Basic Time Machine Troubleshooting
If you use Time Machine to backup your Mac to an external hard drive, here are some basics that you can check if backups are no longer occurring.
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All about keeping your data safe and in more than one place.
How To Backup Your iPhone or iPad
Backing up your iPhone or iPad is important because it permits you to recover all of your applications, personal data including photos stored on the device. It also allows you to recover text messages and call history on the iPhone. Apple provides two ways to backup your iPhone or iPad and I typically recommend using both methods.
Read moreExtra iPhone and iPad Backups Waste Hard Drive Space
Your Mac may be storing extra iPhone and iPad backups. If so, they are wasting hard drive storage space. Here are instructions on how you can easily view a list of all iPad and iPhone backups and remove the extras.
Read moreBackups Don’t Exist Unless You Test Them
This week’s Tech Tip is a cautionary tale. Backups Don’t Exist Unless You Test Them. This adage may not make immediate sense to you, but let me explain. It is extremely important to test your backups by actually restoring one or more files. If you don’t know that you can successfully restore a file from … Read more
Manually Delete Time Machine Backups from a Hard Drive
Is your external backup hard drive full of Time Machine backup data? In last week’s Tech Tip, we talked about how Time Machine automatically deletes your oldest backups to make room for new backups. Time Machine typically does this, but I’ve seen it misbehave also. Alternatively, you might want to manually delete some of your old … Read more
What To Do If Your Time Machine Hard Drive Is Full
Has your Time Machine backup hard drive filled up? Are you seeing the “Time Machine deleted one or more backups to make room for new backups” notification? If so, don’t worry. This is perfectly normally and is probably just fine. Let me elaborate and explain.
Read moreCheck The Health of Your Mac’s Internal Hard Drive
Hard drives are the component of a computer that fail most often. Every hard drive will eventually fail. This is why it’s so important to backup your Mac’s hard drive. It’s also prudent to periodically check the health of your Mac’s internal hard drive. I recommend two applications for this purpose: Onyx (free) and SMARTUtility (free … Read more
Data Recovery Using Stellar Phoenix Macintosh
A few months ago a representative of Stellar Data Recovery contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in reviewing their product Stellar Phoenix Macintosh, a data recovery application. I was happy to oblige. At long last, here’s my assessment.
Read moreHow To Restore a File from Your CrashPlan Backup
Here are instructions on how to restore one or more files from your CrashPlan online backup archive. The instructions work for both CrashPlan and CrashPlan Pro. In my opinion, an untested backup system is next to useless. Only by testing it do you know for sure that your backup system is working properly. By testing it, … Read more
Data Recovery Options for Mac Users
Do you need to recover files that were deleted from a Mac’s hard drive? Here’s a quick overview of three options.
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