How to erase a dead Time Machine: Necessary? If so, how?

Are Time Capsule Time Machine backups encrypted by default, and if not, how can I erase the Time Capsule if the power supply is dead?
Details:
I bought one of the early Time Capsules (1 GB) two years ago, and it finally died. It just wouldn't light up or start. Presumably, this is due to the well-known early power supply issues, and presumably the hard disk is still in good shape.
I brought it to my local Apple store, and they were great. Although I do not have Apple Care, due to the design flaw with these very early units, they said they will replace it with a refurbished unit for free. (Nice!) It will take a few days. Meanwhile, I have the old dead drive. It occurs to me that I have my whole life on that hard drive, and if someone were to be able to resurrect it and restore the backup to an empty Mac, they would have much information that they shouldn't have.
Yes, I could drill through the case and into the drive, but I don't think Apple would then accept it as a swap. Yes, I could take a big magnet to it, but how do I know it's big enough? (I've been to some sites that claim hard drives are very hard to erase because they case protects them magnetically.)
Someone I spoke with today reminded me that you need an overall disk password to be able to get to the data, and that is true when the HD is working right and you are logging on to the Time Capsule. But does that mean the data is (even lightly) encrypted, or is that just time Time Capsule firmware arbitrating access such that any barrier would go away if you could mount the disk physically?
Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks.

Thanks. That's what I'm in the process of doing. I already opened the case, and I'm going to take the drive to work tomorrow where my IT department has an eSATA cable that I can use.
I hesitated in doing this because I felt Apple would consider the case breached and say they couldn't take the unit in swap. However, I spoke with the Genius Administrator at my local Apple store today, and she told me that it is OK if I do that. She was very understanding that I would want to erase the drive before returning it. She just told me to make sure I return the unit as close to original as possible. I used a hair dryer to warm the bottom before peeling it off, and everything will go back together pretty perfectly.
So, this is fully acceptable to me.
Thanks.

Similar Messages

How erase data on Time Machine?

How erase date on Time Machine?

To erase everything on the Time Capsule hard drive.......
Open Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
Click Manual Setup
Click the Disk icon
Click the Disk tab just below the icon
Click Erase
The "Quick Erase" option will only take a moment or two

Is "Time Machine" necessary if you have iCloud?

Is "Time Machine" necessary if you have "iCloud" installed on your Mac?

Peatree2 wrote:
iCloud does not actually back up any of your data. Time Machine is never "necessary", but is useful if you want to have a backup of your data.
Time machine may not be necessary, but some form of backup is always necessary, drives fail, laptops get stolen, etc. Operating without backup is just waiting until you lose your stuff!

How Can I Erase Files From Time Machine ?!

After or while installing 10.6 I had a problem with MAIL which caused my old mail to duplicate itself ... many times. So those files ended up being many Gigs. I didn't realize this so Time Machine backed up those super swelled folders! It filled up my 1T back up HD.
I know have a 2T HD that I want to use as my new Time Machine HD, but I would first like to get rid of those giant old Mail folders.
How can I accomplish that? Since they are back up files I can't seem to just delete them ...

See #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Is Time Machine necessary in my case?

Hi, I'm new to Mac, and don't fully understand the "Time Machine" feature.
If my computer got some horrible virus and/ or crashed, could I just use the installation CD to fix it? I know I would lose all of my personal files, but I mostly just use the internet and only keep a couple of important files saved on my computer (which I back up regularly on a USB key anyways).
I don't mind starting from a clean (ie. freshly installed OS) computer and losing all of my personal files, I just want to know whether this would actually work in the event of a system crash, or whether there is some special reason why I would also need to have Time Machine.
The Time Capsules seem expensive, and it would be a waste to buy one if all it is not necessary in my case.

Do you need TimeMachine? No. You are absolutely right - if something totally trashes your hard drive you could restore everything using the grey DVD plus all the other 3rd party software you'd have to install separately. And if you actually backed up all your important stuff to a USB flash drive you'd be fine once you manually copied it all back. BUT I'm betting you aren't actually backing up all your important files - email? Safari bookmarks? your keychain? preferences? Address book contacts? Plus there's no telling when disaster will strike so you may spend a good bit of the day online without saving that cool stuff you just located and then bam the drive dies. Oops.
You may just be underestimating how much is involved in setting the computer up again. The last time I started from scratch, installing from the installation DVD plus my other software discs, it took me most of Saturday. Not all of that time was spent sitting at the computer but about half of it was. Entering all the serial numbers was especially a PITA. Last week I installed a new drive in my MacBook and restored from TimeMachine. Total time to complete: 4 hours. Time I spent sitting in front of the computer working: less than 15 minutes.
The great thing about TimeMachine is that it is doing its work every hour without any intervention from you and there's no need to buy an expensive TimeCapsule. An external drive is all you need - depending on how big the drive you choose you may spend $50 - $150 for a decent drive. A FireWire drive is faster than a USB drive but either is fine and the speed isn't that important once the first big backup has finished. I strongly recommend that you let TM backup the entire computer but you could just have it back up your personal drive space. Figure out how much data you need to back up, add a little extra for 'wiggle room' and then double it. That's the smallest drive you should buy. Triple it and that is about the biggest drive you'd need.

I can't erase my old Time Machine Backup hard drive.

Hi,
I have a hard drive that I was using for my Time Machine backup. It now doesn't show up in Finder, but when I go to disk utilities it shows up but I can't erase it so I can use it again.
It is a WD hard drive and isn't too old.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Try repairing disk & repairing permissions on the drive in disk utility.
Have you tried partitioning it again?
Otherwise it sounds like it's dead.

Erasing Part of Time Machine

I have a mbpro and my g4mdd backed up to the time machine. I recently added an internal drive for just doing a cloned back up for the g4. Or course tmachine backed that up too, which to me is 100gig of redundant back up. How can I go back and erase the added back added from the extra internal drive without affecting the other backup?
1. G4MDD I want to keep
2. MBPro I want to discard.
I've heard this can be tricky.
thanks
Steve

Welcome to the discussions, Steve!
Open your hard drive and look for your Time Capsule icon under the SHARED heading. Click the Time Capsule icon and a Time Capsule folder will appear in the window to the right. Double click this folder.
You should now see a "sparsebundle" file for each computer that has been backing up. The sparsebundle displays the name of the computer and it's MAC address so you should be able to identify the device whose backups you want to delete. The sparsebundle file contains all of the backups for a given computer.
Click the sparsebundle file to highlight it, then click the gear shaped icon above and select Move To Trash. Be careful here as the file is not retrievable once you click the delete button.

Erase Hard Drive;Time Machine Backup

I recently discovered that I have some bad directories in my main hard drive which is causing some performance deficits on my computer. I always use an external hard drive exclusively for Time Machine, and it backs up several times a day. If I wipe my hard drive, will I be able to select my Time Machine drive and restore everything I had prior to erasing the disk? In my Time Machine preferences, I have not excluded the backup of any kind of file. Will my computer (all settings, preferences, etc.) be exactly as it was before the disk erase if I back up from my Time Machine drive? I just want to make sure that I don't lose anything? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-P.

Hey there,
Yes, if you backed up everything and restore everything, your computer should seem as exactly as it was. More on restoring from Time Machine can be found in the link below. Hope this helps.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15638.html
B-rock

Erasing a dead Time Capsule

My Time Capsule died last week due to a power outage or surge at my home. Fortunately I was covered under warranty, and got a replacement sent very quickly. I now need to return the old one.
Does anyone know how to erase any contents of the old one for security/identity/privacy's sake before I send it back? It is totally dead, no lights, nada.
Thanks!

Your only option would be to physically remove the drive, place it in an enclosure, and erase it that way (assuming the drive works well enough). Removing the drive voids the warranty; whether Apple will accept it as a returned item in that condition, you'd have to ask them.
I don't think I'd be particularly worried, though, about just returning it "as is". Apple certainly has a reputation to maintain, and allowing their techs to copy sensitive data off returned TC's is something they're surely pretty careful to avoid.
Give them a call, express your concerns, and see what they have to say.

Manually erasing some older Time Machine backups?

I need to move a bunch of stuff from my HD to my external (I am pushing the 10% limit on my HD) but my external is getting pretty full itself. Can I delete older backups, say from September from my backup?

TM will automatically delete the oldest backups if space is needed. See:
About TM "Backup Drive is Full" Alert
TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Data are deleted to make space for a new backup, but if TM is unable to delete enough files to free up space for the new backup, then you will get a disk full error. Normal thinning during a backup occurs during TM's periodic weekly and monthly consolidation backups. Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.
In order to delete any files from a TM backup drive the only way it should be done is by using the TM application. Open the Finder to the file's location, then open the TM application. Navigate back in time. Then select the file. Use the Tool icon in the Finder's toolbar and select the Delete option.
Do not delete anything from the TM backup drive manually. Use the TM application per the above.

Dead time machine

And another one.........mine was bought on the 4th March 2008. Just under 2 years use. Not good enough Apple! You are supposed to be superior products! Yes it is a 6f8 serial number

Wow phoned apple and they say mine is in the range of those that they are replacing. new one now on its way!
well done apple, my faith is restored.

How to erase iPhoto picture backups in Time Machine

Hello.
I can't seem to find a way to erase pictures directly in iPhoto while beeing in Time Machine as I do with the finder's wheel button. Delete key or ctrl-clic won't work. How does one do that ?
Thanks for your reply.

Hi Barry ! Thanks, I'm happy to be finally subscribed.
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough before, let me restate it.
(excuse my english)
erasing pictures is no problem in iPhoto, but I can't seem to find a way to erase backups while browsing iPhoto Library in the past in Time Machine. Say I have pictures I've deleted, some pictures I don't want anymore (in the present), but Time Machine made a backup of them during many days, weeks, months maybe, how to erase these pictures in Time Machine ?
I found how to erase backup in the Finder by pressing this button that has a wheel on it and then click on "erase all copies of this file" (I don't know how it's called in english, my system runs in french), but the iPhoto window (while being in Time Machine) doesn't seem to have any kind of buttons. Pressing delete (or backspace) while selecting a picture or an event doesn't erase it. In fact, there's nothing I found that can be done in iPhoto's Time Machine browsing except swiping events and restore pictures.
My question is: how do you erase backup pictures in Time Machine ? Is it possible to erase directly in Time Machine iPhoto pictures, events ?
I've look many different forums, including this one, everybody talks about restoring, but I could find very little subjects about deleting backups, and nothing while being in iPhoto directly.
in fact, the same applies for adressbook application. How to permanently erase contacts ? If I erase them in the program, there's still a backup in Time Machine, and there seems to be no way of erasing them directly in Time Machine, just like in iPhoto. No button or normal functions work for that matter (backspace, ctrl-clic > delete eventually, etc.)
Sorry for the long post.
Message was edited by: Nordlaser

How to backup files from old time machine to new time machine

I have been using an external drive as my Time Machine for about a year. I just got a Time Capsule. Can I set up Time Machine to move all the backups from my old drive to my new Time Capsule? I assume it's not as simple as dragging the files from my old drive to the Time Capsule drive.
I have clicked Change Disk... in the Time Machine preferences to change my backup drive to the Time Capsule. However, I don't think that's going to move my old backup files to the Time Capsule.

boboosta wrote:
Unfortunately, I do not have enough spare disk space on a temporary disk. I've got 600 GB on my time machine drive. I went ahead and changed my Time Machine disk to the Time Capsule. I'll keep the backup files on my old time machine disk for a few weeks--in hopes a solution is found. After that, I'll erase the old time machine files to free up the disk space.
You might have been able to transfer the old Time Capsule contents to the new one by connecting the old Time Capsule to your computer with an Ethernet cable. If this gave you visibility of the disks of both Time Capsules, then you could use your computer to transfer the "sparsebundle" file(s) from the old to the new.
Now that you've started using your new Time Capsule, if you try once again to transfer those files, you'll lose any interim Time Machine backups, although that may not be a problem.
Edit: I knew I'd seen such a discussion somewhere: http://www.tidbits.com/Talk/2791

Repeated error: 11 problems while trying to backup to time machine

A few months ago I purchased a 750GB NESO external hard drive and have never been able to back up using time machine on it. I can manually back up files no problem, but I have yet to get time machine to finish a complete backup, despite trying every fix I could find on the internet.
This includes reformatting the external, making sure there is a separate partition for the Time machine backup, making sure that partition is formatted as Mac OS extended (journaled) and GUID.
Every time I try to back up I get the same error message: "An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume". This happens at various time during the backup process. Sometimes after a few MBs, sometimes after 1.5 Gigs have been backed up.
This is what I get from the system log every time-
*Feb 3 18:34:59 Computername com.apple.backupd[1228]: Copied 137 files (1.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.*
*Feb 3 18:34:59 Computername com.apple.backupd[1228]: Copy stage failed with error:11*
*Feb 3 18:35:04 Computername com.apple.backupd[1228]: Backup failed with error: 11*
*Feb 3 18:35:05 Computername UserNotificationCenter[1282]: Error loading /Library/QuickTime/DivX Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX Decoder: dlopen(/Library/QuickTime/DivX Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX Decoder, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:\n /Library/QuickTime/DivX Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX Decoder: no matching architecture in universal wrapper*
*Feb 3 18:35:54: --- last message repeated 37 times ---*
I have tried excluding the divx decoder.component file I located in the Quicktime folder, I have excluded the whole Divx application, I have even excluded the entire Quicktime folder. I also reseted the time machine setup including erasing the existing "/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/nameOfComputer/date.inProgress" file as advised in the troubleshooting guide in this forum after excluding each. Still the same error every time.
After having tried all suggested solutions including those listed in the troubeshooting guide here I am truly baffled as to what the problem is. Please advise.

brocktoon4 wrote:
Any idea how this is possible? Did the smaller partition isolate the defect? Thank you again for all your suggestions and help. I am relieved to finally get time machine working. If you can shed some light on this little mystery as well I would be grateful.
I don't have a lot of expertise there, but yes, if there's a bad spot on the disk, in the area where TM was trying to put new backups, that could do it.
Partitions aren't like folders, where their data may be scattered; each one is on a +*physically separate+* part of the disk.
Usually, if there's a bad spot, it will be discovered when writing to it; any time you do a write, it's automatically read back and compared. If there's a problem, it's retried a certain number of times, and if it still fails, the sector is marked "damaged" so it won't be re-used, and a different sector used.
I would strongly* recommend that you not trust your backups to a drive that's had such trouble, especially if they're your only backups.
I learned many years ago (the hard way, of course ), not to trust my backups to a single app or piece of hardware. No app is perfect; neither is any hardware.
You might want to keep a secondary backup, such as a "bootable clone" of your system, on a separate external disk. This is commonly done with CarbonCopyCloner (which I use in addition to full Time Machine backups) or SuperDuper. There are variations, but typically a clone is an exact copy of your system, with none of the previous copies of things you've deleted or changed, like Time Machine keeps. Unlike Time Machine, you can boot and run your Mac normally (but a bit slower) from them.
This gives you the advantages of both types of backup, and protects you from a problem with one of them (external drives fail, too). Some folks do the "clone" to a portable external HD, and take it to their safe deposit box, workplace, relative's house, or other secure location periodically. Others have a pair that they swap weekly or so. Thus they're also protected against fire, flood, theft, direct lightning strike on their power lines, etc.
CCC is donationware, so you can use it free for a while. If you decide to keep it, send them some $$ so they can keep it up to date. SD has a free version, but to do updates (rather than a full replacement) or automatic scheduling, you need the paid version (about $30).
Either is available via Google, VersionTracker.com, or MacUpdate.com.

HT201250 Once I use time machine to back up my Mac Air, can I delete all my files from HD and still have access to them on TM (external hard disk)?

New to Time Machine. The HD on my Mac Air is full so I got an external HD and using TM to back up everything.
Can I erase all files (pictures, docs, etc) from my Mac and still have access to those files through Time Machine?

That is a bad idea. Time Machine is strictly a backup utility. What you describe will require archiving files, which Time Machine is not designed to accomplish.
Once you erase files from your MacBook Air, they will eventually be erased from your Time Machine backup. This is by design, as Time Machine will eventually fill your backup volume and will delete old files as required. Depending on when they were first backed up and how long they existed on your MBA before you erase them, they could disappear in as little as one hour.
Use Carbon Copy Cloner or equivalent "clone" utility and configure it to archive files that do not exist on the source, or simply copy them over manually using the Finder. You can then delete them from your MBA. Bear in mind that once you do that, you no longer have a backup copy. The only copies will exist on the external HD.

How to erase a dead Time Machine: Necessary? If so, how?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for