Hard Drive Issues and Time Machine

I have a Macbook Pro with a 500GB hard drive with a Bootcamp partition. While in on Mac side, the MBP slipped off the couch and hit the carpet (only like a half foot). I noticed things were running sluggish so I ran Onyx, which stated that the startup disk needed to be repaired. After trying to repair it through Disk Utility off the Snow Leopard disk, it failed. I restarted the computer and went into the Windows side and it works perfectly. I have Time Machine and would like to format and restore my latest Time Machine backup. Can I do this without disturbing my Windows partition? Is there a chance that my whole hard drive is ruined? My common sense tells me that this shouldn't be the case since my Windows partition seems to work without a hitch. Sorry for the long read and thanks in advance for any help!

epak wrote:
I have a Macbook Pro with a 500GB hard drive with a Bootcamp partition. While in on Mac side, the MBP slipped off the couch and hit the carpet (only like a half foot).
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
Your MacBook Pro has a "sudden motion sensor"
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1935
that's supposed to help protect against damage from what happened to your computer. I imagine that it's not perfect, but it may have limited the damage that your disk suffered.
After trying to repair {the disk} through Disk Utility off the Snow Leopard disk, it failed.
If by "Snow Leopard disk" you mean your boot drive, it's not possible to do a Disk Utility "repair disk" operation of the boot drive. You have to boot from something else, then run Disk Utility.
I restarted the computer and went into the Windows side and it works perfectly.
That could be the case if whatever damage of your computer's disk is limited to one area.
I have Time Machine and would like to format and restore my latest Time Machine backup. Can I do this without disturbing my Windows partition?
Yes.
Is there a chance that my whole hard drive is ruined?
Possibly but not necessarily.
If you're going to format your disk for that reinstall, I'd use Disk Utility from your OS install disc to do an erase with the option to do a one-pass zeroing of your Mac partition using the "Security Options" button. That would exercise all sectors of the Mac partition and (if I understand how a Disk Utility zero operation works) would allow any flaws to be excluded from future use.

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Dual Hard Drive Setup and Time Machine Backup

Hello All, I am about to start a major upgrade to my iMac and I just need a tiny bit of help.
I will be installing a secondary hard drive, an SSD into the empty space on my 2011 iMac, and upgrading the HDD to a 3tb. I know this is a big job but I did all my homework and I am ready to go. Here is my plan and my question:
1. Do the install. Add the 3tb hard drive in place of the 1tb original and install the ssd.
2. install mountain lion from disc onto the ssd
3. start up my new awesomly fast computer, and move the home folder to the 3tb drive so that only the applications and osx are on the ssd
4. use time machine to put all my data back onto my computer.
#4 is where my question is. If I use time machine to restore my data AFTER I have moved my home folder to the 2nd drive, will Time Machine function properly? Will it know that some of the data about the system will need to go on the SSD and some will need to go on the large capacity drive?
This is a very important question, because if it turns out that Time Machine will be confused by this, I will need to just back up my individual files and drop them piecemeal back into my new setup. This would be a huge pain and would make me rebuild all of my system preferences etc.
Has anyone done this before? Any insight would be very much appreciated!

Make life simple. Leave your HDD as it is and clone it to the 3 TB drive. Install the 3 TB drive in your computer and verify it starts up the computer. Next, install Mountain Lion onto your SSD. Put the SSD into the computer. Use Startup Disk preference pane to set the SSD as the permanent boot volume. Boot the computer from the SSD. Setup the SSD admin account with the exact same username and password as on the HDD. Open Users & Groups preference pane, click on the lock icon to authenticate. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the SSD's entry in the users list and select Advanced Options from the context menu. On the right side of the Home dir: field is a Choose button. Click on the button, locate the /Users/username/ folder on the HDD, select it and click on the Open button. Close the Advanced Options window and immediately restart the computer.
You will now boot from the SSD using your Home folder located on the HDD.
Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
     5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new 3TB drive. Source means the old startup drive.

Hard Drive Swap and Time Machine

Hello,
Maybe a weird situation here - I couldn't find anything about this exact scenario online.
My wife and I own 2 identical early 2008 Macbook Pros. The body of her computer has recently taken serious cosmetic damage. I plan on upgrading to a new Macbook Pro soon, so I decided to just give her the body of mine, which is in nice shape. I thought the easiest way to do this would be just to open up both computers and swap the hard drives (put her hard drive into my computer, and mine into hers). I accomplished this easily and everything works, however when I tried to do a time machine backup neither external drive was recognized - I cannot backup either machine with this new setup, at least without starting an entirely new backup. If I hook my external drive to her computer (my old computer with her hard drive) time machine is allowing me to access my old backups stored in the external drive. If I hook my external drive to my machine (her computer with my hard drive) I cannot access any old backups. All attempts to backup are failing.
Is there something else I need to swap (hardware) to get this right? I would like to be able to resume backups as they were.
Thanks for any help!
MacBook Pro early 2008
OS X 10.5.8
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2.4 GHz
Memory 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

TimeMachine is specific to each computer. Your serial numbers, etc... are all different. All you did was swap the hard drive, and I believe I read somewhere that if you use encryption on your TimeMachine backup, you need the passcode AND the computer you backed up from originally.
Disclaimer: I believe I read the encryption thing at one point, but I am not 100% certain about that part.

Hard Drive Upgrade and Time Machine

I am a relatively new Mac user so I am still learning the ropes but swimming in the deep end non the less. After I upgraded my 2012 Mac Mini to Yosemite I started having a lot of wierdness around permissions, facetime, and so forth. I had been meaning to upgrade my hard drive to an SSD for a while now and figured I would just bite the bullet and change the drive and install Mav/Yos fresh. This all went fine but I wanted to be able to use my old time machine backups to put back certain apps. The backups are still on the drive and addressable but I can't get to them through time machine. I have tried everything I could find on my own with no luck. I can't even seem to find any .sparsebundle files anywhere that seems to be mentioned a lot and the ability to inherit them. I have spent several hours on this with no luck. Is there any way in noob terms that I can get this fresh install to see my old backups? Thanks!

I would suggest you go to system preferences and then energy saver. Set the go to sleep slider to never and the display sleep slider to never. Start your process over again and wait over night.

Cannot sync my iphone to imac after new hard drive install and time machine restore. Does not see device

Had a new hard drive installed
IMAC does not see iphone therefore cannot sync

Did you already try these suggetions?
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Mac OS X

Trying to use a new, larger external hard drive for my Time Machine backup. However, every time I start the backup, it gets started then fails. And, I can't delete the few files that did save on the external. Sort of a catch 22. Any ideas?

Trying to use a new, larger external hard drive for my Time Machine backup. However, every time I start the backup, it gets started then fails. And, I can't delete the few files that did save on the external. Sort of a catch 22. Any ideas?

Is it a USB hard drive? USB hard drives have the problem of not giving full speed if they are hooked up on the same bus as keyboards and mice. Double check your profiler to make sure that is not a problem. If it is Firewire, make sure there aren't other firewire devices in use at the same time. I recommend not only keeping a Time Machine backup, but also a clone, and if you do use Time Machine, to make sure the Time Machine drive or partition is at least twice the size of the original drive.

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. if i just want to backup and recover my photos and movies how do i do that with time machine?

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. I did not download the software that came with the external HD. If I only want to backup my photos and movies from my Macbook how do I do that in Tme Machine with my external HD?

Format the HDD in Disk Utility>Erase to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the open System Preferences>Time Machine and set up the external disk as the Time Machine HDD. Then look at the Options, and exclude what you do not want backed up.
Ciao.

I would like to connect an external hard drive to my time machine and use it as a network drive to store itunes and iPhoto how do i do this

I have just purchased a new my book hard drive and would like to connect it to my time capsule and store my itunes and iphoto contentent there to free up space on my internal hard drive . Can this be done and what is the process?

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

How do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full

how do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full.. HELP!

When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media? Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media?
Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media?
Yes.
Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?
Possibly by using an Airport Express, but depends on what type of port connection the printer requires.

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries to an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the externa

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives. Is this possible? Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

External hard drive used for Time machine is full and having a hard time backing up. what should I do?

External hard drive used for Time Machine is full and having a hrad time backing up. What is my best option moving forward? NAS?

For All things Time Machine see Pondini's Excellent Infirmation here...
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Start with FAQs and Troubleshooting.

I have an Apple Macbook and will be backing up the entire system to an external hard drive utilizing the Time Machine application. when I am doing this, will the data on the external drive that I am using be erased?

I have an Apple Macbook and will be backing up the entire system in order to upgrade to a newer OS. I will be using an external hard drive to do this and there is already data on it. To complete the backup, i will be using the Time Machine application. Does this application wipe out all of the existing data on the external hard drive, or will it create a new "folder" for the backup?
thank you

No, but as steve359 states you should use a dedicated hard drive for backups. It you need a temporary backup then you can use the drive provided it has sufficient space for all your data on the hard drive.
When Time Machine finds that the drive has data on it already it may decide to erase the drive before continuing, which is another reason to use a dedicated drive.

If I completely fill my hard drive 500Gb how time machine will keep working having 1Tb of total space, I mean I have to delete mu hard drive but how I keep my previous information on time machine and keep using to with new information?

If I completely fill my hard drive 500Gb how time machine will keep working having 1Tb of total space [externak hard drive], I mean I have to delete my hard drive but how I keep my previous information on time machine and keep using it with new information?

Time Machine does not provide archival storage.
If you delete a file from your disk it will eventually be deleted from your TM backup without any notice to you.
You need a second external disk to use for archival storage.
You also need a third disk for backups of the second disk.

How can I reformat my external hard drive from the time machine format to regular format?

Ok so when first starting out I got an external hard drive for my time machine, little did I know I would run out of space really fast and would need to buy a bigger and better hard drive. Now that I did that, I have my old hard drive that I would like to use for copying material form my laptop to my desktop. However, it is still set as my time machine and tries to back up my lap top every time I plug it in. Also, it says that about half of it is still filled with stuff. I erased everything on it. I just want to reformat it so that it is like I just bought it.

Tirrel wrote:
I had the same idea as you however when I tried going to Disk Utility and I tried to erase it an error message came up telling me that it is unable to erase.
Unable to erase, or unable to unmount?
If Time Machine is trying to back up to it, or some other process is using it, Disk Utility won't be able to unmount it. Turn Time Machine OFF; if you have the drive open via the Finder or any other app, close it or quit the app(s).
At worst, start up from your Install disc or other alternate source and erase it from there. If you're not sure how to do that, see the yellow box in #1 of Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks.

Hard Drive Issues and Time Machine

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