Help!!!! Will Time Machine Erase Everything on my portable hard drive?

This is my first time using Time Machine. I purchased a 500 gb portable hard drive (Western Digital) which is mac compatible. When I got it, it I loaded all of my files from my pc onto the hard drive. I have transferred some of the files (mostly pictures and documents) to my MacBook hard drive. When I connected my portable hard drive and opened up Time Machine, I located the Western Digital drive fine but it said it needed to be reformatted and that it will erase all of the files on the hard drive. I think there are some files on it that are necessary to run the hard drive so I'm nervous about deleting them. Can I delete them and still have the hard drive run properly? Should I just transfer all of the remaining files to my laptop and then use the Time Machine program? I want to be able to periodically back up all of my files on the portable hard drive.

TM only works with drives formatted for Mac machines. Your drive does not qualify, since your PC can see it. This is why you are being asked to reformat it.
You can partition it and use part for your FAT32 Windows files and the rest as HFS+ for TM, but, IMO, you would be better with a separate FAT32 drive for your Windows files and have one drive dedicated, not necessarily to just TM, but to HFS+.
My TM drive has a Tiger bootable clone on it in a separate partition, but it's all HFS+

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Will Time machine automatically back up an external hard drive connected to my iMac?

I have a Lacie external firewire hard disc connected to my iMac, containing Aperture library. Will Time Machine automatically back up both the external disc and the iMac HD?
Adrian

Will Time Machine automatically back up both the external disc and the iMac HD
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock) and open Time Machine
Click on Options
Do you see the name of your Lacie drive in the "Exclusions List"? If yes, the Lacie drive is currently not set to backup with your Mac.
Click on your Lacie drive to highlght it, then click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from the "Exclusions" list.
Now, Time Machine will backup both your Mac and the Lacie drive on the next pass. Allow plenty of time for this backup, avoiding wireless if possible, and connecting the Mac directly to one of the Ethernet ports on the Time Capsule. Ethernet will go 3-5 faster than wireless, on average.

I'm looking to but the iMac 27" with 2TB Serial ATA Drive 256GB Solid State Drive . Will time machine automatically back up both the hard drive and the solid-state drive? Ae there any catches or things to be aware of?

Will time machine on Lion, Mac OS 10.7, automatically back up both the internal hard drive and the internal solid-state drive both inside a 27" iMac?

Also, you may find this of interest
TM 101
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

If I restore My Mac OSX Snow Leopard can I get all my files back from a time machine backup made on a portable hard drive?

I want to restore my MacBook Pro running Snow Lepoard, I made a time machine backup on a portable hard drive, can I get all the files back when resseting the OSX from the Hard Drive?

If you're using the Mac App Store version, there is initially no clean install option unless you're running the installer on a different drive or partition; your existing data will remain as is. If you're doing it from Lion's recovery partition or using the USB flash drive after erasing the internal drive, yes.
(64046)

Will Time Machine with Leopard Sync With New Hard Drive and Snow Leopard?

My computer is a 20" iMac that I bought in late 2008. The hard drive had trouble so Apple repaired with disk utility. Week later, more trouble so they did full hard drive erase. Data was backed up on Time Machine, 500GB also bought in 2008. After full hard drive erase, and reinstall of basic software, upon reboot, computer would power on then immediately off. It doesn't get past white screen. They advised a new hard drive install is needed.
A computer friend can install a hard drive just fine for me. However, I do not have the Leopard install disc. He could do it with Snow Leopard but I am scared. I'm afraid because my Time Machine last backup was with Leopard, not snow Leopard. I do not have my application discs with me, they are in storage in another state. Thus, if upon adding replacing hard drive and installing Snow Leopard my computer won't be able to sync FILES and APPLICATIONS from Time Machine because its on Leopard I will have a problem.
How can I either 1)Get a Leopard install disc and do that with the new hard drive install OR 2)make sure that a Snow Leopard install with new hard drive won't prevent my Time Machine from being able to install the saved FILES and APPLICATIONS if I don't have original APPLICATION (ie Aperture, Photoshop) with me? Thanks for any help you can provide.

thetrudz wrote:
A computer friend can install a hard drive just fine for me. However, I do not have the Leopard install disc.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
That Mac should have come with Leopard. If so, call AppleCare. They'll send you replacement discs for a nominal fee.
Once this is sorted out, make a 8-10 GB partition on an external HD or your internal HD, and use the Restore tab of Disk Utility to copy the Install disc to that partition. Then you can boot and run from it instead of the physical disc. It will boot and run much faster, too.
He could do it with Snow Leopard but I am scared.
If he does, and doesn't provide a retail Snow Leopard disc, you must buy one ($29). It's a violation of the license to share software, and you'll need a SL disc to do things like restore a Snow Leopard backup, or the Snow Leopard Apple apps, or repair the internal HD.
Your best bet is to stay with Leopard, at least until you have access to your 3rd-party software discs.
What you can do, however, is borrow his Snow Leopard Install disc (assuming it's a white Retail disc, not a gray one that came with his Mac), and use it to do a full system restore from your backups. That's not a violation of the license, since you don't install or use OSX from that disc; you just use the Installer utility on it to restore the Leopard OSX and all your data from your backups.
See #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum), for details.

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
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I am having trouble installing. downloaded Mavericks but it will not let me install to hard drive, says that is reserved for Time Machine. I have an external hard drive, but disconnected that before download.

I downloaded Mavericks but can't get past the install; it thinks my hard drive is reserved for Time Machine. I have an external hard drive but dis-connected that before download.
I have Time Machine turned off.

Check to see if you have a file name Backups.backupdb on the disk drive.
If the installer sees such a file it assumes that the disk drive is being used by Time Machine.
Allan

Time Machine says both of my external hard drives require reformatting to case insensitive. What do I do?

I have been successfuly using Time Machine to back my iMac to an external hard drive (via usb) and everything has been fine for the last year. I have been using TM to back up to a HD called Terra LaCie via usb.
A week ago, my iMac hard drive was full--so I spulrged and bought a 6 TB external hard drive (Western Digital My Book-Thunderbolt). I set up the new Thunderbold HD to use RAID 1 (mirror) and copied most of my iMac hard drive over to the Thunderbolt HD.
I kept my working photographs (most recent) on my iMac and felt good to know my older photographs are on my new Thunderbolt hard drive.
For a few days, Time Machine seemed to work fine (backing up my iMac to Terra LaCie HD. I haven't been concerned with backing up the Thunderbolt drive (as I feel that mirroring is same as backing up).
Yesterday, Time Machine indicated the lastest back-up failed (for the HD called Terra LaCie). Now, when I go into Time Machine, the dialog box indicates the following message:
"Are you sure you want to erase the backup disk “Terra Lacie”? Erasing will destroy all information on the disk and can’t be undone.
The disk must be erased before it can be used for Time Machine backups because a disk you are backing up is case sensitive, but the backup disk is not."
When I open Time Machine to look at my external hard drives (I also have a third usb portable drive); two of the three drives indicate the following:
"reformat required; case insensitive disk".
The small, portable hard drive (that I'm also using) doesn't say it needs to be reformated (but my new Thunderbolt and my old usb HD both indicate the same message (above).
What should I do? I just spent days transferring my photographs from my iMac to my new Thunderbolt. Should I just not use Time Machine any longer and work from my Thunderbolt drive?
Am I to understand that my iMac suddenly become case sensitive? Sorry if this was too much information about my hard-ware set-up.
Any help someone can provide me would be greatly appreciated. I suppose I need to understand Time Machine and perhaps my Thunderbolt better.

Hi BDAqua,
Bravo, you helped me solve my problem.
The Case Sensitive Disk was the small portable hard drive that I was using termporarily.
I just disconnected it and I started TM machine and everything seems to be working just fine.
Thank you very much!!!!

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive?

How to Delete a Time Machine Backup - YouTube
If you want to remove an entire Time Machine backup on a backup drive, then the easiest way to do that is to erase the backup drive using Disk Utility. However, this will delete everything on the disk:
Drive Erase Snow Leopard and Earlier
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select the volume you wish to format from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

I have a time machine backup file on a USB hard drive. I bought a time capsule / airport extreme, flat 3TB. I wish to transfer the backup file from the usb hard drive to the time capsule hard drive. 10.6.8

I have a time machine backup file on a USB hard drive. I bought a time capsule / airport extreme, flat 3TB. I wish to transfer the backup file from the usb hard drive to the time capsule hard drive. 10.6.8

Unfortunately, Time Machine backups that are stored on a drive that has been connected directly to a Mac are completely different than Time Machine backups that are stored on a Time Capsule.
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http://pondini.org/TM/18.html
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How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme

How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme? I used to be able to but now time machine will not recognize my hard drive to select as a backup when plugged into my airport extreme. I'm not sure what happened or changed. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Mac

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Machine, there are only about 5 backups recorded on the ext. hard drive. There were many more before. Any idea what happened and if I have to buy a new back up hard drive?

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

Creating Encrypted Time Machine Back Ups to a Network Hard Drive

Hello all, I can't seem to create an encrypted Time Machine back up on a network hard drive. Can this be done? And if not, why not? It seems that Macs have all the necessary functionality already available in Mac OS. Time Machine can create encrypted backups with multiple computers so what's the difference if it is to a network backup drive, honestly? Any suggestions?
My Set up: Three Macs, Airport Extreme Base Station, Seagate 3 TB HD (with separate partitions for each computer's backups). 2 of the Macs use ethernet to connect to the network and one uses wireless regularly. Basically, I'm trying to encrypt my family's backup drive and I don't know how or why I can't.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Appleguy514

First, you need to know that backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.
Second, no, you cannot encrypt a network backup on Lion or earlier. Only Mountain Lion.

Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more.

Hi all
Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more. I only can back up external disks. Does anyone know how to fix this?
All answers are much appreciated

I don't know the answer but I have the same thing happen. I have two external drives I use for backup. Sometimes it can see one and sometimes another. Then sometimes it can't see either one. I will take one out for a while then plug it back in and then it may see it. Maybe it's a cable issue or something but I will be curious to hear what someone more knowledgeable says.

Time Machine not backing up other external hard drive

Hi,
I recently upgraded to Leopard and am trying to use Time Machine. I have one external hard drive that is used specifically for the Time Machine Backup, it's called "Backup Drive". The other hard drive is called "Captured Memories" and is used to store my graphic design files. Time Machine seems to backup my iMac because there is a folder called iMac and it contains the files, but the folder for Captured Memories is blank. I was getting errors saying that the backup failed but when I clicked the "Back Up Now" option on Time Machine, it doesn't list the error - but the Captured Memories folder is still blank so it didn't back up that external drive. I also changed the Spotlight preferences so that it does not search the Backup Drive.
Both the Backup Drive and the Captured Memories drives are the same, they're both Seagate Free Agent Pro drives, 1TB each.
The Free Agent Pro drives both have a sleep timer that I cannot adjust, does that have anything to do with why Time Machine won't backup the Captured Memories drive? If that is the case, what other software can I use to backup the Captured Memories external drive? I want it to sync to the Backup Drive because I am constantly saving and moving files around on the Captured Memories drive.
I was using a Memeo backup software that came with the Free Agent Pro drives but the problem I was having is it would make copies of files rather than move them. For example, I have a folder on the Captured Memories drive that is called, In Progress and one that is called In Proofing. So once a project is complete, I move the file to the In Proofing folder. The Memeo software would copy the file to the In Proofing folder rather than move it. So I'd end up with 2 copies of the file, one in the In Progress folder and one in the In Proofing folder.
Does anyone know how I can simply have the drive backed up like that?
What do I do?
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I am having a similar problem. I initially set it up 3 days ago and had it back up just the iMac to Time Capsule (about 120 GB) which it did no problem (I initially had my LaCie drive excluded). I then un-excluded my other drive, where all my photos and music reside (about 130 GB). Since then, it keeps trying to back up about 102 GB each time. Looking at the list of backups it does not appear that it has ever successfully backed up the LaCie. I am not aware of any error messages, but I have not been home much. I normally shut down the computer at night but I have been leaving it on trying to let Time Machine do its thing. All I can say is that every time I am at the computer TM is running and it always looks like it is in the middle of backing up 102 GB (usually seems to be near the beginning, never seem to see it more than halfway done). Looking at the TM panel it says the latest backup was 2 days ago. I'd appreciate any advice!

Help!!!! Will Time Machine Erase Everything on my portable hard drive?

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