If I reset my admin password, will Time Machine backups be impacted?

I have a Mac Mini, OS X10.6.8. I forgot my admin password, but I see I can reboot with specific commands to reset my admin password. Before I do this, I would like to know if files on my computer AND/OR backup files on my Time Machine will be impacted. Will all remain the same, no disrupt if I reset by rebooting and giving commands? Thanks!

Time Machine won't be affected. Neither will your files, except the keychains, which will be reset to empty. You can't recover those without the password.

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Installing microsoft office for mac and getting prompt for installer password. i have put in apple id password and admin password and not working, i have also reset my admin password 3 times and it is still not working? how do i get past this?

installing microsoft office for mac and getting prompt for installer password. i have put in apple id password and admin password and not working, i have also reset my admin password 3 times and it is still not working? how do i get past this?

You don't use your Apple ID or its password to install anything on your Mac. You use the admin account's name and password.
Use the name and password you last entered when resetting them. The "name" you use is not the short name of the admin account folder.
For example. If you create an admin account of John Smith, the short name given to that account's folder will be johnsmith. So when an app requests an admin name and password to install something, the admin name you enter is John Smith, not johnsmith.

HT201250 Will Time Machine backup the files on my desktop?

Will Time Machine backup the files on my desktop? Backup files anywhere on my computer even if they're not neatly in the document folders?

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3107
Most commonly used backup methods explained

Password for Time machine backup

Anyone can help with security issue for time machine backup?
-I want my time machine disk to be password protected
since it is very easy for everyone accessing backup disk from time machine, it is really not secure, or any other backup application have password protection?

vernonstreet wrote:
If I have misplaced my password for the time capsule, how do I reset?
That's a different password. Do a "soft reset" per [Resetting an AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule FAQ|http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3728].

How to reset network settings but keep Time Machine backup data?

I am having problems connecting to the Internet through TC but works fine with Ethernet directly to the computer. I would like to wipe clean the network settings in Time Capsule but not lose the Time Machine backups. How to do this?
thanks
Ken

Just perform a "hard" reset on the Time Capsule (TC). This type of reset will not erase existing backups on the TC's internal drive.

Password protect Time Machine backups

Hello,
I share a LaCie external HDD for Time Machine backups with other people (who also use the drive to back up).
Inside the 'Backups.backupdb' folder, there are folders from the people who back up. Everyone can open all of them - without needing any passwords. I'd like it so that each owner has access to their files, but still have Time Machine backups without any problems or whatever.
When choose 'Get Info' of my folder, and look at the 'Sharing & Permissions' I see:
system - Read & Write,
staff - Read only, and
everyone - Read only.
Why is there no "myusername"? I don't know which one to change (and how).
How do I do this?
I've been looking around a little - I can't find anything that sounds like it'd help me.
Thanks in advance!

rudieih wrote:
Hey, sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
The drive is used by several MacBooks, each with only one user installed on it (no Guest accounts, nothing else). So each backup file in Backups.backupdb is only for one user/machine.
that doesn't matter. the fact that there is only one account doesn't mean that there could not be more accounts. the permissions for this folder are still set for the whole computer.
I'd like it so I can't see the backups of their computers and they can't see mine. How can I do this?
You can't. if you use the TM backup drive in this fashion there is no way to hide backup folders for different computers from each other. The only thing you can do if you are worried about this sort of thing is to turn on filevault on your account. then nobody but you will be able to see backups of your home directory (not the whole computer). Filefault stores your home directory inside an encrypted sparse bundle which can not be accessed without knowing the password to open it. However, Filevault is a very finicky software and it's extremely poorly integrated with Time machine. It only backs up your home directory once you log out and you won't be able to browse old backups of your home directory using TM interface.
Right now everyone can browse everything.

Will Time Machine backup still exist after fresh install of Lion?

Hi all. I have a MacBook Pro and I've come to the conclusion that I need to do a fresh installation to solve several problems I've been having. My question involves my Time Machine backup. I have a complete, current backup on a USB drive.
After I do the fresh installation, rather than copy everything from the backup (and possibly bringing the problems with it) I would like to just selectively restore certain things. I know how to do all this.
The question I have is, after I set up my new system, what will happen if I activate Time Machine and point it to the same USB drive that has my current backup? Will it erase the backup, or will it create a new backup alongside the old one (there's plenty of room on the drive) or will it simply append the backup, treating it just like a new checkpoint in the incremental backup? I guess I'm hoping for the third option, because then I would be able to go back into Time Machine in case I forget something or want to copy something from my old system, even after I finish setting up the new one.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

When you erase a drive, it gets a new UUID (Universally Unique IDentifier). That's what OSX uses to keep track of drives, not their names. So it's treated as a different disk.
If you do a full system restore, or use either Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant to transfer the data from your backups, that leaves a "trail" that Time Machine uses to figure out what's happened, and "associate" the "new" drive with the old backups. The next backup will be only an "incremental" one, of what's new or changed, and the new and old backups will all be treated as if they'd been done from the "new" drive.
However, if you restore things "piecemeal," there's no trail. Time Machine will make a new, full backup of the "new" drive. You can still see and restore from the "old" ones, via the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
But if you use the exact same short user names (home folder names), then you may be able to force Time Machine to "associate" the "new" drive with the old backups. See #B6 in the Troubleshooting article for instructions.

Will Time Machine backup of SL erase Lion at the same time?

I normally wait before downloading new OSX's from Apple, but didn't this time and regret it. Before installing Lion, I did a Time Machine backup of my iMac. My question is: how do I restore my iMac to that last backup with Snow Leopard? I want Lion off my iMac (for now), but I DON'T want to have to reinstall all my applications, lose my iTunes Library, lose my iPhoto and Aperture libraries or all of the other applications I have. So - do I load the Snow Leopard disc.. erase my hard drive, reinstall Snow Leopard then restore from Time Machine, or can I just select the last restore from Time Machine and it will delete Lion for me? The reason I ask is because I want my internet back without having to manually reconnect through Network Preferences every 10 minutes. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Restore to a multiple disk setup should work fine. But there are as always some tricks to it.
See our expert Pondini's explaination and follow his links.. I suggest you actually spend some time understanding how TM works.
http://pondini.org/TM/32.html
I would also recommend spending a few dollars and buy CCC or superduper. Make a backup of each drive. These 3rd party backup programs are more flexible and you can create direct images of the drives. It makes recovery a much much easier process.
If it is a Mac Pro put in another disk for TM backups and use a USB or even esata card and external sata drive for backups using CCC. Doing it that way you can make a bootable image of your main drive.

Password for time machine backups

I have a 250 GB WD external hard drive that I use for my Time machine backups.
I do not want to encrypt the backups on the external HD.
I only want to create a password for the HD so that when mounted it requires a password.
Is there a way I can do this.

No.

Will Time Machine backup Time Capsule files to an attached usb drive?

Hi Everyone,
I want to put shared media files on my Time Capsule and then have Time Machine backup my imac and all the files on the TC to a usb drive attached to the Capsule. Possible? That way I have a shared media server that is being backup up regularly.
Thanks for the help!

No. Time Machine cannot backup any network attached storage device such as TC. TM can only backup a Mac's internal HDD plus and ATTACHED/LOCAL HDD to the external HDD connect to the TC USB port.

Password protect Time Machine backup files?

My Home folder and subfolders are unaccessible for other users of my iMac. And lets say, my household.
However, as soon as I make a TM backup on an external HD, anybody can look into my folders right away.
Since encryption will change the functionality of TM (no file by file recovery) I am looking for password protect the backup.
How come TM doesn't incorporate this?
*OSX protects my folders, Time Machine lays them out in the open.*

Tee Loo wrote:
My Home folder and subfolders are unaccessible for other users of my iMac. And lets say, my household.
However, as soon as I make a TM backup on an external HD, anybody can look into my folders right away.
that's not true. TM backups have EXACTLY the same POSIX permissions as the originals and as such have exactly the same protection as the originals as far as access is concerned. no more and no less. that means among other things that given an admin password one may be able to view them on any computer.
the only way to truly protect your backups is encryption. you seem to know about that and the limitations about filevault with Tm but that's the best you ca do.
Since encryption will change the functionality of TM (no file by file recovery) I am looking for password protect the backup.
How come TM doesn't incorporate this?
*OSX protects my folders, Time Machine lays them out in the open.*

Will time machine backup external 16gb USB pen drive?

I have a Macbook at home but PC at work. I carry all of my work on a 16gb sandisk pendrive which i work off on both computers. I want to back everything on my mac as well as the pendrive (which i make changes on daily) to an external hard drive or time capsule. My question is: will time capsule check for changes on the pen drive and back them up or does it only check for changes on macbook hard drive? Up till now i have to drag entire contents of pen drive every time i want to back it up which is time consuming!

TM will back up any directly attached drives but only provided they are formatted mac os extended. by what you describe your USB stick is formatted FAT in which case TM will not back it up. you can try using something like Chronosync to sync the drive when you need to. or you can reformat the drive mac os extended. however, windows can not read mac os extended format without extra software like Mac Drive which you'd have to get.

How do I password protect time machine backup

A friend of mine just had her computer and external hard drive stolen. How do I protect my external hard drive (time machine) from being accessed if stolen?

If you have FileVault turned on there is an Option in Time Machine to encrypt the backup. If you do not have FileVault turned on your computer is your biggest vulnerability. You will find a detailed tutorial for turning FileVault on and Encrypting Time Machine here.

If i move my iPhoto library to an external hdd, will Time Machine backup these photos as well?

I've moved my iPhoto library to an external HDD, I was wondering if now it has been moved outside of my iMac whether Timemachine will still back up my photos, or do I have to change any timemachine preferences to accomodate such a change, any responses will be welcomed-thankyou!

Thanks, Linc, you are the greatest!
So I moved my iTunes library to my external disk. When I checked Time Machine's Excluded list it was not there. Then I entered TM and saw that the library had been backed up from the external disk. So all is well and apparently the OS guys stopped adding external drives to the Excluded list.

Will Time Machine backup 2 internal HDs and put the data back into them when restoring?

Hello,
I am going to be doing a clean install of Snow Leopard. I have a machine that has 2 internal HDs. If they are backup up using Time Machine, when restoring, will it put those files exactly as they were?
Thanks!

Restore to a multiple disk setup should work fine. But there are as always some tricks to it.
See our expert Pondini's explaination and follow his links.. I suggest you actually spend some time understanding how TM works.
http://pondini.org/TM/32.html
I would also recommend spending a few dollars and buy CCC or superduper. Make a backup of each drive. These 3rd party backup programs are more flexible and you can create direct images of the drives. It makes recovery a much much easier process.
If it is a Mac Pro put in another disk for TM backups and use a USB or even esata card and external sata drive for backups using CCC. Doing it that way you can make a bootable image of your main drive.

If I reset my admin password, will Time Machine backups be impacted?

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