Protection of backups of two machines on one external hard drive

I have one external hard drive which I intended to use to back up two MacBooks owned by different family members. However, it seems that I can access all files on the other person´s backup on the external drive and vice versa, even if our data are protected with user accounts and passwords on our separate machines. Is there any solution to this problem?

You need to partition the drive and each of you should backup to your respective partitions from your computers. You should both be using different usernames and passwords.

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  • How do I move data on time machine from one external hard drive to another

    How do I move data on time machine from one external hard drive to another?

    Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
    Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

  • Two computers to one external hard drive problem, pram reset...

    I have a Powerbook 15" 1.0 Ghz and recently I made the mistake of connecting one external hard drive to two computers. My OWC External hard drive was connected to my powerbook via firewire 800 and my PC via firewire 400 with both on. There is a tiny little blurb on the external hard drive's instructions that says do not connect to more than one computer at a time but of course I didn't see that until after the fact. My powerbook was painfully slow so I restarted but it wouldn't come back on. I was instructed to reset the pram, which I succesfully did but now the powerbook is so slow it is unuseable. The pc works fine. Did I do any permanent damage? Do I need to reinstall OSX or what? I will kill myself if I fried something on my powerbook. Please help!!

    Disconnect all devices from your PowerBook as well as power and the battery for about 30 seconds. Put the battery and power back in/on and then reset both PRAM (3 consecutive times) and the PMU. Hopefull this'll bring it back to life.
    Otherwise, create a new user account and see if things are better there. It is possible that you have damaged software rather than hardware so a clean instal may do the trick.

  • How to use carbon copy cloner to back up two computer in one external hard drive

    Hello,
    I have only one external hard drive which is already used for backing up my old macbook.  Recently, i bought a macbook air.  Is it possible to use carbon copy cloner to backup my data from macbook air to same external hard drive?  If yes, is there anything I should be caucious?  If not, could you suggest any other software of other method to backup my macbook air?  Thanks!!

    Yes, provided you  have the space. You will need to create another partition on the drive to use as the backup volume for the new computer.
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    2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
    3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.  (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
    4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
    You should now have a new volume on the drive.
    It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss.  Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.

  • My 5 year old iMac's hard drive is at the point of failing.  I'm trying to save al files on it, but it wont allow backup via Time Machine to an external hard drive.  How can I keep from losing all the files and programs if the hard drive fails?

    I'm concerned that my iMac, purchased 5 years ago, is about the crash and I can't back up my files and programs to an external hard drive via Time Machine because the computer freezes after only a couple hundred MB and gets nowhere near the required amount.
    How can I save these files and programs if the computer hard drive fails or has to be replaced without the backup being able to be done? I need to do something quickly, but I'm not sure what I can or should be doing.

    Get an external hard drive, some good ones that I like are the OWC, http://www.macsales.com Mercury Elite Pro drives...they are very good and reasonably priced.
    Get the drive, connect via USB or FireWire, then use Disk Utility to format the new drive as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), and then use Disk Utility to Restore the current drive to the new drive.  Restore actually clones the drive so you will have a bootable backup on the external drive.
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    That clone will be a complete backup of the operating system and all of your data.
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  • Time Machine from one external hard drive to another

    Hi, I just had the dreadful misfortune of spilling water onto my Macbook Pro over the weekend. It shorted immediately and it's currently drying with some rice. Luckily I was able to take the hard drive out! I already checked that all my contents are fine *whew*.
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    I also have another external hard drive (La Cie) that I typically use to back things up. I haven't ran Time Machine in a while and really hope to do so ASAP.
    I have access to another MBP and I want to use it to run Time Machine to back up the latest files from the Enclosed HD to the La Cie. How do I do this without the computer thinking that I want to run Time Machine with it's internal hard drive?
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    THANKS!

    Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
    Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

  • Problems with Time Machine backup for two machines to one external drive

    I have a brand new WD 500GB USB My Book external drive plugged into my Intel Mac Mini running 10.5.1 to use as a TM backup drive (TM reformatted it to HFS+ journaled). The Mini's connected by ethernet to the Airport Extreme. It works great. I setup my wife's MacBook Pro 17" Dual Core 2 w. 10.5.1 for TM using the Mac Mini's TM backup drive and it works fine (a little slower at 811.n wi-fi speeds, but OK). I have the Mac Mini setup in Energy Saver to shut down at night and restart in the morning. The morning after I setup my wife's MacBook Pro for TM I found a big black & white message (in half a dozen languages) on the Mac Mini saying start up failed and I need to reboot using the power button. I did and everything was cool. Now comes the problem, it's done it three days in a row so it looks like there is a problem with the TM setup. It didn't do this before I setup my wife's computer for TM.
    Any thoughts on what is causing this? We've had minimal problems with Leopard setup (short of a brief hunt for an Airport Extreme Drive and a couple of network printers during initial setup).

    1 mistake @ a time wrote:
    I works fine over a network if the TM drive is attached to another Mac running Leopard. It won't work with an Airport drive (Apple deep sixed that feature in the final release).
    We have an Airport Extreme base station, and we plan to add an Airport Express to boost the power to reach the second floor. We are ordering 4 iMacs, 20", plus I have the Macbook 13" that I have had for a few months.
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  • HT201250 I have two macbooks. Can I backup both machines using timemachine on one external hard drive?

    I have two MacBooks, both operating on different OS - Leopard and Snow Leopard. Can they both be backed upusing time machine onto one external hard drive?

    J D McIninch wrote:
    Actually, it does both. However, if you use two machines with the same name, it can pose a problem. If you mount the Time Machine drive and open the backup db directory, you'll note that the subdirectories are arranged by system name. The information about the ethernet MAC ID is in hidden files.
    Yes, as posted, to the user it's confusing  (and accessing your backups via the Finder is not recommended).
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  • I'm having some difficulty with Time Machine.  It appears to be deleting backups from random dates on my external hard drive.  I am not deleting them.  Are they hidden and how do I prevent this from happening?  Can I retrieve them?

    I'm having some difficulty with Time Machine.  It appears to be deleting backups from random dates on my external hard drive.  I am not deleting them.  Are they hidden and how do I prevent this from happening?  Can I retrieve them?

    ... I didn't know that Time Machine was more a last resort back up instead of main back up.
    Don't rely upon Time Machine to the exclusion of all else. I compliment Time Machine with a periodic "clone". TM is much better than nothing, but it's a safety net, not a hammock
    Here is my understanding of Time Machine's file deletion algorithm, distilled from Pondini's FAQ, Apple's KB articles, and my own observations.
    Time Machine deletes ("thins") files from the backup disk as follows:
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    Daily backups over 30 days old, except the first backup of the week
    Older backups get deleted when Time Machine requires space and you deleted them from the source disk.
    Therefore, assuming TM has been performing at least one backup per day, backup files will remain available:
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    until you run out of space, if they existed on your Mac for at least a week
    In addition to the above, Time Machine always keeps one complete copy of your source disk so that the entire volume could be restored if necessary. Any files that remain on your source volume will be present on the TM backup, no matter how old they are.
    If you are using 250 GB of space on your source disk, its Time Machine backups are likely to require at least twice that much. A good estimate of the minimum required backup volume size would be about three times the size of your source disk - 1.5 TB in your case.
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    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

  • Two very mobile laptops, one external hard drive, and iTunes?

    I'm very sorry if this has been answered, but I've searched a lot and haven't quite found the precise question I'm asking...
    My household has two iBooks (G3 and G4) wirelessly networked through an original Airport. Our music is completely digital, and we have no stereo. Each iBook has a different iTunes library. When we want to play the G3's music, we connect the G3 to a good set of speakers (pretending to be a stereo) through the mini jack. Same for the G4. This would be fine, except we're both running out of internal hard drive space.
    So, what we want to do is buy one external hard drive, both store our music files on it, and play music. A new drive in the mid-range should tide us both over till we can afford new computers.
    But this has raised a whole host of questions:
    1. How do we share a hard drive when we both have laptops that move about the house all the time? Sometimes the G3 sits on the desk playing music while the G4 sits on the couch checking email, and vice versa.
    2. Can we set up just one iTunes library on the hard drive that is fully accessible to whichever computer is connected to it, both in terms of playing and in terms of updating?
    3. But wouldn't that be terrible, anyway, because I couldn't sit on the couch and download new music into my iTunes folder automatically?
    4. And this leads to what I really, really, want, which is an external hard drive that is independently wirelessly accessible by both computers.
    5. Which in turn leads to the true wishlist, which is to be able to use AirTunes too. Then I could sit anywhere, access a shared library on either computer, and then stream it to my stereo.
    Is any of this possible? Am I missing the forest for the trees? Is there some big picture that I am just not seeing? I just want both computers to be mobile, to each have more space to store music, and each still be able to play that music without the other one having to be involved.
    Thanks a bunch -- Discussions is one of my favorite places to lurk for hours.
    - Kendra
    (BTW, I'd upgrade my Airport if it helped, or buy an Express. And I've seen a lot on Sharepoints, but am not sure if that's what I'm looking for.)

    Well to answer several questions at once, there are Ethernet (aka Network) Hard drives you can buy that hook up via ethernet. you could plug it in near your router and then plug the ethernet cable into one of the Router's ethernet ports and set up a network drive. It doesn't have to be connected directly to a computer. Here are two examples (shop around for price, size and features)...
    http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5031245?site=sr:SEARCH:MAINRSLTPG
    http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3945658?site=sr:SEARCH:MAINRSLTPG
    Patrick

  • How do I backup my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and keep my photos grouped by their events?

    How can I backup my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and keep my photos grouped by their events?

    I have attempted to make sure my iPhoto library has been backed up on the external hard drive and that it is safe to delete some events from my internal hard drive
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    Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
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  • How can I backup my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive

    How can I backup my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive?

    Basic Backup
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      2. Get Backup
      3. Deja Vu
      4. SuperDuper!
      5. Synk Pro
      6. Tri-Backup
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      2. OWC
      3. WiebeTech
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      5. California Drives
      6. NewEgg
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  • I get error 8062 when trying to copy files from one external hard drive to another. It starts out copying files, but after 10 minutes or so it stops and I get the error 8062. The hard drive tech support says the problem is in my Macbook Air.

    I cannot copy my doc and photos and videos from one external hard drive to a second external hard drive -- both plugged in to my MacBook Air -- I get Error 8062 and the copying (which seemed to be going on for 10 minutes) stops and nothing gets copied.
    As any Macbook Air owner knows, there is SO LITTLE storage capacity on the computer that you have to back up big files onto an external hard drive to avoid getting the other annoying error that says you have no more memory/storage capacity/whatever the proper term is, and you cannot use the computer.
    Backstory: Before this error cropped up, I had backed up lots of files to an external drive and then removed them from my computer. But then the external hard drive got corrupted and I could not access my entire photo library. Had to pay $850 to Kroll Ontrack to recover those files. I have now bought 2 new external 1 Terrabyte  hard drives as protection against another such disaster. BUT I cannot copy the files from the first hard drive where all my reovered files now sit, to another backup hard drive.
    Feeling vulnerable. Please help.
    SusaninNY

    From the menu bar, select
     ▹ System Preferences ▹ Energy Saver ▹ Power Adapter
    and uncheck the box labeled Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible, if it's checked.
    If the drive has more than one interface (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, eSATA), try one of the other interfaces.
    Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
    Try a different cable.
    If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
    If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
    Disconnect all other devices on the bus, or as many as possible.
    Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
    If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
    Start up in Safe Mode and test.
    If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

  • Can I use one external hard drive for 3 of my Macs?

    I have a 2007 white MacBook, a 2011 MacBook Pro, and a 2013 MacBook Air.
    I want to be able to transfer all of my precious family photos off of my MacBook and Macbook Pro onto an external hard drive and then wipe those computers clean, and then I want to be able to backup and wipe clean my Macbook Air so that I can update it to Mavericks.
    Can I use one external hard drive to do this for three of my Macs? Will it be compatible with all of them? And will I still be able to use the hard drive with my Air once it is updated to Mavericks?
    Which hard drive do you recommend?

    1. Yes. Note that anything you want to keep should be on at least two drives in case one of them fails.
    2. Yes.
    3. Yes.
    (110959)

  • Can't get LR3 to import photos from one external hard drive to another?

    I'm wanting to move thousands of raw photos from a folder in one external hard drive to another folder in a different external hard drive so all my photos are in one photo folder instead of two.  I've gone through the importing routine inside of lightroom to move the folder over to the new hard drive.  However, the photos don't move because they still show up on the old hard drive and not the new one.  What's weird is when I try to import it again, the grid view shows all the photos I'm wanting to import and when I move my cursor over any of the photos they are faded out and it says the photos are already imported.  However, if this is true why aren't they showing up in the new folder on my new external hard drive?  I know the new external hard drive works fine because I've successfully been putting all my newer photos there since I started using LR about one year ago.  The one's I'm trying to move over are older photos I shot try to using LR.
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    You wrote
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    You can save your edits to xmp, a side-car file that is stored together with the image file, and the xmps would be imported. But LR does not store everything as xmp. For instance Virtual Copies, Collections, Stacking are saved only in the catalog, so by doing an import you'd lose these things.
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