Back-up to another Mac's external drive

Did you set up proper sharing on the iMac? You must share the external drive volume, then you should be able to access the iMac's ext. drive from the iBook. After setting up sharing (be sure to add user access permissions while you're at it), go to the iBook, just go to Finder and look in the left panel. There should be an entry under "Shared" for the iMac. Click on that, you should be prompted for a username/password, unless you've already added that to the keychain. Once attached, choose the volume, double click it and the icon should appear on the desktop. Now you can open TM preferences and choose that share.

On the mac that has the external drive:

Use system preferences > sharing

Turn on "file sharing". In the panels to the right of file sharing, you define the shared folders and the users with rights.

Message was edited by: pvonk

Hi,

Having the same sort of problems. I want to get my Powerbook to back up to the external drive which is now connected to my new iMac over my home network. After following the advice so far (sharing, etc), it seems to have worked but I'm also having the same problem as above - it doesn't back up to the same folder as it did when the external drive was connected directly to the Powerbook via USB. It has created a new sparse.bundle.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks!

Bishto

Hi - this is a quirk of TM - to stop it making a new back up when you connect an external HD and then connect wirelessly first start backing up over the wireless network and then abort/pause the back up. Then connect the external HD connected to your other Mac directly to the first Mac and continue with the full back up until it is complete. Connect it all up wirelessly again and it will back up without creating a whole new TM file.

Felix - that's what I found I had to do to use TM remotely after several frustrating attempts to back up though if is now working correctly then it seems you don't have to change anything.

I erased the remote back up disc (firewire and connected to another of my Macs) and I started the back up over my network first; then I halted the backup and plugged the drive directly into my Mac and selected it as the TM destination. TM recognised the backup (and that that I was using the same Mac) and picked up the existing backup where I had paused it. I'm told that this is because it can 'see' the correct MAC address in the disk image on the backup disk. It now works and there is only one sparse bundle for that Mac.
Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your advice, which I followed with success. However, having now put it all back together wirelessly, when I go to Time Machine on my Powerbook, it can only go "back in time" to the back-ups that it had made originally before going wireless i.e. it doesn't access the latest back-ups on the new sparse bundle. As you & Felix suggested, does that mean I will have to erase all my older Powerbook back-ups (the ones which were previously created when it was wired to the external drive) and start all over again?? Surely there must be some way for it to access the older existing back up files?

Thanks for your help,

Bishto

(p.s. I take it from your name that you're in Stratford-on-Avon?? That's where I grew up - small world!)

Hi - I am sorry but I don't know the answer to your question. I decided that, as I could not access the TM file I wanted wirelessly (because of the wireless/direct connection issue) it was easier to completely erase the external HD and start all over again. There wasn't anything on the old TM file that I really needed to keep anyway. I could not find a way to access the old TM back ups. I also decided to delete the three partitions I had on my HD and back up several Macs to the same partition as I'd had some corruption/mounting issues which had meant some annoying erase/direct connection hassle several times. This way I know I can't boot TM from the HD but I've got the install disc anyway. I use SuperDuper to back up a bootable version of Leopard to the same disc. That means three different sparse bundles from three Macs (two by wireless) plus an SD clone on the same partition. So far it all seems to work.

Incidentally, and you may already be doing this, you can get your Mac to connect automatically to the Mac with the external HD when you log in, and then everything should happen without your intervention.

Dave

PS Yes I do live in Stratford-on-Avon though really it should be Stratford- upon-Avon. Last year, after the flooding, maybe we should have renamed it Stratford-i n-Avon. Small world indeed.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for all your help. I think I'll have to do as you did & start the back-ups again. I can get the two Macs to connect but not sure they will do it automatically after logging in. How can I do that?

All the best - and watch out for those burst river banks!

Bishto

I assume you have set up sharing on the Mac with the external HD attached (System prefs/Sharing/File Sharing) added the external HD/added the other Mac/set a password and given yourself read/write permission.

On your other Mac connect wirelessly to the first Mac, mount the Mac HD using the correct password (i.e. not just as a Guest) and go to System prefs/Accounts/Login Items and now add the other Mac. Now, every time you log in/boot up, (and provided the other Mac is awake of course) you will automatically connect and TM can do its stuff.

That's all you really need to do - let me know if it works/doesn't work.
Dave

Thanks Dave. I got as far as adding the other Mac in the login items but I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to add. If I just select the Mac itself (under "Shared"), I cannot add it. Do I need to select the external drive which is attached to that Mac?

Thanks, Mark

Mark

Yes it's the external drive you need to add - on my Mac , when I look at my 'log in items' it is the disc called 'Back up' that is selected (make sure that you have given yourself read/write permission on that disc).

To do this I first connected as a 'user' to the other Mac then connected to the 'Back up' disc, then added the 'Back up' as above.

Dave