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.

Similar Messages

  • How do I delete Time-Machine back-ups on external HD

    Hello everybody, I would like to delete all the Time Machine back-ups on my external hard drive and create a new full back-up.  This is because after several months my HDD is quickly filling up and I would like to clean out all the old back-ups.  What is the best way to do this?  Sould I simply delete the old back-ups through finder, or is there another and better way to do this?  Many thanks for your help!

    peiper1 wrote:
    ....... the suggestion to enter the TM "Star Wars" display only applies to back-ups residing on my internal SSD, right? ...
    No.
    peiper1 wrote:
    ...Also, if TM is backed up to an external HDD, why does it also keep back-ups on the MBA's internal SSD?
    As far as I know it doesn't. You may be meaning this...
    Time Machine Local Snapshots Laptops
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
    peiper1 wrote:
    .. I would like to delete the back-ups on my external hard drive, do I still do it the same way?  ...
    Follow Pondinis Instructions for Deleting Backups on the TM external Drive.

  • How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch?

    How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch?  I have a MacBook Air that was my wife's - now given to my daughter for school.  My wife never used Time Machine to back up (she simply copied files to an external drive), so before clearing her files off the Mac HD, I tried using Time Machine for the first time with an external HD.  However, the Time Machine back up repeatedly failed after about 2GB of 28GB of files. I manually copied my wife's 28GB of files to another external HD and deleted all the files off the Mac HD. I then reformatted the external Time Machine drive. But when I try to use Time Machine to back up the MacBook Air as it is now with my daughter's files on the Mac HD to the external TM drive, Time Machine acts as if the 28GB of my wife's deleted files are still on the Mac HD and fails back-up after counting to about 2GB, even though there aren't even 2GB of files on the Mac HD now and nothing on the external TM drive. I don't need to save any back-ups of how the MacBook used to be - I just need to start from scratch with how the computer is now.  Can anyone please tell me how to get Time Machine to think the MacBook is a brand new computer and act as if it's a first time ever back up?  I tried updating to Yosemite, and tried renaming the computer in System Preferences>Sharing, plus (as noted above) deleting all the old files off the Mac HD and reformatting the external Time Machine drive - none of that worked.  All I can do at the moment is manually copy my daughter's files to an external HD - very frustrating.

    Hmmm.. Office is not hard to restore.
    You have something major wrong (Yosemite being the primary one).
    Do a verify of the source drive.. to do that you will need to boot to the recovery.. and run the disk utility from there.. it sounds like your main disk is corrupted.
    Once that is complete, delete the current setup of TM and try again.. use the widget to find out why it is failing..
    See Troubleshooting.
    A1, A4 and A5 for further info.
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    Good luck with it..
    I would also download carbon copy cloner.. it is $40, but you can use it free for a time.. forget if a week or a month??.. to try out.. and make a proper backup before you start.. CCC is far more reliable than TM.. and in fact you might decide to simply forget about TM if it works and pays the $40.. because you can produce a bootable clone on the external drive which is a heck of a lot easier to use than TM.

  • I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine

    I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine
    and if it yes i want to know if i have 1TB hard disk to use the 500gb for time machine and the other 500gb for normal use

    thank you very much because i am considering to buy the porsche design hard disk 1TB and i want to have it for normal use and for time machine is a pitty to give 1TB for back up only again thanks and i know seperate the back and the working jobs are better but the i have to have 2 hardisks and i want only 1

  • Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?

    Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?
    I have a iMac with 10.7.4

    I want to back up the data on the external Hard Drive that is attached to the Time Capsule to the Tim Capsule using Time Machine.
    Thanks for the clarification.  Unfortunately, that will not work.  You will need to connect the drive directly to your Mac if you want Time Machine to backup the drive to the Time Capsule.

  • 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.

  • HT201250 Time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme

    How can I setup a time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme? Even better for time managment purposes I want to use the Eithernet Thunderbolt connection for the first back up and then through the wifi there after for daily routine Time Machine back ups.

    You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
    If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

  • 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.

  • HT201250 I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive.  The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc).  Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

    I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive.  The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc).  Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

    Yes you can make multiple backups on one hard drive, for example if you’ve 1TB hard drive installed in your PC and you’ve two Mac Machines with 500GB drive each then you just make two backup images with size of 500GB each.
    http://www.halfspot.com/use-your-pc-hard-drive-for-time-machine-backup/

  • If i have Time Machine backed up on an external hard drive, do i just plug the drive into another macbook pro and all my stuff is in the new computer?  also, does it matter if the new computer is running Lion when the backed up info came from Snow Leopard

    If i have Time Machine backed up on an external hard drive, do i just plug the drive into another macbook pro and all my stuff is in the new computer?  Also, does it matter if the new computer is running Lion when the backed up info came from Snow Leopard 10.6.8?

    No and Yes
    Don't use TM for this purpose, clone your drive to an external, plug the external into another MBP and reboot from it. Please note that booting a machine that came with Lion may not be possible from a drive with Snow Leopard.

  • HT201250 I have thousands of pictures on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac I don't want them lost.  I do time machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough for making sure my pictures don't ever get lost?

    I have thousands of photos on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos.  I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?

    tgs6164 wrote:
    I have thousands of photos on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos.  I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
    Purchase a couple of these when they go on sale.
    Start burning all the photos onto DVDs. 
    At least you'll have all your photos if your computer, time machine or any other backup you use goes bonkers.

  • How do I copy my time machine back up from a smaller Hard disk to a larger hard disk; so that I can then continue to back up, through Time machine, on the larger hard disk?

    I am using time machine for backing up on an external hard disk. This has now become full and every back up results in the deletion of the first back up on the hard drive.
    I have bought a larger hard drive now and am trying to copy the back up from the smaller hard drive to the new larger hard drive, using Finder. This is not happening and the message I am getting is
    "The volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a back up"

    Hello UmeshNB,
    Thanks for the question. Based on what you stated, it seems like you are not able to move a backup to another drive. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you isolate or resolve the issue.
    Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support
    If it is not formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition. If you do not know how, see the steps in this article. 
    If the drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended but without journaling, OS X may state that "the volume has the wrong case sensitivity" to be used as a back up disk.
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
    Cheers,
    Mario

  • How do I install my time machine back up on a new hard drive because the old one died?

    Hi! My MacBook hard drive died, so I had a new one installed. Now, I am hoping I can transfer my Time Machine back up on it without having to do it manually. I was running Leopard on it. Can I boot from the Time Machine back up or will I have to install Leopard on it first? I'm not extremely computer savvy so , of course, I am looking for an easy way to do this! Thanks for any suggestions!

    The Time Machine backup is not bootable
    You will have to install Leopard first

  • How can I delete time machine backup folders moved into the trash from an external drive?

    I made the mistake of moving Time Machine backup files into the trash, but I can't seem to delete them. I tried the option key when clicking on "Empty Trash" and "Secure Empty Trash" (before and after rebooting), but that always led to error 8003. The files won't allow me to change their name. Using approchaes to Terminal from three different Mac-related webpages also failed. I also tried Trash It, but it seemed to be making little progress after letting it run 48 hours. Any other suggestions before calling Apple?

    Assuming these were not backups made over a network (thus not in a sparse bundle disk image), see #E6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
    But any way you empty the trash on that disk/partition is probably going to take a very long time -- there's no doubt several hundred thousand files there, perhaps a million or more.
    You may have to just erase the disk (with Disk Utility) and start over.
    You really shouldn't have to delete Time Machine backups, as it will do that automatically when the destination gets full.  But if you really want to, see #12 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

  • How can I use Time Machine with my existing network attached storage drives

    I am a new mac user switching over from windows and have an extensive amount of existing equipment including 2 network attached storage devices (Buffalo Technologies). I would like to use these with Time Machine, but can not figure out how to do it. When I enter time machine setup it does not show these drives while the Finder does.

    As of right now we are all SOL unless you own a Time Capsule. At the very least I wish apple would offer some kind of trade-up if they are not going to release a software update.
    It really doesn't make any sense why we can't do this with a standard AEBS. Any fix should just be a matter of software, and while technically apple covered its butt with that little "subject to change" disclaimer on the leopard preview page, pulling it at the last minute and expecting those who believed their advertisement to buy another device that does the exact same thing for more money is just wrong. Give us a break apple, tell us your at least working on a fix, its the right thing to do.

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