Backups/itunes/smallpox/reinstalling/hard drives/mountain lions

EDIT: I REARRANGED THE ORDER OF MY PARAGRAPHS. SO THE FIRST PART IS NOW THE 2ND PART...IT'LL MAKE SENSE ONCE YOU READ.
I also want to know if anyone has any explanation for how an update to a newer version of iTunes might cause so many seemingly random of my videos, apps and possibly other items (songs? not sure what else it is so hard to tell after having had it for so many years) to just go AWOL. I can definitely tell some things are missing. For instance, videos. I know that I had several dozen to 100 compared to the TWO that I have had since updating.
People here on this forum keep telling me to find my time machine backup since I am unable & unwilling to live with this current version. I mean I cant. Everything is gone and anything which is not gone is just wonkyfied. Not knowing all that much on the topic, I assume that'd be somewhere on my hard drive. I hope. TBH, I've had a major accessibility issue over my external hard drive and am working on getting it back. So whatever is on there would be over 4 months old....not sure if thats a good or a bad thing, quite honestly! As far as iTunes versions go.
So maybe there are some old iTunes files here on my hard drive wandering about? As a matter of fact, I have some saved files from my old MacBook that I managed to hang onto - which actually contained saved files from my first MacBook from back in like..2001ish? so if such a thing is possible to pull out of those transferred saved file thingies ( can you tell I totally know what I'm talking about? I speak several languages but Computer happens to not be one of em) I transferred it onto this before I dropped Recent MacBook on the floor. I had no money lying around, needed a new computer, went to a rent to own place & the only macs they had were MBPs so I financed this MBP. If I had known then that Apple was going to go all MSy on us I couldve saved myself an amazing amount of money (I was financing it, after all) and gone with a PC.   I am very much disappointed. To say the least.
I am running version 10.8.2 which... argh! I always forget what that is - Mountain Lion maybe??
Are we able to do anything about our problems with iTunes 11? Anything other than just post on message boards here and on hundreds of sites throughout the internet - at the bottom of every news story that has ever been written since iTunes 11's release, etc. etc. etc?
What power do we have, if any?   I also want to know how long has it been since this version of iTunes was unleashed? I just saw a post that shocked me with a date of I think it said November or December, where I myself had only just had iiTunes forced upon me with an OSX update weeks ago (like, roughly late January-early Feb.)
A day that will live in infamy. I trusted Apple enough to let them do an update. I had not yet realized just how much Apple has changed so very, very, very rapidly just in the span of half of a year. See the above-mentioned thousands of unaddressed complaints.

Yo - when I say "here on my hard drive", what I mean is here on my MacBook Pro's hard drive.
Not on the external hard drive that I am totally unable to access and will....who knows when I'll ever see again.
Thanks much.

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Folder disappeared on External Lacie Hard Drive - Mountain Lion

Hi
I had a folder named "Digital Pictures" on my external hard drive where i have stored with "year-month-day folder name" as a folder name. Before I went on a trip last friday, I had copied all the files from my EOS memory card and formatted them on my camera.
Now after the trip, I am trying to copy files, and I see the total folder "Digital Pictures" itself is disappeared. It has thousands of very precious images of my 2 kids and over 7 years of photographs.
I can't locate them. Restarted my mac (Mountain Lion), connected my hard drive on a different mac pro laptop, and I don't see it. I have never deleted it even by mistake which am sure.
Last thursday I had copied lots of files to this folder. That's the latest thing happened in that folder. When I search through spot light for the files modified recently on JPEG kind, I don't see anything on last week.
It's very frustrating, and MAC has been recently failing on me a lot.
If any of you have experienced this type of situation, please assist. Thanks a lot.
Hariharan

A. Disk Warrior: When you hold OPTION on the "Rebuild" directory it does a full deep scan of actual files and goes by what it can find on the hard drive. Has been known to take days and succeed in some instances.
WHERE ARE REDUNDANT SETS BACKUP?
I see and have to wonder, and with 2TB disk drives for $120 (WD RED NAS) there is no reason not to: and data should be on clone, Time Machine, and one other and always have a set beside your work main data, that is off line at all time.
Clone every drive
Use more than one Time Machine drive (just swap one out from time to time so you have a "last month" or something).
DW may not help. It may also.
Data Rescue 3 might. It has a demo.
Using the drive is out of the question for now.
And a dozen years ago I came to see way more, too many, LaCie related issues to ever recommend let alone use theirs (and I was a LaCie Quantum Computer buyer back in early 90's)
So go shopping. Some repacement and spare recovery drives and software and cases - one place to look,
http://www.macsales.com/firewire or Amazon - I buy a lot of WD drives, but never touched a "MyBook" - drives and cases are different matter.
It has thousands of very precious images of my 2 kids and over 7 years of photographs.
I can't locate them. Restarted my mac (Mountain Lion), connected my hard drive on a different mac pro laptop, and I don't see it. I have never deleted it even by mistake which am sure.
Last thursday I had copied lots of files to this folder."

New hard drive Mountain Lion - what to restore?

I am upgrading my iMac to include a 240GB SSD, in addition to the 1TB hard disk already in the machine. I will re-install Mountain Lion from a thumb drive on the SSD. Despite having searched on the web, especially through Pondini's website, I am still unclear about what I SHOULD sendibly restore from my Time Machine backup. There was a lot of no longer required data on my old installation, and I want to keep the new one as clean as possible.
1) I was not planning on restoring Apps, as there are so many that I no longer use. Or is there a good reason to still bring eveything back?
2) User folder - I can select what I need, and most of the docs will need to be restored manually onto the 1TB (as the SSD is much smaller) anyway which is no longer the boot drive. However, if I copy a User folder, I have no choice but bring the User/Library folder across, and looking at this usually hidden folder, it contains a lot of data that refers to apps I am no longer using. Would it be cleaner/better to restore user files manually? Would it mess things up if I brought the User/Library folder across but not the Apps?
3) Settings - should I restore these, or will I have loads of things moved that are no onger useful? I have read that I needed to transfer settings to be able to inherit Backup history, is that correct? Does the back-up history inheritance work anyway, given that the history was created when the 1TB drive was the boot drive.
4) Is there anything else?
Thanks in avance for some views - I am pretty clear on HOW to execute the restore, but I am really noy certain WHAT is sensible in terms of optimizing the future set-up.

HenrikSUefke wrote:
Pondini, thanks. I hate to ask another question but perhaps you have some more patience with a first time restorer, and hopefully many will benefit from the answer:
Actually, this is a fairly unusual one, so it's not the same old, same old.
My 2TB Time Machine back-up disk is actually full, as I have also backed up a few things from an external drive in addition to the 1TB internal drive. If I inherited the back-up, the external part on the unchanged drive would not get duplicated again, would it
Correct. Each drive is backed-up and kept separately.
(so I would benefit from the inheritance in some way?)?
Technically, there are two different things:
• Backup inheritance: An entire set of backups "belongs" to a physical Mac (using a hardware address). When you get a new Mac and set it up from the old one, or it's backups, Time Machine will start an entirely new set of backups for the new Mac, unless the old ones are "inherited." Depending on how you moved your data, this may be automatic (the prompt in #B5 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting), or you may have to do it manually (via #B6 there). It also happens if you get a new logic board in an existing Mac, since that's where the hardware ID is.
• Disk association. When you erase or replace a drive, it's usually treated as a different one unless it is "associated" with the old backups of a particular drive. There is no separate prompt for this. It's done along with the inheritance of a new Mac, but isn't needed when only the logic board is replaced. We don't usually mention this when talking about inheriting another Mac's backups, as it's included. You can also do this manually, per the pink and/or tan boxes in #B6.
So in your case, you don't need to inherit. The backups of the external won't be disturbed, space permitting.
Since the SSD is new, it will get a full backup.
Since the HD's folder structure has changed, you can't "associate" its backups. Well, now that I think of it, you could (and it might not be a bad idea, so you don't need the #E3 workaround), but it's going to get a full backup anyway.
Time Machine would however have to erase something to get the new SSD and folder structure backed up, so what would that be? Random data from the old drives
No, it will start deleting entire backups, oldest first. That includes the backups for each drive. Here's the folder structure of some of my test backups:
Lion is the name of the OSX partition; the February backup included an extra partition. Your existing ones with the HD and external look similar, and all your new ones with the SSD and HD will, too.
However, it will never delete your last remaining backup, for obvious reasons. That's why you need enough room on it for a full backup ofboth drives, plus 25% or so (for workspace, etc.). If there isn't, the backup will fail for lack of space.
- in which case I guess I would have to be very sure that I restore all data before the first new back-up
If there isn't enough room, and you don't have other backups, I'd strongly recommend biting the bullet and getting another drive. If something goes wrong, you'll be in a large pickle.
And if you don't have other backups, please consider getting another drive for that anyway. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for an explanation and some suggestions. $150 is a lot of money, but is it worth risking your data?
(do I actively have to prevent a back-up, or does it not start automatically?)?
If you did the backup while Time Machine was ON, and transfer Computer Settings, the SSD will have exactly the same setup for Time Machine as the old HD did. So yes, an hour after you start up, TM will probably try to do a backup. Either turn TM OFF before doing the last backup manually (via Back Up Now), or turn it off when your Mac restarts after running Setup Assistant.
Or does it erase external data first? Or would it tell me that there is not enough space?
The first thing it does is figure out (estimate) how much it's going to back up, then adds at least 20% (often considerably more) for workspace, then sees if there's room. If not, it tries to make room by deleting old backups. If it delets all but the last, but still doesn't have room, the backup fails with the message in the pink box of #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Do I understand correctly that it will not recognize the same files on the SSD or the new HDD folder structure as existing, so it would duplicate them?
Yup, exactly.
There are some ways you might be able to "squeeze" a new backup on to the drive, then selectively delete all the backups of selected items from the old locations on the old backups. But that will help only if most or all of the earlier backups are deleted, is unlikely to save much space, and would leave some holes in your backup history. Probably not wise while making all these changes.
So, do some calculating!

WD My Book Studio FireWire 800 External Hard Drive & Mountain Lion

I just recently purchase a 2 TB WD My Book Studio FireWire 800 External Hard Drive (model #WDBC3G0020HAL-NESN) to perform backups of my 1TB iMac which currently is running OS X Lion 10.7.5. The packaging says the external hard drive is compatible with Lion, but I was curious to find out if I upgrade to Mountain Lion in the near future will that cause issues with the external drive or is it still compatible with Mountain Lion?

That is actually the thread that I was looking at earlier that caused my concern.
Is there any way to 100% verify with apple that there are no firewire problems with external hard drives and Mountain Lion before I hook up my new drive and possibly upgrade in the near future.
Also, I have heard good things about both SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner.
I basically want to be able to boot from my external hard drive partition if I have a major hard drive issue.
Will both of those programs do that for me and will I really go wrong with either one of them?
Thanks again for you repsonses, they have been a big help!

Backup iTunes to External Hard Drive

iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8) How may I backup iTunes to an external hard drive? The Backup function under the File tab appears to only allow backup to disc. I tried the Export function but this seems only to backup .txt files.
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hello. Mount the hard drive.Open finder>music>open itunes folder>click and drag itunes music folder to your external hard drive.
mini dual intel 1GB & 2 mini dual combos. 2 ACD 23. Mac OS X (10.4.9) 10 4 9 & fingers crossed.

How do I backup itunes to enternal hard drive?

How do I backup my iTune library to an external harddrive? I have never done it before.

The user tip Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy gives a way to efficiently update the backup with changes over time.
tt2

How can I securely erase my hard drive and reinstall OS X Mountain Lion?

Hi, I am selling my MacBook and I was wondering if there's a way I can securely erase my hard drive, (... 7 pass, 35 pass) using these steps: http://www.mactip.net/how-to-securely-wipe-your-mac-hard-drive-before-selling-it /
and also reinstall OS X Mountain Lion afterwards.
Thanks in advance. 

Boot into recovery mode by holding the command and r keys down during boot. Bring up Disk Utility and do the security erase you want to do. When done, choose to download Mountain Lion.

How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive?

How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive and keep the new iTunes library on the External Hard Drive. I have all the media and playlist and .xml .itl files, just want the iTunes to recognise the content.
I backedup my iTunes content by dragging to External Hard Drive. Formatted and reinstalled OS. My iTunes content is so large, that I wish for the Library and content to remain on the External Hard Drive. I have all the music files and playlists, I just cannot get the iTunes application to display all the content. Hoping to Not have to drag and drop all the content to be recopied into new iTunes organised files.
Troubleshooting this by researching other conversations on the web, I have come stuck for a solution. One Troubleshoot told me to hold down the Command key and then lauch iTunes and a dialogue box will appear to Choose a new library, however when I try this, no Dialogue box appear to give me the option!?

It sometimes has that funny switch symbol on it too.
tt2

Reinstalled itunes on new hard drive after old hard drive died and now counts as a new computer

After my hard drive died, I reinstalled iTunes on the new one. It counted as a new computer instalation but its the same computer. How can I have it not count as a new computer?

I have a feeling that the apps will be transferred to iTunes before they are removed from the iPhone. (This forces them to go through an authorisation check before they go back on the phone. This in turn means if you give away or sell your iPhone full of Apps, they will be removed. This in turn helps the programmers get paid adequately.)
If you have a backup of your old hard drive, you can simply drag the App files into the window of the new iTunes. They are in the Mobile Applications sub-folder of the iTunes folder.

Can i reinstall OS X Mountain Lion from scratch from a Time Machine Backup

Can i reinstall OS X Mountain Lion from scratch from a Time Machine Backup
Asking because i'm a new mac user having used windows since 3.11, wanting to know if the Time Machine bacup was enough or will i need to make a seperate OS install disk or usb drive ???
thanx in advance guys

Lizardcarter's instructions are correct, you can (and possibly should) consider a second external HD to create a bootable clone. Redundancy in backups is a very good thing because backup can fail too. A bootable clone is an external HD that has a mirror of your internal HD so if the internal HD does crash you can boot from the clone, something that cannot be done from TM. This means you will be down for minutes and can resume work until you have had the internal HD replaced. Never use an external HD for both TM and a bootable clone, each should have it's own EHD. The reason being is if the EHD crashes you have lost ALL of your backup and are dead, don't laugh it happens! To create a bootable clone get either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner (both about $30) and you're pretty set. Many people on these forums (including myself) use that strategy and yes I have had a backup fail.

Restoring iTunes from a hard drive backup?

Hi all. I've just formatted my computer and want to restore my iTunes to its pre-formatted state (including playlists and song ratings). I have a complete backup of my old hard drive that was done in Time Machine. Is there anyway to get this done? I have already tried copying the entire contents of the "old" iTunes folder to the "new" iTunes folder, and all the songs are imported. However, it does not import the playlists and song ratings (which are very important to me). Any suggestions or advice? Cheers.

Drag all of the content into the open iTunes window and then choose Consolidate Library from the Library section of the File menu. If the backup is a complete iTunes library(not just the music files), you can also open iTunes with the Shift key held down and point it to that folder or a copy of that folder on the hard disk.
(36009)

OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0 to reinstall OS X Mountain lion

I have used the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0 to reinstall OS X Mountain lion on my Imac and i have used an external hard drive, but while rebooting, i didn't click on the recovery HD and now the external hard drive isn't visible. Can anyone help?

You are welcome. If you get all/some of your data back, I suggest you start backing up the external drive. If you can't do that using Time Machine, you can try one of the cloning programs below:
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested

I had erase my hardrive and need to reinstall OS X, do I need to reinstall Snow Leopard/mountain lion first before Maverick will take

I had to erase my HD, I have Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion was added for an upgrade after that, now when I try to download the OS X, my HD looks like it going to take it, then it goes no where. And now what is showing up is OS X Maverick for a download, which I didn't even know it existed until I had to down load. I am wondering will I have redownload Snow Leopard or Mountain lion before the OS X Maverick will download.
thank you

Well, you can do an erase and install via the Recovery HD:
Install or Reinstall Mavericks or Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
OS X Mavericks- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Erase and reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple
      logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Unable to restore time machine backup onto a new hard drive

I recently bought a new hard drive for my mid-2010 white Macbook. I have kept this computer regularly backed up with time machine, but just to be sure I made sure I hooked up my external hard drive prior to changing the hard drive and made sure it was fully backed up. I checked my exceptions and saw that my system files and applications were listed, so I removed them from the exceptions list and let it back up again (it only backed up a further 60MB though, so that made me a little uneasy).
I successfully switched over the hard drive and then plugged in my external hard drive so I could do a restore from Time Machine. My external hard drive has 3 partitions: 2 time machine backups for each of my computers, and one partition for storing files that also has an old copy of 10.6 on it.
When I booted the computer, I held option, then selected Macbook TM. When it came to the window with 4 options, including disk utility and restore from time machine backup, I selected restore from Time Machine backup. When I did so it said "No OS X Backups Were Found." Why wouldn't it have backups listed if I have been consistently backing it up? How else do I do a full system backup?
Also, how can I be sure that I'm restoring this backup onto the new hard drive? It didn't prompt me to select that drive at any point, and I want to make sure I'm not overwriting the middle partition on the backup drive (or anything else).

Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
You will find that Mountain Lion stores an invisible copy of the Recovery HD. You can boot from your Time Machine backup drive by restarting with OPTION boot:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the disk icon for your Time Machine backup drive.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.
Your computer should boot into the Recovery HD. You will be presented with a main window of options. Select the option to restore from a Time Machine backup then click on the Continue button.

Trying to reinstall OS X Lion but the only option is to reinstall OS X mountain lion is there a way around this?

I recently formatted my hard drive so that I could give my computer to my brother but when I was trying to reinstall OS X Lion (10.7) the only option that showed up was to reinstall OS X mountain lion which I do not have, so now I can't get past the menu that comes up when you hold command + C. How do I reinstall to OS X Lion when it isn't even an option that shows up

Ok, well, having had Snow leopard on it originally solves the question: the license for Lion (or Mountain Lion for that matter) is not transferable. You are required to erase the drive and reinstall the original OS (Snow Leopard). Giving or selling it with Lion (or ML) on it will not be helpful for the recipient because the machine ID and their Apple ID will no longer match so they will not be able to get updates.
Have you checked your Purchases section at the app store? Here is what shows on mine:
If you are using the recovery mode and Mountain Lion comes up, then I can only assume that this is what you purchased. I don't know why it would show up otherwise.
As far as selling your Mac, the above is irrelevant since you will need to reinstall Snow Leopard and the recipient will need to purchase Lion (or Mountain Lion) using their own Apple ID.
However, you need to check on this since you may want to download Lion again for another machine of yours. So, if you are sure you purchased Lion and nothing shows under your Purchases at MAS, I would either call Apple or make an appointment with your nearest Genius Bar to get it sorted.

Backups/itunes/smallpox/reinstalling/hard drives/mountain lions

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