Time Machine, how to remove dead external drive ?

When an external drive started behaving irrationally, I transferred all video projects to a new drive. Now I noticed that this no longer existing old drive with all its 242GB contents still appears on my TM backups.
Is there a way to remove it in order to free badly needed space on the TM?

No, you need to use the Time Machine interface, not the Finder.
See #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Similar Messages

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up?

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up? I have an external drive with data I need to add to my overall back up with what's on my mac. I have a separate drive already active as the Time Machine backup disk. I can see how to EXCLUDE disks, but how do I ADD that new external drive to regular backups?
I have 10.8.5 system on my Mac laptop.

Remove the drive from the list of items set to be excluded. It needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this to be possible.
(110504)

I am trying to move previous Time Machine back ups off an external drive to my new Time Capsule. How do I do that?

I have my previous time machine back ups on an external drive and I want to move those to my new 2tb Time Capsule. How can I make this happen?

You probably cannot do it..
The backup is very different from a local drive to a network drive.
Look through the Pondini KB.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
You can move the backup from a local to another local disk or network to another network.. but there are issues even doing that.
IMHO.. don't... just start a new backup and keep what you already have saved up.. if you don't need it in 6months time.. or a year.. then you can wipe it.

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Can I use Time Machine to archive like an external drive?

I've backed up my computer to Time Machine and everything from my computer is there, but I have a new project which needs me to archive 21 pieces of artowrk that have multiple photo images for aech, and they are large size originals. Can I upload these files to a folder in Time Machine or directly on my external drive, so I don't have to have all of these files taking up space on my main computer?

You can, but it is not recommended.
Apparently you cannot partition an existing Time Capsule volume if that is what you are using.
Excerpt from ASC contributor Pondini's Time Machine FAQ:
3. Can I use my TM disk for other stuff?
Yes. Time Machine will not delete anything you put there.
But it's much, much better to partition an external drive into 2 (or more) parts, also called volumes. Assign one to Time Machine, for its exclusive use for backups; use the other partition(s) however you want.
(Unfortunately, though, you can't partition a Time Capsule's internal disk. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for some alternatives)

Best way to transfer time machine back up files between external drives

I have to move my time machine backup files from one external drive to another. I was planning to simply move it through finder, but it has been "preparing files" for 2 days straight. The number of items sowing in the status bar with the status of "preparing to copy XYZ items" has continued to stadily grow. Is there a better route or should I let it run till it is complete?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
That's exactly the way to transfer Time Machine backups to an external drive, so let the Finder do its job. See > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096
Note that the destination's external drive must be formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

Can i resume a Time Machine backup of an attached external drive (no system, just data) on a different laptop?

I am trying to find out if I can use a Time Machine (specifically on a 2013 Time Capsule) backup of an external drive (only data, no system) attached to a laptop, and then connect that same external drive to another laptop and resume the backup? Or is the Time Machine backup of an attached external drive a laptop "dependant" backup?
Additional info: The laptops in question are 15" MacBook Pro and a 17" MacBook Pro from 2011 running OSX 10.9 (Mavericks)

You are welcome.
I don't think there is a need to start a new discussion unless you want to.
You should have more than one backup of each computer. Hard drives do fail. Time Machine can alternate drives or have a Time Machine and a clone.
The concern arises because i was told that when a wireless Time Machine backup is interrupted the sparsebundle gets sort of "locked" or "damaged", and although the backups can be accessed, no further Time Machine backup is possible. One must that a brand new backup.
Apple support article. Don't let the title bother you. Look at Additional Information, which explains what happens when a backup gets interrupted. I also am including a link for troubleshooting. C3 explains what you can try if the backup is interrupted.
Time Machine First Backup Interrupted
Time Machine Troubleshooting

HT201250 Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button. No drive is found. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past. I'm on the latest version of Snow Leopard. Thank you!

Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button. No drive is listed. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past. Any suggestions

Does the disk appear in Disk Utility?

When using Time Machine to back up to external drive, does Time Machine back up content in your Trash folder?

When using Time Machine to back up to external drive, does Time Machine back up content in your Trash folder?

Go to System Preferences (under the Apple menu) > Time Machine and click the Options button. Click the "+" button in the lower left. In the resulting dialog, check the Show invisible items checkbox. Go to your home folder and look for Trash. Click the Exclude button in the lower right.

How to remove an external drive from time machine backup

In time machine I also backup to an external drive. I recently bought a new external drive and thats working fine. However, it still wants to backup to my previous drive which I dont want to use. In time machine preferences I see the old and new drive listed. Both are greyed out so I cannot deselect the older drive.
Suggestions?

mhattonmd wrote:
So when I open time machine preferences I see time machine and both external drives listed. If I click on options I see both external drives but I cant select either as they are both greyed out.
If you see them both listed on the initial screen of TM prefs, they are both selected as backup drives. They are not being backed up. They are being used by Time Machine as a destination. You need to use “Select Disk…” to remove the external drives from the destination drives. Select Disk does not choose the drives you want to back up. It chooses the drives you wan to back up to.

Time Machine isn't backing up external drive

I've been using Time Machine successfully for some time now. Recently I decided to move my iTunes music to an external drive (my internal drive was nearly full.) So I moved 150+ GB of iTunes library to the external drive successfully, but Time Machine seems to completely ignore the external (FireWire) drive. It's formatted as Mac OS Extended (that's HFS+, right?) so I don't understand what the problem might be.
Also, if I can get Time Machine to start backing up both drives correctly, should I erase the backup drive and start over? Otherwise, I assume that I'm going to be wasting a lot of (backup) drive space, since the 150GB iTunes library will be backed up from its original location on my internal drive, as well as from its new location on the external drive… what's the best way to deal with that?
Thanks in advance for the help.

Dave Troup wrote:
If V.K.s suggestion doesn't work, try excluding the drive, quitting System Preferences, then removing the exclusion.
Also, if I can get Time Machine to start backing up both drives correctly, should I erase the backup drive and start over? Otherwise, I assume that I'm going to be wasting a lot of (backup) drive space, since the 150GB iTunes library will be backed up from its original location on my internal drive, as well as from its new location on the external drive… what's the best way to deal with that?
You may not need to. TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything not still on your internal HD. When is just a question of how soon the TM drive/partition gets near full, and TM must start deleting your oldest "weekly" backups. You are supposed to get a message about that, if you have the appropriate box checked in TM's Preferences, but several folks here report they never did, so assume nothing.
Still, if you want, you can delete all the backups of a file or folder. Enter Time Machine, find and select the folder in question (presumably iTunes on your internal HD) in one of the "cascade" of Finder windows, then click the "gear" icon. That will give you an option to +Delete all backups of <folder>.+
You'll then get a confirmation prompt (may take quite a while, considering the size), then the usual place to enter your Administrator's password. The actual deletion will probably take quite a while, also. There was a report the other day that the item was still visible for quite some time after TM seemed to have finished the deletion, but eventually it did disappear.
Then make some change to the folder, or something within it, so TM will consider it changed and back-up the new (smaller) version.

Time Machine won't backup my external drive

I have my iTunes library stored on an external drive and I want Time Machine to back it up.
I have a brand new TM drive. I've been using it without problems to backup my 250Gb iMac. As soon as I add the external drive to the TM backup, it fails. I have other data on this drive that I don't need backed up, so I've only included the sub directory iTunes (by excluding all the others).
I followed a couple of similar threads, but the situations don't seem to apply. I did install Time Machine buddy so I could see the error messages.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Node requires deep traversal:/Volumes/Music:DVDs reason:must scan subdirs|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 151.31 GB requested (including padding), 1.56 TB available
Error: (2) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Tori's iMac/2009-11-25-182722.inProgress/3B5DD274-5AB6-44D1-9F1B-561934FB44AD/Music/DV Ds size:37
Stopping backup.
Copied 0 files (0 bytes) from volume Music/DVDs.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
Drives are all formatted OS Extended Journaled
I've run Disk Util on all the drives - no errors.
Any ideas or other things I should try?
If I remove the external drive from the backup, it starts to work again.

The mystery deepens . . .
I tried to replicate the problem. Renamed an empty partition from Misc2 to Misc2/test and copied some docs into it and ran a backup.
Sure enough, the message refers to it as Misc2:test and the deep traversal took almost a minute and a half (one folder, 3 sub-folders, total of about 30 items!), but it ran successfully.
So renamed it again, to Music/DVDs exactly like yours. No deep traversal, and it does call it Music:DVDs in the messages, but it backed-up properly.
Perhaps it was fixed in Snow Leopard? Or just another of TM's many little quirks? Perhaps the phase of the moon?
Edit: Some of your posts say you're on 10.5.3, others 10.6.2. Which is correct?
Message was edited by: Pondini

Time Machine formatted itself on my external drive despite pressing "Don't Use"

I have an external hard drive that has been in use on/off for years. I even had backups on it (not using Time Machine). I mounted this hard drive, it was taking a while to mount. A prompt came up to ask if I wanted to use this drive as a time machine backup. I said "Don't Use". It hanged. Meanwhile, I opened disk utility twice. Both I had to force quit. After a while I relaunched finder.
Assuming it would cancel the time machine prompt. Only when did the finder eventually relaunch that the drive mounted to see that all my files where gone and looking in Thermal under ls -a to see their we're spotlight and time machine files along with some oddly named thing. About 1GB Is in use on the drive(I had much more that a gig on it). It is a TB drive
Here is the output from the ls -a on the volume
._.com.apple.timemachine.donotpresent
.com.apple.timemachine.donotpresent
.Spotlight-V100
.fseventsd
.Trashes
USBCˆö?␀.␀€␀
._.Trashes
Anyway would a tool like this (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk) help get back my files and format back to what I had previously? Or I am going in the wrong direction? What should I do?
Thanks. If you have any questions please reply below

Thank you Thomas,
I should have mentioned that the drive is formated as FAT32 and I ran verify disk on the drive and this error keep coming up until I stop the process :
"2013-02-16 12:06:23 +0000: / has entries after end of directory
2013-02-16 12:06:23 +0000: Truncate? no
2013-02-16 12:06:23 +0000: Extend? no"
Will the tools mentioned in you post work with FAT 32? I am looking at Data Rescue 3 becuase of the FileIQ functionality since I know I have obsure file formats on there
Does this help or it is irrelevant?

How can Time Machine be configured to backup external drives?

I was running out of space on my Mac internal hard drive. I bought an external drive and moved all of the iTunes data to the external. It freed up 100 MB on my internal drive. However, Time Machine isn't backing up the data that I moved to the external drive.
I still want to back up that data. How do I configure Time Machine to backup both my internal Mac drive as well as the external drive, which is seperate from my backup drive?
Thanks.

External drives are automatically added to the list of items excluded from Time Machine backups. To remove the exclusion, open the Time Machine preference pane, click the lock icon to unlock it if necessary, and then click Options.

HT201250 How can I revert to my internal drive for time machine backups after using an external drive?

Hi. I've been using an external drive for time machine back ups and decided to revert to my internal drive, but it isn't available in the time machine options. The only available option is to set up a time capsule, which I don't own.
Is it because not enough space is available on my internal drive (approx 50GB)?
Thanks!

50 Gb free on your internal drive is relly very low and of course not enought for a any kind of backup.
How big is your internal HD ? If you have left only 50 GB free it is probably 90% full. Let's imagine you have a 500 Gb. This means 450 Gb data and 50 Gb free. How can you backup 450 into 50 ?
Second point. The backup on your internal HD is a nonsense evenif it is big enough. If it stops working you will have no bakup.
Do you have an iMac or a portable ?
The portable automatic uses the internal HD if the external is not connected, but this is intended for a short time.
This could give you some more links to read about https://discussions.apple.com/message/20726927#20726927

Time Machine, how to remove dead external drive ?

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