Does Time Machine track changes to disks made by other operating systems?

I run 10.8 Mountain Lion on my main partition but also occassionally boot to a copy of 10.7 Lion on a separate partition in order to run a version of Quickbooks for Mac that isn't supported in 10.8. Time machine is only turned on in 10.8 and backs up all internal disks and partitions when I'm logged into that operating system. My question is does time machine in 10.8 notice changes made to any of the internal disks made by me while I was booted into 10.7 Lion?
Occassionally I reboot into 10.7 Lion to run Quickbooks for Mac 2011, do work, make changes to files, ect. When I log back into 10.8 Mountain Lion and Time Machine does it's normal back up thing, does it recognize changes that were made to internal disks, folders, and files that were made when I was previously booted into 10.7 Lion? Or does Time Machine in 10.8 Mountain Lion only recognize changes that are made when it's running?
Thanks Peeps!
ben

When I log back into 10.8 Mountain Lion and Time Machine does it's normal back up thing, does it recognize changes that were made to internal disks, folders, and files that were made when I was previously booted into 10.7 Lion?
Yes.

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How does Time Machine track changes?

My Leopard upgrade got stuck with a minute to go - I had to hold down the power button to restart my Mac, but to my surprise Leopard launched and everything seemed to work fine. I set up Time Machine and it's been running without problems, backing up to my 2nd internal drive. The only problem I noticed was that a few hidden files weren't hidden - presumably it hadn't finished cleaning up after itself. So, I carried on using Leopard until today when I finally decided it might be a good idea to run the installer again. The installation completed fine, and everything is running nicely.
My question is: will time machine track any changes that have been made from re-running the installer, or does it only track changes that are made while Leopard is running? Should I switch off Time Machine, delete the backups, and start again, or will it handle these changes?

When I log back into 10.8 Mountain Lion and Time Machine does it's normal back up thing, does it recognize changes that were made to internal disks, folders, and files that were made when I was previously booted into 10.7 Lion?
Yes.

How does time machine use the external disk space??

does time machine back up only the changed or new stuff or does it back up everything? does this mean that if on "day one" it backed up 600 gb worth of data, the next back up on "day 2" would be 600gb+a few more things, or would it be 600gb+600gb+the few more things? Does it back up "day one" in a whole package and "day two" in another package, or does it back up "day one", plus only the different things made from "day one" to "day two""?
similarly, does it keep stuff from the first back up ever, plus anything new or modified in the following back ups, then when it is full, does it let just the oldest files drop off? or does it drop off everything from the initial backup? that is, if I had 20mb of changes would it erase only 20mb of data to make the new data fit, or would it erase all 600gb from say "day one"?
thanks for the answer!
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
<Email Edited by Host>

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Does Time Machine track file movements?

If I have a file on my desktop, have Time Machine back up the desktop, and then move the file to my "Documents" folder and back up again, does Time Machine back up two copies of the file in each respective location or does it know that the file was moved (without being changed) and only keep one copy on the backup drive and just make a new hard link to the file in the new location (in this case the "Documents" folder)?

if you move a file to another location, TM will think that it's a new file provided that it sees the moved file during a regular backup.
If you move a file around BETWEEN backups, it will NOT find the intermediate locations.
- gws

Does Time Machine replace changed files and delete old files?

I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet, but my son is a NEW CONVERT to the Mac; has uses Dells for years. He has a new Macbook Pro with Leopard. I use SuperDuper! with my Tiger Mini Mac.
I don't understand what Time Machine does. Does it continually update files on the target device, and if so how does it handle deleted and renamed files on the source device.
Thanks.

Time Machine takes a snapshot of the drive it is backing up every hour. If a file is new, renamed or modified since its last backup, Time Machine will make a physical copy of that file. To conserve drive space Time Machine will only make hard links back to its previously backed up files for files that exist on its source drive which remain unchanged. Hard links work in a somewhat similar fashion as aliases. If a file has been deleted Time Machine won't make a copy or hard link. You can read about how hard links work in Time Machine in this Ars Technica review.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14
If a file is not on the hard drive for over an hour and is deleted before Time Machine makes its hourly backup that file will not be in any of Time Machine's backups.
Time Machine only retains the first hourly backup of the day as its daily backup. The other hourly backups get deleted in the course of the day. That means that to be retained in the daily backups a file must be on the hard drive for over a day or be physically present on the source drive for the first backup of the day.
After a month, Time Machine retains the daily backup made on the same day of the week as the initial backup as its weekly backup. If a file is on the source drive for less than a week and is not in the daily backup retained as the weekly it will end up being deleted when Time Machine thins its daily backups.
When the Time Machine volume fills up, Time Machine will start deleting its earliest backups to make room for new ones.

Does Time Machine still ignore mounted disk images? Specifically, encrypted sparse bundle disk images?

My Time Machine backs up to Time Capsule which cannot be encrypted. I also have confidential data in an encrypted sparse bundle disk image in my home folder. When TM backs up and the encrypted sparse bundle disk image is mounted and I'm accessing the data, does TM back up the data "in the clear" decrypted form or does it exclude the disk image because it's mounted? I've done a little research, but there's conflicting information. Not sure what happens in Lion now...

Time Machine does not backup mounted disk images! The encrypted sparse bundle disk image was mounted, I updated a doc and did a TM backup - the file was not listed in the TM repository and the doc remained unchanged in the encrypted sparse bundle disk image on TM. Then I ejected the disk image and did a TM backup - the updated doc was backed up in the encrypted sparse bundle disk image! Thank you!

Does time machine "restore" change all subsequent versions?

Hi all,
This evening I some how accidently "restored" a document I had been working on to a version I started about a month ago. I honestly have no idea how this happened since I hadn't even opened Time Machine when noticed the document was the old version (the program and document had been open on my laptop for days). Anyway, I thought maybe I could just go back to the version from yesterday or a few days ago, but it seems that once today's version is restored to March 28th's version, all subsequent versions are also restored. Is this right?? Am I missing something here? If there is any way to find a previous version of this document (that is not the March 28th one!), I would be estactic.
Thanks!

Your backups never change. Restore again from a snapshot taken just before the unwanted restoration.

Does Time Machine back up mounted disk images?

I keep certain sensitive data encrypted on a .sparsebundle file. If this file is mounted when Time Machine kicks in, will Time Machine back up the unencrypted data to my backup disk?
Martin S Taylor

I see. But it's not the sparsebundle I'm worried about: I'm concerned about the contents of the disk being backed up.
From what you say, I'm assuming the contents are never directly backed up whether encrypted or not: if the disk is unmounted, then obviously the contents can't be backed up (only the .sparseimage file itself); and if it's mounted – well, they're just not backed up, because this isn't how Time Machine works.
Have I got this right?
Martin

Does Time Machine backup an entire disk image?

Currently I am on Tiger. I have Leopard in my drawer and will install it when 10.5.1 is released.
I have a question about Time machine.
Currently I use Deja Vu to backup my entire startup disk Disk-A to another disk-B. I can swap these over as startup's if a problem occurs.
Can I do the same thing with time machine?
Thanks,
Steve.

I'm assuming that your disk B is a bootable clone of disk A. If that's the case then, no, Time Machine doesn't do that. However, you can use your Leopard install disk to restore a bootable version of your system and all your files from Time Machine's backups. Time Machine has the advantage of being able to do that type of restore from previous dates and times, unlike a single clone. You can also use Time Machine to restore specific files that you have deleted, accidentally or otherwise, from your main drive.
I use both a bootable clone and Time Machine and consider them complementary backup solutions. BTW, 10.5.1 was released on the 15th.

MBP 17" does no longer boot from CD or my two other operating systems

Hi there,
I have an MBP on which I have 3 OSs installed: OS/X, Win7 64 and Ubuntu 10.10; I select between them with rEFIt.
Earlier today while working in WIndows, the screen went completely blank as if the machine shut itself off. I then tried to reboot into Windows and after selecting it from rEFIt, it never booted again.
For testing purposes, I tried to boot into Ubuntu, and nothing happened - the screen stayed blank.
Finally, I tried to boot from a Ubuntu Live CD, but nothing happens, the screen stays blank.
Mind you, though - OS/X boots just fine and everything works normal. I can access the Windows partition just fine from OS/X, so nothing got deleted there.
Any idea what this is and how to fix it?
Thank you!
Rainer

I don't know how much help I'll be to you. Seems to have a lot of posts lately about not being able to start up from the install disks.
I assume you can still boot up from the internal drive.
When you hold the option key to start, does the screen come up with the option to choose a startup disk and is your Install Disk in when you attempt this?
While booted up normally, does the Install Disk open up with the install OSX menu? If so, does going through the install menu reboot the computer from the CD automatically?
Even if there were a firmware upgrade, seems like you would be able to use the 10.6 Install Disk to boot from.

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.

Does Time Machine backup items on the time machine disk?

If I designate disk B as my Time Machine disk, are items on disk B, that aren't part of what Time Machine puts there, backed up? In other words, can I use a disk for both storage and Time Machine backups and have those stored items backed up too?

If you intend to use disk B as both a Time Machine Backup Disk and a Data disk to hold your files, the only way to do that would be to partion the Disk B volume.
How do I partition an external hard drive ?
When an external is connected to a mac, the computer sees that Hard Drive as a Volume. Paritioning the volume is the ability to "Split" the volume in more parts that are limited by size. Time Machine will use the entire partition of a volume if the whole volume is used as a single partition. If you use the right tools and "Split" the external hard drive in smaller logical volumes then you can comfortably use the external hard drive for both your Time Machine Backups and your Data that you want to carry on an external drive.
The easiest way to partition a volume in more the one partition or logical volumes is to use the Disk Utility application that comes with every mac. Use the Finder to go to your Utilities folder and open Disk Utility, or search for it in Spotlight. Whit Disk Utility you can select your external Hard Drive and either change the partition to add a second one or erase all data on the existing external hard drive and create 2 Partitions that you can adjust in size. Remember Make sure you understand that if you choose to erase the existing external drive to make room for a new partition , that all data present on the external drive will be deleted.
Now that you have your two new partitions you can assign one to Time Machine and use the second one for Data. And with Time Machine Options you will be able to exclude or include your new external data partition to backup to your new Time Machine Backup Partition !

Does Time Machine back up disk information in addition to all files?

Hi
I want to know if Time Machine back up disk information of my current Apple computer.
These information may include GUID/Apple Partition Map (such as partition names and layout). I check my backups in the Time Capsule, and it seems that only files in the hard drive have been backed up. I kind of know Partition Map doesn't reside in files, but hidden in the hard drive, so I wander if Time Machine does back up them? If so, where are they?
Thank you in advance!

DavidCQ wrote:
Thank you for your information! It seems that Time Machine can only do with Apple OS, and for other OS such as Windows , we need use other tools.
If it's Windows as a guest in a virtual machine, the backing file will get archived. That's certainly a backup, but a woefully inefficient one as it'll drag the whole backing file out each time. Most folks will thus disable that file in Time Machine.
If it's Windows via Boot Camp or Linux in a GPT partition, that'll require using Windows- or Linux-focused tools.
One of the few available OS-agnostic approaches for backing up data is a disk image. Time Machine is not an OS-agnostic backup tool.
As for Windows or Linux or OS X or most any other operating system, each has its own tools and requirements for performing an operating system backup and for recovering and restoring, and it's very rare for any other operating system around really has any clue what those requirements are for a given OS.

External disk attached to APE - does Time Machine work with it?

Hi everyone,
I'm interested in getting the AirPort Extreme (802.11n) for a few reasons, but notably to attach an external disk and use it with Time Machine.
I've heard mixed results, however, about whether this is possible or not. After some Google-ing I've discovered this feature was initially not available for the official release of Leopard, but was re-introduced in 2008 sometime as a software update. But after reviewing the product page, it makes no mention to Time Machine and it's ability to backup to external AirPort disks. Only the Time Capsule product page gets this kind of treatment.
So the question is... does Time Machine play nicely with AirPort disks or not? I was hoping you guys would be able to debunk the myths so I can get a straight-forward answer so I can make a decision on if I'll purchase it or not.
And while on the topic... can multiple people use the external AirPort disk at the same time? For example, I currently have a DIR-628 router (which I'll be taking back if Time Machine plays nicely with AirPort disks) and with the silly proprietary software from D-Link, it only lets one computer use it at one time, having each user remember to connect and disconnect each time they want to use it to share files or backup using Time Machine. Not a biggie, but kind of annoying.
Thanks for any help I receive, I really appreciate it!

Duane wrote:
As I said above, Apple does not officially support this operation. So if you have any problems or questions about using the disk with Time Machine, Apple will not provide support.
True and correct. This is likely because of their misguided SOX interpretation, which they seem to think precludes the addition of features not available at sale time through firmware updates.
Sort of like putting a diesel engine in a Toyota Prius. You may be able to do it but it is not officially supported.
It’s really nothing like that at all.
To answer the OP, yes, you can. I’ve been backing up my machine to a disk attached to my AEBS since the day the firmware supported it, and it works great for me.

Why does time machine backup disk images?

I have Time Machine backing up my folders on my Time Capsule but when I look at the Time Capsule drive in the Finder it shows one Sparse Disk Image Bundle. If I lose a folder on my iMac, how can I easily get the folder off of the Time Capsule? Is there a reason Time Machine and Time Capsule is making this Disk Image and not simply dumping folders on there?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
If you lose a folder, you just have to open Finder, go to the folder where that folder was and open the Time Machine application, so you will be able to navigate through your backups and restore the folder > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
Time Machine always create sparsebundle disk images when you are backing up to a network drive

Does Time Machine track changes to disks made by other operating systems?

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