Can I transfer OS 10.5 from an external hard drive to my internal drive?

A few months ago my 2008 Macbook died (water damage), fortunately the hard drive was fine and I had it placed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure and have been using it with an older (2006) Macbook.
This setup has been working fine for me but lately I've been wanting to run some software that won't work under OS 10.4. I have OS 10.5 installed on the hard drive that I'm now using externally, so I'm wondering if there's any way to run OS 10.5 from the external drive or to transfer the OS from the external drive to the internal drive. I tried to boot from the external drive by holding down the "option" key on restart but the drive didn't show up.
The optical drive on the Macbook I'm currently using doesn't work, so I can't just install the OS from the CD (which would, admittedly, be a lot easier).
If there isn't any way to run OS 10.5 from the external drive, I'd like to delete it to free up space on my external drive (no point in having those files if I can't use them) does anyone know which files to erase?
Thanks in advance.

iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer (Mac or Windows):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Do you now have two different iTunes libraries, or just two different accounts on iTunes

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I can't transfer my user settings from my external hard drive to my new Mac

I purchased a new MacBook because I had an unfotunate accident with my last computer. Everything is saved on my LaCie mini external hard drive under my User Folder. Everytime I try to overwrite my user file (click and drag from the LaCie) I get a message that the transfer cannot be completed because something is in use. It's a different file everytime. Once it was the file for the Times New Roman font--I don't know how it could have been in use.
What am I doing wrong?!

Hi rockstardeb, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
You shouldn't try dragging it, rather use Migration Assistant in your Utilities folder and choose "Transfer my data from another partition".
-mj
[email protected]

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downpat wrote:
So after I get my music put on my computer, then moved to my ipod, do I have to delete music from itunes to free up space?
Not a good idea.
What you could do, is have the Library content on the external hard drive and simply tell your iTunes programme to look on the hard drive for your music etc.. However, once you set that up, that hard drive needs to be connected and ready to read, before you start the iTunes programme. If it isn't ready, iTunes will simply go back to the default location for the music, find nothing and then you'll be back here saying that you've lost your Library.

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos.

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Hello, eco1.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
This sounds like you are wanting to move your iTunes media folder to an external drive and have iTunes this folder from this location. If this is the case then I would recommend taking a look at the article below.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
Cheers,
Jason H.

How do I transfer a specific backup from my external hard drive to my mac book air?

How do I transfer a specific backup from my external hard drive to my mac book air? I downgraded my mac's software from Mavericks to Mountain Lion because of the computer's limations so I need to transfer all the info I had when Mavericks and down to Mountain Lion. I already went to the Apple Genius Bar and they helped me downgrade, but I want to transfer information from a specific backup on my external hard drive?

time machine backup? Go into the backups.backupdb (time machine) and extract out the specific files, drag them to your desktop etc.
consider in the future additional backup methods than time machine for easy file extraction.
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

Can i download and run itunes from an external hard drive

can i download and run itunes from an external hard drive?

The iTunes application should be on the boot drive but you can keep the iTunes library on an external.
hold Shift when launching iTune sand select Create library and select the external.
This will create an iTunes folder on the external with all the library files and all media will also go into this folder.

Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer than my own? If so how?

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If you used the Finder to move the files, iMovie will have lost track of them. iMovie holds the locations of the Event files, and Project files contain references to those locations. If you move the files, iMovie has no way of knowing where they are.
If you can, first move all the files back to their original locations. Plug in the external drive. Open iMovie and move the files in iMovie's interface (help explains how, but basically, just drag and drop in the event pane).
Then you can connect the drive to the new computer, and iMovie will see them.

How can I delete items in trash from an external hard drive?

I have a Macbook Pro and have installed Paragon so that I can use an external hard drive on both my Mac and my PC. But some files I deleted from my external hard drive (Seagate 3TB) while on my Mac can't be deleted from the recycle bin.
When I try to delete, the files just stay there. When I do a secure empty, a message comes up saying the files are in use. This has persisted for two days. I have restarted the Mac, reconnected the drive, and also cheked the drive on my PC for errors and found none. Of course, the files only appear in the trash when the drive is connected. I ejected the drive properly each time, and didn't just unplug it from the Mac.
I have tried to do a secure empty with option and/or shift keys down, but I still get a message that the files are in use. I tried a fix involving writing a command including the term "trash" (I don't have the full command at my fingertips) in Terminal in the Utilities application, and this did not work. There appears to be a program called "Trashit" which might help, but my computer says it will not open under my security settings because the author of the program is not listed.
The files remaining in trash are part of an old iTunes library that I wanted fully deleted from my external hard drive and my trash. It was a big file (over 200GB) and about 99% deleted and empltied. Reformatting the drive should not be necessary, might not help, and would probably erase the drivers on the drive and ruin it anyway.
I'm wondering what is happening, and how I could fix it. Many thanks for any advice, in advance.

I actually fixed this by plugging the drive into my PC, changing the settings to "show hidden files and folders," then finding the folder ".trashes" on the drive and deleting everything in there. When the drive was plugged back into the Mac, the trash was empty as it should be. (It was a very large folder I deleted, and a very small portion of the files were apparently corrupted.) In case anyone else ever needs this fix, it works. Good luck.

HT1660 Can I play movies and music from my external hard drive or do I have to re-instll them on my computer?

Can I play my movies and music from my external hard drive or do I have to reinstall it on my computer?

Hello B3NN13,
If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
Add files to your library without adding them to your iTunes folder
When you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location.
You can change this setting so that files are added to your iTunes library without being added to the iTunes folder. You might want to do this, for example, if you prefer to store video files on an external disk but still want to view them in iTunes.
Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
Deselect the checkbox next to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”
From now on, when you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item appears in iTunes, but the actual file isn’t copied or moved.
Tip: You can temporarily reverse this setting by holding down the Option key while you drag files to the iTunes window.
iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored
Sincerely,
- Brenden

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I have more music than I can keep on my Macbook hard drive by over 200GB. I'm hoping to be able to show and play all music from my external hard drive in iTunes without having to add any of it to my Macbook Hard Drive

Hello B3NN13,
If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
Add files to your library without adding them to your iTunes folder
When you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location.
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Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
Deselect the checkbox next to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”
From now on, when you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item appears in iTunes, but the actual file isn’t copied or moved.
Tip: You can temporarily reverse this setting by holding down the Option key while you drag files to the iTunes window.
iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored
Sincerely,
- Brenden

Can i run i tunes/iphoto from an external hard drive?

does any one know if i can run ituens/iphoto from an external hard drive and if so how do i do it?

Drag the libraries to it, launch each application with the Option key held down, and point them there. The iPhoto library needs to be stored on a drive, partition, or disk image formatted as Mac OS Extended.
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Can I transfer Time Machine data from two separate hard drives into one new one?

I'm using a MacBook Pro as my primary computer. My 500 gig Time Capsule filled up a year or so ago, so I stopped using it with Time Machine for awhile so I could keep the data from those old back-ups. There were a number of things I deleted from my computer's very limited hard drive after they were backed up to the Time Capsule. I got a 1T external USB drive last year to use as my "filing Cabinet" to store files I didn't necessarily need all the time or that were filling up my small laptop hard drive--including my iTunes library--all organized in a way that made it relatively easy for me to find what I needed, even if I didn't remember exactly when I'd filed it or what I'd called it. I got another 1 terabyte external (portable) drive last July and dedicated it to TimeMachine backups and labeled it "TimeMachine".
Over the last couple of weeks, my friend has been helping me upgrade to Yosemite and clean up my laptop hard drive. Last week he cloned my laptop hard drive to a new 1T hard drive and I exchanged it for my old drive in my computer today. All good.
Here's the issue. We replaced my Time Capsule hard drive with a 1 terabyte drive with the idea of transferring the data from the old Time Capsule (500G) drive and the newer USB 1T "TimeMachine" compact drive to the new 1T Time Capsule drive and beginning using the latter for my Time Machine backups going forward. Originally he thought we could copy everything from each of my external drives (the old 500gig drive from my Time Capsule, the USB "TimeMachine" drive I've been using since July, and the "file cabinet" files) to my computer in their own folders and then start regular TimeMachine backups to the new Time Capsule drive, thus preserving all my old data and making regular backups going forward. The "file cabinet" data was no problem at all, but when I tried to copy my USB "TimeMachine" data to my computer, I was unable to. My friend found instructions for transferring old TimeMachine data to a new TimeCapsule, but I don't know if I can transfer the data from two separate disks to the new TimeCapsule drive. I'm afraid that one set of data will supersede the other and either my newer backups or my old ones will be lost if I try to transfer both.
Are my fears justified or is there a way to insure that no such problem will occur? Of course, my data will still be on those two older drives, but that won't do me a lot of good if I can't access it when I need to. Also, the 1T drive now belongs to my friend; he used a brand new drive he'd bought for himself for my new internal hard drive and plans to take my 1T "TimeCapsule" drive in exchange, once the data has been transferred, so he will, of course, erase that drive.

Should we be able to bring up the old (500G) Time Capsule Drive to rename it using a SATA to FireWire harness and then copy the whole thing to the new Time Capsule drive?
You can copy a whole sparsebundle from one drive to another. That is not a problem. Whether you can access the sparsebundle is something you should test before you even start though.
If it's on the Desktop and I don't tell Time Machine to exclude it from backups, will it just automatically back it up?
All drives you plug into the Mac are excluded by default.. you must include them. So no problems there.. but I hope I am understanding the question.
Will both volumes or directories (which is the right term?) show up when I open Time Machine?
No, Time Machine will only open what it is told to open... or its backup default location.
You can force Time Machine to open alternative/old/no longer used backups by (now I have a problem as things have changed somewhat in Yosemite and I consider it alpha release software at this point in time). The old method was to right click on the TM icon and select a different TM backup. easy. Yosemite seems to have made easy stuff harder.
Here it is on my current computer.. clearly not Yosemite.. Right click on the TM icon in the dock.. select Browse Other Time Machine Disks.. And supply the info of where that is located. Easy. If you cannot figure it out one of the other posters here (with more patience than me for Yosemite) will help you.
Or will we have to partition the new drive somehow--is that even possible?
I am getting more lost as I go down the list.. but the TC disk cannot be partitioned.
If you have included all those USB drives in the new backup on a Time a Time Capsule.. you have made life rather hard because now your files are stored another layer deeper than they were.
So to open a file from a disk you need to open the sparsebundle.. then dig down to the drive in question and then dig down to the backup.. and all of this means Time Machine has to work perfectly which is Yosemite is a very big ask.
I thought you wanted to just backup your old drives to central location.. which means copying the files to a separate folder on the Time Capsule.
One correction I need to make to my post, which will make my strategy make a bit more sense: my new Time Capsule drive is 4T
It makes it much harder.. and I have to pose a real question of long term .. if you have put a 4TB drive in a Gen1 TC.. did you also replace its power supply because I can assure you the drive might be ok but the TC itself will not last forever.. and what happens when it dies. The Gen1 power supply is already well beyond its normal life span and the vast majority are dead. When the backup device is unreliable and the backups on it are made that much harder to get access to.. is this a great plan??
If you are going to consolidate all your old files on one disk.. a task I find understandable. I have done much the same albeit the usefulness of files made on emac running OS9 may be questioned. A disk lying in the bottom of a draw is a more appropriate place for them.
You want those files as easily accessible as possible (at the point of recovery) and not buried inside a sparsebundle.. particularly not a sparsebundle from the old TC disk buried inside a new sparsebundle.. keep files as accessible as possible as you can run searches.. and that is best done on a USB 3 (or faster ie thunderbolt) drive plugged into a new(ish) computer.. not network. And since the files are not being accessed on a daily/weekly or even monthly or yearly basis.. keeping them in actively running TC network storage.. I would say is a waste of space. That is only my opinion of course.. you might consider it highly important that files you will never look at are available any time of day or night when the urge comes to track down that elusive pimpernel email you sent 10 years ago... but I find it hard to justify. What the case.. the problem with TM and things like Mail is you cannot search it.. you must restore the whole library/files/program even before you can access it.. that makes file recovery out of a sparsebundle double step process.
So.. summary.
If you want to store files on the 4TB drive in the TC.. that is not a great strategy but it can work.. simply create a folder named.. OldFilesEMac for instance.. and do a simple copy and paste of all the file to that location. Do not use TM.. Since you have already used TM.. and from what I am reading you have already done the backup with the external drives included.. then you are going to end up needing to erase the TC and start over.. which you may not be prepared to do.. which is fair enough. (I am coming across as overbearing school master.. apologies).
TM is to backup your main OS and current files.. not files from 10-20years ago.
Please do read the issues involved in Pondini..
See his FAQ. I recommend you read through Q14-17 so you understand what is involved in recovery.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I also recommend you read the first couple of articles here. http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Particularly so you understand the complexity of Time Machine.
And the articles here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
Particularly Q3 on mixing data and backups on a TC.
I wish I could spend an hour or two face to face and work it out.. the whole strategy to do this.. !!

Why can't I read or write from my external hard drive?

Hey there, I recently borrowed my brother's laptop to use as a media station for listening to music from, and watching movies, in order to free up some space on my main macbook. In trying to migrate some files over, I discovered that my hard drive, a 320 GB WD Elements drive, is having some problems which I've never encountered before. It has always worked fine in the past, but now I can't transfer any files to or from it, from either computer. In all of my troubleshooting, I've gotten various errors, (-36, -50), and various messages saying how the device can't be read or written from, or how some files contian unreadable data, etc.
Disk Utility found an unused node when verifying the disk, and notified me that the disk needed to be repaired. I then used Disk Utility, which said it was able to successfully repair it, but the same problem remains, and after verifying the disk, it still says it needs to be repaired. I've tried to find any files that may be causing the problem, and was finally able to delete a seemingly troublesome file that was stuck in my trash bin from the external drive after trying various apps, (ie Trash It, Cocktail, What's Keeping Me?). This didn't end up solving anything...I've used terminal to eliminate some other potentially problematic files, with no luck still, and I'm not too confident with Terminal so I don't want to be messing around too much without more guidance.
Most recently, I've used Disk Warrior to try to solve the problem, but still with no success. When I use the app to Check All Files and Folders, it does so for only a few seconds, then reports that "An unexpected error ocurred while attempting to perform file operations" for several files, and that several files' "Property list is damaged and cannot be repaired". When using Disk Warrior to REBUILD the drive, the app pauses for about 15 seconds, then says that it can't be rebuilt because it is in use. Again, I've used the What's Keeping Me? app to kill any activity with the drive, and the same error occurs.
I've spent a lot of time trying to sort this out...It's very frustrating, and I have a lot of files that mean a lot to me on my drive, so any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks a lot!
Ryan

I have this problem too with my Western Digital 1TB My Passport for Mac.
Downloaded Card Data Recovery - did not work. The software self terminated itself when the problematic WD is connected. Starts up fine when the WD is not connected by USB.
Then I downloaded Remo Recovery. Starts up fine, scans fine and appears to save the files but ALL the files 'saved' are unreadable.
Finally, downloaded Stellar Phoenix in a last ditch attempt to recover my precious video files. Starts fine, saves fine BUT it cannot save files above 200MB because the WD stops working every 10 minutes.So, did not solve my problem totally because I have so many files above 200MB.
And yes, I PAID for all the software above. And the first two software are reluctant to refund me my money until their development team can ascertain whether it's a software bug, over online web conference. And because of the time differences, I can never get online with them. So, all my money gone.
Until one day I opened Activity Monitor and noticed this 'fsck_hfs' starting up everytime I connected the problematic WD My Passport for Mac.
So, tried to Force Quit 'fsck_hfs' and VOILA!
A dialogue box popped up and says that the Passport for Mac cannot be repaired and that I can move and copy files from it but not save to it.
PHEW!!
At least I can access the files and save them to my Seagate 1TB although now I am having a problem opening FCP X project files rescued from the WD.

I can't copy iTunes media files from one external hard drive to another.

Hi, I am running the latest iTunes and Mavericks software on my MacBook Pro. My iTunes library is stored on an external Seagate 2tb hard drive and it is almost full. I want to transfer the files to a WD Elements 3tb external hard drive and have made that new volume the destination folder for my iTunes library. However, even though I have enabled read/write on both volumes and made the iTunes media folders on both shared folders, I can't copy all the files from the Seagate drive to the WD drive. It comes up with an error message that says "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8058)". I can transfer files from my MacBook hard drive to the new volume, but can't copy files from the old Seagate volume to my MacBook hard drive; it makes the "boing" sound that indicates it is copying but nothing transfers. Files that won't copy include all music files, some video files and all podcast files. Some transferred with no problem. Any ideas out there?

Hi Limnos, thanks very much for your reply.
both external drives came preformatted for Windows but I erased each and reformatted them for Mac before using them.
i made the destination folder on the new WD drive the new iTunes folder using Advanced preferences in iTunes.
my original iTunes folder on the first drive contained all my iTunes files, as that, also, was the destination folder that was linked via Advanced preferences.
If I download new content now with the new drive attached, iTunes has no trouble finding where to place the files.
in Preferences I have both boxes checked (copy files" and "organize") that deal with copying iTunes files.
When I first attempted to copy all iTunes files from one media folder to the other on the external drives, I just did a drag and drop of the whole iTunes media folder from one to the other while both were mounted on my desktop. It started copying immediately with no problems, but as it progressed it started skipping files, each time displaying the error message I reported earlier. that included my entire Music folder. When I open, for example, a season folder that contains files that would not copy, eg, Modern Family Season 5, the episodes that won't copy are there and visible but any attempt to drag and drop them into the correct folder on the new drive results in the error message. There is no pattern to it; it will choose some episodes from some seasons but not others, and no music at all.
when I look at the "missing" files in iTunes they have the small exclamation mark that indicates the file is missing, but when I locate it through iTunes it doesn't copy the file on the old external drive to the new one. It just plays it having found the file on the old drive.
originally I had to make the iTunes folder on the old drive into a shared folder using the Get info window after either a software upgrade or an OS upgrade (I can't remember which, it was several years ago). For some reason the upgrade changed the preferences of that folder to a Read Only folder and after researching the problem found the only way to keep using the drive was to make the folder a shared one. I can't remember why and I apologise for that but it was a long time ago.; I can tell you that at the time it was necessary.
thanks again for your time; I have a good working knowledge of iTunes and Macs in general so I truly believe I have done everything according to how it should be done,, but clearly I've done something wrong!

Can Target Disk Mode be run from an external hard drive?

Hi
My hard drive crashed on me the other day (again) and the apple genius told me all I could do was recover my data and send it in (again)
QUESTION:
Can target disk mode could be run using an external hard drive as opposed to another mac? If so, how?
I think corrupt files on my external hard drive might have crashed my ibook hard drive and I'm wondering if I should really try using the external to save all my info from my ibook. Am I completely clueless about computers or is this actually a possible problem?
Thanks

HI Andrea,
No, you are not completely clueless. If you follow John's sound advice using Target Disk Mode from another Mac, maybe you have a friend or relative who has one. Here's the information on how to use Target Disk Mode that I found in the Apple Help menu:
Transferring files between two computers using FireWire:
You can use FireWire to connect your computer to another Mac and have one of the computers appear as an external hard disk on the other computer. This is sometimes called Target Disk Mode.
To transfer files using FireWire:
Shut down the first computer and leave the second computer on.
Connect the two computers using a 6-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable. (If both computers have higher-speed FireWire 800 ports in addition to the standard FireWire 400 ports, you can use a 9-pin to 9-pin cable with the FireWire 800 ports to transfer data at higher speeds.)
Open System Preferences, click the Startup Disk, and click Target Disk Mode. (Or, start up the first computer while holding down the T key.)
A disk icon for the first computer appears on the desktop on the second computer. Drag files to and from the disk to transfer them.
When you finish, eject the first computer's disk by dragging its icon to the Trash. (While you drag, the Trash icon changes to an Eject icon.)
Push the power button on the first computer to shut it down and disconnect the FireWire cable.
If the computer to which you connect your computer is running Mac OS 9, it must have FireWire version 2.3.3 or later installed. Use Apple System Profiler (located in /Applications/Utilities) to check the version of FireWire installed. If it has an older version, get an update at the Apple FireWire website at www.apple.com/firewire.
It's a very simple process but it can only be done between two Macs. You can only "target" another Mac, not an external drive.
It sounds like your iBook needs service. And if you think that your external drive caused the problem to start with, I wouldn't use it again if you can do the TDM instead to retrieve your important data.
Also, be careful with total free drive space. Never fall below 15% free space. Open Disk Utility from the Applications/Utilities folder. Then select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left. Then look down towards the bottom of the window on the right. You'll see "Capacity" and "Availablity". It's a good idea to keep track of free space all the time. You need a minimum of 15% just to boot.
Hope this helps...
Carolyn

Can I transfer OS 10.5 from an external hard drive to my internal drive?

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