Using Time Machine with a Used External Hard drive
I had posted a question before about using an external hard drive that I have for a Time Machine back up that already have some stuff on the hard drive, and if using it for Time Machine would erase the info I currently have on the drive.
I got a response that said if it was formatted as Xsan or Mac OS Extended with or without case-sensitivity or journaling, it would not erase my current info, but otherwise, it would.
When I checked the format on my external hard drive, it is listed as "MS-DOS (FAT32)". Does that mean it is the Xsan/Mac OS extended (that wouldn't erase my current information) or does it mean it WILL erase my info?
Thank you!!
Does that mean it is the Xsan/Mac OS extended (that wouldn't erase my current information)
No
does it mean it WILL erase my info?
Yes. FAT formatted drives are for use with Windows.
Similar Messages
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Setting Up Time Machine with a Partitioned External Hard Drive
I recently bought a new external hard drive (MyPassport) and I was advised to partition it in order to keep my movies/music files separate from the rest of my files. So I partitioned it, but now I can't figure out how to set up the Time Machine with 2 separate hard drives. Is there a way to set it up so that I can use Time Machine for both, one for movies/music and one for everything else?
I recently bought a new external hard drive (MyPassport) and I was advised to partition it in order to keep my movies/music files separate from the rest of my files. So I partitioned it, but now I can't figure out how to set up the Time Machine with 2 separate hard drives. Is there a way to set it up so that I can use Time Machine for both, one for movies/music and one for everything else?
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I now have no access to any mac now, and the old mac while it still has my old information freezes immeadiatley upon starting. I am therefore switching to PC laptop that has be graciously given to me. My question is how do I get my information off my external drive, and on to my new laptop? The laptop is an Asus with windows vista, and I am planning on upgrading it to Window's 7. All my information from the past 3 years of college is stored in this Seagate 320 gb external hard drive. What do I need to do?
OK… firstly try the USB port on the other side and see if it makes any difference. Otherwise, do you have any better luck using the drive when it's connected through an AC powered USB hub.
To check if your MBP is seeing your drive at all it should appear in the USB section in the System Profiler utility. -
I am not sure what is best to back up my audio lecture files?
Thank you so much for your kind help...I am very grateful and Blessings to you!Two backups are better than one, especially if the files are important. So make sure Time Machine is set to back up your "audio lecture files", and copy them to a flash drive as well.
(Keep in mind that no-one but you knows how Time Machine is set up on your computer, or where you store your "audio lecture files", or how important they are for you.) -
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. -
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. -
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.) -
With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac
With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac. The record contained files windows. How to recover?
Serious mistake: to connect a Mac to an external drive with data (important!) Windows, the warning appears: "You want to use the disk for Time Machine?" Wrong button, so in 2-3 seconds, the disk is formatted. Now Mac "sees" the disc but empty, Windows does not see it under "My Computer" but in "Disk Management" is reported as "hard core", "healthy", "GPT protective partition" Is there a way to retrieve the files? Sorry for my English ThanksI'm having a difficult time following, I understand English isn't your native language. You may have good luck with Google Translate.
Also please read Pondini's Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting. -
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 WigtonHallo 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 -
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. -
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 and backing up external hard drives
Time machine will not back external hard drives I have connected to my Mac Pro. It works fine with the 3 hard drives mounted in the computer. Is this the way Time Machine is intended to work or am I doing something wrong? Thanks in advance for your assistance.
According to Disk Utility, GUID and AFP are both ok for a non-bootable drive with either CPU. The difference is when you want to make a volume bootable.
Since TM volumes are not bootable, it shouldn't matter UNLESS you have some other bootable system installed on the drive.
Right now, the drive on my Intel iMac is partitioned AFP and the one on the PPC powerbook is GUID. They both appear to be behaving themselves. The iMac has had one instance (since the last partition job) of a massive backup which occurred right after I changed the exclude list and the PPC has had no massive backups (other than the initial one). On that one, I built the exclude list BEFORE the initial backup.
- gws -
I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and I can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help? I can find the mail folder in my libraries, but the Restore Button is grayed out
OSX treats the reformatted drive as a different one; it's the same as replacing it, and the old one is no longer connected.
See #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see and restore from the "old" drive.
And, you may not want to restore via the Finder; see the blue box in #15 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. -
Will Time Machine Back up an External Hard Drive Attached to my Mac Pro?
Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up? So, I'd like to have Time Machine back up my Mac HD and the external HD. If Time Machine won't do this, is there a good back up program for Macs that is very turnkey?
Thanks in advance!!!GregT wrote:
Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up?
If the drive is formatted +Mac OS Extended,+ yes. While it's connected, go to TM Preferences > Options. If it's listed in the exclusion box, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
If it's listed in gray, however, it's either formatted wrong or corrupted, and you can't remove the exclusion. -
Is there a way to get my photos off an old time machine backup from an external hard drive?
Is there a way to get my photos off an old time machine backup from an external hard drive?
You will have to connect the Time Machine HDD and click on the Icon. You will see one folder called Backups.backupdb. Click on that and you will have to continue until you find the home folder. The iPhoto library (where the pictures are, not the application) will probably be in your pictures folder. You will have to drag that to your desk top. Then you will have access to individual images.
Ciao. -
Can 'Time Machine' back-up other external hard drives
Can 'Time Machine' back-up other external hard drives connected to your mac as well as the mac memory itself?
As Neil says, yes, it can. But external HDs are excluded by default; you have to tell Time Machine when you do want to back one up.
See the exclusions box in Time Machine Prefs > Options.
If the drive is shown in black, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
If it's shown in gray, though, it's not formatted for a Mac, and Time Machine can't back it up (and you can't remove it).
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