Time Machine - initial configuration using PC formated external drive

I'm about to connect an external HD that I used on WinXP onto my imac and was wondering as it already had data on it will it be completely over-written/wiped? or will it leave my existing files alone? Does it matter how it is formatted also?
tks

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
See this user tip:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=965293&tstart=0
It will only be overwrited if you attempt to write something to disk. If you are attempting a data recovery from a PC to a Mac, I think it would be best if you simply got a data recovery program for a PC and ran it there, or ran it on Mac virtualization program.

Similar Messages

  • HT201250 Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive?  I'm trying to restore lost photo files and I see them listed in Time Machine (without use of an external drive), but when I try to restore I get a error code 36.

    Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive?  While I was transferring photos back and forth from a thumb drive something went haywire and my IPhoto was wiped clean!  When I click on Time Machine I see all the dated pages (without an external storage drive connected), go back to a date where all my photo files are there, click "restore", and I get the message:  "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in file cant be read or written (error code - 36)"

    Thanks so much Terence.  I tried some of the fixes from that page, but then discovered the suggestion to compress the Time Machine Back up of the original library and transfer it as a zip back to my computer as detailed here:
    http://pondini.org/TM/E9.html
    That worked like a charm.  I really appreciate it. 

  • Time Machine Question: How does it handle external drives?

    Hi,
    To date, I have only been backing up my HD (macbook pro) though Time Machine onto a dedicated back-up external drive.
    Today, I backed-up and forgot that my 2nd external drive (for music) was plugged into my Macbook. So, Time Machine seems to be backing up both my HD and my Music. This is not a bad thing. But, I have one question - worded two different ways:
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    2. Do I need to plug in my Muisc External drive next time I want to back-up my HD?
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    Read Pondini's TM page here
    http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Home.html
    My advice is not to let TM become a catch all backup because it's placing all your software eggs in one hardware basket. Hardware fails just as much as software does and a catch all TM failure takes it's all down in one shot. Not only that TM also traps your data.
    Maintain two seperate hardware backups of your data in easy accesible (from any computer) as possible.
    I use a 50/50 partition on my main boot drive and Carbon Copy Cloner to auto-clone A to B nightly, but this only offers software protection, then I have a external drive clone spaced back a few days, and then a another clone spaced back about a few weeks or months. The external clones offer hardware and software protection.
    This might not work in your case, each person's needs are different, the key is to have a multi-based approach to give you diversity in case something goes wrong.
    More good advice here
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

  • How do I set Time Machine to alternate between two attached external drives (so that if one fails I will have a separate backup to use)?

    Hi Everyone.
    Thanks in advance for your help.
    Right off the bat let me say I am using Mavericks 10.9.1 on a 2011 Macbook Pro and using all Lacie external hard drives.
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    I have both drives set in Time Machine.
    From what I gather Time Machine should by default alternate between drives when backing up (I would assume it does one big initial backup on each then subsequent backups are just changes).
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    Unfortunately it seems to only be backing up to "External Hard Drive 1".
    There have been 4 backups since I set it up, all on "External Hard Drive 1", even though "External Hard Drive 2" is also attached and set in Time Machine.
    I manually clicked "Back Up Now" and it started to work on "External Hard Drive 2" (like I want it to) for a minute but it appears to have stopped and gone back to backing up to "External Hard Drive 1".
    Am I missing something? Does Time Machine only move on to another disk when the first one runs out of space? Do I have to turn one off in order to force it to back up to the other drive (that would be less convenient of course)?
    I am hoping that I am missing something and that it will just alternate between the two. Otherwise it is not the most comforting and thorough backup system as I had hoped when I purchased the additional external hard drive.
    I have a 1TB drive and a 500gig partition on another drive, both dedicated to backups (my Macbook HD is 475gig). It will take awhile for each to fill up and who knows what could happen during that time. Having Time Machine alternate between hard drives would be a nice small bit of security if the worst happened.
    I realize that there are tons of other options for backing up but I just want to use Time Machine if I can.
    Again thank you for your help!

    You cannot use Time Machine in that way. I'm not sure where you heard that Time Machine alternates between drives automatically. What you can do is create a mirrored RAID array for the backup. This automatically duplicates whatever is on one drive onto the other drive.
    Both drives must be the same size, and prefereably, exactly the same make and model. RAIDs can be configured using OS X's Disk Utility.
    RAID Basics
    For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs.  Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
    RAID Tutorial;
    RAID Array and Server:
    Hardware and Service Comparison.
    Hardware or Software RAID?
    RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
    RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
    RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
    Pros and cons
    Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
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  • How do i move time machine backup to a new, bigger external drive in lion?

    i did some research and cma across severla different ways to transfer my time mashine backup from an old hd to a bigger one. i dont want to lose my backup and i just want to make sure im doing the right thing. also there were different ways of doing it in leopard and snow leopard so now im wonderign if there is another way of doing it in lion, which im usung.
    any help is appreciated.
    thank you

    I would suggest you partition your new external drive and create a 2nd partition that's large enough to hold files you want to off load so you can free up space.
    Or if you're using Time Machine, each backup is suppose to allow you to go back in time and restore files that have been deleted or modified since the last backup. So, if you were to start using your new external drive and performed an initial full backup in Time Machine; then delete your iPhoto file and do another backup, you should be able to go into Time Machine and restore your iPhoto file from your first backup. I would still off load the files to a 2nd partition just to be on the safe side and if Time Machine backups were to somehow become corrupted. Any important files, in my opinion, should be backed up in more than one place... just in case.

  • Time Machine to back up MacBook AND External Drive?

    I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
    I bought another 1TB G Drive to use as a back up, but I have no idea what I'm doing. The first time I backed anything up I just copied and pasted again, from both the first drive and my MacBook, which is ridiculous and took hours and is pathetic.
    I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
    After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have. Any advice on how to set this up without losing my data would be appreciated. Thank you!

    1980qt50 wrote:
    I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
    I bought another 1TB G Drive to use as a back up
    That may not be large enough. It varies greatly depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine usually requires 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. So add-up the space used on your MacBook's internal HD and the amount used on the other drive. If that's less than 500 GB, you'll probably be fine. If it's between 500 GB and about 750 GB, it might work, at least for a while.
    I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
    Most likely, piece of cake.
    After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have.
    No, Time Machine won't wipe out your data.
    First check the Format of the media drive. You can do that via +Get Info+ in the Finder. In the General area of the Info panel it will show Format. If it's any variation of +Mac OS Extended,+ then Time Machine can back it up. If not, your best bet will be to switch drives -- format the new one for your Mac, copy the data to it, then erase and reformat the old one to be used for your backups. Post back for instructions if you need to do that.
    You should erase and format the Time Machine drive with a single partition, per #5 in the FAQ.
    When you're ready to start Time Machine, click the Options button in Time Machine > Preferences. See if the media drive is listed in the exclusions box; if it is, select it and click the minus sign. Then Time Machine will back it up.
    You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial

  • Time machine has losing contact with my external drive, connected via a USB port.

    Recently my Time Machine program has begun losing contact with my external drive, connected via a USB port. When I attempt to open Time Machine, it indicates there is no external hard drive.  When I click on "setting up time machine" it opens airport utility.   I've tried rebooting, run disk utility repairs for both hard discs, pulled and reconnected the USB cable, even completely shut down the system.    Eventually the two re-establish contact, but I'm not certain what I've done that causes this.  The lost contact appears to happen during the weekends.  The external hard drive is a MJaxtor OneTouch 4. What should I be doing to solve this problem once and for all?

    I use a little app named EasyFind - free at the App Store. It will allow you to search individual volumes or all volumes.
    Download it and see if it will help.
    Clinton

  • Time Machine won't back up OWC external drive

    Mac Mini running 10.8.5.  Time Machine will not back up brand new OWC MiniStack external HD. I've trashed TM prefs, reformatted the TM drive, verified that there are no exclusions, but it won't back up the external HD which contains only data files -- no system, no applications.  TM does back up the internal HD.

    PROBLEM SOLVED.
    Recap: Time Machine would not back up an external data drive despite being correctly formatted and settings correctly applied.
    Problem was either:  a) the Mac, b) the external data drive, c) the Time Machine drive, or d) the data.
    I replaced both the external data drive (cloned) and the Time Machine drive, but Time Machine would back up that external drive either.
    Finally, instead of CLONING (SuperDuper) the external data drive, I COPIED the data to a new HD -- root folder-by-folder. Now Time Machine again backs up my external hard drive.
    SOLUTION:  Problem was not hard drives or Mac, but within the data itself.  Cloning the data simply passed on the problem to the new hard drive.  For this problem, the solution was copying the data rather than cloning.
    Thanks all.

  • Time machine backup with 1/2 gig external drive

    I use a 500mb external drive to back up my MacBook Pro.  It now says I have 15.2 gb free.  Can I erase the Passport and start again?  It says it needs 277.2 gb for a full back up.  I thought of seeing what was my latest full backup and off loaded into my System harddrive.  I have checked the box saying to let me know when the old backups are deleted, but I have never been told anything.  I am on Mavericks 10.9.4, and have 16 gig of ram.

    That means you've backed up more than one volume (what Apple calls a "disk") or machine to the same destination. It could be the result of erasing the primary volume, depending on how you restored it.
    Time Machine will delete older snapshots when necessary to make room for new ones, but it will never delete the last snapshot of any volume or machine. So you can end up without enough space for a new snapshot.
    You can try to delete old backup folders by dragging them to the Trash, but often the Trash will then fail to empty completely with strange error messages, and you then can't empty it at all without erasing the volume, nor can you put the folders back where they were.
    The best course of action is to put the backup drive aside and stop using it until you're sure you'll no longer need the data it contains. Then erase it and start over. Meanwhile, start another backup on a different drive. You should do that anyway, as one backup is not enough to be safe.
    Don't erase your only backup.

  • Can Time Machine back up to 2 separate external drives?

    I have one 1TB drive in addition to a 2TB drive. The 2TB drive is used by Time Machine. I'd like to add the 1TB to Time Machine's space. So I need Time Machine to back up to both drives. Is that possible? So my total backup space for Time Machine will be 3TB.

    Only one backup drive at a time can be used. You can switch backup drives by changing the backup drive in TM preferences.
    You can try creating a striped RAID array using Disk Utility and using the array as the backup destination. A striped array will give you the 3 TBs you want but it will appear to TM as a single backup device.
    RAID Basics
    For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs.  Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
    RAID Tutorial;
    RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison.
    Hardware or Software RAID?
    RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
    RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
    RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
    Pros and cons Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
    For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?

  • Time machine problem. Switching from one external drive to another. Problem started when upgrading to Mavrics, and changing to a WD drive

    I am a long time Mac user, running my business on an apple  platform since 1984. I currently use a 17" MacBook Pro as my primary computer for work. when it is at work it is plugged in via thunderbolt to my monitor and a one tb back up drive. I use time machine to back up the laptop to the one tb drive. When I go home, I take the laptop with me and use another drive at home as a back up. This way I have redundant back ups, in two separate locations. I have been doing this for years, and Time machine has worked flawlessly, automaticity switching from one drive to another.
    I recently switched to Maverics, and got a new drive for home. Now whether I am at home or at work, time machine fails to automatically back up. It will alert me every hour that backups cannot be completed, and I  must go to the time machine control panel and manually select a drive and click, "back up now". I also see an alert that says "waiting to complete first back up" even though each backup has been completed.
    This is quite annoying, and sometimes embarrassing. When giving lectures in large venues, the backup failure alert appears and shuts down my keynote presentation (again, something new since switching to Maverics and the new WD drive.
    I have reformatted the WD drive, and also spent time trying to change parameters in the time machine control panel, but so far no luck.
    Any advice out there?

    Time machine requires a GUID partion scheme, as well as a Mac OS X extended, journaled Volume.
    It needs these to correctly:
    1) copy the files
    2) run a modified spotlight index pass on the files
    Both are required to complete a abckup, and most new drives do not conme this way from the factory.

  • HT1338 I was backing up my MacBook with Time Machine on my new (correctly formatted) external hard drive.  It was going fine when my 2 yo knocked the hard drive.  Now TM said "failed" and the Mac refuses to recognize the external hard drive.  Help please?

    I was backing up my MacBook with Time Machine and using my new (correctly formatted) external hard drive.  All was going well when my 2 yo knocked the disk leading to a "failure" by time machine (Latest Backup:  Failed).  Now the MacBook will not even recognize the hard drive.  I have rebooted, tried all I can think of, but no acknowledgement of the drive.  The drive itself makes noise and vibrates as if working, but nothing from the Mac.  Please help or $100 down the drain...  Thank you.

    You may have already done these resets in the "tried all I can think of " portion of your post.....if not then here they are.....
    PRAM
    support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
    SMC
    support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
    .....hopefully that is all that is required.....

  • 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: Can I use a smaller external hard drive with larger internal?

    Can I use a 250G external hard drive with and 500G unfilled internal drive with time machine? Or will time machine require I a 500G? I don't plan on filling the internal drive for a long time and don't want to buy a new external drive right now.

    Yes, but you are very likely to get in trouble very quickly.
    The problem is that TimeMachine saves multiple versions of any file modified, and if that file happens to be large, you can quickly fill up your TimeMachine drive such that it is throwing away older versions faster than you would desire.
    Also if your boot drive's storage usage gets even close to the 250GB external drive's capacity, TimeMachine is likely to stop working.
    If possible, I would suggest an external drive that is twice as large as your boot drive, or at least 1.5 times larger.
    I guess you could repartition your boot drive so it is smaller than your external disk so you would be less likely to use more space than could fit on the external.
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  • Thinking of using Time Machine.  Can you purge the external drive?

    I currently have a 500gb external drive that I use with the software that came with it. It has a feature that I run manually from time to time that purges any files not on my computer. This is helpful for those times when I have many old project files, podcasts, etc, that were backed up but no longer needed.
    I am thinking of buying one of the new Time Capsules to use with Time Machine just b/c I could use a new larger drive.
    Question: Does Time Machine have a pretty easy purge feature? I've been reading and haven't found the answer just yet.
    Thanks.

    Thanks for the message.
    What I mean is that on my current drive, I can click a button that reads "purge" and the software will either "mass delete" all files no longer present on my computer or it will allow me, one by one, to approve their deletion. It does then when I want (not only when the drive is full).
    From what I'm gathering, Time Machine decides for itself what to delete only when the drive is getting full?
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