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backing up a back up hd
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OK, let's try going through this one more time.
You have an external drive that is showing signs of failure, but still can boot the Mac sometimes. If this is the case, be aware that there may be some sectors of the drive's platter surface that have "gone bad". That would mean that the drive can't read those sectors, and thus can't produce the files.
Trying to do a "finder copy" of a drive that is having read errors due to bad files will be an exercise in frustration, because if you try to copy many files, and if the finder encounters even just one "bad" file, it will abort the entire process -- but give you no idea as to WHICH FILE was the bad one.
If you want to copy the failing drive to a "good drive", you need CarbonCopyCloner.
DO NOT keep messing with the finder (or terminal).
When CCC clones a drive, if it encounters one or more "bad files", it will KEEP RIGHT ON GOING. It doesn't abort. Instead, CCC will log the bad file, and keep trying to clone the good ones. At the end of the process, I believe that you can access CCC's log file to ascertain which files didn't copy.
So, what you need to do:
1. Boot up the Mac from the failing external drive and hope for a good boot
2. Prepare a GOOD external drive by erasing it with Disk Utility. Choose "Mac OS Extended, with journaling enabled".
3. Open CCC.
4. Put your source (the bad drive) on the left
5. Put the target (the good drive) to its right
6. Accept CCC's defaults
7. Click the clone button
8 See what happens next.
This will be my "last advice" to you on the subject.
Either try it -- or keep flopping around like a fish out of water...
I will give this a try today! Thanks!
Why would I boot from the failing ext drive tho?
Also, it was a TM back up so I’m not sure if TM makes the back up a bootable drive.
I have 2 macs.
1 that I use and set it up as a new MacBook. I didn’t transfer anything from the old Mac.
My goal is to obtain all the data from the old Mac somehow.
Since my new Mac has 2 USB ports maybe I can connect both the new ext hd and the old dying ext hd and Use CCC on the new Mac to copy the two ext drives?
"My goal is to obtain all the data from the old Mac somehow.
Since my new Mac has 2 USB ports maybe I can connect both the new ext hd and the old dying ext hd and Use CCC on the new Mac to copy the two ext drives?"
Why don't you just hook up the old (dying) ext HD to the MacBook and see what you can get from it? Have you tried that?
I know very little regarding Time Machine other than the fact that I have no interest in fooling with it.
However, if you handed the drive to me and said "see what you can get from this", I think I'd try this:
1. Connect the TM backup to the MacBook
2. Open Migration Assistant
3. I would choose to migrate over your OLD account and data (from the iMac). I WOULD NOT migrate apps, or settings. Only the account.
4. Then I'd leave it alone for a while, and see what MA could get from it.
5. If the account "came over", then there are other things that can be done to "merge" from the old account to the new one. But first things first.
If that ran amok, I would do this:
1. Connect both the TM backup and the new ext HDD to the MacBook
2. Use CCC to clone the old backup to the new ext HDD
3. Then I'd try connecting the new ext HDD to the MacBook and repeat the migration (as above).
Since my new Mac has 2 USB ports maybe I can connect both the new ext hd and the old dying ext hd and Use CCC on the new Mac to copy the two ext drives?"
Why don't you just hook up the old (dying) ext HD to the MacBook and see what you can get from it? Have you tried that?
I know very little regarding Time Machine other than the fact that I have no interest in fooling with it.
However, if you handed the drive to me and said "see what you can get from this", I think I'd try this:
1. Connect the TM backup to the MacBook
2. Open Migration Assistant
3. I would choose to migrate over your OLD account and data (from the iMac). I WOULD NOT migrate apps, or settings. Only the account.
4. Then I'd leave it alone for a while, and see what MA could get from it.
5. If the account "came over", then there are other things that can be done to "merge" from the old account to the new one. But first things first.
If that ran amok, I would do this:
1. Connect both the TM backup and the new ext HDD to the MacBook
2. Use CCC to clone the old backup to the new ext HDD
3. Then I'd try connecting the new ext HDD to the MacBook and repeat the migration (as above).
Okay so I connected both and tried to run CCC but it failed. CCC said there was an error with the drive. So CCC isn't able to copy it as well. damn dont tell me i am **** out of luck! how can 2 of the damn drives die that are for the same back up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bs!