Time Machine forgets which drive to use...
I've got three MBPs which backup onto Time Capsule via Time Machine.
Every day or two, on one or another MBP, Time Machine shows the exclamation mark in the Menu Bar icon, and I have to go to Prefences to re-link the Time Capsule with Time Machine, sometimes entering the password and sometimes not.
Is there a way of 'helping' Time Machine remember it's meant to use Time Capsule for backups?
Time Machine works differently with a network volume than it does with a local volume, so no, you can't use the same backup data that way. But don't let that bother you. You need more than one backup anyway. One is not enough to be safe.
Similar Messages
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Time Machine & external hard drives not used daily
I have a question about Time Machine and external hard drives that I used for storing digital files. I do not need to turn on these drives every day. Or even every week. Is Time Machine going to "forget" them (delete their files from backups) if I don't turn them on regularly? What do I do to make sure they are safely backed up and that they stay backed up even if they aren't turned on every day?
As I said, then, "Time Machine will simply pick up wherever it left off." Just be sure to properly eject the drive before disconnecting or shutting off.
The "speed" question is a new one not present in your original post. You can address that in the following:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions About Mac Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utility is: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption. Drive Genius provides additional tools not found in Disk Warrior for defragmentation of older drives, disk repair, disk scans, formatting, partitioning, disk copy, and benchmarking.
Four outstanding sources of information on Mac maintenance are:
1. OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney.
2. Mac maintenance Quick Assist
3. Maintaining Mac OS X
4. Mac Maintenance Guide
Periodic Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) See Mac OS X- About background maintenance tasks. If you are running Leopard or later these tasks are run automatically, so there is no need to use any third-party software to force running these tasks.
If you are using a pre-Leopard version of OS X, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced after Tiger. (These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion and should not be installed.)
Defragmentation
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive except when trying to install Boot Camp on a fragmented drive. But you don't need to buy third-party software. All you need is a spare external hard drive and Carbon Copy Cloner.
Cheap and Easy Defragmentation
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive. You will use Carbon Copy Cloner to create the backup and to restore it.
1. Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the
external one.
2. Boot from the external hard drive.
3. Erase the internal hard drive.
4. Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not depressed or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the upward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your internal 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. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the
drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended
(Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to
GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait
until the process has completed.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not selected or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.
Malware Protection
As for malware protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. Starting with Lion, Apple has included built-in malware protection that is automatically updated as necessary. To assure proper protection, update your system software when Apple releases new OS X updates for your computer.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection:
1. Mac Malware Guide.
2. Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware
3. Macintosh Virus Guide
For general anti-virus protection I recommend only using ClamXav, but it is not necessary if you are keeping your computer's operating system software up to date. You should avoid any other third-party software advertised as providing anti-malware/virus protection. They are not required and could cause the performance of your computer to drop.
Cache Clearing
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, Mountain Lion Cache Cleaner 7.0.9, Maintenance 1.6.8, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache files can cause slowness, kernel panics, and other issues. Although this is not a frequent nor a recurring problem, when it does happen there are tools such as those above to fix the problem.
If you are using Snow Leopard or earlier, then for emergency cleaning install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. (AppleJack works with Snow Leopard or earlier.)
Installing System Updates or Upgrades
Repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand.
Update your backups in case an update goes bad.
Backup and Restore
Having a backup and restore strategy is one of the most important things you can do to maintain your computer. Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. You can never have too many backups. Don't rely on just one. Make several using different backup utilities. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance and backup and restore.
Always have a current backup before performing any system updates or upgrades.
Final Suggestions
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity or 20 GBs, whichever is greater, as free space. Avoid installing utilities that rely on Haxies, SIMBL, or that alter the OS appearance, add features you will rarely if ever need, etc. The more extras you install the greater the probability of having problems. If you install software be sure you know how to uninstall it. Avoid installing multiple new software at the same time. Install one at a time and use it for a while to be sure it's compatible.
Additional reading may be found in:
1. Mac OS X speed FAQ
2. Speeding up Macs
3. Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
4. Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up
5. Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines
6. Five Mac maintenance myths
7. How to Speed up Macs
8. Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
Most if not all maintenance is for troubleshooting problems. If your computer is running OK, then there isn't really a thing you need to do except repair the hard drive and permissions before installing any new system updates. -
Making Time Machine "Forget" a Drive
Ok - I've been having this problem under Lion and now Mountain Lion, and its very frustrating.
I have a desktop 2TB drive, dedicated solely to Time Machine. I have a portable 1TB bus powered drive that I use as well. At one point, I used the portable bus powered as my backup drive, later getting the 2TB drive. I told Time Machine to NOT use the 1TB drive, and to use the 2TB drive instead. I then deleted the Backups.backupdb folder from the original 1TB drive, and emptied the trash. Which is another issue - it never wants to empty more than 10 files at a time!
Anyway, the issue is this. If I ever connect the 1TB drive by itself - its bus powered and I carry it with me on the road - Time Machine always wants to start backing up to it (the 1TB). And will show that it is a selected drive in the preferences as well! Under Mountain Lion, I added BOTH, and let it backup to both for a while, then removed the 1TB drive again, and hoped that this would "remove" the drive from Time Machine. No dice. It just backed up to the drive again - even though it only shows the 2TB drive as a backup volume if I unmount and remount both drives.
Help! Short of deleting 18 months of backups from the 2TB drive, and formatting BOTH drives - what do I do? In fact, I don't think that is a solution, as the 1TB drive was replaced under warranty this year by OWC, and I continue to have the problem.
Any help is appreciated!
JimWell, problem not solved. Here's where it gets wierd. I following your suggestions, deleting the plist and restarting, then reslecting the volume "Samsung 2TB" as my Time Machine drive. All is well. Then later in the day, I decided to unmount all of the FW800 drives, and connect JUST the 1TB volume "OWC On-The-Go (SATA)".
The Time Machine pull down on the top of the screen changed from showing the last backup as being to "Samsung 2TB" to showing it as having been to "OWC On-The-Go (SATA)" - as shown in the image below. Note that there was NO Backups.backupdb on the drive at this time - and the prior backup had been to the Samsung 2TB external drive. Since we were about 5 minutes until the next scheduled backup, I promptly plugged the 2TB drive back into the chain, and Time Machine backed up to it, changing the text back to the right drive up top on the screen.
Do I need to reformat the volume? Change the volume name? I've got about 500GB of iMovie data and audio files on there, as well as VMWare machines - it will take a couple of hours to move it to another drive if I need to reformat.
Jim -
just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??
Let's hope a couple things: that you have bootable clones of your drives also; that the backup drive for TimeMachine has over 3x capacity of the data you plan and are storing. I would also switch TM backup drives so you have a 2nd.
Fragmented free space affecting performance happens when the drive is too full which may mean there isn't enough free space for a full backup set.
1.5TB for backing up 500GB, while WD Green 3TB is $140 and WD Black 1.5TB is, about the same price.
I'd be worried about the integrity and directory, and whether you can afford to lose that drive. Defragging is also a very slow operation. the ideal: to just clone a drive, or start over with another drive and wait. cloning TM volumes has not been done or has it? SuperDuper hoped to but I don't think they or Bombich's CCC made it there.
Trouble with highly fragged is when free space gets to 20% normally, 1/3 or so though for TM volumes, and finding where and a chunk of space for the file being written. Does TM use large spare image files of like 2GB?
Best would be to ask in the TimeMachine section Snow Leopard
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard?view= discussions#/?tagSet=1009
where there are some good FAQ and tutorials, and people that know the ins-and-outs and shortcomings. -
Has anyone successfully used a "WD My Book for Mac" via NAS (plugged into USB port on router) as a Time Machine back-up drive? Apple support tech tried to tell me it wasn't possible and that the only NAS Time Machine could back up to is the Time Capsule, but I'm not buying it. I know it's doable, but I'm having a hard time figuring out which External HDDs will work and which ones won't. If not My Book for Mac, is there an External HDD that will work? (Running OS X 10.9.1 - Mavericks, btw...)
Given the nature of backups, my recommendation has always been to use a strategy that is unequivocally supported by Apple. As you already determined Apple Support unequivocally informed you that your proposal will not work, unless your router is an Apple AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule.
The exhaustive list of devices supported by Time Machine amounts to the following:
AirPort Time Capsule's built-in hard disk (any model)
External USB hard disk drive connected to a Time Capsule (any model)
External USB hard disk drive connected to an AirPort Extreme (current model only)
A hard disk drive directly connected to your Mac
That is all.
Use whatever backup device you want, but you should be aware that this site is full of reports of misery from hapless individuals who had been using NAS devices for Time Machine backups, only to find that they were incomplete, corrupted, or useless when they were required. Apple won't care if you lose your data while using a Time Machine configuration specifically excluded from their technical support documents. -
I used time machine, now my drive has failed and all my files are lost.
i used time machine, now my drive has failed and all my files are lost. any one know how to get the max osx to see the drive again so i can retrive my files
kabb30 wrote:
i used time machine,
Ok, check
now my drive has failed
Which one, the TM drive or the internal boot drive?
all my files are lost.
Where? on both drives or just TM or the internal drive?
any one know how to get the max osx
yea, if we knew more details of your machine and what you had before and later
to see the drive again so i can retrive my files
I don't know what drive failed.
I'm thinking here your internal drive failed? Was it replaced?
You have a blank internal drive and a TimeMachine drive and your asking how to reinstall OS X so you can restore from the TimeMachine drive?
How are you getting here? Another machine or device and what is it?
We need more details of your situation please. -
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?
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How do i use airport as both time machine and hard drive? currently on Yosemite 10.10.1
how do i use my 3TB airport time capsule as both time machine and hard drive? currently on Yosemite 10.10.1.....Many Thanks.
Choose Computer from the Finder's Go menu and double-click it. If needed, use the Connect to Server command to log into it.
(119763) -
how do I access my iphoto library on time machine backup external drive using Lion, originally saved off old computer and system. It's not letting me open the folder???
Once again here's how to restore an iPhoto Library from Time Machine:
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The disk drive in my iMac 8,1 has stopped working, so I now use an LG 8x Slim Portable that works. However, every time I use the LG drive, I lose contact with my Time Machine back-up drive that has to be deleted and reinstalled. Help!
It's not Logic that can't find them, it's your Komplete apps, though if you did exaclty as you say I can see no reason why they can't.
Do you know where the apps installed them in the first place? I chose a non-standard locarion for mine, but I'm sure it installs sounds to your documents folder/native instruments/name of app.
Go into the prefs of each app and choose the library location button on the library tab and point it to the relevant folder in documents/native instruments and see if that works
jake -
how do I disable time machine? I want to use my external drive as additional storage. But it mirrors everything I edit. If I remove a document, it removes it from the external drive as well.
I purchased a 1 TB WD passport drive, formatted for Mac. I set it up originally (mistakenly) to backup time machine. I went back and set it to "do not backup" It still backs up evey document I edit. If I add a document when the drive is disconnected, it automatically adds it to the external drive the next time connect to the passport drive. If I remove a document the same thing happens.
I need additional storage to free up space on my laptop hard drive. This is not working the way I want it to. Help!Do not backup your startup volume to another partition on the same drive. If the drive fails you have nothing. Always backup to another drive or volume on another drive.
The I/O error usually means there's a problem with the drive. Clone ASAP, then repartition and reformat the main drive. Then restore the clone. Here's the basic process:
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
Boot from the external hard drive.
Erase the internal hard drive.
Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your internal 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.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure. -
Hi, I used an external hard drive as a time machine,now I want to use it on a windows PC as a normal hard drive again. How do I "reformat" the time machine to an normal usb-device?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+format+hard+drive
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Time Machine sees my drive but will not use it.
I am running mountain lion on my MacBook Pro. I have an external WD DD that has 1TB partioned for mac and 1TB for PC. When I hook the DD directly to the mac via USB TIme machine uses it no problem for backing up. But moving forward I want to have the backup DD on my wireless network. When I then disconnect it from the mac and instead connect it to my wireless rounter (again with USB) Time Machine is not happy.
Time Machine find the drive and recognizes it that is has Mac backups on it, but it will not let me "choose disk" to use it forback ups going forward.
Anyone know how I can fix this??
I orginally formated the the backup drive with an iOS older than mountain lion..
I have done some searches in the support communities and don't see this exact issue listed.No, pondini has enough to keep himself occupied with apple routers.. getting TM to work on non-apple routers maybe simply impossible.
Here is Netgear version.
http://www.netgear.com/assets/landing/readyshare/readyshare-time-machine.pdf
Do not be surprised if you have issues. Many non-apple NAS and routers that supported TM were broken by Lion changes.
\BTW, Netgear does not list the WNDR3700 as compatible with TM.
Supported Router:
Centria WNDR4700/WNDR4720, WNDR4500, WNDR4300,
WNDR3800, WNDRMAC
Supported DSL gateways:DGND4000 -
I replaced the original hdd in my early 2008 iMac. I can't move my files that were backed up with Time Machine to my new hdd using Migration Assistant. When prompted to select the "from drive", the ext. hhd does not appears as a selection. Please help!!
I'd recommend staring over, Pondini has created an excellent guide on how to use Setup Assistant. I'd recommend begin reading Pondini Setup Assistant tips where he talks about "Second Chance." Assuming your Time Machine backup is sound the restore should be very smooth.
Roger -
Vault & Time Machine on same drive?
Hello,
I was wondering if there is a way that an Aperture vault can be created on an external hard drive that is already used for Time Machine.
The drive is of size that I would not use it all and would like to back up my Aperture pictures which are excluded from the Time Machine backups.Yes, you can store a vault (and anything else) on a drive used for Time Machine. Mine's set up this way and I've had no problems.
However, once Time Machine fills up all the free space (as it will eventually do) then you'll be unable to update your vault without manually deleting older Time Machine backups.
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