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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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 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?

Why is my external hard drive showing up twice on Time Machine?

This is the first time I am using Time Machine because somebody recently gave me an external hard drive.
The external hard drive is appearing twice on Time Machine preferences. One of them is currently backing up and the other one says "Waiting to back up" but I don't want it to back up twice on the same disk.
Here's a screenshot:
Does anyone know why it is doing this?

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil destinationinfo
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
Post any lines of output that appear below what you entered — the text, please, not a screenshot.

Whats the best way to transfer everything from my old macbook pro to a new mac mini, i have a external hard drive which i backup to regularly via time capsule

whats the best way to transfer everything from my old macbook pro to a new mac mini, i have a external hard drive which i backup to regularly via time capsule

Check out > OS X Lion: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

HT201250 I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive. The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc). Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive. The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc). Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

Yes you can make multiple backups on one hard drive, for example if you’ve 1TB hard drive installed in your PC and you’ve two Mac Machines with 500GB drive each then you just make two backup images with size of 500GB each.
http://www.halfspot.com/use-your-pc-hard-drive-for-time-machine-backup/

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

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