Time Machine thinks backup disk is full but its not

I just purchased a new 1 Terabyte hard drive for backup. In the past I backed up both my internal Mac harddrive (250 Gb with 8gb free) and an external iOmega archive drive (DRIVE H 320Gb with 41Gb free) to a 500Gb Lacie drive. I purchased an iOmega 1 Terabyte drive (DRIVE G) because the Lacie drive was full. I went into Time Machine and changed the backup drive to the G one terabyte drive and did a full backup of my internal hard drive. When I did this I did not have the external H archive drive attached so Time Machine didn't back that up. I did it that way because I wanted to first backup the internal drive then do some work and then go backup the external archive drive over night. I plugged the H archive drive in, so it show up in the finder and then told Time Machine to Backup Now. It started the back up but right after doing the initial computations when it actually started backing up I got the standard error message that "the backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly..." I've double checked that the backup disk is set correctly in Time Machine to the 1Tb G drive and when I do a Get Info on the G drive it shows Capacity: 1TB, Available: 713.54 GB.
Is it possible something is wrong with the new drive? Can I test that?

Its funny how sometimes asking a question can prompt your thinking. As soon as I finished posting this I thought "of course Disk Utility". I ran a check disk and got the following error message:
Unused node is not erased (node = 107)
I did a restore which corrected the error. Turned Time Machine back on and its backing up the rest of my data now.

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Time Machine says backup disk is full

My Time Machine backup disk (FreeAgent GoFlex Drive: 1TB) says it's full. I thought Time Machine was supposed to delete old backups to make room for new backups on an on-going basis. I don't see a setting for it. I'm fairly new to Mac, so forgive me if this is supposed to be obvious. I did see some "expert" in this discussion tell someone to "buy a bigger drive." That's just arrogant and not helpful. Someone else bought a 4TB drive and it solved their problem -- duh! What happens when that's full? Don't need the arrogance, just would like to understand how it works. Thanks.

TM does thining, until you are left with only weekly backups. Then it deletes those backups from oldeset to newest.
However, it WON'T always delete a backup to make room, as this depends on a few particular details, and also it won't delete the only remaining backup.
Your 1TB isn't really that large anymore, so I can somewhat see why even an 'expert' would suggest a bigger drive. Most internal drives around 1 TB these days alone.

Time Machine - The backup disk image.. .could not be created (error 60)

Using an external 2 TB disk for Time Machine for iMac and MacBook Pro, both running 10.8.2. One month ago, upgraded MacBook from 10.5 to 10.8. Three weeks later, Macbook backups started failing. Ran TechTool on backup disk, found much corruption, reformatted it. iMac has always backed up to this disk just fine, but MacBook backups keep failing. LONG "Preparing to Backup" time, then suddenly "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer - Initialize, Ignore or Retry" followed immediately by "The backup disk image "Volumes/Backup2TB-1/MacBookPro.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 60). When I check the TMP file on the backup disk, it's gotten to about 17.9 Mb before quitting.
What could be getting in the way?
Thanks.

Launch the Keychain Access application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Keychain Access in the page that opens.
Select the System keychain in the list of keychains in the sidebar of the window. If you don't see the list, click the down-arrow icon below the sidebar. Then select Passwords in the Category list at lower left. Click the Kind heading in the list of keychain items to arrange it by Kind. Locate the AirPort Disk Password with the name of your Time Capsule. Double-click the item and check the box marked Show Password in the inspector window that opens. You'll be prompted for the administrator login password. Make a note of the AirPort password, then close the inspector window and delete the item. Also delete all other AirPort DIsk Password items for that same Time Capsule, which may have had a different name in the past. Quit Keychain Access and try to back up again.

Time machine says my drive is full, but it's not

time machine says my drive is full, but it's not. it is a 298 gig external drive with 51 gigs available. my internal drive on my lap top (the one I am backing up) is a 148 gigs with 44 gigs available. the backup folder on the external drive is
152 gigs.
how can i fix time machine so it can figure out that the external drive isn't full?

Lisa W wrote:
Thank you both for your replies. Something is seriously wrong with a backup program that needs that much extra space! So much for incremental back ups.
It doesn't, necessarily. We still have no information on what's going on with your situation.
It's a back up for a laptop and I would like to connect it to the backup hard drive once a week or so, but from what I read time machine only works one way... for a computer to have it active all the time.
No. It works BEST that way, but isn't required.
That just won't work for me for many reasons. Most importantly, time machine slows up my computer and I have to leave it off to run my applications.
Then something else is wrong. Again, without any details, we can't help you determine what.
There is no setting to have it turn on in the middle of the night or once per week.
Not in TM itself. But there is a free 3rd-party app that will do this, Time Machine Editor: http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/
It would sure be nice if I could back up when I want. Seems like time machine is just one of those ideas that apple didn't think all the way through.
You can. And TM works just fine for most people. There is something unusual in your setup, or the way you're doing things, that's causing your difficulties.
Let's be clear: if you'd like some help with this, please answer my previous questions and download and post the messages from the wIdget.

Time Machine:The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. .....

Hi,
I upgraded to Mountain Lion when it was released and yesterday I began getting this notice from Time Machine:
"The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. Time Machine will try to make more space available by removing expired backups during the next scheduled backup."
I have a one terra external hard drive with exclusively Time Machine. It says it has 3.4 gigabytes available, but isn't deleting old backups and making room for new, like before. I tried the "encrypting" solution, but it still keeps on giving me this message. Should I erase and format? If so, what option should I chose to format?
My Hard Drive has 240 gigabytes, so 1Tb should be more than enough.
Thank you!
Gloria

SuperDuper and Time Machine are two completely different backup utilities. If you want something like what SuperDuper does then don't use Time Machine. You have many other options that won't use up all the space on your backup drive:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Do the following to erase your drive:
Erase a Drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Time Machine error: backup disk image could not be created

Iet up my new time capsule day and it's working great. Now that I've got everything sorted out, I'm ready to do the initial time machine back up on it. I went into preferences, changed the backup location to my TC and clicked 'back up now'. Very quickly I get a message that the backup failed: "Time Machine Error - The backup disk image could not be created".
I've searched the apple support area but haven't been able to figure this one out. Can anyone help, please? This is an initial backup. (FYI, it worked great on my old external drive.)
Many thanks

I had the same problem. I installed my Time Capsule, fired up Time Machine and got an error that said "The backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 436.8 GB but only 182.2GB are available."
Coincidently, these are the same sizes as the space used and the space available on my iMac's drive.
I looked in /Volumes and saw that the sparsebundle was being created on the local disk and not on the main disk. Trying to backup again gave me the "Time Machine error: backup disk image could not be created." message.
I poked around the forums, and found a post about the machine name setting in sharing. I decided to give it a look, and lo and behold, I did not have a machine name. So I gave my box a name, kicked off Time Machine again, and it worked.

HT3275 Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

My Mac mini time capsule is showing an error Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

I had a similar problem and I solved it as follows -
In Time Machine - > I deselected time capsule Data Disk as a destination.
Then I pulled the power plug on the Time Capsule, twiddled my thumbs for 15 secs, plugged the power back in.
Went back t Time Machine -> Re-Added the Time Capsule Data Disk as destination. And then tested by selecting Backup Now.
All went well and the backup picked up from before the problem.
BTW - I also have a USB drive connected to Time Capsule that is an alternate disk for Time Machine to backup.
In Mountain Lion the GUI lets you add more than one Time Machine backup destinations very easily so I think it a good idea to have redundancy.
Hope this helps.

Why is Time machine saying backup disk disconnected? Using MBP 17" Lion 10.7

Why is Time machine saying backup disk disconnected? Using MBP 17" Lion 10.7

Do you have an external drive connected?
If you do has it gone into sleep mode? There is a setting in the OS to put drives to sleep if they aren't being used. Energy Saver "Put the hard disk to sleep when possible".
Also most external drives have a built in sleep function that if they aren't being accessed for a period of time they go to sleep by themselves.

I got this error while my mac was backing up to time machine: he backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Sanjeev's iMac.sparsebundle" could not be created (error (null)). Please could someone help

I got this error while my mac was backing up to time machine: he backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Sanjeev’s iMac.sparsebundle” could not be created (error (null)). Please could someone help

Has the backup been working ok??
If that is the case simply reboot the TC.. or if that fails, reboot the whole network, restarting in correct order..
modem.. wait 2min
TC.. wait 2min

Imported old computer via time machine into new 2012 macbook pro, but its still running ilife 09 instead of 11?

imported old computer via time machine into new 2012 macbook pro, but its still running ilife 09 instead of 11?

I am assuming you had iLife 09 on the old computer - when you moved everything over, that came along with it.
I also have older versions of iLife (on install disks) and just recently got a new 2012 Macbook Pro. I noticed that iMovie 11, iPhoto and Garageband (I think) are listed in my Mac App Store Purchases with a notation to "accept". So you might want to check MAS to see if the apps are sitting there.
Now, I have chosen not to accept them for now for two reasons: I have iLife 11 on a disk and prefer that rather than having it tied to MAS/Apple ID and as long as I have my disk version installed, I also still have iDVD which I use a lot. I'm not sure if "accepting" those three from MAS would wipe out my iLife 11 installs including iDVD (which would be unacceptable for me). So, since I already have the latest version, I've opted to ignore the "accept" and, in fact, will leave it like that - if I ever sell this machine, the buyer can then accept them if they want with their own Apple ID. So before accepting the apps (if they are listed in MAS), you might want to check to make sure that your iLife install isn't wiped out - that is, if you have iDVD and want to keep it.

The Apple store reinstalled completly the OS this morning on my Mac , I have now to restore the data from the time machine . I have done it but its going on for already 2 hours and it continues ; Shall I wait ? and how long ,?

Question : The Apple store reinstalled completly the OS this morning on my Mac , I have now to restore the data from the time machine . I have done it but its going on for already 2 hours and it continues ; Shall I wait ? and how long ,?

Let it alone. No one can tell how long it will take as that is a function of your data.
Barry

Time machine The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Freedom Book.sparsebundle" is already in use.

I am getting the following error message from Time Machine (backing up to my 3 TB Time Capsule):
The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Freedom Book.sparsebundle” is already in use.
I have no idea why this would be in use, because only one MBP has the name "Freedom Book". Any advice on how to resolve? Running Mountaiin Lion 10.8.1.

I had the same error. I unplugged my TimeCapsule for 5 min from power. Plugged it back in to power then waited 10 min for everything to comunicate again. Clicked on backup now and it worked. Must have froze up or something.

Time Machine Error: Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted

Time Machine was working just fine with Time Capsule for the first two days, then today I got the above error message.
The drive and the backup image both show up in Finder. I can even copy files from the Time Capsule to my hard drive.
I just can't get Time Machine to backup to the Time Capsule, even if I manually hit "Back up now".
Any ideas what I can do to fix this?

I may have fixed this ... I renamed my TC to a shorter name with no space and no apostrophe - just a few letters. That seems to have cleared it up - at least for now. Time will tell ...

Time Machine loses backups after a full restore.

Greetings
(Possibly due to parallels, my Imac was running so slow or hanging. As a result,) I ran a full system restore from Time Machine. It worked well. Then I thought I would try a better restore date and used that. After this successful restore, I now notice that all earlier backups have been deleted/lost - or at least they are not available on the Time Machine,
The only event in between was to add to the time machine a windows based account file.
Imac seems to run OK now, but files from around July to now are missing.

After a full restore, Time Machine may start a new backup. You can ctrl-click the TM icon and +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ to view your old backups. I can't be sure, but you could try to go to TM Preferences and Change Disks to see if you can continue to back up to your old TM folder/sparsebundle. Otherwise, you will have 2 backups now, the old one being dormant, but accessible.

Time machine - "the backup disk image could not be mounted"

SInce a few days, I am unable to backup via Time Machine.
I always get the message:
TIME MACHINE ERROR
The backup disk image could not be mounted
I use an Apple Time Capsule and still have more than enough free space on it.
Use OS X 10.5.5
Help.....
Tks

Rosy,
*_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
*Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
*“Disconnect All Users…”:*
If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule on the left.
Click “Manual Setup”.
Select “Disks” at top of window.
Click “Disconnect All Users…” at bottom of window.
Close the Airport Utility.
Now try Backing up again.
“I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
*Proper Computer Name* #
Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
(0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
Let us know if any of the suggestions above resolves your issue.
Cheers!

Time Machine thinks backup disk is full but its not

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