Backing Up Laptop AND external hard drive using Time Machine

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Level 1

8 points

Backing Up Laptop AND external hard drive using Time Machine

Hi,

I have a 2tb external hard drive that I use to store all of my pictures on. I have another, larger external hard drive around 5tb that I want to use to backup both my Macbook, as well as the 2tb external hard drive with all my pictures.

I follow the steps that I found online, where you make sure to include the external hard drive in the Time Machine backup. However, each time when the backup is completed, I eject the hard drive with the pictures and look into the Time Machine, and I do not see my pictures external hard drive anywhere. Any idea why this is? my last pictures hard drive failed me, and although I thought it was being backed up, it wasn't and I had to pay to recover the files.

Posted on May 9, 2020 3:05 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Bob Timmons

Community+ 2024

Level 10

169,892 points

May 9, 2020 5:34 PM in response to jannik177

OK, thanks for checking on that.

Close Time Machine if it is still open

Eject the hard drive that is connected to the Mac

Open Time Machine again and give it a few minutes to load

Go back a few days using the timeline on the right of the window

In the Time Machine Finder window, look on the left side panel for either the Locations heading or if you have have an older Mac it might read Devices

Click on the name of your Mac under the Locations heading

When you click on the name of your Mac and look over to the right side of the window, you should see several drives.......Macintosh HD (your Mac) and the name of the other drive (the external drive)

Click on the name of the external hard drive to select it

Click the gear icon at the top of the window

Click Restore To and another Finder window will appear to allow you to navigate and select a destination to copy or restore the entire contents of the external drive to

You can also click to open the external drive and see the contents of the drive

If you only want to restore a few items, you can select them to highlight them, then click the gear icon and click Restore To to navigate and choose a destination for the data to be copied to

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Answer 2

May 9, 2020 3:16 PM in response to jannik177

I follow the steps that I found online, where you make sure to include the external hard drive in the Time Machine backup. However, each time when the backup is completed, I eject the hard drive with the pictures and look into the Time Machine, and I do not see my pictures external hard drive anywhere.

First thing to check is whether or not the drive is visible in Time Machine

Keep the drive connected to your Mac.....(Do not eject the drive)......

Open Time Machine

Go back in time a few days using the scale on the right hand side of the Time Machine window

Can you "see" the drive using the Finder when Time Machine is running?

If yes, can you open the drive to see the contents of the drive?

If yes, check a few other dates to see the drive in Time Machine

Post back on your results and we will continue. If all is well so far, we will tell you how to "see" the drive in your Time Machine backups when it has been ejected from the Mac.