External HDD and closing laptop lid

I have a Seagate external hdd connected to my Macbook Pro via Firewire 800. I use it exclusively for Time Machine backups. Can I just close the lid of my laptop when it's done backing up or do I have to eject the drive each time?
-Skifahrer7

Hi Skifahrer7,
You do not need to properly eject the external HD before closing the lid. When the machine wakes (on lid open) it will automatically remount the volume/drive.

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External Display and Closing the Lid

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How do i do it.

Like this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3131

Need logical setup advice for new iTunes on external HDD and new laptop

New to Win7, would like to know the best way to re-create from scratch my 5+ year old iTunes library on a new external hard drive without simply copying the previous iTunes folder structure over. I guess that I would like to add all the music, video, movie and iPhone app files to a new library. What is the best method to do this so that iTunes can organize all of the new data from scratch correctly? What about reauthorizing apps and media I purchased through iTunes? anything special to do to reintroduce this data to a new iTunes?
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Steve M. wrote:
I know I should have redundant backups and should probably have a second external HD and eventually will.
Yes, that's best.
But for now, if I partition (I'm assuming I should) a new 1 TB external HD, how big should I make the TM partition vs. the SD partition at this point assuming I have under 100 GB on my internal Mac HD? Is this a feasible way of doing things here in the near term.
Your best bet is to make your TM partition 2-3 times the size of the amount of data you anticipate backing-up. Put it first on the drive; that way, later on you can delete the partition below it, expand the TM partition, and make a new, smaller partition for SD (or use the whole drive). See #1, #3, #5 and #6 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum, for details.
By the way, any recommendations on which peripheral HDs to consider? I was very surprised on a recent visit to my local Apple Store that they have a large stock of WD My Studio drives. I mentioned to an Apple sales person that I had always heard WDs were kind of a no-no among Mac users but she assured me the current crop of them were much improved. Any comment on that??
Most any drive will work with Macs, and Time Machine.
If you're going to put a "bootable clone" on it, be sure it's a bootable drive. Most PPC Macs can boot only from FireWire; most Intels can boot from F/W or USB. But some Western Digitals won't boot a Mac. Their list of which ones should and +should not+ boot: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1787. But note the disclaimer that they don't support it +*at all.+*.
In addition, many of them have a built-in sleep mode that cannot be disabled, and sometimes interferes with Time Machine backups: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1376

Can I cut/paste my backups to an external hdd and then back to my mac?

Ok, here's my issue and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I have an iPhone6 and my wife has one as well, and we both have iPads.
I have to backup all of these somewhere, and my current device is a Macbook Pro with 250gb SSD.
As you understand, backing up so many things in so little space it almost renders my Macbook useless.
I have read some advice about using sudo commands to make iTunes store the backups in an external hdd.
However, I am not an experienced mac user, and I do not trust myself doing something like that.
What came to my mind, and that's what I want your opinion upon, is the following.
Something that I used to do when I was using a windows pc to keep many different backups, rename them etc.
As far as I understand, when I plug in my iPhone to my Mac, iTunes recognize the device and the last backup of that device.
Then, by pressing "Backup to my pc etc" it only updates that backup and rewrites on it.
My questions:
I backup my iPhone then quit iTunes.
I remove (cut) the backup folder (the one with the huge weird name from the directory library/application support/mobile sync/backup/0604f04blabhblahblah) and paste it on an external hdd where I have tons of space.
When I want to backup my iPhone again, instead of creating a whole new backup that would take a lot of time, if I take the backup folder that I had stored to that external hdd and paste it back to its original place (the directory I mentioned above), will iTunes recognize it and update and rewrite on that backup?
And then again move it back and forth from my mac to my external hdd.
And something even more important.
In case something happens to my iPhone (it falls from the 10nth floor) and I buy a new one, will I be able to "restore from backup" using the same method I mentioned before? Will iTunes recognize the folder?
Sorry for the long text and any mistakes but english is not my mother tongue and I wanted to make sure I would be clear about my questions.
My current backups use more than half of my 250gb internal SSD and along with some apps and other stuff I cannot get rid off I am left with only 50gigs of space which is terrible.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

edwardpeck wrote:
If I have iMatch can I move the music files to an external drive and then play the music off the cloud? This way freeing up space on my hard drive? If so how?
You can move the iTunes library to the external and use it there.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folde rto the external.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
iTunes will use the external for everything.You can delete /Music/iTunes/ folder.
FYI: The iTunes media folder is not the (entire) iTunes library.

Want to move LR5 catalog to an external HDD and incorporate my Aperture3 files already stored on another external HDD.

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My Aperture originals are already on one external HDD, and my LR5 images currently occupy (too much) of my hard drive on my MB air.
Is there an uncomplicated way to join the two sets on another new external HDD?
Thanks

what I meant is that I would like to access my Aperture images via LR5, so have just the one LR5 catalog for all my images.
This is a goal that I would recommend!
However, I can't really state if that's what you need to do with your photos in Aperture, as I have never used Aperture. I'm sure someone else who does use Aperture will be along soon to comment, or you can try your favorite search engine.

Twin unpowered USB hub for connecting external HDD and iphone

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thanks in advance
Message was edited by: NRG1970

Because those are both drawing power from the macbook air, it might be questionable, but any should do, but I haven't seen any 2 port hubs, only four port ones, and I tend to like Logiix, as their support is good and their products are good also, and they are fairly low profile.

I have a Lacie External hdd and on usb 3. Now If I plug in the device it shows a message to connect to windows or mac (Parallels installed) so If I click on mac it works fine well and good but when I select connect to windows it shows a error.

I have a Lacie External hdd and on usb 3. Now If I plug in the device it shows a message to connect to windows or mac (Parallels installed) so If I click on mac it works fine well and good but when I select connect to windows it shows a error.
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Please anyone could suggest what the solution could be?
Thanks.

But my 1 tb hdd is already formatted via ex fat which can work on both mac and Windows no limitation of file size also like if we use ntfs or fat it has a restriction of 4gb file size.

Can you buy any type of external HDD and it'll work with any mac or do you have to buy specific ones that cost like €999?

can you buy any type of external HDD and it'll work with any mac or do you have to buy specific ones that cost like €999?

You can buy any disk with FireWire, Thunderbolt or USB. If you've got a 2010 or early MacBook Pro, buy a FireWire disk, or if you've a newer computer, a Thunderbolt disk. They'll be faster than the USB, but you can buy an USB hard disk

HT1391 downloaded itunes and when it synched it took all my music off of an external hdd and I would like it back?

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In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

Difference between running pm-suspend and closing the lid.

Hi!
Today i noticed this strange thing: i'm using xfce4.10 and pm-utils to suspend.
This morning i noticed that running a "pm-suspend" from my terminal, won't switch off my wireless card, while suspending with xfce buttons or closing the lid, would do it.
Why? What is the difference between these two actions (running pm-suspend and closing the lid)? As far as i know, the only difference is that there is no call to upower running pm-suspend from terminal.
ps: sorry for the subject, that is not describing the question the best!
Last edited by nierro (2012-06-17 11:03:55)

Uhm yes, i know SUSPEND_MODULES array can do it.
What i was wondering is: xfce4-power-manager uses pm-suspend to suspend. So why does it something pm-suspend alone doesn't? As i said, the only difference for me, is that that button relies upon upower too. So i suspect it is upower that switch off my wireless card, isn't it?
My question is not how can i reach the same behaviour with pm-suspend alone, but what does that button in the xfce4-panel.
I'm only curious!

T500 Closing Laptop Lid but no External Monitor Output

Hello everyone. I have a Lenovo T500 (WInXP) with an external monitor. I usually just want to use that external monitor and not the one for my laptop. However, every time I close the lid, the output to the monitor disappears a few seconds later. I've used google and searched this forum and found something similar, change the power settings. I changed it so it would "Do nothing" when the lid is closed. However, this does nothing and doesn't help me.
Is there a registry I have ti change?
Related links I've look at and tried
From Knowledge Base:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/Configuring-a-ThinkPad-T500-to-run-with-the...
Another person
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T500-goes-to-sleep-with-lid-closed/td-p/307...
T500 2081 CTO ~ T9600 2.8GHz ~ WXP Pro 32bit ~ WSXGA+ 15.4 LED ~ATI 3650 ~ 4GB DDR3 RAM ~ 500GB WD 7200rpm
Camera ~ AT&T WWAN ~ CD/DVD Combo Drive ~ Intel WiFi 5300 AGN

I didn't see if your connected to power? there are different settings for both power and battery.
There are also bios settings for the display, since I am using my T500 now with an external LCD I have it set to external display or something like that. Its worth a shot.
BIOS>>CONFIG>DISPLAY read the output options.
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Time machine disk failure after closing laptop lid

I have a Seagate 1.5 TB disk that I'm using for a time machine backup (USB). For a long time, I had the disk formatted wrong and had this problem, but I re-formatted it (per Apple's instructions) and have been trying again. Now, with it correctly formatted, I still have the same problem.
This is a laptop, so I don't leave the Time Machine application on, nor do I leave the TM disk connected all the time. If I plug in the drive, run TM, and eject the disk before closing the laptop lid, I do not have any issues. If, however, the laptop lid is shut at any point after TM completes, I have can never seem to eject nor unmount the TM disk. For example, last night I ran TM and left the machine open overnight. In the morning, the machine was used and shut per usual routine, except the drive was still connected. Now there is a critical failure on the drive (Disk Utility can do nothing to repair the drive and suggests re-formatting). Last night, the computer was plugged in and went to sleep after 15 minutes. I have changed no settings regarding what the computer does on lid shutdown.
What used to work to eject/unmount the drive is to shutdown the computer. Then I would unplug the drive before re-starting. Now, however, I had errors with the drive (Disk Utility) and went ahead with a force eject. That worked, and the drive still had errors that Disk Utility could not address.
I have a Macbook Pro (13-inch, mid 2012) running Mac OS X Version 10.9.2 (13C64); processor 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 with 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory. My main drive is 750 GB (Macintosh HD). I also backup a firewire 400 drive to this TM drive, capacity 250 GB.
So, first question: why is this happening over and over and over? Is there anything I can do, apart from immediate removal of the TM drive after the backup completes, to ensure that it doesn't happen in the future? Should I be concerned that the disk is failing mechanically?
Thanks

I don't think you quite understand how Time Machine really works. But then hardly anyone does. Time Machine is intended to be left enabled always whether a backup drive is connected or not. What Time Machine cannot handle properly is a situation where the backup drive loses power for whatever reason. Time Machine treats this, as does the OS, as an improper disconnect of an external drive without being properly ejected. This in turn throws Time Machine a little bit of a loop.
For you I would suggest not using Time Machine. Instead use a third-party backup utility that you can either schedule or run manually as you wish. They will work with the same drive you have used for Time Machine, but you will need to first erase the Time Machine drive using Disk Utility. Please DO NOT try dragging the Time Machine backups to the Trash.
Here are some good backup utilities you can try:
Suggested Backup Software
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Others may be found at MacUpdate. Each one can be used for a trial period. No need to pay for one until you've decided on which one you like best. I, for example, use Carbon Copy Cloner but please don't take that as a recommendation over the others. It's just my preference. All can be operated manually or can be set up to backup on a schedule you determine. Some can even be set up to backup as soon as the backup drive is connected.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

Kernel 2.6.32.2-2 black screen after closing laptop lid (intel + KMS)

Today I updated my laptop with the new 2.6.32.2-2 kernel from core. Previous update of my system was just a few days back, so there are no massive changes to other packages and I also don't use testing packages.
Since the update, after closing the laptop lid (which just blanks my screen) and I want to continue working I just have a black screen (no backlight) and the screen won't respond to mouse or keyboard input. I have to reboot (ctr-alt-del or pushing my power button) or switch to VT1 and back to VT7 to get my screen back. I'm absolutely positive that this was not a problem before, it worked fine with 2.6.30 and 2.6.31 kernels with my same configuration.
HP 6730b laptop
Intel GMA 4500 (Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07))
Intel driver 2.9.1-1 using KMS with early start (modprobe.conf) and I rebuilt my initcpio to the new 2.6.32.2-2 kernel
Gnome 2.28.2
Can anyone confirm this behaviour? Should I file a bug somewhere? I read about lots of upgrade problems with this new kernel, but for the rest everything else works fine so far.
Thanks for your feedback.
Ulukai

moose jaw wrote:
ulukai wrote:@ Moose Jaw: I also looked into pm-suspend, but i guess it is only usefull for suspending and resuming sessions (something I never do)? Is there a command you know for simulating closing the lid and reopening it again?
Isn't suspending and resuming a session exactly what you're doing (or hoping to do) when you close your lid and then open it up again? I.e., putting the machine into a low-power sleep state and then having everything come back to where you were when you wake it up? You mentioned that the Gnome power management tools depend on pm-utils, which suggests that somewhere in there "pm-suspend" is getting called. If you can find out where it's getting called (i.e., in some script that Gnome power manager uses), and try changing it to "pm-suspend --quirk-vbestate-restore" (or one of the other quirks, perhaps), then that may bring your screen back on wakeup.
Hehe, nope I don't hope to suspend :-) I just close the lid to save the display (and some power) but want my machine to keep running (when downloading torrents or when I'm going to eat etc...) Also it keeps the dust from entering the keyboard ;-)
I also took a look at the post where there should be a patch present, but I think it's for another problem: flickering screens.
For me it's a bug in intel driver or kernel, but still it's strange that KDE doesn't suffer from this!

Hard lockup when closing laptop lid (Linux 2.6.23)

I just found this out a few days ago, telling my laptop to shut down a few hours later, and still finding it running half a day later, severely overheated (!).
I am running a custom kernel (2.6.23.1 with some of the kamikaze broken out patches). I get this:
- I unplug the laptop USB mouse
- I close the lid
- I reopen the lid, only to find my system completely locked up (no screen refresh anymore, no possibility to switch to a virtual terminal, no possibility to restart X or restart the system (Ctrl+Alt+Del/Backspace aren't working at all).
I have no action specified for closing the lid (I plan on making it do suspend to RAM as soon as this issue is cleared up). Now if I leave the USB laptop mouse plugged in all works fine. I can close the lid, open it up again, and my system remains fully usable.
To make sure this wasn't just me being clumsy and compiling a bad kernel, I tried the 2.6.23-ARCH kernel from testing. It exhibits exactly the same behaviour. 2.6.22-ARCH works just fine.
Are there people having the same issue?
Last edited by B (2007-10-21 12:16:32)

Okay guys . I got some goodies up . For those interested:
- 2.6.22.12 kernel with CFS v22, hrtimers, powertop, Reiser4 and default CPU frequency governor 'ondemand'
- iwlwifi 1.1.21
- Authentec fingerprint reader driver
I guess that should get you going pretty much . The iwlwifi drivers have been built out-of-tree since my efforts to merging in the newer mac80211 stack & latest iwlwifi drivers amounted to nothing but a boatload of patch errors :-( (yes i can hack up patches to work but I felt like not doing it, since iwlwifi builds just fine out-of-tree). This kernel is tailored to the 6510 hardware, I cannot tell what is different in the 6170b lineup, but you definitely should not try this kernel on just any machine .
If you have any questions, drop me a line.
Credit of course to waninkoko for his kamikaze patchset, from which most of the patches come.
Update: to the latest 2.6.22.12 kernel + corresponding driver packages
Last edited by B (2007-11-11 16:39:48)

Format external HDD for Macbook & Laptop

Apologies if this is not the best community for this query. Wasn't quite sure where to put this one.
I have a Western Digital Elements SE 1TB external HDD which I have been using to manually back-up files (mainly music, photos and documents) from a Dell Studio laptop running Windows Vista.
I now have a MacBook Pro and I would like to continue using my external HDD to back-up files from this too.
Can anyone tell me if there is a way to format my external HDD so that I can back-up files from both and also transfer files between the two?
If so, are there any risks associated with this?
Many thanks.

sure no problem asking questions, thats the whole point of a forum.
NTFS is older Microsoft file system (I still use it for Windows 7 so it's not OLD old) it's built for Windows specific security and therefore not mac friendly out of the box. There are 3rd party NTFS readers/writers, but unless are networking to a Windows host you don't get any advantage to NTFS on Mac. My Windows PC and Mac(s) will transfer files to one another from NTFS (on Windows) to Journaled (on Mac) and from Journaled to NTFS without incident as long as I have credentials to log into either machine from the other. On a network it doesn't matter what format I use (no special software needed), but connected directly to a computer those formats suddenly will (NTFS reader/writer software needed for Mac or Journaled reader/writer software for PC).
FAT32 is from back-in-the-DOS-day (File Allocation Table 32 bit) that has a few restrictions:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/314463
Use FAT32 for flash drives and you will be Mac/Win/Unix cross compatible (all restrictions still apply) but I would not day-to-day use it on my "OS" drive.
If you're going to use the system on Macs and exclusively macs I would go with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you need to share with Windows later (connect the drive with a USB cable to your Windows box) there are 3rd party packages to allow you to read Journaled drives but for the cost it would possibly make sense buying the adapter for the network and turning it into a NAS or hosting on the Mac and let the PC log into the mac.

External HDD and closing laptop lid

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