PC won't recognize Time Machine ext. HD

Hi,
I have a ext usb HD that I'm using for TIme Machine. Problem is that when i plug it into any PC, it won't recognize it. How do i access my HD from a PC?
Kind Regards

It's been years, but Macopener was what I used once to read Mac files on a PC - swapping zip disks with a client - it worked pretty good. Worked good over the network at the ad agency too (caveat being this was years ago).
Found it (well, the newer version) here - http://www.dataviz.com/purchase/shopdvz/detail.html?prod_id=1136 -
There are likely others out there - but that was the one I used, and at the time (we're talking 2000? 2003? it worked well.
I can't comment on time machine - I mean, that even if the upgraded macopener or similar will connect the drive and show the contents - whether you can get any info out of TM on Win.

Similar Messages

Migration Assistant in Lion won't recognize Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard

I just got an iMac with Lion. I am trying to use the Migration Assistant to move my files/apps etc from a Time Machine backup to the new computer. The MA will not recognize the backup drive - (external firewire 800). I can see the backup drive on my desktop but it does not show up as an option to choose in the Migration Assistant. Any idea what might be wrong. The backup is from an iMac running Snow Leopard and all the system software was last updated on Dec 9th. It think it is as current as I could get with Snow Leopard. Any ideas what is wrong?
Thanks,
Chad

This happened to me after hard drive replacement under the Seagate Drive Recall at the local Apple Store. Here's what I learned from the process:
I Wagged the Mac home, fired it up (with naked OS installed at the Apple Store), and it wouldn't see my Time Machine drive with Setup Assistant - not on firewire 800 nor USB. Just a grey spinner that lasts forever. When I try just continuing anyway, it offers me something that looks plausible, but then puts up a dialog about duplicate user name, and no matter what I enter, it always says "that user already exists". So I think - maybe Migration Assistant. Complete the setup, create an account, watch the nice welcome movie. BAM - there's my Time Machine drive on the desktop. OK - it has to work . . . but no. Same behavior in Migration Assistant, plus the new OS offers to start making backups on my Time Machine disk - it's not recognizing it at all.
So - back to the Apple Store - let the genius figure it out. It turns out there are multiple problems. First, the "genius" who imaged my new machine picked 10.7.2 but my machine had 10.7.5 - turns out, it's not enough just to have right cat. Even a point release older OS may not recognize a newer Time Machine drive. The guy at the desk said "We have images of everything but the 10.7.2 has free iLife in it, so they like to use that one". What the heck? They don't image what you had originally as a matter of sane process?
Having figured that out, we re-image 10.7.5 at the store thinking we've fixed it. But no - Setup Assistant still won't see the Time Machine drive. Not on USB, not on Firewire. Not in a box, not with a fox.
So here's the second trick - newer machines have a recovery partion. see: http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/ Boot with the option key held down, pick that partition, then you'll get a "system restore" option, to restore your whole system from a Time Machine backup. My drive was recognized by the recovery partition restore process when neither Setup nor Migration Assistant would. Obviously, there's something broken in Setup/Migration Assistant.
Takeaway:
- if you're getting a drive replaced by Apple, make sure they image *exactly* the same OS
- if Setup Assistant fails, use the recovery partition for system restore
- Use Recovery Disk Assistant http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 NOW to make yourself a recovery thumb drive just in case. With Apple's new "no media" approach to the OS, you're hosed without it.

Migration Assistant won't recognize Time Machine Backup

I recenly got my old thunderbolt-less macbook pro back from a repair and I can't seem to resotre my data. My external drive it reconized in finder, but not in Migration Assistant. I have updated to the newest OS and still nothing. I was tunning mavrics before the repair so this should be working right? Thanks for any help you can offer.

A possible reason for backups not to be available in Migration Assistant is that the computer doesn't have a name, or the name is corrupt. Open the Sharing preference pane and check the name. If you can't do that, reset the PRAM. Credit to ASC member Csnote for this observation.
Most likely, some folders were excluded from your backups as the result of a failed or aborted software installation.
Starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
You'll have another problem if this is a new computer, or if you erased the startup volume: The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of your backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set your backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Migration Assistant Won't Recognize Time Machine Back Up

My old white macbook just died. I bought a new macbook air to replace it. I am trying to use the time machine back up in migration assistant but it won't work. Since the Air doesn't have firewire I am connecting the external drive to my AirPort Extreme. It recognizes the drive but when I click to use it I get a connection error message. I tried hooking up the drive by USB but it won't mount at all. What am I doing wrong? I don't really want to do a full Time Machine restore because the Air has iLife '11 and the macbook only had iLife '10 and I don't want to have to pay for it again.

First of all, Migration Assistant is smart enough to keep the newer version of iLife.
Second, your MacBook Air came with a restore drive (a little flash drive) that has iLife on it. You don't have to purchase it again.

HT1338 HELP! iMac won't recognize time machine backup!

My hard drive failed in my iMac 2.8 Intel Core i5. Luckily, I had a time machine backup on a usb hard drive. Also luckily, there was a free replacement available for my iMac because the Seagate hard drive in my iMac was prone to failure. I brought it to the Apple Store for a replacement, which took about a week. When I got home to restore my system from the backup, it won't see the time machine backup. It sees the drive but no backup is selectable. I know it is there because I updated my System software to the latest Mountain Lion and you can see the files on the backup drive, with dates for the backups and everything. It won't allow me to restore in Migration assistant or Recovery Mode or anything.
HELP!!

Most likely, some files were inadvertently excluded from your backups, and as a result you won't be able to restore your data in Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant.
Starting from a fresh installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Follow the instructions on this page to associate your existing backups with the new installation.
You should now be able to enter Time Machine and restore your user data from a snapshot.* I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Migration Assistant Won't Recognize Time Machine Disk

Hi,
I'm trying to restore a Time Machine backup using migration assistant. The backup is on a USB disk connected directly to the computer. I can open the volume and browse the files. I used Disk Utility to check the volume and it found no errors.
When I run Migration Assistant, it sees no backup disks and instead tries to search the network for other computers, even though I said I had a disk.
This is very frustrating. What am I doing wrong?
Frank

You may have been bitten by a bug we've just identified.
See #D10 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If so, home folders are not affected, and there may be a way to recover them.
Post back with your results and we'll work on a recovery plan.

Can't get MacBook to recognize Time Machine

I just got a new Time Capsule and managed to get it configured to act as a wifi and finally got on the internet, but as I sit here on hold with Apple Tech Support for an hour, I'm continuing to look for help.
The MacBook won't recognize the Time Machine in the Preferences Pane. It just comes up blank. I have unplugged and restarted. What do I have to do to be able to use this to back up the laptop?
Thanks in advance...

After spending over an hour on hold and then after briefly speaking with a tech support person who wanted me to sit on hold for another indefinite length of time to speak with a product specialist, I was just about ready to pack it up and send it back.
But I thought I'd just go through it one more time.
File sharing needs to be ON.
Now the computer recognizes it. We shall see if it backs up successfully -- others' experiences in this discussion thread do not inspire optimism about it. However, there are those who aren't having problems. So, fingers are crossed...

Restore from back up does not recognize time machine drive

My wife's hard drive in her 2010 MB Pro decided to give up the ghost a few days ago, so I purchased a new hard drive for her, booted from the Snow Leopard Install disc that came with the computer. However, after the installation is complete, when it gives the option to "Restore from backup", it will not locate the drive with the Time Machine Backups. The drive with the time machine backups is a dedicated 500 Gig Seagate External, that is set up on the network through our Airport Extreme. When I plug the drive directly into the computer, the drive doesn't even show up on the list. When I plug it back into the router it will recognize it as the Time Machine Disk, but will say "Connection Failed" when I try to connect with it. I have watched several youtube videos and read several blogs, and it looks so easy, simply click on "Restore From Backup" and bang! You're in business, but my drive and its backups won't even show up!
After going through with the intitial set up, I can click on the Time Machine Icon, and choose to view other Time Machine disks, and it shows up there, and I can see about two (2) years worth of back ups; however, each time I boot from the install disks, it still doesn't show up in the "Restore from Backup" mode. Migration assistant shows the files, but when I migrated them, it says that I do not have permission to view the files. Also, when I enter the Time Machine it only shows a blue folder with "Macintosh HD" on it, and when I try to simply "Restore" that folder, it will start transfering files for about an hour (Maybe get up to 10-15 Gigs, and then it will say that it cannot replace or over right "Systems", and then stop the transfer.
Thinking that some of the drives were from when we upgraded to Lion, I redownloaded Lion, and it is more of the same.
I am in a really tight spot here, because I have been faithfully using Time Machine Backups, and was told that if a situation like this ever occurred I would be good to go with a new hard drive, or even a new computer. We have about 80 Gigs (not kidding) of family photos on the computer, and those are precious to my wife, so if nothing else I would just like to get those off of the drive.
If anyone could provide me with any tips as to
1) How to make Restore from Backup recognize the drive; or
2) Migrate the files, but actually have permission to view them; or
3) Any other way to Restore from Time Machine that I may be overlooking,
I would greatly appreciate it.

Well the first thing you should do is have a local professional image the TimeMachine drive to another drive, then you can install Data Rescue on your computer and use that to read the 1's and 0's of the imaged drive directly and recover any files out of the morrase that is TimeMachine.
TimeMachine is a freaking eyecandy abortion, when it screws up, it screws up royally. However it's easy and better than nothing for computer newbies who tend to delete stuff by accident.
Computer professionals prefer "imaging" or "cloning" which makes a exact duplicate of a drive in every detail and accessability. Carbon Copy Cloner is the choice software for that.
If you not comptuer savvy or want to take a risk, then I'd advise you to get a local PC/Mac data recovery expert to recover your files, they are still on the drive and somewhat accessible, but if you fool around too much TM can delete them as it "copies" your present new boot drive. Then data recovery could cost thousands for platter dissection if the TM drive is overwritten/updated by TM software.
So to be safe, get profesisonal data recovery help, and not the clueless types at the Genius bar.
FYI, once a TM drive has been infected with Lion, you can't use it with SL.
So it's best to stop and get a image, then decide to play with the image or allow the pro's to recover your files before they are really gone forever.

Won't Recognize Time Capsule

Bought 1TB Time Capsule 1 week ago. Did initial backup direct ethernet and all subsequent via WiFi. Everything works fine. However, today I noticed my 7AM backup failed. I am told it can't mount the hard drive. I go into SYS PREF to reselect the time capsule as the Backup Disk, it shows the Time Capsule, I select it, enter password, but about 2 minutes later get the message:
+*Time Machine Error*+
+*No backup volume has been selected*+
+*To select a backup volume, open Sys Pref and choose Time Machine*+
I do..and the loop of futility continues.
I have no problem getting into the Time Capsule through Finder and have successfully moved a file from my desktop to the capsule so I know I am connected and it works.
Also doesn't return anything when I click "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" from the Time Machine menu bar menu. I see my sparsebundle through Finder.
Any ideas on how to get it to recognize the time capsule? It sees it, but won't let me mount it after I enter password.
Do I reboot the time capsule though unplugging? Everything else is working fine ...the wifi and the ability to access via finder.
Thanks.

I checked the pondini fixes and ended up doing the following - in case this could help someone else with an iMac, OSX Lion, and Time Capsule... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
First, I downloaded and used Airport Utility 5.6 instead of 6.1 - BTW, I had to attempt download and installation THREE times before the program actually installed. Be persistant.
Pondini #5: It's possible some names (of all things!) may be a problem. See item C9. I had to re-name my Mac, Time Capsule, network, etc... to remove all apostrophes and spaces.
Pondini #7: If you have WD SmartWare installed on Lion, it's not compatible, per RoaringApps, and there are reports it can cause this problem as well. Use Western Digital's uninstaller, or delete the app from /Applications and the files com.wdc.WDDMservice.plist and com.wdc.WDSmartWareServer.plist from /Library/LaunchDaemons. There may also be a file in Library/Application Support.
I then had to shut down computer, unplug Time Capsule, unplug modem; plug everything in again, then reboot computer; then had to go to Apple- System Preferences- Network- and reselect my Time Capsule to connect to WiFi again.
Then opened Time Machine preferences again and attempted back up - it worked!

Won't recognize library on ext. HD...

I have a Maxtor 300 GB ext. fire Wire HD loaded with over 80GB of music files.I had this connected to my old 12" PB and it recognized it just fine when I pointed to the file folders in iTunes and for some reason, on my brand new 17" PB that ain't working...the new PB DOES recognize ALL the other things stored on the ext. HD except for my music file s AND iPhoto also won't recognize my 7,000 photos loaded on there too.
Anybody got any ideas?

when I pointed to the file folders in iTunes
I presume you changed your 'iTunes Music folder location' in the preferences.
That's confusing a lot of people. You 'told' iTunes where to put the next ripped CD or purchased music, but not where your present music is stored.
That information is stored in the 'iTunes Library' file inside ~/Users/yourusername/Music/iTunes.
If your new PB has the same structure (names etc.) as your old PB and you still have access to the 'iTunes library' file on your old PB this might work:
Copy the 'iTunes Library' file from your old PB to your new PB.
Replace the 'iTunes Library' file on your new PB with the one from your old PB.
Run iTunes and all information should be there (including playlists, ratings etc.).
If this trick doesn't work, drag the folder on your external HD which contains your music, to the iTunes window and drop it there.
Your music will now be added to the library, but you lost playlists etc.
If your music contains purchased music (at the iTMS), this article might be of interest:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93063
Hope this helps with iTunes.
Can't help you with iPhoto. Post your question in the iPhoto discussion
M

Airdisk won't do Time Machine backup.

I just upgraged to the new AEBS (dual band). The network is up and running fine. I have attached a USB external hard drive to serve as networked storage and would alsdo like to use it for Time Machine (TM) backups of our various computers. The drive use to be connected to my old Mac via Firewire and already has some data on it but is formatted at HFS Extended (Journaled).
The external drive appears on the left side of the Finder window and I can navigate to the disk, add folders, etc. The disks are not mounted on my desktop. I looked for the disks in the server menu but don't see any way to address them and mount them. I don't know if this is an issue for TM. When I try to set up Time Machine preferences, TM sees the Airdisk and allows me to select it. I start TM and get the Prerparing.... message but after a couple of minutes, TM errors out and give a message that the disk could not be written to.
Is there an additional step to get TM to work on Airdisk? Does the disk have to be a dedicated disk in that there are no other folders on it?
I would appreciate any help and suggestions.
Thanks,
David

John:
Thanks for the link. I reviewed the tutorial and followed all of the steps. Time Capsule sees the Airdisk and recognizes it but when I started Time Machine, it ran for a few seconds and then failed and I get the message; "Time Machine Error The backup disk image could not be created"
I did a little more checking and found that the error message is caused, at least in part, by the local computer not having a machine name. I went into System preferences / Sharing and entered a machine name and now TM is working.
Thanks for your help.
David
David

Lion won't mount Time Machine backup, but...

My Time Machine back up to an external drive seemed to have failed. It won't mount on Lion long enough to fix the problem. Other times it just locks up.
I dual boot with Vista and it sees the drive and all the files just fine. Any idea of what I can do to mount it on Lion. I'm tempted to just format it in Vista. Mount it in Lion, if it does at all, then format again for OS X. See if just a corrup files and not a failing hard drive.
Any suggestions are appreciated.

Robert Pena wrote:
My Time Machine back up to an external drive seemed to have failed. It won't mount on Lion long enough to fix the problem. Other times it just locks up.
Sounds like a problem with the drive itself, but might be corrupted data. See if you can Repair it, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
I'm tempted to just format it in Vista. Mount it in Lion, if it does at all, then format again for OS X. See if just a corrup files and not a failing hard drive.
If you do that, format it again with Disk Utility. Among other things, be sure it has the GUID partiion map scheme, not MBR (the Windoze setup), or even a version of GUID set by Windoze.

Force migration assistant to recognize time machine backup

I was trying to reformat Bootcamp partition and it reformated an attached external hard drive with my Time Machine backup on it and my internal hard drive that I boot from. I have professionally gotten the Time Machine backup recovered but it is not recognize by Migration Assistant or Time Machine so that it will restore my whole computer or at least transfer my account folder back to my reinstalled internal hard drive. I have 20 years of stuff locked in that Time machine backup and really need it back.

ahlquist wrote:
There are a lot of extra named files broken out in addition to the main folders (which look the same) that have 0-k in them and it looks like they were "links" or something like that.
Yup. Those are (or were) "hard links" (sort of like extra-fancy aliases) that are the key to how Time Machine can back up only changes, but still have every backup be, in effect, a full one. See How Time Machine works its Magic if you're interested in an overview of the details.
I'm very surprised you could see those via the Browse option.
You might try repairing the drive, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. I doubt it will help, but it's worth a shot.
I don't know if deleting the broken links will help or not.
is it safe to assume the links are messed up and I will have to recover the files manually?
It sure sounds like it.
If so, I'd put two Finder windows side-by-side; your current system and the most recent recovered backup, in List view, so you can see the contents more easily.
Start with /Users/<your home folder> unless you know you'd put stuff elsewhere.
Compare the two, and copy what's different/missing from the backups to your system. In some cases, you'll have to delete the (probably empty) folders on your system first. Note that you can't delete the "default" folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc.), so you'll have to copy the contents instead. This will be quite tedious, I'm afraid.
Then, if you can tell that things are missing, look in the previous backup for them. You might have to go back several backups for some, and may not find all the missing items anywhere.
I am most interested in documents, pictures, movies, mail and quicken files.
Assuming you hadn't moved them, docs will be in your Documents folder, iPhoto in your Pictures folder, Movies in your movies folder. Be especially careful with your iPhoto Library. Copy it all at once; it's like a database, and can't be copied in pieces.
For Mail and some other common things, see #28 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
I don't use Quicken, and don't know where it puts things. For that or other apps whose data you can't find, either check with the maker, or start the app. See if it shows a default location; if not, create a bit of data, then go hunting for a file/folder with a name similar to the app and/or with a current creation or modified date. They'll probably be somewhere in your Documents folder, your /Library folder, or your /Library/Application Support folder.
When this is done, you'll have learned a whole lot about how OSX organizes things.
Keep us posted.

Migration assistant does not recognize time machine backup

Hi Guru,
I made a time machine backup today, 10.8.2, then made full reinstall of system in Apple store, in Berkeley, because my iMac experinced some unstability.
we installed new Mac OS, and now I face a problem: migration assistant does not recognize hard disk with buckup.
Finder sees this disk, it has Backups folder.
OS: 10.8.2
BackUp made: Time Machine 10.8.2
Hard Disk: Lacie 500MB
any ideas?
Thank you

I am conserned about restoring using setup assistant because I need to transfer personal files and applications only.
You can do that in Setup Assistant.
Migration Assistant doesn't accept Time Machine backups of the computer it's running on; it only accepts compatible backups of other computers. You can't migrate a system to itself. To restore files from the same computer, enter Time Machine in the usual way, or else boot into Recovery and either restore the whole startup volume or erase, reinstall OS X, and restore in Setup Assistant.

TIME MACHINE ext HD not recognized in WINDOWS PC

hello ppl....i have a Buffalo Ministation 500gb ext HD which i have recently used as my Time Machine Drive for back up.
But the problem is that the HD is not being detected by any other windows systems since then.
So my doubt is that whether the Time Machine enabled HD gets detected on an other PC for data transfer or not...
Pls help me guys....

It's not clear exactly what you want to do, but even with MacDrive installed, a PC is not likely to be able to make sense of your Time Machine backups. They use a very complex structure, involving multiple hard links at both the file and directory level, which few 3rd-party apps understand.
Also, if you have (or plan to put) other data on your TM drive, you really should partition it first. TM works best if it has it's own, exclusive space (see #3 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum, for details).

PC won't recognize Time Machine ext. HD

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