switch Timemachine HD and take files?

[Sannekita]

Hey guys,
I want to change the harddrive timemachine will use to backup my stuff. Also, I want to use the old HD for something completely different, so I want to move the files that are already on there to the new HD too.
Will it do to just copy the 'Backups.backupdb' folder to the new harddrive? Will timemachine be able to read it again?

Thank you

 

[blodwyn]

Will it do to just copy the 'Backups.backupdb' folder to the new harddrive? Will timemachine be able to read it again?

No. To do this you have to clone the drive to another drive. You can use Disk Utility to do this.

Here's a hint how to do it.

 

[Sannekita]

must say... I hardly understand anything that article says... it doesn't really have a clear working method on how exactly the disk utility would do this?
Can anyone explain?

 

[PeggyD]

Make sure both drives are connected & then launch Disk Utility. Click on one of the drive names in the left column (the main drive icon, not a sub-icon) & click the Restore tab across the top (far right). Then drag the icon of the older/smaller drive to the Source field & the icon of the new drive to the Destination field & click Restore. I found it worked best with Erase Destination checked, which is not a problem with a brand-new drive. When this is done copying & verifying (at least 2-3 hours!), the new drive will have the same name as the old drive.

Then rename the old drive & then open the Time Machine preferences & make sure it knows to use the new drive.

 

[BobZune]

The simpler method is to start a new full backup of the (internal) disk with the new Time Machine drive (using "Change Disk" in TM system preferences) and verify the files are backed up. This process will take a while depending on the size of the system disk you are backing up -- I suggest doing this overnight.


Then you can reformat the old TM drive and use it as a generic (non-TM) drive.