How should I pick up and go with Time Machine running

I have noticed that since Time Machine backs up my computer often, programs hang up and don't close right away. I'm often on a short window to pack up my machine and go to a meeting. Can I just pull all the plugs out and go? Ejecting the disk seems to take a lot of time when a backup is occuring.
What's the best way to do an immediate disconnect from the external hard drive?

_*Can I just pull all the plugs out and go?*_
And the answer to this would be a resounding... NO !!
As a general rule, you should always eject your drive by dragging it to the trash... and waiting for it to dismount before you disconnect it. Just pulling the cable... especially when the system is in the middle of a back up, WILL result in damaging your backup... making the point of having a back up pretty useless. While it is nice to get back ups every 15 minutes... it can be a hog on resources. You may just want to connect your external drive when you know you'll be in one place for quite a while... or use something like Carbon Copy Cloner (SuperDuper is more popular, but does not yet make bootable backups for machines with Leopard installed) to make backups when you want them.

Similar Messages

Trouble with Time Machine (runs constantly). Erase and install?

Trouble with Time Machine (runs constantly). Tried re-installation (equivalent of archive install) of Snow Leopard. Time Machine still unable to complete a back-up. Erase and install recommended at Genius Bar. Have backed up data to external HD using Super Duper. Should be a bootable backup. Last successful backup through Time Machine was 6/1/11. Not sure if I can access this back-up if I erase and re-install.
Computer shipped with Tiger (7/2007). Have original disks. Now running Snow Leopard. So: erase HD, install Tiger, then update to Snow Leopard? Start-up from Tiger disks does not appear to work (starting up holding "C" key). Suggestions? Want very much to transfer data to new iMac, but do not want to carry bugs forward. Very nervous about erasing HD. And have the questions above about reinstalling system software.
Advice desired! Thanks.

Well if you can hold option and boot off the Superdupes clone and it works fine then you should be set to do what you need to do to the original boot drive.
Disconnect all drives and c boot off the Snow Leopard install disk, use Disk Utility to Erase > format HFS+ journaled your internal boot drive.
Quit and reinstall OS X Snow Leopard, setup (do not use Setup/Migration Assitant!) and update to 10.6.8
When you setup the new install, use the same hard drive name and user name as you did before.
Now the free iLife that came on the Tiger disks you won't get naturally, but you can pick them off the disk with the shareware program called Pacifist.
install your programs from fresh sources, this way you don't get the "crap" from the older setup.
Once your machine is up and going. Hook up the clone and transfer your user folders over manually. With iTunes just replace the whole folder. Because you kept the same user and boot drive name as before, the playlists should be fine.
Once your all peachy, take the opportunity to clone this new setup to a external drive, label and disconnect.
Make another clone for day to day, or week to week clone updates and your just a hold option boot away for recovery.
You know Superdupes and Carbon Copy Cloner both have auto-scedualing/updating ability, so you can leave them plugged in and it will perform a update so your clone stays fresh and recent.
But you should keep a clone timed back about a couple of weeks back just in case you install something bad and don't learn about it right away.

I lost everything in my iphoto library how can i restore the entire library with time machine?

i lost everything in my iphoto library how can i restore the entire library with time machine? help!!!!

Open the folder that contained the library and then enter Time Machine. Select the most recent date that contains the library and then restore.

How use Google Drive to do Backups with Time Machine?

Hi everyone! I work in a company that give us a huge amount of space in google drive, bigger than my hard drive! The other day someone tried to break in. Luckily nothing happened but the computer and external hard drive were here! Since then I've been wondering some way to do an automatic back up with time machine using google drive account. No matter how long is take but at least i will be an online back up. I couldn't find anything useful so if there is some that could give a hint or just for to know if this is doable. Any suggestion, thoughts or ideas?
Cheers!
Cristian

Try using a clone.
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

How to recover old Back ups made with time machine?

After a recovery with time machine to a very early back up, it completly deleted my old back ups from my back up drive? I had almost everything there. how can i get it back? is there any way?

Hi Patsmith7,
i think I understand what you're asking. You'd like to move the current Time Machine backup to a new HD so that it will never be written over as you continue to use the current HD where the data resides. If that is correct, then just follow the below link which will show you a very simple way of accomplishing this.
If you only want to move a specific date then you will have to follow the same instructions in the link but click on the drop down arrow on the current backup which will show you each instance (date) of the backups. Grab the date that you're interested in and complete the move as instructed in the link to the new HD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Good Luck and let me know if you have any other questions.

Macbook won't recognize external Hard Drive and issues with Time Machine

Hello everyone,
I have just bought a new Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion and I am currently having problems with Time Machine.
The issue begun in Snow Leopard: Time Machine was taking too long to backup, and would often not finish the backup because the external hard drive would be unwillingly ejected.
Now with Mountain Lion I have reformated the drive (Mac OS Journaled) and about a third of the way through had the same issue: the drive was ejected before the backup could be finished. I restarted the machine and it happened again. However, now the computer won't even recognize the external drive when I plug it in. I have also tried to power off/on the drive itself to no progress.
I have tested the USB port with another drive and the port is fine. I have also tested the usb cable and it is fine. And Disk Utility does not recognize the drive (even when I try the >diskutil list command in terminal).
Now, I can hear the drive humming normally when I turn it on, and it is not usb-powered (my electricity current does fluctuate).
Could the interrupted backup procedures have damaged the drive? And if so, wouldn't the computer recognize it anyway?
It is a 4 year old WD 1 TB that is used exclusively for TM and has never left the house.
Thank you for your time reading this and let me know if you need any more information that could help out.
Cheers!

From your description, I'd suspect a failing drive. Maybe time for a new external, especially as you've already re-formatted and it's still playing up.
I had a similar problem with one of my clone backups a few weeks ago - it failed, I erased it, re-cloned, worked a couple of times and then it failed again. Disk Utility didn't throw up any errors after re-formatting. I guess all disks die at some point.

How to restore single photos in iPhoto with TIME MACHINE?

Is it possible to restore single photos with time machine instead of only the entire iphoto library?
Thank's for any advises.
Harpo

No.
Regards
TD

Problem with Time Machine, running Snow Leopard

Hi all,
Last week I had a new hard drive fitted into my iMac 8,1, after which Snow Leopard was reloaded (10.6.3 from the disc, updated to 10.6.8), followed by the restoration of data via Time Machine from my external hard drive. Whilst my Mac is now running beautifully, I am having problems backing up with Time Machine.
When I run a backup, it prepares about 100,000 items, then starts to backup, usually about 650mb. It crawls along in kb until it gets to about 1mb, then jumps quickly to the end, but then it adds extra mb on the end. Then it suddenly starts again "preparing x items....." and off it goes again.
I have tried repairing the backup disc, and it appears to be ok. I even erased it and started again. Time Machine did a full backup (139gb) in about 2 hours, then immediately added another 640mb at the end - strange, but I do at least have a full backup from yesterday. But now, everytime I run backup, it looks for the same sort of figure (650-700mb) and then goes round in circles.
Any help would be very much appreciated!
Thanks, David

Hi Eric
Thank you for your reply. Here are the screenshots for each change:
Having prepared about 95,000 items, the backup of 612mb begins
14 minutes later a message appears
Another 3 minutes and another message. You will see from this screenshot that the backup figure has changed to 613.1mb
Another 30 seconds and it all begins again....
And finally, 7 more minutes pass, another 96,000 items are prepared, and another 604.8mb backup begins.
I might add, that between posting this morning, and your reply, I also went into disk utility, chose the top leve of the external drive, clicked on the partition tab, charged current to 1 partition, renamed the drive, erased it, and did a full back up of 139GB. After 137GB it started again, looked for 602mb, backed them up and finished the backup, which is why TM states that the last back up was at 18:16 today.
Thanks again
David

How do I replace a failed hard drive and restore with time machine

My hard drive died on my 2009 MacBook Pro. I regularly backed up my data using Time Machine. How do I format the drive and restore fom my USB TimeMachine drive.

If you haven't made a Lion or Mt Lion install USB thumb drive or used the Recovery Disk assistant to make a USB thumb of the Recovery HD then you will need to boot the system from the original OS Install disk that came with the system or a Snow Leopard disk you bought to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Then use the option to restore from TM backup.
Or if you have made New backup since install Lion or Mt Lion then that Tm backup may have a copy of the Recovery HD on it. Only way to tell is connect your TM backup drive and when starting the system hold down the Option key and see if you get a link that says Recovery HD.

How do I back up my files with Time Machine?

I have read the "frequently asked questions" regarding setting up my TM, but none address my specific problems which all began when I could no longer launch iPhoto.
Issues:
1. iPhoto. When I launch it there is a gray screen with a spinning white windmill in the middle. I have let it launch for over a half hour and there was zero change. I have tried several things suggested on this site, but nothing seems to help. I read that I should first back up my iPhoto files before I created a new photo library.
2. When I open Time Machine and slide it to ON, my only option is to CREATE A TIME CAPSULE and I have no idea how to do that???
All I want to do was upload some pictures from my camera!
I am a very new Mac user and would appreciate any help with these issues.

First off, in order to answer your question about how to set up Time Machine, you'll need to follow these steps:
1) Get some sort of backup drive to back your stuff up onto. Preferably you'll want it to be mac formatted already, however it is possible to erase a PC formatted drive to work on the mac.
2) Plug the drive into your Mac, and it will ask if you want to use it as a time machine volume, choose yes. If this message doesn't come up, go to time machine and choose to select drive, then choose your backup hard drive.
You'll want to get a external drive that can store more information than your computer can store. Portable USB drives are the most convenient since they don't need extra cables and are light and small. I would recommend a 320GB or 500GB+ external hard drive.
Your first time machine backup will occur within about 2 minutes of agreeing to use the drive as a time machine volume.
As for your major issue, please make sure you've done the time machine backup before continuing on to the next steps.
iPhoto issue troubleshooting:
1) Hold down command, option and click on iPhoto to launch it. It should give you some options to rebuild the iPhoto library. Begin by trying a few of those before continuing on to more serious solutions.
2) Hold down option and click on iPhoto to launch it, then choose to create a new iPhoto library. See if iPhoto launches okay from there.
To recover your old photos, you'll want to go to your Pictures folder (in your home folder), find the iPhoto Library -- the old one you originally used, not the new one you just created. Right click (or hold control and click) on the iPhoto Library file and choose "Show Package contents". Inside the new folder you'll want to look for a folder called Masters. You can drag that folder onto iPhoto and it will begin importing all your old photos.
Alternatively, a software called iPhoto Library Manager has a repair option that you can try:
http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/

How to back up a hard drive with Time Machine

Yesterday I left my MacBook Pro at the airport security check. I called today and they told me it was gone, probably stolen. Since I didn't want my files or data to fall into the wrong hands, I used iCloud and logged on to my account, found my MacBook device, and selected Erase Mac. Lo and Behold, as fate would have it, I received a call from airport security 15 minutes later that they had in fact found it. Unfortunately, my call to Apple Support indicated that once Erase Mac is selected, it's like pushing the launch button on a nuke. It cannot be undone. Further conversations revealed that in order to not completetly lose all my files, I need to back up my MacBook to another hard drive prior to connecting to WiFi.
So, here's my plan. I have another iMac at my house with approx 500G of available hard drive space. My plan is once Fed Ex delivers my MacBook, to use Time Machine to back it up. I've never done this before. I have a FireWire cable for this task.
Is my thinking correct for the following steps:
1. Open MacBook in a Non Wifi environment.
2. Click on Time Machine Preferences
3. Connect my MacBook Pro with my iMac using FireWire
4. Select the Hard Drive from iMac as the source.
Will there be additional instructions then to follow?
How will I know when the back up is complete?
After the back up is done, do I then open the MacBook up in Wifi and allow Erase Mac to run?
If yes, then how do I transfer the hard drive back to MacBook?
I know this is a long post, but I want to ensure I'm following the process completely. Thanks,
Scott

Just turn off your wireless router until you can run Time Machine to backup your Mac notebook.
Or remove the drive from the system and connect it to another Mac and copy all your files off it. But again it would be best to disable any and all Wifi systems in your house before you do that.
Not sure but there may be a way to turn off the Wipe command and or it is only issued once. Never had to use it so I'm uncertain on how it actually works.

How to back up an external hd with time machine

I just bought a 1Tb WD WD for MAC which i willuse as my Time Machine backup and I want to use my 500GB Maxtor as an external HD to store media, I am not sure how tom make sure Time Maching backs up my internal HD and me external HD or is that automatic?

beatsc wrote:
Ok so it just asked me which I wanted to exclude to I didn't select any
It doesn't really ask that -- and internal HDs are backed-up by default, but externals are excluded by default. Look at the exclusion list in TM Prefs > Options. Anything listed there is not being backed-up. To back it up, select it and click the minus sign at the bottom. If it's listed in gray, however, it's not formatted for a Mac and Time Machine can't back it up. See #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details.
How is is possible that my 500GB external is almost to capacity? Is it because it used to be my Time Machine and I must delete those backups?
Most likely. If you don't erase a disk, whatever was there is still there.
If you don't have other data on it that you need, just erase it with Disk Utility.
If you do, you've got a problem; OSX doesn't like deleting Time Machine backups via the Finder. If you feel you have no choice, do it when you have quite a bit of time. Deleting them will be quick and easy, but emptying the trash won't. If there's a problem, see #E6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Upgrading to mountain lion and problems with time machine

I recently upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion. Now Time Machine does these huge hourly backups even when nothing has been updated. When I have VMware running, the update aborts, eventhough nothing in the virtual machine is supposed to be backed up. I am wondering if TM is trying to back up some work files that were created during the conversion. Has anybody seen this before? Any ideas?

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console 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 Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

How to restore mail accounts and settings from time machine

Long story short...the day that my applecare expired my hard drive went out in my 2009 mbp. So, I bought a new hard drive to upgrade from 250gb to 750gb. Problem was that when I installed it and went through everything...my new hard drive was too large than the computer was made to handle. I called Apple Care and they made an exception and talked with me - which revealed that the hd was too big. His suggestion was to try to intall the os from the disk and see if it will work. So, I popped in my Leopard Install disc...did all the updates...then snow leopard...then all the updates....then Lion...then all the updates. I ended up getting all of my main files that I wanted, along with my iTunes account (my iCal and Address book were synced to my cloud, so they popped up quickly). HOWEVER...I'm trying to get my work email account (along with the folders of old emails) back in mail. I can't seem to find the right file (I don't see a mail plist file in my preferences folder). Can anyone help please???

For posterity's sake, since i had this issue too, i thought i'd post my solution.
Locate and save a copy, locally on your computer, of a library.itl file that would contain the playlist you need. I'd suggest saving to your desktop. name it so you'll recognize it as the old library file.
Quit iTunes if open, and relaunch, holding down the Option key immediately after
when prompted, select "Choose Library"
Find the file you saved in step 1. this will launch iTunes with all the old playlists and such. Don't worry, it doesn't touch the actual songs themselves, so nothing is lost of from your current library.
Find the playlist(s) you want, right click on them and export. save them as .txt file (again, suggest desktop for ease)
Once all playlists you want to restore are saved, quit iTunes.
Launch iTunes, again pressing Option immediately after
Select "Choose Library" and select the Music -> iTunes -> iTunes Library.itl file. This will restore iTunes to the most current copy of your library
Select File -> Library -> Import Playlist and find the .txt file for your playlist on your desktop. et voila!

My iMac was stolen, how do I recover mail and music from Time Machine on to a new computer?

My iMac was stolen last week and I need access to emails that were only on that machine. It was 21.5", 2010 model (I think), running Maverick. I had Time Machine enabled to an external hard drive. Now I need to go in and locate some emails from those files but am not sure how to find them. Does Time Machine automatically back up everything? Will my iTunes library also be there? I lost a ton of music that I need for my job. I don't see a folder named Library or Utilities (I know, old school) and am at a bit of a loss. I did try to "Enter Time Machine" but didn't see a lot of files and don't know how to surf through the various backups.
Am now operating on a 2012 MacBook Air (refurbished by Apple) on Maverick.
Thanks.

How did you transfer the data?

How should I pick up and go with Time Machine running

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