Repeated failure when time machine files moved to bigger drive...

We are trying to copy our Time Machine archive to a bigger drive. We have done this before a couple of years ago using CarbonCopyCloner and had no serious problems. Tried it this time and it was not successful*.
We have tried this again by following both versions of Apple's directions on moving our TM archive on an external drive to a bigger drive: drag the backups.backupdb from the old TM drive to the newly formatted larger drive OR use Disk Utility's Restore to clone old to new. Both took about 2 days to copy the 1.4TB via FW800. It again was not successful*.
* By "not successful" what I mean is - the files copied over fine. Disk Utility verified the disk(s) were fine. I kept the name of the new drive the same as the old. When I turned Time Machine back on and verified that it was using the external archive disk I could go into Time Machine and flip back to to files archived almost a year ago - as expected. After TM ran for a while one of two things happened: either the entire archive was replaced by only the current files (eg: the history was nuked) OR or it errored out saying there was not enough space on the new drive (3TB - the previous one was 1.5TB) even though the drives being backed up totaled 1.4TB - as if the old archive was still there (but not visible) and a new one started.
I recall seeing a post somewhere a while ago concerning trouble moving a TM archive to a different drive and the solution was to delete a couple of invisible files, but I can not find it now.
In the spirit of Full Disclosure, more has transpired than just moving the TM archive to a different drive. The Mac was changed - though its name remained the same. Also the OS went from Leopard to Lion.
In more detail, the previous Mac was a 1st generation PowerMac G5 2x2 running Leopard with 1 System & 3 data drives (thanks to a Jive5 bracket and SATA cards) and an external Time Machine drive. The new Mac is a top-end Mac Mini Server running Lion. The data drives have been moved to external FW800 cases (awaiting ThunderBolt). The TM drive will be on USB2.
[As an engineer, I understand that this should have been done one step at a time so as not to throw too many parameteres up in the air at once, but when you get shiny new hardware it's sometimes tough to hold back...]
If no solution is forthcoming, it would not be a huge tragedy to keep the old TM as a backup backup and just start anew. It just rankles me that following directions does not yield the desired result.
Message was edited by: Notary Sojak

I wanted to use the new one for Time Machine and iTunes. I stupidly did not partition it.
I know it's tempting to want to use all the vast space on a large drive your not using, the problem is when your hardware fails, it takes both backup partitions with it when it goes.
Have multiple copies of your personal data on separate hardware, in separate locations, using easily accessible means and maintain two copies of your personal data off the machine at all times.
Your at that stage where you need more options than TimeMachine provides, you might want to consider cloning.
With cloning you could have just cloned the entire drive to another one no sweat, also you can access the files directly from any computer, Mac, Windows or Linux machine. Plus you can boot from cloned drives and do other things, like data recovery etc.
Most commonly used backup methods

Similar Messages

Cannot delete Time Machine file from external hard drive

Hello,
I'd like to delete my original Time machine file from an external hard drive ( Lacie mini ). I move the file into the trash bin and it constantly "deletes". At one time I left it deleting overnight and the file still wasn't trashed.
I am going to hook up Time Machine to a different, dedicated external hard drive, but I'd like to gain space on the drive that Time Machine is currently on.
I currently have Time Machine turned off ( I do have everything backed up with my home folder on another external HD ). Should Time Machine be turned on for me to trash the file? Is there a better way to delete the file?
Much thanks in advance.

V.K. wrote:
... the best and the quickest way to delete it is to erase the TM hard drive....
But what if a person doesn't want to erase the TM drive? My MacPro came with tiger installed, but since tiger-intel-retail discs don't exist, my copy of tiger is what i have. I was all manner of foolish directing TM to that drive, but damage is done. What can someone in my position do?

Deleting time machine files off external hard drive

Can someone please help me?? I stored my time machine backups on an external hard drive which is now full because of time machine! I just want to delete the time machine files so I have space again on my external drive. Can anyone please explain how to delete this? Nothing seems to be working.

Can someone please help me?? I stored my time machine backups on an external hard drive which is now full because of time machine! I just want to delete the time machine files so I have space again on my external drive. Can anyone please explain how to delete this? Nothing seems to be working.

Transferring Time Machine File to larger hard drive

I have a time machine backup on a 250 G hard drive and would like to transfer that file to a 1 T hard drive. When I connect both hard drives to the MacBook Pro and try to transfer the very large file from one drive to the other it stops part way and hangs up. I think it tries to put the whole file on the MacBook Pro and there isn't enough space. Is there a special copy program that can handle a file this large?

see if this user tip helps: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/18.html.
JGG

Time machine remembers moved or dead drives

Hello. I've been having a hard time wording this in typical searches, to get appropriate answers.
Here goes: I have a older Mac Pro with four internal drives. One drive, my boot drive, failed.
I had been using an external drive for my Time Machine backup. On that backup, I had included a lot from the other internals.
Once I had isolated the problem (the internal was dead or dying) I made room on one of the other internals by moving things around- condensing to allow for a Restore to one of those three remaining drives, temporarily, as I planned to buy a new internal and a larger external.
Suprisingly, it went great! I ended up with a perfectly restored boot drive with all my Apps, etc.
Now the problem:
When I turned Time Machine on, intending to create a newly restored version of my boot drive---to the new drive I just purchased, TM had a stored list of items that were spread out among the other drives, but I had moved these items all around.
I'm afraid to run TM at all now, not knowing how to tell it to ignore items, volumes, even drives; and restore only the boot drive with its applications etc., and not the various other items that were in places that no longer exist.
If this makes sense, and anyone can advise me, I will greatly appreciate it.

David Kerman wrote:
I just restored the first drive. My system drive. I keep all of my work on the other drive except for itunes, iphoto, and iweb. I initially restored from my latest backup. Same OS. No changes.
When you restored the second time, from an earlier backup, was that the same version of OSX?
I didnt do anything about my second internal drive. The mail message was just saying "welcome to mail" and then everything was okay. But this was still a scary sight. I didn't do anything crazy in the terminal, however i did used the CS3 Clean scripts from Adobe and I think that was the real cause of all this misery.
I don't know what that is or does, so can't advise on that.
Should i just restore EVERYTHING on both drives?
If you restored an earlier version of OSX, but had data in a newer format on the other drive, yes.
If the version of your boot drive that you restored has the Adobe applications, and the data was on the second disk, perhaps. Depending on what the "Clean Scripts" thing did, you may now have a similar mismatch.
If you're concerned about Spotlight indexing, don't be. Time Machine automatically omits some things, such as system workfiles, most caches, trash, and Spotlight indexes. So Spotlight will normally re-index a restored drive.
I don't know about the Quickview and Preview problems. What, exactly, is happening there?
OH, and yes. I just read that article. I did everything it said, however I ONLY backed up the first drive. Not the second
Do you mean you don't have backups of the second drive, or didn't restore it?
If you do have mismatches between the two drives, you may need to restore one (or both) again so they're from the same time.
and I was getting a ton of SUID permission errors that couldnt be fixed.
Are the SUID errors the ones shown here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448 If so, you can ignore them.

Restoring time machine files from unmounted external drive

Help please..
I have a time machine backup I need to restore. It's a backup from an external drive that has failed.
When I go "enter time machine," I can't see the contents from the external drive anymore to restore it.. because the external drive isn't mounted. It's not mounted because it has failed. I can see when I browse the TM backup directly via finder there are files from the amounted drive in the backup... as I'd expect.
So... How do I restore drives from an unmounted external drive?
Do I need to buy a new drive and name it the same as the old drive? Then will it show up?

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

How do I move time machine files from one external drive to another?

My original external drive isn't big enough. So I've bought a second larger one. How do I move the earlier Time Machine backups from Ext Drive #1 to Ext Drive #2 so I can access my full history, and leave Drive #1 for other backup items?
Ext Drive #1= SimpleTech 120 GB
Ext Drive #2= WEstern 500 GB

When you are ready to pass the 320GB drive on, I would format it. That will make the entire drive available to him to use as his TM. I would be sure that each drive has a unique name so that there will be no confusion for TM as to which computer goes with which drive. If you want to start fresh with the 500GB drive, I'd format it as mac-extended-journaled. When you connect it the first time to your computer, you will be asked if you want to use it as your TM. If you are not prompted to select it as your TM, you can configure TM by opening system preferences, click on TM, click on "change drive" and choose your new drive.
Another choice is to follow the steps in my previous response for restoring your current TM to the new drive by booting from a Leopard start up disk and accessing Disk Utilities from there so you can restore the drive. It is essential that the new hard drive is the exact name as the old TM hard drive. In this last scenario you would continue adding to your current set of backups.

Move Time Machine files from old TimeCapsule drive to new TimeCapsule

My old 1TB Time Capsule died from bad power supply. I replaced it with a new 3TB Time Capsule and started backing up.
I removed the hard drive from the broken 1TB Time Capsule and put it in a new hard drive enclosure. Now, I'd like to add the old Time Machine backups to the new Time Capsule, and use the old drive as an external hard drive.
How do I make that transfer and merge the new and old backups into the new Time Capsule?

You cannot merge backups.. you should have copied the backups and then continued using them.. and of course you can still do that. But you have to do it from scratch.
IMHO you are better retaining the old backups as an archive.. say for 6months.. beyond that you are unlikely to need them.
There are details here of how to copy the TM backups.
http://pondini.org/TM/18.html

How can i RECOVER a time machine file from the trash

I hope someone can help me... I have spent hours and hours reading forums but none that have addressed my problem.
My daughter gave me her old backup drive. She also has a MAC so she had Time Machine backups on the drive already. I started backing up onto this drive about a year ago. Backups have been done now for a year or so. Last night I got the message that I was running out of space so I looked at the drive and realized that her backups were still on the drive so I moved them into the trash. Then Time Machine wouldn't work anymore and I realized that not only did her backups get moved but all of mine did as well. I need the backups because after I upgraded to Mavericks many of my photos dissappeared from iPhoto. These are photos that I can't recreate - I sell jewelry and take pictures before I send the piece out. Everything is one-of-a-kind so it's very important for me to get these back. I realize now that I never should have moved the backups into the trash as I will have a problem deleting it once I separate her backups from mine but I will deal with that after I figure out this problem.
Is there anything I can do to move the backups back from out of the trash and into Time Machine again? (BTW - I don't know which version of Mavericks I have - I have done all available updates so I assume it is 10.9.3)

As long as you don't delete the trash, the files should be recoverable.
I suspect using the Put Back command could take a long time, so be patient.
If your Time Machine backups are mixed with your daughter's backups you might want to buy a larger drive and move the Time Machine files to the new drive.
Regarding missing photos in iPhoto...There might be options to rebuild/recover that data from iPhoto rather than trying to revert to a Time Machine backup.
Check out this third party app, iPhoto Library Manager. It has a demo.
http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/
Options for a larger drive.
I like the Seagate USB 3.0 Backup plus drives. Works on USB 2.0 ports. They come formatted for PC but easy to format in Disk Utility.
I don't recommend Western Digital because of the boot problem with some of their drives.
LaCie makes good drives.
All Mac formatted drives will cost more and it’s easy to reformat with Disk Utility. Do not use the software that comes with the drives. It’s recommended that you use Apple’s Disk Utility.
Prices vary but this gives you an idea of what you’ll find. As you notice the second and third TB is usually only $15 more per TB. Normally, you’ll find these prices but right now the 1T is more than the 2T
Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB USB 3.0 $85
Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB USB 3.0 $99
Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB USB 3.0 $115
I have seen the 3T on sale for $99.
Locally, Best Buy seems to have the best prices.

Can I transfer Time Machine Backup from WD Hard Drive to Time Capsule?

I have a Western Digital 500 Gb. Hard drive and recently purchased a 500 Gb.Time Capsule which, at the moment, am using only for the AirPort feature. I would like to use Time Capsule for my Time Machine backups and use the Western Digital drive as my Aperture Vault. Is there a way to move the Time Machine file from the WD drive to the Time Capsule drive so that I don't lose the old files? My Time Capsule is connected to my iMac via an Ethernet cable.

Unfortunately, no. Time Machine will backup to a local drive (e.g. via USB or FW HDD) using a folder structure. When backing up to a NAS (e.g. Time Capsule or USB HDD connected to a TC or Extreme), TM utilizes a sparsebundle. You cannot easily convert a folder structure to a sparsebundle. The best plan is to start a NEW backup to TC. Connecting via ethernet is highly recommended for the initial backup.
P.S. You can still access the old TM backups until such time that you want to reclaim the use of the HDD.

Finder Freezing when time machine back up files

I've an 24 aluminium iMac. The finder often freeze (once a day at least) and I noticed that this is often when Time Machine is backing up files.
It's impossible to relaunch the finder and sometimes other mac apps are freezing (preferences etc..). On the dock I can still see that the finder and the apps are active but in fact there are frozen and it is not possible to force quit.
Then if I shut down the computer through the apple menu it doesn't work and the only solution is to shut down manually my iMac with the back button.
Be that as it may it is less frequent since the iMac last software update (graphic card) before everything on the screen was freezing.

I have a 1tb and 540 tb Ultramax Harddrive to support my Mac Pro G5. I originally bought the 650 when the G5 was running Tiger and it worked without fault on a 800 firewire. I partly purchased this model of drive as they advertised its extendibility. When time machine was announced I purchased a second 1tb version and installed the two drives running daisy chained by 800 firewire and they worked fine. Maybe 2 weeks after installing Leopard which had caused me problems because of the application enhancer i was not ready to use time machine so declined to switch it on.
After a few weeks and after the 650 had dismounted itself i started to find after waking from sleep the mac was frozen. There was no way out other than switch it off on the front switch. I later discovered that on powering down the 650 ultramax I could recover my processes but at the danger of corrupting the drive by not removing it properly. As I tried to work out an exit strategy to save data on the 650 I got a system warning to say the Ultramax was beyond repair and was available only to recover files. Eventually it started hanging after a few seconds so i had no choice but to lose data and reformat the drive. That failed and having already contacted Iomega support for advice with little support they eventually agreed the drive had become damaged and agreed to replace the unit.
With the new unit I expected the problem would be gone.. but it was a matter of hours before the symptoms re-emerged, not as bad as before they seemed to allow other apps to continue to run and work it just disabled the finder so i could open an application from recent apps but not through a finder window and if i asked it to open or save a file it would lock the application so much not even a three fingered quit would solve the problem it would close the app in the finder but in the close app window it would remain listed as not responding.. the only way to recover use of the mac was to power off the ultramax almost on loosing power all hanging functions would re-emerge sometimes i needed to switch the mac off.
I decided to risk setting time machine on and although it worked it hung on the first back up and ever since I have woken up the mac as i run a very eco friendly power management policy I would find the hang accompanied by time machine backing up.
I am sure time machine is part culprit in this problem although i cant work out why only the 650 suffers I have tried taking it off firewire and moving to usb and it still does the same....
Any ideas or pointers to an answer of any sort would be welcome

HT201250 i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. do i keep my files in the portable hard disk when I connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will era

i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. Am i keeping my files in the portable hard disk when I will connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will erase all?
I would like to know if after I erase all my data, empy hard drive inside the macbook, the time machine will erase all my files that I have saved in my "WD "My passport" external hard drive

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine has to erase the external disk in order to make backups. Before setting Time Machine up, copy the files of your external disk to the hard disk of the Mac in order not to lose them, and then, set up Time Machine. The first backup will start automatically.
If you want more information about Time Machine, read the Pondini's site > http://pondini.org

When Time Machine is backing up files, I can't work on other apps

When Time Machine backs up files, I am not able to work on other apps such as Safari. I try to cancel the back up but nothing happens. Then the rainbow-colored wheel appears and I can’t do anything. I have turn off the computer and the external hard drive, restart both and log in. After this happens, I see that Time Machine is no longer backing up anything and I am able to continue work on Safari. What is happening? Should I quit Safari before Time Machine starts backing up files? Please help. Thanks.

to ssis6:
I guess this is something that happens once in a while because Time Machine is backing up files now and I am able to work on Apple Discussions and reply to your post. I just wonder if in addition to your explanation, there is any other explanation as to why what I described happens. Thanks for your help.

HT4413 When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, only some files and applications and setting are transferred, not all of them. In my latest back up I have them all. How can I fix that?

When migrating from time machine to a new hard drive, not all is transferd, only partial documents, applications , settings etc. How can I migrate the latest back-up with all the content.

sohs wrote:
When migrating from time machine to a new hard drive, not all is transferd, only partial documents, applications , settings etc. How can I migrate the latest back-up with all the content.
If you want to use Time Machine to recover the contents of one of its a backups to a new drive, follow the instructions in Mac OS X 10.6: Recovering your entire system. Note that you must select the "Restore System From Backup" option from the Utilities menu of the Installer disc to do this.
Also note that if you are transferring files to a hard drive to be used with a different computer, you should use Migration Assistant instead. This intentionally will not copy everything because some settings, applications, etc. are not compatible computer-to-computer. Migration Assistant will copy everything that is.

When using Time Machine, if I delete items from my computer, will they still be backed up to access later on my external hard drive? In other words, when time machine backs up again, will it delete the files from the back up?

When using Time Machine, if I delete items from my computer, will they still be backed up to access later on my external hard drive?
In other words, when time machine backs up again, will it delete the files from the back up that I have deleted from my computer?

No, I do not believe so. Time Machine would keep all those now-deleted files in previous backups, and as time goes by those backups might be deleted if you needed room, but it would still keep one backup from each day in last month, as well as one from each week forever, as long as you don't start running out of room, then just the oldest would be deleted to make room if needed.
I use a backup drive about double the size of my drive to be backed up, so I would guess it will never get to the point where deleted files being replaced by new ones being backed fill up that drive to the point where backups actually have to get deleted.

Repeated failure when time machine files moved to bigger drive...

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