How to reinitialize an external hard disk drive which serves for Time Machine?

How to reinitialize an external hard disk drive which serves for Time Machine?
Thanks for your answer.

Everything you need to know about initializing (formatting) is here.
http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Lots of useful information on TM is here in the same place.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

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External Hard disk has space problem for Time Machine

Im not sure this is the right place to post this, but I've just got OSX.5 so Time Machine is new to me. I've got a 500Gb Firewire Lacie Drive which I now have, as far as I can see, about 110GB of stuff in. I have a bout 300Gb to back up. Currently my mac can only see 260GB free, which means theres about 150GB that isnt explained. I have run Disk Inventory, which shows the dot files on the drive. There seem to be hardly any. Is there anything else that could be taking up such a large amount of disk space? Theres one movie file of 28GB that I cannot move off the drive.

Tim Whelan2 wrote:
Im not sure this is the right place to post this, but I've just got OSX.5 so Time Machine is new to me. I've got a 500Gb Firewire Lacie Drive which I now have, as far as I can see, about 110GB of stuff in.
Let's see what Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) says. When it starts, click the top line for your drive in the sidebar (should have size and make), then the Partition tab. Towards the bottom is a *Total Capacity* line, followed by two different numbers: one in GB, the other in bytes. The first will be about 465 GB, the second roughly 500 billion. This is the different way of counting: decimal vs. binary.
There's also a *Partition Map Scheme* line. This should be followed by GUID or +Apple Partition Map.+ If your drive isn't one of those, you're going to have a problem using it with Time Machine. Report back what this says.
In the center part of the display is a diagram showing all the partitions currently on the disk. Each is represented by a box, with a name in the center, and the amount used represented by light blue shading.
If there's only one partition, it's total size and amount available will be in the center, shown in GB.
If there are 2 or more, click each one in turn to see it's sizes. The Total of the sizes should be almost the same as the total at the bottom (the Partition Map takes a bit of space).
It sounds like you may have 2 partitions, one for TM backups, one for your "other stuff". If so, each partition is treated separately for most purposes: there should be two icons on your desktop and/or Finder sidebar, for example.
Report back what you find, and whether it makes sense to you or not. Then we can figure out what's going on and what you need to do.
But note this: This drive is a bit small to use with Time Machine. TM works best if it has 2-3 times the space of what it's backing-up, so it can keep a few months of your backups. See item #1 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
Even if you could use the entire 465 GB or so, that's less than twice the 300 gb you want to back up. That would work, for a while, but depending on how you use your Mac, TM may not be able to keep your backups for very long.

How to password protect external hard disk drives

Hi All,
I have purchased and external USB port hard disk. The problem with it is anyone just plug it to thier computers USB port and use it as we use our windows explorer to browse the filesystem. However whenever I plug to my computers USB port it should prompt me for a password and once authenticated it should allow me to browse the filesystem of my external hard disk. How can I achieve this using java ?
Thanks & Regards,
Kumar.

If you really want this to work properly, you will have to write a DLL for Windows that will intercept the appropriate filesystem call and prompt you for a password. Otherwise, another option would be:
Create a standalone Java application that will read/write from the hard drive
Use Java Cryptography extension for all read/writes to the hard drive (encrypt onto hard drive, decrypt into memory or internal hard drive)
Have your sign-on required to use the Java application (and hence, decrypt the contents of the drive)
Use passphrase-based symmetric encryption so that the password can be the actual key for the encryption/decryption (or if you want, have that key unlock a larger symmetric key also encrypted on the drive)- Saish
"My karma ran over your dogma." - Anon

How to stream audio/video files on bb playbook and create different play lists from another pc and/or external hard disk drive connected with a share router

hi guys
i wish to use my external hard disk drive (1tb) connected with a belkin share router as main storage drive and stream audio/ video and other files on bb playbook through wifi.
also wish to create different playlists directly on playbook.
please tell me guys how can I do it.
thank you in advance

Try this...
http://forums.crackberry.com/blackberry-playbook-f222/how-stream-video-music-more-your-mac-pc-your-p...

TS1338 I have 4 Trojan Horse viruses on my external drive I use for Time Machine. My MacBook Pro hard drive is clean. I have eased the external drive 3 times using Disk Utility and it still has the 4 Trojan Horse viruses. How do I get rid of them. Wayne

I have 4 Trojan Horse viruses on my external drive I use for Time Machine. My MacBook Pro hard drive is clean. I have eased the external drive 3 times using Disk Utility and it still has the 4 Trojan Horse viruses. How do I get rid of them. I am using 10.8.3 Wayne

ksu62 wrote:
The infection names are: classload.jar-719ef6a5.zip
                                          classload.jar-5db452le31.zip
                                          ar3.jar-6ce3b2f-45l483f.zip
                                          classload.jar-lef99412-63bsd3fl.zip
Those look alot like file names and not infection names. I don't find any reference to anything like that on Norton or VirusTotal. Since you said these were Trojans, I would expect to see "Trojan" as part of the infection name.
".jar" files are executable Java applets. The random alpha-numerics would seem to indicate a cache file, likely from a browser with Java enabled. And we all know what ".zip" means.
Worst case is that you had Java enabled in a browser and were infected by one of the late variants of the Flashback Trojan over a year ago or one of a couple of other attacks using the same vulnerability but targetted against a small number of political sympathizers. Much more probable is that thes were Windows only Trojans. Hopefully you have a fully up-to-date OS X, including Java, and have disabled Java in all your browsers by now.

Connecting external hard disk drive

I was just wondering if we buy an external hard disk drive, will it work on the Mac ? Or must we also buy an external hard disk drive manufactured specially by Apple ?
Can Mac read and write from/to this external HDD ?
Thanks

Apple has not manufactured external hard drives in at least 8 years.
Most external hard drives will work with Macs. Many though are preformated to only work with Mac OS X. Since according to your profile 10.5.4 is on your machine, you should be fine on that account. Some are preformated for NTFS, or FAT32 and you need to use Disk Utility in your Applications -> Utilities folder to format it to be usable as a clone backup, or as a backup for Time Machine. If you want to share the hard drive between Mac and Windows machines, see this user tip:
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=4582486
Note, since you posted to the iMac Flat Panel forum, I can only surmise you have a PowerPC Mac with a white dome and a screen on a rotating chrome arm. If not, you posted to the wrong forum. Here's how to identify your Mac:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1463?viewlocale=en_US
If you have a PowerPC Mac, you must get a Firewire hard drive in order for your external hard drive to be bootable as a clone backup.
Intel Macs supports both USB and Firewire for external booting.

I can't copy my itunes library to an external hard disk drive!!

this is my first time at the forum and i dont find a better way to ask, i want to copy my itunes library to an external hard disk drive for have a back up, but when i try to copy it it appears this message "the item "itunes music" has 1 or more items that are in use and cannot be modified", i dont know why, then i search for help in apple support and this article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751, but i do what it says and i still having my problem, i can't copy my music, that message keep's appearing and it dont let me copy my music.

forget it i discover my problem, this message gives u 2 option stop or continue i just click continue and it get copied, i think this is normal but like this is my fisrt time i dot this i get confused, i think i still used to windows, i cant believe because i have a ear with this computer. well anything is a good experience.

Hi there! yesterday I installed Mavericks on my Macbook. Since then, it doesn't mount my external hard disk drive anymore, which he did a week ago (without the update). Is there anyone out there who knows a solution?

Hi there! Yesterday, I installed Mavericks on my Macbook. Since then, it doesn't recognize my external hard disk drive anymore (at least not on the desktop. In Germany they call it "it doens't mount it". I don't know if it's the same expression in english?)
I just used it a week ago, before I did the update and it worked perfectly fine.
Is there anyone out there who knows a solution for this problem? I've been googleing for hours now and can't find any answer.
Thank you!!!

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Dismount multiple external hard disk drives

I have multiple external hard disk drives and was wondering what the command line is that will dismount all of these at once? Note that there is also one external DVD unit as well which I would not want to dismount.
Thanks,
Lyman

diskutil unmount "/path/to/disk";diskutil unmount "/path/to/disk";diskutil unmount "/path/to/disk"
Just replace replace "/path/to/disk" with the path to the mount point, leaving the quotes.
Good luck!

I am not able to delete or write my files to my external hard disk drive what shall i do?

i am teja i brought a new mac book air here i am not able to write or delete the files that are present in a external hard disk drive what shall i do now to enable required permisions................plz reply me i am new to mac

I guess your external drive is Windows (NTFS) formattet.
By default you were only able to read from that drive, as Mac doesent support NTFS write.
If you want to have read/write access to a NTFS volume you have to use add-in tools like MacFuse or Paragon on your Mac.
Not having write or delete permissions on the external drive may also preventyou from changing existing files on that drive.
Right click on the drive in Finder and choose "Information" from the menu will give you more information about the reasons of your problem.
Lupunus

HT201269 I am trying to save memory on my iPhone 4S/ ios6. Can I back up all photos to icloud and the external hard disk I normally use for photos? If I then delete photos from the iPhone do the get deleted on iCloud?

I am trying to save memory on my iPhone 4S/ ios6.
1) Can I back up all photos to icloud and the external hard disk I normally use for photos? If I then delete photos from the iPhone do the get deleted on iCloud?
2) Can I back up the newsstand to iCloud and save memory on the iPhone?
3) Can I back up the bookshelf to icloud and save memory on the iPhone?

1. What format is the external drive? It sounds like it's ina format that Macs can't write to. Is it a NAS or NTFS?
2. Easiest thing: just move your iPhoto Library to the external
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

How do I prevent my hard drive being used for time machine back ups?

I want to install Snow Leopard but it tells me that the OS cannot be installed because the disk is being used for Time Machine back ups. I don't recall setting up my hard drive to be used this way (why would I?!) but now I can't seem to

Did you have TM turned on at any time? If so, and if you had no external hard drive attached, could it be that it created its own backup on a portion of your hard drive? I don't use TM, but I believe I read that this may be possible. Take a look at Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) and report what you see on the left - under the top heading, is there more than one partition showing, such as here:
(I have two partitions: one for Snow Leopard, the other for Lion) - what does yours show?

Cannot install Yosemite as hard drive is used for Time Machine Backup, How Do I Change This?

I have a 2010 MacBook Pro and when I attempted to install Yosemite the MacBook Pro Drive is greyed out and a message appears that read,"drive is used for Time Machine Backup." How do I change this to install Yosemite?
Thanks,
Scott

Well, if you don't want to use that drive for Time Machine anymore, then you should format it using Disk Utility. Then you can install Yosemite on it.
You should, of course, have another full backup somewhere. I really can't state this strongly enough: You should have a full and complete and up to date backup of all your data before you upgrade to OS X Yosemite.

Can i use time capsule for external h drive and also for time machine?

Can i use time capsule for external h drive and also for time machine?

Hello, vascocaco.
If I understand correctly, you're wondering if you can use your Time Capsule's internal hard disk both for Time Machine backups and as an ordinary drive. Is this your question?
You can, but Time Machine backups may take longer.
To do it, you should partition your Time Capsule's hard disk to create one volume for the backups and one for other files.

Down loaded Mavericks, will not install on my computer because it says "this hard drive is used for time machine back up".

Down loaded mavericks, it will not install on my computer because it says" this hard drive is used for time machine back up". So I used my old computer hard drive for back up and reloaded the program but it still says the first hard drive is being used.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Make sure you have selected your MacBook Pro's hard drive as the destination to install Mavericks. If so, you have the "Backups.backupdb" folder in the root level of your hard drive.
That's the folder used by Time Machine to store backups of your files, and the Mavericks installer understands that your internal hard disk is the Time Machine drive.
To fix this, open a Finder window, select the Go menu (on the menu bar) > Go to Folder, and type:
Then, delete "Backups.backupdb", empty the Trash and run the Mavericks installer. Finally, install OS X Mavericks

How to reinitialize an external hard disk drive which serves for Time Machine?

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