When you upgrade from Lion to ML, do you need to erase your external backup drive and start over in Time Machine, or does it just automatically pick up from where it stopped with Lion?

This is a 500 GB G-Drive mobile external hard drive that I've been using since I got my MacBook Pro in '09. So I've had it from Leopard through Lion. Should I have been erasing it each time a new operating system comes out and starting over?

No - just continue to use Time Machine as you have always been.
Not only is erasing it unnecessary, doing that would eliminate the only practicable way of undoing an OS X upgrade.

Similar Messages

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    I need to erase my hard drive and start anew, will time Machine(external drive) and all the discs I got with my computer be enough to restart things.  And secondly does RAM memory cards go bad.  Here's the info on my IMac:
    Model Name:          iMac
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      Number Of Processors:          1
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    I need to erase my hard drive and start anew
    Why do you feel you need to do this? That is such a 'Windows thing' to do!
    And secondly does RAM memory cards go bad
    Very rarely, but nothing in life is guaranteed (except death and taxes)! If you purchased RAM from a reputable source like Crucial or OWC it will carry a lifetime warranty.

  • HT4718 I have an external hard drive that I used as Time Machine Backup. I have not used it for a while and now, when I plug it in computer says:  This disc is not readable. I want to recover the backups and not erase and reformat the disc.  Thank you in

    I have an external hard drive that I have used as Time Machine backup, but not for a while. Now when I plug it in, computer says this disc is not readable.
    I want to keep the backups on it and not erase and start over.
    Thank you in advance.
    Gregor

    It sounds like something went wrong with the drive.  Did you drop it?  How long has it been sitting around unused?

  • I was trying to back up my mac by using my external hard drive.  Without realizing it, time machine erased all my backups from my other computers.  Is there any way to recover these files?  I can't even get the external hard  drive to work on my pc.

    I was trying to use my external hard drive to back up my mac computer.  It had files on it from my pc computer.  Time machine erased all my existing files. (I thought it was only going to erase the duplicate files and rewrite them).  Is there anyway to recover these files from my external hard drive.  My mac has renamed the hard drive time maching and it will no longer show up on my pc.  What can I do?

    Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
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  • When ever the power goes out or I restart my iMac the external hard drive that is used by Time Machine for backups is dismounted ?

    When ever the power goes out or I restart my iMac the external hard drive that is used for backups by Time Machine is dismounted and all backups are gone. I can reselect it and it will start working again, but I am worried if the iMac hard drive should fail will I be left without a backup ?

    fzgy wrote:
    "Mac OS X can't repair the disk.  You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk.  Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
    It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app can fix it, but they're expensive (DiskWarrior is about $100), and there's no guarantee it can do it.
    Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.
    That will erase it.  See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #5.
    It sounds very much like the disk is beginning to fail, although it's possible there's a bad port, cable, connection or power supply (if it has its own).
    I'd suggest getting a new one, and using it for your Time Machine backups; once you have a good backup there, reformat the old one (and select Security Options to write zeros to the whole drive -- if that fails, you know the drive is toast).  Use it for secondary backups, per FAQ #27.   If it has failed, get a second new one for secondary backups. 

  • When I click on itunes, I get error saying Quick time failed to initialize, no matter how many times I uninstall and start over.  What am I doing wrong?

    My itunes account wouldn't open, so I had to uninstall and re-install.  I've done this 3 times with an error popping up everytime that "Quick time failed to initialize".  The message then suggests I uninstall itunes and reinstall.  If I click on Quicktime, independently, it opens right up with no problem.  What can I do?

    My itunes account wouldn't open, so I had to uninstall and re-install.  I've done this 3 times with an error popping up everytime that "Quick time failed to initialize".  The message then suggests I uninstall itunes and reinstall.  If I click on Quicktime, independently, it opens right up with no problem.  What can I do?

  • How can you back up your ipod onto your external hard drive that you're using in time machine?

    I just bought an external hard drive and want to put my ipod music on it but can't figure out how.  My ipod has music that my itunes library on my computer doesn't have.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    I would also suggest you get a 2nd, much larger hard drive, partition it if desired, move your data to it, and start a 2nd Time Machine backup on it. You can set Time Machine to alternate between the 2 drives by adding the new drive to System Preferences/Time Machine. If you want to make a copy of your current backup on the new drive, you can do that using the Disk Utility Restore tab. If you chose to do that, make the copy first since using the Restore tab erases all data on the drive or the partition.

  • How do I delete a folder that I moved to Trash from my external backup drive when a virus was detected? Trash will not delete the folder.

    I have tried unsuccessfully to remove a folder from Trash. My anti-virus program (Sophos) detected a virus which had to  be manually removed. I tried (unsuccessfully) to find and remove the infected file. I moved the Folder from my external backup drive and placed it in Trash. Now I cannot get Trash to delete the folder. It asks me if I wish to delete "unlocked" or "all" items. Either selection does not delete the folder. I went to change the permissions to "read & write" and unlocked the folder, but it is still there. I tried to "move" the folder from Trash back to the external harddrive but it seems I can only "copy" it and not "move" it. I am afraid that by copying it, I will not have the folder in two locations (Trash & External HD).
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    Thank you!

    Before deleting it we should know more about this folder and its contents.
    If it is invected and is using other apps, or other apps are still using it, then it cannot be deleted in the normal manner.
    You might contact Sophos and ask them about it.
    If you are using TM or have a backup of your system before the infection occurred, then you can delete the item(s) in Trash, but there is the possiblity of system corruption and the need for a reinstall, if any of these files are necessary for the OS to work properly, even though they are infected.
    Sophos may not have been able to remove the infection from inside a file which is why they suggested manual removal.
    You might consider downloading and running ClamXav first and see if it can't do better than Sophos.
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  • When Time Machine tries to back up to my Seagate HD before the HD is fully on, it fails. Then Time machine thinks it needs to back up the entire drive and there's not enough room. It won't just do the backup of new info now. Any thoughts?

    When I try to do a Time Machine backup with my Seagate HD, and if I accidentally have Time Machine automatically on, it will fail if the HD is not fully on and recognized by the computer yet. But the problem is that when this has happened (twice now), it seems it loses all knowledge that it has backed up using Time Machine before and it will only try to back up the entire Mac HD to the Seagate. The Seagate already has 147 GB of data from prior Time Machine backups and I only need to backup the latest stuff since my last backup, but it won't let me do that. It tries to do the whole drive and it says it can't because there is only 135 GB of space left and it needs to backup 147 GB. Anyone know how to fix this and get it to start backing up again without erasing the drive and starting over? That's what I did last time. I erased the Seagate and then reset it as my Time Machine drive and it started working fine again until it failed and reverted to the problem. Thanks

    These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
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    If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
    When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
    Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
    Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included—anonymize before posting.

  • Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space?  Only one Sparse Bundle, same name.

    Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space?  There is only one sparse bundle but when I enter time machine I don't see my historic backups.  I use a synology DS212 for my time machine.  Started a new backup which is 218gb but it says 618 gb is occupied  therefore it looks like 2 or 3 backups are still on the disk. Before my NAS issues the last backup was in 2014.  As you can see there is a second sparse bundle from 2012.  Not sure what that is.

    This is an old message now, but what happened to me similarly was:
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    It's like I had {OldShareName}.sparsebundle and then it was replaced by {NewShareName}.sparsebundle, all of the old info vanished.
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    My belief is that if this were a wired-netword-drive, e.g. plugged right into my iMac with a USB cable, then the old file would have remained.
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    I'm not sure that I have a question about this other than "why do these things happen to me?", but it's a warning. Apart from that I've been very happy with the stability and reliability (but not the cost or set-up complexity) of NAS vs. directly-cabled external drives.
    Charles

  • Weird startup screen from (external) backup drive

    Whenever I boot from my external backup drive it starts up with this screen:
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  • I have the new 2011 macbook pro, with lion preinstalled. I want to change the harddrive. I have backed up everything on time machine. when i put my new blank hard drive in will the lion screen startup.How do i get the lion dmg when i am already using lion

    I have the new 2011 macbook pro, with lion preinstalled. I want to change the harddrive. I have backed up everything on time machine. when i put my new blank hard drive in will the lion screen startup.How do i get the lion dmg when i am already using lion

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    Hey, problem solved. One of the drives was faulty. I erased the 2nd drive (which was showing up as the degraded raid slice), deleted the RAID set and restored the 2nd drive from a back-up disk image. After that, when I booted using 'option' I was presented with two boot disks but only one that worked. And when it did boot  up only the reformatted disk was showing in Diskutil so I'm guessing the second one is knackered. With it still in place the server still wouldn't boot up from a full shutdown, but the moment it was removed it booted up no probs. Wakes up from sleep as well so it seems sorted.
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  • HT201250 I've just used an external drive to back up my Mac with Time Machine. I have Lion, but didn't click and check the "Encrypt Backup Disc". What should I do? Can I delete the external drive and start again, or can I encrypt later?

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