Can I backup to a flash drive?

Is there a way I can back up my current Windows 8.1 to a flash drive? For example, need to format my drive.

Hi,
If it is for a long-term plan then it is recommended to backup to a HDD.
If you need to format your system right now with no proper devices for backing up as a short-term option, personally I think it is OK to backup files to a flash drive.
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How do I retrieve my music library after a complete computer crash. I have a backup on a flash drive and I can access my Itunes account but my play lists and music are gone.

How do you retrieve downloaded music and playlists after a complete computer crash. I can log into my Itunes account and make purchases but my music library is gone. I have an external backup on a flash drive but for some reason the music does not show up there either. It's like I have a brand new account and have to start all over. Itunes must have an archive I can access to get my music back, right?
Maya

Playlists should be part of your backup copy.
You can redownload some purchases in some countries:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

Leopard to Snow Leopard can i use a large flash drive to backup first?

I've been using Leopard for 4 years with no problems.
Since Google decided to stop support for Leopard, and I use Chrome a lot I decided to upgrade. I won't be upgrading to Mountain Lion right right away. I ordered my Snow Leopard disks from Apple.
I understand that I need to backup. I want to backup with Time Machine before I upgrade the OS, but I don't have $75+ right now to purchase an external hard drive for this purpose only.
Can I use a large Flash Drive to run Time Machine? Like a 32 GB? I know that flash drives have a limited number of writes on them and can go bad, so I am thinking I could just use it this one time to make sure I have a clean backup. If this is possible, then can I set up Time Machine again later when I have an external drive?
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If you only need to make a full backup prior to upgrading, I would suggest using SuperDuper, which for creating a full, bootable clone is free. (It is not free when you start needing to make incremental backups, but you won't be doing that, at least not right now.) For a bootable clone, you only need a Flash drive (or external drive) as big as the total size of the utilized space on your hard drive right now, not as big as whatever the entire drive size is.
In the past, I would have recommended Carbon Copy Cloner for this, but it's no longer free or donation-ware and you don't have the budget for both that and some kind of external or Flash drive.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
You might also want to look around newegg.com for inexpensive USB external drives, or even large enough Flash drives. You'll probably find a much less expensive external hard drive than a Flash drive for this purpose.
You do not need to use Time Machine, but even if you did you could just make one full backup to a Flash or external drive and then unmount and disconnect it. An external for TM only needs to be so large because it's constantly taking snapshots of your drive and those add up. But you won't be using it that way.
Anyway, I think you're much better off with a bootable clone, should you need to restore that.
Don't worry about having 2 cores; that's nothing to do with backing up.

Can I backup an external hard drive with time machine

I have my IPhoto library on an external hard drive and want to include this in my time machine backups.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Of course, but only if your external drive is formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". You can check this by opening Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities) and choosing the partition of your external drive you want to choose. Then, look at "Format" at the bottom of the window.
If you can make backups of the external drive, open System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and remove your external drive from Excluded Items. The next backup will include the external drive

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How can I backup an external hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro using Time Machine?

Attach drive, open Time Machine preferences, be sure external drive is not in the Exclude list.

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Another way. You can use a USB flash drive & the camera connection kit.
Plug the USB flash drive (works the same with an SD card) into your computer & create a new folder titled DCIM. Then put your movie/photo files into the folder. The files must have a filename with exactly 8 characters long (no spaces) plus the file extension (i.e., my-movie.mov; DSCN0164.jpg).
Now plug the flash drive into the iPad using the camera connection kit. Open the Photos app, the movie/photo files should appear & you can import. (You can not export using the camera connection kit.)
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HT201300 I am very new to MacBook Pro. Can I use a usb flash drive?

I'm very new to Mac. Can I use a usb flash drive?

Yes.
USB Flash
SD Card Flash.
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/19/mac-101-format-choices-for-usb-flash-drives/
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3553
MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9), i7 500GB 16GB RAM iPhone5 iOS7.0.4

Can I create MacOS on flash drive to run broken Imac?

So I've got an Imac that's all brokedy. Won't start up. I tried reinstalling Snow Leopard 10.6.7 on it from a boot disk, but got referred to Disk Utility. Disk Utility told me that the GB 500 drive was so fricked up that Disk Utility can't do a thing with it, I have to take it to a repair shop. But the Apple MacIntosh HD that's INSIDE the GB500 drive checks out OK according to Disk Utility.
It occurred to me that I could maybe install the Snow Leopard software into a flash drive and run the computer off of it, accessing the data and software on the MacIntosh HD via the flash drive, and at least being able to salvage important files that way. I'll need at least a 16 Gig flahs drive for that, no biggie, but my question is: is this feasible or some mad fantasy I've created out of an absurd desire not to get my wallet hijacked by Apple?

I think you'll find that your Hard Drive is failing, I hope you have some form of backup.
Your idea of creating a bootable flash drive could work but it will be useless if your HDD fails which according to your SMART status could happen soon.
I would make a full backup of your hard drive onto an external hard drive using Time Machine or another preferred backup method.
Then I would look into replacing the drive by myself or taking it to an Apple Store.
Good Luck!

Odd question. Can I sync to my flash drive w/o going through my laptop

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cjl9 wrote:
Is this possible? My instinct says no, but someone thought they could do this.
Post relates to: Palm TX
Someone was incorrect. The TX is a slave USB device, and cannot write to a flash drive.
You can easily make a backup to your SD card using the free NVBackup. Excellent program.
WyreNut
I am a Volunteer here, not employed by HP.
You too can become an HP Expert! Details HERE!
If my post has helped you, click the Kudos Thumbs up!
If it solved your issue, Click the "Accept as Solution" button so others can benefit from the question you asked!

Time Maching backup and USB flash drives problem with TC

I have a time capsule that is currently backing up my computer for the first time. I want to add a USB hub to the USB port so I can add my flash drives and setup a printer wirelessly. I plugged in one of my flash drives into the USB port and a folder popped up that was titled "NO NAME". Is there any reason why TC isn't recognizing this as a disk and letting me move files to/from the flash drive. Additionally, is there anyway to backup the day-to-day Time Machine files to the flash drives instead of to the TC, or would this not be recommended?
Thanks to all who can help!

I have successfully mounted a USB flash drive but had to first reformat and name it using Disk utility. I am also using a USB hub with an external 750G drive attached through the USB hub.

I had to reformat my hard drive on an older Desktop running Windowx XP. The IE browser is not working now. Is there a way I can download Firefox onto a flash drive from my new desktop and install it on my old desktop?

I had to reformat the hard drive on my old desktop. It is runninf Windows XP. I can't get Internet Explorer to work so I can connect to the internet via wireless. Is there a way I can download firefox from my new desktop onto a flas drive and then install Firefox from the flash drive onto my old desktop? If so, please explain the procedure.

Go to a suitable download page eg: [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html]
Download firefox, use the save option rather than install.
Save it directly to the flash drive, or to somewhere on your computer and copy/move it the flash drive.
However if IE is not working possibly you have some sort of setup problem so firefox may not work either.

Can't import photos from flash drive

When I try to import photos from a flash drive, the images do not stay in the Library -- the next time I open iPhoto, I can see the photos but when I try to edit them, I get a screen prompt that the "source is unavailable - can't access the JPEG". To access the photo & edit I have to use the flash drive -- which kinda defeats the purpose of "importing" them in the first place. Why are the photos imported from my flash drive not staying in the Library? I have no problem importing images from digital camera -- those remain in the Library once imported. Please help!

Thanks! A quick review of Preferences revealed the "Copy imported items to Library" was indeed unchecked -- though I don't recall ever unchecking it (as I just started using iPhoto recently). But I have re-checked it and expect the problem to be fixed. Just one un-referenced Library will work just fine for me.

How can I recover files from flash drive?

I've apparently lost a bunch of '.pages' files on a 16GB Lexar flash drive that were present yesterday. The '.pages' files were contained in a sub-folder. The main folder is still there and apparently okay. I am at a total lose as to where the files (and their sub-folder) have gone to. Any suggestions on a program or procedure to try to see if they're still there and recoverable? Any guidance will be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks!
I have a MAC Mini (Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.4 GHz Intel Core2Duo 8GB mem.
If I've selected the wrong community to post this question to, please help me find the right one. Thanks, again!

Peter,
Thanks for suggesting Disk Utility. I didn't know it existed, but found it and ran it. I checked 'Verify Disk' and it "Found 335234 orphaned clusters, 25174 files, 6428792 KiB free (803599 clusters)" And, then responded (in Red) "Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk."
After I checked "Repair Disk" it responded: "Volume repair complete. Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required."
After then checking the flash drive the 'lost' folder and files are still not present.
I've been looking on the WEB for 'recovery programs' for MAC. I'd just as soon find a 'free' application, but would consider purchasing a program if it would work. What do you know about these 'recovery programs':
    http://www.wondershare.net/ad/data-recovery-mac.html?gclid=CKuo48CPn8ICFY_m7Aodx jYABQ
    http://help.cleverfiles.com/usb-flash-drive-recovery/
    http://www.iskysoft.com/disk-recovery/usb-flash-drive-recovery-mac.html
    http://www.easeus.com/mac/mac-data-recovery-resource/recover-mac-usb-drive.htm
Have you had any experience using any of them? There are many more out there including ones that will 'scan' your flash drive ('free') and tell you what files it can recover, then you have to purchase the full program (~$99) to actually recover them. Two of these programs are listed below:
    http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/?gclid=CPzujPKOn8ICFQNk7AodqFoAVw
    http://www3.softcity.com/mac-data-recovery/?tracking=SC_EN_PP_GO_SE_MDR&keyword= recover%20lost%20files%20on%20mac&gclid=CN7ArqaPn8ICFe_m7AodtFUAHg
I had even converted 7 of the original '.pages' files to '.pdf' files to eMail some friends in the universal '.pdf' format on Nov. 28th. The '.pdf' files were saved back to the original folder on the flash drive. They, also, cannot be found anywhere!!??
I can re-build the files (~150-200 photo pages from vacation trip back in May), but there were many comments and some special research (maps, etc.) I had included that I would probably not be able to duplicate exactly. Luckily the '.jpg' photos from our trip are still present on the flash drive and also on the camera's memory stick - THANK GOODNESS! However, now I am hoping that one of the recovery programs listed above might solve my problem.
Again, thanks for your help, but I'm not THERE yet!

Can I backup to a flash drive?

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