Question about backing up to an external hard drive and then restoring

I want to back up my iPhone to an external hard drive rather than to CDs/DVDs, and it isn't an option under "Backup." I thought this could be done by consolidating the iTunes library and then copying the entire iTunes folder to the hard drive. But now I've read some things that make me not so sure. Can this be done? And if so, how do I restore everything if need be? I want to have a way to backup/restore in the case of having to reformat the hard drive or if I switch to using another computer. I am using a Windows computer.

Your iPhone's backup, which is created and maintained by iTunes stores data such as most iPhone settings, email account settings, contact info, SMS messages, notes, recent calls, call favorites, photos available in your iPhone's camera roll (you shouldn't depend on your iPhone's backup alone for these photos, which should be imported by your computer as with any other digital camera), and 3rd party app settings and data created and stored by a 3rd party app.
It isn't necessary to backup your iPhone's backup. You can manually update your iPhone's backup at any time without syncing, and the same when connecting your iPhone with iTunes on another computer. With your iPhone connected to iTunes and without syncing, control-click on your iPhone and at the menu window that appears, select Back Up.
Maintaining a backup of your iTunes library is much more important - copying the entire iTunes named folder to an external drive or some other external media used for backup purposes.
Since the iPhone is designed to be synced with a supported application on your computer for contact info and calendar events, you should maintain a backup of the supported application on your computer for this data. Photos transferred from your computer to your iPhone are not included with your iPhone's backup, so these photos should be included with your computer's backup along with all other important data.
When syncing an iPhone with iTunes on another computer, only iTunes content on the iPhone will be erased first, not all data on your iPhone such as contact info and calendar events. When selecting photos to be transferred to your iPhone from another computer, all photos available on your iPhone that were transferred from another computer will be erased first. If you don't select to sync contact info and calendar events with a supported application on another computer, contact info and calendar events on your iPhone will not be touched.

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If I back up on my external hard drive and then delete files on my computer, those files will remain on my external hard drive even after future back ups when those files aren't on my computer?

I am backing up my macbook pro on an external harddrive because I have run out of space on it. I am wondering if when I do a backup and then delete those files from my computer, during the next backup, those files will still be availavle on the external harddrive or will they be deleted because they are no longer on my computer. Confusing I know but I'm sure there is a simple answer to it!

Its good to have both, a time machine backup, AND a second cloned HD.
If your HD ever dies on you, you can in a matter of 20 mins, install the old HD and be up and running again quickly.
Its extremely important to have MULTIPLE backups, so many people have been so upset at losing massive amounts of data, because they "had a backup HD" for their data, but when that died etc, its gone.
1 backup is never enough, and the data on your computer "doesnt count" as a backup.

Is there a way to back up my adobe sweet to an external hard drive and then reinstall?

I need to do a factory reset on my mac and I would like to know what I should do about the adobe sweet. Is there a way to back it up to an external hard drive and then reinstall?

What you should do is deactivate the suite before you reset the machine. Then after things are reset and running again, download and install the suite using the serial number you should have (check under My Products in your online Adobe account).
Since you did not name the suite, I can only provide the following generic link which will lead you to the various downloads that Adobe provides.
Download and Installation Help -
https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install.html

HT1751 if i back up my itunes library to an external hard drive and then add subsequent music and want to back that up a few days later, can i backup the only newly added music without backing up the entire library again?

hello,
if i back up my itunes library to an external hard drive and then add subsequent music and want to back up the newly added music a few days later, can i do it without backing up the entire library again? or do i need to back up the entire library each and every time i back up to the external hard drive?

Just copy Users/yourusername/Music/iTunes (containing your library-files) to your external drive as well as that (extaernal) folder that contains all your audio-tracks.

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

Hello Drake, I suspect one or more of the Drives needs repairing, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.

HT4927 I have just downloaded iPhoto from the app store. The photo library from my old laptop was backed up on an external hard drive and I retrieved the photos from there. Now when I open the photos on my new Mac Book Pro, they are small - am I missing

I have just downloaded iPhoto from the app store. The photo library from my old laptop was backed up on an external hard drive and I retrieved the photos from there. Now when I open the photos on my new Mac Book Pro, they are small - am I missing something?
I am using 10.8.2 Mountain Lion btw

I dragged the Photo library icon from the backup drive on to iPhoto on the laptop
That means you imported one Library to another.
Never import one Library to another. Every version and thumbnail is imported like a distinct photo, you lose all your Albums, Keywords etc., the link between Original and Previews is destroyed, the non-destructive editing feature is ruined and so on. In summary: it's mess.
So the reason you're seeing small photos is because you're seeing the iPhoto thumbnails from the back up library.
So, what to do?
Do you still have the back up? If so, trash this bunged up library and restore from the back up again. HOw to restore will depend entirely on how you made the back up, but no version of restoring includes importing the library.
Regards
TD

Can I export my itunes movies onto an external hard-drive and then remove them from my computer, but still watch them when I plug in my external hard-drive?

I am running out of space on my macbook. What is taking up the most room is my movies. Can I put them on an external hard-drive and then watch them later after I remove them from my library?

tothatc wrote:
Hello,
I recently purchased a new laptop because my old computer wwent on the fritz. Luckily I backed up my library on my external hard drive. My question is can a) connect my itouch and ihone to my nex computer and b) run my library strictly from my hard drive and not import everything to my new computer?
thanks for the hep!!
On Windows, hold Shift (not alt), launch iTunes and select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external drive.

I move a folder from an external hard drive and then I press command+z after I eject the drive to change a typo for the name, but this "erase" the folder. Where the folder go?

I move 15 gigs from an external hard drive and then eject the drive to give it back to my friend.
Once i got home I was re naming the folder and I made a mistake with a typo, and out of instict I press command + z and the folder dissapear!!!
Where it is now?
Someone have any ideas, he doesnt have it and is not showing on my mac
mountain lion/ macbook pro

did you try holding the shift-command-Z to see if it returns?

Can some please provide instructions on how to import an iPhoto library from an old Mac to a new Mac without getting a bunch of duplicates? I tried transferring my pictures using an external hard drive and then copying it to the Pictures folder on my Mac

Can someone please provide instructions on how to import an iPhoto library from an old Mac to a new Mac without getting a bunch of duplicates? I tried transferring my pictures using an external hard drive and then copying it to the Pictures folder on my new Mac. I ended up getting a bunch of duplicates. My old Mac has an older version of iPhoto while the new Mac has iPhoto '11. Is that the cause of the problem? Please advise. Thanks.

Simply copy the iPhoto Library from the Pictures Folder on the old Machine to the Pictures Folder on the new Machine.
Then launch iPhoto. That's it.
This moves photos, events, albums, books, keywords, slideshows and everything else.
Regards
TD

I have a new iPad Air. Can I use plug in USB camera reader to have a load of movies etc on an external hard drive and then plug and play so to speak. I'm off on holiday and haven't got the capacity to have everything on that I'd like for the kids

Can I use a plug in USB camera reader to have a load of movies etc on an external hard drive and then plug and play so to speak? I'm off on holiday and haven't got the capacity on the iPad to have everything on that I'd like for the kids.
So basically I want a hard drive with X amount of films etc on. Can I then watch them on my iPad?
Hope this makes sense.

External HDD won't work.
You need something like this:
http://www.seagate.com/goflexsatellite/

Where are my purchased movies through iTunes stored on my PC? I need to back-them up on a hard drive and then I want to play them on my iPad

where are my purchased movies through iTunes stored on my PC? I need to back-them up on a hard drive and then I want to play them on my iPad

They're in the iTunes folder, in iTunes Media or iTunes Music depending on when your iTunes was first installed. The iTunes folder by default is in My Documents/Music.
Regards.

Backing up images on external hard drive and restoring to new internal driv

I recently purchased a new external hard drive and a new internal hard drive. Before installing the new internal drive, I backed up the old internal drive on the external drive. Then I installed the new internal drive to my Macbook Pro. However, when I tried to access and print my Aperture images on the new internal drive, I received an error message saying "versions with unavailable master images cannot be printed." I clicked on 'show referenced files," but couldn't determine how to recover my master images. I checked the forum and under "referenced files go offline after restore from a backup" it said to go to "File>manage referenced files" but nothing else. How can I recover my master images? Please help - I have nearly 6000 images that are lost without recovering the master images. And no, I was ultra stupid in not placing everything in a vault = but I'm relatively new to Mac OS and thought a backup would be sufficient. Thank!

The volume name of the new hard drive needs to be the same as the old hard drive - rename it if you have to - then they should be fine.
If you cannot seem to make this work then you will have to reconnect them with locate referenced files under the file menu. Select all the files that are disconnected before going into the dialog.
RB

Backing up photos to external hard drive,and exporting back to CF card on camera

iPhoto 5 on Mac Power PC G4, OS 10.4.11
backing up photos to external hard drive (LaCie) My iPhoto Library contains a number of files (such as 'Library.iPhoto' 'iPhoto.db' 'ThumbJPG.data' etc) and a number of folders with dates such as 2005 etc, containing folders within folders, none of which with any contents.
Is there a way I can organise just the photos on their own so that I can select just those to be backed up on my LaCie hard drive, without all those distracting and (apparently) unnecessary extra files and folders ?
exporting edited photos back to CF card on camera I have tried everything I can think of to export photos from iPhoto back to the CF card on the camera, without success. It must be possible to do ?

Edit: Note: It's been a while but the Export command may be in the Share menu on older versions...
1. To back up an iPhoto Library
Most Simple Back Up
Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
Slightly more complex:
Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically. Examples of such apps: Chronosync or DejaVu . But are many others. Search on MacUpdate
2. To Back up Just the Photos
Use the File -> Export command to export the images to where you want them.
BTW: there are no user-serviceable parts in the iPhoto Library Folder. Rooting around in there can cause damage.
3. Edited Photos to CF Card is a two part process:
Exporting is just File -> Export. Choosing any setting except 'Original' and you'll get the Edited version.
The CF Card? Just drag and drop there.
But a couple of possible problems: Canon Cameras don't show up in the Finder. So you'll need to stick the card into a USB Card Reader for get them on there
Camera Cards are all formatted FAT. That means there's a limit to the number of items on the top level of the card: Workaround: Export the shots to a folder and drag that over
And, of course, if you want to see the shots in the camera, you'll need to put them in whatever specific folder it uses for the photos.
Regards
TD

Back up to External Hard Drive and then updating IPAD in the future

If you back up your ITunes music to an external hard drive and delete the music on the computer do you have to re import the music when you want to updated your IPod or can you just do the updates from the external hard Drive as long as the Itunes are loaded on the external hard drive as well?

The best way to back up is to use a utility such as DejaVu or any of the many, many alternatives that you can find on MacUpdate.
Essentially, to back up iPhoto you make a copy of the Library on the external Disk.
The most basic way to do this is to drag the Library from the Pictures Folder to the External.
You can back up to DVD in two ways: The Share -> Burn command will create a disk that is readable in iPhoto. Or you can simply drag the Library from the Pictures Folder to the DVD and burn it using the Finder.
Regards
TD

Is it possible to install windows 7 on a partitioned external hard drive and then boot from windows from time to time?

I have some applications that are windows only. I want to install windows 7 on my external hard drive and boot to it when I need to use my windows applications. Is this possible with a mac and, if so, how can I do that? I have a 64-bit Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion.

VirtualBox is free.
Besides the websites for the different products, I don't know of any.
https://www.virtualbox.org
http://www.vmware.com
http://www.parallels.com

Question about backing up to an external hard drive and then restoring

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