Moving an old TM backup to new drive

How do you migrate TM to your local hd and then restore to a re- partioned portable hd? I wanted to reformat my external hd to increase the portable size, 2 partitions now with TM as the 2nd partition. I was hoping just to reduce partition 1 size and increase 2 size for the TM. You cannot do. Thanks.

I have used SuperDuper! to clone the contents of my TM drive to a larger drive and it worked marvelously but...what you are talking about doing would scare the pants of me. You'd have to partition your internal hard drive so you can clone TM - as far as I know a clone is the only way to successfully copy a TM drive. Having done this you'd be able to test whether or not the cloned TM drive works or not because you could run TM's verification on it.
Here's what scares me though. Now you repartition the external drive, destroying TM on that external drive and so now, at least for a brief period of time both your data and backup exist on the same physical drive. What are the chances of disaster striking and you lose everything? A million to one? A billion to 1? A thousand to 1? I don't know, but I do know the number isn't zero and I do know of people who have used a partiton of their computer's drive for backing up and lost everything.
So if you have the $$ I'd recommend another external drive and use it as your temporary storage. Afterwards you'll have a second drive which you could use, for example, as an off-site backup.

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Moving TM backups to new drive

I have new larger external drive which i will use to store my video in one partition and for Time Machine backup of my internal drive on the other partition I have created.
Can I move the TM backups from an old drive to the new and then switch on TM to the new drive? In other words, can I move the place TM backs up to the new drive and not lose my history?

Doug Clo wrote:
Okay.
Intel Mac - that would be my processor?
Yes.
I have Intel - and the partition map scheme is Apple Partition Map - so that is wrong?
The partition is formatted Max OS Extended (Journaled).
So if i understand correctly I need to reformat the drive?
I have two partitions on this drive. I've just moved a pile of stuff onto the other partition. Am I going to have to reformat the whole drive to get the TM working properly, and can I format just the partition I need?
Probably not (but it's the whole drive that's either GUID or APM).
Also check the old TM drive; see what it is, especially the Format.
There's some disagreement over this, but TM and most things will probably work on an APM drive. What won't is, if you ever put a bootable "clone" on it, an Intel Mac won't boot from it.
So I'd say, you're probably ok with the drive "as is" unless you intend to boot from it.
And yes, if you didn't specify erase, on the target, do so.
Post back with the results, and we'll see what else you might be able to do.

Moving backups to new drive -- without using disk utility restore

Hello,
I have done some research on this already but I don't believe I've found the solution. I just bought a new media / backup hard drive, and I've moved my itunes library (over 100 GBs) to this drive. Now I have researched how to move the time machine backups to this drive, and know you can't just copy the files.
The instructions I've received tell me to use the disk utility to restore the old time machine backup drive to the new drive, however if I do that won't I lose the iTunes stuff currently on that drive?
Is there an easier way to move that data without me transferring the iTunes back to my laptop, and then restoring through disk utility, and then re-transferring the iTunes again?
thanks,
James

jimumbra wrote:
Hello,
I have done some research on this already but I don't believe I've found the solution. I just bought a new media / backup hard drive, and I've moved my itunes library (over 100 GBs) to this drive. Now I have researched how to move the time machine backups to this drive, and know you can't just copy the files.
The instructions I've received tell me to use the disk utility to restore the old time machine backup drive to the new drive, however if I do that won't I lose the iTunes stuff currently on that drive?
yes, you will. but it is also a VERY bad idea to keep other data on the same partition as the TM backup. first, this data will not be backed up by TM. if you value your itunes data you should have it backed up. also, TM is very buggy and there are too many situations when you need to delete existing TM backups and start from scratch. this should be done by erasing the entire TM partition. you should never delete any TM backups from finder. also, TM will eventually fill up the entire partition with TM backup. it will start bumping up against other data on the partition and you won't be able to put anything else on it.
the upshot is that you should make a separate partition just for TM. don't keep any other data on that partition. you can add a partition to the drive without disturbing your itunes data. type "create new volumes" in disk utility help to see how. however, that's not a good idea IMO as you'll have both the itunes data and the TM backups on the same physical drive. when the drive fails (and it will eventually) you'll loose everything.
Is there an easier way to move that data without me transferring the iTunes back to my laptop, and then restoring through disk utility, and then re-transferring the iTunes again?
thanks,
James

Time machine doesn't recognize old time machine backups after new drive

After getting my original hard drive replaced on apple care. Time machine refuses to recognize time machine backups dating back to October when I first installed Leopard. The Records are there on an "off-board" Lacie drive. Any fixes for this? I have had so many problems with Time Machine I am afraid to turn it back on. Last time it took over 40 hours to do an initial back-up.

Yes I had been having multiple problems and once saved the entire system in archive and install and also time machine had been active since October when I first installed it. all of this was saved to an off-board Lacie drive I can find the old time machine files easily enough but time machine since the new drive, does not recognize them. Since I got the drive back with tiger installed, I first had to re-install Leopard so I don't know if that caused Time machine to start over . I did do an archive and install at that time but there was nothing really to archive since they had not recovered my old files. If this wasn't bad enough The Technician replaced my administrator password with his own and the was off for a few days and I couldn't do anything for awhile. You have been very helpful thank you for your time on my behalf.
Respectfully,
Thomas Carlisle

Drive full, add on to copied backup in new drive?

Well, I finally filled the external drive using Time Machine.
OK... got a new larger drive. Copied files from the old drive to the new thinking it will just start up from where it left off. Nope. Now it's starting a new backup. Called support. "That's the way it works"
If I want to get to older files I have to plug in the older hard drive and stop any Time Machine backup or it will remove older backups on the original drive.
How can I use the new drive with just adding onto the old copied files?

That's the solution I tried. First tried Copy Copy Cloner, gave up when didn't copy in 24 hours. Used SuperDuper which did copy but even with the clone Apple support informed that it looks for the particular drive as well as the copied files.

Any "drag and drop" tricks for transferring TM backups onto new drive?

I've read many of the previous threads like mine, but my situation seems to be unique.
I have a damaged Time machine disk that is corrupted and can't be repaired by any disk utility programs. And I want to temporarily transfer the TM backups to another hard drive while I reformat the TM disk. I have snow leopard, but the finder won't let me drag and drop my time machine backups (Backups.backupdb) onto a new drive. I get the same "The backup can’t be copied because the backup volume doesn’t have ownership enabled" error. However, when I get info on the drive I want to transfer the backups to and uncheck "ignore ownership on this volume", I still get an error when dragging and dropping the time machine backups. The new error reads "This operation can't be completed because it isn't supported."
Are there any other things I can try to get drag and drop to work? I would have used the methods described above (clone the TM drive using disk utility or CCC), but I can't do that as my time machine disk contains a lot of other items besides the TM backups, and the disk I'm trying to drag the TM backups too is actually smaller than the TM disk. Since my TM disk is corrupted, I can't delete the extra files on the disk to make a clone that would fit on my smaller new disk. So I'm unable to clone my TM disk because it's too big. Is there any other way to make the drag and drop work in snow leopard? Everyone says it should, but I've been unable to get it to work.

Jottle wrote:
I have a damaged Time machine disk that is corrupted and can't be repaired by any disk utility programs. And I want to temporarily transfer the TM backups to another hard drive
That cannot be done. If the backups are corrupted beyond repair, they're useless. Even if you manage to "clone" them, the copy will also be corrupted beyond repair and useless.
my time machine disk contains a lot of other items besides the TM backups
That's a problem, too. See #3 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Copy as much of the "other" stuff somewhere temporarily, reformat the disk into (at least) two partitions (see #5 in the FAQ Tip), copy the data back, and start TM fresh on it's own, exclusive partition.
Or, depending on the age of the disk, I'm not sure I'd trust my backups to it. It might be smartest to replace it. Use the old drive for the "other" stuff, and the new drive exclusively for TM backups of both your internal and the "other" external.

Moving all FCP content to a new drive, need advice!

Well, I just ran out of space on my FCP scratch/capture/content drive, an external 300gig. So I got this snazzy 1tb drive that is bootable and empty. What to do? How do I copy all the FCP content to the new drive, and what implications does have to all my FCP Studio projects that exist on my internal drive? Am I going to have to relink everything...and more importantly, is there a chance of messing up my projects here?
I was hoping to just somehow clone the volume on the old drive to the new, and blow away the old drive for other uses (TM) and fake out the OS to think nothing has changed. But when I looked in drive genius under duplicate volume, it warns me it will delete EVERYTHING on the target drive. Arg, no good. And in CCC it warns me it will make the target non-bootable. Double Arg. So what to do?
thx
coocoo
ps. I started a somewhat related thread here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8405889#8405889
as most of my aperture content is also on this FCP content drive and I need to move that too!
Message was edited by: coocooforcocoapuffs

Arg, I did that, just a simple copy to the new drive and some of the assets where found and some not so i had to use that dialog "reconnect media" which must be the most confusing dialog in all of Leopard, and managed to reconnect everything in this very large project in process (heaven help me if I ever have to go back to the others), but now the problem is there are many things that are unrendered. Mostly the Motion imbeds. But in the System settings FCP figured out to just change the drive name to all the cache definitions, so not sure what to do about that except re-render all the timelines. Well, I knew it was not going to be easy!
coocoo

Moving LR3 photo folder to a new drive

How can I move all my LR3 photo folders at once to a new drive so that LR3 knows where to find them?
thanks, Jon-J

Thank you Cornelia and web-weaver - I spent a couple of days fathoming and testing. Could you check out what I am doing?
I can begin to see how to archive (physically move) my images from one drive to another - meaning physically moving the images and develop settings, meta etc. I think this is a normal procedure for a lot of photographers who have to keep a working PC uncluttered by archiving to an external or network drive.
To archive my photos (RAW and JPEG) I cannot use "Export", because the Export dropdown generates additional copies or additional originals without develop settings, meta, etc.,The 'original originals' stay in original physical location also.
To archive my photos by folder or by selection with settings, I must use "Export as Catalogue". This creates a new (let's call it temporary) catalogue and imports selected files or folders and associated catalogue data into the new catalogue, and at the same time makes a new physical copy of the photos. The Export as Catalogue dialogue enables user to chose a new catalogue name, and a (let's call it temporary) physical location. This copies folderstructure\files to a subdirectory titled \Photo? Is it always a sub directory named \Photo\folderstructure\files, or is it coincidental because my original root directory happens to be \Photo ?
Nevertheless, via "Export as Catalogue" we retain original library and physically located files as-was, plus we get a new catalogue with duplication of meta and develop settings, et al, plus a physical duplicate of images in a new location - correct?
Then, if workflow was to archive by physical movement (move in OS terms), instead of archive by copy, then it would be necessary to manually delete physical files and directories from the original catalogue - correct?
Now if my archive drive has its own Archive Catalogue, I must not use Import to fetch in files and settings from the new (Export as Catalogue) catalogue generated previously. I must use "Import from Catalogue" otherwise the develop settings, meta, etc, are not imported to the archive catalogue.
After running "Import from Catalogue", if the physical file location was not where ultimately required on the archive drive, I must also delete the temporary located files, and perhaps the temporary catalogue.
This is where my testing brought me. No damage done so far. Now, when I "Import from Catalogue" a folder structure from my temporary Catalogue, LR did not import the full folder structure as there was some former remnants on the archive drive from a time before I bought LR. I guess LR cross checked meta data somehow and decide there were some unaltered files already present on the archive drive, and decided to hide those from the importation process. Luckily I had noted the original export folder/file counts and verified the same import quantities. Luckily I had not deleted any original folders/files, nor temporary catalogue or temp folders/files. By searching the Archive drive I discovered where the remnants were lurking, and actioned appropriately. Now I got a full 100% import of catalogue data and files and although they were imported as ..\Photo\ folderstructure\files I could easily drag drop and rename as I liked.
So to complete a workflow of Moving folders and files from one drive to another (move in OS terminology), I must
a) "Export as Catalogue" to a temporary catalogue and physical location.
b) note the folder/file counts for verification later.
c) "Import from Catalogue" the temporary catalogue and folder/file structure, at the same time verifying and import dialogue folder/file counts.
d) Delete original physical files and catalogue information from original catalogue
e) Rename, Drag and drop the imported folders/files as required, if the original \Photo\folderstructure\files directory structure is not exactly as required.
f) Optionally, delete temporary catalogue, and physical files.

NEW back up drive for Time machine, can I move old back up to new drive?

I have been backing TM up to a GRAID external. I just bought a new 'toaster' with mirror back up for TM to use. Is there anyway to move the old back up files from the GRAID to the new toaster?

Clone the old backup drive to the new one:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new backup drive.
Source means the old backup drive.
Use the above procedure only. Do not attempt to copy by Drag and Drop or use a third-party backup utility unless it states that it qualifies for cloning TM backups.

Restoring Time Machine backup to new drive in G5 iSight

Hi all
I successfully replaced the hard drive in my G5 and installed OS 9. Man, what a chore to get into the old beast.
However, I have not been able to upgrade to Leopard using my upgrade disk - this is to bring it back to the same OS as before the HDD upgrade.
Now I need to restore the Time Machine backup but when I try to boot off the Leopard disk it fails.
Are there any other ways to get the G5 to see and restore the Time Machine backup?
Cheers
Scott

So, You're saying I can do this from a different computer with its own Time Machine?
In other words, I have my Time Machinedrive from the dead iMac and a fresh, formatted drive both hooked up to an unrelated computer with its own Time Machine.
If I enter Time Machine on that computer won't it show me the data it backs up for that computer only?
Will Time Machine know that there are two Time Machine backups (the one from the iMac and the one from the new host machine), and allow me to select the one from the iMac?

Upgraded from iPhone 4 to iPhone 5, but my iTunes is too old to backup the new phone.

I have a Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5 running Mac OS X 10.5.8. Prior to purchasing my iPhone 5, I backed everything up to iTunes 10.6.3, which is the latest version my Mac will allow me to install. I traded in my old iPhone 4 and was excited to get home with my shiny new iPhone 5 and restore from backup. However, when I connected the iPhone 5 to my computer it said, "The iPhone cannot be used because it requires iTunes version 10.7 or later. Go to www.itunes.com to download the latest version of iTunes."
When I downloaded the latest version of iTunes, my computer told me, "You can't open the application 'Read Before You Install iTunes' because it is not supported on this architecture." When I tried to bypass the note and install iTunes directly, I was told, "iTunes cannot be installed on this computer."
I have nothing but a shiny new iPhone. I was able to retrieve my contacts from iCloud and re-install apps from the app store, but I have none of my notes. Many of these notes are important and I was wondering if there is a way to get them back. Please help.

Obviously, your Mac is old, and you don't need me to tell you that. Indeed what you're seeing is correct -- you need at least iTunes 10.7 (or the current 11.0) to interface with your iPhone 5.
Assuming you do not care to update your computer hardware, another option would likely be to use an Apple Store (if one is nearby). I would guess if you stopped by the Apple Store with your iPhone and your PowerPC, they might well help you by using an intermediate Mac to house your Notes and transition them to your iPhone from there.

Need help copying Time Machine backups to new drive

I was attempting to move my Time Machine backups from one hard drive to a newer hard drive, by copying the Backups folder. It gets through the process of preparing the files to copy but then as it starts to copy the file I get an dialog error box saying that it can't convert one file and that I need to install a newer version of IWork. I don't have IWork installed on this computer, but I have used pages on the iCloud website. I have attached a screen shot showing the error. The copying stops at this point. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed?

That usually works better than a Finder copy and is often faster.
If required.
Inherit a Backup
Inherit a Backup (2)

Best way to restore old mac backup to new machine?

Purchased a new MacBook Pro to replace old MacBook. In the mean time the drive in the old machine has failed, so can't migrate from machine to machine. I do have old machine drive backed up via Time Machine on a firewire external drive.
What's the best way to get my files and setting to the new machine?
Thanks

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Your best bet is Migration Assistant, in your Applications/Utilities folder. Just attach your TM drive, start up MA, and it'll walk you through.
One suggestion: do not turn TM on yet. Be sure you've got everything you need off your TM drive, then erase it so TM can start over with the new Mac.

Syching Old iPhone backup with New iPhone

I previously owned one of the original first generation iPhones, but that was recently stolen so I got a new 3GS for Christmas. I am syching it with my computer for the first time and iTunes is asking me if I would like to synch the new phone with my old phone's information. I need to know a few things before I can decide;
1. Will the syching process completely erase everything I have on my new phone currently in favor of the old backup information (ex. contacts, notes, calender events, pictures, ect)?
2. Would this be safe for the new phone, or would there be software problems between the different generations?
Thanks

A new iPhone is not synced with the backup for a previous iPhone. When connecting a new iPhone to iTunes that was used to sync a previous iPhone, you are prompted to transfer the backup for the previous iPhone to the new iPhone. This will transfer the backup for your previous iPhone to your new iPhone as of the time your previous iPhone's backup was update.
This link provides the data included with your iPhone's backup.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
After the backup is transferred to the new iPhone, this must be followed by a sync with iTunes to transfer the data to your new iPhone based on your selections under the various tabs for your iPhone sync preferences, which will be pre-selected for your new iPhone based on the selections you had under the various tabs for your previous iPhone sync preferences with iTunes.
1. Will the syching process completely erase everything I have on my new phone currently in favor of the old backup information (ex. contacts, notes, calender events, pictures, ect)?
Yes.
2. Would this be safe for the new phone, or would there be software problems between the different generations?
The current iPhone firmware version can be run on every iPhone generation - on the original iPhone, on the 3G, and on the 3GS.

I've moved my iTunes media to a new drive, how do I get iTunes to find it. I'm using Windows 7

Hi,
I've moved my iTunes media to my 'spare' internal D Drive, following the instructions on this link:(I'm using Windows 7).
Move your iTunes Media folder on a Windows PC - Apple Support
I hit a problem at stage 11 when I had to move my original media file to the recycle bin. The process started then it stopped, saying that the file was too big for the recycle bin (54 GB or thereabouts). It then asked if I wanted to permanently delete the files instead. I said yes. (I have them backed up externally).
The iTunes media file is in my D Drive, but I can't get iTunes to locate it. I've tried going through preferences/advanced and browsing to it but that does't seem to work.
My media is all listed in iTunes, but on the cloud rather than on my hard drive (C). Downloading it all from the cloud would defeat the object of freeing space on my primary hard drive (C).
Any ideas on how I could get iTunes to find the files on D Drive ?
many thanks,
Matt

See Make a split library portable. With luck you should be able to move the iTunes folder to the D: drive, place the iTunes Media folder inside it, and shift-start iTunes to connect to D:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl. If all goes well it should be as if you'd moved the entire iTunes folder as a unit in the first place.
tt2

Moving an old TM backup to new drive

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