Time machine: can i create a separate backup for an external hard drive?

I am already backing up my internal hard drive to External Hard Drive A
I would like to back up another external hard drive (External Hard Drive B) to another hard drive (Hard Drive C). Is this possible with Time Machine in Mac OS 10.7.5. If so, where might I find instructions?
Thank you!

Sounds like you (or somebody) encrypted the disk with FileVault2.
When you enabled FileVault2, you should have received a message similar to the following:
WARNING: You will need your login password or a recovery key to access your data. A recovery key is automatically generated as part of this setup. If you forget both your password and recovery key, the data will be lost.
(That's the wording when encrypting the boot volume in Security & Privacy preference. The wording when creating an encrypted non-boot disk with Erase in Disk Utility is slightly different, but also includes red-letter WARNING about data loss if you forget the password.)
If the disk is encrypted with FileVault, better hope you can remember the password. As the help says, "The disk encryption in Mac OS X uses the government-approved encryption standard, the Advanced Encryption Standard with 128-bit keys (AES-128)."

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I'm not sure if my iPhoto library is being backed up by Time Machine. I am backing up to a LaCie external hard drive. I can open photos that are in folders but not those that are in iPhoto.

I'm not sure if my iPhoto library is being backed up by Time Machine. I am backing up to a LaCie external hard drive. I can open photos ont the hard drive that are in folders but not those that are in iPhoto.

Do a restore from Time Machine. That will tell you.

HT201250 I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was?

I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was? I want to make sure I will still have various important files on my new computer, like my songs in iTunes, my photos in iPhoto, etc, etc. Thanks so much in advance!

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
When you turn on the new iMac for the first time, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the external disk and follow steps to restore all your files to your new iMac. Your new Mac will have the same settings and programs as your old computer.
In other cases, I would recommend to restore the whole backup without using Migration Assistant or Setup Assistant, but a Late 2012 iMac uses a special OS X build, so the OS X version that you're using on your old Mac won't work on the new one. For more information, see > http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

I use an external hard drive as a Time Machine back up, but I want to use another external hard drive to save movies, photos on it, but it won't give me the option to save anything on the new external hard drive. Nothing is wrong with the external hard.

I use an external hard drive as a Time Machine back up, but I want to use another external hard drive to save movies, photos on it, but it won't give me the option to save anything on the new external hard drive. Nothing is wrong with the external hard.

Hi Clarkett99,
To use an external hard drive for your iTunes library, see the steps in this article -
iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
iPhoto can be used in a similar way, follow the steps in this previous discussion -
how do I save photos and their albums...: Apple Support Communities
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3744259
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

Can Time Machine Be Used to Back Up Files from An External Hard Drive?

Please let me provide a little more information to clarify the question.
The hard drive on my computer is not large enough for all my photo and video files so I am planning to purchase a new external hard drive and move my "Pictures" and "Movies" folders to the new external hard drive as a way of freeing up space on my computer. A different external hard drive is now used for backup of the computer's hard drive.
My question is about how backups will be handled if I upgrade to Snow Leopard.
I understand that Time Machine will take the place of the software now being used to back up the MacHD, but back up is still needed for the photo and video files which would be moved off of the MacHD. Will Time Machine back up those files too? That is, will Time Machine back up specified folders which are being stored on one external hard drive and place the backups on a different external hard drive? And, will Time Machine do that in addition to backing up the MacHD? If so, are separate partitions needed for the MacHD and the Photo/Video backups, or will Time Machine put everything in the same partition?
Any advice and/or suggestions for handling this in would be most appreciated.
Thanks for your help.

As captfred says, yes (as long as the drive is formatted for a Mac, not Windoze).
You might want to review the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Removing Time Machine backups for (missing) external hard drive

My Time Machine was backing up everything, including external hard drives.
One of the external drives (ORIGDRIVE) started hardware failures. I added a new external drive (NEWDRIVE) and used Finder to copy files over (some via RAID and some from the Time Machine copy a month before the problems cropped up).
Then I ejected and unplugged ORIGDRIVE and shipped it back to the manufacturer.
The problem is that the Time Machine still has all those copies from ORIGDRIVE eating up disk space, but I want to keep a year's worth of monthlies for all the other drives (just in case another drive fails soon).
Since ORIGDRIVE is not mounted, Time Machine doesn't show me those files so I can use the "Delete All Backups of" option within the GUI.
If I try renaming NEWDRIVE to ORIGDRIVE, what I get instead is ORIGDRIVE 1 .
We're talking dozens of TB here, so reformatting the Time Machine volume and starting over maxes out the system and leaves me flying without a complete backup for most of a week, something I'd rather avoid.
Suggestions?

My Time Machine was backing up everything, including external hard drives.
One of the external drives (ORIGDRIVE) started hardware failures. I added a new external drive (NEWDRIVE) and used Finder to copy files over (some via RAID and some from the Time Machine copy a month before the problems cropped up).
Then I ejected and unplugged ORIGDRIVE and shipped it back to the manufacturer.
The problem is that the Time Machine still has all those copies from ORIGDRIVE eating up disk space, but I want to keep a year's worth of monthlies for all the other drives (just in case another drive fails soon).
Since ORIGDRIVE is not mounted, Time Machine doesn't show me those files so I can use the "Delete All Backups of" option within the GUI.
If I try renaming NEWDRIVE to ORIGDRIVE, what I get instead is ORIGDRIVE 1 .
We're talking dozens of TB here, so reformatting the Time Machine volume and starting over maxes out the system and leaves me flying without a complete backup for most of a week, something I'd rather avoid.
Suggestions?

I can't empty trash. I get error code 8003. I am trying to delete some time machine back ups to make more room on my external hard drive.

My trash has files from time machine/Drobo, my external hard drive. It refuses to empty and prevents me from emptying other files from my iMac.

Please look at the More Like This link to your right. Any with a green check mark indicated the question has been answered with a solution.

My husband bought an imac for the first time. We backed up our separate itunes libraries on external hard drive but when it was retrieved, the 2 libraries had merged and they only appear in my husbands area. How do we split them back up again?

Really need some help here. We got the guys at PC World to back up our old computer onto and external hard drive, but our libraries merged. I've tried retrieving the whole thing from the external hard drive but can't seem to identify any files to retrieve. If I could copy the whole thing into my area, we could both just erase the things from each others' libraries that we didn't want. We are imac virgins, and need some advice!

if it's content purchased from the iTunes store we're talking about, the following script will help to tell the files apart:
Track Down Purchases
This script will examine each track in a selection of tracks or a selected playlist to determine if it was purchased from the iTunes Store and then copies it to a discrete playlist named for the person who purchased it, eg: "Steve Ballmer's Purchased Music". Recognizes song, video, and audiobook purchases. Purchaser information is gleaned by examining the track's file, which, depending on file location and access speed, can take as long a second per track.
for content you added manually (i.e. CD rips), i don't know of any easy way once the libraries were merged.

Can I Have Time Machine Doing 2 Separate Backups on 2 External Hard Drives

Hi Using Lion 10.7.2. I had been backing up with Time Machine to a 500 GB external drive. I just purchased a 2TB external drive.
I'd like to know if I can have a backup going to each drive simulatenously?
I'm not confident from the TimeMachine preferences if it will continue to backup to the old drive as well. I'd prefer two backups, since there's nothing wrong with the older drive.
AS

Hi Using Lion 10.7.2. I had been backing up with Time Machine to a 500 GB external drive. I just purchased a 2TB external drive.
I'd like to know if I can have a backup going to each drive simulatenously?
I'm not confident from the TimeMachine preferences if it will continue to backup to the old drive as well. I'd prefer two backups, since there's nothing wrong with the older drive.
AS

Time Machine How do I restore a backup to a NEW Hard Drive?

Just put in a new hard drive in a MacBook Pro. I did a install of Snow Lepord.
How do I restore my Time Machine copy and can I use a older one?
Also, lost my airport say can't get a IP address? Has worked fine for the last year...?

Your best bet is probably to just do a full system restore, per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. Note: that will restore the copy of OSX from your backups, overlaying the recent Snow Leopard installation.
That will let you select the backup you want to restore from; if you use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant, there's no choice -- the most recent one is used automatically.

HT3275 Time Machine says there isn't enough room on my external hard drive to perform a backup.

But there was until very recently. The difference is about 100 times what Time Machine says is needed, and I know I didn't add that much stuff in the course of a few days.

Derby Dave wrote:
But there was until very recently. The difference is about 100 times what Time Machine says is needed, and I know I didn't add that much stuff in the course of a few days.
Sorry I am unclear.. how much space does TM say it needs and how much is free on the TC?
Sometimes it reports wrongly.. have you reboot the whole network.. restart modem, router / TC..clients.. and test again.

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB independent Hard drive

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac two weeks ago, I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB External Hard drive. I understand that a number of people have lost data since installing Mavericks on their Western Digital external drives. Has anyone any futher info. Or is there a better way of backing up my computer. Thanks. Lee

Check the More Like This section at the right particularly i upgraded my imac hard drive to a 2tb drive. how do i use time machine to get my computer back to normal?

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?

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.

Installed GoFlex 1.5 TB external drive on my iMac running OS X 10.7.4 and error says Time Machine can't create a backup folder. Any solutions?

Installed GoFlex 1.5 TB external drive on my iMac running OS X 10.7.4 and error says Time Machine can't create a backup folder. Any solutions?

Well, to unmount the drive, you can use the Terminal application.
Start in Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
When the Terminal window opens, type - without the quotes and with the space at the end - this:
"diskutil unmount "
Then drag the icon of the unmounted drive from the desktop into the Terminal window - the drive location will be added to the end of the command above. It should look something like this:
diskutil unmount /Volumes/volumename
Then press enter (return).
That should unmount the drive. Now you can try the Time Machine process again with perhaps a different interconnect cable for the GoFlex.

HT201250 How can I migrate a Time Machine backup from an external hard drive to a new TimeCapsuls?

I just got a 2TB Time Capsule. I want to migrate my time machine backups on an external hard drive to the new Time Capsule. I have about 430Gb of files to back up; I don't want to wait 7-8 days for the backup, unless I have to. I am using OS 10.7.5 (forget which cat that is). I have mounted the TC drive as 10.0.1.1; I tried to drag and drop from old to "data" on TC, but I get the error "The volume is the wrong format for a backup." Any ideas how I can move my old files to the new, and bypass creating a brand new backup file?
Thanks.

Rather than do that, which means starting over from scratch, losing all your edits, organisation and so on, why not simply use iPhoto Library Manager to revert the Library to the older version? Easier, less destructive.
The instructions on that are here
If you really want to start over: you can access the Originals folder simply by going to your Pictures Folder and finding the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.

Time machine: can i create a separate backup for an external hard drive?

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