Time machine ate my homework

My Time Machine latest backup didn't appear and only ones from 2012. I restored from on a year ago cause I had wiped my system and had no choice. I then went into time machine and saw my lat bk up.. Great but why can't I restore the whole drive?? Please anyone

In the sidebar of a Finder window, select the icon representing your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) At the top level of the volume are folders with these names, among others:
Applications
Library
System
Enter Time Machine and select the most recent snapshot, which is behind the frontmost window. Are those folders present in the snapshot?

Similar Messages

  • Time Machine ate two years

    I checked and double-checked before installing Mavericks that all my data was safely on my external hard drive. Now, after installation, I go back and find there's nothing there between November 2012 and when I started the upgrade, two days ago. Is there any way to retrieve all that precious data?

    Just before downloading Mavericks, I thought I was going to have to take my machine into the shop. I trashed all my data, because I'm in South Africa where crime is rife and I didn't want anyone getting into my stuff. I checked Time Machine beforehand and satisfied myself that the latest backup was completely up to date.
    Then someone advised me to upgrade and I did so—stupidly, as it now turns out, leaving my external hard drive connected to my Mac.
    So yesterday, upgrades complete, I entered Time Machine and found no data between just before the upgrade, when all the data had been trashed, and November 2012. This morning, it showed data for a single day in late March, which I immediately used to restore from. I restore the only way I know how: by entering Time Machine, opening the date I want (or in this case, the only one I could find), selecting the item/s I want to restore, and clicking "Restore".

  • Lion ate my Entourage folders. How to import to Mail from Time Machine backup?

    Hello,
    I upgraded to Lion after doing a Time Machine backup.  Entourage is now not supported and I'm up and running on Mail except I don't have my old e-mails that I stored in subfolders.  Many were important/current items that I need, help!

    Ok so after you entered the Terminal command, did you open Finder and see your user Library folder? If so, you should be able to find your Mail folder inside Library. You should then be able to open Time Machine by right clicking the Time Machine icon in the upper right part of your menu bar and selecting Enter Time Machine. Once inside Time Machine you should be able to navigate to your user Library folder then the Mail folder.

  • Time Machine + Aperture = 1 Fried External Drive

    Hi, I'm really hoping someone can help me. Last week, I set up my first TM update on a partitioned LaCie Mini 250GB. One partition was called "Laptop Backup." I had planned to use SuperDuper for it, but decided to use Time Machine instead. The other partition contained videos and images.
    I set up the partition called "Laptop Backup" as the Time Machine drive. Time Machine successfully renamed the partition and changed its icon.
    I started running Time Machine. It was working fine. So I thought I would also put my Aperture library on the other partition on the same hard drive (it was previously on my internal drive).
    I imported all of my photos (thousands of them) from my internal drive and another external drive into the Aperture library. That seemed to work too. So I deleted the copies of the photos elsewhere and quit Aperture.
    When I quit, Aperture said it was still compiling thumbnails and asked if I wanted to let it do its thing. I clicked "OK." Time Machine was still working merrily along at this point, but both Aperture and Time Machine looked they were going to take time to finish the processes they'd started. It was late, so I let them run while I slept.
    In the morning, I woke up to find that Time Machine had gotten hung-up at around 10GB (of roughly 66 GB). I tried canceling the update, and then turning off Time Machine, but nothing happened. Aperture was also hanging. I tried force-quitting the applications, but no luck. So I shut off the drive.
    Since then, the drive has been really sick. It mounts (though sometimes the partition with Aperture on it doesn't mount completely), but Finder, Disk Utility, and even Activity Monitor, causes it to freeze up completely. The partition set up for Time Machine has no reverted back to its original name, "Laptop Backup." From the sounds the drive makes, it seems like it is performing one task again and again. This will continue for about 15 minutes and then it just spins.
    I have repaired the permissions on my internal HD several times. But attempts to repair or verify the external HD cause the system to crash. Likewise, I tried erasing the contents of the partition with the incomplete Time Machine backup, but Disk Utility cannot unmount the disk, and gets hung up.
    I tried opening the Aperture library on the other partition, through Finder, but that caused Finder to crash. It was unable even to relaunch until I turned off the external drive.
    I tried deleting the Aperture preferences file (~/library/preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist, or whatever it is), but there isn't one.
    I can't give up on the drive because all my photographs are there, and I need them for work. I'm really hoping there is something I can do to get at the drive, but I'm not familiar with command-line prompts and such.
    Can anyone help me solve this problem? Many thanks,
    ez

    Ah, thanks. Sorry, I misunderstood.
    Well, that didn't do it either, so I guess the answer to my question is that I'm pretty well f-d. I will try data recovery software. If that doesn't work, I'll find out how much a commercial data recovery service will cost and figure out if 190 GB of irreplaceable data is worth it.
    Thank you both again for your helpful suggestions. I really appreciate your taking the time to help. I'll leave the thread open in case someone reading has a brainstorm, but in the meantime, thank you!
    Apple, if you're reading, this is not OK. I lost huge chunks of my record collection with an iTunes update a few years back. Now I've lost all my photographs and dozens of Final Cut Pro projects, the product of years of travel and work, and I need to tell my boss that the dog ate my homework.
    Too late for me, but could you please take a look at Time Machine and/or Aperture to try to make sure this doesn't happen to someone else? Seems like great, useful software, and for many people, I'm sure it is, but in this case it behaved like malware. In retrospect, my own actions were pretty stupid (loading processes like that, not keeping copies of the data elsewhere), but with a few painful exceptions, my Mac has withstood whatever I've thrown at it, and I got used to that. A temporary fix could be to limit the number of items you can add to an Aperture library at a time, or simply to prompt users to close Aperture before beginning Time Machine.
    Nerowolfe, now that I've pretty much given up hope, maybe you could tell me whatever it was you didn't want to tell me I might have done? And you said that any use of the drive will probably overwrite existing data. I assume this doesn't include using data recovery software on the drive?
    Thanks again, both,
    ez

  • Is it possible to boot or Time Machine restore from an external Thunderbolt disk drive?

    (There are several questions - search for "?".)
    I purchased a Seagate Backup Plus for Mac Desktop Drive 3 TByte with default USB 3.0 interface, and also acquired the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Desktop Drives and Thunderbolt cable.
    I do a redundant backup to the Seagate Drive using both Carbon Copy Cloner (nightly) and Time Machine (hourly) using its Thunderbolt adapter.  BTW:  One never knows when Time Machine will choke - see discussion titled, "UPDATED: Serious Time Machine bug on Mountain Lion", which I had; Rest In Peace Pondini (James Lewis Pond).
    Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from System Preferences -> Startup Disk:
    I select the Time Machine OS X, 10.8.5 Startup Disk (Thunderbolt attached drive), click Restart, confirm my choice, the computer reboots, however, it reboots from the internal Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5, NOT the selected external Thunderbolt drive.  The SSD drive was used as the Startup Drive, not the selected external Time Machine volume as indicated by the display free disk space command (df(1)) and seeing that the Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5 volume is mounted as root.  That is very deceptive in that both the internal and external drives will appear in the same manner from a GUI point of view!  OS X doesn't even inform me that it did not boot off the selected volume.  This is the first half of the problem, that is, Is it possible to boot from an external Thunderbolt disk drive?  In my case, the answer is deceptively No.  Can anybody else boot off a Thuderbolt attached disk drive?  Note that if I remove the Thunderbolt adapter, and attach the drive via its USB 3.0 cable, the MBP boots off the external Seagate Backup Plus just fine, as is expected.
    Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from boot-time "Option - Select startup disk" method:
    When I restart the MBP using the startup Option key to select the startup volume, the externally connected Seagate drive ONLY SHOWS UP if it is attached with the USB 3.0 cable, not when it is attached with via the Thunderbolt interface.  Can anyone else boot off a Thunderbolt drive with the startup Option key sequence?  At least the MBP doesn't deceive me in this case - I know right away that the external Thunderbolt drive is not an option when connected as such.
    Time Machine restore from the external Seagate Backup plus via Thunderbolt interface from the "command-R - Recovery Parition" method:
    After booting from the recovery partition, I attempt to perform a Time Machine restore from the Thunderbolt connected Seagate Backup drive.  When Time Machine attempts to present me with a viable backup Time Machine volume, the external Thunderbolt drive is never offered as an option.  So I switch the Time Machine volume to use its USB 3.0 interface, and then Time Machine displays that drive as an option, and the MBP proceeds with the restoration as expected.  The interesting thing to note is that while booted in the recovery partition via the Thuderbolt cable, the MBP Disk Utility may be selected, and the Thunderbolt attached drive may be operated on just fine.  Can anybody else restore their MBP using Time Machine and the Recovery Partition via the Thunderbolt interface?
    This is also a big problem for me in that I am forced to restore my MBP via Carbon Copy Cloner using the USB 3.0 interface, because I cannot even boot off that volume's Thunderbolt interface.  Of course, the option may be that I could use yet another eternal USB 3.0 drive, boot from it, and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore the Macintosh HD via the aforementioned drive connected by a Thunderbolt cable, but that is less than ideal and not elegant, so I'm not going there.
    Another side issue is that the commercially available program, TechTool Pro 7's eDrive, which I installed on the Time Machine volume, will not boot off that eDrive as advertised, but I won't got through those steps here, because that would be beyond the scope of this issue, however, I must say, It does not work either when the Time Machine volume is connected via the Thunderbolt interface, but works just fine when connected via the USB 3.0 interface.

    If this helps anybody else make a decision about whether to consider Apple because of Apple's superior customer service:
    Apple sells this entire line of drives right in their store, from 1TB to 4TB.  I spent 1 and 1/2 hours, yesterday, confirming that  the 3TB model IS NOT 100% Thunderbolt compliant.  A MBP cannot boot, nor can it Time Machine restore from this drive, though EVERYTHING about the drive is normal.
    Apple's South Coast Plaza store management had at least two responses to me personally about how to proceed:
    1.  Buy a different drive from another drive manufacturer, and to attempt to return the drive to COSTCO.  A lead genius suggested going with GTech drives, for instance.
    2.  Wait for Seagate to fix their problem.
    I told Apple management in the store that the drive is advertised as Mac Compatible (see  picture) and that it is advertised as being a Thunderbolt drive (see picture).  I pressed management that my purchasing decsion to get the best possible MBP Retina was based on the availablity of Inexpensive Devises (raID), and that not having this complete compatibility is a show-stopper for my needs, and that I wanted a refund.  Their response?  They needed to talk with "Merchendising" to see if they are on or off the hook for these kind of 3rd party assertions, and would get back to me.
    I am not holding my breath.
    Note:  I do not hold this against the Geniuses that helped me, nor against the management I've dealt with, nor the upper level engineers that I've corresponded with through Apple Care - their problem solving skills were helpful - although I could have arrived at similar conclusions given enough $$$.  (For instance, try a Lacie TB drive and see if that works - we did, and it did not work.  Or, we have a different TB cable and a different TB adapter, let's try those - we did, and it did not work.)  I blame myself for not doing enough homework before going with Apple's solutions.

  • What do I fix so time machine will recognize the backup file it created on my external drive?

    I use a 1TB Toshiba external HDD (MacOS extended, journaled format) for Time Machine and have had no problems for a year or so. Shortly before my video circuit died and I had to have the logic board replaced, TM stopped backing up with the "backup volume could not be found" error or the "insufficient disc space" error. When I open TM it shows no backup files available. I don't recall making any changes around the time this cropped up, but who knows? Any suggestions on reconecting TM with its old "Backups.backupdb" ?

    Thank you for the pointer. I somehow didn't find all the links to begin with, so mea culpa for troubling folks before doing enough homework. For those bumbling around like me with older MBPs that get new logic boards late in life, the problem is nigh insoluble since the new board looks to TM as a new computer, which it is. Best to borrow another disk to copy the old backup if needed and then to start clean with a new TM backup.

  • My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine.  I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything.  The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago.`

    My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine.  I tried unplugging the cord that connects the HD to the iMac and plugging it back in, but I still get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" below which are buttons for Initialize, Ignore and Eject.  I was using a cord that went from larger square plug to larger square plug.  So then I tried one that went from smaller square plug to what I think is USB (thin rectangular plug) of the sort that connects the keyboard and mouse. It's the type that my printers and scanners use to connect to the iMac.  I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything.  The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago. What else can I try before just trying to initialize and

    Thanks, Michael!  I do hear it at times spooling up and running. Just after I bumped the thread I looked for troubleshooting for this drive online and found the manual which suggested using Disk Utility which I've seen before accidentally (if I hit Command Shift U instead of Shift U to type "Unit" on a new folder for a student's homework ) but had never really noticed.   Disk Utility does see it and also a sub-something (directory?) which might be the Time Machine archives on the disk, called disk1s2), sort of the way that my iMac's hard drive shows up as 640.14 GB Nitachi HDT7... and has a sub-something titled DB iMac, which is what I named my iMac's hard drive.
    Anyway the owner's manual just shows the image under the formatting section, not the troubleshooting section, but as soon as I saw it in the manual I remembered seeing it accidentally a few times, went to it, and am now verifying the disk.  Right now it's telling me that it will take 2 hours to complete the verification, so I guess I have a bigt of a wait.  :-) 
    Does that fact that Disk Utilities can see it mean it's not failed, or just that it hasn't completely failed? 
    I can see the virtue in having multiple redundant backups, or at least two backups. What do you suggest?  Two external hard drives?  I had this one linked by ethernet, and but I also have a cord that could link it by USB (like a printer), so if this one is reparable I could get a second one and link it by USB.  If this one is not reparable I could get two and do the same thing.  I do have an Airport so I suppose it's possible to get some sort of Wi-Fi hard drive (my new printer/scanner uses only the network and not a cable, although it has a cable that I used for the initial installation), but I'd suspect a Wi-Fi hard drive might have a higher price.
    What hard drives, if any, do you recommend? I seem to recall that when I was looking at external hard drives 4 years ago, Apple's were substantially more expensive, which is why I got the OWC Mercury Elite All Pro.

  • Transfer Time Machine files to larger drive

    I've searched the forum but can only find references from 2011 and earlier. I'm suspicious that my problem might be Mt. Lion related.
    I've outgrown my 3TB external Time Machine drive so have purchased a 4TB one. I had hoped to find a 5TB but I guess I'm ahead of the times for that.
    I have the instructions for transferring TM files and followed them to a "t" (formatted new drive, turned off TM, Finder-dragged files from old TM drive to new drive). All went well for the first day; the copying chugged along nicely and in less than 24 hours 1.91 TB (of 2.86 TB) had copied over. That was at about 7pm yesterday. I left it overnight and when I got up this morning it was still sitting at the very same figures, obviously hung. I clicked the "cancel" X in the copy box, went and got breakfast, ate it ... and the Copy box was still thinking about cancelling, so I Force Quit the Finder. I've reformatted the 4TB drive in preparation for starting the copy process again. In the meantime, I figured I'd run the TM backup again so that it's current.
    While I'm waiting for that to finish (I had to start it twice, as the first time the icon stopped spinning after a couple of seconds and just sat there, with the menu saying "Preparing". Now that I've stopped it and started it again, it's behaving as expected and the icon is spinning while it's "Preparing Backup") I thought I'd ask if it's even *possible* to copy so much data in Mt. Lion? I've been reading through some pages found via Google and it appears that Mt. Lion doesn't handle copying very well. Is that true? I'd prefer not to spend another day and a half waiting for a copying process that won't ever complete.
    Is it possible to copy the TM Backkups.backupdb folder a bit at a time? In other words, create an empty folder with the same name on the new drive, then copy the files over a few at a time? I did try this when I had problems going from the 2TB drive to the 3TB drive, back in Snow Leopard, so I don't want to spend a lot of time trying it now if it is destined to fail.
    Any insight into this situation will be appreciated. TIA!

    Linc Davis wrote:
    if I leave the current backups on the 3TB drive and just start anew on the 4TB drive, what would the likelihood be that I could retrieve a file or files from the old drive if necessary?
    100%.
    Absolutely correct! Not that I doubted your reply; it's just that weird things seem to happen to my computer(s) which never happen to anyone else, so I'm pleased to report that yes, I can access the files on my old 3TB drive.
    Now I have another question. I found an old (2008) post in this forum telling me how to use Terminal to release the backups.backupdb folder from Time Machine so I can delete/move files if I so desire. Unfortunately, Teminal tells me "sudo: fsaclctl: command not found".
    The original instructions, posted by Link Dupont in 2008, were:
    "First, turn TM off in system preferences. then run the following in terminal.
    "sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/"Time Machine drive" -d
    "put the name of the Time machine drive in the above. keep the quotes. you'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see). that's normal. the command will turn off the ACLs on the TM drive.
    rename the backup folders for the old computers. DO NOT touch the folder with your current backups.
    turn the ACLs back on with the following command
    "sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/"Time Machine drive" -e
    Turn Time Machine on."
    Is there a new command I can use in Mt. Lion?

  • Cannot open Time Machine restore screen (Star Wars)

    I've got a Late 2006 iMac (amongst others) running Lion 10.7.5 which I backup to a NAS drive and for some reason I can't get into the Star Wars restore screen to access the backed up files. When I select Enter Time Machine it connects to the NAS which is a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo and sometimes it makes Finder the focus application but then nothing. The machine seems to backup just fine, no errors connects and disconnects to the NAS. I thought at first it may be the NAS or the backup set where the problem lay, but I even connected a USB drive to it, again it backs up but will not open Time Machine to restore anything. It is driving me mad all the other machine I have work just fine, and the problem is this one has some homework files for my which I need to recover.
    Thanks in advance.

    PCRinAZ wrote:
    The gray screen with the apple logo appeared then darkened and a message appeared directing to shut down using the power button.
    Is that the one in several languages? If so, that's a *kernel panic.* They're usually hardware, but not always. Disconnect everything, except keyboard and mouse. Reconnect one at a time to see if you can find the culprit.
    If that's no help, disconnect everything again and run the Apple Hardware Test, from the separate disc that came with your Mac. Instructions should be printed on it (in very tiny type).
    If it passes that, you might want to download and run the Rember app, a free and much more extensive memory test: http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/
    more kernel panic info:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1392
    http://www.index-site.com/kernelpanic.html
    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html
    Several tries produced the same results. I then went to a different hard drive and opened applications for the problem hard drive.
    You lost me there. What is the "different hard drive"? A clone? Of the same Mac?
    Which is the "problem hard drive," the replaced internal?
    It appears the restore brought back everything but almost all application icons are grayed out with a slash across them, not third party stuff either but iTunes, Safari, System Preferences, Mail etc. When clicking on them I get the pop up "You can't open the application ____ because it is not supported on this type of Mac"
    This almost sounds like you got PPC stuff restored onto an Intel, or vice-versa.

  • Can Time Machine do a Non-Direct NAS backup?

    I want to be able to use a NAS on my home network.
    The biggest thing for me about NAS is the potential to backup to Time Machine using other people's networks.
    For example, I'll be in my college, which is a couple cities away from my home network... and I'll want to backup.
    Or an even more extreme situation. I plan on travelling to Mexico and will want to backup my homework. Even though my NAS will be in Canada.
    I've been told that too do this I'll need to use a FTP.
    Yet nobody's seemed to talk about having experience actually doing this.
    I know the obvious solution is to carry an external with me wherever I go... but I'd rather just use a NAS.
    Please let me know if you find (or have) any cases where you have been able to backup onto a NAS with time machine while you're not on the same network as your NAS.

    Be very careful here:  just because a 3rd-party vendor claims to support Time Machine doesn't necessarily mean that Apple supports that configuration, or that it will work reliably in all circumstances (many won't).
    Before buying one of these, carefully investigate the following:
    •If you’re planning to use the NAS for other data, in addition to your Time Machine backups, be sure you can partition it (or set up separate "shares" or "accounts" via the NAS, since you can’t with Apple’s Disk Utility), or somehow limit the amount of space the backups can use.  Otherwise the backups will, eventually,  use all the available empty space, possibly leading to conflicts.  See  question #3  for details.
    •Look at the setup instructions.  If there’s any mention of a Terminal command involving "unsupported devices," or installation of drivers or kernel extensions to fool Time Machine into thinking it’s a locally-connected drive, use caution.  These may prevent you from doing a full system restore to a new or replaced internal hard drive.  This is because OSX doesn’t do a full system restore;  it’s done by booting up from your Recovery HD (Lion and later) or OSX Install disc (Snow Leopard or Leopard) and using the the Installer utility on it.  That utility won’t have those additions, and you can't add them to it;  thus it may not be able to connect to your backups when you need them the most.  (See question #14 for details on doing a full restore.)
    •Consider whether the maker is reputable and likely to continue supporting the NAS for as long as you'll be using it.  If Apple changes requirements, will the maker update the NAS so it will work with the new version of OSX?  Many that worked on Snow Leopard didn't work on Lion without such updates.  A few weren't updated for quite a while, and some never were.
    For more on this go to http://pondini.org/TM/2.html

  • Dual Hard Drive Setup and Time Machine Backup

    Hello All, I am about to start a major upgrade to my iMac and I just need a tiny bit of help. 
    I will be installing a secondary hard drive, an SSD into the empty space on my 2011 iMac, and upgrading the HDD to a 3tb. I know this is a big job but I did all my homework and I am ready to go.  Here is my plan and my question:
    1. Do the install. Add the 3tb hard drive in place of the 1tb original and install the ssd.
    2. install mountain lion from disc onto the ssd
    3. start up my new awesomly fast computer, and move the home folder to the 3tb drive so that only the applications and osx are on the ssd
    4. use time machine to put all my data back onto my computer.
    #4 is where my question is. If I use time machine to restore my data AFTER I have moved my home folder to the 2nd drive, will Time Machine function properly? Will it know that some of the data about the system will need to go on the SSD and some will need to go on the large capacity drive?
    This is a very important question, because if it turns out that Time Machine will be confused by this, I will need to just back up my individual files and drop them piecemeal back into my new setup. This would be a huge pain and would make me rebuild all of my system preferences etc.
    Has anyone done this before? Any insight would be very much appreciated!

    Make life simple. Leave your HDD as it is and clone it to the 3 TB drive. Install the 3 TB drive in your computer and verify it starts up the computer. Next, install Mountain Lion onto your SSD. Put the SSD into the computer. Use Startup Disk preference pane to set the SSD as the permanent boot volume. Boot the computer from the SSD. Setup the SSD admin account with the exact same username and password as on the HDD. Open Users & Groups preference pane, click on the lock icon to authenticate. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the SSD's entry in the users list and select Advanced Options from the context menu. On the right side of the Home dir: field is a Choose button. Click on the button, locate the /Users/username/ folder on the HDD, select it and click on the Open button. Close the Advanced Options window and immediately restart the computer.
    You will now boot from the SSD using your Home folder located on the HDD.
    Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
         1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
             button.
         2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
         3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
         4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
         5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
             to the Destination entry field.
         6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
             the Source entry field.
         7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Destination means the new 3TB drive. Source means the old startup drive.

  • HELP TIME MACHINE WIPED OUT MY BOOTCAMP?

    I had this 200 GB hardisk partition & it was my windows 7 partition I installed every application & game I have & also I have had homework & essays their & now time machine used it as a back up!!!! is their any way to retrieve my bootcamp partition as windows!!!!! I used iPartition but it didn't work!
    please help...

    The files are very likely still there and recoverable. However, *it is very important that you do not use the drive until you recover your files* or you risk overwriting the data.
    FileSalvage is a recovery tool that says it can recover files from a FAT32 formatted disk:
    http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
    You could also use a PC file recovery program but I'm not at all familiar with any of those.
    You should report this incident to Apple Feedback and/or telephone them.
    http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

  • Iomega external hard drive either 'not found' by Time Machine or is now in 'read only' format

    I don't know what's going on with my iomega external hard drive.  Sometimes the HD is recognised by the computer; other times it isn't; if it isn't I can restore to an earlier back up via Time Machine app; but it's like the disk isn't writable.
    Ten days ago, I had trouble backing up my iMac using Time Machine.  After turning it off and restarting my external hard drive, it backed up successfully.
    However, today I am trying to back up my files, and TM tells me it can't find the external hard drive.  Nothing has changed -- I have been out of town this past week -- but somehow my HD now seems to be in 'read only' format.  It does turn on, and I could restore my computer to an earlier back up.
    "Mac OS X can't repair the disk.  You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk.  Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
    Annoyingly, despite my HD not showing in Finder or on my Desktop (as it usually does), when I simply turn it off I get that warning message "The disk was not ejected properly".
    Have tried verifying and repairing using Disk Utility, to no avail. 
    Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.  I'm guessing this would wipe the disk clean and I'd have to create the initial back up image all over again -- I'm reluctant to do this since this HD is my only back up and if it all goes tits up I'll be up that famous creek without a paddle.
    Thoughts, suggestions, input all welcome and deeply appreciated -- thank you!

    fzgy wrote:
    "Mac OS X can't repair the disk.  You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk.  Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
    It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app can fix it, but they're expensive (DiskWarrior is about $100), and there's no guarantee it can do it.
    Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.
    That will erase it.  See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #5.
    It sounds very much like the disk is beginning to fail, although it's possible there's a bad port, cable, connection or power supply (if it has its own).
    I'd suggest getting a new one, and using it for your Time Machine backups; once you have a good backup there, reformat the old one (and select Security Options to write zeros to the whole drive -- if that fails, you know the drive is toast).  Use it for secondary backups, per FAQ #27.   If it has failed, get a second new one for secondary backups. 

  • Back up using time machine and external hard drive

    Hello,
    I am having a difficult time deciding the best way to back up important documents. 
    I have:
    1TB internal hard drive
    3 TB external hard drive and
    1TB external hard drive
    I currently have about 1TB worth of data to be stored, but that will increase to about 1.5TB once I get a bunch of stuff off the HD camera's hard drive.  I would like to keep my internal hard drive somewhat free to keep the computer running fast, but also want to make sure I am properly backed up. 
    Should I put ALL (or nearly all) of the files on the 3 TB external hard drive, and have time machine back that up and not worry about the rest? I'm a little weary about putting all of the files on one device even if it is backed up by TM. 
    If I do this, do I need to back up the 3 TB external drive in addition to using TM?
    Thanks!

    iMac11,2
    OS X 10.6.8

  • Can not see historical data in Time Machine backup

    Hi folks
    First my setup:
       MBP Late2012
       Samsung Evo 840 SSD
       external USB 3.0 1TB as TimeMachine HD
       Mac OS X Mavericks
    Now my problem.
    After updating to Mavericks I've made a full backup with Time Machine.
    Then I swapped the former 500TB HDD to the Samsung Evo 840 500TB.
    A clean setup of Mavericks follows.
    After that I restored the Backup from Time Machine.
    Everything ok. Til now.
    Because everthing works fine in the past, I did not control the Time Machine.
    Today I wanna restore a File from my "Pictures" folder.
    So I opened Time Machine.
    Oops.
    There I can only see the latest run.
    Also in the timeline on the right side the only entries are TODAY and NOW.
    I can not scroll into the past.
    All windows behind the current window have a black titlebar.
    In Mountain lion the titlebars are grey if there is data available
    and the title contains the date of the backup.
    What is the problem?
    Is there a bug?
    Did I something wrong?
    Thanx in adv.
          Stoiker

    Hi masong517
    What a treasure trove of hints and solutions.
    I didn't know this page.
    But  you are right with "E2".
    This solved my problem.
    Thank you very much.

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