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Q: backing up the back ups! ?

I have had a failed hardrive and now have a very precious time machine back up on an external hardrive. I want to back up this back up on another external while I wait for return of my laptop (afraid the external might fail itself) but am getting an ownership error message. How do I back up time machine back ups themselves? Thanks!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Oct 1, 2013 2:04 PM

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6 replies

Oct 1, 2013 6:15 PM in response to katieclarn

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.

Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. All existing data on the destination volume will be erased. That shouldn't be a problem, because you don't want to mix backup and non-backup data on the same drive anyway. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

Q: backing up the back ups! ?

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