My external hard drive has been used for Time Machine, now it doesn't work on my TV?

I bought a new external HD 3TB, I used it as a back for Time machine and also wanted to use it for watching my movies etc on my TV. The TV won't recognise any video's on the HD. Is there some reason this would happen due to using it for Time Machine?

If you are talking about a drive that you connect directly to your TV, typically they will recognize only drives formatted in some specific way & only certain kinds of movie files. You can check your TV users manual or its manufacturer's web site for information about this, but in general they will not recognize drives using the format Time Machine requires.

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Can you unplug the external hard drive you are using for time machine

can you unplug the external hard drive you are using for time machine and then plug it back in and it work normals because i have a mac book and don't want to always be carrieing the external hard drive every where i go so can you ?

Yes, that will work fine. It will back up normally once you plug it in again. I do this with my MacBook.

My mac mini quit recognizing the external hard drive i am using for time machine.

I have an IOMEGA external hard drive hooked up to my mini for Time Machine. It was working for about 4 months then quit. The PC will not recognize the hard drive and I have switched usb cables and tried different ports to no avail. Any help would be gladly appreciated!!

Yes, that will work fine. It will back up normally once you plug it in again. I do this with my MacBook.

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine

I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine
and if it yes i want to know if i have 1TB hard disk to use the 500gb for time machine and the other 500gb for normal use

thank you very much because i am considering to buy the porsche design hard disk 1TB and i want to have it for normal use and for time machine is a pitty to give 1TB for back up only again thanks and i know seperate the back and the working jobs are better but the i have to have 2 hardisks and i want only 1

When ever the power goes out or I restart my iMac the external hard drive that is used by Time Machine for backups is dismounted ?

When ever the power goes out or I restart my iMac the external hard drive that is used for backups by Time Machine is dismounted and all backups are gone. I can reselect it and it will start working again, but I am worried if the iMac hard drive should fail will I be left without a backup ?

fzgy wrote:
"Mac OS X can't repair the disk. You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app can fix it, but they're expensive (DiskWarrior is about $100), and there's no guarantee it can do it.
Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.
That will erase it. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #5.
It sounds very much like the disk is beginning to fail, although it's possible there's a bad port, cable, connection or power supply (if it has its own).
I'd suggest getting a new one, and using it for your Time Machine backups; once you have a good backup there, reformat the old one (and select Security Options to write zeros to the whole drive -- if that fails, you know the drive is toast). Use it for secondary backups, per FAQ #27. If it has failed, get a second new one for secondary backups.

Lion won't install can't select hard drive that is used for time machine backups

I installed Lion, agreed to the eula but both drives are greyed out. My Macintosh HD - ( this dirve is used for time machine backups) and my external drive (this drive does not use the GUID Partition Table scheme...). Though I don't use time machine, I tried turning it on and selecting the external drive with no luck. I'm stuck - any ideas?

"Backups.backupdb" if the file in Time Machine. As the discussion says, you have to find that file and trash it. Try spotlight to locate it. If that does not work, down load OmniDiskSweeper from the Internet (free) and go through an organized search to find "Backups.backupdb". If that takes too long or is too tedious, then if you have everything backed up, erase the HDD and start from square one.
Ciao.

HT4718 I have an external hard drive that I used as Time Machine Backup. I have not used it for a while and now, when I plug it in computer says: This disc is not readable. I want to recover the backups and not erase and reformat the disc. Thank you in

I have an external hard drive that I have used as Time Machine backup, but not for a while. Now when I plug it in, computer says this disc is not readable.
I want to keep the backups on it and not erase and start over.
Thank you in advance.
Gregor

It sounds like something went wrong with the drive. Did you drop it? How long has it been sitting around unused?

Adding external hard drive to airport extreme for time machine error

Hello,
I recently bought an airport extreme that I wanted to combine with an external hard drive in order to do wireless time machine backups. I hooked this up and the hard drive shows up in the devices menu.
However, when time machine starts to backup, I get the following error:
"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Blackmer External MyBook/Benjamin Crispell Blackmer’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” could not be created (error 1)."
When my computer is connected directly to the hard drive, it works fine.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
Thank you.

It is important to understand that Apple does not support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme. So, that may be an issue here.
Despite this, users try it anyway. Some appear to be successful for a time, some partially successful, some can't get it to work at all.
Even if it does appear to work initially, corruption issues may occur down the line without warning. Having tried this myself as a test a few times, I can attest to that.
If you want to try this anyway, the two important things to check are.....
The drive must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Other formats will not work
You almost always need to use a powered USB hub...even if the hard drive has its own power supply....because the USB port is under powered on the AirPort Extreme
You might also want to consider a secondary backup plan to protect your important files

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.

What size external hard drive do i need for Time Machine

What size external hard drive should I get to be my Time Machine backup? My iMac is 1TB. (also, I have MBP that is 250gb and will need one for it as well)
Thank you.

It is better to buy an external drive that has 3 times the storage capacity
as of the computer's internal HD.
Best.

How big an external hard drive do I need for Time Machine backups?

I run a 2 Ghz iMac with 1Gb memory, currently using around 108 GB of the 150 GB available memory.
Hpw larghe an external hard drive do I need to run Time Machione efficiently? 500GB? 320? 520?

Not answered - don't know why!

How do I set a certain amount of an external hard drive to be used by Time Machine?

I've just got a new Macbook Pro, and I have an External Toshiba Hard Drive that I'd like to use for storage and with Time Machine. I don't want the Time Machine backups to eat up all 500 Gb, is there a way to controll its appetite and allot it, say, 100 GB?

You can partition the hard drive using Disk Utility; however, depending on the size of your internal drive, 100 GB is not going to last very long. It is generally recommended that your TM backup drive be at least 3 x the size of your internal hard drive. So, how large is your hard drive?

Is there a way to reformat a drive that has been used for time machine

Hi al, I'm trying to reformat a USB flash pen but can't seem to find how to do it, can you help?
Thanks

Monty nosh wrote:
Where can I find disc utility
just do a spotlight search (command + space) for disk utility , or open applications-->utilities

My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine. I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything. The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago.`

My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine. I tried unplugging the cord that connects the HD to the iMac and plugging it back in, but I still get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" below which are buttons for Initialize, Ignore and Eject. I was using a cord that went from larger square plug to larger square plug. So then I tried one that went from smaller square plug to what I think is USB (thin rectangular plug) of the sort that connects the keyboard and mouse. It's the type that my printers and scanners use to connect to the iMac. I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything. The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago. What else can I try before just trying to initialize and

Thanks, Michael! I do hear it at times spooling up and running. Just after I bumped the thread I looked for troubleshooting for this drive online and found the manual which suggested using Disk Utility which I've seen before accidentally (if I hit Command Shift U instead of Shift U to type "Unit" on a new folder for a student's homework ) but had never really noticed. Disk Utility does see it and also a sub-something (directory?) which might be the Time Machine archives on the disk, called disk1s2), sort of the way that my iMac's hard drive shows up as 640.14 GB Nitachi HDT7... and has a sub-something titled DB iMac, which is what I named my iMac's hard drive.
Anyway the owner's manual just shows the image under the formatting section, not the troubleshooting section, but as soon as I saw it in the manual I remembered seeing it accidentally a few times, went to it, and am now verifying the disk. Right now it's telling me that it will take 2 hours to complete the verification, so I guess I have a bigt of a wait. :-)
Does that fact that Disk Utilities can see it mean it's not failed, or just that it hasn't completely failed?
I can see the virtue in having multiple redundant backups, or at least two backups. What do you suggest? Two external hard drives? I had this one linked by ethernet, and but I also have a cord that could link it by USB (like a printer), so if this one is reparable I could get a second one and link it by USB. If this one is not reparable I could get two and do the same thing. I do have an Airport so I suppose it's possible to get some sort of Wi-Fi hard drive (my new printer/scanner uses only the network and not a cable, although it has a cable that I used for the initial installation), but I'd suspect a Wi-Fi hard drive might have a higher price.
What hard drives, if any, do you recommend? I seem to recall that when I was looking at external hard drives 4 years ago, Apple's were substantially more expensive, which is why I got the OWC Mercury Elite All Pro.

My external hard drive has been used for Time Machine, now it doesn't work on my TV?

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