HT201250 what to do when external drive is full

My IMac is almost full. It has 240 out of 250Gb being used.
My external hard drive has two partitions:
     1st partition (810 out of 831GB are being used) for Timemachine backups
     2nd partition (80 out of 100GB are being used) as Bootdisk
Since both partitions on external drive is almost full, whenever I backup with TimeMachine, it says it deleted
an older version to make room for latest backup.
Question:   If I buy another external harddrive, say a 2GB, do I :
     -Copy files from current external drive to new one, and if so how do I go about doing that?
     -Just put current external drive on shelf and just start using the new external drive? And if so, will
     Time Machine get confused if, in the future, I try to reconnect the older external drive to recover a file?
     -Other options?

For the TM stuff, see Pondini's TM FAQs. Once you sort out that stuff, consider moving a lot of data off your smallish int HD to the ext HD. If I had to do it, I'd repartition the ext HD into two pieces. One at 300 GB to hold a clone of your internal HD and the other to hold the TM portion. That necessitates starting over, but might solve all you issues.

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My Mac tells me my external drive is full when it clearly isn't.

My Macbook air tells me my 500 gb external drive is full when it clearly isn't, I have about 350 gb left. I have been moving files around all afternoon from my external drive to my mac and back on but now I can't put my last file back on and my mac is almost full too so I can't tranfer everything back on my mac and erase the the content of external drive which I would normally do. Please help.

Please post the complete, verbatim text of any error messages you saw, and specify where you saw them: in an application window, a CrashReporter window, a log, or whatever.

HT201250 I have 2 Lacie external drives connected to a Windows PC. What is the best scenario for backing up files on both computers? I would like to save all my files on one backup drive and have Time Machine backup that external drive to the other.

I don't know if this is a good idea, because the external drive is going to be slower than using my local hard drive to open files from. My IMac has 1tb and the 2 external drives have 1tb each. The IMac is my computer and my Wife uses the Windows PC, so I have to make sure both of our files are backed up. Thanks in advance for any advice regarding this issue.

I'm in a similar situation including movies I've purchased from iTunes...
Here's my setup:
I have all my iTunes data (music, movies, etc.) as well as about 10 GB of photos stored on a nework storage device that uses RAID-5 with SATA disks. This is basically a little toaster-sized NAS machine with four hard drives in it (www.infrant.com). If one of these drives dies, I get alerted and can insert a new one without missing a beat since the data is stored redundantly across all drives. I can also just yank out any one of the four drives while the thing is running and my data is still safe (I tried this after I bought it as a test).
That's how I prevent problems with a single disk... Redundancy
Now onto "backups"...
Nightly, my little RAID toaster automatically backs itself up to an attached 250GB USB drive. However, these backups are only of my critical data... documents, photos and home movies... I don't bother backing up my "Hollywood" movies since I can live without them in a disaster.
... I actually don't permanently store anything I care about on a laptop or a desktop. It all goes on the NAS box (Network Sttached Storage) and then my other computers use it as a network drive. It's attached via Gigbait to my main computer and via wireless to most everything else.
My achilles heel is that I don't store anything outside of my house yet. If I was smart, I'd alternate two USB drives attached to my NAS box and always keep one of them somewhere else (Safe Deposit Box?).
...and that's just one way to do it.
-Brian

What's up with external drives?

I found a FAQ here that says that Windows can't be on an external drive when using Boot Camp. That *****.
Here's why. I have a Windows box. I hate it, but there's a lot of software I use for work already installed on it. It'd be so much easier to just take out my C drive, put it in an external casing and then connect it to my Mac running Boot Camp so I can finally be free of the beast.
But no, I have to figure out where all my install discs are (tough after moving house twice in the past year), and then install XP as well as all the other software on a new partition once I upgrade to Leopard (when Adobe supports it).

you can run OS X from external drives. And it is Microsoft's and not Apple's limitation in that regard.
You can do what you say if you use a VM (Fusion etc). And they can use and import from external drives, BootCamp partition, and use it from there.
I wish I could install Vista as easily on external RAID as I can with OS X, but it seems too complicated to attempt and not supported. I keep all my docs and files and email though on a non-system drive, both in Vista and OS X. So whether using ultimate or home premium I have access to all my files. Same in OS X.

What is the best external drive for my MBP using Bootcamp

Here is what I would like to do.
I have the latest MBP (5/2008) and I am using bootcamp with vista. I use my mac side and my vista side of the partition equally.
I am finding it annoying that I am running out of drive space on both side of my computer.
I am looking for an external drive that I can use with both vista and OS X. Do they exist? I am guessing any drive can be formated to work with one or the other but can any drive work with both at the same time?
Ideally the drive would be a wifi drive and I can save off all my music and pictures to the external drive and it would be able to stream the music back to my notebook on either side of bootcamp.
I would also like to plug the drive in and use it as an external drive when editing with final cut.
I would also like to use the drive wirelessly for backups with OS X time machine.
Is this asking too much from an external drive?
What type of drives work well with OS X/ FCP and video storage? Does it have to be firewire or can it be USB2.0?
Thanks for any help. I am asking because the 1TB apple time capsule is too expensive and will not work with vista.

Edit Update:
When I saw wireless-ly all I am really looking for is an drive that can also be used as a networked drive. The drive itself does not need wifi (might be nice) I just want to be able to be able to keep the drive away from my laptop (most of the time) and plug it into my router so it will show up as a networked drive for both all my computers on my home network.
Thanks for any suggestion
Healimonster

Pictures only appear when external drive connected

Ok...so I selected all my pics in iPhoto from user acct #2 and drug them to my external hard drive. Then I logged into user acct #1, slected all pics in the external drive and drug them into iPhoto where they all seemed to import. However, when my external drive isn't plugged into my MacBood the imported pics show up in the interface but if I hit the space bar to blow them up to full size all I get is a gray ?. So what have I done and how do I fix it?
Thanks!

Try going through the 5 R's to see if it helps. It's possible that a reset may fix things for you. You may have to do a restore, which would delete your files from the iPod and set it back to factory settings. You will then need to re-sync the music/pics to your computer.
http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/five_rs/

What's waking my external drive?

I've got a Western Digital USB external drive connected for my Time Machine backup. It has worked fine for a least a year. Now all of a sudden, something is waking it up every few minutes, and it is not Time Machine (I even turned Time Machine off.)
What ever it is, the WD drive will wake up, spin for a few minutes, then go back to sleep. Several minutes later, it will wake up again, and repeat the process. This is not only annoying, but can't be good for the drive!
Anyone have any ideas on what might cause this?
Thanks,
JimT

Jim Thurber wrote:
Thanks baltwo and Pondini. I did as you suggested, and made sure Spotlight was not indexing the drive. I'm not running any anti-virus program and frankly, Console is a little over my head!
There's probably not going to be anything in the logs, but Sherlock will find all sorts of things there. Note the exact time of a couple of the wake-ups.
Use the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). You should probably be signed-on as Admin, to have read rights to the logs. When it starts, click +*Show Log List+* in the toolbar, then navigate in the sidebar that opens up to your system.log and select it. That will open your current log at the end (bottom). Scroll upwards to the date and time of the wake-ups.
Most of the messages you'll see are status and info for developers, so you may have to slog through a fair amount of extraneous stuff.
If you see the same or similar messages at the times in question, but not at other times, copy and post them here.
While you're there, by expanding the various folders in the sidebar, you'll find all sorts of logs that the system keeps. Your previous system logs are compressed, and found near the bottom, and named system.log.0.bz2 etc. These are rotated and deleted automatically by the normal system maintenance processes.

[Solved] Wierd boot order when external drives are connected

So, I've got two external drives, an ntfs drive and ext4 drive. After a recent upgrade, I get this error message when starting up the computer with them connected.
Bootloader: syslinux.
For the ntfs drive:
::performing fsck on '/dev/sda1'
fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for /dev/sda1
ERROR: fsck failed on '/dev/sda1'
::mounting '/dev/sda1' on real boot
mount: unknown filesytem type 'ntfs'
For the ext4 drive (Megadrive is the name of the hard drive):
::performing fsck on '/dev/sda1'
Megadrive: clean, 230913/188148544 files, 193365856/732566385 blocks
ERROR: Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist. Bailing out, you are your own. Good luck.
With both of them connected, it gives the same message as for when the ext4 external is connected. When they are both disconnected, it finds the proper drive that I recorded in syslinux.cfg file.
What could be causing this? If someone could point me in the direction of how to troubleshoot this, that would be a great help?
Last edited by anark10n (2013-03-24 22:42:11)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UUID#by-uuid

Can I set an alarm when external drive powers off?

I must be one of the few people who have no trouble at all with TM! I use it to back up about 1TB of photos (I am a semi-pro photographer) to two different drives - keeping one offsite at the office and rotating them regularly.
However - my external drive is hidden at home when connected. When we have a power outage (all too often here in MA) then the drive powers off and does not power on again (I am using MacAlly enclosures - have tried several, these are the most reliable to date).
Given that TM works so well, I never think to check if it has backed up so if the power has cycled I don't notice that TM has not run. Is there any way to set an alert (dialog box popup, auto email etc) to tell me when TM cannot access the drive as it is powered off. Is this buried in Leopard, or does anyone know of a 3rd party app?
Thanks

I could not agree more with Kappy.
I would never plug either my Mac or my external into anything but a UPS. They've gotten much less expensive lately, and even a fairly small one ($100 to $130 or so) will run my Mac and external for an hour or so.
But you don't necessarily need even that much; just enough for your Mac to power itself down in an orderly manner.
If you have a power failure to either your Mac or external disk, it can corrupt your data. I'd recommend using Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) to do a +Repair Disk+ (not permissions) on your external, and a +Verify Disk+ (not permissions) on your internal. If the internal shows errors, you'll have to use the copy of DU on your Leopard Install disc to fix them. Post back if you need to do this but don't know how.

What is the best external drive for Macbook Pro?

Migration Assistant is not moving files from my Macbook OS X 10.5.8 to My new Macbook Pro just purchased. Apple Support suggested I transfer thru an external drive. They suggested a 1 TB. They said it would be sufficient for migration and afterward for back up and storage of media and pics. What would be the best one for this purpose?
Thank You

Go to OWC and purchase a drive and an enclosure. Put it together yourself. Takes about five minutes and a screwdriver. Or you can purchase one already complete from them if you prefer.

Error Message -6753 when External Drive/Printers Connected

I downloaded Airport Utility 5.3.2 (532.8) and am now having problems with my Airport Extreme. I have a green light and internet access, but I am no longer able to access the external drive or the 2 printers connected to the Airport (all connected USB through a hub).
When I open Airport Utility and try to update the settings or check on the status of the drive or printers, I get the -6753 Message that prompts me to check my connections. So far, I have repaired permissions, unplugged and disconnected the Airport and even reset it, but when I hook the drive and printers up, it always reverts to this situation.
Has anyone found a fix for this problem or knows how I could install an earlier version of the utility? Thanks in advance.
Grant

You have a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store for diagnosis. It's a free service.

What is an Appropriate External Drive Size?

OK, this is not specifically a MP question, but I beleive can still be answered here (hopefully). I've looked through the threads, but can't quite find the clarity necessary to make a good decision.
I have a friend running an older Mac (Desktop) not sure which model. He says he has 500GB running and older OS (not Leopard) He's at his GB capicity, his computer is giving him a capcity limit warning, so he needs to backup and clean up...What size external drive is necessary here?
Any help will be highly appreciated.
A.F

As said, 500GB and 750GB are the most cost effective, 500GB slightly more so than 750,
There may be 1TB external drives available, but these are unfairly expensive.
It would really help if we knew the Mac model, whether his 500GB disk is currently internal or external, and the version of the older OS X.
I think it was Mac OSX 10.2.3 that allowed disk capacities above 320GB. So if his Mac is PMG4 era, it may be an earlier OS meaning he's only using 320GB of his 500GB disk.
Further, if it's a pre-MDD PMG4 and the disk is internal, he'll be limited to the first 128GB of the disk.

IPhoto Starts up when External Drive is Hooked up

Just as it says on the subject header...........the iphoto program starts up as soon as i have my external drive hooked up. How do i get rid of it? It gets annoying....
thanks in advanced......

Yep, it still launces iPhoto......even if there's no camera connected to it. I even tried to change the "capture" setting too but it still does the same thing. Any idea or clue?
Oh yea, my external HD is formatted to be FAT32 as well. When i plug that into a PC, it doesn't start any other program.
Perhaps i should update iPhoto? Thing is, i don't even use iPhoto.

HT201250 Time Machine connections to external drive on ethernet router

Time machine was able to backup to an external drive connected through a router. It no longer finds the drive. What has caused this?

Hello DamperDan,
The following article provides a number of things worth checking (or double-checking, as the case may be) in order to restore functionality to your setup.
AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule: External USB drive becomes inaccessible
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3271
Cheers,
Allen

Not Recognizing Camera When External Drive in Use

I have FCP3 installed successfully on my new G5, and when I use a external drive (G-drive Q), my camera (gl-2) is [missing]. When I turn the drive off, it works just fine. I've looked around the forum and the quicktime reciept thing doesn't seem like the solution (there are no 703, ### takes). Any Help? Please?!

. I'd rather not have to buy a new card. Any other solutions? Are people having the same problems with FCP 5? It seems like it is a case of you need to buy this to buy this to have this run on that, but only after buying this plus upgrading to that...
Well, video requires configurations that work. Firewire capture drives are not recommended.
You have an internal additional SATA bay. Spend $80.00 and install a 160 Gb SATA drive in it.
That's to me at least a minimum configuration.
It isn't an upgrade; it's an essential part of video editing.

HT201250 what to do when external drive is full

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