Time Machine hard drive need to be reformatted?

I upgraded from Leopard about 6 hours ago and so far I haven't had any issues with Snow Leopard and it is noticeably faster and more stable. However, when I just plugged in my Time Machine backup drive I got a message saying the "disk was unreadable by this computer". That never happened until I installed Snow Leopard. Does my time machine backup HDD need to be reformatted to work with Snow Leopard??? Is there a chance that version 10.6.1 will fix this little issue soon?

If you're sure you've got all your data on your Mac now, and it's solid, you could erase your external drive and do a backup right off.
I also would search as I thought I saw someone with a simple fix for a similar issue here.
Scott

Similar Messages

  • If I add another profile, will that person's content automatically be saved to my Time Machine hard drive or do I need to take further action to ensure that this is saved?

    If I add another profile, will that person's content automatically be saved to my Time Machine hard drive or do I need to take further action to ensure that this content is saved? Thanks for any and all help with this.
    Dave N.
    Holliston, MA

    Time Machine creates a back up of the entire Hard Drive, with the exception of Boot Camp or exceptions you have created. So in other words after you create the profile run Time Machine, and a backup of the other user profile will be added to your Time Machine backups.

  • Can I clone my Time Machine hard drive, to another HD, and store Off Site?

    Good day All, I love my new Macbook, but am trying to come up with a foolproof method of backing up all my data, documents, and business.
    I have become very nervous about BACKUPS, and want to have an OFF-SITE week old backup done on a external Hard Drive?
    I presently have a 200 gig Time Machine backup/archive, and have a daily clone with Super Duper & Carbon Copy Clone. However these hard drives are at home, so should the building burn down, or should we get broken into, there goes my business and digital life.
    My thought is to buy an external hard drive and clone my current Time Machine hard drive to the external on a weekly basis, and store it off-site or at a friends house.
    Would I be able to do a clone of my TM HD archive, and have it still useable / bootable / recoverable should a tragedy happen?
    I would like to upload it all up to Mozy, or BackBlaze, or similar offering, but 200 gig is way too big.
    Is anybody cloning a Time Machine hard drive and able to restore from it?
    Thanks for reading my post, and am lookin forward to all of your comments, IAN...

    Hi Ian,
    Sorry I missed the discussion last night. I'll tell you how I'm accomplishing the backup task and you can let me know if this is what you're trying to do.
    I now have 2 external HDs. A 1TB Seagate and a 250 GB LaCie. The LaCie used to be my TM backup drive, but it was the same size as my internal iMac drive. I knew I'd eventually need a bigger drive so I bought the 1TB Seagate yesterday and cloned the LaCie drive onto it using SuperDuper. The only thing on the LaCie drive was TM backups. Now the TM backup are on the Seagate. I unmounted the old TM drive and changed the name of the new drive to "Time Machine". I activated TM and it picked right up where it left off. I did test it by restoring an old file. I also changed a current file and made sure TM was still operating as advertised. Everything worked as expected.
    Now I simply used the 250 GB drive to clone my system HD using CCC. It is a bootable backup and can be used to run the system should my internal drive become unusable. I will update this drive once a month with any changes to the system drive using CCC and keep it off-site in a safe deposit box in the meantime. Using this methodology, I don't see why you'd want to swap the drives weekly/monthly. Just let TM run on the large drive and keep the other drive as current as you like. I've decided monthly is good for me. I'm mostly worried about photos, but I keep them on the camera longer than a month, so there's my cover for the month.
    Nano

  • Time Machine only shows the current copy of the file I am trying to restore. There is none of the time machine backup histories shown. I am running OSX 10.7.5. I see the backup files on my external Time Machine hard drive. Help

    Time Machine only shows the current copy of the file I am trying to restore. There is none of the time machine backup histories shown. I am running OSX 10.7.5. I see the backup files on my external Time Machine hard drive in the Backups.backupdb folder.
    Time Machine does show the history of my Macintosh HD, but when I try to navigate to the folder I wish to restore the backup history disappears. I've been searching for answers and I have not found one that works for me.

    Time Machine only shows the current copy of the file I am trying to restore. There is none of the time machine backup histories shown. I am running OSX 10.7.5. I see the backup files on my external Time Machine hard drive in the Backups.backupdb folder.
    Time Machine does show the history of my Macintosh HD, but when I try to navigate to the folder I wish to restore the backup history disappears. I've been searching for answers and I have not found one that works for me.

  • Erasing Time Machine hard drive after formatting for both PPC and Intel

    Ok, I made a mistake. First I formatted a Western Digital 500 gig hard drive for both my wife's PPC G4 laptop and my own Intel MBP laptop, so we could both use Leopard's Time Machine for backing up to the same drive. That wasn't my mistake though, it's been working fine. I formatted my partition using the GUID option and hers using the Apple Partition Map option (I think that's what they are called, I'm going from memory).
    Here's my mistake: I needed some extra space to store some files and read that I could Re-Partition the drive without erasing anything using Disk Utility. Sounded great. I first tried to partition my wife's partition, since she had more extra space, but then I realized that was a bad idea since I had formatted her partition with using the Apple Partition Map, so I stopped and then tried to Re-Partition my side. It worked for about an hour: my Time Machine backup drive appeared, my new partition appeared, but then... her partition disappeared! Usually whenever one of us plugs in the hard drive using the firewire cable, both partitions appear, Time Machine Goes to work, and that's that. When we need to disconnect from the drive we have to eject both drives, but no big deal. Now her drive isn't appearing.
    So... I tried to repair it, no good. Tried to erase both her partition and mine (to just start over): no good. I can't do anything to either of these partitions now, from either computer. Tried everything I could think of in Disk Utility, from both computers. Won't erase, won't re-partition. Not a hardware issue: it all started when I did this stupid Re-Partition. Help!!!!
    I want to erase the drive and start over. Can anyone advise??

    Jasonmo,
    First, let's talk about the various partition schemes. A partition scheme applies to the entire drive. Specifically, these are different maps written to the drive, within which volumes are created. As such, this is an either/or thing; your drive is partitioned using either the GUID Scheme, or the Apple Scheme, not both.
    "Live" partitioning or re-sizing of existing volumes is supported only under the GUID Partition Scheme. If the drive wasn't using this scheme, you would not be able to re-size as you were attempting to do. Even re-sizing under the GUID scheme requires that the drive's maps and directory structures be in very good shape, if it is to work without hitch.
    Are you absolutely certain that there isn't some physical problem with the drive, or with its interface (cables and such)? If it is operating normally, you should be able to re-partition it without problems. In DIsk Utility, select the drive (not a named volume that will appear indented underneath), then click the "Partition" tab. If you wish to be able to re-size volumes later, you must choose the GUID scheme from the "Options..." dialogue sheet. Set appropriate sizes for the volumes, then click "Apply." Doing so will destroy all current volumes and data on the drive.
    Scott

  • Why did my Time Machine backup drive need 712GB for initial backup

    I recently replaced the failing 1TB drive in my wife's old mid-2010 27" iMac with a 2TB drive (OS X 10.9.4, 3.6 GHz, 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3). After bringing all of her data on board, I erased and reformatted the backup 2TB hard drive and initiated a fresh backup using Time Machine. I was surprised to see that Time Machine needed 650+GB for the initial backup. I checked the new HD and sure enough, it reported 652GB of data.
    What puzzles me is that the hard drive has only four visible folders, Applications, Library, System Info and Users Info, holding 15GB, 9GB, 6GB and 30GB respectively -- a total of roughly 60GB.
    Any idea what the additional 590GB of required storage is holding and whether it's necessary? Could there be old data hidden somewhere on the iMac's new hard drive? I've looked at hidden folders and files in the top level folder. There are a couple dozen or so, including one named .DocumentRevisions-V100 (from old Mac).
    However, I can't display the contents of the hidden folders and they won't calculate or display the folder sizes, so all that leaves me a bit in the dark.
    Any suggestions on how to identify and reduce the amount of data I'm backing up? I'm afraid the 2GB drive will soon be overwhelmed with data.
    Thanks.

    Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
              iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
    Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature.
    See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
    You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
    Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
    Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
    ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
    Back up all data now.
    If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
    Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
    Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
    sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
    sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
    Launch the built-in Terminal 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. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
    Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator. Ignore any other messages that appear in the Terminal window.
    The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
    I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
    When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

  • Time Machine, Hard Drive, AirPort Extreme, and possible damage?

    I plugged in an external HD to my AirPort Extreme (gigabit) base station today and started a Time Machine backup to it. After about 8 hours, I had transferred only 12 gigs of my 46 and ended up stopping it. I realize only the initial backup should take forever, but I am afraid that running the MacBook Pro hard drive constantly for hours could damage it. Are the portable hard drives capable of running for hours on end? What's the risk of damaging it?
    I didn't notice any major heat issues with the Penryn MacBook Pro while doing this, but I didn't want the hard drive to break either. Plus, the wireless backup just takes way too long. I can't run an N only network because I have older AirPort expresses (WDS), older G clients in the house, and some iPhones that need to get online. I understand that 802.11g is slower than N, but it's way too slow for wireless backups.

    Connecting a USB HDD to an Extreme can be used for Time Machine backups, but it is not officially supported by Apple. You will have to start a new TM backup if you are using the Extreme as TM backups to a NAS (vs. local disks) will backup as a sparsebundle (vs. your current folder format). The same goes for backup to a Time Capsule.

  • Time machine (hard drive) no longer recognized

    Took note that the Time Machine was no-longer backing up onto my iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive (last backup states 8/18/11).  This was noted when I was attempting to recall an Excel worksheet; alerted that the worksheet I most-frequently use could no-longer be read.  When attempting a (Time Machine) backup retrieval it was realized that the system had not performed a backup since the above date; now the system doesn't even "see" it (backup drive)???
    Can you help?

    BUMP! Count me in on this one. The last Time Machine back-up was 12/6. I take my machine to the office during the week but am working from home this week. My other external drive (Archives) shows up, but Time Machine is MIA. Looking at System Profiler under USB, I can see the drive on the USB hub and the volume is labeled Time Machine, so the computer sees it, it just doesn't mount it to the desktop so Time Machine can't find its drive.
    I've turned the drive off and on. I've swapped cables with the Archive drive. I've rebooted. Nothing works. Both are Western Digital MyBook Studio editions. Both are plugged in to the same hub. I also switched the cables on the hub, but if it's showing up in the Profiler, the problem isn't with the hub, the drive or the cable.
    Suggestions? Clues? Comments? I'd rather not lose a year's worth of Time Machine back-ups at this point, plus I can't even reformat the drive.

  • Time Machine hard drive back-up. Is it gone?

    Hi,
    I just bought a My Book 3T to backup my macbook pro 2009 (OS X). It asked (and I agreed) if it would be my Time Machine and I agreed. I didn't realize that Time Machine would actually erase files if the hard drive gets too full. I don't need this as I already have Blackblaze to provide backup in this form. I just need a hard drive to keep my files safe there so I can erase them from the mac which is running out of space (this would be backed up less often, but also backed up on Blackblaze).
    Sooo... AFTER installing time machine and backing up the whole thing I went and did a partition on the hard drive so I could use it as time machine in 1 T, clone in 1T and keep the other 1 T for future use.
    Obviously I did so successfully because I can no longer see the time machine drive. My question is is it gone or is it saved somewhere using up space in the hard drive? Can I now safely back up as Time Machine and Clone in those compartments?
    Thx

    If you partitioned using the normal disk utility you will have deleted your old TM backup. You will now need to start a new one.

  • Time machine hard drive for transfering files from 2010 MBP to rMBP

    Hello!
    I have a couple of questions here!
    I will be getting the rMBP in the next few weeks so want to do a bit of housekeeping before transferring across.
    1) What is the best way to clear my current MBP of files and applications that i dont use and are just taking up space? I currently have a 256GB hard drive with 8GB free - there should be no reason for this as my large audio/ Raw photo/ video editing files are on an external hard drive. So i think there must be a lot of flotsam and jetsam on there that needs to be removed as i don't want to carry that from computer to computer!
    2) Is Time machine the best option for this kind of service?
    3) Can anyone recommend an external hard drive for the job? I don't want to rely on thunderbolt ones at the moment so would it just be any usb hard drive seeing as Apple has sodded of firewire?
    Cheers
    K*

    OK, I'll bite:
    1) you can just delete the documents that you don't use by throwing them in the Trash. To delete apps and all associated files (and some will disagree with me or suggest another application) I recommend using AppDelete. I believe it's $13 or so but I have used AppZapper and AppCleaner as well but find that AppDelete finds all associated files.
    2) After you've rid yourself of your 'junk' files, I recommend using Time Machine on a dedicated or partitioned hard drive for backups. When you get your new machine, you can just use Time Machine to restore all of your settings, apps, documents, etc. For everything you ever wanted to know about Time Machine, see  http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html.
    3) A USB drive is definitely the way to go. I would recommend the G-Drive series from Hitachi here. They have all sorts of connections, including USB 2.0 and Firewire 800. When Apple (finally) releases their Thunderbolt>FW800 adapter, you'll be ready. Others might recommend USB 3.0 drives for the speed but I've seen too many posts of, in particular, Western Digital USB 3.0 drives that have problems with the 2012 Macs to go the USB 3.0 route right now. Maybe someone will jump in and recommend a USB 3.0 drive that they actually have working on a 2012 MBP?
    Good luck,
    Clinton

  • If i delete some media files in my IMac = it will delete in my time machine hard drive (connected via usb)?

    I have film on IMac hard disk and copy of it in time machine removable hard disk (2tb).
    If i delete film from my native, system IMac hard disk - it will be delete automatically in my removable hard disk or not?

    You should ONLY use the TM drive for TM activity. If you were backing up using a Bootable Clone I would recommend the same thing. There are several reasons for this with a TM drive, first being that if you store data and TM info on a TM drive if that drive crashes (it's a mechanical device and they do break) not only will you have lost your data you will have lost the backup for it! Next is TM will eventually fill the HD, that is how TM works. Therefore if you place additional data on the TM drive you are shortening the useful life of the TM drive. In short if you want to store other data such as music, photographs and movies which tend to occupy a lot of HD space buy another EHD and save the media there. EHD's are inexpensive so there isn't any reason not to. TM will still back these up.
    If you need help moving these libraries to an EHD then bookmark and use:
    iPhoto: How to move the Library to an EHD
    iTunes: How to move the library to an EHD
    iMovie: How to move the Library to an EHD
    On my iMac I have 3 external HD's connected. Disk 1 is Time Machine, Disk 2 is a Bootable Clone backup and Disk 3 is for my media. I've been running this way for 4 years reliably.

  • Can I use my time machine hard drive to transfer files to a pc?

    Hello everyone.
    I recently broke my macbook, and had to replace it with a pc laptop. I have my data saved on a time machine enabled external hard drive.
    How can I use that hard drive to put my files (music/word documents) to the pc?
    Any information would be greatly appreciated.

    YoHenYo wrote:
    Hello everyone.
    I recently broke my macbook, and had to replace it with a pc laptop. I have my data saved on a time machine enabled external hard drive.
    How can I use that hard drive to put my files (music/word documents) to the pc?
    Any information would be greatly appreciated.
    Sadly, in your case, the TM backup is practically useless. TM provides a backup primarily for the machine to which it is connected, and then, only through the TM interface engine, never directly.
    The files are not stored in a linear manner as would be in a regular backup - they are linked to each other and each "file" only represents a "delta" or incremental backup unit. The TM engine knows how to reconnect all the links to create the proper file.
    What you need to do is get another Macbook similar to yours, and see if you can connect to the TM backup with TM. If you can, then you can restore the files and them copy them onto a FAT32 formatted external HD.
    If you network the borrowed Mac with the PC, you can transfer the files over the network, but in any case, you have to use the TM engine to do so.
    The only files on the TM backup that are most likely "normal" would be the original files created during the first backup.

  • Old Time Machine Hard Drive - Can't access files?

    Hi
    I have just put an external hard drive I have not used for a approx a year into a spare bay in my Mac Pro.  It has HD video on it, but was surprised when I rebooted my machine to see it is a Time Machine drive (green and white desktop TM hard drive icon).  There is just under 400GB free space of the total 1TB drive, but can only access approx 260GB of that free space.
    So, I am wondering if the remainder of the drive - approx 140GB is an old Time Machine backup from either Lion or Snow Leopard.
    Time Machine can not see the files nor can I access them via Finder.  I only have Mountain Lion on my machine at present, but could partition my Boot SSD drive to add Lion or Snow Leopard on to it.
    Is there any reason why I can't access these TM files if they do existing, or could there be other reasons why this is happening.
    Thanks in advance.
    Matt

    Sorry, I think it's the way I replied to your last question.
    TM remains switched off from doing last clean install and have not used it this time.  I now use an SSD for my boot drive and all my important files I use as and when needed are stored on other hard drives.
    TM at the moment is swtiched off, but with the paddlock open it is asking me to Select Backup Disk - is this what you meant in your last post?  Just wanted to clarify - thanks

  • Can I get a time machine hard drive to restore onto Windows XP?

    Yeah, I just bought an iMac and I figured why not sell my Mac Mini? So I have time machine on and I back up all my files to my external hard drive of course. Now, sense I am selling my Mac Mini, I need to use Windows XP on my old PC for a month cause I custom ordered an iMac and that takes 6 weeks. Will my external hard drive with time machine back ups work with Windows XP so I can restore all of my files from my hard drive to Windows XP? and than also, will I be able to put my files back onto the hard drive and than load them all up to my new iMac?

    The external hard drive you have been using for Time Machine will most likely not be recognized by Windows XP. The external hard drive is formated as HPFS. You may be able to read files from it (not sure) but you won't be able to write anything new.
    When you get your new iMac, however, you can plug in that external hard drive and tell Leopard to load your account, documents, bookmarks, contacts, applications, etc. It will make your new iMac look like and behave like your old mac mini. It's pretty cool.
    I hope this helps,
    Julian

  • How do I transfer files from a time machine hard drive to a new MacMini?

    My MacBook Pro running 10.5 is slowly dieing. I want to transfer files, photo libraries, iTunes to our new MacMini runing 10.8. When I connect a hard drive to my MacBook Pro, the screen freezes. I think I need to use the Time Machine copy  from the MacBook Pro on an external hard drive to transfer to the new MacMini. Any help or directions to do that?

    Great to hear Tim!

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