Q: I just backed-up with an external hard drive for the first time but my user profile with my folders for pictures, documents, and movies are not there
Hello,
So I finally got an external hard drive. I formatted for Mac (the device was verified as being ok), and then it started to do a backup, which said a full backup would take 95GB. However, it only backed up 19GB. When I 'opened' my backup drive, I saw that only the "Macintosh HD" was backed up, not my User Profile with all my folders containing documents, pictures, movies, etc...
I'm quite confused, because I thought it would backup everything. I am planning on upgrading from Snow Leopard to El Capitan, but if something goes wrong or I don't like it, I'm afraid I won't be able to Restore all my personal folders - but just the applications located on my Macintosh HD.
Should I delete everything in my backup drive and try again?
This is an image of what is inside my external hard drive:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Serial# W8******X85
Posted on Sep 22, 2016 6:11 AM
FYI for anyone who went through what I went through!
This issue is now solved.
After upgrading to El Capitan, I saw there was a difference between FileVault (in El Capitan) and "Legacy" FileVault (found in Snow Leopard). "Legacy" would not allow the backup of my Home Account folders onto the external drive because Legacy FileVault, itself, saved those encrypted files.
Now that I have turned OFF "Legacy" FileVault, and turned ON "FileVault" (that is current in El Capitan), I did another backup and this time, ALL of my personal files/folders located in my Home Account were saved onto the external drive.
Posted on Sep 24, 2016 6:35 PM

