R&R Backup (Image) on two external USB drives

Hi Forum,
in the early BIOS state of my T500 and working with Vista I had to rebuild my system several times due to OS failures. For that reason I periodically run R&R and make images on an external USB drive.
Since I'm traveling very much I always have the USB drive with the image with me. The drive contains one basic backup and some incremental backups up to level 25 (at the time being).
Now my goal: in case of a theft or a failure of that USB drive, I want to keep a second image on another USB drive at home.
Now my questions:
1: Is it possible to make backups with R&R (basic and incremental) of one computer on several USB drives?
In that case R&R must detect which incremental level is present on the USB drive and create the appropriate backup (management of the levels on the USB drive, not on the computer).
Example: USB drive A contains one basic backup and some incremental backups to level 12 (consistent) - USB drive B contains one basic backup and some incremental backups to level 17 (consistent as well).
2: If the answer to question 1 is "yes" - does R&R manage this automatically in the windows interface or is it necessary to use the DOS level (rrcmd.exe). Which switches are to be set?
Many thanks for help
Axel

It is  a difficult question: the help file isn't entirely clear.
Here is my recent experience: using R&R 4.21 I had backed up my machine to the internal drive + 1 external USB drive several times, so that there was the base back-up and several incrementals on both drives. I also had copied the base backup + earlier incrementals to DVDs using the advanced menu entry for that task, just to be on the safe side. And, using another program (the free version of Syncback by 2BrightSparks), I regularly duplicate documents + pictures to the USB drive, so I'm covered in 3 different ways on 2 types of external hardware.
On one or two occasions I did an incremental backup on the internal drive only--but the next time I did an incremental with the external USB drive attached, the missed incrementals were synchronized onto the external drive.
Now, 2 weeeks ago I decided to zap the main disk and rebuilt the OS + programs to have a "clean slate" for 2010. When I had finished reinstalling everything minus personal files, I made a base backup (the only choice offered) on the internal drive with the external drive attached. This effectively erased the existing earlier backups on the external drive and copied over the new base backup.
So this synchronization only operates in one direction: the external USB drive's store of R&R backups is a replica of what is on the main internal drive.
I strongly suggest trying this all out (i.e. missing an incremental backup on the external drive, then making sure it has catched up after the next incremental backup) after making an external copy on DVD of the R&R backups. In fact, if you have the nerve, the patience and the time (and the DVD backups!), you should also try a bare metal restore of the DVD backup (I did last year when I bought this machine and hadn't too many personal files on it-- R&R 4.21 does actually work!)
sorry i can't be more specific, but my advice is to practice the "disaster recovery" at least once, early on, in order to be sure how it works if disaster does strike.

Similar Messages

  • Backing up to encrypted disk image on an external usb drive

    I'd like to use an encrypted disk image on an external USB drive as the target for my Time Machine backups, but it seems that Time Machine will only recognize physical external drives, and not mounted disk images in the "Change Disk..." window.
    Is it possible to make Time Machine use disk images mounted from an external USB drive?
    Thanks.

    ..."Is it possible to make Time Machine use disk images mounted from an external USB drive?"...
    Actually, with a few caveats, it is possible.
    Just follow one of the many tutorials on the web for creating an encrypted sparse bundle for use with "TimeMachine" on a network volume (i.e. MACaddress.sparsebundle naming convention, password stored to the system keychain, etc.), and then attach the drive locally and select the drive (not the mounted disk image) as the backup drive. As "Glen Carter" reported in another thread on this site, "TimeMachine" is smart enough to know to mount the disk image for backups when the drive is connected locally.
    There are caveats for example, - while backups remain automatic, it appears that actually browsing the backups requires that the disk image be mounted manually first, then accessed via the "Browse Other Time Machine Disks…" option.
    One caveat to pay particular attention to is what happens when the drive starts to fill up and space becomes limiting - the processes of deleting expired backups and sparse image compaction may not be well integrated, as discussed here:
    http://www.flokru.org/2008/03/15/time-machine-backups-on-network-shares-2-possib le-problems/
    The article implies that the end result could be deletion of all backups! The article is dated March 2008 but I have no idea whether the issue has been resolved.
    Just be advised that it is an unsupported configuration so the extra security will come at the cost of some convenience and potential increase in the chance of data loss. Most users recommend using supplemental backup strategies since the intended purpose of TimeMachine is actually very limited and often misunderstood. Apart from that, it is a rule written in stone that whenever encryption is used, the encrypted items themselves must be backed up.

  • What is the best way to backup a 1 Terabyte external USB drive?

    In order to keep my MacBook Air running speedily along and to free up space, I use this strategy to store my iTunes Library on an external USB drive.
    I'm trying to think of the best way to backup a 1 Terabyte external USB drive. I'm told the hardware has a product life of about five years and some say to burn DVD-R discs of it as a backup, but that would require many discs.
    Has anyone explored the viability of using FTP in conjunction with AWS (Amazon Web Services) to backup the iTunes Library to the cloud? Their file storage is quite cheap.
    Any thoughts on the most effective way to backup an external USB drive?
    Thanks!
    AB

    For a simple clone use Disk Utility's Restore option:
    Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
    Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
    Select the destination volume from the left side list.
    Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
    Check the box labeled Erase destination.
    Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
    Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
    Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
    Others will suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.

  • Creating an Encrypted Disk Image on an External (USB) Drive

    I have an external 600 GB drive (2x 300 GB SATA 3.5" disks in a Thecus N2050 RAID0 external enclosure connected to iMac by USB2) onto which I would like to backup a large amount of data (500 GB).
    I store this external drive away from my home (in the office) and since I cannot guarantee physically locking away the drive I would like to logically lock the drive by placing all the backup data into an encrypted disk image created on that volume.
    I have tried creating an encrypted disk image on my USB volume in Disk Utility (Apple's instructions here) but I experience a number of issues not documented in the Apple article:
    1) I am not presented with a drop-down option for the size of the disk image.
    2) When I go ahead and try to creat the image I am told that the creation was impossible "file or folder does not exist".
    Is it possible to create disk images on USB volumes (I cannot create such a large disk image on my iMac HDD as I do not have sufficient space).
    thanks in advance
    Raf

    I realised that in Disk Utility you must not have any of your mounted drives highlighted in the left hand pane.

  • Using two external USB drives in RAID 1?

    Is this acceptable? I initially set it up, copied files over only to see one slice degraded. Now I've been trying to rebuild the RAID but it's taking 40 +hours. Seems it would be easier/less time consuming to delete, recreate the RAID and recopy the files.
    But - I wonder if this an acceptable practice or even supported (many posts say IDE or SATA drives).

    Check out the Linksys articles below, if RAID 1 is not running properly then the RAID status would indicate "degraded" and disk health status "failed".
    Checking the Status of Hard Drives
    Creating RAID 1 on the Network Media Hub
    Cheers.

  • Mini doesn't always connect  bluetooth and external (USB) drives on boot

    I have had a new Intel mini for 4 months now (we also have a PPC G5, which we love). In the last few weeks the mini started to not connect my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, nor recognize some of my USB peripherals when booting up. When this happens, it also makes a repeated "startup sound - bong!" echo when the start button is pressed. I have two external USB drives, one 500GB Phantom and one 500GB WD MyBook. When the Apple logo appears at boot, I can see the activity lights flashing on the drives as the BIOS interrogates the USB connections, but after the Leopard start up desktop appears, the only drive shown is Macintosh HD, the mouse pointer is at the top left of the display and will not move, nor will the keyboard do anything. I have read every post on this subject and tried all of the resets suggested. Sometimes this works after a few attempts, sometimes it takes 6 or more tries - disconnecting all cables, and turning the computer on again and again. Occasionally the WD MyBook drive appears on the desktop, yet still the Bluetooth is unresponsive and the other drive absent. I am getting frustrated having to disconnect everything and trying to boot this thing up, sometimes for one hour or longer before I can use it properly (all of my work is on the external drives).
    There MUST be a firmware update for this by now, because I see that I am not the only one experiencing these problems, and this is obviously some problem with how the BIOS is communicating with the bus.

    Hi amyta pdx-
    I'd be careful jumping to conclusions or the troubleshooting process may get clouded. For one thing those WD drives are junk and most people using them eventually have problems.
    What happens with everything disconnected from the Mac except a mouse connected to a USB port on the Mac and the monitor connected to the video port only?
    Luck-
    -DP

  • 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/

  • How can I do backups on internal disc while sharing an external USB drive?

    Hi,
    On my Airport Utility there are two lines: "Time Capsule Disc", and below (indented) "Data".
    (When I plug an external USB drive I can see it in this window as well)
    Clicking (selecting) the first line, on the right hand side I can see the disc details (name, capacity and SMART Status (Verified)), and two buttons: Compress and Erase (I don't know if these are the words used on the english version mine is spanish).
    Clicking on the second line (Data) I can see the Name "Data", capacity, used and available sizes and number of users connected.
    First question:
    Why Time Machine can't see the "Data" volume if I untick the "Share files" checkbox?
    Second question:
    Moreover, I've got a USB External Drive attached to my Time Capsule, so I have to have the "Share Files" checkbox ON, this makes my USB disc (fat32) available to my Windows computers but ALSO the "Data" volume can be seen from Windows. If there is any attempt to assign a Windows drive letter to the "Data" volume, next time Time machine wants to do a backup I'm getting a "disc wrong or missing, check credentials (or something similar)".
    In summary, what I'm trying to do is Time Machine backups to the internal Time Capsule disc (making that disc unavailable/invisible to any other computer in my network) while sharing a USB external drive attached to Time Capsule.
    Advice, please!

       Yes you can go to > Music > iTunes folder and copy the whole iTunes folder and drag the folder to your external and then on the new Mac click and highlight the iTunes folder and then in iTunes click on the button at the top (add folder to library) and you should see all your songs transfer from the external to the Mac and all songs start filling up in your iTunes library on the Mac.
      This is the easiest method all songs and other media such as songs, movies, apps will be transferred over however you may not be able to keep ratings & last played counts using this method.
      To keep all metadata including ratings & play count use the Apple method exclusively for this if you have to have your metadata, play counts and ratings saved.
      I used scenario one above because it one of the simplest methods and I was just satisfied enough just to transfer all media over.

  • Moving Time Machine backups from Time Capsule to External USB Drive

    Hi all,
    hoping someone out there can help I'm trying to move my time machine backups from my old Time Capsule to my external USB drive. I've already used the Airport Utility to "archive" my Time Capsule to a USB connected WD MyBook Elite.
    Right now my WD MyBook Elite has both the archive, and recent (roughly 5 backups) of both my MacBook & MacMini. I've tried to follow the seemingly simple steps located in the FAQ's here [URL="http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/18.html#id22"]Copy NETWORK backups to be used LOCALLY[/URL] , but I cannot past step 1.
    [Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
    There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
    Any advice?
    I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
    Mac Mini & MacBook.
    Thank you in advance.

    Dark Heart wrote:
    [Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
    There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
    That's not referring to the sparse bundle you're copying FROM, but the new volume you just formatted on the USB drive you're copying TO.
    If you didn't just format the partition, that box may not be shown -- it not, there's no problem and you don't need to do anything in that step.
    I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
    Mac Mini & MacBook.
    I'm not sure what you mean by that: you cannot combine the backups of two different Macs. You can put them both on the same hard drive, either in two different partitions, or, if any are going to be backed-up over a network, in a sparse bundle.
    If I've misunderstood, please clarify exactly what you're trying to do.

  • Can a time machine usb drive backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme*

    can a time machine usb drive conected to my mac book backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme ?

    Hi Adam, if you think yoiur HD may be failing you could do a TM restore onto the new disk. I would rather see you do a clone either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner.Of your internal drive. That way you have a bootable backup in case it does fail.
    btw - what are the symptoms of your failing drive?
    -mj
    Message was edited by: macjack

  • Can i include external usb drives in Time Machine backups

    Can I include external usb drives and sticks in Time Machine backups?
    This was the question I searched a week for. My machine is a MBAir with Yosemite. I have a bunch of USB HD and sticks. This is a sharing of what it took to solve. I lost a couple of important document revisions lately because of not having differential backups on them, so wanted to include them in Time Machine.
    Yes it can, I found. But it's a wee bit backwards. And apparent inconsistencies drive you crazy. Time Machine is supposed to do this by default, and wants you to tell it what NOT to include. Trouble is, formats create many troubles.
    But the USB sticks and HD's you buy are PC formatted. And you'd like to share, as the Apple does with FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT (to overcome the 4G size limit on the others). Even NTFS can be plugged in and be read-only. Turns out you just can't incorporate into TM backups.
    Open Time Machine Options, and look at the drives listed in the exclusion window. Drives that you know to be plugged in and registered by Finder, may or not be registered in the exclusion window, and if registered and their icons may be bright or dimmed. Bright will NOT be included. Dimmed are excluded. Normally the operation is to use the or to exclude these drives from your next BU operation. (this instruction is lost the next time in manual mode). So if a drive or stick is shown and is bright it WON'T be backed up. If you it from the window, then it will grey out and WILL be backed up. If it's not there to offer you exclusion, you can browse to such a file or device so you can exclude it. TM's exclusion window will show the PC formats: FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT greyed out (as not included). NTFS is bright looking like it might work, but when    doesn't dim, it disappears, and is ignored in the actual BU.
    Sources are supposed to be included in the backup if it isn't shown bright in the exclusion window. In this respect I only use TM manually, and not for programmed BU's, so I cannot speak to that.
    If everything you have is formatted for the Apple disc system (Mac OS Extended) then there are no contradictions or partial equivalences. The mounted disc or stick will show in TM exclusions window, and if you it, you'll see it in the Time Machine pile of calendared directories, with all the files. And of course it will do the differential backups for it that we use TM for in the first place. Just remember to prepare the BU by not excluding.
    BUT NOW THE VARIABLES. It now depends upon the formats. I use the Paragon NTFS program to permit writing NTFS. (Apple can normally read but not write NTFS). Paragon is lovely because for normal computer use, I can read and write both Apple and PC files and disc formats in Finder (for 3 years now). But Time Machine cannot be reached by Paragon so it's NTFS behaviors are outrageous. Paragon reaches Disk Doctor so you can read, write, format and heal both Apple and PC formats. And this really confused things respecting Time Machine. I literally worked through every variable, from stick to disc to prove what did work, and when false appearances of working showed up.
    Respecting that very Time Machine display of Finder windows piled backwards through time there's a confusing bug. When first opened, TM shows NOW as the current setup and works just like a Finder window in present time. And the outboard discs and sticks show as in Finder. BUT working back in time, the left window DOES NOT SHOW THE CONDITIONS AT BACKUP but rather in all left windows shows the present setup. So you need to work from the right hand side dates and times to go back and see when you had that stick or HD plugged in. And then, finally, you will see the files you wanted saved. But if there is a stick on the left than TM doesn't like but Finder likes you'll see it left but nothing will be in the files. Clicking on the pretender just jumps to the root.
    My Disk Doctor provisions (with Paragon) show, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive Journaled), MS-DOS (FAT), exFAT, Windows NT Filesystem, Windows NT Filesystem (compressed). It's a better utility than in Microsoft and I use it for such maintenance.
    Bottom line, I like TM very much. 2 years ago I lost my air and TM was able to reconstruct my machine many times in the course of the troubleshooting - all the way from the start to the last without ever missing a beat or a file. So I accept this limitation and make copies to another HD formatted in NTFS when I work on PCs.
    Hope's this sorts out being lost in the desert for a few of you.
    Jock
    <Personal Information Edited by Host>

    Storing normal data files on the Time Capsule is unfortunately not as easy as dropping the folder on the Time Capsule.
    Open up Macintosh HD on the Mac
    Look for the SHARED heading on the left
    Click on the Time Capsule icon and a folder named "Data" will appear (unless you have renamed it)
    Double click the "Data" folder to mount the drive on the desktop. You may need to enter the device password for the Time Capsule when you do this the first time
    Once the drive icon is on the desktop, you can drag data to the icon and drop it there. Double click the icon to open up the drive and see the files

  • Trying to move backup from Time Capsule to external USB drive

    As per the title, I'm getting rid of my Time Capsule and am trying to move the backups to an external USB drive instead.
    Initially I used AirPort Utility 5.6.1 to archive to the USB drive. However, when I switched TM back on, it wanted to do a full backup rather than incremental.
    I then found Pondini's very useful page at http://pondini.org/TM/18.html and decided to try it this method instead. It also made me realise that I'd incorrectly formatted the new drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) when in fact the TM backup was case sensitive. So I thought this could have been the issue, but still persued Pondini's method. I formatted the drive again, this time in the correct format, and followed Pondini's guide, copying the Backups.backupdb folder from the sparse bundle to the new drive, which completed fine. But unfortunately, TM again wanted to backup everything from scratch when I turned it back on.
    Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

    So it looks like I was wrong on both counts.
    I misunderstood AirPort Utility's archive feature. I failed to realise that archiving actually puts the sparse bundle in a separate folder called "Data Archive" on the new drive, so of course TM won't continue using that existing backup.
    It would also seem that I was incorrect in thinking that Pondini's method didn't work. When I tried it again, I realised that TM was in fact continuing the backup. Initially it looks like it's going to do a big backup, but actually only backed up a few hundred megabytes, then everything was back to normal.
    Incidentally, I've also found that if you do use AirPort Utility to archive the backup, you can effectively using Pondini's "How can I copy my TM backups to a different location?" by mounting the spare bundle in the "Data Archive" folder, then dragging Backups.backupdb to the root of the drive.
    I just wanted to post this for completeness and in case it helps anyone in the future.

  • I just added two external firewire drives and they keep going to sleep.  I did not have this problem when USB.  I have turned off "put disks to sleep" in power preference.

    I just added two external firewire drives and they keep going to sleep.  I did not have this problem when using USB external drives.  I have turned off "put disks to sleep" in power preference.

    It is not clear if these are the same drives, just connected
    differently, or different drives?
    One thing that may be happening is that the drives firmware
    itself is putting it to sleep when inactive.  Many drives on
    the market have ths feature and it is turned on by default
    and require a drive utility from the manufacturer to disable it.

  • LR4 Install. My Images are on External USB

    HI
    During a clean install of LR4 it comes up with an "Import" dialogue box for importing into LR4.
    However my Pics are on an external usb drive and the LR3 Cat I saved to usb.
    Whats the process to install this type of setup
    Thanks in Advance Carlo

    Start from your OS file browser (explorer in windows, finder in mac), point to the LR3-catalog file on your USB and choose to open it with LR4.
    It should get auto-converted to lr4.
    Then close LR4 and move all created catalog stuff onto your USB. Open the catalog from there again and ensure that all catalog settings fit to the location on your USB-drive, same as you did previously for running LR3 from this drive.

  • Can I have multiple images on a single USB drive?

    I would like to save an image from my T400 (XP), then upgrade the hard drive to an SSD, then upgrade the OS to Windows 7 (or 8), and take another image.
    I have several questions that I hope someone can help me with...
    Can I use Rescue and Recovery to save multiple images to a single USB drive?  
    If so, how does the sw keep the files separate?
    Will it still work if I use two different Rescue and Recovery versions (4.3 for XP, and 4.5 for W7)?
    Is there a way to store the images in separate folders on the USB drive, or is that unnecessary?
    Is there a better way to do this (including using different sw)?
    Thanks in advance,
    Ron
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    If you open Disk Management, you'll see Disk 0 with more than one partition. If you want to rebuild a HD back the same you'll want all or at least two of the partitions. You'll notice the Active Boot partition is not C the Windows drive but a partition called System_Drv (at least in my system). Those two will be mandatory when you image a new drive. Otherwide you'll have some fixing with external tools to get it booting.
    T520 Model 4239 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2860QM CPU @ 2.50GHz
    Intel Sandy Bridge & Nvidia NVS 4200M graphics Intel N 6300 Wi-Fi adapter
    Windows 7 Home Prem - 64bit w/8GB DDR3

Maybe you are looking for