How to keep two Time Machine backups on to one drive without re-formatting

i have two external drives drive 1 is 500gb and full with time machine backup, drive 2 is 1TB and has machine backup from jan2015 is it possible to combine the two into one?
I run a mid 2011 iMac 21.5"

No. Here is the most through information on Time Machine. http://pondini.org.
Maybe something in there will give you other ides.

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How do i install time machine backup from old mac to newer one

Hi, I know how to set up a brand new imac with full info and settings from an old mac from a time machine backup on a portable drive, BUT.... this time i have a 2011 imac in my studio already in use that we want to be completly swapped with full info and settings/software etc from an older 2009 imac, which we may sell on.
I have backup up via time machine the older 2009 mac, but when i plug this into the 2011 imac how do i completly wipe it and set up with info from the time machine?? it was easy doing it on a factoryt new mac but not this.
thanks
lee

If I have understood you properly, you want to migrate the data from the 2009 iMac onto the 2011 iMac but keeping the existing files on it.
To do this, use Migration Assistant > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889 It will create a new user with the transferred files from the old iMac.
If you want to wipe the 2011 iMac and restore everything from the 2009 iMac, the most reliable way is erasing the hard drive, reinstalling OS X and restoring the backup. If you are using the same OS X version on both iMacs, you can restore the Time Machine backup without having to reinstall OS X, just starting from the Mac OS X DVD (or Recovery HD, if you have OS X Lion or Mountain Lion)

How to select correct time machine backup for migration assistant

We have two MacBooks backing up to one Time Capsule using time machine: let's call them H and R.
I have had to reinstall Leopard on Macbook H and am now trying to restore using Migration Assistant.
Migration Assistant finds the Time Capsule and identifies that there are two Time Machine Backups, but doesn't give an option to select the one to use.
Whenever I click 'Continue' it does the 'Checking time machine backup' (for hours), then brings up the data to restore, but every time it comes up with the data and settings from Macbook R.
How can I tell Migration Assistant which Time Machine Backup I want to use?

Brilliant. That was it.
I used the other MacBook to run Disk Utility on my backup volume and repaired it: #A5 is bang on.
Then, Setup Assistant saw both backups and let me select the one I wanted. It's now transferring my stuff.
Very relieved and extremely grateful.
Your apple tips should come with every mac and time capsule.

How to eject a Time Machine backup?

I have one large hard drive that I partitioned it into a bunch of drives and I use it to back up my family's three laptops. I move it from machine to machine every few weeks and let Time Machine do a back up. This worked GREAT with 10.6.x but with an upgrade to 10.7.5 on one of the machines, I now get an error message saying the drive is in use and I have to force eject. I don't like doing that. It seems to work fine, but, if the back up has happened, the next back up won't happen for more than an hour, why can't I eject the disk(s) as I used to?
Do I just force eject anyway?
I also have another desktop machine I plan on upgrading to 10.7 (and eventually 10.8) and I keep two Time Machine back ups for that one, one hooked up to the machine and one offsite. Every month I switch them. I imagine I am going to have the same issue there as well.
What do I do? Is there a work around or some new option I am not taking advantage of?

Baltwo - that was a excellent link. Lots of good info. From reading through that, I get the feeling I should be able to do what I have been doing all along - have two Time Machine drives that get swapped out. So then the question is; Once Time Machine has finished a back up and I don't have Time Machine running, I should NOT be getting an error message saying I can't eject an TM external drive.
As it stands now, I have to Force Eject.
Why?

How to revert a Time Machine backup storage?

I recently just used the WD Elements SE external storage device as my Time Machine backup. But when I did, I cannot get the WD to work on my Windows anymore. And can anyone show me how to revert a Time Machine backup storage back just to its default state so i use it on the Windows? It's a priority.
And if you can somehow show me how to get a Time Machine backup storage to work for the Windows as well then that would be even better.
Thank you.

Sorry, you can't get a TM backup to work with Windows.
To use the HD as storage for both Mac and Windows, you'll need to reformat the disc as FAT32, or FAT64 if both systems support it.
To reformat from Disk Utility on the Mac;
Turn off Time Machine.
In DU, highlight the WD drive in the sidebar (the actual drive, with the makers name and size)
Select the partition tab
Set the partition sceme to 1 partition
Under the options button, set the partition map to Master Boot Record (MBR)
Set the file system to MS-DOS and name the new volume.
Click 'apply'
The clean volume will now appear below the drive in the sidebar.
Be aware that there is a limit to file sizes on FAT32 volumes of a little over 4GB.

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.

2nd External Drive - how to restore from Time Machine backup?

I have had Time Machine configured to back up my photos and videos on an external drive. My Time Machine backup is a separate drive attached to my MacBook by FireWire. I have Leopard OS. I have in the past successfully retrieved deleted photos from the Time Machine backups using iPhoto.
Now, unfortunately, the external drive with the photos and videos has developed a problem (possibly power-related) so that my MacBook no longer recognizes that drive. Obviously, this means that iPhoto can't find/open that photo library. Which means that iPhoto can't access the backup via Time Machine. Help! The photos must surely be on the Time Machine backup but I can't figure out any way to retrieve them.

callipygia600,
This one's easy. Purchase a new drive to replace the one that went "belly up." Format (erase) it using Mac OS Extended, and give the volume that will be created the exact same name as the bad drive. Navigate into the new (empty) volume in the Finder, then open Time Machine from the Dock.
You should be able to navigate "back in time" and see the backed up contents. Select everything you see, and click "Restore." It will all be restored to your new external drive. The key is to use the same name for the new drive.
In the meantime, your backup can be accessed in the Finder if necessary. Using the Finder, navigate into the "Backups.backupdb" folder on the backup drive, then into the latest backup. You will see one folder named for your startup disk, and another named for your secondary/external volume. Within that second folder you will find the items that were stored on the bad drive. You can safely copy these to another volume using the Finder, but do not attempt to move or modify them otherwise (do what you like with the copies).
Scott

Can I turn off Macbook while Time Capsule is archiving Time Machine backup to a USB drive?

My Time Capsule is archiving my Time Machine backup to a USB drive attached to it. I have initiated this process on my macbook (on the same lan with the Time Capsule), on which I am monitoring the archiving progress on the Airport Utility. Still almost a couple of days to go... Can I turn off my Macbook, or will that interrupt the process of archiving?

If LaPastenague is willing to do a "test", then we will all know more.
Opened my big mouth.
The archive is happening.. I turned off the computer it was setup from.. running Mavericks and latest utility once I got it started. I have been checking from v6 utility on Mountain Lion.. and it is excruciatingly slow. But is running.
I can check the progress but v6 utility is utterly and completely useless.. it continually shows the same numbers.
v5 utility does show it is crawling along.
v6
20min later..
Look, look, there is a tiny blue fleck in the progress bar!!
v5 utility shows the actual progress. Actually tells you total and amount backed up so far.
Amazing how advanced v5 utility is over v6.
The estimate of 10hours is probably correct at the present rate of progress. I suppose for 500GB, around 50GB/hr is about what we expect from TM backups etc.
I will post another picture in an hour and probably kill it then before I die of watching paint dry.

Errors when transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive.

Hello,
I need some help transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive. Let me explain what happened.
I have a Mac OSX Mountain Lion that was upgraded to Mavericks when the upgrade came out. Prior to upgrading, I've been backing up WD Passport Mac with the proprietary software "WD Unlocker on it". It worked flawlessly but after upgrading to Mavericks, I decided to backup and noticed that once i inserted the WD Passport, my screen will flicker, windows will close and reappear.
I decided to read up on this and discovered that Mavericks is not compatible with the "WD Unlocker " program on the Passport drive. Since I already have a backup in place, i decided to restore my computer to factory settings and when I attached the Passport drive with my backup on it, My device will see the backup but it will keep spinning for hours without restoring my backup. I decided to read further on this and I got the same Mavericks compatibility conclusion.
I then copied my entire backups.backupdb folder to my Mac desktop and formatted my WD Passport external drive and got rid of the proprietary software "WD Unlocker".. Once this was completed, I then tried to copy my backups.backupdb folder to my external drive within finder. Each time i tried, i get error messages and permission messages. Even when i changed the permission on the backups.backupdb folder to read & write for everyone, i still get the permissions error.
Please helppppp. I have over 500gb of vital data in my backup.
Thank you.

Since you don't really have a question, I will give you a very broad information source for the next time you have a Time Machine question.
Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Oh, you cannot use a computer whose only disk drive is the target of a an OS X cloning operation regardless of what software is used for the clone. You can, however, use the source drive except if you try to clone using Disk Utility.

Move existing Time Machine backups to new (larger) drive?

If I get a larger external HD for Time Machine backups, is it possible to move all the existing TM backups from my current drive to the new HD, or do I have to start from scratch?
Has anyone successfully done this?

One more question to the Pros here, please
I perfectly understand how to clone a drive with SuperDuper. But I am unsure about how to clone the Time Machine backup file.
In Finder's sidebar under SHARED I see the Time Capsule. On Time Capsule I see 2 sparsebundle files, one representing my iMac backup and the other my Powerbook backup, as the names indicate. But in SuperDuper's "Copy" dropdown I am not able to open either of them.
So I tried a different approach: I activated Time Machine on the Powerbook. A virtual drive labelled "Backup of Powerbook" pops up in Finder. Now I am able to choose this virtual drive in SuperDuper's "Copy" dropdown. I assume that this the correct file to clone?
Then I would say "to" Disk Image and give it an identical name ("Backup of Powerbook"). Now I should choose the destination where to store the clone. This will be the new USB-HDD that I am going attach to Time Capsule.
Image type would be "Read/Write sparse image"
Right?

Does Time Machine backup other external hard drives?

I am using a Seagate 500 GB to backup my data. Will Time Machine backup another external hard drive on which I store my iMovie projects? If so, how do I access them in the Time Machine mode? Thanks in advance.

nachdenki wrote:
strange, my external HDs were added to the exception list automatically. maybe because they wouldn't fit on the time machine volume.
It seems to depend on when the drives were connected. When you first turn Time Machine on, it only excludes the TM drive itself, and any drives not formatted HFS+.
If you connect a drive later on, that drive will be excluded automatically.

Transfer Time Machine backups to a new drive

Is there an automated or an easy way to transfer my current Time Machine back ups to the new Time Capsule (I am sure I will inevitably buy it]. Looks like a great system for notebook users but I wouldn't like to start again with time Machine I like having the security of back ups I have already accrued. My current drive is certainly not full and won't be for a while.

So far not very many people have had much success in copying their Time Machine backups to a new drive although the Restore option in Disk Utility ought to be able to do this. However, SuperDuper will support that capability when their new Leopard compatible version is released which should be in a week or so.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/

Can time-machine backup the boot camp drive?

can time-machine backup the boot camp drive?

can time-machine backup the boot camp drive?
No. Use third-party software such as WinClone to do that.
Time Machine can backup a Windows image file used by an emulator such as Parallels Desktop.
(50538)

How to restore a Time Machine Backup onto two Hard Drives?

Hey guys,
configuration as following:
I got a SSD, which contains all system stuff as well as apps. Further there is a HDD on which all kind of Multimedia is stored. I've put a symlink from my Home Folder to that Multimedia-HDD: Users/IceThunder -> Volumes/Multimedia.
Before my Mac crashed - I still don't know what was causing that - i backed up everything, so now I find two folders (System and Multimedia) in my .backupdb folder. If I use Time Machine to restore the state before it crashed it only offers to restore everything(?) on one specified disk, which is not what I want to.
Is there a way to get back an exact copy of the former state? How can I tell Time Machine to restore folder "System" on my SSD and folder "Multimedia" on my HDD?
Thanks in advance
IceThunder

Time Machine should restore to the disks from which the backups were made as long as each has the same name as before. For more help on this see Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help.

Backup management: how to update a Time Machine backup on a different Mac?

Hello everyone,
I need some advice. I have a question, which I think is simple, but my situation is a bit complicated, so I am not sure about what to do.
I will try to describe it as simply as possible.
There are 3 macs:
A: an old macbook (the white one)
B: a modern macbook pro (retina)
C: another modern macbook pro (TBD)
I am giving away B now; I expect to get C in 2 months time; I keep A with me all the time.
The goal is to migrate all of the data from B to C.
I have Time Machine backups of B.
Since the transition is a long time (2 months), I need to keep working on my data during this period. For this I will use A. This will generate new files, modify old ones, ...
Since A's HDD is much smaller than B's backup, I can move only part of them.
By the way, I have totally erased A and used migration assistant to restore part of my old data from B. So, when I use A now, I do it with my same account as in B (and the same I will use in C).
How do I manage my backups in such a way that, when I will get C, I can safely move all of the data I had in B plus all of the changes and modifications that I have done during the 2 month transition?
Can I just continue to use Time Machine (on A) to update the old backups? I am afraid that some mess could be created because the computers are different (before the backups were taken on B, while now on A), even the present data are different (because now A only contains a subset of the original B data, which I do NOT want to lose), the good point is that the user is the same.
Thanks for the patience to read through. If something is not clear I will be happy to explain better.

When you get MBP C and start it up for the first time you will be given the option to transfer data or not. You can transfer data from another Mac or from a backup such as Time Machine. The former requires that you be able to connect the two computers directly together either by Ethernet cable or by having both connected to a local Ethernet network. You can use wireless, but it's very slow compared to Ethernet, so I don't recommend wireless.
If you expect to perform the transfer from a Time Machine backup, then be sure to perform a backup of MBP B just before using it to transfer data to the new MBP C.
This same process can be used from MB A provided it is running Snow Leopard or later.
Also, see Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.

How to keep two Time Machine backups on to one drive without re-formatting

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