Time Machine - including a external hard drive in time machine back up.

I have recently updated to a 2014 15 inch Macbook Pro running OS X Yosemite. Previously on my 2006 Macbook I have used a 750GB hard drive with iMovie to store old files and subsequently back up this drive and my Macbook to a separate 3 TB external hard drive at the same time using time machine.  Since using OS X Yosemite I can't seem to find a way to do it, as in back up the computer drive and a external drive to time machine.  Has this feature been removed??? Any ideas. Thanks in advance.

Feature is still there (but buggy if you dismount drive, run Time Machine, mount drive, run Time Machine)
Have you checked that the drive has not been excluded as part of the migration from old machine to new?
Open System preferences
Select Time Machine
Select Options
If the drive is in the list 'Exclude these items from backups'; then select the drive, select minus and select save
Now; if that is the case the initial calculation for that drive next occasion Time Machine runs will be ALL the in-scope contents of the disk whether already backed up or not; so if there is less than this on your TM drive it will start  deleting backups.

Similar Messages

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    can anyone help
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    the time machine icon not recognising

    thanks for reply
    when i open time machine the time line on right side of page
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  • I'm using my old Time Capsule as an external hard drive.  Can I back it up?

    Upon upgrading my older iMac's hard drive to 500GB and more or less filling it, my 500GB Time Capsule became less useful as a backup and more useful as an eternal drive.  I've bought a new 2TB Time Capsule to use as my primary backup/router, and have connected my old 500GB directly to my iMac via ethernet cable to store large media files and free up some disk space.  My problem is that the "TC Backup Disc" partition appearing on my old Time Capsule is the only place I can store files, and this partition won't back up via Time Machine to my new Time Capsule.  I've tried erasing and restoring, but remain unable to create any folders on my old Time Capsule that Time Machine will back up.  Any ideas?

    The Time Capsule is a network drive and Time Machine cannot backup files that are already on a network drive.
    You might want to take a look at Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, as both of these utilities will backup a network drive like the Time Capsule.
    Carbon Copy Cloner: Mac Backup Software           SuperDuper! - Shirt Pocket

  • Time Machine stalls when trying to back up to Time Capsule or an external hard drive.

    TIme Machine stalls when trying to back up to Time Capsule or an external hard drive.  Time Machine shows a message such as "Backing up 4MB of 9.00GB" but nothing happens for hours.

    Are you really running 10.6.4 OS?
    What model TC and what firmware?
    Wireless or wired?
    How is the TC setup?
    If TM can work to neither a TC or external hard disk it is more likely the computer is faulty hard disk..
    Do a verify of the disk.
    See A5 here.
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • How do I use my Time Machine as an external hard drive to just dump files no longer needed on my computer?

    How Do I use my time machine as an external hard drive?

    Time Machine is software that allows a Mac to backup to a Time Capsule or other hard drive, so I think you are asking about the Time Capsule here, correct?
    http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/
    How do you plan to connect the Time Capsule to your network, or is it already connected and configured?
    When you have it configured on the network, you can use the Finder to copy/paste or drag/drop files from your Mac to the Time Capsule disk.

  • External Hard Drive and Time Machine no longer recognized

    I recently downloaded the latest software update and upon rebooting the system to install the security update and whatever other update was included, my external hard drive which contains time machine is no longer recognized. I tried to use disk utility to mount it, fix it, but nothing worked. I am led to think that it's gotta be something in the latest update because i haven't had any problems before this. Sometimes the drive shows up as a yellow image sometimes in disk utility, the rest of the time it is a sort of transparent gray. What's wrong with my machine??? Can i simply uninstall the latest update? would that even solve this issue? i NEED to get into this drive and recover these files

    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.
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  • Hi everyone, after updating to 10.6.8, i've been unable to backup to my external hard-drive on Time Machine. anyone having same issues?

       I did a software update to 10.6.8. and I've been unable to back up my files to my external hard-drive on Time Machine. The error message it gives says "he backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk."
    It recommends using Disk Utility to repair the backup disk and i've tried that but it finds nothing wrong with the disk!
    I even tried copying files off it so i could re-format the drive but it apparently can't do that and the error message is that there's a wrong case sensitive file. Please help, I really need a solution.
    Thanks,
    Regards,
    Chi.

    If you mean you're getting the same message:
    see #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.   It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.    If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
    If that's not the message you're getting, please clarify.

  • Is there a way to backup my external hard drive with Time Machine?

    Most of the memory used on my MBP is mainly used for applications and miscellaneous things for Logic and Final Cut. I have two external HD's. To save space on the internal HD, all of my music, pictures, and videos are one my external hard drive, while Time Machine set as the other. Is there a way I can back up my external HD using Time Machine? What would even be better is if I could only select specific files (My Music, Videos, Pictures) and not everything on my one external HD to be backed up in Time Machine.

    TM can back up external HDs. If you have both of your external drives attached, go to the options in TM preferences. Be sure the data drive is not listed (this lists drives/folders to exclude from a backup). Then initiate a TM backup or wait for the hourly backup. That should back up the data drive.
    You can only tell TM what to exclude from a backup, not what to include.

  • Restoring an external hard drive with time machine

    I'm having a problem restoring an external hard drive using time machine. I'm on a macbook Air Running 10.7.5.
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    Anyone know how to do this? I'm a little frantic to get my photos back.
    Thanks!

    I am having a similar problem.  I use a  Lacie external hard drive connected to an Airport Time Capsule via USB to store my itunes library.  Yesterday I disconnected the external drive from the ATC and connected it to my macbook pro via fire wire to transfer 40 gigabytes of media files from my laptop to the external drive directly rather than over wifi.  When I reattached the external drive to the ATC the Lacie drive didn't show up even after rebooting everything. I then disconnected from the ATC and reconnected to the laptop and now I get an error message saying the Lacie disk is unrecognizable and needs to be reformated.  The Lacie drive was being included in the time machine backups so the files should be available through time machine but I don't see anyway to access them because the Lacie disk icon doesn't appear in the time machine backups.  Is there another way to browse the files?  
    I have had issues with Lacie disks not showing up on the desktop before, particularly when transferring files from one computer to another.  The transfer usually goes fine but then when I reattach the drive to the first computer it isn't recognized anymore until I reboot and it sometimes requires a couple of reboots.  I initially tried to connect the external drive to both the ATC and the laptop but that didn't work, although now I'm wondering if that was because the connection to the laptop was firewire rather than USB like the ATC.  In any case I currently have over a terabyte of data on my lacie that I can't access which includes my entire itunes library and backup files from multiple computers which were "cleaned" but not restored. 
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  • How do I restore a failed external hard drive using Time Machine?

    I have an external hard drive connected to my iMac that is being backed up with Time Machine.  I just realized that should it one day fail and no longer appear as a connected device, I'm not sure how to restore its data to another external drive.  When I disconnected the external hard drive (to mimic a drive crash) and entered Time Machine to see if I could verify that the external hard drive was, in fact, being backed up - I didn't know where to find it.  Under the Today (Now) information, I didn't expect to see it there as it was no longer connected to the machine.  But when I went back a few days, I expected to see its backup appear in the Sidebar.  But no!
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    Searches for this information on Google yielded "iffy" results.  I'm hoping someone here is able to offer some clear steps to follow.  Perhaps I'm missing something silly.  Thank you very much!

    I came across this discussion after encountering the same problem. Since my internal HD was cose to full I added an additional external HD to my setup. I moved my iPhoto files to an external HD and backed both this external HD and my internal HD up with Time Machine to another external HD. So far the theory. When I wanted to test if this setup worked I noticed that I could only see my iPhoto libraries on the external HD in Time Machine when the external HD was connected to my computer, but not if I turned it off. This led me to search for a solution on the Apple Support Communities discussion board.
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    1. In Time Machine preferences remove the external drive from the Exclude list.
    2. Verify that it is now included with your other drive in the backup list.
    3. Do a Backup Now to create a new backup of the external drive."
    After doing this, my external HD showed up in the Backups.backupd as a seperate folder. I could clearly see the Time Machine back-up for my internal HD and my external HD. In addition, in Time Machine itself I was able to find the external harddrive by clicking on my own computers name under "Devices". I hope my experience helps to resolve your issue as this discussion board has helped me resolve mine (which I believe to be very similar).
    Cheers!

  • Backing up photos on iMac using external hard drive and time machine

    How do i back up photos from my imac using an external hard drive and time machine
    Thanks in advance

    Apple explains how to use Time Machine in http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427.
    Setting up and using TM is very simple to do, connect any external HD (format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility ) and your computer shoudl ask if you want to use that EHD for a Time Machine backup. If you have any questions visit your local Apple Store or reseller and they can answer how to setup and use TM and also should be able to offer suggestions on EHDs. My personal preference is OWC (www.macsales.com) Mercury Elite Pro due to the build quality and OWC's level of support.

  • Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

    Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
    See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
    And here: http://pondini.org/TM/9.html
    Peruse the whole site. There is a lot of information there.

  • I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?

    I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?
    What I am ultimately wanting to do is make more room on my computer by backing up all of my files onto the external hard drive and then deleting them off of my computer. However, neededing to be able to retrieve them from the external hard drive later down the road.
    From what I have read and am trying to understand, is that I probably shouldn't have used time machine. I need to use the external hard drive like a basic flash drive where I can put things on and get things off without having it automatically update through time machine everytime I connect it to my computer.
    Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.

    sydababy wrote:
    and then deleting them off of my computer.
    BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
    Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
    The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous.  One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
    Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
    follow here:
    Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
    Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
    The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
    Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
    Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
    Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
    Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.

  • My 5 year old iMac's hard drive is at the point of failing.  I'm trying to save al files on it, but it wont allow backup via Time Machine to an external hard drive.  How can I keep from losing all the files and programs if the hard drive fails?

    I'm concerned that my iMac, purchased 5 years ago, is about the crash and I can't back up my files and programs to an external hard drive via Time Machine because the computer freezes after only a couple hundred MB and gets nowhere near the required amount.
    How can I save these files and programs if the computer hard drive fails or has to be replaced without the backup being able to be done? I need to do something quickly, but I'm not sure what I can or should be doing.

    Get an external hard drive, some good ones that I like are the OWC, http://www.macsales.com Mercury Elite Pro drives...they are very good and reasonably priced.
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    You can test it by restarting the iMac and hold the Option key.  That will give you a grey screen showing all bootable drives.  Just click the external drive, then click the upward pointing arrow under it and the iMac will boot from that drive.

  • Can not fine external hard drive for time machine sence lion was installed

    I can not fine external hard drive for time machine sence lion was installed, it don't reconise it at all.

    I have a Mac Mini (late 2009) and I have an iomega 1TB external hard drive connected to my mini via firewire and usb (usb allows me to use the usb ports on the external 1TB drive to daisy chain other devices).  Since I installed Lion, my Time Machine  and this 1TB drive (and its partitions) is finicky.  Sometimes it is mounted and sometimes it is not.   This issue has only surfaced post Snow Leopard and in the Lion era. I am not the first to say this but the whole reason I went Mac was b/c of Vista.  I am beginning to think that Lion is the new Vista.  Sorry for the latter, just venting... b/c this ain't the first issue with Lion.

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