stirling-dad

Q: time machine failure/replacement questions

I have an old time machine that's been failing, and I'm going to  buy a new drive. When I get the new drive:

  1. how do I format it?
  2. is there any advantage to making it be bootable?
  3. if so, how would I make it be bootable?
  4. is there any way to copy the contents of the current time machine drive to the new drive? The old drive time machine drive is 500GB, and I don't hae 500GB free on my system drive. Should I just disconnect the old drive and connect I only if I can't find a file? By the way, 500GB drives don't seem to be available anymore. The smallest drive available now is 1TB.
  5. Is it possible that the time machine failures I've been having are with the tine time machine software, not the drive? I'm running mountain lion. I don't want to upgrade OSX, because I don't know if any applications will break.
  6. the reason why I ask question 5 is that when the drive fails, I turn off the mac, unplug/replug the time machine, turn on the mac. It's possible that booting the mac is enough, and I don't need to unplug/replug the time machine. Thoughts here?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jan 6, 2016 5:36 PM

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