Time Machine - "Next backup"

I have edited "com.apple.backupd-auto" and increased the StartInterval to 21600, in order to have Time Machine backup every 6 hours.
What file must be edited in order to see the time for the "Next backup" displayed correctly (ie. Latest backup time + 6 hours)?
NB: I do not wish to use TimeMachineEditor to control backups.
Thanks,
PM

TM's backup schedule cannot be changed by the user, at least not as it's currently designed. If you are backing up to an external drive which is no longer connected, then the next backup will occur when the drive is re-connected.
It's possible (I haven't seen this specifically covered) that TM will not backup a notebook unless the AC adapter is connected. This would be a wise safety precaution since you wouldn't want a backup to be suddenly stopped by a dead battery.

Similar Messages

Time Machine--"Next backup: When Mac is plugged in"

My wife and I have identical MacBook Airs (2011) with Mavericks. For whatever reason my wife's Time Machine will not back up until it is plugged in to an electrical outlet. When I open Time Machine Preferences, it will say, "Next backup: <future time>". When I unplug her Mac Air from the electrical outlet, it changes to, "Next backup: When your Mac is plugged in". The concern is that the Mac Air is used unplugged all the time, and when it is plugged in she closes the lid. All I need is for her to restore some work that is from two days ago.
I can not find anything in Preferences that controls that function. I reset SMC and did a reset of Time Machine using Pondini's instructions, http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html
So why is it doing this?
My MacBook Air does not act this way. It backs up on the hour plugged or unplugged.
A search on the forum turned up a handful of posts from 2008 with this question.
Everyone have a nice day.

There is a setting in Time Machine in System Preferences. It is under the options button to "Backup while on battery power". Check that.

Time Machine:The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. .....

Hi,
I upgraded to Mountain Lion when it was released and yesterday I began getting this notice from Time Machine:
"The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. Time Machine will try to make more space available by removing expired backups during the next scheduled backup."
I have a one terra external hard drive with exclusively Time Machine. It says it has 3.4 gigabytes available, but isn't deleting old backups and making room for new, like before. I tried the "encrypting" solution, but it still keeps on giving me this message. Should I erase and format? If so, what option should I chose to format?
My Hard Drive has 240 gigabytes, so 1Tb should be more than enough.
Thank you!
Gloria

SuperDuper and Time Machine are two completely different backup utilities. If you want something like what SuperDuper does then don't use Time Machine. You have many other options that won't use up all the space on your backup drive:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Do the following to erase your drive:
Erase a Drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Does Time Machine bundle backup sets when it deletes a month's daily sets?

I'm asking this question to find out if I can delete the all but the last week in a month, each month, in order to extend the useful capacity of my backup drive.
In some backup systems, a periodic "bundle" is made when previous sets are deleted, so for instance, the last backup of the month has the cumulative hourly changes of that month. In this way, transient files which appear and disappear within the month are retained in the monthly backup.
Is this true of Time Machine? Exactly what does Time Machine do? Does it simply wipe out the daily sets and chose the last one to be the "weekly backup?" Or something more sophisticated and useful?
Thanks for any insight!

I've devised a little experiment to discover Time Machine's behavior in this regard:
On my Time Machine's backup schedule, August 27 corresponds with the end of a week. So, on August 26 at 9:15AM, I created the following [folder]/file structure:
[Time Machine Test -Transient Roll-up]
   [Time Machine Test - 1. Hourly Transience
      A one hour lifetime file.rtf
   [Time Machine Test - 2. Daily Transience
      A one day lifetime file.rtf
   [Time Machine Test - 3. Weekly Transience
      A one week lifetime file.rtf
At 10:10AM of that day I removed
[Time Machine Test - 1. Hourly Transience
      A one hour lifetime file.rtf
At 10:10 the next day, August 27, I removed
   [Time Machine Test - 2. Daily Transience
      A one day lifetime file.rtf
On August 28 at 10:30AM, acheck today of the earliest backup of this structure reveals only the following:
[Time Machine Test -Transient Roll-up]
   [Time Machine Test - 3. Weekly Transience
      A one week lifetime file.rtf
I draw the conclusion that transient files within a time period are not subject to a "roll-up" mechanism that displays all changes after out-of-date files are deleted by Time Machine. Thus, for instance, any file that appeared and disappears during an hour will be lost in Time Machine's daily history. Similarly, files that only persist for a day will be lost in the weekly history. And, presumably, if one wanted to choose a week which represented an accumulation of transient changes during the month it would be impossible to do so.
Even so, if one wants to manage only one backup volume, rather than accumulating a stack of them over the years, one might well think about selectively deleting all but one week per month in the earliest backups available, as the projected remaining time approaches less than a few weeks. BackupLoupe's Statistics gives an estimate of remaining time left for backups on a volume, and I would suggest using that as a forecast, unless others have experience to the contrary.
Hope this is useful. It certainly is to me.

Time Machine frequent backups

I have a Time Capsule connected to my iMac. The OS is 10.6.8. I've had the Time Capsule for about a year. Time Machine seems to work fine but I've noticed lately that it seems to be backing up a lot more frequently than once an hour and that it's taking longer. Part of the problem is that if a backup takes a long time, the next backup will be scheduled for shortly after the old one has finished. So, for example, if a backup starts at, say, 10 am and takes 30 minutes, another will start at 11 am, only 30 minutes after the first. That's a lot of backup activity during the course of an 8-hour day. Sometimes, Time Machine is backing up no more than 10 MB of data, sometimes a lot more, but it does spend what seems like a lot of time prepping, finishing, and cleaning up.
The Time Capsule has a 500GB drive and less than 100 GB of that have been used. I can't find anything unusual in the system log. Otherwise, operation appears to be normal.

Well, the workaround that I found simply involved shutting off Time Machine and using the "Back Up Now" item once a day to back up to the Time Capsule. I couldn't find any other solution here. My guess (and it's only a guess) is that the reason for the slowdown is not the transfer speed (gigabit Ethernet) but the possibility the Time Machine is doing a lot of work comparing snapshots and deciding which files to backup. However, that's just a guess. Be that as it may, as I noted in my original question, left to its own devices, it can take 30-45 minutes to back up a relatively small amount of data between preparation, backup, and closing. Then it sits idle for 15 minutes and starts the process again. Maybe there is no solution. Maybe that's the way it's designed to work. Also, I don't have much on my internal hard drive, maybe 25 GB all told of a 500 GB drive. So, it's not like I'm backing up massive amounts of data at any given time. From hour to hour, maybe 500 MB get backed up, and that is most likely because a lot of system files have been touched in that time period.

Time Machine restarts backup of external drive

I have two external hard-drives: a 4TBer I've been using for Time Machine, and a 1TBer I've been using to keep media. I'd like to be able to backup the 1TBer, as it has a about 500GB of data I don't have stored anywhere else, but I've found that if I disconnect it and a backup occurs while it is disconnected, the next backup will attempt to re-backup all 500GB. A similar problem was reported here: Time Machine restarts backup of removable drive and solved by a full reset procedure, but that doesn't seem to be helping in my case. Does anyone have suggestions to deal with this?

The problem can be caused by backing up a volume on a drive that doesn't have a GUID or CoreStorage partition table. Time Machine doesn't work reliably with other partition types.
To confirm, launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the drive in question—not any of the volume icons nested below it. At the bottom of the window, note the Type. If it's not GUID Partition Scheme or Logical Volume Group, see below.
This procedure will destroy all data on the drive. Afterwards, restore from a backup. To be safe, you must have at least two complete, independent, up-to-date backups. One is not enough.
Select the Partition tab. From the Partition Layout menu in the window, select
          One Partition
From the Format menu, select
          Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Click the Options button and select
          GUID Partition Table
in the sheet that appears.
Click the Apply button and confirm when prompted.
The next time you back up, you may be prompted to "inherit" the backup history. Confirm. Even so, TM may copy all or almost all the files. After that, only the files that have changed should be copied.

Where did this backup window come from on my desktop. I have always used time machine to backup to an external disc and within the last 2 weeks, this backup window keeps appearing. Where did it come from? Thanks for any help

where did this backup window come from on my desktop. It specifies personal data & settings and tells me when the next backup is scheduled [which I never set up]. I have always used time machine to backup to an external disc and within the last 2 weeks, this backup window keeps appearing. Where did it come from? Thanks for any help

To check your S.M.A.R.T status open disk utility and click on your drive and then click on the info icon.

When installing maverick mailboxes disappeared, only have current emails. All the folders and content missing. Could anyone be of help. I do have Time Machine for backup.

When installing maverick mailboxes disappeared, only have current emails. All the folders and content missing. Could anyone be of help. I do have Time Machine for backup.

Solved the problem by clicking the gray triangle next to "On My Mac" and drilled down!

Time Machine nuking backups, starting from scratch!

ok, i just received this warning:
and now i't doing a backup that is slated to take more than "several hours."
is this common? how often can i expect this?

Hello,
Should you click “Start New Backup”? Not yet! If you see the dialog above, your existing Time Machine backup is corrupt, and you might not be able to recover data from it. But you can save a copy of the corrupt bundle and, perhaps, extract some data from it if needed.
Ask yourself if Time Machine has saved data you might need before deciding what to do next:
If you are sure you won’t need anything backed up before today, click “Start New Backup” and let Time Machine do its thing.
Otherwise, click “Back Up Later” and save a copy before letting Time Machine start a new backup. Just look for a file called “computername.sparsebundle” (for network backups) or “Backups.backupdb” (for local ones) and create a copy with a different name. You can open sparsebundle files with DiskImageMounter and browse them like any other disk. More information is available here.
There you go. If you click “Start New Backup” when you see this dialog box, Time Machine will erase all of your old backup data and start a new bundle. It won’t be corrupt, but it will be empty.
Note that you can manually initiate a Time Machine backup integrity check by option-clicking the “Time Machine” icon in the menu bar and selecting “Verify Backups.”
http://blog.fosketts.net/2010/08/11/time-machine-completed-verification-backups- improve-reliability-time-machine-create-backup/
According to This Time Machine resource “This appears only on Snow Leopard, and started with the Time Capsule Backup Update 1.0 in mid-May of 2010. It also seems to have been included in the 10.6.3 v1.1 update and 10.6.4.”
So, what can you do about it? Grin and bear it, it seems, until Apple fixes it.
One thing you can do to make the backup take less time is to connect your machine to your Time Capsule or other backup drive via Ethernet for the duration of the initial backup.
http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/the-dreaded-time-machine-has-completed-a-verifi cation-of-your-backups-to-improve-reliability-time-machine-must-create-a-new-bac kup-for-you-message-and-why-you-are-seeing-it/
Time Machine: About "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you."...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4076

Time Machine everytime backups everyting!

My main system disk "Macintosh HD", 500 GB
Media disk is exernal disk named "Media", 1000 GB.
My Time Machine disk is named "DeLorean" and its external 1,500 GB.
I have about 340 GB more free space in the Time Machine disk than my data currently uses up.
My problem is that the Time Machine VERY often starts its backup FROM THE SCRATCH!
Doing FULL BACKUP! Deleting over 800 GB of data. If you see my logs, you will see it doesnt like something about the external "Media" disk.
It does this thing called "Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Media reason:must scan subdirs|"... * see logs later.
Funny thing is, if i delete/erase the backup, or let it do the FULL backup when it wants, it usually after that does the normal smaller backup just fine.
BUT if I unmount the Media disk even once and do one incremental backup(which it does fine), then after i mount the Media back, next time it does this FULL backup and says in the logs about the Deep even scan.
All my disks are encrypted via FileVault2. Shouldnt time machine still work or is this setup fine?
Here are the logs. Yesterday i even shuffled all my disks and erased the Media and the time machine disk and encrypted them again.
You can see the first full backup starting at 2 am, then ONE succesfull incremental backup while both disk were still mounted. When i woke up at (13:20 pm) I did one incremental backup without the Media (ummounted it) and then again new one with media mounted (13:29 pm) and BAM ! It started FULL backup (deleting 800+ GB of data). Nothing has been changed on the media disk during that time. Weird !
Logs showing fresh first new backup stuff:
Dec 18 01:03:48 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 81.9 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1469 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 02:03:49 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 172.8 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1516 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 03:03:50 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 264.8 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1563 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 04:03:50 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 357.1 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1615 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 05:03:51 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 449.1 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1666 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 06:03:51 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 541.5 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1696 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 07:03:52 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 633.6 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1741 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 08:03:52 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 725.6 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1786 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 08:10:55 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 1796 files (736.3 GB) from volume Media.
Dec 18 09:03:53 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 773.9 GB of 1047.6 GB, 621723 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 10:03:54 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 803.6 GB of 1047.6 GB, 936589 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 11:03:54 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 878.4 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1019840 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 12:03:54 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 951.6 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1107382 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 13:03:54 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 1034.6 GB of 1047.6 GB, 1110125 of 1156879 items
Dec 18 13:13:49 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 1140722 files (1041.4 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 18 13:13:58 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: 1.72 GB required (including padding), 341.53 GB available
Dec 18 13:13:58 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 6 files (0 bytes) from volume Media.
Dec 18 13:14:15 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copied 6665 files (1.7 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 18 13:14:17 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Copying Lion Recovery set
Dec 18 13:14:42 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Backed up Lion Recovery to /Volumes/DeLorean/Backups.backupdb
Dec 18 13:14:45 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Starting post-backup thinning
Dec 18 13:14:45 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Dec 18 13:14:45 imac com.apple.backupd[95130]: Backup completed successfully.
Ends.
This backup i Initiated after i woke up, with both system disk and external "media" mounted:
Dec 18 13:22:02 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Starting standard backup
Dec 18 13:22:02 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Backing up to: /Volumes/DeLorean/Backups.backupdb
Dec 18 13:22:05 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: 1.70 GB required (including padding), 340.96 GB available
Dec 18 13:22:05 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Dec 18 13:23:05 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Dec 18 13:23:48 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Copied 6 files (0 bytes) from volume Media.
Dec 18 13:23:55 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Copied 1780 files (8.6 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 18 13:23:56 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: 1.37 GB required (including padding), 341.39 GB available
Dec 18 13:23:56 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Copied 6 files (0 bytes) from volume Media.
Dec 18 13:23:59 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Copied 1596 files (268 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 18 13:24:00 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Starting post-backup thinning
Dec 18 13:24:00 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Dec 18 13:24:00 imac com.apple.backupd[5781]: Backup completed successfully.
Ends.. This seems to work like it should.
Now, see the time stamps, i just toke some coffee and came back....
This next backup is done while "Media" drive has been umounted:
Dec 18 13:28:00 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: Starting standard backup
Dec 18 13:28:00 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: Backing up to: /Volumes/DeLorean/Backups.backupdb
Dec 18 13:28:01 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: 1.37 GB required (including padding), 341.39 GB available
Dec 18 13:28:04 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: Copied 1455 files (78 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 18 13:28:04 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: 1.37 GB required (including padding), 341.39 GB available
Dec 18 13:28:05 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: Copied 115 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 18 13:28:05 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: Starting post-backup thinning
Dec 18 13:28:05 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Dec 18 13:28:05 imac com.apple.backupd[5962]: Backup completed successfully.
Incremental backup seems to finnish ok, without the "Media" drive.
This backup is the third one done just after couple minutes after i mounted the "Media" drive back on:
Dec 18 13:31:49 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Starting standard backup
Dec 18 13:31:49 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Backing up to: /Volumes/DeLorean/Backups.backupdb
Dec 18 13:31:49 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Media reason:must scan subdirs|
Dec 18 13:31:49 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Finished scan
Dec 18 13:31:51 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: 884.92 GB required (including padding), 341.39 GB available
Dec 18 13:31:51 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Dec 18 13:31:52 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Deleted backup /Volumes/DeLorean/Backups.backupdb/imac/2011-12-18-131415 containing 8.7 MB; 341.40 GB now available, 884.92 GB required
Dec 18 13:31:52 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Removed 1 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Dec 18 13:32:02 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Deleted backup /Volumes/DeLorean/Backups.backupdb/imac/2011-12-18-132359 containing 736.30 GB; 1.05 TB now available, 884.92 GB required
Dec 18 13:32:02 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Deleted 2 backups containing 736.31 GB total; 1.05 TB now available, 884.92 GB required
Dec 18 13:32:02 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18 13:35:02 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Copied 526 files (4.3 GB) from volume Media.
Dec 18 13:35:03 imac com.apple.backupd[6025]: Backup canceled.
I canceled that scan(it would take about 12 hours again
OK. Couple questions:
- Why time machine does this deep scan? What does it actually mean?
- Why time machine thinks that it needs to do a 800GB worth of new backup. Those data have not changed a bit (they are movies).
- How its related to the unmount/mounting the Media drive?
I would really hope some answers from somebody. I have strugled with this issue almost a month now.
Thanks!

ECONOMAN wrote:
Time Machine Incremental Backups S...L...O...W and seem to bog down things so as to make the machine unusable. Why doesn't it simply backup changes, not the entire drive (less exclusions)?
Normally, that's exactly what it does. So start by calming down.
And, it gobbles processing power so I can't even check mail.
Can you schedule the frigging thing or do I just stop it all the time in order to get anything done?
It's cute, but kind of worthless.
First, are these backups larger than you think they ought to be? If so, that's likely at least part of your problem. See #D4 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum, for some possible causes and a way to find out just what's going on.
If that's no help, or they're still slow, try all the things in #D2 of the Troubleshooting Tip.
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.

HT1175 How do I get Time Machine to backup Documents and Photos?

My backups do not include photos and my documents folder. How can I get them included in the backup?

Time Machine will backup everything on the Mac unless you specifically Exclude the files from being backed up. If the Documents and Photos folder are not being backed up, then someone placed them on a list of items to be Excluded from backups.
These folders will appear in the list of Excluded items.
Click the Time Machine "clock" icon at the top of the Mac's screen
Click Time Machine Preferences
Click Options
Click on the Documents folder to highlight it, then click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the Documents folder from Excluded items.
Time Machine will now back up the Documents folder on the next pass.
Do the same for the Photo folder and it wil be backed up on the next pass as well.

Confused about how Time Machine merges backups

Okay, I understand how TM works and that it merges many daily backups into one days worth by the next day. I've been doing some experimenting with creating a file on my desktop, backing up with TM, and then deleting it and emptying bin. I try to access this file the next day with Time Machine but it is if it never existed. Time machine shows no sign of it. It's there when I have access to the hour by hour updates. But by the next day, when everything from the previous day merged, it's gone. Am I missing the point of Time Machine? Wasn't it created for situations when you delete a file accidentally and want to bring it back sometime in the near future? What am I missing here? Thanks for your help!

mikemac22,
The last hourly backup in a given day is kept as the "daily" backup. The last daily backup in a given week is kept as the "weekly" backup, and these are kept as long as possible.
Time Machine is mainly intended to be a backup and recovery tool. Yes, if you mistakenly delete a file, it can be retrieved. However, the importance of a file is based on the length of time it remains on your "source." I doubt Apple set out to make it this way, but rather made the decision to go with this paradigm as opposed to the alternative.
You see, there is an inherent trade-off in any backup solution that works as Time Machine does. It probably would have been easy to make Time Machine "consolidate" backups, but then disk space would be consumed at a much faster rate. At some point, some decision must be made concerning the question, "when can a file be deleted from the backup?" In the case of Time Machine, as it is, a file becomes important enough to keep when it has remained on the "source" for at least one week. If it is kept for a shorter duration, and not restored, it will be deleted at some point.
On the other end of the spectrum, files that exist only in the backup will be deleted entirely when the oldest remaining backup that contains them is deleted. This "thinning" must be done in order to make room for new backups. If this action was not taken, Time Machine would just keep filling up drives, and quickly.
Time Machine is not an "archive" utility, in any sense of the term. It is not intended to maintain multiple versions of a given file for your convenience. What it is intended to do is to allow for the (almost) immediate recovery of your entire installation- user files, applications, and all- in the event you must format (erase) your source, replace your internal hard drive, or even swap computers completely. As a bonus, it will allow you to choose from several (perhaps many, depending on the size of the backup volume) backups going back in time when you do have to resort to a "Restore."
Another bonus, of course, is the ability to restore individual files that you might mistakenly delete.
Scott

Can I use Time Machine to backup ONLY an external drive?

I am having problems with the internal HD on my iMac and Disk Utility is telling me I need to reformat the drive and restore from backup. Only problem is that my 3TB Lacie Thunderbolt drive I was using for Time Machine recently failed (think it may have happened during an electrical storm brownout). Yep, I know, ***** to be me
The issues with the internal HD are preventing the iMac from booting and I would prefer not to have to purchase various repair software to find one that really works such as Disk Warrior or similar ((despite it getting very good reviews). I suspect it make be HFS corruption but no way to really tell that I am aware of.
I have setup an external drive with Yosemite and booted from that so now my old internal drive is seen as an "external drive".
I am using Disk Utility to make an image copy to a new 3TB external drive I purchased. Writing the DMG is going to take some time.
What I would like to do is to set up Time Machine to backup to a separate external 3TB hard drive (the second one I purchased) and have TM create a backup of ONLY the old internal drive - not the new system as well as the old internal unit.
Is this possible and if so can anyone advise how to do this. Does not seem I can exclude the system drive I am now booted from so that it is not backed up. (This makes sense that TM would be designed this way given its primary purpose is to backup a system).
If TM cannot be configured in this way, is there another option I can use?
Thanks
Andrew

Thanks for that advice. I have heard of it but a friend who does IT support at a University nearby suggested using Disk Utility to save an image - hence this is currently underway at present. Once this is finished I will try Carbon Copy Cloner.
I have another friend who has an older version of CCC - do you know if an old version will work ok or if only the latest supports Yosemite?
Also once I have the clone completed from CCC, is the process then to reformat the old internal drive and then clone from the CCC external drive back to the internal and then reboot and trust all is well?
Appreciate your help Csound1.
Regards
Andrew

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme

How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme? I used to be able to but now time machine will not recognize my hard drive to select as a backup when plugged into my airport extreme. I'm not sure what happened or changed. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.

Time Machine - "Next backup"

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