External Boot Drive and Backup

My apologies in advanced if this question has already been answered.
I'm sending my Macbook Pro (Late 08) into Apple Care today to have the trackpad and optical drive replaced, so I'll be with out my computer for a couple of days. So I'm backing everything up, and I'd like to have a bootable external drive so that I can use some of my less CPU intensive applications (Namely, my STAMP Programer). So I have a Seagate 1.5Tb drive (USB unfortunately) that I can use, but it already has some large files on it from my old computer (FCE projects and media, garage band, Movie rips, etc) that I would rather not move. I'm using Carbon Copy Cloner, and I was wondering if I should add a partition to the drive and then tell CCC to use that, or if I should just use the drive as is.
Thanks!
Paul

Is the drive formatted with GUID partition scheme? If not, it will not be bootable.
That said, and if it is, you can create use a partition to make the bootable clone. My Time Machine drive (a USB2 MyBook drive) actually has this - one major (~600GB) partition for TM, and a second partition for a CCC bootable clone. It works fine.

Similar Messages

External Boot drive and time machine?

Been away from the mac/s for awhile... Just recieved my new mac mini hooked up to an external drive, in this case a very nice mini stack V2 with 500GB and more importantly 7200RPM drive. When I first turned on Leopard I of course designated the external drive as my backup for time machine.
That done can I still use the external drive as a bootable drive? I want to gain the increase in performance from that hard drive by doing so.
If YES I just install my OS on to that drive and then once done select it as my boot drive in system preferences? Any help appreciated.

I'm not sure you would want to have a backup to the same drive you boot the system from, and Time Machine won't give you the option to select the same partition your boot copy of MacOS is in. You may be able to repartition the drive into two (or more) logical drives and do it that way, but realistically to get the best performance from the system you'd probably want to use the external not just as the boot drive, but also for data storage. That being so, you clearly wouldn't gain any real benefit backing up to the same drive even if you could do so, so you might perhaps instead designate the mini's internal drive for Time Machine use, or add a second external and designate that.

OS 8.1 - Trying to partition an external scsi drive and backup data.

Have an Apple PowerMac 6000 series minitower at work. It runs a program called 4D, that is a database we use to catalog images. Since I've been with the company, there has been no backup of the database, as an external scsi drive had died and never been replaced.
Since the system is running OS 8.1, I wasn't sure how I could do any sort of network backup, and in the end I managed to get a new 50-pin scsi 50GB LaCie External Hard drive with the 25-pin cable to connect to the PowerMac. Connected it yesterday, and it did appear on the desktop as you'd expect.
But when I went to point 4D to the drive, it didn't seem to recognize the file system. I tried erasing the drive, but it had the same probem. Norton Utilities is on the mac, so I tried replacing the partition. Specifically, I tried creating two partitions. One that's 40GB, that I could do 4D backups to. The other, the remaining space (about 7GB) so I could try to copy the entire drive to that partition and maybe even boot from it if the other drive failed.
However, the drive was still mounted when I tried to repartition and it ended up causing an error. I tried rebooting, and the drive wasn't showing on the desktop, but it still wouldn't repartition. Not knowing was else to do, I low level formatted the drive, told it to write zeros to it, and then create the two partitions. Given I was doing all this on a Saturday and didn't know how long it would take, I left it running in the background to check on Monday.
Anyone have any experience with OS 8.1? Is there a program like Carbon Copy Cloner that works with that OS? And any thoughts on what I'd need to do to get this drive working as indicated above? I started using Apple again with OS X, and it's quite a bit different than 9 and previous. Could sure use some help.

Hi, merkman2001 -
I would use the Apple utility Drive Setup (which comes with a normal OS 8.1 install) to initialize and partition the drive, rather than Norton or any other third-party utility.
As far as the format type goes, select Mac OS Extended when asked.
<hr>
Is there a program like Carbon Copy Cloner that works with that OS?
Generally such is not needed with OS 9 and earlier OS versions. All pre-OSX OS's and software can be copied using a Finder (drag and drop) copy process, and remain usable.
This means that the System Folder on the internal drive can be dragged to the icon of the external drive and dropped into it. Ditto any/all additional folders, those containing the programs and documents.
You should be able to successfully do a test boot using the freshly-copied OS on the external drive; this is the best way to verify the integrity of the copied OS.
Can't recall if aliases were used in OS 8.1. If they were, it may be necessary to 'fix' any of them used, since the pathname contained in an alias is not corrected when it is copied to another drive - it continues to point to the original original.
You can also copy the entire source drive to the external one in one action - drag the iccon of the internal drive to that of the external one and drop it in.
After Finder gets done copying everything (this may take some time, so disable any sleep mode or screensaver), there will be a new folder on the external volume - this folder will be named the same as the internal drive. Inside that folder will be a copy of everything that was on the internal drive, including everything left lying around on the desktop and anything left unemptied in the Trash (these will be placed in new folders named "Desktop" and "Trash" respectively).
In order to make that external volume bootable using the freshly copied OS, move the System Folder out of the folder it was copied into, so that it is at the root level of the drive, meaning visible in the window that appears when you first open the drive's icon.

External hard drive and backup advice please

hi,
Sorry if this is a common question to the forum but I have only just registered and need advice that is a bit more taylor made than the other posts I've read.
I am going to be buying an external hard drive - firstly I have read that it's better to get firewire so that if need be I can boot up from it. Is this the case??
I want to make a clone of my hard drive, this can be done using deja vu, but is this the best thing to use? or do i need to get something like carbon copy cloner?
next.....partitioning disks. How is this done and what are the advantages? Why do this? This may be the answer to my next question.....
...I want to use the external drive for (1) making a clone of my HD that I can do each week for backup purposes and (2) using it to copy files onto daily/weekly - keeping it separate from the clone
help would be much appreciated
thanks

I am going to be buying an external hard drive - firstly I have read that it's better to get firewire so that if need be I can boot up from it. Is this the case??
Yes.
I want to make a clone of my hard drive, this can be done using deja vu, but is this the best thing to use? or do i need to get something like carbon copy cloner?
You can also try SuperDuper to perform the clone.
next.....partitioning disks. How is this done and what are the advantages? Why do this? This may be the answer to my next question.....
To partition a disk, use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder. Partitioning a drive on your model of computer will usually only give you benefits if you want to maintain multiple bootable installations of Mac OS X or Linux on a single disk.
(13860)

External hard drive and backup

I just got a 750GB external hard drive that I need to format and/or partition and I am not sure what the best way to do this is. We just had the power source fail on the imac and, fortunately the hard drive is ok. I have saved my picture folders, idvd movies & itunes playlists to another external hard drive by exporting them. I am just wondering what the best thing is to do with this external hard drive. This is the only mac we have in the house, we have a pc & compaq laptop, when we had the imac in the shop I couldn't get to the pictures on the external hard drive because it was formatted with the mac. Do I want to clone the hard disk? Do I want to partition it? I still want to save my pictures, movies & itunes on this, is that possible also? If so, do I export these folders to the External HD or is there a backup utility I can use? Is there a way that I can save the pictures so that I can access them on the mac and on the pc if I needed to? Any advice or suggestions would be great. Thanks.

If I make a clone of my old drive, does this also copy folders (pictures, music, adobe...)?
A clone makes a full duplicate of everything that is on the one drive to the other.
Is this something that I would need to update and if so, how often?
Yes, but how often depends upon how much you change your files and how much you are willing to lose if your backup is out of date. A main drive failing is unpredictable. The extreme version of this is having a RAID where the minute you make a change that change is copied to backup drives almost as you do it.
Do I also do a separate backup? I understand that it would be best to have 2 copies of my pictures. I would like to have these on discs as well as the external hard drive, but I have thousands of pictures because I take tons at my children's sporting events. It would take so many cds or dvds, but that is what I will do, unless someone has a different suggestion.
One can write pages and pages on backup philosophies.
Backing up to CD/DVD is almost impractical these days due to the size of data and relatively small capacity of optical discs. That said, I do have things backed up to DVD. Files I know are never going to change (photos, other multimedia). I bought high-quality archival grade DVDs for this purpose. Price per GB though, hard drives are cheaper and easier.
Having multiple backups is not a bad idea. Let's say you keep one backup drive by your computer so it is handy for a daily backup. Somebody steals your computer and backup, well all is gone. Have a weekly 2nd backup stored in the garage somewhere then you still have most of your data.

How does external boot drive bind to computer?

What mechanisms bind an external boot drive and the host computer when running? In particular, how is the user environment determined? Examples:
1.I boot from my external drive (10.5.1) to my home mini 10.5.1) and I get one desktop with specific background (that I chose); when I boot to the mini at work (10.3.9), I get another desktop and background (which I also chose). Each mini, booted internally, has its own desktop and background. How does the desktop environment get determined?
2. When booted to one or the other mini from the external drive, iTunes sometimes wants to authenticate permission to play a song. It always comes back with "3 of 5 computers enabled". Why does it forget, and why does it then remember the same three computers?
Where can I find out more about the nature of these behaviors as determined by the operating system?
Thanks,
Fred

If you have the same system (Leopard 10.5.2 latest and lot of fixes) you can easily set the home folder to point to another disk drive so you have the same prefs and home folder. All it is doing is using your home account.
Normally it is /Users/home_account
But you can unlock and change the Account control panel (Advanced option by control click on account) to any location with 'browse' on path field to...
/Volumes/volname/Users/homeaccount
and use the same prefs (like desktop but also email etc)
That would allow you to use carry your home account and always use the same email and such wherever you are.
I always keep home account on another disk drive. In Panther it was done using NetInfo Manager, now modifying home path is in Account control panel. And to me, that is what 'binds' the boot drive to your user environment that you asked.

How do I backup my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and keep my photos grouped by their events?

How can I backup my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and keep my photos grouped by their events?

I have attempted to make sure my iPhoto library has been backed up on the external hard drive and that it is safe to delete some events from my internal hard drive
You need to think this through.
Time Machine is a back up application. It keeps a rolling back up of the data. It's called rolling because it means you can revert to the data you had on a specific date and time. But that's not eternal, and as time goes by, and your drive fills up, older backups are deleted. So if you delete Events on your Mac they will - eventually - also be deleted from the Time Machine back up.
If you wan tot archive data hendon't use Time Machine for that job. Here's how you might archive an iPhoto Library:
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager

I have an external hard drive set up as a Time Machine backup on my IMac. I want to add a second external hard drive and put my Aperture Photo Library on it. Is there a way to have the photos on this second hard drive automatically back up to the Time Mac

I have an IMac with an external hard drive set up as a Time Machine for automatic backups. I want to add a second external hard drive and load my Aperture Photo Library on to it so that the library can be shared by both me and my wife. Is there a way to automatically backup the photo library that will be on the second hard drive to the Time Machine hard drive?

Open System Preference > Time Machine
Click Options....
Ckick on external disk in list and hit the - button below the list to remove from the Exclusion list
Allan

Got a new Macbook Pro today and I plugged in my WD external hard drive to backup with but it didn't allow me to backup.

Got a new Macbook Pro today and I plugged in my WD external hard drive to backup with but it didn't allow me to backup. The problem is that now my computer won't show the drive in finder. I can see it in Disk Utility and cannot access it. Help?

First
Finder>Preferences>Sidebar>Devices>External disk
but it didn't allow me to backup
did you get an error code or error dialog box?

Is it possible to install windows 7 on a partitioned external hard drive and then boot from windows from time to time?

I have some applications that are windows only. I want to install windows 7 on my external hard drive and boot to it when I need to use my windows applications. Is this possible with a mac and, if so, how can I do that? I have a 64-bit Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion.

VirtualBox is free.
Besides the websites for the different products, I don't know of any.
https://www.virtualbox.org
http://www.vmware.com
http://www.parallels.com

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

Hello Drake, I suspect one or more of the Drives needs repairing, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.

HT1751 if i back up my itunes library to an external hard drive and then add subsequent music and want to back that up a few days later, can i backup the only newly added music without backing up the entire library again?

hello,
if i back up my itunes library to an external hard drive and then add subsequent music and want to back up the newly added music a few days later, can i do it without backing up the entire library again? or do i need to back up the entire library each and every time i back up to the external hard drive?

Just copy Users/yourusername/Music/iTunes (containing your library-files) to your external drive as well as that (extaernal) folder that contains all your audio-tracks.

Can I put my library on an external hard drive and use it between two computers?

Can I put my library on an external hard drive and use it between two computers? I have two MBP; I will refer to one as computer A and to the other as computer B. I would like to be able to plug in my external hard drive, boot up iTunes, and if there were any changes made to the library previous to its last time accessed on this compluter, they show up on that computer, regardless of being imported on the other.
A hypothetical example: I import three albums called 1, 2, and 3 on computer A over a week or so. I take the external hard drive and plug it into computer B. The entire library which was visible on A, is visible on B, including albums 1, 2, and 3.
Is this possible? If so, what files need to be copied onto the external? I'm trying some different combinations, trial and error basically. Hopefully someone knows and can answer before I mess up my library. I also want to do this to free up space on my computer. All importing will be done from disc.

iTunes/Preferences/Advanced : point your iTunes to the new location of the Library.
Set "Share on local network" in the Sharing tab, and you or everyone on the local network can play your music.
You make a backup first of the Library.
Move the follwing to the new location:
/Users/your username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
have fun.

My hard disk is damaged and i have no external hard drive, and i was wondering, if i sent my computer to Apple, would they back up my files for me before repairing it?

My hard disk has been damaged for about 4 months now. When I ran the disk repair under disk utility, it told me to back my files and send it in for repairs. My problem is that I had a external hard drive, but I lost it, so I obviously can't back up my files. Also I tried using other external hard drives and that didn't work, pretty sure it was because they were not formatted for a mac. So my question is that if I send my computer to Apple, for repair, that would they back up my files there before repairing my computer. It could be a dumb question but at least I asked. Also my mouse pad no longer works. The "clickability" of it stopped about 3 months or so after getting the computer and just around last Christmas the mouse would not click anymore at all, it would move if one put there fingers on the mousepad but it would not "touch click" anymore. So yeah, help!
And the OS X was still a snow leopard, not sure the number of the OS.

Can't you just get another external drive, format it for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and backup some if not all of your files? Apple's not in the data recovery business. You should have maintained a backup and now it might be too late. Your best bet would probably be just to call it a loss and buy both an internal, to put in your machine, and an external, for backup purposes. You can boot from your installer disc, format the 'new' internal and begin restoring your apps at least.
I'll never understand why some people don't have backups. Drives fail. It's best to have redundant backups so that all three or four drives don't all fail at once.
Sheesh - I know that I'm not helping your problem but maybe now you've learned your lesson and others will as well.
Clinton

External Hard Drive and Time Machine questions

Hello, I am new here to the forums and I have looked all over for the answers to two questions that I have regarding external hard drives and the time machine feature.
For some background, I recently had a scare (water spill but luckily I had a keyboard cover on and the entire spill landed on the cover) with my Mid-2012 13" Macbook Pro (2.5Ghz) and due to almost losing all my data I've decided to invest in an external hard drive. However, rather than just purchasing a 500GB HDD to use as an external hard drive, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and upgrade my Macbook Pro as well by investing in the 480GB OCW Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. I'll be using the SSD as my internal drive so the original hard drive that came with my Macbook will serve as my backup external drive. Lastly, I plan to use the external drive solely for the purpose of backing up my MacBook in case something ever happens to my Macbook.
I am using this guide to help me with this whole process: http://circuitremix.com/?q=content/macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-upgrade-guide-a nd-performance-testing.
My two questions are:
1) When following the guide, it never mentions anything about the Partition Map Scheme. After being alerted to this and doing some additional research, is it better to go with the GUID Partition Table rather than the Master Boot Record?
2) After I have cloned everything onto my new SSD and replaced the HDD in my MacBook with it, should I erase everything on my HDD before setting it up with time machine? I was thinking about keeping the original data on the original hard drive (which would now be my external drive) just in case something goes wrong with time machine but I have read that people recommend solely dedicating the entire external hard drive for time machine backups.
Thanks in advance!

Format the new SSD in Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that will solve question No. 1.
After formatting, clone the new SSD using Disk Utility>Restore or Carbon Copy Cloner (down load from the Internet). Test the new SSD and if it performs as expected, do the physical swap.
Question No. 2. Erase the Time Machine HDD using Disk Utility and then install Time Machine. See this excellent website regarding Time Machine.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
If you want an external boot HHD, get another one and use Carbon Copy Cloner. This will give you redundancy in backups as well which is a good strategy. CCC also can update the contents in an incremental manner similar to Time Machine.
Ciao.

External Boot Drive and Backup

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