Time Machine - Set Up Help

Discussion in 'macOS' started by HelixOmnimedia, Oct 29, 2007.

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  1. HelixOmnimedia, Oct 29, 2007

    HelixOmnimedia macrumors 6502a

    HelixOmnimedia

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2006
    Location:
    Traveling The World
    #1
    Hey,

    Can someone help me set up Time Machine...

    I've run into a problems and I don't know what to do, only fear of loosing all my media files are stopping me from clicking continue.

    I click Time Machine, it asks if I want to set up - I click 'Set Up Time Machine' it takes me to 'System Preferences' I click "Choose Backup Disk..."
    By this point my Western Digital 500GB 'My Book' is plugged in.

    I click Backup Disk... and it shows: "My Book (reformat required) 387.3 GB"
    with the option to 'Cancel' or "Use For Backup".

    What should I do?
    I don't want to do anything that is going to loose/delete all my iTunes Movies/TV Shows (and other files) on the external drive, and I don't have enough room on my PowerBook to move the files off the drive and then let it do its thing.

    HELP
    Thanks
     
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  2. xBerserker, Oct 29, 2007

    xBerserker macrumors member

    xBerserker

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2007
    Location:
    Earth .. for now
    #2
    I've had the same issue and sadly there isn't a easy answer. You do need to re-format the hard drive. I deleted enough off my external hard drive until I could move it to my iMac. Then I formated the external HD and then moved it all back.

    One thing that I do NOT like about time machine is not being able to delete stuff from the time machine back up file on the external hard drive. Very stupid I think. I can see the reason for it, but give us a option to delete if we really want to. I use that hard drive to put a lot of videos on. Man good thing you can exclude folders from time machine.

    I download videos and then convert them, so I would have all these videos left over if I let time machine back up that folder.
     
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  3. xBerserker, Oct 29, 2007

    xBerserker macrumors member

    xBerserker

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2007
    Location:
    Earth .. for now
    #3
    I found something that might allow you to delete stuff off the external hard drive.

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=4408240&postcount=5

     
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  4. MrMoore, Oct 29, 2007

    MrMoore macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2006
    Location:
    Arlington Heights,IL
    #4
    What is the format of the external drive? Time Machine will ask to format the drive if it is not in HFS+ format. Normally, external drives are formatted in FAT format to allow both Windows and Macs to read them . When I connected my MyBook (320MB), Leopard asked if I wanted to use the drive for TimeMachine and then requested to reformat the device. HFS+ format is required for the way TimeMachine tracks changes through hard links which are not capable through FAT.

    If you want to use the drive as a TimeMachine drive, you would have to back up you data to another source, convert the drive to HFS+, then copy the files back. Of course, you mentioned you do not have the space, so I am not sure how you could do this unless you could copy it to another Mac with space. Sorry :(
     
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