If you have not done so already, set up your Seagate Central. Open System Preferences and then select Time Machine. Select the option Select Backup Disk. Select your Seagate Central, which will be TM BACKUP from the list of backup options. If you have not done so already, set up your Seagate Central. Open System Preferences and then select Time Machine. Select the option Select Backup Disk. Select your Seagate Central, which will be TM BACKUP from the list of backup options. Some Seagate external drives, such as the FreeAgent Go for Mac and FreeAgent Desk for Mac, come formatted in MacOS Extended format, which is supported by Mac OS 8.1 and later. Others, which come formatted in NTFS, need to be reformatted in MacOS before you attempt to store data on the drive.
Use Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, to automatically back up your personal data, including apps, music, photos, email, and documents. Having a backup allows you to recover files that were deleted, or that were lost because the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac needed to be erased or replaced. Learn how to restore your Mac from a backup.
Create a Time Machine backup
To create backups with Time Machine, all you need is an external storage device. After you connect the storage device and select it as your backup disk, Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full.
Connect an external storage device
Connect one of the following external storage devices, sold separately. Learn more about backup disks that you can use with Time Machine.
- External drive connected to your Mac, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive
- Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
- Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
- AirPort Time Capsule, or external drive connected to an AirPort Time capsule or AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac)
Select your storage device as the backup disk
- Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Or choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
- Click Select Backup Disk.
- Select your backup disk from the list of available disks. To make your backup accessible only to users who have the backup password, you can select “Encrypt backups”. Then click Use Disk:
If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine, you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This erases all information on the backup disk.
Enjoy the convenience of automatic backups
After you select a backup disk, Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you. The first backup may take a long time, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster.
To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of a backup or skip a backup in progress.
Learn more
- Learn about other ways to back up and restore files
- If you back up to multiple disks, you can press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.
- To exclude items from your backup, open Time Machine preferences, click Options, then click the add (+) button to add an item to be excluded. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the remove (–) button.
- If using Time Machine to back up to a network disk, you can verify those backups to make sure they're in good condition. Press and hold Option, then choose Verify Backups from the Time Machine menu.
May 12,2020 • Filed to: Hard Drive Recovery • Proven solutions
Seagate is one of the best largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. With seagate hard drive, you can store your important photos, music, videos or any other files and you can take them to anywhere and you can access them whenever you want. Although using seagate hard drive is convenient, it is still common to meet many problem when you use it. Some Seagate users reflect the situation that when they use the Seagate disk, it is crashed suddenly, then they lost all the data saved in hard drive. Or the users delete the necessary files by accident, it is really terrible, but it is not an inextricable problem. You are lucky here to learn to recover files from Seagate external hard drive easily and completely.
Part 1. The Best Program for Seagate External Hard Drive Recovery
Many people choose to divide their Seagate external hard drives into different partitions and this could apply to your case. In this case, your mac will see the storage device as different disk drives, each with the ability to format and erase data as well as recover it. Using the Recoverit (IS) for Mac, you will just need to specify the drive letter of the partition that holds the data you wish to recover.
Recoverit (IS) for Mac
A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!
- It is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating system.
- It supports a large number of storage device type including hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, etc.
- All major types of files can be recovered including music, images, video, documents, emails, and archives.
- It has a deep scan features for in-depth scanning of the hard drive for searching files to recover.
Working with Seagate file recovery on Mac is straightforward. You will need to plug your device, make sure your mac recognizes it and then launch this Seagate data recovery installed in your Mac (macOS High Sierra supported) to begin the Seagate hard drive recovery process.
Part 2. Seagate External Hard Drive Data Recovery on Mac (macOS Sierra, macOS High Sierra, and macOS Mojave)
Step 1 Install the Program
How To Backup Mac With Seagate External Hard Drives
Download and install the program on your Mac. Run Recoverit (IS) for Mac.
Step 2 Select your Seagate External Hard Drive
Choose your Seagate hard drive that detected by the program and click 'Start' button to begin scanning the lost files.
Step 3 Recover Seagate Hard Drive Lost Files
In the scanning result, choose the file you want to retrieve and select an output folder to save the files to be recovered. Just make sure you didn't store the recoverable files to the original disk in case they are overwritten permanently.
If your wanted data are not included in the scanned results, don't worry, you are allowed to do the 'Deep Scan' by clicking the 'All-Around Recovery' option at the lower left corner. It will look deep into your drive to search your wanted data, taking more time yet.
Part 3. Tips About Seagate Hard Drive Data Recovery on Mac
Take precautions not to alter the drive letters of the different partitions on your external hard drive before and during the recovery process. You should also ensure that the drive has adequate power. If it uses two USB ports for power and connection, then make sure you plug all the connection cables into your mac. Lastly, you should stop using the all the partitions in your external drive for ordinary file storage or retrieval. Any subsequent disk writes before after the data loss but before the data recovery process limits the option of getting your lost data back.
Secondly, you should stop using the all the partitions in your external drive for ordinary file storage or retrieval. Any subsequent disk writes before after the data loss but before the data recovery process limits the option of getting your lost data back.
Find External Hard Drive Mac
Lastly, the best way to keep you important data safe is always making a backup on your Mac or other storage media. This way will not only avoid data loss the most but also saves you money to recover lost Seagate data.