I have a Western Digital 500gig external hard drive (model wd5000c032) which I'd like to completely reformat to use with my macbook pro and Time Machine (running os 10).As it is now, my mac can only use 147 gigs, and often gives an error message saying it needs additional space to backup. It was previously used on a pc to hold pictures, but I doubt it used anything near 357 gigs for that.
View 2 RepliesI've never done anything but plug a HD in and get right to work. Now that I've got an Apple, I'm a total nervous Nellie.I just got a WD external hard drive that is FAT32. I understand that the Mac can read/write this format. Would you recommend that I change it to HFS+ or should I leave well enough alone?
View 20 Replies View RelatedI have an external hard drive upon which I put movie files that I view through a Sony box (like the Roku box). I brought my MacBook in for a repair and connected the same external HD and used Time Machine to make a back up. It did reformat it in order to do so, but since the Sony box isn't a pc or mac I didn't think it would make a difference, but now the Sony box won't recognize HD. Is there a way to reformat it on my MacBook so that I can use it on the Sony box again, or do I need to reformat it with a Windows computer? I had no issues when transferring files only and using the Sony box.
View 1 Replies View RelatedHow do I reformat an external hard disc, before used as time machine?
Info:
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Freecom hard disc
I have a question which I am quite unsure. I am shopping for a HDD drive (Western Digital My Book 3 TB) and was told that it cannot be reformatted to be compatible with TIme Machine.
I would like to verify if it is true.
Info:
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
I was trying to set up my Time Machine to an external hard drive. I didn't continue because it asked to "initialize" the hard drive which I had a lot of important things on.
I have another external hard drive I'd like to use but, my Time Machine has this error code of -43. What is this and how can I use my Time Machine on another external hard drive?
I recently bought a small capacity external hard drive. I don't download and store music, movies, et cetera so I purchased a 250gb Western Digital portable one.
I want to mostly back up my writing (I do a lot), some photos (for convenience, although I don't have many), and files (I have client information on my computer). So for the most part, they are small things.
If my computer was to crash, my worry is mostly that my writing would be lost. My question is, if I use Time Machine, does it automatically back up everything ? Or do I select things? Am I better off dragging and dropping? I am new to this.
Also, I also run Parallels as for one of my jobs, I have to use a Windows based program. I don't do anything else in my Parallels. If I was to lose the info on my computer, and Parallels was backed up, would I have to reinstall it on a new computer? This concerns me as I no longer have my Windows CD that I needed for the initial installation.
I was just wondering if there is anyway to use time machine as an external hard drive? i'm running low on storage with my macbook and wanted to move some files to it permanently for storage
View 3 Replies View RelatedI was trying to move all of my movies on to my external hard drive and I copied all of them (took two hours) on there. Then I deleted all but three of them off my computer and emptied the trash. I then look back at my hard drive's files and they aren't there!!! The only thing that was there was the 3 files.
But I also have time machine saved to update my external hard drive. It did and I can see the previous computer times/events/whatever you want to call it. I go to Hard drive>backups.backupdb>My Mac Book Pro>2010-05-04>Macintosh HD>Users>Me>Movies which only shows my iMovie library. I do the same thing but with Music>iTunes>iTunes media>movies to which only one file shows up.
I would like to use FileVault to encrypt both my hard drive and time machine back up external drive. Does encryption noticeable slow down the computer.
Info:
MacBook Air (13-INCH, MID 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
Basically I have a 750GB hard drive in my Macbook Pro and over 300GB is taken up with 'BackUp' data. This is more than the total of everything I have on the drive other than that. Time Machine has always been setup on an external drive and when searching all files on the Macbook there is nothing for backup files so don't know where it is coming from.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
On my vista / xp machines, I have several external hard drives, Seagate, WD, HP, and 1 enclosure kit which contains some old internal hard drive.I don't really need all these drives on my VISTA/XP machines, as I'm trying to migrate to MAC.
I mostly use my mac for photos & creating home movies. So backing up the priceless pictures of my kids is critical.Do I really need to buy a MAC based external hard drive? or can i simply reformat one of my old drives to use on my mac. I know macs have their own file system (as pc's have fat32&ntfs).
Will apple time machine work with a generic re-formatted external hard drive.I also notice their are fewer choices for MAC ready external hard drives ...less specials than PC based externals.
I am a new Mac user. I want to set up Time Machine on my Mac mini as well as have an external hard drive for my audio projects. Can I use one hard drive for Time Machine and extra storage?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a Macbook Pro 13.3" running 10.6.4. I've had this computer for a year now and I have always wondered. Can my 500 GB Toshiba Hard Drive be used for Time Machine and for storing files at the same time?
I've heard about partitioning it, but will that delete the files on there? I dont have enough space on my hard drive to backup my external HD.
I recently purchased a Time Capsule and love it. However before getting the Time Capsule I used an external hard drive for Time Machine. My question is how do I get Time Machine to work on the external hard drive while it its plugged into the Time Capsule? When I connect the external hard drive to Time Capsule, it recognizes it and I can access the other data I have on the drive. However, when I try to access the Time Machine backups I get The alias ... could not be opened, as well as getting a failed message when I try to do a backup. I've been trying to find a solution online but haven't had much luck.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI'm new to macs, having just bought a 24" iMac on the 2nd. So I qualify for the Leopard upgrade. The Time Machine feature really sounds cool, and I'd like to use it. 'Cept I haven't a clue about which external hard drives are the best, or in particular... which one is the best.
I'm assuming firewire is the way to go for speed, but I have no idea how large a drive I'd need. My internal drive is 500GB. Anyone have any suggestions for a durable, quiet external drive? What can I expect to pay?
We also have a second 20" 2.4 Ghz iMac in the house that has the 320GB drive in it. It will be getting the Leopard upgrade as well, so I could use a suggestion for an external drive for Time Machine for that iMac too.
I started installing Leopard last night before going out. I came back late last night (or early this morning) and sat down to explore the new OS. There was a pop-up about using Time Machine with my external hard drive. I clicked okay.
It began loading and running Time Machine before telling me my external hard drive was the wrong format or something. It then gave me the option to delete (which I assumed ment delete the Time Machine files from my external hard drive). I clicked on it.
A few minutes later I realized that it had erased my entire external hard drive, renaming it "Time Machine Backups". I had JUST moved my entire music and movie collection to that hard drive and am wondering if there's any way I can recover those files.
I was thinking of getting an external hard drive for use with Time Machine. On Amazon I found a Seagate 1.5 TB unit for $129. However there is a similar model "for the mac" for $192. I am wondering if the cheaper unit would work, or if the one for 50% has some indispensable feature.
View 21 Replies View RelatedI need some help on this matter. I have a Western Digital external hard drive hooked up to my AirPort Extreme; and I am able to view it as a drive on my MacBook Pro but when I go and try to start up "Time Machine" its no where to be found. The hard drive is formatted as a FAT32 drive, does this matter in regards to recognition by Time Machine?
View 3 Replies View RelatedTime Machine is backing up my internal 1Mac hard drive fine to an external drive ("backup ext drive"). I have another external hard drive attached to the Mac that I would also like to back up to the back-up ext drive. I've looked around on Time Machine as best I can but can't find any place that lists drives to be backed up, so I can tell Time Machine to back it up, also. I have found a list in Time Machine of drives I can back up to. That list shows both external drives. But of course, I want to back this one up, not use it as a back up drive. Should be something simple I'm missing. I've seen a lot in the forum about issues backing up external ard drives via Airport Express (or Extreme), but though I have Airport Express, both external drives (back up ext drive and the one to be backed up) are directly connected to the iMac, so I'm not trying to use Airport for this.
View 1 Replies View RelatedCan anyone tell me how to tell Time Machine how to find an external hard drive (that is attached to myiMac) that I'd like to back up? If recoginizes it in a window for selecting a drive to back up to, but I can't seem to find any window to tell it what drives I want backed up. It backs up the internal hard drive on the iMac.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have still another EHD/TM question and I can't quite figure out where to ask for the help I need.
I have a Mac Pro OS 10.5.8 with 2 internal drives and a large EHD that I was using solely for Time Machine Back Up. After a recent conversation with tech support at Apple, I've decided that I should have still one more full copy of stuff that is critical to me--my original photographs. I currently only have the backup copy on TM.
So, I want to take my large LaCie EHD and partition it. I want to store things as follows:
1. Internal HD #1-primary HD containing all data except original photos
2. Internal HD #2-HD that contains nothing but original photos
3. EHD (LaCie):
a. Partition #1: Second copy of original photos
b. Partition #2: Time Machine back up of HD #1 and HD #2.
It seems as if it is easy enough to do the partition but I'm wondering if there is a way to get my original photos to go into both HD #2 and Partition #1 of the EHD at the same time that I import them via a card reader.
If not, I'm wondering how I can set this up so that I don't have to remember to copy the photos from HD #2 to the EHD. Do I have to use another back up program? If so, any recommendations? Will using another program mess up Time Machine? What am I not thinking about?
I am currently trying to back up my macbook on my Maxtor external hard drive. I already have lots of movies and other files on there which I want to keep. I put these files onto it from my previous windows computer and also formatted my hard drive to fit windows.
Is there any way I can use this disk for time machine but keep all of my existing files? I have heard things about partitions, could this be the solution and how do I create them?
Just got back in to macs yay! they are the best. Anyway, I have a netstore 3500 packard bell external hard drive. I can access it either via ftp or smb no problem. My son has a PC and uses it too, but his pc has the drive mapped I cant seem to do this on the mac.
I want to use it to back up via time machine. Problem is when I turn time machine on it does not find the external hard drive event though I can connect to it, Why is that?
What do I need to do to do this? I have got alot of stuff on the hard drive so would prefer not to format the drive again, plus it took me a while to configure it as im not fab with computers. I am thinking I could some how partition the drive and use part of it for my mac and part for my sons pc. Can this be done without formating the drive?
I have an external hard drive and use it for Time Machine. I have used 401GB out of 465 and want to clear out the 401GB so it will continue to save the latest and greatest on my Mac?
Info:
Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.5)
I have 2 WD External Hard Drive Im trying to copy files from one to the other it wont let me because its read only..
If i Reformat the one with the files so i can copy it using my imac would i lose my files in there?
I have a SimpleTech external HD that I want to reformat from PC to Mac. I went to disk utilities and selected "erase", but it will not erase the HD so that I can reformat it.
I have since attached it to my PC, but do not know how to erase/reformat on a PC (I'm a Mac user that only uses my PC for running specific programs). How can I erase this hard drive and reformat it?
I have been using my Seagate external hard drive for movies on my Windows PC and now I have a MacBook. I want to add more movies from my Macbook to the hard drive but it's read only. I want to drag these movies to the harddrive without loosing what's already on there. Can I reformat without loosing everything?
Info:MacBookPro
I purchased an external hard drive ( a Seagate 2 TB Expansion Desktop Drive) and was told by the MAC rep in the store to perform the following simple task to reformat the disk so I could drag and drop files from my iMAC and store them on the external hard drive:Â
1. Go to Disk Utility
2. Choose the External Hard Drive
3. Select Erase
4. Select MAC OS Extended (Journaled)
5. Click on Erase buttonÂ
Unfortunately when I do this, I get the following error: Disk erase Failed with Error: File system formatter failed? I have Mac OS X (10.5.8)...
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
I will be getting a new mac loaded with Leopard and I need an external hard drive. I am looking for a relatively cheap HD (sub 60 dollars) and has to be more than 200 GB.
Don't care whether it's firewire or usb just need something that works. Also if doesn't have time machine suppourt still list it because I am fine with just dragging and dropping files.
