Time Machine Backup on Partition

Is it possible to use Time Machine without having an external drive or iDisk, instead use a partition on the hard drive?

Yes. Time Machine will work fine on internal partitions or separate internal drives.

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I have created a new partition on the Mac HD for Lion as I would like to dual boot. Do I need to install Snow Leopard on that partition before installing Lion? If so, can I use one of my Time Machine backups to do this?

I have created a new partition on the Mac HD for Lion as I would like to dual boot. Do I need to install Snow Leopard on that partition before installing Lion? If so, can I use one of my Time Machine backups to do this?

zoominnana wrote:
Can I set up 2 different time capsule backups? one for the lion partition and one for the snow leopard partition?
No, you can't partition a Time Capsule's internal HD. Both partitions will back up to the same sparse bundle. keeping the backups for each partition separate.
Time Machine will not take the two OSX partitions as two different computers, but for best results, exclude the Snow Leopard drive from backups on the Lion partition, and exclude the Lion partition from backups on the Snow Leopard partition.
There may be some files on the Lion partition that Time Machine on Snow Leopard won't like, among other things. See #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details.

Can I partition a hard drive so that one partition is for windows files and the other is for time machine backups?

I have a 1TB WD passport that currently contains windows files e.g photos, documents, etc. Can I partition it so that one partition contains these files and the other partition is used for time machine backups? Also, how do I change the partition system on the hard drive so that it uses the GUID partition system?
Thanks in advance.

Yes, you can, though you need to format and partition the drive from the scratch.
1) back up your PC data on other drive.
2) partitioning your drive into 2 partitions with Disk Utility.
3) format one partition by Mac OS extended (journaling) for Time Machine, the other by exFAT for PC data.
4) restore PC data on exFAT partitioned drive.

Clean install of Lion. Now I can;t see the partition on a USB external where I did a Time Machine backup. Help?

Howdy.
Ok, wanted to update my daughter's MacBookPro (late 2009 - 2.26ghz - 8GB RAM) I took a new external and partitioned into two GUID partitions. Installed Lion on one, and did a full (and verified) backup on the other. Booted off the external, erased the laptop drive and installed Lion. Works perfectly.
But when I try and access the Time Machine backup, I can't even see the partition. The icon is on the Desktop, the partition is in Finder. When I first instaled it even asked if I wanted to use that partition for Time Machine. But I can't do anything but a full restore, which I obviously do not want.
I tried going into Time Machine itself and when asked if I wanted to "Use Previous Disk" to do TM backups, I said yes. But I could not get the Mac to "inherit" the old backup.
Migration Assistant doesn't see the partition either.
Help?

First I formatted 2 partitions GUID on the external and installed Lion into one of them., and backed up the Macbook (via Time Machine) into the other. I then booted off the external Lion partition, erased the Macbook, installed a fresh Lion.
I then restarted using the new internal Macbook drive. Works perfectly. But now, when I try to use Migration Assistant I cant see the second partition, the one with the Time Machine backup.
I know I can do it manually but actually the computer is with my daughter at college in Arizona and I'm in Connecticut, so I'd rather get to the screen that allows you to restore users and settings only.
Thanks!

How do a clean install from Time Machine Backup which is in other partition of internal hard drive

I have 2 partitions in my internal hard drive they are
1. Mac OS (Sysem Files)
2. HDD (Other Personal Documents).
I did Time Machine Backup in HDD partition. So now i want to do clean install from the Time Machine Backup without format the whole drive since my system not booting meant that system crashed and cant boot in anyway (Just consider ). Also I have MAC bootable USB stick.
Thanks in advance .

Having never seen a setup like that, I'm not sure how it will work.
In theory, just erase the Mac OS volume, then install, choosing to recover from a Time Machine backup.
When you boot into Recovery, open Disk Utility and select the Mac OS volume, not the whole disk. Erase it, then quit DU and restore from the Time Machine backup. However, this is the part I'm not certain of. I would imagine the partition with TM backup will be mounted, but I don't know.
If you can't see the Time Machine backup from the Recovery HD on the drive, try it from the USB Recovery stick (it is a Recovery USB and not the old Lion install USB, correct?)
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718
If you don't have a "built-in" recovery HD because of your partitioning, then you would have to boot from that USB Recovery disk.
Your setup is severely flawed. A backup on the same drive as the data is not a backup. You will lose everything with a disk failure.
Also, partitioning off your OS on a Mac is not necessary and is probably counterproductive. OS X is not Windows.

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!

Time Machine Backup Partition on Ext drive unmounts. Other partition doesnt

I have a 500 GB OWC Mercury Elite Pro FW/USB drive that has two 250 GB partitions. I use one for storage and one for Time Machine backups and have been using it this way for a long time. The backup partition never unmounts unless I drag it to the trash. The backup partition constantly unmounts after a while.
I have run Disk Utility and DiskWarrior on the disk and partition many times. They show no problems. I have reset PRAM.
If the backup partition is mounted when I put the computer to sleep, it is still mounted when it wakes up.
Nothing will keep the partition mounted indefinitely, while the other partition on the disk is always mounted. Any suggestions?

deerhound2 wrote:
Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
Error: Flushing index to disk returned the error: 0
TM was having a problem writing to the backup disk, so the backup failed and ejected the disk.
Start by repairing it, per #A5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time Machine Backup Generations on several partitions

I used an iMac for almost a year. At the beginning I established Time Machine Backup to a large WD FireWire drive and then I let it on its own, satisfied to have a safe backup system. After that year, I bought a new iMac and selected the option to restore my data from the said TM Backup. So far, this worked fine, except for certain applications, which showed that data were missing (the worst was iPhoto with many photos disappeared).
Since this experience (and a similar experience I made earlier), I don't trust TM fully. TM for me is still a convenient tool which helps to revert to certain situations after inadvertent deletions or changes.
What I'm planning to do now, is to use a large (2TB) drive and to partition it into 6 partitions (A, B, C, D, E, F, all of the same size, each of them will be large enough for a TM Backup of my data for many months). Every 2 to 3 month I intend to start a new TM Backup, to a new partition in each case. After partition F has been used, partition A will be erased an then used again for backup (and so on), or I might even buy a new backup drive. This is to avoid Time Machine Backups to the same destination for a very long time period.
Now my question: Let's assume the current TM backup is made to partition D, when I find out, that I need a file from the backup in partion B a few months ago. Is it possible, to access an old TM backup after new TM backups have been started?
Thanks for your answer.

First of all: Thanks for your response!
Pondini wrote:
... feel free to tell Apple at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html
I'm going to do that.
... But it should "catch up" with the changes on a subsequent backup when iPhoto is not open.
It certainly should, but I doubt it does. Before I put the old iMac out of operation, I stopped all applications (including iPhoto) and then I forced a TM backup - with the result that iPhoto data were missing.
... but a much better solution may be making separate, independent backups to a separate HD via a separate app. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for some suggestions.
Of course, I additionally make separate, independent backups from time to time. For that I create a Disk Image by means of the Disk Utility, booted from the Install DVD. This seems to me the only way to be sure, that no files are open. The disadvantage of this method however ist, that it might not work to be used for backup to another Mac (different drivers), unless the other Mac it is identical.
But I believe, that the longer TM runs to a certain backup set, the more vulnerable it becomes. That's why I want to keep the backup period to the same backup set relatively short (2 to 3 months). Something else: The longer TM runs to the same backup set, the slower it becomes (that's something I have definitely observed).
Yes. Use the +*Browse . . .+* option, per #17 in the FAQ.
This answers my question. I appreciate it.

HT4848 Is it possible to partition an external hard drive that is already being used for Time Machine backups without it being erased?

I'm want to use my current external hard drive, which I use for Time Machine Backup, as a recovery disk for Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2. From what I have read, the recovery disk assistant will erase all data on the external drive unless it is partitioned. Can I partition my current backup drive without erasing it, even though it is already being used for Time Machine?

It's very simple to test. Turn off your computer. Have your time machine backup plugged in. Hold option and turn it on, keeping option held. Do you see your time machine drive? If so, select it and press enter. You'll end up in recovery. If it works, there you go. Then just click the apple and restart to get back to your regular desktop. Then you'll know for when you're ready to do the deed.
Edit...
I'm not sure if time machine will think it's an entirely different computer, though, when a hard drive changed, making an actual restore not doable. Either way, you could still reinstall mt lion fresh and then just migrate after, skipping the need for SL.

How might I move my Time Machine Backups.backupdb file to a partition on a different drive to enable reformatting the drive it is on, so that might put it back in place later?

I have an external drive I use as my Time Machine backup location.
Recently, I started getting an error on it. It tells me there is a problem, and to repair it with Disk Utility. Disk Utility cannot verify the disk, and needs me to repair it, but it cannot repair it. It advises me to copy all of the important files from this disk to another location, and then reformat the drive.
So, I have copied all of the files that were not part of the Backups.backupdb folder structure to a partition on another disk, and removed them from the defecting drive, leaving ~250GB of files in the Time Machine backups files.
I cannot seem to get this to copy to a ~350GB folder on another drive, formatted Journaled, Extended as recommended.
What do I do?

A Time Machine backup is owned by TM.. this is standard kind of issue.. the very fact that you cannot copy it suggests it is corrupt.. or you cannot change permissions on the whole file.. let me assure you the way TM works.. what you have so far copied is completely useless.
Have you run a verify of the backup??
The fact that disk utility is not working means something is wrong.. it should be able to fix a drive..
And the fact the drive is only 12-18months old is also not relevant.. the present state of the drive is too poor to be considered reliable.
What type of drive is it.. ie USB2 USB3 and what brand??
It is not just the disk that can go bad but the controller/power supply as well.. and some brands seem to have bad batches.. eg seagate USB drives I was seeing recently.
I prefer drives where I buy a shell and put the drive into it.. so I can move the drive to another shell without breaking warranty (or the case).
The actual command for terminal I always just look up when I want to do them.. I am getting old and I have no space left for command line stuff.. although it was all there in the past.
eg today I hit. http://www.cnet.com/au/news/using-the-os-x-terminal-instead-of-the-finder-to-cop y-files/
This includes the rsync command.. lets try this one..
I can copy my downloads directory to a time capsule disk. I start with login as super user just to make sure I don't have permissions issues.. you should definitely do this. running rsync is great as it will give you info when it fails and it will do incremental if you run it again later. You construct the command by simply dragging the folder from finder into terminal and slightly modifying it as per the article above.. So my actual command as I am copying deliberately to a new folder on the TC.. You don't want files to land on the root.. even if it creates another folder.
$ sudo su
Password:
sh-3.2# rsync -av /Users/Ray/Downloads/* /Volumes/DataTCgen3/downloads/
building file list ... done
#A 12v25v Descrip.doc
$T2eC16V,!)!E9s2fB+iqBQNKwsSzpQ~~60_3.JPG
$_12.JPG
0198f23d9wahwkzzsf20dk15czcy.pdf
0340039AINETCNCTKGS.PDF
I have 60GB or so in this folder and it is copying at about 20MB/s over ethernet.. so it is not super fast.. but there is probably some error checking going on at the same time.

Repartitioning a single drive from 2 partitions to 1 while maintaining a Time Machine backup

This is a bit of a quirky situation and I had a very difficult time finding the right search terms to bring me anywhere close to an answer. I still don't have one.
So here's the situation: I have an iMac hooked up to a 1TB external HDD via FireWire. Previously I had the HDD partitioned into 1 500GB partition for Time Machine and 1 1500GB partition for media files. I have since decided to move all my media back onto my internal HDD and would like to repartition the entire external HDD for use with Time Machine (as I will now have Time Machine backing up many of these media files as well) but I don't want to lose my existing backup history. I've seen the instructions for moving a Time Machine backup from one drive to another but how do I move a Time Machine backup off of an external HDD, reformat said drive from 2 partitions to 1, and move the backup back to it without disrupting the hard links?

BacktwoBedlam wrote:
The Time Machine backup is just an image
No, it's a complex set of folders and files, intricately linked together with multiple hard links.
Copying it to your internal HD will take a long time, if there's room for it; and emptying the trash after deleting it will take an extremely long time, and likely result in permissions and/or locked file problems.
If you do have to copy the Backups.backupdb folder, copy it only to a separate partition so you can just erase it when done.
See #18 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details.

Can I restore my mac from a Time Machine backup once I have used BootCamp to partition and set up Windows (without erasing all of the Windows content)?

A few months ago I partitioned my mac using BootCamp and successfully installed Windows and a few Windows-only programs (games). I never restored my mac from the Time Machine backup and now I would really like all of my files back on my mac. I am wondering if I insert the osx install disc and restore from Time Machine backup, will that get rid of the partition I made for Windows? Will the Windows side of my hard drive stay in tact or will everything on that side get erased when I restore the mac side from the Time Machine backup. It was a HUUUUUUUGE pain to do the BootCamp partition and get everything Windows set up and I would really like to not have to do that all over again. I just want to make sure that if I insert the mac osx install disc and restore from Time Machine backup it will only affect the Mac partition, NOT the Windows partition.

Hi,
Time Machine does not touch your BootCamp Windows.
It simply said ignores it completely.
Nonetheless, I am curious as to why you wanna restore a Time Machine backup.
Usually during partitioning with the BootCamp Assistant in OSX to make the Windows partition your OSX stays intact.
Regards
Stefan

How to restore a Time machine backup and get a recovery partition?

Hi,
I'm quite confused!
I restored from a Time Machine backup and then setup boot camp (and removed that partition a while back) and now I don't have a recovery partition. (Can't enable File Vault and
bash-3.2# diskutil list /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            87.4 GB    disk0s2
My new MacBook Pro didn't come with any CDs.
Apparently I need the recovery partition to reinstall Lion from the internet.
"Recovery HD offers on-disk recovery tools, allows you to restore from Time Machine backups, reinstall OS X Lion over the Internet..."
The recommended solution from Apple seems to be reinstall with your OSX 10.6 CD (which I don't have) and then upgrade to Lion (which seems like a PITA).
Info from : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4649
What process should I follow to restore my recovery partition and apply the current state of the machine from a backup?
(the process should not involve anything I don't have, like USB memory sticks, Lion CDs, etc....)
Supplementary questions which are only relevant if the answer is "you can't" (which would seem to be a major bug!) :
Or is there a clever method to install a recovery partition onto an existing disk (which clearly has space for it)? I have searched for it but all the results I found have either not mentioned that it works without reinstalling but look like it's needed, or do say "reinstall".
If I install Lion to an external disk, can I boot from that and use the recovery disk assistant tool to restore the partition to my internal disk? (Which I assume I'll need to do to get FileVault to work) ?
Thanks,
Max

Maxs-MacBook-Pro:Applications max$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            87.4 GB    disk0s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *136.2 MB   disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk2s1
   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         2.0 KB     disk2s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery Disk Assistant 136.2 MB   disk2s3

Restoring from Lion Time Machine backup and keeping Lion recovery partition

I am installing a new hard drive in my MacBook Pro. I have a Time Machine backup of everything, but I'm aware that just restoring the Time Machine backup to the new drive will not restore the Lion recovery drive/partition. What is the best way to move my data to the new drive? Am I best doing a clean install and moving everything over by hand from the Time Machine backup?

I've just done this. I booted from a Lion Recovery USB stick then restored from a Time Capsule. I had no RecoveryHD partition after it.
However, if you download and run the Lion installer once you log in to your desktop it will re-create the RecoveryHD partition. Long way round though.
Best solution is to make a bootable USB (8GB) or DVD from the Lion installer App. Then do a new install of Lion to get the Recovery HD partition created. Once installed you can restart and boot up using the newly created Recovery HD and restore your entire computer from the Time Capsule. Hey presto, your computer should be back to the way it was.

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.

Time Machine Backup on Partition

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