Windows/Mac Cross-Compatible Back-ups

I would think this is a common issue, but I haven't turned up anything that actually answers my question.
Anyway, my Macbook is on its last legs. Screen's been intermittently dimming (forcing me to fiddle with the brightness to fix it), mouse has been acting wonky (ie, selecting stuff when I didn't touch the button and have touch click off), and it even randomly turned off on me today. Needless to say I'm replacing, but because of my needs I'll probably be replacing it with a Windows 7 machine.
So, obviously I need to be backing my stuff up. But, I was using TimeMachine, which won't work with Windows. And, I may still be working with Mac OSX on a regular basis as well. In all, I need a back-up program that will work with both Mac OSX and Windows 7.
Things I don't want:
Something that has a version for both. I need something that when I plug it in I'll be able transfer my files that I backed up on my Mac painlessly to my Windows. And vice-versa.
I'm not interested in manually transferring all my files. I realize I won't be able to move all the ones in between, but I have too much stuff that I will transfer to do it manually.
Things I need it to do:
Mass backups. I said before, I have too many files to go through all my stuff and move them all myself. I want to be able to set it up so that I can press a button and all my movies, music, schoolwork, etc. gets backed-up and is readable on both OSX and Windows.
Customization. Although I don't want to go through my stuff manually, I'm probably going to have to do that in some form. I've collected a lot of junk on my computer over the years, and I'm not going to want to keep it all.
So, I know that's a lot, but I was hoping someone out there might having experience moving lots of files between Windows and Mac and could help. Any help would be appreciated, even if you were just able to dig up something from Google that I couldn't before.

Get another Macbook - you can run Windows 7 on that and maintain compatibility with your old machine.

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HT201250 I have thousands of pictures on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac I don't want them lost. I do time machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough for making sure my pictures don't ever get lost?

I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?

tgs6164 wrote:
I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
Purchase a couple of these when they go on sale.
Start burning all the photos onto DVDs.
At least you'll have all your photos if your computer, time machine or any other backup you use goes bonkers.

Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

As john noted, eventually that external is probably not going to be big enough, but it certainly is for now. The HD just needs enough capacity to cover the amount of data on your internal HD, not the internal HD's total capacity.
Format/partition the external as follows and you should be set to go:
1. Connect the external HD to the MBP.
2. Open Disk Utility on the MBP.
3. Select the external HD in the left pane.
4. Click on the Erase tab.
5. Choose the Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
NOTE: if you want to zero the HD (which I always think is a good idea, but does take time), click on Security Options, click the button for Zero Out Data, click OK. The larger the HD, the longer this will take, in some cases several hours.
6. Click on Erase and wait for the entire process to finish.
7. Click the Partition tab.
8. Click on Volume Scheme: and choose the number of partitions (just one in this situation).
9. Click on the Options button (located underneath the Volume Scheme pane) and select GUID.
10. Click Apply.
11. Quit Disk Utility.
Backup your internal to the external. What application are you using to backup with? I highly recommend both SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner.

Working in adobe illustrator - computer crashed - will not soft boot or reset PRAM - should i reinstall from CD snow leopard 10.6.3? I have an extra hard drive in my MAC with time machine on it set to do auto back ups. How do i recover ?

working in adobe illustrator - computer crashed - will not soft boot or reset PRAM - should i reinstall from CD snow leopard 10.6.3? I have an extra hard drive in my MAC with time machine on it set to do auto back ups. How do i recover ?

Well first you have to figure out what is wrong with the machine and solve that problem first.
Your post is very vague on what occured, and there are many types of "crashes" it really depends upon what see on the screen and what the hardware does, we can't see it to tell you, so you have to tell us.
I suggest you run through these user tips and provide more information about your hardware.
Disconnect the TimeMachine drive for now
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Help us to help you on these forums
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
If this is going way over your head, there are local PC/Mac techs that will assist you for a fee, Apple only does hardware repairs and is advised to use them if you discover it is, especially if under warranty/AppleCare.
Hard drive and RAM upgrades can be handled yourself or by a outside tech in many older models of Mac, but don't expect Apple to cover the new parts.
Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's

Setting Up a New Mac From Two Different Time Machine Back-ups?

Greetings Apple People,
I am planning on getting a new iMac. Right now my wife I are still using our separate MacBooks from college. Both of them have Time Machine back-ups. We would like to setup our new iMac to have two different users. Is it possible to setup each of the users on the new iMac from our respective Time Machine back-ups?
I know you can do this seamlessly with one Time Machine back-up, but can you do it from two different back-ups, essentially merging the two, while keeping the separate user profiles?
Thanks!

Follow the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide using one computer as the source on first boot. Then, hook up the second computer and use the Migration Assistant to transfer the second user account and nothing else. Don't use the TM backup because it's much slower doing it that way than directly from each machine.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Yo (10.10), Mavs, ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/10.5 & 9.2.2

HT201250 Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac?

Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac? IOW....if I need to restore a whole back-up, I don't want to restore previously deleted files.

Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac?
Not immediately. When space starts to get tight, Time Machine will start to delete the oldest file(s) to make more room, but this won't occur for some time.
if I need to restore a whole back-up, I don't want to restore previously deleted files.
You won't if you choose to restore from a backup that occurred after the date that you deleted the file.
If you absolutely do not want to keep the file in your Time Machine backups at all, you do have the option to go into Time Machine, find the file, and manually delete all versions of the file from past dates.

Time Machine back-ups of files in an external HD drive connected to the Mac?

I usually use Time Machine for automatic back-ups of all the content in my Mac, into a Time Capsule device.
I intend now to transfer my heavier files (domestic video files for example) to a new external Hard Drive, in order to release storage espace in the Mac itself. But I want to keep the automatic back-up feature that I have already for my Mac content, also for the files that will be transferred to the external drive. I do not want to take the risk of loss of these external files without having a back-support for recovering in case of damages.
The question is: How can I configure the Time Machine to make automatically the back-up of the external drive content into the Time Capsule, in the same automatic way than the rest of files in the Mac? Is that possible for such an external drive?
Thanks in advance for your support and best regards,
Alejandro

External drives are automatically added to the TM exclusion list. To back them up, all you have to do is remove them from that list in the TM preference pane. Click Options.

I cannot install ODX Yosemite over OSX Mavericks as my Mac Book Pro (early 2011) advises that the disc "Mackintosh HD" is used for Time Machine back ups. This is not the case however as I use a separate external HD for this purpose, help please ?! T

I cannot install ODX Yosemite over OSX Mavericks as my Mac Book Pro (early 2011) advises that the disc "Mackintosh HD" is used for Time Machine back ups. This is not the case however as I use a separate external HD for this purpose, help please ?!
Thanks

Check this link out...
OS X: Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups
I was apart of this thread and it helped the OP...
Re: System installer thinks my main drive is my time Machine backup and won't install.
KOT

HT3275 My Mac gave me a message saying that I had to create a new back up.I did this and I have lost a year's worth of back-ups.The crazy thing is that on my probook I still have them even though it is using the same time capsule.Any ideas if I can retrie

On being prompted to create a new back-up on my Mac by Time Machine I lost a year's worth of back-ups. The crazy thing is tht on my ProBook I still have them even though it uses the same Time Capsule, which to mind mind they are still there on the Time Capsule. Has anybody else had this experience or has any suggestions how I can retrieve the info on my Mac? Any help gratefully accepted! Thanks

cafranklyn wrote:
On being prompted to create a new back-up on my Mac by Time Machine I lost a year's worth of back-ups.
You might find useful advice on this Web page: Time Machine Troubleshooting, particularly item C13.
The crazy thing is tht on my ProBook I still have them even though it uses the same Time Capsule, which to mind mind they are still there on the Time Capsule.
Not necessarily. Each Mac using a particular Time Capsule has its own set of backups that are independent of those of any other Mac.
Has anybody else had this experience or has any suggestions how I can retrieve the info on my Mac?
Why are those backups so important to you? My advice is to move on and live without them.

HT2477 Are documentS created with Microsoft office for windows and Microsoft office for mac are compatible with each other

Are documents created with Microsoft office for windows and Microsoft office for mac are compatible with each other?

As with a lot of software, it depends on the version of Word, and what features the author used.
Technically, Office 2010 for Windows and 2011 for Mac are supposed to be feature compatible. As are Office 2007 for Windows, and 2008 for Mac.
However, if a person using Office 2010 / 2011 used a feature that only exists in that version and sends the file to someone using Office 2007 / 2008, they would very likely have trouble opening the file, or having it display as intended.

Cross compatible? MAC - PC

Can a project created on Premiere Pro CS3 on a MAC be opened without issues on a PC also running CS3? How about vice versa?
How about After Effects CS3? Are the projects cross compatible at all?

Generally, Yes.
Though both work, PPRO is better at reading mov on PC than it is reading avi on mac.
So; yes it will work fine. Have done it several times.
Note however that there are several filters on the PC ver of PPRO CS3 that are not on the MAC ver. But i dont think mac has any the PC doesnt have. So going MAC > PC should not be a problem.
Curt Wrigley

I installed windows on my mackbook pro without downloading windows support software and now I am stuck on windows, How I can back to Mac os? To download the windows support software.

I installed windows on my macBook pro without downloading windows support software and now I am stuck on windows, How I can back to Mac os? To download the windows support software?

Boot your computer while holding down the option key. Then select OSx to boot into.

How can I remove old Time Machine back-ups for a Mac I no longer have??

So, i am trying to back-up a brand new MBPro to my Time Machine but it says there's not enough room. Only 13.5 GB avail and need 284 GB. Is there a way to go into Time Machine and delete all the old back-ups from my former MBPro? (I've already migrated all the files and data to the new MBP from my iMac, also on the same Time Machine.) If I could wipe out the old MBP back-ups that should create enough room.

Delete the backups.
Q12 here. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Hi there, My Hard Disk space on the Mac Book is running low, I found about 105gigs in Back Ups, after I moved my ballooning Aperture Library to an external hard disk. Can you help?

Just checked on Lion - somehow I have over 100gigs in Back Ups, but much less in pictures. I moved Itunes, Aperture Libraries to my external hard Disk. Still running low on the 250 gigs space. Any tips on how I can free this are much appreciated!
Thanks!

Did you actually move / delete the data on your HDD?
When you click and drag to an external drive, it automatically copies instead of moves.
What are these backups & their location?
You could try and app similar to WhatSize.

I want to reorder the menu for back ups in time machine? I have two back up disks outside the MAC? can I change anything in the time machine

The disk is full message is driving me crazy,I thought it would drop off old back ups? why is it not? can I change it so it will,again? jp

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for details.

Windows/Mac Cross-Compatible Back-ups

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