Before I use Time Machine

I have a quick question that maybe one of you could answer.
I have an external HD, and before I did a clean install, I backed everything up but dragging and dropping my files in my HD to my external HD. Now, after doing a clean install with Leopard, I want to transfer over some thins, mainly my address book.
When I try dragging the application to my desktop, it says it cant launch. Am I screwed? Am I doing something wrong?
Please help.
Blake

I see. My only fear is there seems to be a lot of people who orginally were using Time Machine on SL, then upgraded to Lion and now Time Machine becomes screwy.
Also, if I buy a new Mac (eventually) with Lion, I worry that if I've been using TM on SL, the transition to Lion wont be smooth. I may be overthinking this, but I just want to get it right.
But I see your point: I need to get a full back up of my system as it is now before I make any changes. Thanks for your help.

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Should I upgrade to Mac OS X v10.7 before I use Time Machine for the first time?

I bought a macbook pro in 2008. I recently purchased an external hard drive and I can't decide what's the best option:
1. Use Time Machine using Snow Leopard 10.6.8 ?
2. Upgrade to Lion before I use Time Machine (first time)
3. Or just drag my photos and music manually (those are the only things I need to back up)
Thoughts?

I see. My only fear is there seems to be a lot of people who orginally were using Time Machine on SL, then upgraded to Lion and now Time Machine becomes screwy.
Also, if I buy a new Mac (eventually) with Lion, I worry that if I've been using TM on SL, the transition to Lion wont be smooth. I may be overthinking this, but I just want to get it right.
But I see your point: I need to get a full back up of my system as it is now before I make any changes. Thanks for your help.

Using Time Machine After Format/OS Install (10.5 to 10.6)

Hi Everyone,
I used Time Machine to back up my computer onto a 1TB external drive, and then formatted my MacBook's HDD, and installed Snow Leopard.
Before I use Time Machine again to backup my fresh install I just want to be sure that my other backups of the old HDD that are on my external drive will be untouched.
Can anyone confirm?

NerdSeven wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I used Time Machine to back up my computer onto a 1TB external drive, and then formatted my MacBook's HDD, and installed Snow Leopard.
Before I use Time Machine again to backup my fresh install I just want to be sure that my other backups of the old HDD that are on my external drive will be untouched.
Can anyone confirm?
Time Machine will do a full backup of the internal HD, since everything you put on it since erasing it is new.
If there isn't enough space on the backup drive for that (plus 20%), TM will begin deleting old backups trying to make room. If it gets to the very last backup and there still isn't enough room, it will fail with a message, leaving only the most recent backup.

Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
And here: http://pondini.org/TM/9.html
Peruse the whole site. There is a lot of information there.

HT5097 I recently upgraded my macbook to Mountain lion. Before doing so I used time machine and an external hard drive to back up my entire laptop. When we upgraded my computer came back like new. All pics, music, videos documents etc gone. How do I ge

I recently upgraded my macbook to mountain lion. Before doing so I used time machine to back up my entire laptop with an external hard drive.
When I got my computer back it was clean....all pics, music, documents, bookmarks etc. are gone. How do I get these files off the external hard drive and back onto my laptop with the new upgrade?

I recently upgraded my macbook to mountain lion. Before doing so I used time machine to back up my entire laptop with an external hard drive.
When I got my computer back it was clean....all pics, music, documents, bookmarks etc. are gone. How do I get these files off the external hard drive and back onto my laptop with the new upgrade?

How to use Time Machine before and after installing a new hard drive

So basically I'm buying a new hard drive for my Macbook pro and I have a lot of files on my computer that I would like to save. I have never used Time Machine before so I need help on how to set it up before AND after installing the harddrive so my files get transferred onto the new hard drive. Thanks in advance

wjosten wrote:
Me, I would never use Time Machine to do this. What I'd suggest you do is get an exterior enclosure for your new drive. Then use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your existing drive to your new drive. Once done, verify your clone is bootable & all of your data present. Then swap drives & use your old drive for Time Machine backups(after erasing it). Then get another drive & exterior enclosure to regularly clone your new drive to.
Unless he was swapping for a lower capacity HDD or to a lower capacity SSD, then the old drive would make a lousy Time Machine disk. However, whenever I swap out a disk I do exactly what you do. CCC to get the ol drive onto a new one. Test by starting up to the new (but still external drive). Then replace the internal drive.
I usually just sell the old drive on eBay. My Time Machine backup is always 2X the size of the internal drive, which I believe is a bit above recommendations, but works for me. The price of large external drives is almost the same as smaller internal ones.

Is it possible to reinstall Mac OS X Lion on MacBook and then use Time Machine to restore to the previous backup I made before reinstalling Mac OS X Lion?

Is it possible to reinstall Mac OS X Lion on MacBook and then use Time Machine to restore to the previous backup I made before reinstalling Mac OS X Lion?

My MacBook was not normally booting up. It would turn on, make the Apple startup noise, and the bottom loading bar would progress just a little bit, then my MacBook would shut down. I tried rebooting it many times and the same thing would happen, it would just shut down. Then, I read that I can reset the PRAM (by holding Option+Command+P+R after the Apple startup noise comes). That worked, but now I get a screen that asks me to choose one of the 4 options (see: http://images.macworld.com/images/article/2012/07/lionrecoveryutilities-289404.j pg). I choose Restore From Time Machine Backup, but it progresses to 17.6% and gets stuck there forever. I tried doing it again, and it got stuck at 17.6% again. That is why I am asking if I should just reinstall Lion, then restore a previous backup on the fresh new Lion?

Do i need to set up the time capsule airport before i start backing up using time machine with my time capsule?

Do i need to set up the time capsule airport before i start backing up using time machine with my time capsule?

Some setup is generally required.. because the TC is a network device.. not a plug in via usb.. therefore it has to exist somewhere in your network.

Using Time Machine to "go back" before Mac Mail problem

My wife's Mac mail account stopped receiving email 3 days ago. Attempts to fix it have been futile. (It can send but not receive. The activity monitor suggests that it is getting hung up on a particular email as it stalls at 13 out of 233.) Considering using Time Machine to go back to just before the problem. Questions: Is it possible to limit TM to (1) my wife's acct only or (2) Mail only?
My wife will definitely provide me a gruesome death if I lose her emails!
Cheers,
Nigel

Thanks, applefandan. I just haven't used Time Machine quite enough to a gained confidence, but after a little bit of experimenting and a bit of Youtube coaching (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fes93NW_KE0) I went back to pre-problem, and had no trouble getting back the mail my wife had lost over the past several days.
Now on to the next problem! . . .

If my Mac ends up with a virus, can I use Time Machine to go back before the virus?

I have recently just bought a 2TB external hard drive and have just backed up using Time Machine. I was just wondering, if my Mac was to become infected with a virus, would I be able to use Time Machine to restore my machine to back before it became infected with the virus? (So I didn't have to do a full factory setting resortation)
Thank you in advance for any assistance with this query.

My apologies. As a computer user since the days of Mainframes in 1970's, I tend to be rather precise in how I phrase things (a legacy of the old punch-card days). Also I write medico-legal reports for a living, again a field where precision is rather essential!
I saometimes forget that just because I read and write the word 'virus' as meaning just that, others (as you say) are prone to use it as a blanket term for malware and other 'irritations'.
Thanks for your clarifications WZZZ. Hope winter in the Big Apple is treating you well.

HT203177 I have not backed up my computer using Time Machine since before I updated to Mavericks. It has been "preparing backup" for a half hour at least and shows no indication of how long this may take. Is something wrong?

I have not backed up my computer using Time Machine since before I updated to Mavericks. It has been "preparing backup" for a half hour at least and shows no indication of how long this may take. Is something wrong?

No. TM has to look through your entire drive contents and copy them all. This will take some time.
Once the first backup is made, then subsequent backup will be much quicker, depending on how much data has changed since the last one.

I recently upgraded my Macbook pro with a new Hard Drive. I then transferred the data using Time Machine. Now when I want to backup using Time Machine again, it won't do it as it did before to the same external HD. How can I get it to reconnect?

Purchased a new, larger solid state drive to replace my old drive. I installed OSX then I had Time Machine do it's magic.
Now when I want to do a backup using Time Machine, it tells me that the external HD is full. When I did so prior to upgrade, it would erase old backups and then do a new backup.
Please help. I am worried about losing files, and am tired of seeing the "Time Machine hasn't backed up in xxx days" Error Message.
Thanks.

it thinks yours is a new machine so it doesn't want to start deleting another machine's backups
see the bottom of this page
http://pondini.org/TM/19.html

Before downloading lion, i want to backup my computer with time machine and a G-DRIVE Slim. But how can i use time machine to only backup my system once?

Just wondering, how can i use time machine to only backup my system once? Just this once and not on a weekly basis?

Upgrade. My three year old Mac Pro and year old MacBook Pro have no problem. Both seem faster.
And there's your problem reading entirely subjective views on forums, from people that might or might not have decently maintained systems, good operating practices, or whatever....
Strangely, when most companies issue new software, it is because they believe (and believe they have checked) that it is better than the previous version.

I have not used Time Machine before, but now need to back up to my external hard drive. How do I do this?

Need to back up hard drive due to needed replacement. Time machine is available to back up to external hard drive. Not clear how to do this and then to restore once the hard drive is replaced.

I would not use Time Machine for this task. Rather I suggest you clone to the external drive. You can then boot from the external drive to restore your clone. First, purchase Carbon Copy Cloner.
Clone using Carbon Copy Cloner
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the right side dropdown menu.
4. Click on the Clone button.
5. When completed select Disk Center from the Window menu.
6. Click on the Recovery HD tab then select the backup drive from the list.
7. Click on the button labeled "Create a Recovery partition for this volume."
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
You now have a fully bootable copy of your iMac's hard drive. When you receive your iMac back after the drive replacement you can boot it from this backup and use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore the backup from the external drive to the internal drive. The process is identical except you will switch the Source and Destination volumes - Source will be the external drive; Destination will be the internal drive.
Because the newly installed drive will most likely have OS X installed you can skip Steps 5-7. You can now continue to use your external backup drive by setting up scheduled backups with CCC. No need to use Time Machine.

How can I replace just the corrupt page(s) in the domain file of iWeb using Time Machine?

I back up with Time Machine and have an extensive elaborate website I created in iWeb '09 over a couple months and publish to a local folder and then upload to my server, but in the last few days I notice certain pages (that I haven't even worked on or touched) somehow become corrupted or "cross-contaminated" with elements and images from other pages. Once I see they are corrupt I make sure not to publish them (if the current published versions are the correct, non-corrupt versions) or if they did get published I can use Time Machine to retrieve the .html file and page files folder for that specific page and replace it in my published folder/server so it shows correctly on the Web. However, that does not replace the corrupted page(s) you see and work with when you launch iWeb and try to edit or continue working on that page.
I am confused as to how I go to the package contents of the domain file and replace just that page with a previous version from time machine. I don't want to replace the entire domain file because I have new changes I made to other pages even in the past hours. How can I keep the good pages and just get earlier, non-corrupted versions of the corrupt page(s)? I know it's not as easy as with the published site folder where you can just replace the page's .html file and folder, but I don't want to have to re-create the corrupted page(s) from scratch or have to replace it with the last non-corrupted domain file and then have to redo all my recent changes to new pages I made before discovering the corrupt page(s). Thanks for your help as now I can't make changes to the page(s) within iWeb itself.

Thanks for the response, Wyodor. I don't know what that is, but I'll have a look. Is it an alternative to iWeb or a way to transfer pre-existing iWeb sites? When you say merge domain files, is that like so multiple copies of the same site show up then you can pick and choose the non-corrupted pages and group them then delete the corrupted ones? I am on Snow Leopard with no plans or need to upgrade anytime soon.
And yes, I will read your links but just wanted to ask those questions. Maybe they'll answer my questions, maybe not.
I was able to discern that within the domain file is a domain folder with all the site folders, each with their own page ".gz" files which expand into ".xml" files. I was trying to figure out if you could simply drag the corrupt pages out that way and replace them with backup copies that are still good. I am having trouble discerning which pages are which as they all have random names like site-page-30F175E3-AE33-4F10-A490-1A096D9B185B.xml and although I expanded and opened each in Text Wrangler, I still couldn't discern which were which for sure, and trial and error proved cumbersome. Also, I did notice some of the later corrupted domain files had one or two more pages than the site itself has, so not sure how they got added or duplicated or what.
Again, I'll look at your links, but do you know about swapping out individual page .xml files this way within the domain file?

Before I use Time Machine

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