Restore data in external drive using Time Machine

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Level 1

4 points

Restore data in external drive using Time Machine

Hi y'all!

I store my photos in my external drive as there isn't enough space in the internal storage. This is actually my second external drive as my first one (Adata HE720) failed early last year. Sadly, my WD Elements has ceased to work and I can't restore the data using Time Machine as the drive is nowhere to be found in Time Machine under devices, and I'm pretty sure that I restored my photo library and many other files from my old external drive using Time Machine.

Can anyone tell me how to get my old files back? I have a lot of other important data in there including my photos and I do not want to lose them. I am pretty positive that Time Machine allows me to get the data as it's the point of it.

Thank you in advance!

P.S. if you guys have any recommendation on a reliable external drive, please do tell me!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Jan 2, 2016 9:47 PM

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Answer 1

jerryroundel Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 5, 2016 7:13 AM in response to jerryroundel

Alright guys, I've found the problem.

It turns out that I never went to Time Machine's setting to unselect my external drive to be excluded from the backup; therefore, there was absolutely no copy being made while Time Machine ran. I really don't understand why Apple made this the default behavior, but it is what it is.

So, people, do not forget to go to Time Machine Preferences and make sure you remove the external drive that you wanna backup under options. Once you do, you can enter Time Machine and your drive will show up under devices.

Cheers.

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