Partitioning new external drive

I am still a bit nervous about setting up the 150 gigabyte external Firewrie drive I recently purchased.
There are four users of the eMac to which the external drive is connected and I want all users to be able to back up their files to the drive and have access to them. I also want to partition the drive in order to install OSX so I can boot from the external in an emergency.
My question is; do I want to partition the drive into 5 parts? One partition each for each user and one for the OSX?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Thomas Hanrahan wrote:
I am still a bit nervous about setting up the 150 gigabyte external Firewrie drive I recently purchased.
There are four users of the eMac to which the external drive is connected and I want all users to be able to back up their files to the drive and have access to them. I also want to partition the drive in order to install OSX so I can boot from the external in an emergency.
No need to partition it so that you can boot. Just install the OS.
My question is; do I want to partition the drive into 5 parts? One partition each for each user and one for the OSX?
If you boot from the external drive, then you can create separate accounts for each user, and each user will be able to see just his stuff. No need to partition.
If you boot from the internal drive or a different external drive, the situation becomes more complex.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

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How to move Event (not necessarily connected to Projects ) and projects to new external drive

I am running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and iMovie11 9.0.4 have a had very stressful time trying to clear down the Movies folder from my internal drive and get it across to a new external hard drive, as my 700gb drive on my 2009 iMac is practically full. I have taken a full back-up and also created a new 1.5 TB partition on the external drive. However I do not know how to get the Events and Projects across, and for iMovie to know that every thing is now on the new drive.
Initially I copied the 2 folders using finder, which seemingly worked but then I discovered that iMovie did not display the the new events, so I deleted the 2 folders from the external drive and tried manually moving the events in iMovie. This was very slow, with lots of spinning wheels and eventually iMovie crashed. So I moved the new Event copies I did manage to create into trash, but still iMovie was crashing.
I then, thinking something had become corrupted, I tried to restore the Events folder and Projects folder from my backup, but that did not work as I got a message saying the there was not enough space to do the copies (why does it need extra space as I assume it would be overwriting the existing folders ?). So in desperation I did some forum searching and ended up deleting the com.apple.iApps.plist. Now iMovie seems to be working fine, and is displaying al the events from my internal drive (I have ejected all other drives), and I am back to square one (hopefully), however for some reason the 'month' folders I had previously created in each Event 'Year' have disappeared and all the, for example 2013 events, are now under the 2013 folder with no Month sub folders( I assume this is something to do with the preferences I had deleted ?)
I am hoping someone can direct me on the right path for getting the Events (not all of which are used in Projects) and Projects across to the new external drive, so I can free up space on the internal drive (and install Mountain Lion - my end goal).
I have been trying to do all this since 0600 this morning, so if anyome can help it would be very much appreciated.
Jim (now grabbing a much needed beer !)

Do the external drive show up in iMovie 11?? I just drag and drop in iMovie and don't touch it or change in finder.

Basic Question: How to partition an external drive and then set up TM?

Hi. I am going to be using an external hard drive (Western Digital - 640GB) on my MacBook for the first time and I think that I'd like to partition it so that part of it is for Time Machine and part of it can be used to just manually drag and drop my files (like any other USB external drive).
1. How to I partition the external drive for Mac?
2. If I insert my drive (not yet partitioned) in my MacBook for the first time and the MacBook automatically asks me if I want to use it for Time Machine, I'm assuming that I need to say "no" so that I can first partition it, right? If yes, then after partitioning it how do I set up the one partition for Time Machine?
3. If I have 640 GB external hard drive space and my MacBook has about 100GB of space, how much of the 640 should I allocate for Time Machine?
Thanks! Happy New Year!

coffeecoffee wrote:
Hi. I am going to be using an external hard drive (Western Digital - 640GB) on my MacBook for the first time and I think that I'd like to partition it so that part of it is for Time Machine and part of it can be used to just manually drag and drop my files (like any other USB external drive).
1. How to I partition the external drive for Mac?
select the whole drive (the model, not the name) in disk utility and click on the partition tab. set the number of partitions. set the partition scheme to GUID in options. set the format to mac os extended journaled. hit apply.
2. If I insert my drive (not yet partitioned) in my MacBook for the first time and the MacBook automatically asks me if I want to use it for Time Machine, I'm assuming that I need to say "no" so that I can first partition it, right? If yes, then after partitioning it how do I set up the one partition for Time Machine?
in system preferences->Time machine.
also see TM 101 for basic usage instructions.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
3. If I have 640 GB external hard drive space and my MacBook has about 100GB of space, how much of the 640 should I allocate for Time Machine?
it depends on your computing habits but it's generally recommended to have TM drive to be at least 2-3 times bigger than the total amount of data you are backing up.
Thanks! Happy New Year!

Windows and OS-X partitions on external drive

Has anyone had any experience/problems with partitioning an external drive for OS-X and Windows?
How about 3 partitons: HFS+, FAT32, NTFS. Or is that pushing my luck too far?
I just received a new LaCie, primarily for backing up Vista Ult 64-bit, but if I can also use it for XP and OS-X that would be great.
Any information will be most appreciated.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Moonlight Mac wrote:
I've used an external USB2 drive to boot XP, but it is a very dicy process, and not really worth it in the end. You can slipstream USB boot support into the XP installer, but when you are done, you won't have virtual memory support (no pagefile). It also requires that the internal drive be removed during installation (if XP sees an internal drive, it will insist on attempting to use it for a pagefile.)
I've done the same with a 4GB flash memory card... but booting was hit or miss.
I've partitioned my internal into 2 HFS and 1 NTFS partition, and that works very well when combined with MacDrive on the PC side. I'd stick with using the external as just a backup device or for OSX (works best with firewire.)
I am not looking to boot XP although that would be nice, but simply to create a backup on the drive. I use Norton Ghost, which does allow a boot, or sorts, into the backup in order to restore a system.
But more, I was interested in an NTSF partition for Vista on this MBP. I have not used Vista's built-in backup program so I don't know how it works, but my thoughts were to partition the 500GB into multiple partitions and use them for XP, Leopard and Vista and a CCC clone of my two Leopard OSs.
Say, 3 HFS partitions for clones and storage, 1 FAT32 for XP and 1 NTFS for Vista, making 5 in all.
The 2 HFS partitions are probably easy. It was the other two, FAT32 and NTFS that I was concerned with.
I guess I will plug it in and use DU and see what happens. I have never used DU for NTFS or FAT32 on an external drive.
As long as the drive is empty, I have nothing to lose and lots of experience to gain, right?

Why did my event library stopped showing my partitions and external drives?

The event library stopped recognizing my computer partitions and my external hardrive. It looks like all events are available, just not organized by partitions and drives. The partitions and external drive still show up in the project library.

I don't see anything like what you mentioned... " having a folder at the root level that emulates a camera, a folder with a name like DCIM or Private." Here are the windows showing the files on the user/HD, the tutorial image and the external drive. You can see the Final Cut Folders in each. In the past, I would see each of these in the Event Library so I could create a new event wherever I want to store it. I have also included a screen shot of FCPX showing the Project Library. It still shows the various devices, as I am used to seeing in the Event Library.

Problems partitioning an external drive

My brother loaned me his external drive, so that I could clone my hard drive onto it before I reformat my whole drive. I plugged it in, and was astonished when I couldn’t put anything on it. I dug around the net an figured out that I had to partition the drive in order to be able to change permissions and be able to read and write onto to the drive. But for whatever reason, when I hit the “partition” button an icon pops up saying that “disk could not be unmounted.” What can I do to get over this problem?

Is there data on the drive now? If so, using Disk Utility to partition it will erase all of it. In order to clone your drive to it, it needs to be clean. That is no files on it. There are commercial apps available that can partition a drive without erasing it but they cost as much as a new external drive.
Rather than clone it to an external, buy a new internal drive and install it in your G4. You can get a 80-120GB drive for less than $50 and it takes about 20 minutes to install it. With two internal drives you can have additional storage and keep all your data backed up.
John

Can I transfer photos from old macbook to iMac and put all photos on a new external drive without losing any photos?

Had to purchase new Macbook so all devices could sync with Yosemite. I use iMAC and Macbook with iPhone, etc. I have many photos over years and do scrapbooking. I want to preserve my pix on an external hard drive and organize them. I am currently using external drive on iMAC and a separate one on Macbook that is outdated. I use them with TM for backup. Can I transfer pix data only to the iMAC via a transfer cable and then send all photos to new external drive for access and safe storage? I am confused about backup not preserving my photos. Help please me transfer and save my pix and properly set up my external for access. Thanks a bunch!

connie,
I assume you are storing your photos in an iPhoto library, since you are asking in the iPhoto forum?
if you want to store your iPhoto library on an external drive and keep them safe, you need two external drives. One drive to store the working copy of the photo library, that you are using to work with your photos, and one drive for time machine to make back copies of your iPhoto library.
Can I transfer pix data only to the iMAC via a transfer cable and then send all photos to new external drive for access and safe storage?
You could simply plug your new drive into the MacBook and copy the library from the old drive to the new. Then connect the new drive to your iMac and use the iPhoto library there.
Make sure, your new drive has the correct file system - MacOS Extended (Journaled) . See this link: iPhoto: Issues with FAT32-formatted drives
-- Léonie

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.

Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
          Destinations:
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                    Total number of backups: 64
                    Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
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          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
          /sbin excluded from backup!
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          /bin excluded from backup!
          /private excluded from backup!
          /Library excluded from backup!
          /Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy

External hard drive that stored music has crashed. How can I safely get my songs from my I Pod back onto computer in a new external drive?

External hard drive that stored music has crashed. How can I safely get my songs from my I Pod back onto computer into a new external drive?

See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer discussing different ways to copy content from your iPod back to your PC.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock

New External Drive connected to Time Capsule moving files problem

I have a late 2009 13" unibody MacBook Pro, that I primarily use for video editing/converting. I use my Time Capsule as a network through which I can connect to my external hard drives via USB for videos and such. I've used at least two other external hard drives along with my Time Capsule for a year and a half with very few problems, aside from the inevitable crash of one. Before yesterday, I had a 1TB Western Digital MyBook (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=210) and a 2TB Verbatim Desktop HD (http://www.verbatim.com/prod/hard-drives/desktop/usb-2.0/) connected through my 1TB Time Capsule and aside from the Verbatim drive being rather sluggish most of the time, everything was working fine.
Yesterday, I got a new external drive, an iOmega MiniMax 2TB (http://go.iomega.com/en-us/products/external-hard-drive-desktop/ultramax-minimax /minimax800/?partner=4760). I spent yesterday and most of today moving files around and whatnot through a wired connection (iOmega via firewire 800, Verbatim via USB, MyBook via USB, and Time Capsule via Ethernet), and everything moved quickly and without any problems.
I hooked my Time Capsule up to my modem, plugged in the iOmega and Verbatim drives via USB to the TC, and started my laptop. When I opened the drives, everything was working fine... And then I tried to move a file to the iOmega drive... I was moving an episode of The Killing. I dragged it into the folder and went to Safari to look something up and suddenly realized ten minutes later that I still hadn't heard the noise telling me that the file had finished. I looked at the move dialogue box and it said "156.8 MB of 323.8 MB - About 10 Seconds". I watched it for another ten minutes and it didn't move. So I clicked cancel move and the rainbow wheel of death came up and I had to force reboot my computer.
When I restarted, I opened up finder to access the drives through my Time Capsule, and it "failed to connect" to my Time Capsule. So I went back into my office to flip the switch on the surge protector in order to restart the process. I turned on my computer and I had no problem accessing my hard drives... Until I tried to move an episode of United States of Tara into the iOmega hard drive. This time, it said, "192.5 MB of 202.6 MB - About 5 Seconds" and completely stopped moving again. And the same thing happened when I clicked the little grey "x" to cancel the move.
I repeated the process several more times with no luck. Then I thought it might help to see if it does the same thing with documents. So I dragged just a random document to the iOmega and it took about 30 seconds, but it did it successfully. So I tried to move the episode of The Killing again and I let it go for, like, 25-30 minutes. After this time, I got a notification from finder saying, "Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "[the file]" can't be read or written. (Error Code -36)". Then when I went back into the "Shared" part of the sidebar to go back into my Time Capsule folder, it said "Connection Failed"
So what exactly does this mean? Are the Time Capsule and iOmega not compatible? Can I only move the files through a wired connection [which would be unfortunate]? Do I need to rejigger the USB configuration? Is the error code just for these two episodes and it's just a random coincidence that it happened the day after I got a new drive?
Thanks for any help anyone can give me!
- Alex

I have attached the macbook to the tc via ethernet cable. Should I turn off my wireless connection or will itunes recognize to go with the faster connection on it's own?
You MBP will try to connect based on the order of the list of network devices on the System Preferences > Network window. If Ethernet is not at the top of the list, then go ahead and temporarily disable AirPort.
After all this is done will the wireless connection be fast enough for normal itunes operation?
For audio streaming it should be, but just be aware that your iTunes host will have to get the audio source wirelessly from the TC, which in turn will have to get the data from the USB hard drive. Finally, the iTunes host will have to wirelessly stream the iTunes audio via AirTunes to the AirPort Express.

Using Disc Utility to copy my hard drive to a brand new external drive and am having the error "Unable to create...(Cannot allocate memory)".

I'm not very tech savvy but am trying my best to use Disc Utility to copy my hard drive to a brand new external drive and am having the error "Unable to create...(Cannot allocate memory)".
Last night no problems, woke this morning and it was freezing so I forced a restart and got the grey screen with the folder and question mark. Ran off to best buy to get an external drive... Please help! Thank you!

I have done both. When I hold down the "C" key it pauses for a few seconds while the cd spins and then the flashing folder icon appears.
Could be you have the wrong cd/dvd. The mac will only boot a supported cd/dvd for your machine. The flashing question mark indicdates your machine could not find a valid os.
When I hold down the "option" key for the startup manager the cursor comes up and moves but the actually manager doesn't come up no matter how long I leave the laptop on.
Not sure. Could be your machine does not support the startup manager. You would think the machine would ignore the key.
Where did you get the dvd? What is the number on the DVD?
What machine do you have anyway?
This site provides more information, but lacks security.
"A serial number is a unique, identifying number or group of numbers and letters assigned to an individual piece of hardware or software. It's used for various things depending on the product / brand but what is your Mac's serial number for and more importantly... what is it hiding and what can it do for you ?"
http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
or
This site provides more information, but lacks security too.
"A serial number is a unique, identifying number or group of numbers and letters assigned to an individual piece of hardware or software. It's used for various things depending on the product / brand but what is your Mac's serial number for and more importantly... what is it hiding and what can it do for you ?"
http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html
( hint by K Shaffer )

Should I create a partition on external drive for iTunes music?

...or will it create it's own space outwith my backup stuff?
(Secondary question: would moving my iTunes music from internal to external drive noticably improve performance of my Mac? I'm using about 135GB of a 250GB drive, 60GB of which is in iTunes Music folder)

Should I create a partition on external drive for iTunes music? or will it create it's own space outwith my backup stuff?
I see no good reason to create a separate partition unless you're backing up with Time Machine. TM prefers to have it's own volume, so in that case partitioning would probably be a good idea.
would moving my iTunes music from internal to external drive noticably improve performance of my Mac? I'm using about 135GB of a 250GB drive, 60GB of which is in iTunes Music folder.
No, probably not. As long as you're not getting the drive too full - opinions vary but about 20GB remaining should be plenty for most uses - you probably won't see any overall change in performance just from moving the iTunes content.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up?

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up? I have an external drive with data I need to add to my overall back up with what's on my mac. I have a separate drive already active as the Time Machine backup disk. I can see how to EXCLUDE disks, but how do I ADD that new external drive to regular backups?
I have 10.8.5 system on my Mac laptop.

Remove the drive from the list of items set to be excluded. It needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this to be possible.
(110504)

My time machine backup external hard drive has failed. I have a newer external drive already connected to my MAC but can't figure out how to get Time Machine to set up on it?

My time machine backup external hard drive has failed. I have a newer external drive already connected to my MAC but can't figure out how to get Time Machine to set up on it

http://pondini.org/TM/21.html

Time Machine and partition on external drive

Planning to buy a big external drive, but, is it possible to partition the external drive and make TM work on one ?

Absolutely, in fact it is recommended to give TM its own partition. Use the first partition of the drive (that's the one that ends up at the top of the list in Disk Utility).
Make sure the partition is double, if not three times, the size of what you will be backing up.
Note that you have the option (Sys Prefs-TM-Options) to exclude drives and folders from backups. This may save a lot of space and is useful for the applications folder (as you likely have that stuff on CD/DVD), for music (if you have it on CDs), the downloads folder etc; see [this page|http://www.ryanblock.com/2008/05/good-folders-to-exclude-from-time-machine -backups] for more ideas on what to exclude so as not to backup unnecessary stuff. Also, if you work with scratch disks (in Photoshop or video applications, for instance), exclude them as well as that's just unnecessary.
/p

Partitioning new external drive

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