Will Time Machine delete files on external hard drive?

I have all my itunes music and videos on my external hard drive. Will Time Machine delete these files. The hard drive is already formatted for mac.

Note from Time Machine Help files:
Time Machine works best if you use your backup disk only for Time Machine backups. If you keep files on your backup disk, Time Machine won’t back up those files, and the space available for Time Machine backups will be reduced.
So it will not overwrite the files but it also will not back them up.

Similar Messages

  • Will Time Machine work with an external hard drive connected (via usb) to Airport Extreme?

    Will Time Machine work with an external hard drive connected (via usb) to Airport Extreme?

    Sorry, but this article is about 4 years old, and was printed based on preliminary information at the time.
    The bottom line here is that Apple does not officially support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme.
    If it works for you, great.
    You might want to review the Apple Support documents below, which are far more recent than the article you reference:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
    It is supported.....
    This is NOT correct. Please do not post false information on the forums.

  • 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.

  • Will Time Machine back up and external hard drive connected to my TC?

    Here is my desired set-up: older Powerbook G4 whose iTunes Music is saved on an external HD (WD MyBook offering USB, FW, and ethernet connections); backup wirelessly to a Time Capsule using Time Machine; connect the external drive to the Time Capsule either using USB or ethernet (whichever is faster); have Time Machine backup everything, ie, the laptop and the external drive connected directly to the Time Capsule.
    Right now, the external drive is connected directly to the Powerbook using Firewire and everything is working as desired. I would like to have the external drive networked, however, so that I can enjoy music on the laptop without having it connected to the external drive. Seems like I could connect the external drive to the TC to provide a networked iTunes library, but I also want Time Capsule to back it all up together with my Powerbook.
    Is this possible?
    If so, which connection method is best between the external drive and the Time Capsule, USB or ethernet?

    f.bomb wrote:
    Seems like I could connect the external drive to the TC to provide a networked iTunes library, but I also want Time Capsule to back it all up together with my Powerbook.
    Is this possible?
    No. Time Machine will not backup a network share such as you describe. Sorry.

  • Will Time Machine back up my external hard drive as well as internal one?

    I am considering upgrading my Macbook to Leopard. All of my photos, movies and iTunes music are stored on a 250G external drive and as these are the files I work with most frequently I need to back them up regularly. Can I use Time Machine to do this, in other words does the back up include drives other than the main internal one? If not it would be of little use to me.

    yes HFS+=mac os extended. I would check the format of the drive. most factory formatted drives are formatted for windows not Mac and hence are formatted FAT. FAT drives are also read+write from OS X. select you drive in finder and enter command+i. read off the format in the resulting info window.

  • 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.

  • 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 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.)

  • Will time capsule back up an external hard drive

    Will time capsule back up an external hard drive?

    Time Machine will backup the drive to the Time Capsule if it is formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and it is connected directly to your Mac by USB or FireWire....and it is not "excluded" from backups in Time Machine Options.

  • 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.

  • 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 Thanks

    I'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.

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