Can I Use Time Machine To Back Up a FAT32 Disk Containing Image Files?

New iMac User Here. I just bought a brand new but mid-2010 27" i7 iMac. Although I've used recent MacBooks when traveling I've got no experience with Time Machine or other similar third party back up software.
I moved to the iMac from a desktop PC running Windows XP Pro SP3. I use the computer(s) mainly for photo image storage and processing. My workflow is based upon Adobe Lightroom (now v3.4.1) and I plan to stick with it. In the PC I had three internal hard drives, 2 of which were dedicated to image files. They were formatted as Windows NTFS. In preparation for the switch I formatted an external drive as FAT32 and copied all the image files to it. Now with the iMac I have Lightroom installed on its internal hard drive but keep the image files on the external hard drive and access them as needed. So far, so good.
The problem arose when I tried to set up Time Machine to back up both the internal hard drive and the external external drive. It will back up the former but not the latter. It tells me it does not interact with FAT32 disks.
Any thoughts, explanations and/or solutions for establishing a simple, single back up routine for both internal and external drives will be most appreciated.

Thanks very much for the quick response. You confirm my intial suspicion, but your suggestion relies on my memory to accomplish on a regular basis (not the best of solutions) and further would be an extended disk run every night because it would not just be backing up new additions but the whole large disk, right?

Similar Messages

Can we use Time Machine to back up data on Time Capsule from the outside of network?

I have Time Capsule at home. Can I use Time Machine to back up data of portable nootebook when I am working at office?

If you mean over the internet, you can but it will be so slow and more than likely so unreliable it is a poor method to use. Remember all internet is limited to upload speed.
Lion does a temporary backup onto local hard disk.. which is useless of course if the hard drive is damaged.. but helps if you delete an important file. Then when you go back home and it discovers the TC is available it will then backup again from where it left off.
I think it is only a major issue if you are away from home for major lengths of time, weeks or months.

Can I use time machine to back up via a hard drive connected by USB to a HomeHub router?

Can I use time machine to back up via a hard drive connected by USB to a BT HomeHub router? Is there a better way to back up and store files than via the USB port on my new MacBook Pro? I'd like storage to be accessible from my earlier version MacBook too.

I think you want to make backups without connecting a hard disk via USB. In other words, you want to have the data storage be shared in your home wirelessly.
If this is the case, I recommend using a Time Capsule.
Time Capsule works great with Time Machine. You can set up all your devices to automatically make backups on the Time Capsule wirelessly and effortlessly.

I just bought an iMac now running OSX 10.8.4. I have a G5 running OXS 10.5.8 - External HD connected to the G5 been using Time Machine to back up. Need to get my files, photos etc. but not applications etc. onto the iMac. How do I do it?

I just bought an iMac now running OSX 10.8.4. I have a G5 running OXS 10.5.8 - External HD connected to the G5 been using Time Machine to back up. Need to get my files, photos etc. but not applications etc. onto the iMac. How do I do it?

David JHS21 wrote:
Can I just plug the external hard drive into the iMac and copy the "Documents" and "Pictures" from the hard drive to the iMac?
Not those whole folders, but their contents, maybe.
If the user account now on the Mac has read rights to the user account(s) on the backups, yes. If not, you may have to do some finagling.
Try the Browse Other Backup Disks option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17. If you find an account that can open those folders, restore what you want to an alternate location (#16 in the FAQ).
If not try creating one or more accounts temporarily.

How can I use time machine to back up and play media?

I just bought an external hard drive that I wanted to back up some media files onto (music and photos). I also want to stove videos/movies on the hard drive and play them from there. A few questions:
1. Is that the same as backing up with time machine or is it referred to as something else?
2. Can I use time machine to add new files, or should I do that manually?
3. Once the files are on my hard drive, can I remove them from my computer or should I keep them there?
I know that these questions may seem obvious, but I'm concerned about losing files because I don't understand what time machine actually does. Please feel free to ask me questions if you need to understand my question better. Thanks!

Time Machine makes a backup of your hard drive, which you can restore from, but not use as a repository of data.
Time Machine automatically makes incremental backups as you change things on the Mac HD.
Time Machine is not an archive, meaning if you make a backup, and then delete the originals from your Mac, Time Machine will eventually delete the copies it has made.
However, if you copy the files directly to the external, then you can remove them from the computer. But, those will be your only copies. If that disk dies, they'll be gone. So, that's really not a backup. It's the only source.
You can back up to Time Machine and also store other files on the same disk.

Can I use Time Machine to back files on an External Hard Drive

My MacBook Pro hard drive filled up with movies, pictures, and music, so I bought a 2TB Time Capsule. I have a external hard drive that is about the same capacity as my MacBook hard drive. Sine the Time Capsule is by far the largest drive I have, I moved all my movies, music, and pictures to the Time Capsule and am using it as an external hard drive. I attached a 500GB external hard drive to the Time Capsule and I use that as the backup drive for Time Machine. However, the problem I am encountering is that I can't seem to direct Time Machine to include all of my files on my Time Capsule in the back up on to the other external hard drive.
Can I use Time Machine to backup data that I store on my Time Capsule to a external hard drive? If not, what is hte best method for backing up my files that are on my Time Capsule?
Thanks,
David

You need to use a different utility .. eg CCC or Chronosync to backup from the TC to yet another drive.. the problem is, that drive should be connected to the computer.. if you use a USB drive on the TC.. the file copying will be slow as slow as you will not believe.. all files are copied to the computer, then back to the TC.. it cannot copy directly to the TC..
As Neil said.. one way or another you need to use an external drive on the computer, even if you don't use it all the time.. the danger of course is not doing regular backups.. and forgetting their importance.
A true NAS will have automated backup incrementally of the files stored.. The TC is not a NAS in that sense.. it is a backup target for TM above and beyond anything else.

Can you use time machine to back up an external hard drive?

I haven't used Time Machine so far and setting it up now.
Because my retina MBP has the limited hard drive size of 500GB, I'll be using a 2TB G-Tech hard drive as external hard drive.
I'll be partitioning it, 500 GB for the MBP as a time machine back-up, the rest as a hard drive for photography RAW files.
Can I set up time machine to back up the larger partition (the one with the RAW files) to a second external hard drive? Or does Time Machine only handle back-up from the main computer hard drive?
thanks!

Try reviewing this information.
Time Machine FAQ
You will definitely need more than 500 GB to use Time Machine - see question 1.
Time Machine works with the main hard drive and any locally attached storage, but I don't know of any way to make it backup the second partition without resetting the Time Machine Preferences. You can do that with a cloning program.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Two backups are better than one. Drives do fail.

Can I use time machine to back up computer hard drive AND contents of an external HD (contains only photos) onto another external hard drive (standalone HD for backups only)? PLEASE HELP!!

I keep my photo files on a separate external hard drive, separate from my laptop hard drive. And I want to be able to use time machine as the back-up system to back up BOTH the computer's hard drive AND the external hard drive.... and i want all of the "back-up" information contained on a separate standalone external HD. So in the end, I have a 250GB computer hardrive, a 1TB external hardrive, and I want to have a 2nd external hard drive that will be the location to store the "back-ups" (using time machine) which will be either a 2TB or 3TB harddrive.
I am in dire need of help....

Yes, just make sure that they are not excluded in Time Machine.

I would like to use time Machine to back up to a network SMB drive. I can see the drive on my desktop but it will not show in the time machine window to be able to select it

I currently have a mini server (OSX10.8.5, server 2.2.2) that I am using Time Machine to back up 4 external drives that are connected to the server via firewire 800. I would like to use Time Machine to back up to a windows network SMB drive. I can see the drive on my desktop but it will not show in the time machine window to be able to select it for use.
Can this be done
Thanks for any and all help

The supported targets for Time Machine backups are local (direct-connected) disks, and network targets include Time Capsule, a disk hanging off the current-generation AirPort (though not earlier AirPort devices), and OS X Server systems.
The Time Machine storage is based on the HFS+ file system, so I would not expect TM to work with SMB file services.
While there are hacks to allow Time Machine to access network drives, I would not consider those to be reliable. Skim the forum and the 'net for related details, and for previous discussions of setting this up and the related issues that can arise.
Remember to test the recovery with whatever you decide to use; whole point of backups is the ability to restore the data, after all.
If you want to learn more about Time Machine, Pondini is an excellent resource.

My Macbook won't start, and I must reinstall the disk. I haven't used time machine to back up, and I want to use an external drive to back up now. How can i do this from the utilities page?

I am currently in Zambia on missions work and my computer is constantly exposed to heat. I have just been trying to avoid using it during the hottest part of the day. Today though, I started it up and it was stuck on the grey page with the rotating circle for over an hour, then once the circle left, it remained frozen on the gray page. I used command + r at startup to go to the utilities page to analyze the disk. It found that there were problems with the disk, but then it could not fix those problems and told me to backup as much information as I could and reinstall or redo it all. I haven't ever used time machine to back up any of my information, but i have an external drive that I can use right now to backup my files. I can't get into my computer though to backup the files. How can I use this external drive to backup my files while the computer is currently messed up? Please help.

Emergency Backups (Data Recovery)
A)          Format an external disk:
          (This will erase all data on the external disk.)
          Boot in recovery mode (power then Command-R).
                    Alternative: Network recovery boot (power then Command-Option-R keys)
          To format (and erase) the destination recovery disk:
          Plug in the drive you are about to erase.
          Select the volume that is NOT your system disk.
          Click on Partition.
          Pull down under Partition Layout to 1 Partition.
          Click on Options…
          Select GUID Partition Table.
          Name: Emergency Backup (or whatever you prefer)
          Format: Select Mac OS Extended (journaled)
          Click Apply.
          Click Partition.
B)          Try to boot in Safe Mode (power then Shift key).
          (This will be a slow boot. Be patient.)
          If it won’t boot in Safe Mode, jump to C.
          If it boots in Safe Mode, try to boot in normal mode.
                    If that fixed your problem then start a Time Machine backup.
                    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
                    https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055
          If not, boot in Safe Mode again.
          Go > Computer.
          Double click on the system disk.
          Drag the Users folder to the recovery disk.
C)          To clone the disk:
          Boot in recovery mode.
          Select Disk Utility.
          Try to repair the system disk twice.
          Whether or not the repair succeeds:
          Drag and drop the system disk to Source:
          Drag an drop Emergency Backup to Destination:
          (Take care not to reverse this order.)
          Click Restore (the lower Restore button).
Once your system is healthy, maintain two reasonably current backups. (Time machine restores can fail.)
Create either two Time Machine backups (good) or one or more Time Machine backup(s) and one or more bootable-clone backup(s) (better).
          Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create bootable-clone recovery disks.
          See https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
          and https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031

HT201250 Can I use Time Machine on two different Macs to back up to one external drive?

Can I use Time Machine on two different Macs to back up to one external drive?
I have one 1T Western Digital backup drive that works well with Time Machine and my MacBook Pro. I now want to back up my wife's MacBook Air using Time Machine on her Mac and want to know if I can use the same WD external drive or if I need to get a 2nd back up drive? If I can use one external drive for the two Macs do I need to do something special on the drive or will Time Machine do it automatically?

Yes. You will need to configure Time Machine preferences on each computer to backup to the same drive. Note that you cannot connect the backup drive to both machines at the same time.

Can I use Time Machine to recover backed-up files from a stolen computer?

Hi everyone,
I used Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro but unfortunately it was stolen this week. I'm going to buy a new MacBook Pro and would like to recover the backed-up files from my old computer via Time Machine, though not necessarily transform the new computer into a clone of the old one. Can anyone point me to step-by-step directions for how to do this with Time Machine? Is there a way of using Time Machine to select, a la carte, which backed-up data you want to restore to your new machine, or is it an all-or-nothing deal?
Thanks for your help and advice!

Yes. Use the migration assistant.
First, I'd set up the new computer and choose not to migrate any data (this sometimes causes issues). Run all software updates, then run the Migration Assistant (In applications). It will allow you to choose a time capsule to migrate information from. You will be able to choose what information to pull from the time capsule: it won't simply clone the old computer.

Can't use time machine due to corruptness even after reinstalling snow lepoard how to fix?

Yes, someone stole my original apple id in 2009. Now i bought another iphone in late 2012 , Created another apple id due to Apple not being able to help me access my original apple id. Which now since 2 months ago someone or company, or bank stole my second apple id. My iphone 4s with Sprint has no celluar connection supossedly due to no internet that is what sprint said but I looked it up on apple and it stated that there is a cellluar block on my iphone4s.
So I guess I will have to go in person to Sprint so they can explain that to me and why I was lied to on the phone earlier. Back to my 2nd stolen apple id that I registered my macbook,airport express router, and iphone4s and apple TV. So who ever stole this apple id obviously took over all my mac products I had registered to it. Enough about that back to trying to use time machine....Everytime i do, my macbook just starts acting all screwed up. I bought a WD external drive for Mac but I believe someone must have claimed it too. Since there is 75gb on it that I can't access. Kind of like my Macbook stating I can't save or have access to the Root . That is another thing after reinstalling snow lepoard which works great until I update it. Which is a problem because everytime I update it to 10.6.8 All the permissions are changed the graphics look horrible and I get redirected so bad its not funny. The email account is a joke. Also I notice my stationary for email is in Spanish not sure why and on Iworks the document samples are also in spanish. Now I dont speak any other language except ENGLISH AND HAVE LIVED IN UNITEDSTATES MY ENTIRE LIFE. But my internet provider Fibrant which swears they are local shows it is in the UK also when i try to access my email for that account it states it is not safe , certificate is expired and someone might be trying to impersonate my server. Needless to say it is getting old. I had this same problem with Timewarner and Att except att would just remove my ethernet driver then laugh when i would call and ask what the problem was. Then later I find out when I had DSL that somehow the phone number they had listed was change to being a digit off from my DSL account which again they laughed and thought it was funny. Enough about that. I need to know how to get access to my Apple id. I gave up on the first one but the second one I did have access to until I registered all my apple products. What is up with every thing I have with a usb port being corrupt. I have also notice anywhere in town where I live my phone is English until I come home it is arabic,hebrew , spanish any language except English. Shouldn't I be safer in my home??????????????? But I am not I am safer in town or anywhere but my home. EVerything states international in my home and this has been going on since 2009.....No one can tell me why. My power from Duke reads that OTHER Is costing me the most $$ every month what ????? This is a joke. But yet no one can tell me why or how to fix the problem. Going on 5 years , I have been cut off from everyone I know. Can't keep contacts on a phone or email accts. They all disappear. All so I am in Eastern time zone but all my computers and tv seems to think I am in pacific timezone. No one can fix this problem either. So if anyone has any suggestions on how to fix at least one of my 5 year problems I would be grateful. I try to create a new email account but either I am locked out right after or someone turns it into an alias account which doesn't help me. When I was layed off in 2009-2010 I went back to school/college. Needless to say they took my School email acct too.
Back to my iphone 4s problem. My icloud email account gets alot of spam starting about 2 months ago and I can't stop it. I try to foward it to Spam @ me but it hasn't helped.My iphone can only connect to the internet with wifi. Sprint swears that there is not a block but according to apple there is.
About my macbook and apple ID how can I upgrade my Macbook from 10.6.3 to 10.6.8 with out all the permissions being changed and corrupt?? I have tried several times and it is always the same. I won't to connect my iphone to itunes to try to restore it but it states I have to update it to 10.6.8. When I do that my computer is alot worse off. Also how can I use TimeMachine with out my Macbook getting messed up? Something in my house has taken over anything with a usb port actually years ago and probably now something kept turning all my computers and phones or any electronic I owned it to a printer. I actually can't even use a printer in my home thats the funny thing. When I try to connect one when I used windows it stated I had no rights to it and couldn't use it. Since I switch to Mac not much better. When I try to print a test page it is all crooked and too small of half off the page. So it is upsetting that I can't use a printer but something keeps turning all my electronics into printers. If anyone knows how to fix this problem that would be great or to stop all this international stuff going on in my home that would be wonderful. I try to buy brand new pcs but soon as I start them up something had already taken over. This is with nothing electronic in my home on. Turn everything that a power switch off or unplugged it. Still I lost rights and access to anything in my home. Now if I am away from my home and try to use one of my laptops they look completely different and almost usable. Unfortunately I can't afford to move. I thought about it but I am still in bankruptcy and don't have the money. In the last 4 years I have not been able to reinstall in backups that I have created. Not sure why oh wait it states I have no rights to do that. My macbook I lost access to a week after I bought it and connected my iphone too. You don't know how many times I wish I had never backed my iphone 4s to my Macbook. Right after I could not log into it. Even used the disk to reset the password nope still couldn't log into it. Try to type the formula for resetting the password and nope it didn't work either.
Any suggestions would be appreciated---Need to gain access to my apple Id that would be a great start
Thanks, Suzanne
UnitedSTates
Eastern timezone

Didn't really read much at all of your post. Much, much too long, irrelevant details and & no paragraphs.
Can't use time machine due to corruptness
Post over here -> Mac OS X v10.6 - Snow Leopard forum
About my macbook and apple ID how can I upgrade my Macbook from 10.6.3 to 10.6.8 with out all the permissions being changed and corrupt??
Same as above. Post in the correct forum.
Need to gain access to my apple Id that would be a great start
-> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5625

How can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files?

I read that iWeb stores one's website pages in the domain folder which can be located at ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb. Can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files? If so, how? -I tried. I entered my Time Machine back up, and went back in time and brought the domain file forward but it opened only my current site pages, not the ones I am trying to recover. And it says the Domain file was last modified in October 2007 which is crazy because I've been using iWeb a lot and have published many pages. It seems like the uncorrupted pages, which I am trying to recover, existed somewhere on my computer at one point in time and space, less than a week ago, becuse I just published my site to a new hosting service since Apple will soon stop web hosting. So why can I not find them using time machine?

I continued searching and read another person's advise to down load an app named "Find File," then search for .sites. She said spotlight doesn't always find all files. So I did and sure enough, when I searched for .sites I found another Domain package, which I have no idea how it was created but which, it ends up, was the one actually being used by iWeb. So I went to that package then did the time machine and went back to before my web pages became corrupted. I had to delete corrupt blog pages out of my website menu to get iWeb to upload the other page changes even to a local folder.
So I went to that newly found Domain, went back in time, then brought that forward and as you pointed out the domain package had the parts of the pages, the files and jpegs, but not the structure/layout of the pages. So, I guess I gave up on finding the old pages.
Those pages still exist on the Apple hosting server but iWeb doesn't not reverse publication. Cyberduck would bring back the files and bits and peices but again not the pages as a total entity. I'm preparing for the end of Apple website hosting (next month?) and am republishing my old site. I decided to use a new domain name. So my entire original site is still totally intact on the web under the original domain name, on my mobile me site, I guess it will be there till sometime in June?
My problems started when I tried to publish my website to the new server. It just would not publish the whole website in one session. So I decided to do it a few pages at a time. Some pages went up, but as I added more, for some unknown reason the, blog pages, (about 70 subpages), which had aleardy uploaded just fine to the new server, became corrupt and locked up iWeb. Of course once I deleted the corrupt pages I didn't want to continue publishing the site to the host until I found and reinserted uncorrupted pages, knowing publishing changes would delete the already published pages.
At first I thought it was the hosting server's fault, but when I discovered that it wouldn't publish even to a local fold I was able to locate the cause within iWeb, deleted those pages then tested by publishing to a local folder. iWeb worked locally, so I knew I had found the problem pages. Well this is way more than you wanted to know. Thanks for your advise but I'll just start the blogging pages over.

HOW CAN I USE TIME MACHINE TO BACKUP ONLY PART OF MY FILES ON EXTERNAL D?

Hi, I am using time machine to back up all my files at the moment. but I want to get rid of video and photo material from my laptop and keep it on the external hard drive to which the time machine backs up my stuff.
how can i do this without losing the video and photo files permamnently?
thank a lot!

nefsi wrote:
doesn't time machine back up my files on the External hard disk?
By default, Time Machine backs-up almost everything on your internal HD to your External HD. It can also back up things on an external HD, if you want it to.
What I would like is, to find a way so that I could back up everything, but not have all the videos and photos I do not use often, on my laptop. instead I want to put them on the external hard drive and have time machine update all the other files.
Yes, you can do that, but there are two considerations:
You should partition the external HD so the TM backups are in one partition, and the other files are in the other partition. A partition (also called a volume), is treated like a separate disk for most purposes. See #3 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
You should find another way to back-up the videos and photos in that other partition, such as archiving them to CDs/DVDs.
In other words, can Time machine back up only some of my files?
Yes. You can exclude things from Time Machine. See #10 in the FAQ Tip. If you partition your TM drive, the other partition on it should be excluded automatically; but if it isn't, you can easily add it to the +Do not back up+ list in TM Preferences > Options.
For detailed instructions on making another partition on your external HD, see #6 in the FAQ Tip. It shows how to add a TM partition to a drive that already has other data on it, but the procedure is the same.

Can I Use Time Machine To Back Up a FAT32 Disk Containing Image Files?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for