Swapping external hard drives

Hi,
I run my itunes library off an external hard drive. I keep a cloned version of the hard drive as well. The main drive is failing and I want to switch it out for the identical library on the cloned drive.
However - when I point itunes to the cloned drive, the songs are still considered to be on the old drive. (When I plug the old drive in - itunes reverts to it.)
How can I switch drives without doing a full library consolidation?
Thanks

Do you have the entire iTunes folder including all the iTunes library files on the external drive? Or just the iTunes content, with the library files on your internal drive?

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Lightroom lost my photos after swapping external hard drives out.

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The obvious implication being a format of the boot disk happened.
You could try using Disk Utility via the recovery partition (press and hold ⌘R after the boot chime), and — failing that — you'll probably be rolling in your backups.
If you have critical data that wasn't backed up, then you're probably headed for private drive data recovery — if so, that won't be cheap, and you will want to keep the disk offline to preserve whatever might be left on the disk.
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I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. suggestions to complete backup please?

I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. the same thing happens when just trying to save my pictures from iphoto to a flash drive. suggestions to complete backup please?

Sounds like you'll need to access that drive while it is not booted. You need to replace it anyway, so do that, then one way or another (ext enclusure, et), access it and copy files.
If you keep trying to boot it, you might kill it for good and not get your files, so just swap it out first.

How to backup files onto external hard drive if my MacBook's graphics card is broken?

Hello,
I have a 15" 2012 Macbook pro with 2gb of ram, i7 processor, and a 250 gb Hard drive. In the middle of using my computer, the screen went black. Upon rebooting the computer, I noticed gray and white horizontal lines running across the screen, but I was still able to see the apple logo and loading indicator in the background. As soon as the login screen appeared, the screen went black again.
Genius Bar Diagnosis:
A few days later I took my computer to the apple store to have them diagnose the computer to determine if the hard drive was corrupt or if it was just a display issue. They found that the hard drive was still functioning properly, so no information was lost. The problem was that the graphics card needed to be replaced. So they offered to ship my laptop to an Apple repair facility in Houston, Texas (nearest one to me) and replace the graphics card, as well as any other parts that seemed to be damaged, for a flat rate of about $315. They recommended that I back up my hard drive just in case they found an issue with it (despite nothing showing up in the diagnosis at the genius bar) because the technicians at the repair facility will just swap it out for a new one.
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The employee at the genius bar gave me a list of Apple Authorized Service Providers that could help transfer the data from my macbook's hard drive to an external hard drive. I got a quote from them for $150, plus I would have to pay for a new external hard drive because my other one is full. In an effort to save money, I want to see if there is a cheaper way for me to backup the hard drive by myself. I have a pc laptop that still works fine, so I have been using that since my MacBook Pro died on me. Is there any way I could use that other computer to somehow backup my macbook's hard drive? Or would I need another mac to do the transfer? I have looked into buying a hard drive sled, but I don't know how those work, and I may not have all of the right equipment for it. If that is something I have the right tools for, and it's cheaper after buying all the accessories, then I would much rather go that route than taking it in to get serviced at an AASP store. Please help!
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Hello mafrerichs and welcome to Apple Support Communities,
Simplest way is to use Target Disk mode:
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode - Apple Support
and hook to another Mac and use CCC or SuperDuper and clone your HD to another drive.
You could also pull the drive out of your MBP and use an external USB case or SATA - USB dongle to hook it to another Mac.
"MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011),... have a 15" 2012 Macbook pro with 2gb of ram, i7 processor"
That's a little confusing?

Can i use seagate goflex 3tb external hard drive for 2010 27" imac internal hard drive replacment if i take it out of the goflex case.do i need to format it before installation due to it allready having goflex software on it from manufacturer.

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Hello
formatted ntfs
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how to do that in video
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Can I split my itunes music library between and internal and external hard drive?

Is it possible to have music on the two different drives and still be able to make playlists from both drives to put on my ipod? Here's my situation: I'm using a Dell 32 bit computer running Vista Home Premium SP2 which I share with other users. I have a large itunes library (40g+ of music only) that's starting to hog the hard disk space from other users. If possible, I would like to split off part of my itunes library to an external hard drive while still having access to the entire library for my ipod. Ideally I would like to have all my downloaded songs on both the internal and external drives so I'll have backups in case a drive fails, while putting all the music I have hard copies of solely on the external drive. Any help on how this can be done would be appreciated.

If you manually manage your itues library, you can store parts of it on an external drive, or on an internal drive. Just keep in mind that in iTunes that you must set a default location for iTunes to manage it's files, and that will be the default location for iTunes to store anything it downloads. You would need to manuay manage moving things from there if tht is not where you want them stored.
Perhaps a "better" solution would be for you to invest a little mone into 2 external drives. One to hold your entire iTunes library, and the second to be your off-line backup of the first. This is the method I have gone with and I like how it works for me. My entire iTunes library is on an external (portable) 320GB drive. Then, when iTunes is not running, I will clone my external drive onto a second drive I happen to have, this way if I have any failure of my primary drive, I lose at most about a weeks worth of content. For me, I purchase little content during a week, but I do move a fairly large volume of podcasts. With the entire library being on the external drive, if I ever have to swap to using my backup drive iTunes wil just think that it hasn't run and downloaded anything for a week, and all the "lost" content will be re-downloaded automatically. This won't work for apps or purchased content, but for subscribed podcasts, it is great.

Using same external hard drive with two Macs

I use two Lacie external hard drives and Time Machine to back-up my iMac, swapping over the drives each week to have one off-site.
I am soon to buy a MacBook. Can I use the same external hard drives for the MacBook's Time Machine back-ups, whilst continuing to use them with the iMac, or will that cause problems?
Thank you.

As Kappy says, Time Machine will put both sets of backups in the same Backups.backupdb folder. That may not be a good idea for the future; your best bet may be to partition the drive.
See #4 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

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When I went into disk utility>Erase it gave me several options but im not sure which one to pick that will give me the result I want. Anyone know which one I should use?

Yes, it's true of Windows too. In fact up to MacOS 10.4 (I think), there was a file size limit of 2Gb that could be saved from the Mac onto FAT formatted drives due to a restriction in the Apple File Protocol. Now, with that resolved, the limit is endemic to the FAT format itself.
This was resolved by NTFS, but the problem with that in your situation is that while both Macs and PCs can see an NTFS volume, the PC can write to it, but MacOS cannot.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5911
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Osx-Lion-on-an-External-Drive

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I need you help with this one. My MacBook Pro no longer "sees" my LACie external hard drive. In the System Profiler (under FireWire) the drive is listed as:
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
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I was finally able to resolve this issue. I went to LaCie's site and went to the support area to find troubleshooting steps for my particular drive. It turns out that the problem was corrected when I swapped the power supply cord of the "troubled" drive with another LaCie drive that I have and that seemed to resolve the problem. Thank you Tony for your help. I appreciate you guys!
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I've owned a 1Tb Seagate external hard drive for about one year, and I've installed the software that comes with it for what I thought would be "peace of mind" (now I know to reformat, but my problem is that there is content I would like to save first). I have used it mainly as a scratch disk when I work with big files, and I've never gotten to more than 25% of the total capacity in saved data. A week or so ago I was about 30 min into the work day when suddenly the warning window for improperly ejecting USB came up, but the 1Tb was still plugged in. Since then I can no longer see the 1Tb drive anywhere but in disk utility, and the second icon for it looks lighter (grayed out). When I tried to mount the drive it says to run First Aid first—because the drive could not be mounted—which comes back with no problems, and it will still not mount. I have tried verifying and repairing permissions, which shows no problems either. I've tried Kext Utility 2.6.1, SMC, and PRAM without any luck. I've tried Tuxera NTFS, and even uninstalling Seagate's software, but I haven't seen any results either. The 1Tb runs normal, the light will turn on when plugged in, and it will go off when ejected, which also works without warnings. I have all the software up to date, but I have not been able to link my problem to the OS system update like others did since it had been done several weeks before the incident.
I have seen this problem a few times rolling around, but only a few lucky ones have been able to fix the problem. I am posting this because I have not seen anybody with the same list of unsuccessful attempts, but I am hoping that there is something else that can be done.
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USB Ports can sometimes be funny like that. If you haven't already, these are some little things you can try:
- First things first, unplug all your usb devices. Try plugging a device that you're sure works on your MBPR over EACH of the usb ports (just to check if they're both working correctly & supplying power on the mac itself).
- Check the USB cable's A plug (the end that connects to the mac) and make sure both the contacts are clean, and that the crevass is free from dirt/lint buildup, as it can interfere with a proper connection. (This can happen if you store cables in cases or bags).
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- Lastly, some devices may need a firmware update to even connect, as with the cases of the Lexar USB3.0 Card Readers and some Seagate USB HD's some folks here are experiencing with their Retinas.
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Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Black Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Is your external formated using NTFS, if that is, then that could be the problem.
Try to get info on your external. Or if it is connect to your pc now, go to my computer, right click and select properties, and see what kind of format that EHD has.
NTFS is a read only for Mac OS X and if you want to swap data you must re-format it using fat-32.
Be advised Fat 32 is not support file bigger than 4 Gb, so you might encounter problem when saving or moving file that bigger than the 4 Gb limit.
Good Luck

Seagate external hard drive not connecting to Mac

I plug in a Seagate GoFlex 500GB external hard drive into my PowerBook (specs at bottom of post). I go into Disk Utility to try to resize one of my partitions so I can back my Mac up. I click the final "Continue" button, and a few seconds later I get an error saying that the partition was not completed correctly and that the drive was removed. It was not. It shut itself off briefly (less than a second because I saw the light (normally always on) go out and come back on)!
I disconnect my hard drive and plug it into a PC. I pull up Disk Management (Windows equivalent of DU) and I try to resize the volume. Not possible. Okay. But they both are read and I could open each one's folder. So I plug it into my Mac again and after several seconds of it not showing up, I hold it to my ear. First, it spins up. It clicks the whole time. Next, it gradually spins down while making four whines/beeps (inaudible unless you are holding the unit up to your ear), each seperated by 3/4 of a second. Then it spins up again and repeats. I now plug in another 640GB unit and it clicks rapidly (inaudible unless held to ear). Both drives are then plugged into the PC. In Disk Management they show up. I format one of the volumes on the 500GB drive (I realized I did not need the data) and I removed the volume's drive letter. But the drives do not show up on my Mac anymore. (The 500GB model used to!!!!!)
One drive had a USB 3.0 adapter. One had a 2.0 adapter. I swap around the adapters and I achieve the same result. BTW, I also have a keyboard in the other USB port. It was there from the start.
The 500GB drive is NOT corrupted. In fact, I used to use it for Time Machine. My TM data is still on that drive and I dare not erase it. The drive is not powered by an AC adapter, either.
I don't want to go out and get another hard drive because I'm looking to sell my PB.
What went wrong? How come it no longer connects? I can't have killed the drive becuase it reads on a PC.

Solved the problem.
First of all, it seemed that it would not connect the second time because I plugged in the drive to the USB port on the RIGHT side of the keyboard. It worked fine on the LEFT side USB port. Huh?
Second of all, it shut off because of an issue with there not being enough power. (thanks a brody, the computer was underpowered, see below)
My solution: My father had a card that you could put in a PC card slot that provided two more USB ports and a port for an AC power adapter. I couldn't find the adapter cord (it was DC-to-USB, likely not enough power) but I plugged in a Palm Pilot wall plug (making it the equivalent of a powered hub, thanks a brody again for the underpowered system solution) and it backed up like a charm.
Thank you all for all your help!!!

External Hard Drive for Mac AND PC

I need to purchase an external Hard Drive to be able to back up both my iMac and my partner's PC. I am currently looking at buying either:
Iomega UltraMax Hard Drive 500GB FireWire 400/USB 2.0
OR
Iomega 500GB Minimax Hard Drive with Dual Interface + USB/FireWire Hub
Can anyone tell me is it possible to format either of these Drives to be able to accept both Mac and PC, and if so, do either of these drives let you have a permanent connection to both at the same time, so they can be set up and left to do their backups automatically without always swapping cables over etc.
Does anyone have a preference between these drives?
(Oh, and for info, I won't be using Time Capsule as I only have 10.3.9!)
Thanks

I think there is a decent amount of BS in there...
I have a USB HD that came out of the box formatted as FAT32- both my MacBook Pro and PC laptop can read & write to it just fine. I haven't had it long enough to comment on stability, but haven't had any issues yet. I don't have any special software on the PC, either- I think the info from the Seagate forums sounds like people remembering the "old days" of Windows 98 and pre-OS X systems, when you did need software like that for true cross-platform drive access.
As for the drive not working on a LAN- well, the hardware doesn't know the difference, so as long as it's connected via USB to the AEBS, it's fine. What could cause an issue would be your PC OS version. I have found WinXP to be really good (well, for a Win OS, anyway) at playing nice with others. Vista is a train wreck for many, many reasons, but may be OK for this too. Anything earlier than XP may be a bit more troublesome.
Hope my 2 cents helps...

Swapping external hard drives

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