How do I retrieve data from a 500 GB Time Machine used as external hard drive?

I have a very particular situation. For several years I used a 500GB Time Machine as a wi-fi broadcaster, a back up, and also as external storage for iTunes - I 'partitioned' it to allow for it's use as an external drive.
Fast forward, and I've replaced the Time Machine with a new 3 TB Time Machine, as well as purchased a separate external drive (3 TB Western Digital) to store my iTunes files (so I no longer need to partition). The new Time Machine is my wi-fu hub.
The problem: I need to retrieve the 300 gb of audio files that are on my old partitioned Time Machine, and move them to my new WD external drive. I've already set up the new Time Machine as my wi-fi broadcaster, and de-activated the old Time Machine.
(I had tried to move the files previous to setting up the new Time Machine, but I realized after de-activating it that I wasn't as thorough as I thought, so I need to go back and move them again.)
I've tried to re-connect to the old Time Machine using an ethernet cable, but when I do, it recognizes it as my wi-fi hub, and it screws up my network - it suddenly allows me access to the old Time Machine, but blocks access to the new WD external drive.
So in a nutshell - I need to be able to connect the old Time Machine to my laptop (a Macbook running OS X 10.7.5) and have my new network see it as just an external drive - so I can then move the 300 GB of audio files directly on to my new WD external drive.
Any thoughts on how I can do this?

Why not connect both drives to the computer, turn off the wi-fi, and then copy the files over. Or you can use Disk Utility/Restore to move the files. See the note - it will erase the WD drive.
You can then set things back to the way you want them. You should have more than one back up as hard drives do fail. In this case, you could use a clone and keep it on the WD drive.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Similar Messages

HT4796 How do I transfer music from a PC to a Mac using an external hard drive?

I just purchased a MacBook Pro and have all my music and pictures saved to an external harddrive but I can not figure out how to transfer my music over from the hard drive without issues.

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
To transfer the music from the external drive to your Mac, it depends if you want to save your music in a folder or in iTunes.
To copy your music to your iTunes library, simply open iTunes and open a Finder window with your external drive open. Then, just drag your music to the iTunes window, so your music will be transferred to your computer.
The process is the same if you want to copy your music to another folder, but instead of opening iTunes, open a Finder window with the folder where you want to copy your music

How do i retrieve photos from iphoto on a time machine backup?

how do i retrieve photos from iphoto on a time machine backup?

To restore the entire library do the following:
For a single photo you need to know the file name? If so you can extract photos one at a time out of the TM backups for import into iPhoto. You would do it as follows:
1 - download and launch Find Any File.
2 - select the Time Machine external hard drive.
3 - enter the file name and search. It will take longer than a normal search due to the nature of the Time Machine structure, maybe up to 1 miinute.
4 - select the file that is in the Masters or Originals folder in the search results window and drag to the Desktop where it can be imported into iPhoto:

HT201250 i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. do i keep my files in the portable hard disk when I connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will era

i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. Am i keeping my files in the portable hard disk when I will connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will erase all?
I would like to know if after I erase all my data, empy hard drive inside the macbook, the time machine will erase all my files that I have saved in my "WD "My passport" external hard drive

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine has to erase the external disk in order to make backups. Before setting Time Machine up, copy the files of your external disk to the hard disk of the Mac in order not to lose them, and then, set up Time Machine. The first backup will start automatically.
If you want more information about Time Machine, read the Pondini's site > http://pondini.org

How do I use my Time Machine as an external hard drive to just dump files no longer needed on my computer?

How Do I use my time machine as an external hard drive?

Time Machine is software that allows a Mac to backup to a Time Capsule or other hard drive, so I think you are asking about the Time Capsule here, correct?
http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/
How do you plan to connect the Time Capsule to your network, or is it already connected and configured?
When you have it configured on the network, you can use the Finder to copy/paste or drag/drop files from your Mac to the Time Capsule disk.

Using Time Machine to restore external hard drive data

I have been using a Mac Mini running 10.6.8 for years as a media server. I have always been very careful to maintain backups of everything, and the inevitable did happen - the hard drive containing all my media did fail.
To clarify my set up, my Mac Mini internal hard drive is insufficient to store all my media, so I have been using an external 2TB drive to store it. I then set up Time Machine to back up both the Mac Mini and the 2TB external drive to a second 3TB external drive. Now that the 2TB drive with my media has failed, I seem to be having problems restoring all the media from 3TB drive. This is because the Time Capsule interface is designed to display finder windows at various points in time so you can go back to when your missing files existed and restore them. The problem is that I need the entire contents of the dead 2TB drive restored to a new drive, but I can't open a Time Capsule window that shows the contents of the old drive. I have tried opening /Volumes in a finder window, then invoking Time Machine, but my dead hard drive does not show up in the list of volumes. When I open the 3TB drive in a Finder window I can clearly see that it has backups of the 2TB drive, but they are spread out among 83 different snapshots of various dates.
How can I use Time Machine to easily restore the entire contents of the dead 2TB external drive to a new external drive?

This web site might answer all of your Time machine questions:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Ciao.

My 5 year old iMac's hard drive is at the point of failing. I'm trying to save al files on it, but it wont allow backup via Time Machine to an external hard drive. How can I keep from losing all the files and programs if the hard drive fails?

I'm concerned that my iMac, purchased 5 years ago, is about the crash and I can't back up my files and programs to an external hard drive via Time Machine because the computer freezes after only a couple hundred MB and gets nowhere near the required amount.
How can I save these files and programs if the computer hard drive fails or has to be replaced without the backup being able to be done? I need to do something quickly, but I'm not sure what I can or should be doing.

Get an external hard drive, some good ones that I like are the OWC, http://www.macsales.com Mercury Elite Pro drives...they are very good and reasonably priced.
Get the drive, connect via USB or FireWire, then use Disk Utility to format the new drive as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), and then use Disk Utility to Restore the current drive to the new drive. Restore actually clones the drive so you will have a bootable backup on the external drive.
After you have formatted and named the external drive, click Restore in the main Disk Utility window, drag the name of the old hard drive to the Source box, and drag the name of the new external drive to the Destination box. DU will make an exact clone of the internal drive on the external drive.
That clone will be a complete backup of the operating system and all of your data.
You can test it by restarting the iMac and hold the Option key. That will give you a grey screen showing all bootable drives. Just click the external drive, then click the upward pointing arrow under it and the iMac will boot from that drive.

How do I transfer files from my PC to my mac on an external hard drive?

I have an HP external hard drive that I have put all of my files from my PC on. I am trying to move them onto my Mac, but I have absolutely no idea what to do. As a warning, I am kind of computer illiterate.

Have a read here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2518
If your Mac is running OSX 10.7 Lion you might wanna use this http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4796
Stefan

Restoring from Time Machine to an external hard drive

I had a hard drive crash on a MBP and am using DiskWarrior to try and recover it. DW has been running for over 48 hourse and says "speed reduced by disk malfunction: 3,177" (the number increases every few minutes) The DW folk tell me to give it another day or two. Knowing that I would need to replace this hard drive anyway, I took a brand new hard drive from another MBP and put it in a hard drive enclosure. (I put a SSD in that MBP and gave it to my daughter who is out of state so I don't have access to it anymore.) I then used that hard drive to boot up a different MBP (recall the original one is still trying to recover with DW) which was connected to another hard drive where my TimeMachine back up resides. This MBP opens with the welcome screen like you get on a brand new computer and asks me if I want to transfer data from a different computer or do a restore from TM. So I say yes to restore from TM. After that finishes, I then should have a hard drive that is identical to my last TM backup, yes? Instead, I discover that tons of data is missing. When I go back and look at that data on the TM backup, it appears to be all there. So why did it not install on the new hard drive? Does the fact that I was booting it as an external hard drive make a difference? Or is it a problem that the MBP I am using is one year newer and is a 17" whereas the TM backup is from a 15" machine?
I need to get this 15" MBP up and running but don't want to interrupt DW from doing its thing. (now up to 3,194 in the disk malfunction count, whatever that means). I am just a little concerned that TM may not have everything I need to restore the drive and my failure to successfully restore on my first try doesn't help!

Dan Bryant1 wrote:
This MBP opens with the welcome screen like you get on a brand new computer and asks me if I want to transfer data from a different computer or do a restore from TM. So I say yes to restore from TM. After that finishes, I then should have a hard drive that is identical to my last TM backup, yes?
Maybe. I'm assuming you left everything selected on the Transfer Your Information window?
Does the data that was transferred seem current? If not, had you previously done a full restore to the old MBP, or erased it's internal HD? If so, backups done after that may be treated as if they were from a different disk, and the area circled in red becomes a "pop-up" menu where you can select the one you want; you may have transferred from the older set.
It's also possible some data on the old Mac's internal HD was damaged by whatever went wrong with it, and that stuff was backed-up. Were there any odd messages during the transfer?
Try to Repair the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. If that finds and fixes things, start the new MBP up from the Snow Leopard disc, erase the drive, install OSX, and let Setup Assistant transfer everything again.

HT3275 how do you uninstall time machine on an external hard drive?

I am using a seagate hard drive and discovered that since using it my space on my macbook is depleting. Don't know where it went so i want to start over and regain my hard drive space and use the back up only to store music and Logic pro data! PLEASE HELP!!!

Well, this is not easily answered. You can shrink existing partitions in order to add additional ones. But in order to add space from one partition to another that can only be done by first removing the lower partition first. If that partition has data, then it will be lost. Unfortunately, Disk Utility cannot manipulate partitions in place. You need a third-party utility for that, iPartition 3.4.1.
Now with that said I'll pass on a bit of advice. Do not us your Time Machine backup drive for extra storage. External storage and backups should be kept on separate drives. I suggest you get a separate drive for your storage or Time Machine backups.
If you use Disk Utility you can shrink your Time Machine partition, but the only way to put that space in another partition is to first delete the storage partition, then recreate it with a larger capacity.

HT5097 I recently upgraded my macbook to Mountain lion. Before doing so I used time machine and an external hard drive to back up my entire laptop. When we upgraded my computer came back like new. All pics, music, videos documents etc gone. How do I ge

I recently upgraded my macbook to mountain lion. Before doing so I used time machine to back up my entire laptop with an external hard drive.
When I got my computer back it was clean....all pics, music, documents, bookmarks etc. are gone. How do I get these files off the external hard drive and back onto my laptop with the new upgrade?

I recently upgraded my macbook to mountain lion. Before doing so I used time machine to back up my entire laptop with an external hard drive.
When I got my computer back it was clean....all pics, music, documents, bookmarks etc. are gone. How do I get these files off the external hard drive and back onto my laptop with the new upgrade?

Is it possible to use an AirPort Time Capsule as both a Time Machine and an external hard drive from which to stream from?

I recently purchased a new 2TB Time Capsule. I purchased it in hopes that I can set it up in 2 ways.
1. Empty my almost completely full MacBook harddrive onto it (mostly movies, music, and photos) that I can stream directly from via iTunes and my Apple TV (this will allow me to free up much needed space on my MacBook)
2. Use it as a wireless Time Capsule to back up what is left on my harddrive
I currently use another external harddrive as a time machine but it is a cumbersome process. I know that Time Capsule's weren't built to be partined for needs such as this, but I've been told by Apple that it is possible. Does anyone know how? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

1. Empty my almost completely full MacBook harddrive onto it (mostly movies, music, and photos) that I can stream directly from via iTunes and my Apple TV
Yes, you can use the Time Capsule to provide both a wired and wireless network AND media storage to stream from an iTunes host device to an Apple TV. As an example, you can place your iTunes Library on either the TC's internal HDD or an external USB HDD attached to the TC. You can then access this library from iTunes located on a Mac or PC, and then, stream it to the Apple TV.
2. Use it as a wireless Time Capsule to back up what is left on my harddrive
Yes, you can use the TC as a backup destination for either Time Machine or any other network-ready backup program. Again you can either use its internal HDD or an attached USB HDD for this purpose.

Licensing Errors after recovering from Time Machine to an external Hard Drive

My internal HD failed and I'm temporarily using an external drive as my primary HD. I loaded all my data from my time machine backup onto the external drive temporarily until my new mac arrives (next week). Now, I'm getting licensing error code 150:30 when I try to open Photoshop. It says rebooting can fix it. It has not fixed the issue. Any recommendations? I need to work on some files now and am stuck.
Thanks!

Yes. This is very common. Photoshop must never be migrated or transferred, because the license is tied to the Mac and moving it breaks the license.
The cure is simple. Reinstall using your discs and don't forget to apply the updates. You will be starting at 11.0.0.
Gene

I recently purchased a new Windows 7 computer. I copied my music from my old Windows XP computer using an external hard drive. I can see all the music, album artwork, etc. when I activate iTunes. However, no songs (purchased or uploaded) will play.

I authorized the computer on my iTunes account (it's now one of three). Everything looks OK, so why won't the music play?

Try using Migration Assistant following this guide:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4413#3
There is advice in this document for using Migration Assistant from Time Machine or other hard drive.

My mac book pro was stolen, i had not backed up time machine on an external hard drive, is there some way i can retrieve my files ? (does the computer save to the internet possibly or the I Cloud ? )

My mac book was stolen and although i had time machine i had not backed up to a current hard drive because that was also stolen. I was wondering if there was some software that allowed me to access my old computer somehow, does it save your files to the internet or to some external system manually ? obviously i know this is unlikely but i thought i would check as the computer had all my work on it.

Conor66 wrote:
My mac book was stolen and although i had time machine i had not backed up to a current hard drive because that was also stolen.
I try to warn people, that TimeMachine drives tend to get stolen along with everything else.
To make and store bootable clones offsite or in a safe or something.
Most commonly used backup methods
There is nothing you can do, unless the police get luckly and find it, then after many months in evidence you can have it back and pray your files are still there.

How do I retrieve data from a 500 GB Time Machine used as external hard drive?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for