Failed External Hard Drive - Connect to another computer to repair??

Hi Guys
I have an older Maxtor External hard drive that looks like it has failed. At least that is what my Disk Utility says in my Power Mac G4. There is a solid red light, and just a blinking green, and it will not load onto my desk top on my Power Mac G4. But the weird thing is that I see it in my "System Profiler", and "Disk Utility", even +when it is not connected.+
If I connect this Maxtor hard drive to another computer, like my Mac Book Pro, to see if there is any life left in it, using disk utility or another recovery disk, will it do any harm to my Mac Book Pro? Is it contagious?
Thanks,
Anneita

No, it isn't contagious. Connect it to any computer you like.

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Hi,
I have a similar question. I have backed up my external hard drive through my computer, onto my TC. When I go into TM, it doesn't show the external hard drive unless it is connected to the computer. Can I access the info from the external hard drive that is on the TC if I don't have the hard drive plugged in? If so, how can I do that?
Thanks,
Bernadette

Time Machine on an External Hard Drive - used with another computer or mac?

I'm planning on selling my computer but want everything that is on my Mac saved so when I can afford to buy a new computer I will have all of my files, music, pictures, etc. I hooked up Time Machine to an external hard drive last night. So everything should be saved to the external hard drive now right?...will I be able to open any of those files on another computer using my external hard drive that has my backup on it? For example, if I have my resume as one of the files can I plug in my hard drive that has my Time Machine back up on it to open edit and resave the file? Or am I better of manually saving the files to the external hard drive without using Time Machine?
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Thanks!

Time machine works great for the file you accidentally delete or modify even if you need to go back months and months. There are better solutions when you really just need to clone your existing system like CCC or Superduper. A clone is more flexible when it comes to getting your stuff. The only downside is you will lose the multiple copies time machine keeps. The upside is you know exactly what's on it and you can boot from it if needed. The file structure is definately more stable on a clone.
A time machine is OK for what you're doing. I just think a clone is better. The choice is yours.

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?
What I am ultimately wanting to do is make more room on my computer by backing up all of my files onto the external hard drive and then deleting them off of my computer. However, neededing to be able to retrieve them from the external hard drive later down the road.
From what I have read and am trying to understand, is that I probably shouldn't have used time machine. I need to use the external hard drive like a basic flash drive where I can put things on and get things off without having it automatically update through time machine everytime I connect it to my computer.
Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.

sydababy wrote:
and then deleting them off of my computer.
BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous. One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
follow here:
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.

How do I restore a failed external hard drive using Time Machine?

I have an external hard drive connected to my iMac that is being backed up with Time Machine. I just realized that should it one day fail and no longer appear as a connected device, I'm not sure how to restore its data to another external drive. When I disconnected the external hard drive (to mimic a drive crash) and entered Time Machine to see if I could verify that the external hard drive was, in fact, being backed up - I didn't know where to find it. Under the Today (Now) information, I didn't expect to see it there as it was no longer connected to the machine. But when I went back a few days, I expected to see its backup appear in the Sidebar. But no!
So - how do I restore a failed external hard drive using Time Machine?
Searches for this information on Google yielded "iffy" results. I'm hoping someone here is able to offer some clear steps to follow. Perhaps I'm missing something silly. Thank you very much!

I came across this discussion after encountering the same problem. Since my internal HD was cose to full I added an additional external HD to my setup. I moved my iPhoto files to an external HD and backed both this external HD and my internal HD up with Time Machine to another external HD. So far the theory. When I wanted to test if this setup worked I noticed that I could only see my iPhoto libraries on the external HD in Time Machine when the external HD was connected to my computer, but not if I turned it off. This led me to search for a solution on the Apple Support Communities discussion board.
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"So, if you want it backed up then here's what you need to do:
1. In Time Machine preferences remove the external drive from the Exclude list.
2. Verify that it is now included with your other drive in the backup list.
3. Do a Backup Now to create a new backup of the external drive."
After doing this, my external HD showed up in the Backups.backupd as a seperate folder. I could clearly see the Time Machine back-up for my internal HD and my external HD. In addition, in Time Machine itself I was able to find the external harddrive by clicking on my own computers name under "Devices". I hope my experience helps to resolve your issue as this discussion board has helped me resolve mine (which I believe to be very similar).
Cheers!

Do I need to keep my external hard drive connected at all times for time capsule?

Do I need to keep my external hard drive connected at all times for time capsule?

Hi,
I have a similar question. I have backed up my external hard drive through my computer, onto my TC. When I go into TM, it doesn't show the external hard drive unless it is connected to the computer. Can I access the info from the external hard drive that is on the TC if I don't have the hard drive plugged in? If so, how can I do that?
Thanks,
Bernadette

Time Capsule can't backup external hard drives connected to it. Got that.

Hello Apple Support Communities! This is my first post. Hope this finds you all well My first year as an Apple user. I bought a 2-Tb TC and am running my first backup to my MacBook as I write this.
Problem statement: TC can't backup external hard drives connected directly to it, but the ones connected to the Macs that are connected wirelessly to it. Duly noted. However, the Spotlight will reindex the hard drives connected to the Mac and that will take hours; the whole backup will take days. Thus, excluding the hard drives at "System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy tab" will probably help reduce the time of backup, or just ejecting them will do too. That itself has not proven effective coz it's still taking forever (50Gb in 2 days, still going).
Questions:
1) Do I wait until my first backup to my MacBook's internal hard drive is done before I connect my hard drives to my MacBook and attempt another backup? If yes, how do I go about the excessive time Spotlight reindexing takes if I intend to backup my hard drives connected to my MacBook?
2) Is there any other way of speeding up the first-time backup?
*Note: All versions of OS and firmwares are up-to-date. TC is connected to an external wireless router. TC is intended to be used as backup device and / or file server only.
P/S: Apologee if this has already been discussed before, thus, a link to previous discussion thread would highly be appreciated)
- Shook Hashem, Malaysia.

How do I backup the externel hard drives connected to my MB. I was under the impression that that has already been done, because I've read it somewhere in a discussion that said it's done automatically unless I exclude it from a backup, which I didn't. So it's supposed to backup the external hard drivestoo because I had them connected to my MB the entire time during the backups.
By default an external drive is excluded.. the list is odd.. if I plug a drive into the mac.. it immediately is listed as excluded.
This is not the list of included.. this is the list of excluded.. remove it from the excluded list to include it.
It is kind of reverse polish notation in backups.
If I want to enter the Time Machine, should I enter it with the TM turned on or off?
Not sure what the question means. If you use the star wars display and want to recover files then use TM off.. but read up pondini.. how to do restore etc.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
15A in particular on the how to use TM.
When do I uplug the ethernet and use the wireless connection instead?
Once you have finished the main backup you can go back to wireless. The incremental backups are mostly very small.

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Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule via the USB port? My current Time Machine has a total capacity of 1TB. I'd like to double or triple its memory. I don't want to use the external hard drive in lieu of the Time Capsule hard drive. I'd like to use it in addition to. Just don't know if/how it's possible.
This is another one of those questions that I've searched the web for answers, and have gotten tricky answers back. So now I'm trying to introduce a clean slate to the mix.
Thank you for your time!

Well, what you mentioning is possible. However, I don't know whether it's supported (as in, "easy to set up."). Time Machine officially supports backing up to a locally attached drive, to a machine running a Time Machine server (i.e. running OS X Server software), and to a Time Capsule. I don't know that it officially supports a drive attached to an AirPort or to a Time Capsule. Though I know some people have gotten it to work.
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I just bought a mac mini over the weekend. I saved items from my old G4 to an external hard drive. I go to plug in the external hard drive and the new computer is not recognizing it. Help.

I just bought a mac mini over the weekend. I saved items from my old G4 to an external hard drive. I go to plug in the external hard drive and the new computer is not recognizing it. Help.
Here is the information I have. The external hard drive is a 120GB Acomdata. It has both USB and Firewire. When I go to plug in to the mac mini through USB, it is not being recognized. When I switch to Firewire on the old computer I can see it, however when I go to USB it is not being recognized (even on the old computer).
I'm at a loss as to what to do. Any advice would be helpful.

Shalese wrote:
Have you ever tried the FW 400 to 800 adapter?
I have used them on multiple occasions and they work just fine.
Try this (maybe you already have):
-Boot Mini with drive disconnected.
-Do not connect drive but turn it on
-wait a few seconds for drive to spin up
-plug cable into the Mini then into drive.
This is an old drive and may have some timing
issues.
I had an Acomdata drive a long time ago. It
worked fine with FW but USB was flakey.

My iMac won't recognize my external hard drive connected by FireWire 400

I have an external hard drive connected to my Intel-based iMac through a FireWire 400 cable. The drive doesn't come up on the desktop after turning on the hard drive power.
If I connect through the USB cable, it appears quickly on the desktop. Why isn't this working through FireWire? I had some trouble with this in Tiger as well, but was somehow able to get it to work.

The drive does not appear in Disk Utility.
And I don't think I'll be installing DiskWarrior until Leopards countless bugs are fixed, especially after reading THIS:
Alsoft: There are some DiskWarrior "compatibility issues" with Leopard
After previously stating "you can run the (current version of DiskWarrior under Leopard) knowing no harm will come to the hard drive or to your data," Alsoft has now posted a message to its Web site stating "there are some compatibility issues when running an installed copy of DiskWarrior 4.0 while started up from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Alsoft currently recommends that you do not run DiskWarrior 4.0 while the computer is started from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard."
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071026153956503

Connecting to an external hard drive connected to airport extreme via usb

I have two computers running off my airport extreme base station. I have a desktop computer connected via an ethernet connection and i have a laptop that connects wirelessly. I have an external hard drive connected via the usb on my Airport. I installed my airport disk utility software on my desktop as it is the computer i store all my itunes material on and it syncs to my ATV. I am able to see my external hard drive as a networked drive on my desktop, and it works fine. However i am not able to see the networked drive on my laptop. I am running Norton 360 on both machines and both machines are running Windows Vista.
Do I have to install the Airport Disk Utility on both machines? I have read thru lots of threads about this and have not been able to solve this problem. I have gone into my firewall settings and allowed file sharing on my laptop. I cannot think of anything else to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is the main reason I purchased my Airport Extreme.

I have exactly the same set-up, but I can see the portable drive with my MacBookPro but not with the PC connected by an ethernet cable to the Airport Extreme. How did you get the PC to see the portable drive on the Airport?

How to share external hard drive connected to mac with pc

I have and external hard drive connected to my mac-mini OSX 10.4.11
My iTunes music folder is in it. I want to share my music with my kids in my house so they can hear it in their windows xp computer with windows media player 11
I have the computers connected to a router and I can see the mac files from the pc but I cannot see the external hard drive that is mounted on the desktop of the mac.
The external drive is formatted as "Mac OS Extended (journaled)
Or.... If there is a way that I can duplicate my 80 gigs of music onto the pc that would be great.
I also tried to see the pc from the mac so that I can drag and drop some songs from the iTunes music folder right into the desktop of the pc and I can't get to the pc from the mac. I get an error that says the Alias is incorrect and the PC cannot be accessed.
Please Help my kids are driving me crazy for some music on their computer!
thanks in advance.

Apple has a 'bunch' of articles on sharing iTunes.
Or look at the networking. And then whether you want to put MacDrive on the PC, or use NTFS format and NTFS driver (commercial or free MacFUSE).
And probably want to ask or look in iTunes for Mac and Windows discussions, too.
Most of the things I have (bookmarked) deal with Leopard, not Tiger, so not sure but pretty sure networking is now slightly different.
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/

PS3 cannot recognize external hard drive connected to Time Machine

I am trying to keep my Elements 2TB external hard drive connected to my Time Machine (via USB), and also use it as an external media source for my PS3. When connecting the drive directly to the PS3 through the USB it recognizes it perfectly as an external media drive, but when I try to do it wirelessly through the Time Machine it does not find it. I have the drive partitioned and the folders labeled correctly, the PS3 is connecting to the internet through the Time Machine. I can connect to the external through my Macbook and see all the PS3 files when connected to the Time machine.
I am stumped. I recently installed a larger (350gb) drive on my PS3 using the external drive for backup, and everything seemed to work fine, but I swear that before the installation my old drive recognized the external on the Time Machine (I may be imagining this). Could the reformatting of the PS3 drive have something to do with it? Maybe it is not possible in the first place?
Any ideas? Sorry in advance, I know this probably more of a PS3 forum question, but PSN seems to be down today.

The drive will not "appear" on your desktop like a USB or FireWire drive that is connected directly to your Mac.
First, check to make sure that the drive is recognized by the Time Capsule as LaPastenague mentions
Open AirPort Utility , click on the Time Capsule, then click Edit
Click the Disks tab at the top of the next window
You will see your Time Capsule drive....named "Data".....unless you have changed the name.....and the other drive as well. In the example below, the Time Capsule drive is named "Backups". Another drive....."WD Drive"....is connected to the USB port on the Time Capsule.
Do you see both drives? If not, you need to perform the checks that LaPastenagure has mentioned above.

Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer than my own? If so how?

Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer other than my own? If so how?

If you used the Finder to move the files, iMovie will have lost track of them. iMovie holds the locations of the Event files, and Project files contain references to those locations. If you move the files, iMovie has no way of knowing where they are.
If you can, first move all the files back to their original locations. Plug in the external drive. Open iMovie and move the files in iMovie's interface (help explains how, but basically, just drag and drop in the event pane).
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Failed External Hard Drive - Connect to another computer to repair??

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