Time Machine wiped out my entire hard drive with all of my family photos

I am a new mac owner and i hooked up my WD external hard drive to my new imac. i was familiarizing myself with the applications and i clicked on time machine. it asked me to select a drive to use for the backup and i of course selected my external hard drive. Then it said that it was going to format the drive and i said NO WAY! i canceled out of the application immediately because this drive has all of my family photos. well low and behold, i cant access any of the files on the hard drive and when i hook it up to a pc, it doesn't recognize it at all. when i mange the device in the device manager it shows that it is there and it says that it is empty! SO MUCH FOR TIME MACHINE AND CANCELING THE FORMAT! I hope this saves someone from losing all of their photos. i dont know what time machine did, but i cant even get the hard drive working any more.
C

The files are very likely still there and recoverable. However, *it is very important that you do not use the drive until you recover your files* or you risk overwriting the data.
FileSalvage is a recovery tool that says it can recover files from a FAT32 formatted disk:
http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
You could also use a PC file recovery program but I'm not at all familiar with any of those.
You should report this incident to Apple Feedback and/or telephone them.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

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Re Time Machine I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory. I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything. will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous bac

Re Time Machine
I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory.
I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
can I split it the drive in two partitions?
Also
as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
OSX 10.68
the other is
OSX 10.75
can I back them up separately?
or even synch and merge files and folders etc? between the two?

You CAN use a drive with files already on it to store Time Machine backups. But long term, that is not recommended. You do not need to reformat or re-partition the drive to do this. Once Time Machine Backups are established, you could remove the old files.
But do not delete Time Machines files with the Finder -- that can cause it to lose its place and lose everything.
With the cost of backup drives under US$100, it might be a better idea in the long run to get another drive. Best results from Time Machine is a drive about 3 times larger than the drive(s) you are backing up.

I am running my first backup on Time Machine using a Seagate external hard drive with a thunderbolt adapter and cable. I have a MacBook Pro 2011. It is backing up 11GB, and is telling me it will take approx two days. Is this normal?

I am running my first backup on Time Machine using a Seagate external hard drive with a thunderbolt adapter and cable. I have a MacBook Pro 2011. It is backing up 11GB, and is telling me it will take approx two days. Is this normal?

Download the supplemental fix to 10.7.5
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1599

Is there any way to create a time machine backup to an external hard drive with content already on it? I have a hard drive that i have used for pictures but when i try to run a backup it says i need to start from a blank drive. Can i get around it?

Is there any way to create a time machine backup to an external hard drive with content already on it? I have a hard drive that i have used for pictures but when i try to run a backup it says i need to start from a blank drive. Can i get around it?

It would be much better if you had separate drives for the pictures and Time Machine backups.....but, if you want to use the same drive for both purposes, temporarily move the folder with the pictures to another location for safe storage.
Run the Time Machine backup on the hard drive and verify that everything is working correctly. Time Machine will format the disk for you in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as part of the backup process.
Then move the folder with the pictures back to the hard drive with the Time Machine backups.
When you have tested to make sure that everything is working again, then and only then should you delete the folder with pictures from the temporary storage area.
Again....it would be much better to keep Time Machine backups on a drive just for that purpose, and other data on another drive for that purpose. This is clearly one of those times when the fact that you can do something does not mean to imply that you should do it.

New Convert to Mac. Did Time Machine wipe out my external hard drive?

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro. I have all of my files and pictures from my PC on my external hard drive. When I connected it to the USB port, Time Machine came up. I don't remember what I selected, but now when I plug in the drive, "time machine backups" is the only thing that I can see in Finder.
When I tried to connect the hard drive with a PC, it doesn't recognize it anymore. Did I loose all of my data?

Coyote_Girl wrote:
I recently purchased a MacBook Pro. I have all of my files and pictures from my PC on my external hard drive. When I connected it to the USB port, Time Machine came up. I don't remember what I selected
You saw this prompt (probably with only one volume name):
|
|
and when you clicked +Use as Backup Disk,+ this:
|
|
And when you clicked Erase, the drive was reformatted.
Most of the data is still there, but it won't be quick, cheap, or easy to recover it. You'll need a +Data Recovery+ service or application.
Since the drive was formatted for Windoze, the apps we recommend here, for Mac-formatted drives, probably won't work. But see [Data Recovery|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Recover.html] for general information in this area.
Check wherever you normally look for PC apps, or Google.

I just got my first MacBook pro and dedicated an external hard drive for time capsule. I also have a WD 3TB hard drive with all my old files, photos and movies (mostly from a pc). My Mac book pro would not allow me to add or delete any files from this har

This hard drive so I copies all the files (400gb worth) to my time capsule hard drive (WD 3 TB but set up by the Mac book pro). Now I am not sure what I need to do. I wiped the other WD hard drive cleAn on my pc and want to set it up in a way that I can access the files on both a pc and a Mac. If I partition it on my MacBook pro will this work? If I do it do I need to save the file twice on both the pc and Mac partitions or simply by partitioning it the hard drive will ave files in both formats regardless of if it's from a pc or a Mac. X
Thanks

Mac 101: File Sharing
Mac OS X 10.7 Help: Transfer files between two Mac computers
Mac OS X 10.7 Help: Set up a Windows computer to share files with Mac users
Mac OS X 10.7 Help: Use iDisk to share files
Mac OS X: Sharing your files with non-Apple computers
How to share a Mac's files with a PC and vice versa.

Time machine not backing up entire hard drive on initial back up. Why?

I bought a new 2TB desktop hard drive to use in backing up my 27" iMac (2011, OSX 10.7.5) and performed the initial backup today. The backup went smoothly but I was perplexed with something I saw.
Disk Utility tells me that my internal hard drive (Macintosh HD) contains 173.95GB of data but the initial backup that TM did contains only 94.2GB. So, why is there such a large (~80GB) discrepancy between the two drives?
I did not elect to exclude any items from the backup in the TM preferences.
Many thanks,
Bob

If it wasn't clear, I used Time Machine to perform this initial backup. Sorry.....

How do I configure Time Machine to backup my entire hard drive to my Thecus N4200 RAID NAS box please.

The question is the content.....

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

HT1451 I lost my entire hard drive with all my itunes library. I still have music on my ipod, is it possible to re-create my library from my ipod? thanks

Is it possible to re-populate your itune library from an ipod? I lost all contents of my PC including all my music.
thanks for any help!

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

I threw out 24 time machine backups from an external hard drive into my desktop trash and now I can't empty my trash.

I threw out 24 time machine backups from an external hard drive into my IMac desktop trash and now I can't empty my trash.

Since you didn't mention what type of error message you were seeing, I'm going to guess on what is happening.
I'm guessing that since you threw away Time Machine backups, that Time Machine is probably active on your Mac. There is a chance then that the files you tossed are marked as in use. You can't delete files that are in use.
Try turning Time Machine off, then restart your Mac. Then try deleting them again.
Once done, turn Time Machine back on.
Tom

Time Machine wiped out all my backups!

This morning, Time Machine wiped out all my existing Time Machine backups and started a new, full backup of my startup drive.. My Time Machine volume was only half full, and I use TimeMachineEditor to schedule backups once a day instead of every hour. Does anyone know what might have caused this to happen?

Not helpful. I've been using TimeMachineEditor for years without any problem whatsoever.
It's true, though... it sounds like something went wrong with Time Machine somewhere, and that's one possibility. Having used it for years without a problem does not mean that trend will continue. There was just an update to that software one week ago, adding Mountain Lion compatibility. Something could have been wrong with the update if you installed it, and if you didn't, you were using it with Mountain Lion without it being compatible.
As for Time Machine's default hourly backups, they can result in spinning beachballs each and every hour
Something else may have been wrong then (instead or in addition). That's not normal.
In any event, there's nothing to be done about the old backups now... they're gone. What I would advise is to stop using TimeMachineEditor (for the time being at least), erase your backup drive and start your backups over from scratch, and make sure that your drive is used in one of the supported configurations (ie, directly connected, connected to a Time Capsule or a shared volume on another Mac on your local network).

I got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does someone has a fix???

i got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does anybody has a fix???

Does your external hard drive have it's own power supply? It should.
Is your external hard drive formatted with the NTFS file system? It won't work.
It needs to be formatted either with Mac OS Extended or FAT32.
(There are drivers available to add NTFS support to OS X but their quality is unknown, especially the "free" ones.)

Hallo ,why is it that when I delete a photo ,which is backed up by time machine and western digital external hard drive , that I am able to restore the photo okay but not the titles and descriptions . I have a Macbook 4.1, mac osx 10.5.8 . Iphoto 7.1.5 ,

QUESTION.
Hallo , my question is ;whenever I delete a photo and restore it through Time machine and Western digital external hard drive , I am able to restore the photo but not the titles and descriptions . Western Digital inform me that it isn't their external hard drive problem and suggest that it is an Apple software problem ?
I am using a Macbook 4.1 , with Mac OSX 10.5.8 . I photo 7.1.5 , last modifie4d 01/05/2010 -universal . Should I be upgrading Iphoto ?
I hope that someone is able to help in this matter , as i have to restore 12000 photos !
Thanking you in anticipation.
Alan from Wigton

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

I have a power pc (g5) computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

I have a Power PC G5 computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 Mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

Hi, likely the easiest is to just poll the drive & get something like this...
Get MacScan...
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/macscan.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/
But if you have a good external drive already, just clone it.
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

HT201250 How can I migrate a Time Machine backup from an external hard drive to a new TimeCapsuls?

I just got a 2TB Time Capsule. I want to migrate my time machine backups on an external hard drive to the new Time Capsule. I have about 430Gb of files to back up; I don't want to wait 7-8 days for the backup, unless I have to. I am using OS 10.7.5 (forget which cat that is). I have mounted the TC drive as 10.0.1.1; I tried to drag and drop from old to "data" on TC, but I get the error "The volume is the wrong format for a backup." Any ideas how I can move my old files to the new, and bypass creating a brand new backup file?
Thanks.

Rather than do that, which means starting over from scratch, losing all your edits, organisation and so on, why not simply use iPhoto Library Manager to revert the Library to the older version? Easier, less destructive.
The instructions on that are here
If you really want to start over: you can access the Originals folder simply by going to your Pictures Folder and finding the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.

Time Machine wiped out my entire hard drive with all of my family photos

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