I have a G4 with two hard drives and I needed additional storage for my photos. I purchased a WD2500JB from NewEgg that they sell in an external enclosure. It connects by USB. I was baffled about how to move all those files. I contacted NewEgg and they had to do some research with a Mac savvy person and then told me to drag and drop. When I try to drag and drop that many large files, it wants to take 40 hours or so to complete the task and freezes up before its done. Western Digital said it was designed to be an internal drive and could not tell me how to do it. My friend says to buy Retrospect (an additional $80-plus dollars). Ridiculous! I am embarrassed that I don't know the first thing about this. But I have been researching forums and the language people use is Greek to me. Can anyone help me get started with this very challenging task? I would really appreciate the help.
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How do I back up on my new WD
- Thread starter RenderBay
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Are your photos located in iPhoto? If so, you should just be able to drag-and-drop your "iPhoto Library" from the "Pictures" folder into the hard drive.
However, you said something similar to this was causing problems. You could try it again. I would recommend that you have a full system backup anyway, so, I would use a free program like Carbon Copy Cloner (see link below) to set your "source" as the drive with pictures and files and the "destination" as the new drive. This will copy everything over (including the pictures). You'll also get a full system backup (important to have). Note, that this will take several hours to complete - USB is not particularly fast for long-duration transfers, Firewire is superior.
Carbon Copy Cloner: http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Note that, if you decide to use Carbon Copy Cloner, Spotlight will try to index it (which is kind of a pain). I would recommend that you go into "System Preferences", then to "Spotlight", then to "Privacy", and add your new backup drive to the exclusions list.
However, you said something similar to this was causing problems. You could try it again. I would recommend that you have a full system backup anyway, so, I would use a free program like Carbon Copy Cloner (see link below) to set your "source" as the drive with pictures and files and the "destination" as the new drive. This will copy everything over (including the pictures). You'll also get a full system backup (important to have). Note, that this will take several hours to complete - USB is not particularly fast for long-duration transfers, Firewire is superior.
Carbon Copy Cloner: http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Note that, if you decide to use Carbon Copy Cloner, Spotlight will try to index it (which is kind of a pain). I would recommend that you go into "System Preferences", then to "Spotlight", then to "Privacy", and add your new backup drive to the exclusions list.
Carbon Copy Cloner
Thanks. No, I use Photoshop exclusively and I forgot to mention I have some photos already stored there. Additionally, my boss wants me to back up all my files on the new hard drive. I am petrified.
I downloaded CCC and supported configurations says "HFS + formatted partition or hard drive (excluding volumes used for Time Machine)" How do I know I have an "HFS + formatted partition or hard drive?"
Thanks. No, I use Photoshop exclusively and I forgot to mention I have some photos already stored there. Additionally, my boss wants me to back up all my files on the new hard drive. I am petrified.
I downloaded CCC and supported configurations says "HFS + formatted partition or hard drive (excluding volumes used for Time Machine)" How do I know I have an "HFS + formatted partition or hard drive?"
No need to be scared.
Carbon Copy Cloner would be your best bet. This will backup all your files - pictures, everything.
If you are using a Mac, then 99.99% chance it is HFS+ (that is the standard OS X formatting). Your external drive needs to be formatted as well (might as well make it HFS+, unless you need it to work with Windows computers).
To format the drive, attached it to the computer, open the "Disk Utility" located in the "Utilities" sub-folder of your "Applications" folder, select the external drive from the source on the left, select "Erase" and set the "Volume Format" as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" - this is the HFS+ format we were talking about before. Now that the drive is formatted, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner as discussed in the previous post I made.
NOTE! Formating the external drive will erase everything on it. Make sure you are selecting the external backup drive when you use Disk Utility.
Thanks so much! I excluded my destination disk from Spotlight, formatted it from Disk Utilities and began copying my files over with CCC.
I expect the results I was looking for because of your help. I didn't have a clue. Thanks again.
Signed,
No Longer Petrified
I expect the results I was looking for because of your help. I didn't have a clue. Thanks again.
Signed,
No Longer Petrified
How do I format NEW BU hard drive for sharing with Windows?
I went back and found this past thread where you helped me tremendously. I was able to do what I wanted because of your very clear instruction. I have an additional question. A co-worker gave me a 500G hard drive from his office so we could store all photos in one central location.
One thing that makes this tricky for me is that I am the only Mac user in the office and this hard drive for photos will be on the network shared by Windows users. You said in a previous post "If you are using a Mac, then 99.99% chance it is HFS+ (that is the standard OS X formatting). Your external drive needs to be formatted as well (might as well make it HFS+, unless you need it to work with Windows computers). To format the drive, attached it to the computer, open the "Disk Utility" located in the "Utilities" sub-folder of your "Applications" folder, select the external drive from the source on the left, select "Erase" and set the "Volume Format" as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" - this is the HFS+ format we were talking about before."
So when I am reformatting this hard drive (it needs to be erased anyway), how should I format it so that it will work with Windows computers and my Mac?
I went back and found this past thread where you helped me tremendously. I was able to do what I wanted because of your very clear instruction. I have an additional question. A co-worker gave me a 500G hard drive from his office so we could store all photos in one central location.
One thing that makes this tricky for me is that I am the only Mac user in the office and this hard drive for photos will be on the network shared by Windows users. You said in a previous post "If you are using a Mac, then 99.99% chance it is HFS+ (that is the standard OS X formatting). Your external drive needs to be formatted as well (might as well make it HFS+, unless you need it to work with Windows computers). To format the drive, attached it to the computer, open the "Disk Utility" located in the "Utilities" sub-folder of your "Applications" folder, select the external drive from the source on the left, select "Erase" and set the "Volume Format" as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" - this is the HFS+ format we were talking about before."
So when I am reformatting this hard drive (it needs to be erased anyway), how should I format it so that it will work with Windows computers and my Mac?
If the drive is shared via the network then those Windows computers will not directly access the drive. They will "talk" to your Mac and your Mac will access the drive. Keep the drive HFS+, they will never know.
However if you were to share files by physically plugging the USB drive into your computer, moving files there, then connecting the drive to a Windows PC where the files are read. Then you would have to use a format that is understood by both the Mac and the PC. The lowest common denominator is FAT32. It's not a great format, even Microsoft has moved to something better but it's common to both OSes and still widely used.
Thanks but what about this ...
I cannot leave it formatted the same and just trash the files that are on it because when I try to trash them, it says I do not have privileges for that.
If that is not a good idea, I use 10.4.11 and I have six options in Disk Utility: Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Mac OS Extended, Mac OS (Case sensitive, Journaled), Mac OS Extended (Case sensitive), MS-DOS FileSystem, UNIX File System.
I cannot leave it formatted the same and just trash the files that are on it because when I try to trash them, it says I do not have privileges for that.
If that is not a good idea, I use 10.4.11 and I have six options in Disk Utility: Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Mac OS Extended, Mac OS (Case sensitive, Journaled), Mac OS Extended (Case sensitive), MS-DOS FileSystem, UNIX File System.