Switching drive's for Time Machine

I was using a FW800 disk for Time Machine but decided it wasn't being used for its potential so I've bought a larger FW400 drive that I want to use for Time Machine going forward. Now, obviously I want to copy over the files from the FW800 drive to the new FW400 drive so that I have all the backup's up until this point.
When I do this though, I first get asked fort the Admin password which is fine so I enter it, then it looks through the files and after 14 minutes it begins to copy them but then stops almost immediately after beginning the copy. Is there something special I should be doing to get TM backup's moved from one disk to another or has Apple designed TM so that you cannot move the files from one disk to another? I have temporally stopped Time Machine obviously before starting this so it won't start a backup whilst I'm copying the files but I can't think of anything else I could do right now besides just deleting all the old backup's on the FW800 drive and getting it to start fresh backups on the new drive but I'd lose all the backups for about 3 months now since Leopard came out which would be a shame. Any idea's??? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

_open disk utility
_select drive A (with time machine)
_create DMG on MAC Hd
_plug the disk B
_click to repair (ripristina in Italian)
_select source DMG from Mac hd and destination disk B (empty with the same name in my case -time machine-).
(it ask to verify the DMG image...).
_DONE.
Open TM and re-set the disk.
All ok.
I love MAC.

Similar Messages

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media? Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media?
Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media?
Yes.
Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?
Possibly by using an Airport Express, but depends on what type of port connection the printer requires.

External hard drive used for Time machine is full and having a hard time backing up. what should I do?

External hard drive used for Time Machine is full and having a hrad time backing up. What is my best option moving forward? NAS?

For All things Time Machine see Pondini's Excellent Infirmation here...
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Start with FAQs and Troubleshooting.

Are all external FW drives used for Time Machine more prone to fail?

Within a period of just several months, I've seen three different external FW drives used for time Machine in three different locations fail terminally. They were different brands (Seagate, OWC and a nondescript generic from Fry's).
Is there something intrinsically different about how Time Machines disks function compared to plain data storage drives? Or was do these three drives amount to just a coincidence?
Thanks in advance.

Bus-powered seem not as robust as self-powered.
Soemtimes cables are flaky.
How did you decide these drives are "terminal?"

External hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd

Why is my MacBook Pro reading my external hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd?
Thanks

Hi Christian,
Is this something that has happened from the start? If so, I would reformat the disk and setup TM from scratch again.
Prepare the external HD by connecting to the Mac, open Disk Utility, select the manufacturer’s name of the external HD, select Partition and choose GUID Partition Table, format to Apple OS Extended (Journaled); quit Disk Utility.
Open System Preferences.
Click on Time Machine.
Click on “Select Disk.”
Click just to the left of "On" to turn TM on if it's not already on.
Click on the disk or partition you want to use.
Click on “Use for backup.”
Leave external HD connected, and TM will automatically do its thing.

Can I select certain drives only for Time Machine backup?

I have several internal drives and several external drives connected to my MacPro desktop computer. If I backup everything in all of the drives using Time Machine, the capacity on my designated external drive for Time Machine backup will soon be filled. Is there any way to selectively backup via Time Machine from only designated drives, not all drives connected (internally or externally) to my computer? Is so, how can that be done? I assume that Time Machine will start deleting data when its capacity is exceeded. If that is so, and I remove the designated Time Machine drive at that point and replace it with a new drive, will the removed drive thereafter be able to be reinserted and the prior material read and transferred as needed? Is there any way to utilized Time Machine after I insert the replacement drive to only archive new material saved after the switch of drives?

Yes, mount the drive by opening a new Finder window and clicking on your base station's name in the left column that says 'Shared'. Then double click on the drive name to mount it on your desktop. From there, open Time Machine prefs and select that mounted drive as your backup disk. Time machine will then back up to it. Theoretically.
If you want that disk to automatically mount every time you login to your computer, go to Sys Prefs Panel and select 'Accounts'. Then click 'Startup Items'. From there, drag the mounted drive's icon from the desktop in to that startup items list. It will then auto-mount from there forward.
I have had many problems backing up this way with Time Machine. It will, 9 times out of 10, fail over a wireless backup with an Airport Extreme Gigabit base station and a 1TB Western Digital My Book. Nothing seems to fix, so I have given up. When TM is finally fixed - I will use it. Until then, it's junk software as far as I'm concerned.
But - best of luck. The instructions above are how it's 'supposed' to work..

If I don't want to use my Seagate hard drive anymore for Time Machine...How do I go about this?

I want to use the external hard drive still, but not as my back up disk for Time Machine anymore. How do I make it so that my Macbook doesn't associate this specific external hard drive with TM when I plug it in?
Thanks

chenango232 wrote:
Missing a pretty big step here.... How does one install a new OS on an external drive? You can't install an OS without first booting into an OS. I don't have a disk to boot to, but have gotten as far as downloading the install software. Perhaps the answer you should be providing is that I need to create an install disk somehow?
Is not the current HDD in your MBP a boot drive? If so and you have Yosemite installed, you can boot into the recovery partition. From the 4 option menu you can use Disk Utility. If you have the NEW HDD connected to the MBP it will appear in Disk Utility. Click on that drive to format in Disk Utility>Erase. After formatting, go to the 'Reinstall OSX' option and install the OSX onto the external HDD. When finished swap the drives.
Ciao

External drive use for Time Machine change to "Read Only"

I have an external hard drive set up for backing up with Time Machine on my Mac. It has been working well. Now when time machine tries to back up it tells me the external disk is read only. The hard drive does mount to the computer and will let me open the Time Machine folder. When I am in disk utility it also sees the external hard drive but will not let me click on repair disk permissions. Under the drive info's sharing & permissions window it said " You can only read." , After unlocking everything is grayed out, but the permission is set to read & write. Any thoughts on how to get this drive back to read and write? Its a 2TB drive with 1.79TB on disk. The drive has not been ever used on a windows machine or use on any other computer and is use only for Time Machine backups. One day it was read/write next day read only. Thanks!

The backup drive has malfunctioned and corrupted itself. If that has ever happened before, or if it ever happens again, replace the drive. You may want to consider replacing it anyway for the safety of your data.
You should start another backup now, on another drive, if you don't already have one. One backup is never enough to be safe.
If you choose to keep using the problem drive, turn Time Machine OFF temporarily in its preference pane, then launch Disk Utility, select the backup volume, and run Repair Disk. This operation may take several hours. If the volume can't be repaired, you'll have to erase it and start over. Don't do that unless you have at least one other complete backup. Remember to turn TM back ON.

How to format an external drive used for time machine

My 150 Gig external hard drive showed too full for a time machine backup. It only showed 20 gig left. So I moved the time machine backup on it to the trash to make room for a new one. This did nothing. With the files in the trash the drive still shows full even though it has no time machine backup on it.
So I would like to know how I can format this drive again to get it to accept a brand new time machine backup. Or how do I get time machine to recognize the drive as empty instead of full.
I now know I should have at least a 500 gig drive to let time machine make it's plethora of backups. But the 150 gig drive is what I have right now to backup an 80 gig hard drive and I would like to start from scratch.
Thanks,
JJ Bula

With the files in the trash the drive still shows full
You need to empty the Trash before anything is actually removed from the drive.
If you want to completely erase the drive, launch Disk Utility, select the drive, go to the Erase pane and click "Erase".

Cleaning virus-infected files on external hard drive used for Time Machine

I am kinda reposting this with some extra explanation since I didn't really get any good respnses on my first post:
I am running McAfee VirusScan and it locates and cleans virus infected files just fine on my computer, but when it finds infected files on the external hard drive I use for Time Machine backups, it says "Repair Failed". Is there a way to clean infected files on my Time Machine backup drive?
I had found a virus in several documents on my Mac, which I cleaned, but it seemed to infect a bunch of the files located in Time Machine as well. I know these files shouldn't harm my Mac, but I still don't like having virus infected files. They seem to propagate and I don't want to give them to any of my Windows-using friends.

Hi,
Usually (but not always), virus-infected files aren't system-related, so if they cannot be repaired, there should be an option in VirusScan to delete them or quarantine them instead of repairing them. Assuming that you are archiving Mac-related files and not archives of Windows files, then it should certainly be safe to just have VirusScan delete or quarantine them. An alternative is that you could delete them manually. But before you do any of this, be sure to take a look at the filename and its location in the folder hierarchy to make sure that you aren't removing a file that's critical to the operation of some piece of software.
Hope this helps,
Ken

On a 500G MBP running Lion what's the best size to partition a 2T WD external hard drive to for Time Machine? Thankse

Just picked up a 2T WD external HD for my new MBPro with 500 G drive. Looking to use part of the external drive for Time MAchine. Not sur if I should designate 1T of it or 750G. I'm running Lion. What's the best way to format the external drive. Disk Utility?
Thanks,
Dennis

Ask in Lion: TimeMachine / MacBook Pro even - this is workstation territory
I would not use the same drive for data and for backups.
If I had to, I'd make a partition large enough to boot your Mac from though, whether 50-500GB to clone your system.
You should still be able to use Lion's Recovery boot mode.
I don't think there really is much choice in what to format with, unless you want to spend over $100.

External Hard Drive only for Time Machine?

I just bought a 500GB external HD and just ordered Leopard. I'm wanting to use the hard drive for my iTunes library rather than keep it on the internal HD due to the size.
My question is, if I then use it for Time Machine, will it be only for TM or can I do both?
And if I can do both, will it erase what is currently on there while setting it up for TM?

Apple doesnt recommend it, but it shouldnt be any problem. Time Machine creates a backup directory in which it keeps all the backup info. As long as there's space you can use the drive for other items. I have an internal 500GB drive I use for backup, and I keep some large files on it. The problem will be sooner or later the drive will just fill up with backup info, and time machine at that point will dynamically erase the oldest backups but will not have space for storing other files. Basically dont rely on the drive to have space for storing extra stuff. Partitioning the thing will prevent this, but it will make your backup drive smaller.

External hard drive partition for Time Machine wont mount

I have an external HD that I've partitioned half for Time Machine, and half for external storage. Today the Time Machine partition wouldn't show up on the desktop. I checked Disk Utility and it recognizes both partitions, but the Time Machine partition is greyed out. When I selected it, in the stat list at the bottom it said "Mount Point: Not Mounted." I then clicked on "Mount" at the top, and after a bit a popup told me it couldn't mount and I should attempt to repar the disk. So I clicked "Repair Disk," and after a while, I finally got the message "Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
Why is only one partition affected? Can I reformat one petition but leave the other untouched? Are there any other options before I do this?
One other item that is probably related: I've been having an issue with a flash drive that seems to constantly unmount itself, giving me "error, disk ejected improperly" messages. Earlier today I believe I had the same thing with my external HD.

Why is only one partition affected?
The drive malfunction that caused the problem only affected that partition.
Can I reformat one petition but leave the other untouched?
Yes.
Are there any other options before I do this?
This is not an option, it's mandatory: start a new backup on another drive. The one you have has lost data once already. If it were mine, it would be in the recycling bin now. You need more than one backup to be safe anyway. Apparently you have no backups at all of the data on the other partition. That means you're going to lose that data, sooner or later.

External drive partitions for Time Machine

Questions:
     1. Do I need to have a two partitions on my external hard drive, one each for my iMac and another for my MBPro?
   2. Do I need to partition to use both Time Machine and SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Clone.?
   3. Which is better to use for backup if you need or want to retrieve a specific file?
Thanks for your help.
Vernon

1. No. Configure each machine's Time Machine preferences separately. Time Machine will take care of the rest.
2. Yes. You must clone to a freshly formatted drive or partition on a drive. I suggest you use two separate drives. One for Time Machine and the other for the clone. This way you have a good backup in case one fails.
3. I don't understand the question. Which "what" are you referring to? If you mean choosing between Time Machine and a clone, it's better to have one of each. The more backups the better.

Ideal Drive size for Time Machine?

Hi:
I've been clearing out some space on 2 Lacie external drives (250 GB each) for Time Machine to use as its destination drive. 2 things are clear.
1. There's not enough space on either of these (even after trashing some stuff)
2. It seems like a wiser course of action to buy a third drive, dedicated to backup purposes. It won't be accessed unless I need to do a restore kind of operation with my MBP, unlike my other external drives which I do access regularly.
Anyway, I was thinking that a 500 GB external drive would be the ideal size to use. Thats pretty big, and the cost is dirt cheap these days. At the moment, I have 124 GB of space remaining on my MBP drive, so that may help determine what size of backup drive I need.
Thanks,
Michael Stryker

I'll give you my real world experiance. I have a MBP with 160GB, with 123GB committed (8GB free) to OS X and the rest to Vista.
I have an external 500GB Maxtor USB 2 drive I use for TimeMachine, Vista and SuperDuper!, partitioned to give 300GB to TimeMachine.
I've used TimeMachine since October 29th, and I have about 23GB of the 300GB free -- so you should be fine with a 500GB drive dedicated to TimeMachine.

Switching drive's for Time Machine

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for