How to I 'decommission' a time machine drive?

I set up a Buffalo external hard drive as a time machine. Changed my mind before the copying was finished. I trashed the TM file on the hard drive. Since then the drive spins all the time and some files are no longer accessible. How do I restabilize the drive? Could there be invisible files and if so how do I get rid of them? My iMac is running OS10.9.2
Thanks

I would use Disk Utility to reformat the external drive.

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How do i reformat a time machine drive to regular external drive

i have an external hard drive that i used for time machine. how do i reformat it so it goes back to it's original setting and i can use it for transferring and storing files?
also, is there a way i could partition an external hard drive so that maybe half is used for time machine and the other half is used for transferring files and such?

1. Format, Erase, or Reformat a drive

How to protect data on time machine drives??

I have am MBPro and use it in my office and at home. Since I do most of my work in the office, I have an external TM drive there on my desktop that I plugin whenever I work there.
My concern ist now that anybody could come to my office, take my external drive and it would not be protected by any password stuff or anything, would it?
So is there any way to leave this data behind in my office securily or should I get a safe to store the external drive in it?

Zac. wrote:
What I have found is that the TM backup database is only accessible to the machine that created it. The individual accounts in the TM backup, assuming you have more than one account backed up, is only accessible to that individual account. While it is not Filevault level security, unless your home folder is filevault protected, you should be okay.
HTH
zac
When I disconnect the external drive with the Time Machine backup from my MacBook and connect it to my iMac at work, I can browse the TM folder and access just about any file for any user account that is backed up. Am I really the only one where the backup is not protected?

I have a power pc (g5) computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

I have a Power PC G5 computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 Mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

Hi, likely the easiest is to just poll the drive & get something like this...
Get MacScan...
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/macscan.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/
But if you have a good external drive already, just clone it.
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

How can i put music drive AND a time machine drive on wireless network?

Right now I have a MacBook with ONE external drive with my music and movies… and ANOTHERexternal drive for my backups.
I would LOVE to figure out how to hook both the music drive and the time machine drive to a wireless router so the only plug I have for my laptop is the power plug.
I already have a NetGear wireless router… but it only has ethernet ports out, no usb.
What would be the best/easiest way to network these two external hard drives?
tx!

Another option, where you can still utilize your existing drives, is to consider a dedicated NAS device that supports both Time Machine and iTunes functions. One such NAS device is the Synology DS415+. It would be far superior than what you have now. Albeit at an additional cost.

I have just installed a 2TB time capsule on my iMac i7, it see my second 1TB hard drive but the 256 SSD doesn't come up in the list of hard drives I can back up. How can I enable the time machine to see my first SSD 256gb hard drive?

I have just installed a 2TB time capsule on my iMac i7, it see my second 1TB hard drive but the 256 SSD doesn't come up in the list of hard drives I can back up. How can I enable the time machine to see my first SSD 256gb hard drive?

iLife is preinstalled on all the Macs. If you purchased iLife in the App Store or your computer came without DVDs, open App Store > Purchases and download the applications. If your Mac came with discs, insert the Applications DVD and install iLife applications

How do I make a hard drive "forget" that it was once a (no longer used) Time Machine drive?

I'm starting a new thread on this question in the hope that someone new will notice it.
I've started using a larger hard drive for my TM backups. I want to be able to use the previous drive for other things BUT I also want to keep the oldest TM backup, just in case. In order to do that I want to move all but one day's backup to the trash but of course get the "The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified." message. I also, of course, can't change the name of the backups.backupdb folder for the same reason. In older OSs it was possible to use a Terminal command to bypass all this but it would seem that it's no longer possible to do this in Mt. Lion.
Note that the old drive is NOT being used in Time Machine, so that's not the problem.
Does anyone know how to make Time Machine realize that the drive is now just a drive, not a Time Machine drive? Obviously I know I can just reformat it but then I'll lose ALL the files. I want to keep one day's worth, so reformatting is not the solution. I do know that I can copy everything over to another drive but I don't have another drive large enough to do that, so need to unflag the one set of files as TM backups and trash the others.
Any help gratefully accepted.

I think I understand your question, but I'm puzzled at what you are trying to accomplish.
Let's say you've been using TM for a year, now you start a new backup set on a different device.
What you seem to want to do is delete all the backups in the old backup set on the old except for the very first backup - ie. the oldest.
That would mean that you would retain the oldest backup from 1 year ago, and all the new backups from the start of the new set forward. Deleting all the past year's backups except for the very first plus the new backups going forward on the new device. Is that what you want?
The only way I know of doing this would be to manually delete in TM all the undesired backups -slow and tedious for sure,
On the other hand, you want to keep the last backup of on the old device then....
Assuming that you started the new back up set shortly after the last backup on the old device, then the first backup on the new and the last on the old are almost identical for all practical purposes.
If that's what you want I'm not sure it accomplishes anything useful.
Can you clarify what you want to achieve/do, so we can help you better.

HT201250 How do I partition my Time Machine back up drive (G-Drive) to back up both my IMac and my MacBook Air?

How do I partition my Time Machine back up drive (G-Drive) to back up both my IMac and my MacBook Air?

That's not needed, but if you want to do it, use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to create a new partition.
(70423)

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.

Hi, I used an external hard drive as a time machine,now I want to use it on a windows PC as a normal hard drive again. How do I "reformat" the time machine to an normal usb-device?

Hi, I used an external hard drive as a time machine,now I want to use it on a windows PC as a normal hard drive again. How do I "reformat" the time machine to an normal usb-device?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+format+hard+drive

HT4527 My old mac book was backed up to a Time Machine drive. That Macbook is dead. I have a new Mac Mini. How do I get the iTunes library (not just the music files but all other data...playlists, ratings, etc) on the new Mac from my Time Machine?

My old Mac died. I had it backed up to a Time Machine external drive (fortunately). I have a new Mac. I want to get my entire iTunes library from the Time Machine drive to the new Mac. I want not only the music files but all the "library" metadata, playlists, song rankings, unique genre designations. How do I do this?

No backup is a huge mistake.
You can redownload some itunes purchases in some countries:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store ... - Apple - Support

How can I get all of my music off of my laptop and onto an external hard drive? I bought a new hard drive for it but it got turned into a Time Machine drive...

how can I get all of my music off of my laptop and onto an external hard drive? I bought a new hard drive for it but it got turned into a Time Machine drive... I want to have all of my music on the external hard drive, and NOT on my macbook pro. Thanks everyone

Hello lramospsych,
To move your iTunes media library to a different location, take a look at the article below to walk you through that process. Make sure that you have everything organized before you move everything over.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
Regards,
-Norm G.

How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?

I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.

ivan wrote:
How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?
I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.
Hi iVain
Fire up *Disk Utility*, click the Restore tab, then drag your old and new TM drives into the Source and Destination fields. Click Restore, and a complete copy of your old TM files will be made on the new drive. Go to TM preferences and select the new drive, and it will continue backing up just as it left off.
Hope this answers your question. See:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2595485&tstart=0

How does one SUCCESSFULLY transfer Time-Machine backup to a new (larger) hard disk drive using OSX 10.5.8

I have read a number of articles about how to transfer a complete Time-Machine backup to a new (larger) hard disk-drive. Some of these articles are specifically for OSX10.6 users, which are not applicable to me since I am operating with OSX 10.5.8.
However, I have tried several times to use the Disk Utility 'Restore' function, dragging my old time-machine volume into the 'Source:' box and my new volume into the 'Destination:' box. This works, of sorts, BUT the newly created volume on the new larger hard disk-drive remains the same size as the original volume on the old Time-Machine HDD, with no apparent way of increasing the new volume's size. So I am not really any better off:
E.g. the total capacity of my new HDD is stated by 'Disk Utility' to be 465.8 GB, of which I'm told 228.2 GB is used for the Backups.backdb folder, but only 4.6 GB of free space is actually available. Yet under the 'Partition' tab of 'Disk Utility' it tells me that there is still 236.4 GB of available space.
Does anyone know how to resolve this issue without upgrading to OSX 10.6?

First, how did you prepare your new drive? See:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
If you plan to partition this new drive then be sure you create a larger partition for TM than your old volume.
Next, clone your old TM volume:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

I am tring to installe OS X Mavericks. When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

Open up your Finder and click on Go on the top menu bar. Select Computer and then double click Macintosh HD. In here delete the backup folder. Might be called backups.backupdb.

How to I 'decommission' a time machine drive?

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