Set up new external drive-clone startup drive alongside Time Machine backup

I want to clone the boot drive to a 1 TB WD MyBook external (via firewire), using SuperDuper, with the rest of the 1TB drive used for Time Machine backups. I am currently formatting the drive to Mac OS Extended (journaled), and plan to set two partitions. I was planning on setting the first partition to 320 GB, and the remainder to a partition for Time Machine.
*Do I need to set the first partition to the specified drive size (320 GB), or can I set it to the available capacity (just below 300 MB)?*
I've read that SuperDuper and Time Machine work nicely side by side - e.g., creating boot clone image, and Time Machine backups. Will Time Machine and SuperDuper work without any issues once the formatting and partitions are completed, or is there some other setup required.
*Is this accurate?*

NibblesNBits wrote:
Thanks for the quick response - I hadn't looked at the FAQ, but the first thing I did after selecting the drive was the same things outlined in step B. This was where the failure was detected. I see in step B, the words "This may not work if the drive is already set up with a non-Apple Partition Map Scheme, such as is used on Windows". *Does "May not work...." mean the "Format Failure" message will be displayed?*
Yes.
Anyway, after failing step B, I did set two GUID partitions, which was what steps C and D listed.
No, that's two different things. The *Partition Map Scheme* applies to the entire drive. If your drive came set up for Windoze, it's probably MBR (Master Boot Record), which will not work with Time Machine.
And, last night I repeated step B - this morning repeated step C, D, E, F. Again, the only thing that indicated there was a problem was step B.
Excerpt from FAQ
B. Select the Erase tab, then confirm. This will erase the entire disk. (If you want, you can select Security Options, then Zero-Out Data to physically erase the entire disk by writing over everything. This will take quite a while, and shouldn't be necessary, especially on a new disk.) This may not work if the drive is already set up with a non-Apple Partition Map Scheme, such as is used on Windows. If that happens, just continue with item C.
Correct. But you must select GUID in step D, before you get to the Format(s) in step E.
So, try making only one partition in step C, with GUID, and format it +Mac OS Extended+ in step E. After that completes, you can split that single partition into two (which should be very quick).

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How to setting up new (June 2011) TC to do wireless time machine backup but not connected to network?

Hello. Just got new (refurbished June 2011, 2TB) Time Capsule. My building has a shared wifi network, and I'm assuming it's hard to join the network with Time Capsule and still be satisfied with security/privacy/performance. (Of course, if I'm assuming wrong, please let me know!)
My understanding is that I can use Time Capsule wirelessly to do Time Machine backups by switching out of my wireless network to - I assume - a new Time Capsule generated network(?). It's an extra step, but that beats connecting cables to the computer everytime I need to do backup. Basically it's like an external wireless hard drive that I have to join everytime the backup is updated, right? (Again, if there is a better way to go about doing this, please let me know.)
So how do I go about doing this? The setup manual isn't helpful (not at all).
Here's more detail if necessary. I have 10.8 Macbook Air (which I plan to upgrade to 10.9 soon) and my spouse is running 10.9 Macbook Pro. I am also assuming I don't have to partition Time Capsule, and when the Time Machine backs up, it'll figure who's who.
Thanks in advance.

Hello. Just got new (refurbished June 2011, 2TB) Time Capsule. My building has a shared wifi network, and I'm assuming it's hard to join the network with Time Capsule and still be satisfied with security/privacy/performance. (Of course, if I'm assuming wrong, please let me know!)
Security is ok.. but performance is abominable.
The TC unfortunately has some design limitations that Apple imposed that makes it rather poor for anything but ethernet.
There is a couple of ways around the problem of sequential internet or backups.
1. Get a wireless bridge that is suited to your in-building system.. and plug that into the TC so it can take normal router settings .. This will give you double NAT but I doubt your in building system will be handing out public IP anyway. An airport extreme can do this. Although it is pricey for the same results as a $35 standard wireless bridge. All devices in your place will then get both internet and backup direct to the TC.
One flaw here could be the download limits.. if you have two connections do you get double the downloads.. ??
ie how many IP are allocated to you?? And is it divided between all of them or the more IP clients the more download bandwidth?
2. Use a USB wireless stick in the Mac.. these can be tiny little things now.. just buy Mac compatible ones.. use that for internet and use the internal (faster) wireless for local connections. there are some manual setup tricks needed here but nothing hard.

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/

Hard drive packed up, but had Time Machine backup. I installed new sad and upgraded to Mountain Lion., but I can't find iPhoto library and photos or iTunes songs? Is there an answer to this? Graham

Hard drive packed up, but had Time Machine backup. I installed new ssd and upgraded to Mountain Lion, but I can't find iPhoto library and photos or iTunes songs? Is there an answer to this? A backup run did not install either photos or songs. Graham

Thanks so much but none of that helped. It was driving me crazy because it would back up another external drive. I just changed the name of the drive from iPhoto/iTunes Library to Media Libraries and IT WORKED!! I guess for some reason it didn't like the drive being called iPhoto or iTunes ???? I don't understand but I have tried so many solutions and exchanging things out but the name change did it????!!!
Thank you for your help and replying to this. Guess I made my own issue!

2nd External Drive - how to restore from Time Machine backup?

I have had Time Machine configured to back up my photos and videos on an external drive. My Time Machine backup is a separate drive attached to my MacBook by FireWire. I have Leopard OS. I have in the past successfully retrieved deleted photos from the Time Machine backups using iPhoto.
Now, unfortunately, the external drive with the photos and videos has developed a problem (possibly power-related) so that my MacBook no longer recognizes that drive. Obviously, this means that iPhoto can't find/open that photo library. Which means that iPhoto can't access the backup via Time Machine. Help! The photos must surely be on the Time Machine backup but I can't figure out any way to retrieve them.

callipygia600,
This one's easy. Purchase a new drive to replace the one that went "belly up." Format (erase) it using Mac OS Extended, and give the volume that will be created the exact same name as the bad drive. Navigate into the new (empty) volume in the Finder, then open Time Machine from the Dock.
You should be able to navigate "back in time" and see the backed up contents. Select everything you see, and click "Restore." It will all be restored to your new external drive. The key is to use the same name for the new drive.
In the meantime, your backup can be accessed in the Finder if necessary. Using the Finder, navigate into the "Backups.backupdb" folder on the backup drive, then into the latest backup. You will see one folder named for your startup disk, and another named for your secondary/external volume. Within that second folder you will find the items that were stored on the bad drive. You can safely copy these to another volume using the Finder, but do not attempt to move or modify them otherwise (do what you like with the copies).
Scott

Can I switch external hard drives and still access old Time Machine backups?

I have a Mac Book Pro linked to 2 1TB external hard drives, one used as my Time Machine Back up, the other used as a manual ad hoc back up and to store even older files.
The TM back up drive is now full. If I just unplug it/switch it off and plug in and set up a new 2TB hard drive as my TM back up, will I still be able to access the back ups on the original TM drive if necessary, through TM?
Wil it be a start over situation with the new drive, performing a complete back up to begin with?
Or would you advise me to transfer the old back folder to the new drive, given that it will be larger?

Hi den.thed,
Thank you for this - I think the easy option by far appears to be to leave existing backups on disk 1, and plug in disk 2 and start over.

New Hard Drive Won't Recognize My Time Machine Backup

I maxed out the space on my MacBook hard drive, so I bought a new 1TB hard drive to replace it. (I keep a TIme Machine backup of my computer on a external Passport) I installed the new hard drive, loaded up Snow Leopard and then it did the whole "Welcome" thing and asked if I wanted to set up the new hard drive. I went through the process and it asked if I wanted to transfer information to the new hard drive. I selected "transfer information from a Time Machine Backup" but when I hit "continue", it doesn't show my Passport, only "Macintosh HD". It's weird. I tried plugging the Passport into a different computer in the house, and it shows up fine.
I'm dead in the water right now. I have a new hard drive in my laptop with OS loaded on it, but no way to transfer my data from my Time Machine Backup to it! Any ideas why it won't show the Passport Drive?
Thanks - I'm really stuck right now.

Does it boot into Open Firmware with CMDOption+of ?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642
reset-nvram (press Enter)
set-defaults (press Enter)
reset-all (press Enter)
Have you done a PRAM reset...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

HT4718 I have an external hard drive that I used as Time Machine Backup. I have not used it for a while and now, when I plug it in computer says: This disc is not readable. I want to recover the backups and not erase and reformat the disc. Thank you in

I have an external hard drive that I have used as Time Machine backup, but not for a while. Now when I plug it in, computer says this disc is not readable.
I want to keep the backups on it and not erase and start over.
Thank you in advance.
Gregor

It sounds like something went wrong with the drive. Did you drop it? How long has it been sitting around unused?

Verbatim disk drive historically used only for time machine backups. Recently i added some other media files to use some of available space without partitioning, the disc now refuses to mount in finder despite appearing in disk utility. Repair fails. HELP

Sorry to elaborate a bit more.
I have used time machine since owning my mac book pro with no issues. i keep the timemachine backups on an external hard drive made by Verbatim. This has not external power source.
Recently i decided to use up some of the available space on the external verbatim disk drive to store some movie files which were sitting on my macbook pro.
Therefore i created a new folder outside of the time machine backup folder and stored the movie files in there.
From then on Time machine failed... and a few days later i noticed it was not mounting in 'finder'
Therefore i used disk utility to see if it was recognising it. Which i was. However when i try to repair it the repair process fails.
In disk utility i am presented with 1 TB Samsung HN M10 which has a child called Verbatim HD.
The 1TB Samsung hardware appears fine, but the verbatim disk i am unable to fully verify and fix.
Does this mean i have lost all my back ups?
Have I lost all the media that i put on there?
Is there any way to fix this?
Any help would be appreciated.
didier07...

To summarize: You used an external Verbatim HD for your TM backups. Then, you stored some movie files on the "spare" space on the Verbatim drive. Now, Disk Utility isn't being recognized, and repair is disabled. Your home Samsung drive is working fine, but the Verbatim cannot be verified.
The problem, I believe, is that the external Verbatim drive wasn't partitioned. There should be two partitions: one for TM backups, the other for video. That way, you can perform backups, and still retain some space for video or somesuch.
Frankly, I don't know how to fix this except through the following. (1) Erase the Verbatim drive, (2) Create a new blank space and format it, (3) Make two partitions - one for backup, the other for video. (4) Run TM through one partition, but switch to the other for your videos. The better solution might be to have one dedicated drive (perhaps the Verbatim) for backups, and another dedicated drive for video backups; that way, you'll have plenty of space for expansion.
I hope someone will correct me if I'm incorrect, but I believe you've essentially lost your backups and media. I don't know how you can retrieve that clump of the now-undifferentiated data on the Verbatim drive. To retrieve any lost data, you're going to require another external drive that's larger in capacity, as well as data recovery software; don't expect encouraging results. If you're desperate, there are firms like Drive Savers that can offer a more comprehensive solution - at a cost.
Post if you have questions, or additional concerns!

I had my hard drive replaced and since my Time Machine backups say failed

I had my hard drive replace and since my Time Capsule backups are failing. The exact message is:
The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk.
The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk.

No, replacing your hard drive has nothing to do with it. There is a problem with your backup drive. As far as Time Machine is concerned replacing a drive is no different than buying a new computer. Time Machine will need to make a brand new backup from scratch.
If you have a large enough backup drive this may not be a problem. Otherwise, you may not have sufficient space to maintain a new backup and keep the old one. So, I would suggest under the circumstances that you erase your backup drive, then start a new Time Machine backup from scratch.
Drive Erase
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After Disk Utility loads select the volume you wish to format from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the Disk Utility main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
For additional help with Time Machine: Visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.

Lion won't install can't select hard drive that is used for time machine backups

I installed Lion, agreed to the eula but both drives are greyed out. My Macintosh HD - ( this dirve is used for time machine backups) and my external drive (this drive does not use the GUID Partition Table scheme...). Though I don't use time machine, I tried turning it on and selecting the external drive with no luck. I'm stuck - any ideas?

"Backups.backupdb" if the file in Time Machine. As the discussion says, you have to find that file and trash it. Try spotlight to locate it. If that does not work, down load OmniDiskSweeper from the Internet (free) and go through an organized search to find "Backups.backupdb". If that takes too long or is too tedious, then if you have everything backed up, erase the HDD and start from square one.
Ciao.

Explain the Time Machine backup when no drive is attached, Explain the Time Machine backup when no drive is attached

I'm traveling now and just noticed that my Time Machine is still turned ON. What caught my attention is that it is still functioning without my Backup external hard drive attached. It seems to be creating Time Machine backups anyway... and is storing them in an invisible simulated hard drive called "Backups.backupdb". What is this? How is Time Machine doing any backups without my normal designated backup hard drive attached?

They're local snapshots.
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878 for more info.

Partition external HD to use it for time machine backup and nas storage

i have a macbook pro with retina display with 500gb of ssd storage runing yosemite and a airport extreme latest model.
what i want to do is to use an external drive (1TB) and use it to hold all my files of my macbook, and i want to make time machine backups for each drive over airport extreme.
so i have made in my mind a backup plan and im not sure if it will work.
im planning to buy a 4TB external HDD and make 3 partitions, one for my macbook of 500gb, another for my external drive of 1TB and a third to use it as a NAS.
im not an expert in storage but i have read a lot from internet.
Thanks.

so i have made in my mind a backup plan and im not sure if it will work.
It won't work with TM..
TM will either backup the internal disk plus external or internal only.. it cannot backup external only. So there is no point using 3 partitions.. just two will work fine.
You can buy Carbon Copy Cloner and it will work fine doing backups of internal and external as separate items.. but it is better over network to backup as sparsebundles.. much faster than direct copying.. but it does work.
As a NAS.. an Airport Extreme plus USB drive.. is slow.. might be ok over wireless.. because the wireless is even slower.. but it is not ok over ethernet. A Time Capsule or a cheap single disk nas will work a lot better.
So your plan can be made to work.. just need some adjustments.
BTW be very careful what USB drive you buy. Not all work on the USB of the Airport routers.
USB drive compatibility with Airport Routers. Help make database.

With a new Mac, can you join your previous Time Machine backups?

I'm sure this has been answered elsewhere, but my searches couldn't find a specific answer.
So here' the deal. I got a new rMBP to which I transferred data (via a Time Machine backup) from my old Macbook Air.
Am I correct that on the new computer there is no way to "rejoin" the previous backups and that a new Time Machine backup "thread" must be started?
Assuming that's the case, I'm guessing you also should delete the old TM backup files since they'll be useless).
Thanks.

*No, what I want is the ability to continue backing up to my existing Time Machine drive when I upgrade to a new computer.*
I think your scenario is possible with one single possible problem - the first time you plug the TM hard drive to the new computer it will want to copy the entire hard drive. If your TM can't hold the old computer's backup files and the entire contents of the new computer you have a small problem. But it it can then you wind up with two backups, one from each computer. However, when you need to restore from your TM files, my understanding is, you can pick from any computer's backup files. In other words, you don't lose anything. It just isn't as smooth as what you want. After a couple weeks have gone by and you are sure your computer is working fine and is stable, you can erase the folder containing the old computer's TM files because you've already developed a couple weeks of your new system.
If your TM drive isn't big enough to back up the new computer, I'm not sure what your options are other than to buy a new bigger hard drive, clone the TM files onto it and then do as I suggested above.
Remember, TM is a version 1 product and we've plenty of proof that Apple is listening to us. Use feedback to describe your scenario and how you want it to work. Version 2 may well incorporate some of your desires.

I recently lost access to external hard drive connected to my iMac (no icon visible). My iTunes and iPhoto files are accessed from this drive. I can't seem to get the time machine to restore these two. that drive was NOT excluded from time machine backup

Hi.
help! recently I noticed the external drive icon missing from my desktop...the one with my huge itunes and iphoto libraries. I tried several things but couln't get it back. So I tried to restore to an older date in time machine with no success. I'm sure the drive was not set for exclusion from the backups. Any thoughts as to where i'm going wrong? I was under the impression that external drives were also backed up with time machine...am I delusional?

Frequently doing a SMC reset will help this issue, for directions please click the iMac SMC and PRAM reset link. Also check the obvious such as cables and connections. Or it's even possible the EHD has failed, they can and do.

Set up new external drive-clone startup drive alongside Time Machine backup

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