Can I use Time Machine and an external HDD to move to a new mac?

I'm in the process of selling my MBP. I'm looking to buy a Mini with dual screens for a better photo editing experience. Here's the deal. I have to sell my laptop first, then I will use that money to buy the mini.
I have a portable 1TB HDD, I'm using Time Machine to back up my laptop. After my laptop is sold and I restore it.. Can I plug the portable HDD into my new mini and load the backup as if I didn't get a new computer?

omfgskyler wrote:
... Can I plug the portable HDD into my new mini and load the backup as if I didn't get a new computer?
See Pondini's Excellent information here...
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC

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I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfully use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme? Some forums say yes, some say no.

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfuly use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme. Some forums say yes, some say no. I'm also curious about formatting the hard drive to work both on my wife's MacBook Pro and my PC. Any help would definitely be appreciated.

You may be going on a recollection, that I share, that at one time Apple stated this would be possible:
In fact, Apple’s Time Machine Web page touted this very capability as recently as last Tuesday, as you can see from Google’s October 16 cache of the page
Effortless meets wireless. With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine.
But if you look at the current Time Machine page on Apple’s Web site, that text is nowhere to be found.
That was a long time ago, it has never been officially implemented, and at present they specifically say it cannot be done.
In summary, it may work, but probably won't, and even if it does it may not be reliable.
Reference:
Disks that can be used with Time Machine
Time Machine can’t back up to an external disk connected to an AirPort Extreme, or...
and
Mac OS X v10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Extreme AirPort Disks

Can I use Time Machine on an external drive that has files already on it.

Please excuse the silly question. New to mac, from PC.
I have a 200g external hard drive that has my itunes library, photos and other assorted files on it.
If I use time machine on this drive will it delete everything that is there, or can I use it in conjunction with the other files that are there?

You can use a Time Machine drive to save other files on it but I think time machine formats the drive when you first activate it so you will have to temporarily move your files while that happens. You best bet would be to partition the drive into a time machine portion and another for your files.
Steve

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?

Can I use time machine on 2 separate HDDs

I would like to use time machine for my laptop on 2 HDDs, so I can keep and off sight copy. Alternating the drives to provide maximum back-up security.
Can this be done?

Perhaps a better strategy would be to Use TM for your Day to Day Backup and use a Bootable Clone as your Off Site Back up.
Something like...
SuperDuper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
or CCC http://www.bombich.com/
Which offer Incremental BackUp Options...
Works for me...

If i back up my mac using Time Machine and an external hard-drive, can that same hard-drive be used on another computer and on a PC?

Hi!
I hav just got a macbook pro and am used to using a HP pc and am a newbie! I have backed up my macbook with my elements external hardrive and was wondering if i can transfer the music i have purchased and is now on my external hard-drive back onto my other laptop purely because i use both laptops for different things and want to use my music on both. how do i do this? and do i need a particular software to do so?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated
thanks
alex xxx

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You can do it, but it's not recommended to use a Time Machine volume to store other files. In this case, you can create a second volume on the external drive, so you will be able to use it to store data and transfer it to other PCs.
As you are going to use the external drive with other PCs, you can make the volume and format it in "MS-DOS (FAT)" with Disk Utility > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU3.html Finally, you will be able to copy files to the external drive.
If you copy files to a Time Machine disk, you may damage the Time Machine file structure, so you shouldn't do it. It may not happen, but it's better not to try that. Also, you won't be able to read the Time Machine drive in a PC

My system information shows 232gb used as a "back up"on my internal hard drive even though I use time machines and a external hard drive.

Hi
I have had my mac book pro for almost 6 months. Whilst using a 500 gb portable hard drive with time machine, I was surprised to get a message saying there wasn't enough disk space to complete a back up.
I brought another but started to look into why I had used so much space. In system information I had this view. Can anyone help me find where to clear this back up which is taking up so much of my hard drive.
Thank you
Dan

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Local Snapshots on Portable Macs

Want to use Time Machine but my external HDD is NTFS formatted

Discussions suggest install NTFS ng but download failed (I'm on satellite broadband)...I need to backup my Macbook before installing Bootcamp and then I can use Windows on my Mac. I'm a new mac user and have just switch platforms. I don't want to loose the data on my Mac OR format the external HDD which is the backup of my previous WIN machine.
What is best plan.. <?> get a new HDD to exclusively Time machine to OR install Bootcamp and hope for the best...?

Lancer 10 wrote:
Discussions suggest install NTFS ng but download failed (I'm on satellite broadband)...
It's only 4 MB. Perhaps you should try again. If your satellite broadband can't handle that, perhaps you need something better, like 3G or dialup.
What is best plan.. <?> get a new HDD to exclusively Time machine to OR install Bootcamp and hope for the best...?
Time Machine requires HFS+ to work. It will create an HFS+ disk image when used with a server. For an external hard drive, I suggest you partition it into 2 volumes, one being HFS+ and the other NTFS.

Can you configure Time Machine to backup external HDD's too

I have my "stuff" on 3 separate external HDDS - 1 for photos (50GB), 1 for Music (140GB) and 1 for VIDEO (350GB).
I want to buy a 2TB drive as a backup drive and have time machine manange this so that the MAC and the 3 external drives are all backed up to this 2TB drive.
Is this possible with TIMEMACHINE and secondly, even if it is, is there a better 3rd party application for managing this?
Thanks for any help

TM does back up directly attached external drives that are formatted as Mac OS Extended, but you must specifically include them. I think they are excluded by default in the Options… area of TM Prefs.
You can always find something better depending on how you frame the criteria. You should always have more than one backup of the items you describe, with at least one off-site. As drive prices have dropped significantly, this is more a reality for the home users as compared to corporate endeavors.
There are several programs that work well for that. Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper both have the benefit of being able to make an bootable clone of your startup drive--nice feature if your boot drive fails. They are also starting to make Fire Safes with a USB drive inside for backup. I believe Retrospect Backup is still around, also.
I've heard of people who swap drives for TM so that they get two backup sets, but I haven't tried that. Mostly, I back up the pictures to iPhoto Libraries on DVD.
Cloud backup services are starting to gain steam. Carbonite, Mozy, DropBox… These all scare me as I don't have physical control of the media--but that might be a good thing.

My time machine backup (on external hdd) doesn't see my new internal HDD.

I just installed a new HDD and RAM in my mid-09 MBP. When I try and restore from a time machine backup on an external drive, I only get the option to install it on the other partition on that drive - my new internal drive doesn't even appear as an option. Could it be because the backup is from lion but my os disc is leopard?

When reading my report, I forgot to mention how the external hard drive is formatted :
Hard Drive FW/USB:
Manufacturer: LaCie
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0xD04B78070AD64B
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
Hard Drive FW/USB Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x110
Product Revision Level:
Sub-units:
Hard Drive FW/USB SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 298.09 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
Aristotle:
Capacity: 297.97 GB
Available: 164.85 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/Aristotle
Raf

Can I use time capsule as an external HDD to free up memory on my comuter along with the time machine backups?

I currently am considering a WD My Book Live Home Network Drive for 189.00 but would consider a time capule if it will allow me to rid my iMac of all the pictures and videos to free up my memory and store it on the time capsule for easy access on my 2 mac computers and apple TV. The WD also will allow me to access my itunes library via wireless connection without going through my computer. Please help.

The Time Capsule is for your backups.
You always want to keep "original" copies of your media on one drive, and backups on another drive. In case one drive fails....or rather I should say when...not if...a drive fails.....you still have copies on the other hard drive.
While you could move your images and media files to the Time Capsule from your Mac...and then delete the files on your Mac to free up space....you may not have considered that you have no backups if you do this.
If the Time Capsule has a problem....rather I should say....when the Time Capsule has a problem.....you lose all of your images and media. The same would apply if you use the WD drive just for images and media.
Given the investment in images, time and money for your data, only the most foolhardy of users would consider something like this.
Bottom line...you need two drives...the WD drive and a Time Capsule. They you can add the WD drive directly to your Mac and move the images and media there. Then, the Time Capsule will backup the files on your both your Mac and the WD drive.
So, you have "original" files and data on one drive and backups for that data on another drive. That's a bare minimum backup plan. Many of use use a dual backup and plan and keep an extra copy of backups offsite, in case of theft, fire or flood.

Can i use time machine instead of restore discs

alright so i bought a g4 imac 1.25 ghz 1 gb ram, and it has leopard on it right now from the previous owner. i have the panther restore discs but id rather have leopard. so my question is if i use the restore discs on my mac mini(new 09 model, leopard) and restore it to new then can i use time machine on my external hard drive and then plug it into my imac and use that data and make the imac with a fresh install of leopard? sorry if its hard to understand it is hard for me to describe. please help! thanks

John.Kitzmiller wrote:
Time Machine backups are not necessarily computer specific, however TM does not back up the OS
Yes, it does, unless you've specifically told it not to. That's how you can do a full restore of an entire system from a TM backup, even if it's a previous version of Leopard.
, so there's really no way to do what you're trying to accomplish.
That's not the practical issue. As pointed out earlier, the practical issue is, the TM backup for one type/model of Mac won't run on another, as the hardware drivers, etc., are different. Worse, the 2009 Mac Mini has an Intel processor; a G4 has a PPC processor.
Plus as already pointed out, it would be a violation of the EULA.
Correct.

Can I use time capsule as an external harddisk?

Can I use time capsule as an external harddisk? I mean does my mac see it as an wireless harddisk unit that I can put photos, documents, etc without using back up function?

of course! that's what it is and what it's for!

How can I restore my data from iCal? I didn't make any backup, but I use time machine with an external HD. I deleted iCal when I deleted my gmail account. I have tried to restore, but I can only restore the iCal software and not the data.

How can I restore my data from iCal? I didn't make any backup, but I use time machine with an external HD. I deleted iCal when I deleted my gmail account. I have tried to restore, but I can only restore the iCal software and not the data.

So what is your question?
If you forgot your encryption password:
Warning: Make sure it's a password you will remember or write it down for safekeeping. If you encrypt an iPhone backup in iTunes and forget your password, you can't restore from backup and your data will be unrecoverable.
If you can't remember the password and want to start again, you must perform a full software restore and chooseset up as a new device when iTunes prompts you to select the backup from which to restore.
The above comes from here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

Hi there,
I found that Time Machine in Mavericks will sort it all out for you. You shouldn't need to buy another backup drive, unless you have insufficient space left and can't afford to delete whats on there. It should just work fine.

Can I use Time Machine and an external HDD to move to a new mac?

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