Starting Time Machine - need to erase external HD first?
Hi - I have a LaCie 250GB HD which I have been using for years with Silverkeeper as a back up program. This worked fine until several months ago, when I upgraded to Leopard, not knowing that Silverkeeper is not currently compatible with Leopard ... Now I have learned that my current back-ups are possibly corrupted and I want to switch over to Time Machine ASAP!!
My LaCie's format is Mac OS Extended, which seems correct for TM. My question is, do I need to erase my LaCie HD before I begin or will Time Machine automatically overwrite what is there?
If I do need to erase it myself, is there a proper way to do this or should I just drag everything to the trash?
Any other tips that a beginner to TM might miss would be appreciated, although it looks straightforward enough.
Thank you!
FranArt
V.K. - thanks for this thorough reply, and clear instructions, which raise a few more questions.
As of now, when I select the whole drive in disk utility and press command+i it shows that I have 0 partitions on the LaCie. (Although if I go to the sub heading, 'LaCie Disk' there are 6 partitions there.)
I think I do need to erase the HD (which I agree is a good idea) because there is simply no room left on it. As of now, I have 'Partition Map Scheme: Apple Partition Map" & 0 partitions on the LaCie. I see that in order to select 'mac os extended journaled' format, I have to choose at least 1 partition. Why is that necessary? And why is the 'GUID partition scheme' better (&/or necessary)?
It I understand correctly, you are saying that by choosing 1 partition I would have a place only for Time Machine on the HD, and if I want to put something else besides TM backups on the drive in the future, I can later change the number of partitions to more than 1 - is that correct?
Thanks again!
Fran
Similar Messages
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Does time machine need a dedicated external hard drive or can I partition it?
I am trying to figure out the best way to back up my husband's computer. He has too much data so I need to get about 80 GB off his computer on to an external drive and then need to back that up as well. Right now I have two external drives one dedicated to time machine and one that backs up as a carbon copy bootable backup. I think both external drives are 500GB, but he is on the computer and I don't want to fuss with having him get off right now. I ordered an additional external drive so I have some where for his 80 GB of his data. I can take one of the external drives currently used for time machine and partition it (mac OS journaled) and use one of the parts for time machine and the other for the 80 GB of data. Will this affect our ability to get data off of time machine in the event his 5 year old hard drive dies? The 80 GB of data includes important photos, so I would like them in two places. I would consider cloud, but he is running Leopard and I know that iCloud only works with Lion.
Thanks to everyone for all your opinions and thanks to baltwo for this TM FAQ website. Before asking this question, I browsed the internet and some people advised that a hard drive needed to be dedicated. It seems now that if I partition the external drive and have a big enough drive that I should be ok.
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Is there any way to create a time machine backup to an external hard drive with content already on it? I have a hard drive that i have used for pictures but when i try to run a backup it says i need to start from a blank drive. Can i get around it?
It would be much better if you had separate drives for the pictures and Time Machine backups.....but, if you want to use the same drive for both purposes, temporarily move the folder with the pictures to another location for safe storage.
Run the Time Machine backup on the hard drive and verify that everything is working correctly. Time Machine will format the disk for you in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as part of the backup process.
Then move the folder with the pictures back to the hard drive with the Time Machine backups.
When you have tested to make sure that everything is working again, then and only then should you delete the folder with pictures from the temporary storage area.
Again....it would be much better to keep Time Machine backups on a drive just for that purpose, and other data on another drive for that purpose. This is clearly one of those times when the fact that you can do something does not mean to imply that you should do it. -
Time machine only ever backed up the first time it runs immediately after I start up my computer after it has been shut off. All other back up attemps fail. Recently it stopped recognizing the icon for my external hard drive in the time machine dialog window where you select the hard drive to back up to, and turn on and off the time machine function. Now the external HD icon only shows up on the desk top but no longer in the dialog box. I just tried shutting the computer off and turning it on again and now the light is on, on the external hard drive but the icon does not even appear on the desk top.
The external hard drive is a 1TB Seagate. The drive still has plenty of unused capacity. I ran a diagnostic test on it. It said the disk needed repair but the repair function would not work. The message stated that it could not be unmounted and repair is not available because the disk can't be written to. The Mac OX utility said the disk can still be opened but can't be changed nor repaired. The external HD is not S.M.A.R.T. supported.
I haven't tried replacing the cable yet. Is that the next thing I should try?What Mac OSX version are your running ("iOS" as shown in your profile cannot run on a Mac computer)?
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The drives I have are Seagate 1TB GoFlex portable drives (one has UBS 3.0, the other USB 2.0), and a WesternDigital 1TB passport (USB 3.0). I originally tried to backup with Time Machine using the Seagate USB 3.0, and when that didnt work, Seagate suggested maybe since my operating system is a little older, that I try with a USB 2.0, so they sent me another NEW external hard drive, with the USB 2.0. Had the same issue. Frustrated and convinced that Seagate just sucked, I went and bought the 1TB WesternDigital passport (USB 3.0). Have the exact same issue again. Every drive was new, and formatted for mac. When I started time machine it started to back up my files, but froze after copying give or take 250 MB (usually 252.5MB, to be exact). I went and tried the drive on several other macs, and none of them presented any problems. I also tried dragging individual files, but it still freezes on pretty much anything bigger than +/- 100MB. Disk Utility says that all the drives are fine. Obviously this is a problem with my computer, and not the 3 brand new external drives. I thought about upgrading to OSX 10.6, but don't know if this'll help or not (plus, I'd really prefer to have all the files backed up on a drive before doing that, just in case). I dont know what else to do.. called apple, but I'm not about to pay them $50 to have them MAYBE give me a solution (done that twice now for previous unrelated issues, and each time they just told me to take it to a computer repair place.) Just seeing if anyone out there has a solution before I cave and take it back to the certified computer guys for them to figure it out.. Also, I live in Montana and theres no apple store anywhere close (not suprising), so taking it to an Apple Store is just not an option.
Side note: Seagate tech support is awesome; they tried everything to solve the problem, and they even bent their rules a little to send me a new drive, even though it wasn't a malfunction issue with their drive. Really helpful, friendly people, which is much more than I can say for Apple at this point...this is what you need to do to exclude everything apart from desktop.
on time machine preferences, click on Options
click plus sign, on the new window, click macintosh HD
do a Control + A then deselect users then click okay
go to options again, plus sign, go to users, control +A then deselect your user account
go to options again, plus sign, go to your user account, control + A, deselect desktop
start the back up. -
I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?
no.
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I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?
Hi there,
I found that Time Machine in Mavericks will sort it all out for you. You shouldn't need to buy another backup drive, unless you have insufficient space left and can't afford to delete whats on there. It should just work fine. -
just baked up my macbook pro to an external hard drive. my computer died on me and i plugged it in and rebooted it ,started time machine and finished backing up but. just wondering if thats good or should i delete and restart
I wouldn't trust that backup.
Make sure the system is connected to AC and Do Over. -
I need to create a second back-up of iPhoto from Time Machine to a separate external drive. The old iPhoto in TM will not open. Please help! And thank you!
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.
Example of such apps: Chronosync - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store -
Cannot transfer Time Machine backups from one external drive to another
Since I bought my 13 inch MacBook Pro in September 2014 I've been keeping Time Machine backups on an external 1TB Lacie Rugged. This is partitioned into three and one of the partitions contains my iPhoto library.
Last weekend I left my MBP disconnected from the power source but with the external hard drive still plugged in. Long story short - the battery level fell below the minimum needed to operate so it turned itself off and 'disconnected' the external hard drive. This resulted in a corrupted iPhoto library which is no longer accessible.
In order to restore my iPhoto Library from another backup I needed to buy a second external hard drive. Yesterday I bought a 2TB Lacie Rugged which I've now partitioned into 5.
I want to move my Time Machine backups from the 1TB Lacie Rugged to a partition on the 2TB Lacie Rugged (to take advantage of the new Lacie's Thunderbolt connection).
I read the Apple article -
HT202380: Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive
and followed the instructions precisely. About 2 hours into the transfer I came back to my MacBook Pro and saw a message saying that it was not possible to complete the transfer because I did not have the correct permissions. The only option was to click the OK button which stopped the transfer.
Can anyone advise what I should do next?
Cheers
TriciaHi Eric,
Thank you for your response. I came across another thread yesterday which suggested the Restore via Disk Utility method. It worked for me, too. This was after I had tried following the method suggested in the Apple article above three times but each time the message was the same ....
The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items.
I dare say that Apple would like to have us believe that it's a simple matter of 'drag and drop' but it certainly wasn't for me. From what I've read the permission problem crops up fairly frequently. Before the second and third attempts I had already amended Permissions on the Time Machine backups so that everyone could read and write, so that mustn't have been the problem. I'm the only person who uses my computer so that's not a problem.
The next problem I have is that I decided I would use the Restore route to transfer my SuperDuper clone rather than start from scratch. Unfortunately, the partition size on my original backup disk where SuperDuper clone is is 350GB and the size of the SuperDuper clone partition on my new backup is 300GB.
Of course, Apple says you can resize partitions using Disk Utility. What they don't say is you can downsize partitions but (in my experience and that of many other frustrated users on various forums) you CANNOT upsize using Disk Utility. I have 100GB spare on my external hard drive (from downsizing two partitions by 50GB each) BUT there is no way Disk Utility will let me increase the size of SuperDuper partition to 350GB :-(((
Cheers
Tricia -
Time Machine issues since adding external drive
System spec:
2012 Mac Mini, quad core 2.3ghz i7, 16gb RAM, OS X Yosemite 10.10.2
Problem:
Today I added an external USB 3.0 1TB hard drive to my Mac Mini - a self powered Seagate one. I want Time Machine (running on another external drive - a mains powered 2TB USB 2.0 Western Digital drive) to back this drive up - so I went into the Time Machine preferences pane and removed the drive from the exclusions list to which it had automatically been added (since TM doesn't usually back up external drives)
I moved some data to the drive and Time Machine began to back this up as expected on it's next run. I went to check the TM drive in Finder to make sure it was backing up correctly when I noticed that the folder for this latest backup wasn't appearing - and that the Latest link went to the backup BEFORE the drive was installed. Both Finder and the Time Machine pref pane correctly showed the TM drive space dropping though - and if I went to Terminal and listed the contents of the Time Machine drive, the folder for the current backup appeared and Latest pointed to it as expected.
I let this backup and a second backup finish - so at this point I have two backups that have run since adding the external drive. The backups appear in the navigator on the right hand side - but they are greyed out compared to the others. If you try to click on one of these greyed out backups, TM scrolls back to an empty Finder window titled "Waiting: ...." and the time the backup ran.
I tried rebooting to fix this - when I checked again after rebooting, Time Machine showed the two backups and both were accessible and navigable within the TM restore interface. This was four hours ago. Three more backups have run since my reboot and they are exhibiting the same symptoms as the ones prior - not showing in Finder, not linked from Latest, and greyed out in the TM restore interface.
While I'm fairly confident the data IS being backed up, this is still going to be a problem if I need to restore. Has anyone seen this before and how did you fix it if so?Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take the action that isn't working the way you expect. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting. -
Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion
Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion. I have a Laice 1 terabyte external drive that worked fine with Snow Leopard and now no show ... tried connecting it to front port and Mac Pro can't see it. Also lost Office,Quicken, and Final Cut Pro says: " You can't open application because Power PC apps are no longer supported" this is Not a good surprise!
Does the drive work when just directly connected? If so, have you prepped the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size. -
Why full, rather than incremental, when re-starting TIme Machine
I had to stop Time Machine a couple of weeks ago, and remove the dedicated external drive. Yesterday, on reconnecting the drive and re-starting Time Machine it appeared to try to make a full backup (which I had to abort after two and a half hours) rather than the incremental I assumed it would make. Does this mean that each time one turns Time Machine off, it will make a full back up the next time it is restarted and an external drive connected? This seems to make irrelevant the backups already on the drive.
V.K. wrote:
I'm not completely sure but I think if you don't do a TM backup for ten days TM gives you a warning that you haven't backed up in 10 days and if you ignore it, it erases TM history. this makes it start a new series of backups once you reconnect.
I use my G5 rarely, sometimes not for weeks and I have never had a TM warning about a "stale" backup. When I turn it on, it simply schedules the next backup, which is incremental, as always, and proceeds about an hour later.
I have never seen that "Ten Day" warning.
I think I have also let my other MBP sit unused for over 10 days and have never seen the warning.
However, I always start up these machines with the TM drive connected. Running them with the drive disconnected may be a completely different situation. In oher words, when I start these two rarely used computers, there is really nothing new to backup. That may be the difference. If you use the computer for 10 days or more with the TM drive disconnected that may cause the warning flag to be raised.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe -
i got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does anybody has a fix???
Does your external hard drive have it's own power supply? It should.
Is your external hard drive formatted with the NTFS file system? It won't work.
It needs to be formatted either with Mac OS Extended or FAT32.
(There are drivers available to add NTFS support to OS X but their quality is unknown, especially the "free" ones.) -
QUESTION.
Hallo , my question is ;whenever I delete a photo and restore it through Time machine and Western digital external hard drive , I am able to restore the photo but not the titles and descriptions . Western Digital inform me that it isn't their external hard drive problem and suggest that it is an Apple software problem ?
I am using a Macbook 4.1 , with Mac OSX 10.5.8 . I photo 7.1.5 , last modifie4d 01/05/2010 -universal . Should I be upgrading Iphoto ?
I hope that someone is able to help in this matter , as i have to restore 12000 photos !
Thanking you in anticipation.
Alan from WigtonHallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan
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