Done right, it would appear that there should be no problem using the same external drive partition for Time Machine backup for 2 different Macs. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My problem is that some backups are in the wrong folder. What I should see in column view is: TM Partition>Backup.backups.db>MiniLion>a few folders (it's new) ***************************************>G4Leopard>folders dating to last June (500+ GB in all) What I see instead is ALL of the far right folders in the MiniLion folder and none in G4Leopard. So when I'm using the G4 now, of course, entering Time Machine for the purpose of restoring is useless. There's nothing there. I don't understand exactly how it happened, but do know that when I was setting up the mini, I didn't see the option to name the computer before migrating files from the G4 clone. Before I did get to naming the mini, a Time Machine backup had already run. The mini hijacked all the backups somehow. Maybe you can explain it. I can't, not entirely. Anyway, I thought the obvious solution was to either rename the TM backup folders or move the G4 backups into the G4Leopard folder, but this was not allowed. In attempting the latter, I selected the option "Authenticate" from a dialog box only to get a message that the operation couldn't be performed (error -1426). I had the bright idea that changing permissions might allow me to do what I wanted. Long story short: Not recommended. As I was thinking that maybe I could live with having to recover (TM) something on the G4 through the mini, I discovered that I couldn't enter Time Machine at all with the mini! I ran Disk Utility and had it verify and repair the TM volume (lots to repair, took a long time). That's where I stand now. Haven't checked if I can enter TM with the mini. Any thoughts? Worst case, I just erase the TM partition and start over, maybe even repartition the entire external HD to accommodate separate TM partitions. Won't kill me. But it seems silly that I can't simply rename or move folders to correct this problem. Thanks. Sean A Sawtooth and a Gig-E running Leopard 10.5.8, and a new Mac mini running Lion -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
