Transferring Time Machine backups from external HD to another

northern · Jun 30th, 2009, 06:06 AM

Hi,

Just recently a cable for my external hard drive broke (covered by warranty but they have to send away the whole apparatus). Conveniently I have the same external HD at work so I could borrow a functioning cable to transfer my files. What is the best way to go about transferring the Time Machine data to my new external HD? I won't receive it until after I hand over the old one, which means I need to put the data in some intermediate space for a bit. I would really appreciate any guidance... I have this not-so-wonderful knack for breaking anything electronic just by looking at it.

Cheers,
Northern

IllusionX · Jun 30th, 2009, 11:18 AM

just back up to the new TM drive. unless you have critical data that you have to retrieve from the old back up? if so, do it now, and so a fresh back up.

monokitty · Jun 30th, 2009, 11:23 AM

Time Machine backups are non-transferrable as far as I know. If you move the backup from one drive to another, TM will not use it and will start all over again from scratch.

Gerbill · Jun 30th, 2009, 04:01 PM

According to the Shirt Pocket Web site, you can clone Time Machine backups to a different drive.

SuperDuper!

monokitty · Jun 30th, 2009, 05:05 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by Gerbill
	According to the Shirt Pocket Web site, you can clone Time Machine backups to a different drive. SuperDuper!

Keyword: Clone.

(Super Duper, Disk Utility, etc.)

If you manually drop and drag TM backup folders, this will not work.