I have an external hard drive that i use to backup files- mostly from windows and linux machines, and today i defined it to store my time machine backup of my brand new macbook air/ now, i cant get to any of my files on the hard drive and on windows machines i cant even see it(the hard drive). what can i do? why is it all disappeared? those files and backups are extremely important.
Nadav
MacBook
When using Time Machine it checks the format of the drive and formats it for use with Time Machine. If this is what happened the drive was formatted and all your previous data on the drive is gone for ever.
Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support
"If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine,
you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This
erases all information on the backup disk. "
When using Time Machine it checks the format of the drive and formats it for use with Time Machine. If this is what happened the drive was formatted and all your previous data on the drive is gone for ever.
Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support
"If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine,
you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This
erases all information on the backup disk. "
i believe it was NTFS before Time Machine. but im telling you, i was accessing the files both on mac OS and windows OS. now i believe it was formatted to the mac format because windows cant recognize it
were there separate partitions on the drive? one for windows and one for mac? if it was a drive without partitions, then when it was initialized for TM on big sur, TM erased the drive to format it in APFS. unfortunately, that means everything that was previously on the drive is now gone and was replaced with the data from just your mac.
If it was NTFS you were running a third party app like paragon or tuxera on your Mac to access the drive. That has nothing to do with Time Machine. Time Machine can only use a Mac formatted drive. If you upgraded your MacOS then your paragon or Tuxera no longer work.
If you want to use the drive with Time Machine the drive needs to be formatted for Mac. Before doing so, connect the drive to a Windows computer and copy off all the data on the NTFS formatted drive. Formatting will erase all data on the drive.
Windows and Mac use different incompatible formats. If you reformatted the drive to use on your Mac you lost all the Windows created data.
What format is the drive?
im not sure, i can only say that i have used it the same way on both OSs until that time machine backup configuration
is it possible that it formatted it from that time machine menu just like that? can i restore it? i dont belive it
but i wasnt asked to erase it. i didnt get any disclaimer before the action
Tell us what format it is.
external hard drive for time machine backup
