Time Machine hoses external NTFS partition?
A friend of mine, a fresh convert from WIndows, attached her external 1TB NTFS-formatted (Windows Vista) disc, wanting to transfer files from it to the internal HD.
For some reason Time Machine appropriated the drive and placed a Time Machine partition on it, taking up close to the whole space (1TB). I assume Time Machine in a friendly manner asked if she wanted to make backups to this external drive without having some kind of protocol on informing the user that this will overwrite existing information.
It was only when Time Machine was about to make a backup writing to this partition she mentioned it for me via chat and I immediately told her to stop Time Machine from doing that. She then shared her screen with me so I could investigate, which I did with Disk Utility after turning Time Machine off completely. It shows the Time Machine partition on the disk, but no NTFS partition is acknowledged.
What I assume have happened is that for whatever reason OS X wasn't able to see the NTFS partition and instead treated the disk as an unformatted device. Then Time Machine put a partition on it.
When doing so, I hope Time Machine didn't write zeros all over the disc and it's a good chance the files in the NTFS-partition is still there. And if it didn't write over the NTFS-partition part, that may also be there.
However, as far I know the NTFS-partition should be visible in Disk Utility. Which is isn't. That's a bit scary.
My next course of action is to use a file recovery application from a Windows machine on this drive in hope that files can be rescued. As we don't have access to an empty 1TB drive it would be even better, if the Time Machine partition could be just removed and the NTFS-partition repaired or reinstated.
Any ideas on how to proceed?
Mikael Bystrom wrote:
I assume Time Machine in a friendly manner asked if she wanted to make backups to this external drive without having some kind of protocol on informing the user that this will overwrite existing information.
Yes, similar to this one:
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What I assume have happened is that for whatever reason OS X wasn't able to see the NTFS partition and instead treated the disk as an unformatted device. Then Time Machine put a partition on it.
It reformatted it. The NTFS partition is gone. Time Machine can only back up to an HFS+ journalled volume.
When doing so, I hope Time Machine didn't write zeros all over the disc and it's a good chance the files in the NTFS-partition is still there. And if it didn't write over the NTFS-partition part, that may also be there.
Correct. A +data recovery+ app should be able to recover most of it.
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Does Time Machine work with a partitioned external drive?
I just bought my first Mac this weekend (yay!) and would like to use the external Maxtor drive I used for backups with our Windows machines with Time Machine. The problem is we still have two Windows machines that were using this drive as a backup and I would like to continue to do so. Can I put two partitions on the drive, one for Mac and one NTFS for the Windows machines, hook the drive up to my iMac with the Firewire and have Time Machine use the Mac partition while I share the Windows partition for use by the Windows machines? Any insight would be appreciated.
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HDNever mind. I found a post from April 8th where a similar question was asked and it appears as though the answer is yes.
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To all who plans to use external USB as Time Machine destination.
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No idea if external storage connected through cable of other kind affected as well.
Mavericks on iMac 2013 late. Addressed external USB is used as second Time Machine target.
It worked pretty well few months long after had declared that external usb as TM target.
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Do I need to use all the hard drive for time machine or can I partition it
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You cannot partition a TC disk.
See pondini about mixing data and backups.. but remember this.. the TC has no way to back itself up and TM cannot backup files on the TC. Anything not backed up on the TC will be lost at some future point.
http://pondini.org/TM/TCQ3.html -
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Sirs or madams,
Is my Powerbook G4 12” PPC 10.5.8 'bootable' with a Western Digital My Book Studio Desktop 3TB Hard Drive - FW 400/800, USB 2.0, Apple Time Machine Ready external hard drive? Western Digital says officially no, but that it MIGHT be. I primarily live in China and bought a datastorage.com.cn Clearlight s400+ external hard drive enclosure with a 320GB disk drive a few years ago in China. My computer 'boots' fine from it, but since I got it in China all the paperwork, etc. is in Chinese; my Chinese isn't quite sufficient enough yet to read it. But there are references to something called "SATA", whatever that is.
My level of computer 'under the hood' knowledge is extremely low. I've been told that SATA has some relationship as to whether or not an external hard drive will boot a computer via the Firewire connection, something relating to 'interface', which I assume is how separate electronic gadgets work, or don't work, with each other.
I frankly don't care much for computers, the internet, or their related gadgets such as all these fancy phones. I longingly reminisce about the days when there were no such things. I use a computer & the internet because I have to, and unfortunately unlike a car where one doesn't have to have 'under the hood' knowledge to operate it, just knowledge of the steering wheel, brake, gas, etc., one seemingly must know a ridiculously great amount of 'under the hood' knowledge, including jargon, to operate computers.
So, please try to respond accordingly; thank you.
If this particular external hard drive won't, for certain, be bootable with my computer, can you advise as to what readily available brand/model would be in the 3TB range for a similar price, roughly $150ish??
Thank you very much.Mr. BGreg,
Thank you very much. "...under the covers...". I think you meant "under the hood", as in a car. I suppose "under the covers" would be man/woman interfacing, which I am familiar with!
Actually, I'm back in the US now for a few months. I looked at the OWC web site, but only cusorily so far. I'll contact them; they appear knowledgeable about Apple computers.
As to what you wrote about Western Digital's cases, I certainly wouldn't want a poor case. In China I had over time gotten 3 different external drive cases, 3 different Chinese brands, and separately bought Hitachi brand disk drives that 'simply' plugged into the cases. The drives are roughly 80GB 120GB and 320GB. The two larger ones are in cases that have Firewire plugs/jacks, which are bootable with my computer.
So my understanding, as you wrote, has been that my Powerbook will boot from an external hard drive, provided it connects via Firewire, and the disk drive itself is 'normally' formatted with however my computer's own disk drive is formatted, (HFS OS extended (journaled) or some such??). So I was left wondering why Western Digital would indicate that even though their such-and-so external hard drive case/drive was Firewire capable, that they would then say it would not be bootable with my Apple PPC computer......
Well, anyway, since you indicated Western Digital's case quality is suspect, then I'll try OWC and disregard Western Digital.
Naturally, OWC should be able to address this, but your thoughts are also welcome. You mentioned the OWC cases are good with Apples. Would the disk drives OWC supplied with the cases also be of relatively dependable quality?? From my so far only cursory look at their web site they appear to have various options, including case only options where I could insert my own or their own drives. These sorts of options seem preferable, also along with quality components.
My Powerbook has been in use since 2004. In China I put in a 1.25 memory 'chip' in the bottom and installed the 10.5.8 operating system, which I understand are the maximum workable with my Powerbook. When I inquired with Chinese friends if my 1.33 GHz processor could be taken out and a more powerful one put in, they said it wasn't feasible because in my particular computer my processor was, as I recall them saying, soldered/'permanently' connected with the 'motherboard', that it would just be easier to get a new computer.
I would be with them and they would nonchalantly open it completely up showing me all its tightly arranged 'innards' while at least giving it a good internal dust/dirt clean job for cheap lunch and a beer (& so much dirt/dust/lint there was!)...these are the same folks who build the things of course...fast moving hands with tiny screws flying everywhere, but everything 100% all back in place when finished.
My Chinese friends also said that nowadays Apples are not as well built as when my Powerbook was built, that nowadays an Apple's life expectancy was considerably lower, so I fear that when I get a new computer that, though it will be more up-to-date and powerful, etc., it most probably won't last near as long as my Powerbook has. They also said that in an older computer the fan was often the first component to go bad, and if a new one couldn't be easily found, as they said was my case, then you're just left with having to get an entirely new computer. Part of why I dislike electronic computer gadgets generally is that they are obsolete so quickly.
So, anyway, thanks very much for your information. -
My time machine backup external hard drive has failed. I have a newer external drive already connected to my MAC but can't figure out how to get Time Machine to set up on it
http://pondini.org/TM/21.html
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My newish MacBook Air was just lost to a coffee spill, and I need to migrate back to my MacBook Pro using a recent back-up (Time Machine to external disk) for a few weeks. This same disk was used to back-up the Pro earlier, and to migrate from the Pro to the Air. Can I do this "back-migration" from the Air to the Pro? Is it maybe better just to migrate the specific folders (Outlook email, Office docs) I am sure I need?
Do not attempt to copy files/folders from a Time Machine backup. Only use the Time Machine application to restore from the backup.
Click on a Finder window and select Help from the Finder's Help menu. Search for "restore" and select "restore items backed up with time machine" from the hints list. You will find these two articles:
Recover items using Time Machine and Spotlight
If you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, you can use Time Machine with Spotlight to recover lost or deleted items.
Note: You can retrieve earlier versions of TextEdit documents from within TextEdit. For more information, see:
View and restore past versions of documents
Open a Finder window and type a search word or phrase in the search field in the upper-right corner.
Select a location to search in the location bar.
Refine the results by specifying search criteria. Narrow down Spotlight search results
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Use the arrows and timeline to browse the Time Machine backups. Your search is performed in every window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, then click Restore.
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Restore items backed up with Time Machine
If you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, you can easily bring back lost items or recover older versions of files.
You can use Time Machine within many apps. If the iCloud Documents & Data feature is turned on, you can recover older versions of iCloud documents as well as regular documents.
Open a window for the item you want to restore.For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. To recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail. To recover an iCloud document, open the document’s app, choose File > Open, then click iCloud to view the iCloud documents for that app.If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
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For more information about an item, double-click it.The windows in Time Machine behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, then click Restore. You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk.The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if the item was found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. -
Guys, I have a problem in my Time Machine.The external HD is not found, but the mac recognizes the HD, only the Time Machine is not.What is very strange is that until a few days ago before the backup was working properly at this Time Machine HD.
I checked the disk using Disk Utility but not solved the problem. Can anyone help me?Try this Time Machine troubleshooting page http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
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When I make back-up by time-machine on external drive,my computer do the same on his Hard Drive...
When I make back-up by time-machine on external drive,my computer do the same on his Hard Drive...So I loose all of the capacity of the HD...I notice that only today but the problem is critical...The backups on the HD take 400 Go on my 500 Go SSD...
I've got a MBP Retina 15' Octobre 2013_Processor 2,6 GHz Intel Core i7_Memory 16 Go 1600 MHz DDR3Click on the icon on the menu bar and retrieve this display:
(This is from mine)
What is listed under 'Backups' are the 'local snapshots'. In my case I do not have any.
Run a Time Machine update and the Backups should be reduced.
Ciao. -
Can I use the same external hd for time machine and storage without partitioning it?
Hello,
I have been using an external hard drive for my Time Machine that was only used for this purpose.
I downloaded some files in it that I want to use, and I haven't backed up using Time Machine since.
Can I download the files on my MacBook from the HD without running into any problems, or is there anything else I should do?
I prefer not to partition the hd, since I will be deleting these files, or transferring them to a different HD, and using this HD only for Time Machine back ups, as I did previously.
** I am not sure if this changes anything, but I just updated from Snow Leopard to Lion.
Thank you so muchcarolsm wrote:
Thanks Kappy, I will do that.
I just really needed these files and had no other hard drive to store them.
Do you think that it will be okay just this one time if I download the files on my MacBook without compromising my backups?
I will transfer them to a new hard drive, and erase them from my Time Machine external hard drive.
For the time being it will be fine. There is always a chance of a disc crashing and therefore not advisable practice. Some here run seperate drives with Time Machine, Cloned backup and file backup. I have a portable drive I keep Time Machine backups and file backups on. I am running that at my own risk, but no problems over the last couple of years. Just make sure I get it to my normal TM Backup disk as soon as I get home. Backing up those other files will not compromise your Time Machine backups as you asked.
Cheers
Pete -
Can I use Time Machine to backup to partition on external drive and a Time Capsule?
Trying to plan in advance...
I was wondering if I can (with a laptop) use Time Machine for both:
1. Creating Time Machine backups on a partiion of an external drive. My plan was going to create 2 partitions: one to be used for Time Machine backups of another external hard drive (that holds all of my media) and then the other partition was going to be a bootable clone of my internal drive (totally separate from Time Machine)
and
2. Also use Time Machine for my Time Capsule, to create Time Machine backups of my internal drive.
Is this possible? I had heard that you can't use TM to make backups to a partition on an external drive, AND use it for another drive (like Time Capsule) at the same time. But I would think that this should be possible-
Thanks everyone-Yes you can, and if you are using Mountain Lion it's easy.
If you are using Snow Leopard (as in your profile - this is the Mountain Lion forum), you have to manually select the backup volume each time. Tedious, but possible.
Read Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's FAQ on that subject: "Rotating" Time Machine backup disks -
Time Machine & newly re-formatted/partitioned external hard drive.
A couple of weeks ago I wanted to reformat a WD external hard drive, entitled "My External", from MS-DOS format into Journaled Mac OS X format.
I backed up my "My External" files to another separate external hard drive using Time Machine. When the back-up was complete, I proceeded to create 1 partition and reformat half of "My External" into the Journal Mac OS X format.
When the process was finished, the new sections were entitled, "Mac Only" and "Et Al". I entered Time Machine, expecting to see "My External" on the Finder window sidebar so I could restore files. However, all I saw was "Mac Only" and "Et Al" all grayed out.
Where did the back-up files for "My External" go? And is there any way I can get them back? PLEASE help. I thought using Time Machine would cover and back-up everything.
Thanks in advance for your time.Rini718 wrote:
Before, I do remember going back in time the cascade and seeing My External in the Finder sidebar and being able to click around in it. That's why I had assumed that it also backed up My External via Time Machine.
I tried your tip for the no-longer-connected drives; it seems that you're right about the MS-DOS AKA FAT32 format not allowing for back-up via Time Machine. I feel so ignorant/lied to by the display. -sigh-
I really don't think you saw the data. You probably saw the icon and name in the sidebar, and didn't notice that they were grayed-out on the backup windows (it's not particularly obvious, unless you're looking for it). And/or, you saw it on the first +Today (Now)+ window, and didn't realize it wasn't a backup. You would not be the first, unfortunately.
What do you suggest I do? I have the newly reformatted/partitioned Mac Only/Et Al External. I have not written anything to it since the day this all occurred, but I have let a salvaging program read it for a preliminary scan (the attempt did eventually fail though). Reading it shouldn't do anything to the data that may still be in it, si? Only writing to it?
That's my understanding.
The app mentioned here most often is +Data Rescue 3,+ and it seems to get good reviews, but I haven't used it myself, so can't recommend it over any of the others.
Some of these have a free "trial mode," that will tell you if there's anything to be recovered, and perhaps recover a single file. For more, you have to pay the $$.
You'll also need another drive to receive anything it can recover.
Look for apps or services under +Data Recovery+ via Google, VersionTracker.com, or MacUpdate.com.
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Once this is sorted out, I'd strongly suggest keeping secondary backups. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
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