External Hard Drive Backups

Hey everyone,
I'm about to go throug some hard drive changes. As some of you may know I got m OWC Mercury Elite Pro AL drive. I'll be using it to store a disk image of my dad's then later my friend's drive. I have just a few questions.
Using Disk Utility, I'll use the New>Disk Image from (Drive). Which drive do I select of the one I will make the image of? By the looks of it there is a Physical drive name and a mounted drive name. Which is it? (ex. FUJITSU MHT2080AT or Macintosh HD)
After saving their drive to mine I'll reformat and/or partition their drive. Then use the restore function. Will I use the disk image or the mounted disk to restore their drive?
All the drives mentioned here are externals. None are internal drives or boot volumes. They are all Firewire or USB drives.
Thanks. And feel free to suggest things or point out faults.
Alex

I found out everything I need.
When I asked:
"After saving their drive to mine I'll reformat and/or partition their drive. Then use the restore function. Will I use the disk image or the mounted disk to restore their drive?"
I was asking if I'll use the DMG file or the disk th DMG file mounts. I later figured out it was the disk it mounts.
Just what I think needs some clarification, I am creating the disk image of his external USB drive to keep a full copy of it so we can reformat and partition his drive then restore it.
Alex

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Restore from external hard drive backup

How do I restore from an external hard drive backup of my old system. How do you import into iTunes 8?

Hello,
Sorry to tap into this thread but it was the only one that made sense.
I have been trying to restore my kid's libraries from an external HD. I assumed I needed to be logged into their Windows profile to launch each of their own itunes applications. As I tried to launch with the Shift key held down, I got the appropriate request about choosing a library. But when I navigated to the HD and found their .itl file, it said it was locked or I had inadequate permissions and would not proceed.
I then logged in as myself (admin) & then dragged & dropped the files into their respective folders. When I went back to open itunes, the songlist was where it should be but nothing played when I tried them.
Is this where "consolodating" comes in and what is it and how do you do it?
Thanks for your patience.

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HP Windows XP need
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How to full restore from external hard drive backup

I'm a new MAC user and got myself in a mess where i need to perform full backup restore from external hard drive. Last back via time machine to external drive was 2 days ago, so the data is there.
What are the MAC boot commands to get me to system restore options. And there any useful tips you can pass on.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1165784/how_to_restore_data_from_time_machine.ht ml

I just had my hard drive replaced and restored everything from a Time Machine external hard drive backup and now my "note" widgets won't load. Any ideas ?

I just had my hard drive replaced. I restored it using a Time Machine backup on an external hard drive. When I open Dashboard none of my "note" widgets will load. The other widgets open, such as weather, weather radar, calculater, dictionary, stock... Even the iPhoto Mini widget works, just not the notes ( Sticky Notes and K-Notes ). Any ideas on how to fix this ?

I did some research and found the solution to my problem. So I hope it's okay to answer my own question.
When you reinstall the OS, your Preferences go back to their default settings. Apparently Preferences is where this widget information is stored. This Preferences folder is located in the user Library folder which is hidden by default. You can access it using "one, or the other" of the following actions.
Action 1:      (1) In the Finder, choose Go > Go To Folder
                     (2) In the Go To Folder dialog, type ~/Library
                     (3) Click Go
                                                      -- OR --
Action 2:     Hold down the option (alt) key when using the Go menu. The Library folder is listed just                            below the Home folder.
After opening the Preferences folder, the file that you want to locate for k-notes is named
widget-com.rakoth.lichlord.widget.k-notes.plist
After you locate it make note of the byte size of the file. Now, with the Preferences folder still open, open Time Machine and go back in time until you see a big jump in the file size. That will be your uncorrupted plist. Restore it and close Time Machine.
Then Restart your computer.
After following this procedure I brought up Dashboard and my blank k-notes were now refilled with the previous text and color that occupied them before I had to restore the OS.
This procedure also worked for Sticky notes, which in the Preference folder are named
widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist

I need to do a clean restart from my external hard drive backup. I know very little about computers

i have a 2010 MBP I installed a program that put files in wrong place I want to do a clean install fro my external hard drive back up and dont know how. I know very little about computers

Hey champrider,
Thanks for the question. It sounds like you wish to revert to an earlier Time Machine backup. The following resource may assist you in doing so:
OS X Mavericks: Recover your entire system
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14185
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Matt M.

How do I enable ownership on my external hard drive backup volume so I can copy it to a new external hard drive?

I just got a replacement external hard drive from LaCie. And, I have an older smalller LaCie external back up hard drive that I want to copy the information to the new one. But when I drag the old backup files folder to new one I get this message:The backup can’t be copied because the backup volume doesn’t have ownership enabled. How do I resolve this?

Try this:
Open the Terminal in your Utilities folder. Enter the following at the prompt:
sudo chown root:admin
Put a space after "root:admin" then drag the Desktop icon of the new drive into the Terminal window. Press RETURN. Enter your admin password when prompted. It will not be echoed to the screen. Press RETURN again.

How to find Application Support from external hard drive backup.

I have an external hard drive which I used with time machine to backup my old computer. I've got a new Mac now, and I want to restore the Skype chat logs to my current computer. To do this I need to find the correct Application Support folder which contains Skype, however I can't navigate to it using Finder's "Go to folder" feature as that only searches locally and not on the external hard drive. How can I get to it?!
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Open the copy of your home folder on the external drive, choose Go to Folder, and provide exactly Library as the path; ~/Library is limited to your current home folder.
(121413)

Importing iTunes library from an external hard drive backup

Hi,
I would like to know how I can import my iTunes library from a backup on a external hard drive?
If that's possible, I would like to keep organisation of files, playlists, iphone settings...
I had a crash with my previous computer and I would like to keep all iTunes settings as before.
There might be already a subject about this but I did not found it.
Thank you for your help,
Simon

In Preferences/Advanced/General point iTunes to the folder on your external hard drive.
Check Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library. This will put all new additions on your external hard drive.
Now click File/Add to Library and point to the folder on the external hard drive. With 200 GB's of music you will think iTunes has frozen,. It hasn't. It will take several minutes to process everything.
Tracy

Time machine and External Hard Drive backup problems

Ok I have an external hard drive that I don't leave connected to my mac. Time machine made an intial backup when I first connected it to the mac. How do i get it to backup again as I now have new movies and photo's i want to protect. It is plugged into the external HD and nothing is taking place and i cant find a command in time machine to tell it to perform another backup?
Thanks for any help in advance.

Try clicking and holding the TM icon in your Dock, then choose "BackUp Now".
Be sure in System Preferences >> Time Machine that it is turned "On".
-mj
[email protected]

Toshina External Hard Drive backup files in "archive" format

Hello. I had an issue with my Acer Aspire 7739z-4605 laptop so I backed up all my infomration on that C drive to the Toshiba Canvio External hard drive I just purchased. I connect my external hard drive via usb to my new computer that I want to import my backed up files onto. However, when I go to my external hard drive on this computer this is exactly what I see:
My backed up files are in this unknown format and obviously not in their original state. Is there a certain program I need to download on my new computer so that these files can be read and opened properly?
Thank you.

You have apparently used some program to write to the external drive. You'll need to use the same program to restore from the backup.
If you used a program that came with the drive, it might be NTI BackupNow EZ software. Can't hurt to give it a try.
Toshiba Portable USB Hard Drive Software Installer for Windows
-Jerry

IPhoto External Hard Drive Backup Issues

Hi All,
I'm have trouble with iPhoto on my iMac G5.
I'm running out of space on my hard drive so I want to permanently move my iphoto library over to my external Lacie hard drive. I've created a copy of the iPhoto library on the external hard drive, but it does not update automatically when I add new photos, and ultimately I want to move the entire iPhoto libray over to this drive to save space on my iMac.
Any ideas on how to do this?
Thanks in advance
Sky

Sky:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. What you need to do is launch iPhoto with the Option key depressed and, when asked, opt to locate your library. Then navigate to the library on the external and select it.
If you have photos in your old library that you want to copy to the external library either drag the appropriate roll folder in the Originals folder into the open iPhoto window to import those files or use iPhoto Library Manager to cpy the rolls from the old library to the new one like this. This way you can retain any keywords or comments you've added to those files. When you're satisfied that your external library has all of the photos you can delete the one on your boot drive.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

How do I copy my songs from an external hard drive backup to my new laptop

Because my old laptop was . . . well, old . . I had to store my iTunes songs and iTunes onto an external hard drive where I backed up all my documents. I now want to copy my library of songs on to my new Windows 8 laptop. But I'm not finding it easy to figure out how to do this. On another note (maybe related. . maybe not) I keep getting an error when I try to download the latest and greatest iTunes on to that external hard drive.
Thanks for any an all help before I'm tempted to climb out on the ledge (luckily I live on the first floor).

If the entire library (database & media) is already on the external drive (in the right layout) then you should be able to connect to it by holding down shift as you start iTunes and then choosing the library. If you only have the media folder on the drive then you need to do some preparation for the move first. See this migrate iTunes library post for details.
tt2

How to restore iTunes library from TimeMachine external hard drive backup after clean install

I was not able to solve this problem, hence I decided to open this discussion.
1. Recently, I clean installed Yosemite so my new Mac is completely empty.
2. I have my time machine backup on my eternal hard drive and would like to restore only specific things - such as iTunes library.
3. I did not manually copy iTunes library to my drive, I did the TM backup only, but I also do have all the files in my own "music" folder I manually backed-up.
However, I cannot locate the library there, where is it?
How do I move the library to my new Mac and then establish a new source folder that would be on my drive?
PS: Previously, iTunes used my own music folder as a source = it contained all the music files. I had it on an external drive, later moved it to my Mac.
This leads me to the conclusion that my backup copy of iTunes library did not contain the files anyway.
Any advice?
Thank you in advance.

I am confused as to what you had or have where and when. The bottom line is, your library (for the standard user) is everything in the iTunes folder. As far as iTunes' organization and display is concerned, your library is a file called "iTunes Library.itl" which points to all the other host of files and folders normally in the iTunes folder which all work together.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
If you kept everything together in one place then you need to put the whole iTunes folder on the drive where you want it, start iTunes while holding down the option key and guide it to that .itl file. If things were split up and you had media on the external and the rest of the library on the internal you need to get them back to exactly where they were before. If you can't find that iTunes folder holding the critical .itl file anywhere then you have a bunch of media tracks and no organization and will need to rebuild the organization from ground level.

Internal Hard Drive Backup + External Hard Drive Backup

Hi everyone and thanks for your attention.
My question is about Backup for two different hard disk.
I've got an internal 500 gb hard disk and a 4 tb external hard disk and my computer is a Macbook pro 15 Unibody 10.6.8.
I need daily (or better hourly) back up for the internal and the external. On the internal I've got system and applications, on the external my work project folders.
My solution at the moment are two other hard disk raid mounted as backup drives. They form together 5tb back up space. I'm using time machine, so it manage my internal 500 gb disk and my external 4tb disk together.
Today I had to recover my system from Time Machine. The app is recovering the documents, but I have a doubt. Before starting recovering I had to choose the hard drive where to recover the system. I had to decide between the internal and the external, and I've chosen the internal, because the OS was installed there.
Will Time Machine put the files, that were on the internal drive, in the internal drive and the ones that were on the external on the external?
My complete back up is 2.4 tb so my 500 gb won't surely be enough.
Moreover. I'm assuming that is so much better to divide the back up. One backup system for the internal and one for the external. It seems to me that my version of Time Machine (10.6.8) does not allow to assign different back up drive for different is use drive. Eg. an external drive to use for the internal drive and another external drive for the external drive in use.
What about next Time Machine versions?
Or maybe would be better to use Time Machine for the internal drive with an external drive as back up, and the use an another application such as Carbon Copy Cloner to back up the external drive to another different external drive.
To be more clear, the solution I'd like to have is:
Internal Drive (500 gb) > time machine > External Drive (1tb)
External Drive (4tb) > Carbon Copy Cloner > External Drive (5tb)
Thanks a lot!
Nicola

The best source for those questions, Nicola, is the Pondini Tips Page, and then go to the specific sections of his website which has everything there is to know about Time Machine.

External Hard Drive Backups

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