on it also, so I was wondering if anyone can comment on that too.
If anyone can comment or give any advice on this topic I would really appreciate it.
Thank you very much!
Cheers.

Every thing is fine except Super Duper does not clone the recovery partition. If you start your MBP holding the OPTION key, you should see the internal HDD and the ML recovery partition.
You can reinstall ML or reclone using Disk Utility>restore.
Ciao,.

How do I import images from my hard drive without losing resolution? My original files after import are significantly smaller. What should I do?

How do I import images from my hard drive without losing resolution? My original files after import are significantly smaller. What should I do?

Hi Keith, and all others chiming in, I do have the correct option checked in advanced settings telling iPhoto to copy the images into the library. What is a refernced library? Perhaps this is where I am getting confused. I exported my entire photo library from an old iMac5 to my external hard drive, from there I attempted to import the entire library to my new iMac. Am I overlooking an obvious and easy way to import from the hard drive to the new iMac--I dragged the entire photo pholder from the hard drive to the open window of iPhoto on the new computer. Now, I only get preview file sizes in iPhoto, unless I have my external drive open. Perhaps I need to import the original images from the hard drive in a different way...?! (This is making me feel pretty stupid.)

I have a new hard drive as my old one crashed. Everything seemed to transfer fine except for my entire iTunes library. It shows all of my old songs, but when I click on one it states "the song could not be used as the original file could not be found

I have a new hard drive as my old one crashed. Everything seemed to transfer fine except for my entire iTunes library. It shows all of my old songs, but when I click on one it states "the song could not be used as the original file could not be found.would you like to locate it".
Either how do I locate it, and I've tried every trick I know, or how do I restore all of my songs from one of two sources. I have my old hard drive backedup on an external drive which should have all of my songs, and I have most of my songs on my old iPhone 3S which I'm using as a backup iPod.

The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place. In the case of a library moved from one system to another there are also potential permissions issues. See Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. (Due to a bug in iTunes 12 you currently have to say No twice!) Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links.
If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.
See also Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

How can i backup my iPod Touch 4g and save my apps onto a new hard drive without having to save onto the current hard drive first?

How can i backup my iPod Touch 4g and save my apps onto a new hard drive without having to save onto the current hard drive first?
My current hard drive is filled up and i'm going to buy a new, bigger hard drive. How can i change the save and backup destination for iTunes so i can backup and transfer my purchases(apps) onto the new hard drive? Without having to backup and save my apps onto the current hard drive because there's no space left on it. Thanks!

have you tried following the steps given here on the apple's knowledge base site may be they can help you
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
here is a video from youtube as well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH_1qkHkZi0
also this tutorial
http://www.imore.com/how-to-setup-backup-restore-update-use-icloud

I'm trying to download my Master CS6 onto a new hard drive because my old one crashed and I keep getting a message saying " Cannot write the file" or "I don't have permission to access the requested resource." ? What does this mean?

I'm trying to download my Master CS6 onto a new hard drive because my old one crashed and I keep getting a message saying " Cannot write the file" or "I don't have permission to access the requested resource." ? What does this mean?

Yes- it is a Mac. I went through adobes system requirements and re- downloaded supportive software. The notice seems to happen near the end of the down load with the messages above. I'll look into your suggestion. Thank you- appreciated.

TS4268 i've backup in itunes with another phone number activation , now i want active with new phone number without losing old backups , what can i do for this problem ?? :(

i've backup in itunes with another phone number activation , now i want active with new phone number without losing old backups , what can i do for this problem ??

If I get this right, you've ported your phone number to AT&T with the purchase of the iPhone. That is considered opening your own account under your name. Your brother's account is not ported to AT&T unless you used his SS# instead of yours. Your brother still has his account under Verizon Wireless, all you did was use your cell phone number to when you opened your own AT&T account.
If you don't want to use your Verizon Wireless phone #, my suggestion is to call AT&T customer service and explain that you want a new phone number instead of the ported Verizon number.

How do I partition my external hard drive without losing data?

How do I partition my external hard drive without losing the data already on it? I've been using it with Time Machine on my old computer, but want to use it as a regular drag-and-drop type back up on my new computer. Is there any way to basically split the hard drive so I can still access the Time Machine backups on my old computer, but also be able to use it with my new mac? Thanks!

If you reformat the drive all data is lost.
The only way to save the data is to copy it somewhere else during the reformat.
Drag & drop will not backup things correctly.
I suggest you set up partition for each Mac and then point Time Machine to each of the partition for each of the Macs.

If I donwload e-books from various e-book retailers and want to back them up on an external hard drive without losing the format, do I need a special hard drive?

If I download e-books from various e-book retailers and want to back them up on an external hard drive without losing the format, do I need to know anything special?

I just looked into this as I was moving my iPad to a new computer for synching. With no thanks to Kobo for any really useful information on their help site (this discussion was the most useful info I found), I think the following may address your issue with respect to Kobo.
1. There is not easy or official way to back up Kobo books from your iPad.
2. Kobo keep track of your personal library. Go to the Kobo website (Kobo.com) and sign in to your account. On the very top line is "My Library". That contains (or at least Kobo says it does) everything you have ever bought from Kobo. Kobo say that you may download any of this content to other devices you own at no charge.
3. I synched my iPad to the new computer. According to Apple, that will delete all my data as the apps are re-installed from the new compute. While all my apps got moved around from the order I previously had (many thanks Apple), all my books are still there together with my bookmarks etc. Looks like this did nothing to change any Kobo data.
While I do not like the idea that I cannot create a backup on my main computer, it is probably safer in the long run that there is a backup at Kobo. After all, I could lose all my equipment in a fire or something, and then personal backups would be of little use.

Can I load "Pages" onto new hard drive without having to pay for it again?

I have a 5 yr old Mac that just had it's hard drive replaced. I had paid for and loaded Pages onto the original hard drive. Wondering if there's any way to load Pages onto my new hard drive without having to pay for the program again. Thanks so much

If you originally installed Pages from a CD or DVD, reinstall it from there.
If you installed Pages from the Mac App Store, yes, from the Apple ID you purchased it with.
If you got Pages from the iTunes App Store, the Mac version of it is a separate purchase.
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In need of a new hard drive for my old G5 computer

Hello there, I'm not as savvy as you are with computers but I am in need of a new hard drive for my old G5 computer that my husband uses. His crashed. If you did it all over again would you buy the same new hard drive? If so, where did you buy it? I don't even know where to start and was SO happy to find this recent post on installing new drives into the G5. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you!
<Title Edited by Host>

I actually just ran across this hard drive oddity for the first time myself just yesterday. It seems that some older Macs may not be able to use the newest SATA interfaces on some hard drives.
I an attempt to not get overly technical, SATA is the current interface type on computer hard drives. You can get some additional information from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA. There are currently three revisions, SATA-1 (the oldest), SATA-2 (the current version), & SATA-3 (the latest and greatest).
So what happened was that my G5 could not use the SATA-3 drive I purchased because the computer could not support the SATA-3 standard. It was possible to "slow down" one of the other test SATA-3 drives to make it work like a SATA-2 and so it may be possible to do the same to other hard drives.
To answer your question, I would NOT purchase the saem hard drive for my Mac as it does not work for this older Mac.
My suggestion, if you can find one purchase the same hard drive that was in the computer. That way you know it is compatible. If you would like to upgrade, you will have to do some looking. Although I cannot recommend a specific drive, my two favorite companies are Seagate, www.seagate.com and Western Digitial, www.wdc.com. You most likely have a 3.5" drive, if you have a desktop, 2.5" for a laptop. WD has the Cavier line and Seagate has either Barrcuda or Momentus. What you are looking for is capacity.
So, both Seagate and Western Digital are good. You need a 3.5" drive for a desktop or 2.5" drive for a laptop. Stick with a SATA-2 drive also known as a SATA 3Gb/s drive for compatibility. Get a drive that is 7200 RPM or higher. Finally purchase the largest capacity at you can afford. Amazon is a good general place to been looking.
KWCitizen_Apple

How to install a new hard drive without bootable disc/usb

Hi- my hard drive has totally failed and although I can get into disk utility it won't let me create images and keeps coming up with input/output errors when I try.
I don't have another mac to work from and have no discs whatsoever even for older OS versions
I've ordered a new hard drive(a seagate 750GB 7400rpm one) but how do I get mountain lion on the new hard drive without any discs? If I just put in my new hard drive will it come up with an option? I have a mid 2009 MBP if that helps

I have a mid 2009 MBP if that helps
Here is how it helps:
You need the Utilities from Recovery_HD. Your broken Mac can boot from a Thumb drive.
Use this article to download this Utility to copy the Recovery_HD from your older, working Mac to a minimum 1GB USB thumb drive:
OS X: About Recovery Disk Assistant
Then boot the new mac with the thumb drive by holding down Alt/Option, wait wait wait while it draws an Icon for each bootable Volume, choose the Recovery_HD, choose proceed arrow, and use Disk Utility to erase the drive and create GUID partition Map, 1 partition, Mac OS X Extended (journaled). Then install Mac OS X by download.

I have been using an external hard drive on a PC, I have now moved over to a macbookpro, is there a way to reformat the hard drive without deleting the files currently on the hard drive?

I have been using an external hard drive on a PC, I have now moved over to a macbookpro, is there a way to reformat the hard drive without deleting the files currently on the hard drive?

if it's fat32 then the mac can read it without problems
if it's ntfs then you can install programs which make it possible to write to it too otherwise it's read only

I had to install a new hard drive because my old hard drives boot files became corrupted, and i want to get all of my music files off the old hard drive and regain all my play counts/ratings/playlists

Greetings everyone
as the title says, ive had to install a new hard drive and i want to transfer my old itunes library onto the new drive, maintaining all playlists/play counts/ratings etc, album artwork if possible. The old hard drive is installed as a slave drive and is completely acessible, but due to the boot files being corrupted i cannot use it as the main drive and therefore operate my old itunes. Also, my ipod no longer contains my music library as itunes synced without my permission and wiped it.
The only thing i have tried is copying all of my old music files from the old drive by selecting 'add folder to library' and then the old drive, then replacing the new itunes library.itl file with the one from my old itunes. This restores all my playlists and playcounts but when i try to play any of the songs it says that the files could not be found, and i dont fancy locating 8500 music files individually!
Thankyou for taking the time to read my post, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Ah, my reply was based on the assumption that you had a default installation of iTunes.
i.e you had all your music in the iTunes media folder inside your iTunes folder.
If your iTunes folder is so small compared to the amount of music you have, you must have a different arrangement.
This complicates you situation considerably.
iTunes can cope with moving around as long as all the music is in the iTunes media folder, not not if it isn't.
Your first step should be to get iTunes working on the old drive. This will involve editing the xml library file so that the drive letter is correct and then rebuilding the library from the xml file.
Then you will need to consolidate your library which moves everything into the iTunes media fodler. After that you will be able to use my first suggestion.
Step 1
Find the iTunes folder on the old drive and copy the two library files somewhere else so you can find them again. That's iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml.
Now open the copy of iTunes Library.xml with WordPad.
Look for lines starting:
Location
These contain the paths to tracks.
You will need to use a find/replace to change the drive letter so that it is correct.
Make sure that you include enough in the "find" so that you only change the right thing.
Maybe /c:/ and replace with /d:/ or whatever.
After that, tell iTunes to use the library on the old drive with a shift key start.
Hold down the shift key and start iTunes, keep holding the shift key until you are prompted to choose a library. Navigate to the iTunes folder on the old drive and choose iTunes Library.itl.
Then use the method in the following article to rebuild your library;
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451
Unfortunately the date added will be today for all tracks.
If iTunes works correctly after this, consolidate your library
File>>Library>>Organize>>consolidate
This copies all tracks into to iTunes media folder and could create a problem if you do not have disk space so don't do it if you are unsure about free disk space.
Check that iTunes works OK and then use the first method.
Message was edited by: polydorus

How can I restore my iPod touch data to a new hard drive when the old one crashed

My computer crashed and I want to put the contents of my iPod Touch back on the new hard drive. How do I do this without accidentally Syncing and copying over my data? The vast majorioty of the music on my iPod is my own from DCs I own.

You should probably disable the autosync functionality first by going to Edit -> Preferences, clicking the Devices tab, and enabilng the prevent iPods,iPhones, and iPads from automatically syncing option.
Next, authorize the new computer with your iTunes Account. In iTunes, choose Store -> Authorize This Computer and enter in the correct credentials.
If possible, either copy a backup file from your old computer to your new one or create a new backup of your iPod in iTunes before letting it sync. To do this, right->click on your iPod Touch from under the Devices section in the left hand pane of iTunes and choose Backup. You might also want to take a look at this article to see what it all included in the backup.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766
Now onto synced content such as music, videos, photos, etc. For iTunes purchases you can copy them back into iTunes by choosing File -> Transfer Purchases. For all other nonpurchased iTunes content, see this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering different software availbable to assist you with this task.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
Once the backup has been made and all other synced content such as music, videos, and photos are back in your iTunes library, restore your iPod from that backup you made earlier. Here is more on backing up and restoring your iPod.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1414
B-rock

Backup new hard drive without losing old files?

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