How do I move time machine files from one external drive to another?

My original external drive isn't big enough. So I've bought a second larger one. How do I move the earlier Time Machine backups from Ext Drive #1 to Ext Drive #2 so I can access my full history, and leave Drive #1 for other backup items?
Ext Drive #1= SimpleTech 120 GB
Ext Drive #2= WEstern 500 GB

When you are ready to pass the 320GB drive on, I would format it. That will make the entire drive available to him to use as his TM. I would be sure that each drive has a unique name so that there will be no confusion for TM as to which computer goes with which drive. If you want to start fresh with the 500GB drive, I'd format it as mac-extended-journaled. When you connect it the first time to your computer, you will be asked if you want to use it as your TM. If you are not prompted to select it as your TM, you can configure TM by opening system preferences, click on TM, click on "change drive" and choose your new drive.
Another choice is to follow the steps in my previous response for restoring your current TM to the new drive by booting from a Leopard start up disk and accessing Disk Utilities from there so you can restore the drive. It is essential that the new hard drive is the exact name as the old TM hard drive. In this last scenario you would continue adding to your current set of backups.

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How do I move an iTunes library from one external drive to another?

I need to move my iTunes library from one external disk to another, because the original disk is about to fail. So, I went into iTunes Perferences --> Advanced, and set the library to a new, empty folder on the new drive.
Nothing changed. I expected all my music to vanish from iTunes, so that I would have to re-import it. However, all the music remained, still on the old disk. At this point, if I were to recreate the library on the new disk, I would have all of my music twice.
Is it possible to move an iTunes library from one external drive to another, or am I stuck with my original choice until I buy a new machine? If I can move it, can one of you clever folks explain how it could be done?

Paul Seymour1 wrote:
However, those are all dealing with old versions of iTunes that still contained the Advanced --> Consolidate Library command which is no longer part of the app. (I'm on iTunes 10.6.1.)
Consolidate is still part of iTunes.
It is in iTunes menu File > Library > Manage library > Consolidate.
The article you linked to is old and it is (and was) a hacky way of doing it.
Just copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to new location, hold Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows) when launching iTunes.

Transfer Time Machine backup from one external drive to another

Surely this has been covered, but I can't find it.
If you have your time machine backup on an external drive and get a new (larger) external drive, what is the best way to transfer the backup from one drive to the other (and define the new drive as the backup drive)? Straight copy ? Then to define the new drive, rename old drive to something else and name new drive the backup name?

I haven't tried this yet but a few other methods are described at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071128055047339

HT5096 cannot move time machine backup from one ext drive to another. pls help!thanks!

my time machine file is about 390GB and it is on a 1TB external harddrive. I have been trying to move the backup to a new 2TB external harddrive. it stopped copying any more files after transferring 466MB. I repeated the same procedure several times,but with same result. any advice? thanks!

Apple support article:
Time Machine – Transfer Backup to a New Drive
Another good source of information:
Time Machine Troubleshooting

Cannot transfer Time Machine backups from one external drive to another

Since I bought my 13 inch MacBook Pro in September 2014 I've been keeping Time Machine backups on an external 1TB Lacie Rugged. This is partitioned into three and one of the partitions contains my iPhoto library.
Last weekend I left my MBP disconnected from the power source but with the external hard drive still plugged in. Long story short - the battery level fell below the minimum needed to operate so it turned itself off and 'disconnected' the external hard drive. This resulted in a corrupted iPhoto library which is no longer accessible.
In order to restore my iPhoto Library from another backup I needed to buy a second external hard drive. Yesterday I bought a 2TB Lacie Rugged which I've now partitioned into 5.
I want to move my Time Machine backups from the 1TB Lacie Rugged to a partition on the 2TB Lacie Rugged (to take advantage of the new Lacie's Thunderbolt connection).
I read the Apple article -
HT202380: Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive
and followed the instructions precisely. About 2 hours into the transfer I came back to my MacBook Pro and saw a message saying that it was not possible to complete the transfer because I did not have the correct permissions. The only option was to click the OK button which stopped the transfer.
Can anyone advise what I should do next?
Cheers
Tricia

Hi Eric,
Thank you for your response. I came across another thread yesterday which suggested the Restore via Disk Utility method. It worked for me, too. This was after I had tried following the method suggested in the Apple article above three times but each time the message was the same ....
The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items.
I dare say that Apple would like to have us believe that it's a simple matter of 'drag and drop' but it certainly wasn't for me. From what I've read the permission problem crops up fairly frequently. Before the second and third attempts I had already amended Permissions on the Time Machine backups so that everyone could read and write, so that mustn't have been the problem. I'm the only person who uses my computer so that's not a problem.
The next problem I have is that I decided I would use the Restore route to transfer my SuperDuper clone rather than start from scratch. Unfortunately, the partition size on my original backup disk where SuperDuper clone is is 350GB and the size of the SuperDuper clone partition on my new backup is 300GB.
Of course, Apple says you can resize partitions using Disk Utility. What they don't say is you can downsize partitions but (in my experience and that of many other frustrated users on various forums) you CANNOT upsize using Disk Utility. I have 100GB spare on my external hard drive (from downsizing two partitions by 50GB each) BUT there is no way Disk Utility will let me increase the size of SuperDuper partition to 350GB :-(((
Cheers
Tricia

My experiences copying Time Machine backups from one external drive to another

I am reposting this. The first one was rejected because it contained 'product feedback' and I was directed to the 'Terms of Use'. The 'Terms of Use' say feedback is welcome...***?!?
My 3TB external drive started to die a few weeks ago. It was still under warranty and I just got the new one yesterday. I wanted to preserve all my backups (I had every backup for my late 2012 iMac) on it.
The short of it is that there were like 20-25 million files there or something crazy like that. Finder was going to take forever to count the files. cp and rsync would take like a week. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle, so I just securely erased the old disk and did a new initial backup on the new disk.
The old disk would only mount in read-only mode, so I couldn't prune the backups down to a manageable size. Unless you only have a handful of backups, or you can internally mount the drives to make it go faster, it's going to take forever to do this.
Regards, Patrick

Hi Eric,
Thank you for your response. I came across another thread yesterday which suggested the Restore via Disk Utility method. It worked for me, too. This was after I had tried following the method suggested in the Apple article above three times but each time the message was the same ....
The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items.
I dare say that Apple would like to have us believe that it's a simple matter of 'drag and drop' but it certainly wasn't for me. From what I've read the permission problem crops up fairly frequently. Before the second and third attempts I had already amended Permissions on the Time Machine backups so that everyone could read and write, so that mustn't have been the problem. I'm the only person who uses my computer so that's not a problem.
The next problem I have is that I decided I would use the Restore route to transfer my SuperDuper clone rather than start from scratch. Unfortunately, the partition size on my original backup disk where SuperDuper clone is is 350GB and the size of the SuperDuper clone partition on my new backup is 300GB.
Of course, Apple says you can resize partitions using Disk Utility. What they don't say is you can downsize partitions but (in my experience and that of many other frustrated users on various forums) you CANNOT upsize using Disk Utility. I have 100GB spare on my external hard drive (from downsizing two partitions by 50GB each) BUT there is no way Disk Utility will let me increase the size of SuperDuper partition to 350GB :-(((
Cheers
Tricia

How to transfer or reassociate iTunes files from one external drive to another without reimporting?

Hello,
Hope someone can tell me an easy way to do this.
I have a massive itunes library which is presently split between my macbook and my external Lacie. I would like to transfer the files from the Lacie to a new external drive without reimporting all the files into itunes. I essentially would like itunes to recognise the path of the new drive instead of the files on the Lacie.
Any ideas?

I moved some movies and some seldom listened music (coped the files) into a folder on the Lacie drive. Then I reimported them to the main itunes library while holding down "option". This created a link to those files to the external. the files show up in my itunes but cannot be played unless i have the Lacie connected to them.
See this link.
http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_split_your_itunes_library_across_multi ple_locations

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How do I move LR image files from one external drive to another external drive?

Move the photos using your operating system and then re-connect in Lightroom following these instructions: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders
Do not use this as an opportunity to re-arrange folders or move photos from folder to folder. Just move the entire "tree" of folders.

HT2518 how do i or can i drag and drop files from one external drive to another ???HOW

how do i drag and drop files from one external drive to another, i cannt get both drives to open up. only one at a time.. i have alot to learn i know but that is where i am at the time...

You posted here so would assume you are also talking about running Windows.
Are the drives NTFS and use on Windows?
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You likely will need NTFS for OS X in one case. to mount PC and use under Mac OS Lion
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I am trying to move some music files from one external harddrive to another. They are both connected to my mac mini.
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If you're copying from a FAT-formatted volume, do as below.
Back up all data.
Select the text on the line below by dragging across it. Don't include the blank space at the end of the line. Only the text should be highlighted.
dot_clean -m
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Now switch to the Finder and and select the icon of the FAT volume. Drag into the Terminal window. More text will be added to what you entered.
Click in the Terminal window to activate it, then press return.
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear. Then quit Terminal and try the copy again.

How do i move a file from one external drive to another

This is my first Mac computer and I have no idea how to move/copy a file from one external hard drive to another? It won't let me drag and drop from one Finder window to another and there is no copy/paste option on the left mouse click.

mediamagnate03 wrote:
This is my first Mac computer and I have no idea how to move/copy a file from one external hard drive to another? It won't let me drag and drop from one Finder window to another and there is no copy/paste option on the left mouse click.
That is because it is on the Right Click, and the menu.

How to move Startup Disk clone from one external drive to another?

I thought this would be a question easily answered on the WWW and easily found via search engines, but so far no luck, hence this question.
Prior to upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion I followed some very good instructions from Tom Nelson on ask.com (http://macs.about.com/od/backupsarchives/ss/diskbackup.htm) related to using Disk Utility to clone my internal Macintosh HD drive to an external hard drive, making it a bootable drive. I cloned to a very nice LaCie external FW drive that had far more room than that needed for the clone. This drive booted just fine as a startup disk, so mission accomplished:   I have now a bootable clone of my Lion system prior to upgrading to Mountain Lion.
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Is there any way to use the same LaCie drive that now holds the Lion startup disk clone to hold the yet-to-be-done Mountain Lion startup disk clone?
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Thanks in advance for your advice.

Good info Csound1, and thanks.
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I guess the summary question is:   how does one clone a startup disk clone? As I think about this, and recall the Disk Utility screens, couldn't I simply select the Lion clone on the LaCie FW external drive and do the same operation I did with the original internal Lion drive? Basically the same steps as before but this time the source is the LaCie FW external and the destination is a new external drive?
Thanks again; wonderful forum here with very smart people.

Copying time machine backup files from one external drive to another

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to copy the backups performed by Time Machine on one external drive to another external drive, and if so, how? I am using a company drive and will need to return it. It is a 500GB La Cie Drive. I just purchased a 1TB La Cie drive. A straight and simple drag & drop doesn't work. What should I do?
Thanks!!!

azemel wrote:
Can anyone tell me if it is possible to copy the backups performed by Time Machine on one external drive to another external drive, and if so, how?
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/18.html

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Help please..
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Copying video files from one external drive to another

Hello! I am very new to Apple and FCP, so please forgive my ignorance. I have looked through the other topics and have not found one that addresses my question, so please forgive me if this has been addressed in the past.
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Crystal,
Please reply to a specific post, not to your orignial one. This keeps the threaded discussion in order.
To see the format for a drive. Open Disk Utility. It is located in your /Applications/Utilities folder.
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good luck.
x

How do I move time machine files from one external drive to another?

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