Time machine and files on external drive

When I first got my MacBook Pro, I left some old files on the external drive that I had been using for files. But then when I set TM up, I used that external drive, not realizing that I can no longer retrieve files except through TM. Now, that TM has filled up, I need to reset some things and do it right this time. I figure I will need to erase the entire drive and start over with partitions.
Am I out of luck to retrieve those files that were not associated with TM? If not, let me know how to find those files.
thanks

Technically you can but it is not a very good idea at all. The reason it is a flawed idea is if the HD fails (not really if but when) you will have defeated the whole idea of backup. A failure means you will lose the data files you stored on it and it's backup! A good backup plan has at least 2 forms of backup because backups can fail too. I would strongly recommend getting at least one additional external HD and use it for storing the data files you wanted off the internal HD and use the second for a Time Machine backup drive.
Personally I have 3 external HD's attached to my computer. Disk 1 is my Time Machine backup, Disk 2 is a Bootable Clone of my internal HD and Disk 3 stores my music, photography and movie libraries.
Please read these articles, they will discuss different backup strategies and I think you will see that each suggest redundant backups.
Backup Plan I
Backup Plan II
Backup Plan III

Similar Messages

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?

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.

Issue with Time Machine and WD Elements external drive

I am experiencing continuous problems with Time Machine set to back up to a WD Elements 1TByte external disk; appears to backup files perfectly but I'm plagued by recurring message 'The disk was not ejected properly...'. Dealer assures me that the disk is fine. No problem if Time Machine is disabled. But then I have no back up...

christopherfromadelaide wrote:
In fact, when I turn off Time Machine, I still get the ... message, which flashes up every 30 secs or so, and only goes away when I unplug the external drive.
That indicates that the problem may not involve Time Machine at all.
To be sure everything else is ok, verify your internal HD and repair the WD drive, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
If the problems persist, try different port(s), cables, and combinations of the two (a plug that works fine in one port may only make marginal/intermittent contact in another). Also make sure the WD's power cable is snug and secure, and it's plugged-in to a good power source.

Time Machine and partition on external drive

Planning to buy a big external drive, but, is it possible to partition the external drive and make TM work on one ?

Absolutely, in fact it is recommended to give TM its own partition. Use the first partition of the drive (that's the one that ends up at the top of the list in Disk Utility).
Make sure the partition is double, if not three times, the size of what you will be backing up.
Note that you have the option (Sys Prefs-TM-Options) to exclude drives and folders from backups. This may save a lot of space and is useful for the applications folder (as you likely have that stuff on CD/DVD), for music (if you have it on CDs), the downloads folder etc; see [this page|http://www.ryanblock.com/2008/05/good-folders-to-exclude-from-time-machine -backups] for more ideas on what to exclude so as not to backup unnecessary stuff. Also, if you work with scratch disks (in Photoshop or video applications, for instance), exclude them as well as that's just unnecessary.
/p

Does Time Machine require a dedicated external drive, or can it include other files?

After a misplaced library file, I'm having problems restoring some of the content on my MacBook Pro. I have a Time Machine backup on an external drive, but the drive also includes lots of other files that I want to exclude from the restore process. I'm concerned whether the Migration Assistant will scoop up everything on the drive.
The laptop is still running on Snow Leopard 10.6.8 for specific reasons (although I have Lion 10.7.5 on my iMac). I presume Time Machine and the Migration Assistant are the same on both operating systems -- but I'd better ask here first.
Thanks for any help with this question.

David Henderson7 wrote:
Another good idea. Thanks, FatMac!
For a long time, I was leery of putting too much stuff on one drive. It breaks, and you lose everything. But you're right -- the prices allow for even two 3TB externals that could manage backups of backups for paranoid types like me. And that's in addition to the internal drive.
Welcome to paranoidville. Staples has been selling Toshiba Canvio 3 TB externals for $120 and even though they must have green drives inside because they run a lot cooler than Seagates (of course they do, also, have ventilation), being fed from an SSD I've seen transfer rates of 130+MB/s connected to USB 3.0 ports. I have one set up with 4 partitions and maintain a rolling backup of the boot disk with BU dates recorded for each partition. A second Toshiba has a single periodic BU of the Mac Pro as well as a bootable backup of the rMBP and what passes for a Windows 8 backup of a Lenovo laptop. A third has the rMBP TM partition and a series of rMBP backups (that was originally used for testing and using the rMBP for a week without touching the rMBP SSD in case there was an image retention problem or some other issue, since the internal SSD can't be securely erased and I had 14 days to simply return it).
You can never be too rich, too thin or too backed up.

Hallo ,why is it that when I delete a photo ,which is backed up by time machine and western digital external hard drive , that I am able to restore the photo okay but not the titles and descriptions . I have a Macbook 4.1, mac osx 10.5.8 . Iphoto 7.1.5 ,

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 Wigton

Hallo 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

Using external HDD for Time Machine and files in one single partition ?

Hello everybody.
I've been searching for some time now and have encountered some contradictory answers, so I turn to you.
I would like to know if it's possible (one) and safe (two) to use a single partition for both Time Machine and file storage. I've read that this should be ok, since TM is actually only a single folder, which means the rest can easily be used as a standard Finder drive. Some people say however that this is not good to do so, because TM will run out of space quicker. But if the -let's say- 30Gb used for files where used by TM after a month, that would be the same, wouldn't it ? It would simply erase older backups. But is it safe to do so ? Will Time Machine not makes errors when accessing files or doing an entire system backup ? I don't won't to make a new partition really, that's why I'm asking you here, to let me know some arguments about it.
Thank you very much for your answers.

Marekova wrote:
Yet, overlooking that, you say "safe: mostly", why is that ? where's the "danger" or, what where you thinking when you said that ? Aren't these simple folder's ? Do you mean that, because during a full backup, these "stranger" files could be a problem ? It would be great if that was clarified, since I've found no indication about it elsewhere, has anyone tryed it ?
Oh, yes folks have tried it. That's why I (and many others) recommended against it.
Here's a similar thread from just the other day: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1926893 Note the responses from the top 2 "gurus" on this forum.
I probably should have asked you what you mean by "safe." If you mean, will TM delete other files on it's partition, no, it won't. If you mean, can there be problems, then yes, there can be conflicts and difficulties, as mentioned.
As to whether TM backups are simple folders, no, they aren't. They look like normal files and folders, but they actually contain what are variously called "hard links," "multi-links," and (my own personal favorite term) "ghost clones." Think of them as very fancy aliases. So they're not to be fooled with directly, by us mere mortals.
If you want more on this: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14
and/or: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/10/12/roadto_mac_os_x_leopard_timemachine.html
and, if you haven't seen it yet: http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#tutorial=leopardtimemachine
You should also know that, for some reason, TM stores it's backups differently when it does them wirelessly. In that case, they're in a "SparseBundle," very different from the structure used for directly-attached backups.
All the more reason to put each Mac's backups in a separate partition, and if you want to store other data there also, a 3rd partition for that.
I've been using Mac since many years now, but I have no idea about backups, so excuse me if the statements appear a little childish.
Nope. Even those of us who are "older than dirt" and have used many flavors and varieties of backup systems for decades are in a whole new world with Time Machine.
And most of the folks on this forum who found themselves in deep trouble got there because they assumed things or didn't ask.

Time Machine Backup across multiple external drives

Hello all-
I have about 1.5 TB of data in my computer (video editing- fills things up fast)... I was wondering if it were possible to tell Time Machine to recognize multiple external drives as the backup volume? I'm not talking about creating cloned backups of my data on different drives, I'm talking about plugging in three 1TB external drives and having Time Machine use them as targets for the backup image.
Thanks

Yes, you can use Disk Utility to create a +Concatenated Raid Set,+ also known as a JBOD (Just a bunch of disks). See the Help for Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
This is kind of the opposite of partitioning: it combines 2 or more disks into a single volume. The three disks won't appear on your desktop or Finder sidebar individually, just the one volume.
I'm not sure that's necessarily the best solution, though. Is all that data on a single internal HD, or do you have, say, OSX, applications, and most of your data on one drive, and media on a second? If so, it might be better to use TM on your main OSX drive, and something else, like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! on the media.
That would greatly reduce the time needed for a restore, as you'd only have to restore the drive that failed.
It could also reduce the amount of storage needed, as you might not need (or want) TM's hourly backups of the media files, and keeping all the previous versions. Using another app would allow you to back that data up somewhat less frequently, such as once or twice a day.
But, of course, it all depends on your situation and preferences. As usual, there are many options.

Transfer Time Machine backup from one external drive to another

Surely this has been covered, but I can't find it.
If you have your time machine backup on an external drive and get a new (larger) external drive, what is the best way to transfer the backup from one drive to the other (and define the new drive as the backup drive)? Straight copy ? Then to define the new drive, rename old drive to something else and name new drive the backup name?

I haven't tried this yet but a few other methods are described at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071128055047339

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 has locked my external drive. HELP

Time Machine hosed me again. After several unsuccessful attempts to backup on my PowerMac G5 dual 2.33 Ghz, I was able to complete my first full backup to an external 2 gig DROBO (USB 2.0 interface). It took 20 hours to do 180 gigs.
Now I have just discovered that Time Machine has made that external drive READ-ONLY! I cannot write to the drive and neither can Time Machine.
Does anybody know what is up and how to fix this short of using root UNIX shell which terrifies me. I just want to take it off and cut my losses, but the drive also has a ton of music on it that iTunes uses.

Okay Jeffery, I think I've found the solution, especially if you are seeing the "Unknown" user in your Get Info window's Sharing & Permissions setting for your drobo.
I had written earlier about my work-around for getting my drobo to work right after getting the "read-only" error from Time Machine. But unfortunately it was a temporary and temperamental fix. There were times then I had to eject the disk and launch Disk Utility to run a repair on the disk which would take more than half an hour on my drobo. But all the while my permissions had this "Unknown" user. Well I decided to "Go UNIX" and see if I could fix this problem once and for all.
I opened up Terminal and typed "*ls -la /Volumes*". This gives me a directory listing of my mounted drive volumes. I noticed that all of my drives, internal, external, USB and FireWire, all had "root" as the user and "admin" as the group, _EXCEPT for my drobo!_ So I forced it to conform by changing it manually by typing "*sudo chown root:admin /Volumes/Drobo\ Backup\ HD/*".
sudo = temporarily enables root mode by asking for your password before executing.
chown = changes ownership to...
root:admin = "root" is the user and "admin" is the group.
*/Volumes/Drobo\ Backup\ HD/* = My drobo drive is named "*Drobo Backup HD*", but UNIX sees spaces as command separators, so you have to use the "\ " to signify spaces within a name.
After doing this over a week ago, _I have not had any other problems_ with using my drobo as a backup drive. It has never come up with the "read-only" error in Time Machine, the Sharing & Permissions setting do not have any "Unknown" users or groups, I don't even need to wait for my drobo before logging in like I did in the past. I just boot my Mac and everything with my drobo and Time Machine just works... No problems!
It seems to be permanently fixed for me, so if you are willing to try this solution, I'm sure it would work for you. If UNIX terrifies you too much, and you do not trust yourself editing the commands above, let me know the name of your drobo drive on your desktop and I will post a message with the EXACT UNIX commands customized for just for you, so all you have to do is copy and paste them into your Terminal window to do it. But like I said, I've done this over a week ago and I not had one single problem.

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.

Errors when transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive.

Hello,
I need some help transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive. Let me explain what happened.
I have a Mac OSX Mountain Lion that was upgraded to Mavericks when the upgrade came out. Prior to upgrading, I've been backing up WD Passport Mac with the proprietary software "WD Unlocker on it". It worked flawlessly but after upgrading to Mavericks, I decided to backup and noticed that once i inserted the WD Passport, my screen will flicker, windows will close and reappear.
I decided to read up on this and discovered that Mavericks is not compatible with the "WD Unlocker " program on the Passport drive. Since I already have a backup in place, i decided to restore my computer to factory settings and when I attached the Passport drive with my backup on it, My device will see the backup but it will keep spinning for hours without restoring my backup. I decided to read further on this and I got the same Mavericks compatibility conclusion.
I then copied my entire backups.backupdb folder to my Mac desktop and formatted my WD Passport external drive and got rid of the proprietary software "WD Unlocker".. Once this was completed, I then tried to copy my backups.backupdb folder to my external drive within finder. Each time i tried, i get error messages and permission messages. Even when i changed the permission on the backups.backupdb folder to read & write for everyone, i still get the permissions error.
Please helppppp. I have over 500gb of vital data in my backup.
Thank you.

Since you don't really have a question, I will give you a very broad information source for the next time you have a Time Machine question.
Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Oh, you cannot use a computer whose only disk drive is the target of a an OS X cloning operation regardless of what software is used for the clone. You can, however, use the source drive except if you try to clone using Disk Utility.

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!

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

Time machine back up other external drive?

Hi folks,
My HD is filling up fast. What I need to know is if I move say, my music and photos to an external drive, will time machine back up the music and photos when they reside on the external drive? I have time machine running on an external drive dedicated to time machine. I'm using OX Mavericks.
Thanks,
Steve

Mine is set up similar. I use TIME MACHINE as a back up and then my redundant back up is to a 2 terabyte USB External, so now I have everything backed up twice.

Time machine and files on external drive

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