External drive addition

I recently purcahsed an internal hard drive with a external hard drive enslosure to attach to my Mac Mini. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the hard drive was an SATA which didn't connect to the IDE connector in the enclosure.
So, I purchased another enclosure only to discover that the internal connector was again an IDE. It does have a SATA connection on the outside, along with a USB 2.0 connection. My question is this: Can I run the SATA cable from my SATA hard drive to the SATA connection on the back of the enclosure, then run a USB cable from the back of the enclosure to the Mac Mini? In other words, can I connect the SATA hard drive to the enclosure by connecting it to the outside SATA connector, intended to be used as a connection from the enclosure to the computer.
I don't want to try this without first knowing it can work as it may damage the drive.

You can do what you want by going in to System Preferences > Time Machine > Change Disk whenever you rotate disks. Time Machine will keep track what modified files belong to its respective backups on the two disks. However, it's always a very good idea to diversify risk in your backups so using different software for your second set of backups would be something to seriously consider. SuperDuper is not yet Leopard compatible but Carbon Copy Cloner is. You can use the "Copy selected items" function in CCC to do incremental backups.

Similar Messages

HT201250 Can I back up with time machine AND store additional files on the same external drive?

I just bought an external drive to move and archive some files off my iMac to free up some space. I'm being asked if I want to use the drive to back up files with Time Machine. Can I use this drive to do both? (Back up with TM AND store other files?
Your input is appreciated.

Technically you can but it is not a very good idea at all. The reason it is a flawed idea is if the HD fails (not really if but when) you will have defeated the whole idea of backup. A failure means you will lose the data files you stored on it and it's backup! A good backup plan has at least 2 forms of backup because backups can fail too. I would strongly recommend getting at least one additional external HD and use it for storing the data files you wanted off the internal HD and use the second for a Time Machine backup drive.
Personally I have 3 external HD's attached to my computer. Disk 1 is my Time Machine backup, Disk 2 is a Bootable Clone of my internal HD and Disk 3 stores my music, photography and movie libraries.
Please read these articles, they will discuss different backup strategies and I think you will see that each suggest redundant backups.
Backup Plan I
Backup Plan II
Backup Plan III

HT201250 how do I disable time machine? I want to use my external drive as additional storage. But it mirrors everything I edit. If I remove a document, it removes it from the external drive as well.

how do I disable time machine? I want to use my external drive as additional storage. But it mirrors everything I edit. If I remove a document, it removes it from the external drive as well.
I purchased a 1 TB WD passport drive, formatted for Mac. I set it up originally (mistakenly) to backup time machine. I went back and set it to "do not backup" It still backs up evey document I edit. If I add a document when the drive is disconnected, it automatically adds it to the external drive the next time connect to the passport drive. If I remove a document the same thing happens.
I need additional storage to free up space on my laptop hard drive. This is not working the way I want it to. Help!

Do not backup your startup volume to another partition on the same drive. If the drive fails you have nothing. Always backup to another drive or volume on another drive.
The I/O error usually means there's a problem with the drive. Clone ASAP, then repartition and reformat the main drive. Then restore the clone. Here's the basic process:
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
Boot from the external hard drive.
Erase the internal hard drive.
Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.

Can the G4 accommodate external drives in addition to the 2 ATA internals?

Hi all,
I have a G4 dual 1GHz machine (Sales Order Number: M8667LL/A) with two 120 ATA internal drives. I am happy with them but I want to have more HD space. I read Apple's pdf file on G4's capacity and seems to indicate that this tower only will accommodate either two ATA drives or 3 SCSI drives internally. Since I already have the 120 ATA internal, I think I need to hook up external drives. Is this technically feasible? Will my machine accommodate external drives in addition to the internals? And if so, what if any are there limitations on the size? Also, I read a thread debate between USB 2.0 and firewire. It seems that the poster recommends firewire for being technically faster. Would you recommend also?

Hi, Speed Racer -
Your G4 QuickSilver '02 model is designed to have up to four internal ATA hard drives - two in the rear position on the two-drive bracket (sled), and one each in the other two positions. However, in order to use more than two internal hard drives you will need to add a PCI controller card in order to have a bus connection for the additional drives.
Using an ATA/100 or ATA/133 card, one which is 48-bit LBA compliant, will also allow you to use drives larger than 128GB on that card.
You can also use an SATA (Serial ATA) card instead, and SATA drives. The advantage of this is that newer Macs use SATA drives, so the drives would be more likely to be usable on a new machine if and when you get one. SATA also does not have the 128GB limit.
As far as external drives go -
The 128GB limit does not apply to firewire or USB.
Although your machine is both firewire bootable and USB bootable, your machine has USB 1.1, which is far too slow for most things, especially for booting. You should consider firewire only.
You can daisy-chain several firewire devices together - up to 16 devices per firewire port.
Although the specs for firewire on Macs state that the first two devices in a chain can draw power from the firewire bus, it is better to equip all firewire devices with external power - this may be standard with a device, or an optional extra. Doing this relieves the power supply in the Mac from the burden of providing power to the devices.
Note - one of the advantages for having firewire drives is that they are hot-connectable (can be added or removed without shutting down the Mac), hence are very portable. However, disconnecting a firewire drive while it is still mounted on the desktop can damage the drive. Before disconnecting a firewire drive, either shut the Mac down, or dismount the drive - to dismount a firewire drive, either drag its icon to the Trash, or select its icon and press Command-Y (Put Away in File menu); once it has been dismounted (its icon has disappeared from the desktop), it can be disconnected without damage.

Currently my internal drive is full due to Aperture. I want to work with Aperture from a external drive verses my internal drive. In addition, I want to back-up my work to another external drive. Is this easily done? Does this make sense? Pros / Cons...

Currently my internal drive is out of space due to my Aperture files. I want to place Aperture on a external drive to work from verses in intnal drive. In addition, I want to back-up all my work to another external for safe keeping. Once I move aperture to the external, I want to delete it off my internal drive. Does this make sense to do? Pros / Cons....

It is common for people to move their Aperture, iPhoto, iTunes etc. files to an external drive when those files become too large to conveniently keep on the internal drive.
The best approach is probably to keep the applications (iPhoto, Aperture etc.) where they are now, but move the files (photos, music, videos etc.) to the external drive.
You should set up a process to regularly backup all the files from both the internal drive as well as the external drive you'll be using. Here are two approaches:
(1) Use Time Machine. You can configure Time Machine so that it backs up both the internal drive as well as the external drive, all to a third separate backup drive. This is done via the Options button in the Time Machine preference pane.
(2) You can use a "cloning" program, such as SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner, to make complete copies of files on your internal drive and that external drive. One way to do this is to use a very large disk for the backups, and to partition it into two backup drives, making one dedicated to the internal, the other dedicated to the external.
Two separate types of backups are recommended. I use both (1) and (2) above, and I disconnect and shut down the clone type backups when not being used. That way a power failure or surge that might destroy the original disk(s) plus the Time Machine backup(s) would still not damage the backups made under (2).
Don't delete your original Aperture files until you have verified that they are working properly from the external drive AND you have made a backup of them.

Using time machine to back up additional external drives

My mac mini contains a 160 gb hard drive. Aiming to keep this free, I connected a 500 gb WD mac-specific hard drive. I also use this drive when attempting to access work files on my macbook pro. When using time machine, which backs up to a 1 TB WD hard drive (also attached to the mac mini), I cannot figure out how to use time machine to back up simultaneously the contents of the native (160 gb) drive in the mac mini and the contents of the portable external drive (500 gb). *Is there any way to set time machine to accomplish this?* Please help - I really need to continually back up the contents of the portable drive as well.

carbon copy cloner will do this. you set up a scheduled job (can be daily, weekly, etc. & even every hour!) & is free to use (donations accepted).
http://www.bombich.com/ccc_features.html

Back-up on external drive, in addition to the time machine external drive

Quick question: I am using Time machine on an external drive next to my laptop. To protect against fire/theft, I want to do a monthly back up on an other external drive which would be kept at work. Does time machine allow 2 external back up drives and remember what needs to be updated on each, or do I need to use SuperDuper or similar to do my monthly back up?

You can do what you want by going in to System Preferences > Time Machine > Change Disk whenever you rotate disks. Time Machine will keep track what modified files belong to its respective backups on the two disks. However, it's always a very good idea to diversify risk in your backups so using different software for your second set of backups would be something to seriously consider. SuperDuper is not yet Leopard compatible but Carbon Copy Cloner is. You can use the "Copy selected items" function in CCC to do incremental backups.

Use external drive for both Time Machine and storage for Back to My Mac

Hi all,
I have been "a Mac" now for over a year and just keep finding cool new things that make me happy I switched. The latest thing is Back to My Mac offered with my Mobile Me account. With a rather convoluted mix of PC/Mac/iOS devices to manage - best $99 I ever spent btw...
I also have a 1TB Time Capsule that I have been using with Time Machine to back up all four of my Mac computers at home. Needless to say, the 1TB is really struggling to handle the amount of data being backed up and certainly leaves no room for anything else.
What I wanted to do was to attach a larger external hard drive via a powered hub to the USB port on the Time Capsule and use it for Time Machine backups while using the internal 1TB drive with Back to My Mac so that I can have remote access to all my data from anywhere without having to leave my computer running at home all the time in order for my laptop to "see" it when I'm away. And, yes, the amount of that data far exceeds what any level of Mobile Me subscription can offer! I should also mention that the hard drive is the only USB device connected through the hub to the Time Capsule at the moment. There are no other devices that might be "getting in the way".
I'm thinking maybe all this is asking too much without the addition of a dedicated file server (Mac Mini, perhaps - not a purchase my budget wants to make).
I understand that the Time Capsule doesn't support partitions, so I bought a Western Digital 2TB Elements drive, connected it to my Macbook Pro and used Disk Utility to reformat the drive from the incompatible NTFS it shipped in to a single, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition. I then made two folders on the drive, one for Time Machine backups and one for Back to My Mac remote storage/access. Great.
However, when I connected the 2TB drive to my Time Capsule I could not see it at all. Time Capsule was reporting problems in the way of a disk error. From within my Airport Utility, I could see the trouble was the external drive. The utility suggested connecting the drive to a Mac and using it's Disk Utility to troubleshoot.
I followed through, checking the disk, etc. and ended up reformatted the drive on my Macbook Pro yet again with the same specifications as before but without the folders and reconnected it to the Time Capsule. Same deal. But now, I can't even remotely connect to the Time Capsule at all. I can see the Time Capsule in the shared area of my Macbook's Finder but can not connect. The connection tries and fails even before it gets to asking me for username and password credentials.
Long story short, first of all, I suppose I would like to know if I'm asking for the impossible?
Second, if what I want to do *is* possible, what steps do I need to take to make it so?
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions you might have.

Well, I have now reformatted/partitioned my poor WD Elements 2TB drive about a dozen times as well as restarted my 1TB Time Capsule so many times it's no wonder it's as confused as I am! <G>
Last night, at your suggestion, William, and in respect for your continued support, I tried creating two 1TB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partitions on the WD external USB drive, both with GUID partition tables. Both volumes mounted to my laptop's desktop flawlessly and without issue.
Once the external drive was connected to the Time Capsule, however, it was a crap shoot as to whether or not the drive was recognized at all, reporting a problem with the disk, or, even at one point, mounting one of the two volumes but not both. <sigh>
I read somewhere on the Internet that you need to restart the Time Capsule for volumes on an external USB drive to be recognized.
So I tried that. I connected the freshly partitioned/formatted disk to the Time Capsule and restarted it. This succeed in removing the issue of reporting a nameless drive with a capacity of 0MB. It then reported the drive with its correct name but would not recognize whatever volumes in whatever partitions that particular crack at it contained with the exception of the once, as I mentioned above, when only one of two volumes mounted correctly and was listed with the right name and capacity on the Time Capusule's Setup's Disk tab.
At this point I have given up on my goal to use the external drive with Time Machine to back up my Macs or to hope I will ever be able to see its contents remotely via Back to My Mac. All I would like to do now is simply find a reason why I can't get it successfully connected and playing nice with my Time Capsule in the first place!
Any further suggestions or advice as to what steps I might take next would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you all.

Want to check if Iv'e got this right: PC External Drive PC Mac

Hi,
I'm going to attempt something and I just want to make sure I'm doing it right (I've searched the forums and this is what I've come up with).
I have an iPod formatted to a Windows XP computer and all my iTunes on that computer.
STEP 1:
I want to move my entire iTunes library off the C drive and onto an external hard drive (I'm out of space on my computer and will erase the library from the C drive once the transfer is done, leaving the library only in the external drive).
I assume this is what I need to do?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
I've read in the forums that sometimes there are problems with the iPod recognizing/synching to the new drive -- but I'm assuming if I follow the procedures in that tutorial then any problems I have can be fixed (i.e., By transferring in that way I'm NOT doing any permenant damage to my library, filelists, labels, etc.) -- correct?
I just want to check this before I do Step 1.
STEP 2
About 6 months from now I expect to get a new computer, and I expect it to be a Mac. I would want to transfer all my music to the Mac and discard my current PC. There's lots of stuff on the board about doing this. E.g.,
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93367
My one question now -- which is probably a silly one -- is this: Is the fact that all my music will need to be transferred from my PC's external hard drive (as opposed to the internal C drive) cause any significant additional problems? I think the answer is no but I just want to make sure.
Any clarification you can give on this would be appreciated. Thanks.
iPod Windows XP Pro

Thanks. I've got one related one.
Let's say I copy everything to my external hard drive but -- for the time being -- still leave the original on my c drive. Is there a way to test that the iTunes is working off of the external drive?
In other words, before erasing the songs on the C drive, can I do this and check to see that iTunes works with the external, the iPod interfaces with the external, etc. And then when I'm sure, erase the stuff on the C drive?
If so, how do I go about verifying this?
By the way, all of these songs are in mp3 format.
thanks,

Old External Drive failing; want to clone it to new external drive

I have an iMac connected to an external hard drive that is showing signs of age, and I fear that it may be failing. I'm going to replace it today.
The external drive has 2 partitions: one for Time Machine, and another for what just refer to as "Extended Storage." I put my video files and the like there so as not to eat up space on my iMac's drive.
My new drive will be 750GB. Before I do anything else, I want to effectively clone everything on the current external drive to the new one. Having never done this before, I may be asking a dumb/easy question, but can someone guide me on how to go about doing this?
Also, if anyone has thoughts/suggestions on how I should go about partitioning the new drive, I would welcome them. For what it's worth, my iMac's internal drive is 160GB, and the current external drive is 400GB, which is split up 160 GB to Time Machine, and the rest to extended storage.
Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

Hi! HERE is some formatting info. HERE is SuperDuper, HERE is CarbonCopyCloner, HERE are the instructions for using the Apple Disk Utility and HERE is additional backup info. Tom
Message was edited by: Thomas Bryant

Extremely Slow Disk Access from External Drives (USB & Firewire)

Following the upgrade to 10.6.2 (from 10.6.1), my computer is communicating extremely slowly with all external drives (both Firewire 400 and USB). File transfers which used to take less than a minute now take 5-10 minutes (less than 1 GB). Peering into the Console, I see messages for each aspect of a file reading: Nov 13 12:30:12 Nautilus /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder[152]: Possible unresolved transaction race -105/filename
(Nautilus is the name of the computer)
By "each aspect", I mean that for Pages files, it provides a message for Quicklook,(null) , Contents,(null) , and filename,(null).
All disks are in good health, formatted as FAT32 for ease of use with all OS types, and are SATA.
Again, this occurred immediately following the installation of 10.6.2 (both Software Update and Combo). I've seen similar errors online with iTunes libraries on network drives, but this is on directly connected drives.
I normally wouldn't ask this, but, is there a way to reinstall 10.6.1 over .2? At this point, Time Machine would likely cause me to lose other data as well in a full revert, since it has been more than a few days.

I have various personal files backed up on these drives (not system data): music, pictures, documents, etc.
FAT32 should not be an issue, as I have used these drives for over 2 years with Tiger, Leopard, and then Snow Leopard with nay an issue, until now. Additionally, while the Time Machine backup may be an archive, it is the sole occupier of an HFS-formatted partition which is not exhibiting the issue. I only included that information since it is physically on the same drive as a partition (FAT32) which is being troublesome to rule out driver/hardware problems.
Bottom line: All of my drives worked perfectly on 10.6.1 (and continue to do so on my other Macs (10.5.8), but do not on 10.6.2. I was only looking for a potential solution to my computer's specific issue, not a statement that my "compromise" is the cause of my problems.
Actually, since Apple fully supports read/write access on FAT32 partitions, I should, indeed, be able to "have all things all ways...", no offense intended.

RE: Capture Problems on External Drive/Audio drift over time

Greetings FCP gurus -
I posted earlier on the LAFCPUG board and now seek worldwide assistance with a problem I can't seem to resolve.
Been working in FCP since 1.5. Been successfully capturing on external FW devices for over 4 years with an old 500 MHz Powerbook - no problems.
I recently upgraded to FCP 5 Studio on a PowerBook 1.5 GHZ 512 RAM FW 4/8 machine. Prior to upgrade, I was running Panther (OS X 10.3X) and FCP 4.5 HD. This configuration allowed me to flawlessly capture to external FW drives from Panasonic AJ-D250 DVCPRO deck using a standard DVNTSC codec. Prior to that I was also able to do the same from a Sony DSR-11 deck. No longer.
I now get a constant audio "drift" every time I capture. I've tried shortening the clips to under 10 minutes - even as small as 5 minutes - but the audio progressively drifts as the clip plays on. This is true in both FCP and QT. I completely reformatted the laptop/wiped the drive prior to install (Unjournaled) and it currently has 25 gig available disk space on the 80 gig internal drive. Additionally, I'm using LaCie 7200 RPM Oxford 911 chip-set external drives. I've tried with clean D2 FW 800 and Porsche FW 400 drives to no avail - even reformatted one and still no luck.
Current configurations attempted:
FW 800 PB port to FW 800 drive port/DVCPRO deck to FW 400 PB port
FW 800 PB port to FW 800 drive port/DVCPRO deck to FW 400 drive port
FW 400 PB port to FW 400 drive port/DVCPRO deck to FW 400 drive port
..and so on.
I'm at wit's end and appreciate any insight. Is anyone else having issues capturing to External FW media via FCP 5 Studio/OSX 10.4.x? I don't currently have the option of internal drives to capture as I'm working at a client site. Additionally, I sold my FCP 4.X upgrade software so going backwards is not an option either... Even took the deck home and tried this same trick on my home machine (Dual 500 G4 Sawtooth) to the internal ATA drive with the same result -...drifting audio. Since upgrade this is my first capture and needless to say it's not going well.
Help, information and insight are greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi Expressofiend! Were you able to resolve this issue yet? We are having an IDENTICAL problem. We shoot on a Canon XL2, and thought that might be causing the audio drifting issue? We also have a Panasonic AD-J 250 deck, and when we capture, say an interview, the lip sync is perfect for a few minutes, then drifts as much as a second or two over 20 minutes of capture. It's making us crazy. Happens when we capture to an external LaCie or our internal drive. We're using Apple's 2.7 gig duel processor computer. 2 Gig of ram, all the latest versions of Tiger, Final Cut Pro 5, etc. If we look at the Quicktime movie - it shows the audio drift - you don't even need to view it through Final Cut!
Interestingly, if we use the Canon XL2 camera as the source player when we capture the 20 minute piece - there is NO audio drift or syncing problem. Only with the AJD 250! We've spoken with the senior engineer at Panasonic - he doesn't think it's the DVCPro unit. Says drifting audio isn't the kind of thing an out of adjustment or broken deck would do.
Anyway, any answers here yet?
Thanks,
Larry

Error Code -36 While Writing to External Drive

I have a 2.16GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro with the 100GB 7200 RPM HDD and 1GB 667 RAM. I am trying to use my MBP with a Western Digital 250GB MyBook Essential external HDD connected via USB 2.0.
The external HDD used to be formatted with FAT32 (I was unaware) and I could read and write small files to the drive with no problem. However, when I tried to copy my iTunes folder to the drive (21.7 GB) I would always get an error soon after the transfer began. The error message reads:
The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "08 Bottle of Blues.mp3" could not be read or written. (Error Code -36).
The message will always come up on the same file. If I delete the file mentioned in the error message, the error will still come up after about the same amount of time has elapsed, but just on a different file.
Recently, I learned that the external drive was FAT32 so I formatted it with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I still get the same error.
I have tried using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.0b5 and SuperDuper! 2.1.4 and neither application can complete the transfer--using the Mac OS Extended file system. CCC gives me the error:
15:45:02 Error: asr: could not copy /./Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor.app/Contents/Resources/no.lproj/ScriptEditorHelp/gfx/sedebug.jpg; Input/output error
15:45:02
15:45:02
15:45:05 ccc.sh: The restore operation failed, Error code: 98
SuperDuper! gives me the error:
| 04:00:49 PM | Error | ditto: /Users/caseyhancock/.Trash/Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive/Office/Fonts/./MS Mincho.ttf: Input/output error
AppleCare support hasn't been able to help me, and I feel like I've searched exhaustively for information about Error Code -36. If anyone could shed some light on my problem and help me backup/copy files to this external HDD I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
MBP 15" 2.16 1GB 100GB 7200RPM Mac OS X (10.4.7)

In my experience, it was a BAD EXTERNAL DRIVE...
sometimes they are bad (and the one I had was a external USB 120 GB Western Digital) due to fall, or something, and you can format and they work, but they have a place on the disk that is just bad, and freezes the external disk, and it is unable to accept commands.
A way of testing this, is to write to the entire disk..
Doing this will kill the entire drive, but will allow you to verify that you can write to the whole drive... (in addition to erasing everything on it.. )
make sure the disk is mounted in the finder.. and give it a uniqe name... so it will be easy to distinguish in the commands below.
THE FOLLOWING IS INTENDED AS A GUIDE. VERIFY YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING BEFORE YOU DESTROY VALUABLE DATA..
open the terminal program:
type the following:
df -h
you should see all the disks that the are connected to the system. a sample of the output is below:
it does not look so nice, as the font is not monospaced, but on the terminal window it lines up nicely:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2 186G 124G 62G 67% /
devfs 97K 97K 0B 100% /dev
fdesc 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev
<volfs> 512K 512K 0B 100% /.vol
automount -nsl [182] 0B 0B 0B 100% /Network
automount -fstab [198] 0B 0B 0B 100% /automount/Servers
automount -static [198] 0B 0B 0B 100% /automount/static
/dev/disk1s1 466G 463G 2.4G 99% /Volumes/wd-usb-250
in my case the last disk is a WD mybook that I called "wd-usb-250"
now, in the finder, unmount the disk and make sure nothing is accessing it...
notice that the computer thinks that the disk is connected via the path:
/dev/disk1s1
VERIFY THAT THIS IS THE SAME FOR YOU.. IF NOT THEN USE THE APPROPRIATE DRIVE..
this next step will go and write zero's to the whole drive.. if you are not so adventures you could just read from the entire disk.. if there are major problems then the read will not work either.
SO: to write in the terminal do the following: THIS WILL KILL THE DISK YOU ARE TESTING... INSURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING...
NOTICE HOW IN THE COMMAND BELOW I HAVE /DEV/DISK1 NOT /DEV/DISK1S1.
TRUNCATE YOUR DEVICE ACCORDINGLY...
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk1 bs=16m
let it run till it either quits because of a i/o error or says it reached the end of the device.. if it reached the end of the device the device just had zero written to it..
it at the end will tell you how many 16Mb chunks of zero it wrote.. (this is assuming that your disk is a even multiple of 16Mb).
now to test that the device actually works, we can read the whole thing. by issuing the following command in the terminal.
dd if=/dev/disk1 | hexdump -C
you should get an output that looks like this (with the records being changed to be the size of your disk divided into 16 Mb chunks...:
00000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
16777216 bytes transferred in 23.666544 secs (708900 bytes/sec)
Sorry for the long post, and hope this is not too technical but helps.
S.
Macbook, Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9) + virt machines, linux, xp, vista 2 gb RAM 200 Gb

Questions about using an external drive as my main drive

This topic has been addressed in discussion threads before, but I'm in search of a few details.
I have a Mac mini 1.42 combo, 512 mb RAM, with an external 250 gb MiniStack FW drive. The external FW drive spins at 7200 rpm, while the internal drive in the mini is a 4200 rpm model. Because of the higher disk speed, I'm considering making my external FW drive my main drive, then reformatting my mini's internal drive to use for backup purposes only. My backups to the mini's internal drive would be bootable, so I wouldn't have to have Tiger installed on the mini's internal drive.
Additionally, I've got my iTunes library on another partition on the same external FW drive. I'm really happy with the result of that move so far.
I've experimented a bit already. I've used SuperDuper to clone my mini's drive to a different partition on the external FW drive, and confirmed that I can boot from it using the external FW drive as my startup disk, so that's not an issue.
I'm planning to move over to the external FW drive and use that as my startup disk and main drive, but keep the mini's external drive as is for a while before I reformat it and use it strictly for backups. I've got some questions before I commit to this, though. (shudder!)
*Updates for applications and Tiger-If I continue to use Apple's Software Update to conduct my software upgrades, will it automatically update the applications on my external FW drive? I'm assuming that Software Update identifies the boot drive and the app's location before performing the update. I'm concerned that Software Update will become confused once it can't identify my mini's internal drive as the 'main' disk, and will lose the functionality to handle my updates.
*Default drives for other applications-For those of you that have already moved to an external disk as your main drive, did you have to change preferences in other apps (like the MS Office Suite) to tell them where to look for files and save new docs/save updated docs? I use Office a lot for a part-time job, and it would be a pain to have to manually update all that info.
*iTunes-As I've already stated, I've moved my iTunes music library over to a partition on my external FW drive and it's worked well so far. What concerns me is the funky way that Apple requires the iTunes management files and folders be on your main drive in your Home folder, but allows the music files to reside on a different disk. When iTunes needs to update itself, or manage the music library, is it going to be happy working from the home folder on the external disk, or will I have problems? In other words, as long as the iTunes management files are on my boot drive, am I OK?
Thanks for wading through this wordy post. If I decide to make the plunge, I'll report back to the list. I'm sure a bunch of mini owners are considering the move to external drives to boost performance. I love the machine, but I can always use more speed!
Mac Mini 1.42 Mac OS X (10.4.3) MiniStack 250 GB + Hub

No problem what so ever. I am not certain you will gain anything by it, though.

How do I move my library from a mac to a PC using an external drive?

I have a Mac and have a large library of music (+120GB) which is stored on an external hard drive. I have a windows PC in my basement and I have purchased a 2nd external drive (200GB drive) and copied my music library (music files and iTunes Library.itl file) onto it. I want to attach the 2nd drive to the windows PC and use it to run my music library on that machine.
I recognize that I could use the the sharing feature in iTunes to share the music over a network w/o the 2nd drive but for a number of reasons assume that this will not work for the sake of this question.
What is the best way to add this drive/library to the PC? (the PC has iTunes installed, but no music in the library)
Can I just hold the shift key down while launching iTunes and then select the library on the external drive? Will this be a problem given that the iTunes Library.itl file was created in OS X (file location format differences, etc)?
If the above is a problem, should I just add the music folder (and all sub folders) to the library on the windows machine using File-> Add Folder to Library ...butI do not want to make a duplicate copy of the music given that the library is so large (it is larger than the HD on the PC machine)..so I would have to make sure that the "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" is unchecked, but then after the initial import I would want iTunes to keep any subsequent new additions to the library in the same place as the rest of the music and also keep the files/folders organized, etc. Can this be accomplished by changing the itunes music folder location? If I go the "add music folder" route, what are the steps and the right sequencing to add the music properly (w/o copying ) and then leaving iTunes set up to store/organize new music additions properly?
Way too many words I know...any help very much appreciated.

It sounds like you mostly have everything down on how to do it. The one thing I don't know about is how to transfer the database file from Mac to Windows (or the other way around). I have not tried it nor seen reports from anyone who has tried it, so I am not sure if it will work or not.
As to your last question, plug the external into the Windows machine, open iTunes. Change preferences to use the iTunes Music folder on the external drive. Now add your files. Since they are already in that location and in the order iTunes would put them in, they should be added and not moved or copied again. Since you changes the storage location preference to that location, future additions will go into the same folder on the external.
If you can, please let us know how the Mac to Windows database transfer worked out. Most people either are going from Mac to Mac or Windows to Windows or simply don't care about ratings, play counts, play lists, etc. so starting over with a new database file is no big deal. So I am curious about getting the database file to translate across systems. You might try the XML file first since that should be universal. The other one may be in a Mac specific format.
Patrick

External drive addition

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for