How to use time machine

Where can I go to tounderstand how time machine works when using the time machine in conjunction wil an external hard drive?

Read the master.. the Great Pondini.
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

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How to use time machine to back up

how to use time machine to back up files

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
See > http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
To set up Time Machine, open System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk, and choose the external disk you want to use to make the backups. Time Machine will start making its first backup just after selecting your external drive.
If you have more questions about Time Machine, see this website > http://pondini.org

I have a LaCie external hard disk. I do not know how to retrieve photos from iphoto that have disappeared. I do not know how to use Time Machine

I have a LaCie external hard drive. I also have Time Machine. I somehow have "lost" almost all my 5,000+ photos from iPhoto 8.1.2. I would appreciate someone giving me directions on how to retrieve the photos from the external hard drive or Time Machine.
The last thing that I did that is different from my normal routine was to trash duplicate music tunes from iTunes. I cannot figure out how that would have caused my photos to disappear.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Marilyn

I remember being cautioned to never do anything with the iPhoto Library. Should I have clicked on the iPhoto Library and then Restore?
I do not know "how" items are being placed in the LaCie external drive, just that it shows a backup running about every hour. I have taken a snapshot of the Time Machine Preferences I would you to see. Maybe that would answer this question.
In March 2011 I had to have hard drive on my iMac replaced. I had been using a Seagate external drive for backups. However I was not using Time Machine. When the Apple guru was helping me restore all my files etc on the new hard drive he was not familiar with Seagate and recommended I purchase this LaCie and use Time Machine. I never had any problem retrieving items from the Seagate backup. It was very straightforward. As I mentioned previously, I just don't have a clue with the LaCie and Time Machine.
I hope this is not TMI.
Marilyn

How to use time machine to replace the current iMovie for one a few weeks ago?

I have a movie in iMovie that somehow became unusable. The size says it is 10GB when it should only be about 1GB. I have been to the Genius Bar for a total of 4 hours and the only solution we can find is to REMAKE the entire movie. They say that one or more of my movie clips must have imbedded data that it shutting the whole iMovie program down. They say there is no way to know which clip is causing the problem. I really don't want to remake the entire 2 hour movie. I tried to use time machine and found my movie from about 3 weeks ago (before it ballooned to 10GB--so I guess before I added the bad clip) and I just wanted to replace my current one with this version and just fill in the last 3 weeks of data. However I can't seem to do this. Does anyone know how to do this using iMovie '08?

sheri69 wrote:
I tried to use time machine and found my movie from about 3 weeks ago (before it ballooned to 10GB--so I guess before I added the bad clip) and I just wanted to replace my current one with this version and just fill in the last 3 weeks of data. However I can't seem to do this. Does anyone know how to do this using iMovie '08?
You don't do it with iMovie, but with Time Machine.
Quit iMovie, then locate and select the file you want to restore in your backups via the "Star Wars" display and click the Restore button. See #15 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

How to use Time Machine/Migration Assistant

I have a 2008 Mac Pro that died. I now have a 2010 Mac Pro. The 2010 Mac Pro only has the original Apple software installed so far (updated to 10.6.8).
I have a Time Machine backup drive from the 2008 Mac, as well as an additional hard drive that may contain all or most of the data from the now dead 2008 machine.
Presently, I must use OS 10.6.8 because of my need to run some legacy software. How do I use Time Machine from my 2008 Mac Pro to get my items on the 2010 Mac Pro?

Here is another point of view:
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC
And another speedup to consider at this juncture:
User Tip: Creating a lean, fast Boot Drive

How to use Time Machine before and after installing a new hard drive

So basically I'm buying a new hard drive for my Macbook pro and I have a lot of files on my computer that I would like to save. I have never used Time Machine before so I need help on how to set it up before AND after installing the harddrive so my files get transferred onto the new hard drive. Thanks in advance

wjosten wrote:
Me, I would never use Time Machine to do this. What I'd suggest you do is get an exterior enclosure for your new drive. Then use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your existing drive to your new drive. Once done, verify your clone is bootable & all of your data present. Then swap drives & use your old drive for Time Machine backups(after erasing it). Then get another drive & exterior enclosure to regularly clone your new drive to.
Unless he was swapping for a lower capacity HDD or to a lower capacity SSD, then the old drive would make a lousy Time Machine disk. However, whenever I swap out a disk I do exactly what you do. CCC to get the ol drive onto a new one. Test by starting up to the new (but still external drive). Then replace the internal drive.
I usually just sell the old drive on eBay. My Time Machine backup is always 2X the size of the internal drive, which I believe is a bit above recommendations, but works for me. The price of large external drives is almost the same as smaller internal ones.

TS3161 how to use time machine to reconstitute old iPhoto library

In moving photos in other files to the Pictures Folder, I somehow changed the iPhoto Library. How do I use Time Machine to put the iPhoto Library back in the right place with the picture data for iPhoto prior the the additions to the Picture folder.

Open Home/Folder/Pictures/iPhoto
Click the Time Machine icon in the toolbar and enter...
Go back in time and click restore...

How do use Time Machine to back up to my network drive?

I have been dealing with this issue for days. When I had bought my MacBook Pro a couple of weeks ago I figured Id try and back it up to my 1.5tb Western Digital HD that's plugged into the USB port on my router. I Have connected to it through finder and can access it fine however my main point in getting to it is to back up my MacBook with Time Machine over the air to the external HD. I have researched and tried many tricks such as running codes in finder to create a "sparsebundle" using the code " hdiutil create -size 100g -fs HFS+J -volname "Time Machine" COMPUTERNAME_XXXXXXXXXXXX.sparsebundle " in Terminal. I was able to succeed in creating one but my problem comes when I want to transfer it to the network drive. I use the code " rsync -aE COMPUTERNAME_XXXXXXXXXXXX.sparsebundle /Volumes/NETWORKDRIVE/ ". However I get error codes such as "file could not be transferred (23)" and "no file or directory (2)". Also before I did all of these steps I made sure to make network drives discoverable in Time Machine by running the code " defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1 " in Terminal. However without using the trick that I keep getting errors with Time Machine gets error message 45 when attempting to back up to the Network Drive straight after making the Drive discoverable. I know Apple niched Time Machine back ups on network drives after or toward the end of Leopard and thats why it is so hard to do it now but I was hoping someone can aid me in my never ending problem?

Hi Barney
What format is the drive on the router? It has to be HFS+ (Extended, journaled).
Sorry Barney, that's not correct in this context. The user must create an HFS+ sparse bundle and then upload it to the network drive. The network drive will be formatted as its formatted.
I also believe it has to be an Apple Airport Extreme router.
Again, that is not the case. I am successfully using Time Machine to an Iomega network drive for the last 12 months. No issues at all.
However, you are making your backup completely unreliable.
There may be an element of truth to this, however, I have used the "Star Wars" interface to recover individual files directly. If I should need to perform a larger recovery and for some reason I can't get the usual access through Apple software, I have established that I can directly access the sparse bundle on the drive and mount it on the computer. Once there, I can just copy files directly from it. The sparse bundle folder structure makes it easy to get the latest version of every file with a couple of mouse drags. This means that I will always be able to get access to my backups.
Apple nixed it because they couldn't get it to work reliably. I imagine they only support that sort of thing on their own Time Capsule because they can control the wireless transmission and error checking (and they sold TCs specifically for that purpose).
I don't know why Apple nixed it - I've had zero problems with this configuration and it is by far the most sensible way to use Time Machine. It seems completely pointless to have a portable MacBook and then have to physically connect a drive to it permanently for backup purposes.
I've only had personal experience with the Iomega drive - maybe it only works with a limited number of manufacturers?
Bob
Message was edited by: Bob Lang1

How to use Time Machine with an external drive?

Hi…I’m new to this, I hope someone can help me=)
I’m trying to back up my Macbook Pro 10.6.8 using Time Machine with an external drive Seagate Backplus Slim. I’ve tried several solutions that I’ve found through different forums but still wouldn’t work.
Every time I opened Time Machine, it has this appearance:
Then when I click “Select backup Disk”, it goes on like this:
And after I click “Set Up Time Capsule”, it has this:
It keeps saying that it couldn’t find AirPort wireless, even though I have good WIFI connection.
Anyone know what I should do? Please help….Thanks everyone

Ayuphie ~ In your Time Machine Preferences panel, slide the OFF-ON switch to the ON position:

How to use Time Machine to restore previous OS

I have a 2009 27-inch iMac, still running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I would like to upgrade to Yosemite, but the more I read on this forum, the more terrified I get. If I try it, and then run into some of the hideous problems I read, can I use Time Machine to get back to where I am now?

or maybe do a 'baby step' upgrade to Mountain Lion. Would that make any sense?
That does not make any sense - even if you could do it which you cannot.
An easy way to revert/retreat is to make a bootable clone (SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner work well) on an external drive. If you need to retreat, you can do that from there.
but the more I read on this forum, the more terrified I get.
Incidentally, I suggest you forget the anecdotal "problems." OS X 10.10 is stable and works well. This place is like a hospital where everone is sick. Here, everyone posting has a problem. None of us post "everything is working well comments" - which would be silly in any event.
IMHO, your bigger risk is to continue to run your computer on back level and unsupported software. Sooner or later, you are going to have problems.
Barry
P.S. Like everything else, the above is my opinion

How to use Time Machine to backup a disk image

I have my iPhoto libray in a disk image in the shared folder so that it can be shared by two user accounts. Is there a way to use Time Machine to backup the mounted image? I don't want to backup the entire disk image file every time there is a change in iPhoto (over 200GB!). I'd like to just backup the changes, but so far, it doesn't seem to work?

There is no way to back up a mounted, writable disk image with Time Machine. If you want to keep data on a disk image, the best option is to convert it to a sparsebundle, which consists of many small files instead of one big file. It will be backed up much more efficiently, but only when not mounted.

How to use Time machine to back up to a later date?

Recently got a new drive from apple cuz old drive died.
I could only use Time machine for a complete back-up on 8/22/12 but I can't copy or access the files from 11/21/12 in time machine..
Tried copying the specific file I needed and the computer as a whole but the files that show up are only the ones that are already there on 8/22/12.
Could this be because my newer file system is 10.8.2 and the old restore point is still 10.7.5? Please help.

I'm totally confused... sorry. What do you mean by "try to back up to 11/21/12"? Did you mean "restore from 11/21", or are you actually trying to backup new data on your Time Machine drive?
If you open Migration Assistant (located in the Applications/Utilities folder), and choose to restore from a Time Machine backup, the program will automatically pull the latest Time Machine backup and put all the data back where it was.
Alternatively, if you have your installation DVDs (if your computer came with one, or alternatively you can boot to the recovery partition) you can restore your entire system to your latest Time Machine backup. When you select the option to do so from the Utilities menu, you're given a choice of dates, which correspond to valid restore points in your backup drive. So, in this case, you would choose the one from 11/21. Hope this answers your question!

How to use Time Machine to do a system restore after clean install of mavericks

Hi I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro 15" ... I updated from mountain lion to mavericks and was having issues with mavericks running slow. Took it to Apple today and they were great with helping me upgrade the RAM to the max (8GB DDR3) ... I asked them to do a clean install of Mavericks as well. I have Time Machine backups that I would like to use to restore to my previous settings but I can't seem to figure out what to do.... When I enter Time Machine and I try and select a past date, it doesn't let me choose a date to "restore" ... What am I doing wrong? Please walk me through it thanks!

Use Migration Assistant to migrate your previous account from the Time Machine backup. Migration Assistant is in your Utilities folder.
Read: OS X: How to migrate data from another Mac using Mavericks
When doing so, select your previous User account but do not migrate "Applications", "Computer and Network Settings" or "Other files and folders". De-select those choices. Subsequent to using Migration Assistant, you will need to reinstall any essential software you may require.
"Essential software" means programs that have been verified by their developers to be compatible with Mavericks, and specifically excludes junk such as "cleaners", "boosters", "optimizers", or ill-conceived "anti-virus" garbage. Install that essential software from original sources such as the App Store, developer's websites, or original optical media, and not from untrustworthy download aggregator hosting sites such as C net dot com, Mac update dot com, etc, and not from backups that may have been corrupted.
Be aware that if you already created an account with the same name as the one you want to migrate, Migration Assistant will offer to rename the account it's about to create. In other words if you're already logged in as "Tara", and you want to migrate the account named Tara from the Time Machine backup, it will offer to name the migrated account Tara1. Migration Assistant will tell you what it's going to do, but the warning is easy to overlook. Therefore you might consider creating another, temporary account with Administrator privileges, and deleting the one you created subsequent to erasing your Mac and installing Mavericks.
For those instructions read: OS X Mavericks: Set up users on your Mac. Follow the instructions under "Add a user". Be sure to select “Allow user to administer this computer.”
Log in under that temporary account, then use Migration Assistant. Confirm everything works as you expect, then you can delete the temporary account.

I want to do a clean install, but how to use Time Machine to get my data back?

I want to do to clean install of my Snow Leopard OS system...all my data is backed up on my TM. I heard if I restore from Time Machine any system errors created then will have an effect on the clean install? Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose? So how am I supposed to get around that?
Any help would be appreciated, since it would be my first clean installed ever performed (I'm a bit scared, lol).

greyskiesblack wrote:
would it be okay to delete the Time Machine back up then and use the external hard drive as a normal back up of all my stuff copied over to it by drag and drop?
Leave the TM drive alone, it's a extra backup as you should have two separate hardware backups of your data at all times. Use another new drive for a copy of the files until your safely up on the fresh install, then erase and reset the TM drive to your new configuration.
It didn't occur to me that TM would keep the system as it was...and I'm just now learning about TM. I'm glad I have decided to ask before I proceeded to install!!
TM copies stuff over in a general manner, trying to keep what you have just like what you had, which unfortuntly if something goes wrong that isn't the best course of action because you don't want the old junk back on the new machine.
So since it's incrediably difficult to cherry pick exactly what you want when restoring from TM, it's better to have the user files on a regular drive (no TM) when doing a fresh install.
It's really not that hard restoring manually, just create the same named user and drag and drop the contents of the User file folders (music, pictures, documents, movies) right into the new folders on the new user.
You do a fresh install in this manner.
1: Backup files manually to a external drive, disconnect all drives.
2: hold c boot off the 10.6 disk, erase the drive and reformat (wipes all contents)
3: quit and install 10.6, reboot and go through setup, create the same named user as before
4: Software update to 10.6.8
5: install all programs from fresh sources
6: last files cherry picked from backup (do not transfer Users/Library)
In that spefic order for best performance.
It's not excactly as perfect as TM restore, but then you don't get all the problems back.

How to use Time Machine to back up and restore from 2 external hard drives

Hi I need some help
I am about to switch internal hard drives and kept a time machine back up to an external hard drive until I had filled it up. That was a few months ago and in order to make space I deleted some files from my internal drive. In the last few months I have filled that space (About 50GBs)on my internal drive. Needless to say those new files aren't backed up.
What I want to do is after switching internal hard drives restore everything including the new files apps and updates etc via time machine
Can I back up my most recent computer situation as it is to a new external hard drive using TM and then restore that to the new internal hard drive and then restore specific folders from my first external TM hard drive?
Thanks a million
Rotang

I am sorry, i am confused about what exactly you are trying to say here.
well, Time machine works on very simple concept. it backs up either all the data from your computer or only selected data(customized) from the computer.
to restore you can follow these steps as mentioned below
To restore files:
Open a window for the item you want to restore.
For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. If you want to recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail.
If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock.
If Time Machine isn’t in the Dock, look for it in the Applications folder.
Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the backups Time Machine has created.
If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it.
The windows behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it and then click Restore.
You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk.
If an item you restore has the same name as another item on your computer, you’re asked if you want to keep the current item, the restored item, or both.
The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if it is found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored item to its original location.
And with regards to your question,
Can I back up my most recent computer situation as it is to a new external hard drive using TM and then restore that to the new internal hard drive and then restore specific folders from my first external TM hard drive?
yes, you can do that but but this can be done only by navigating into the Time machine restore folder and then copying the uptdated folder to the destination folder(drive) manually..
http://mac-support.blogspot.com

How to use time machine

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