At my wits end with Time Machine

I had Time Machine running flawlessly over from November right up until February of this year. Then being naive, I never really payed much attention to it, as it was working 100%. I even performed a completed system restore in March of this year. However, since around mid-March, it stopped backing up.
I did notice that it was complaining about running out of space, and it told me it was going to clean up the drive to make room. Pretty much from that point onward, it has not worked. I have even gone so far now as to completely repartition the drive and start clean again. However, each time, the backup hangs at about 1.97GB of 95.96GB. The external drive is 320GB. I have read through the forums, and cannot seem to see what do next (outside of a complete reload of my iMac).
Thinking it may have been a drive issue, took the external drive to my Windows Media Center, and tested it from there copying over 50GB with no issues.
I am not running antivirus software on my iMac, and I even uninstalled Paralells...but no go...
If anyone can provide me with suggestions on what else to try I would appreciate it. Checking the System.log, there are no errors visible....

I have run Disk Utility several times on both the iMac drive and the external drive. No errors are ever reported.
I have since backed up my data to a Windows Server, and reloaded the iMac from the ground up, applied all of the updates, and attempted to start Time Machine again. The problem still persists. Yet this drive will work flawlessly in Windows. There must be something that came down in the last update that broke my Time Machine for some reason.....I have no other explanation.

Similar Messages

I try to backup my Macbook with Time machine, it goes fine and at the end it says that it could not be completed because "/Volumes/Data-2/ MacBook.sparsebundle is already in use".. What is that?!

I try to backup my Macbook with Time machine, it goes fine and at the end it says that it could not be completed because "/Volumes/Data-2/ MacBook.sparsebundle is already in use".. What is that?!

See #C12 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting

Recently my MacBookPro locked up on startup. Could not get past a certain point of progress bar. I had upgraded to Yosemite few weeks back, with no issues. I ended up doing a Recovery with Time Machine and I got all my apps, photos, documents, etc. back o

Recently my MacBookPro locked up on startup. Could not get past a certain point of progress bar. I had upgraded to Yosemite few weeks back, with no issues. I ended up doing a Recovery with Time Machine and I got all my apps, photos, documents, etc. back okay --- except I got error messages that my "registration for Photoshop (I use CS4 Extended) and Photo Mechanic are no longer working". I worked on Photoshop first, and tried (several times) to fix it with their online help suggestions. Nothing worked.
Is there a simpler way to "get my licenses/registrations back"??? I am also going to contact Camera Bits about the Photo Mechanic issues. Thanks

Same problem and for months now. I haven't been able to find a solution, but I suspect that's because I don't know exactly what's wrong.

Help with the error message that ADE is not allowed to copy a book onto my Nook. I have tried authorizing and unauthorizing many times--at wits end with this issue.

Help with the error message that ADE is not allowed to copy a book onto my Nook. I have tried authorizing and unauthorizing many times--at wits end with this issue.

I too am having the same problem. I have a new hard drive that was imaged from the old one and I'm trying to side load a book to my Nook Simple Touch.. I first installed ADE 4 then borrowed and downloaded a book from Overdrive. I tried a few times to delete and reauthorize both the computer and the Nook and each time I get an authorization error when I try to side load the book. I then found on the Nook forum that the Simple Touch and ADE 4 don't get along. So I uninstalled ADE 4 and installed ADE 3.
I then followed this recommended procedure found on the forum: I deleted the Digital Editions folder from my Nook, launched ADE 3 and authorized the computer, then connected the Nook. For a few seconds, hovering the mouse over the setting icon for the Nook displayed everything on the context menu grayed out. But then it showed the context menu and I was able to display the Nook's authorization, which was the same as the computer's. Still get the same error side loading the book. Deleting and reauthorizing doesn't help. And the Digital Editions folder is still missing from the Nook.

At my wits end with BT - can anyone help please?

This is a long and ongoing saga and so I apologise for the long post.
In February due to a change in job I needed to change the payment date of my DD payment. I did this online and received an email confirming the new payment date of the 28th. I stupidly assumed that was the date BT would take payment. The account is only used for Direct Debits and so money is put in there shortly before they're due. Over two weeks before the payment was due I received an unpaid DD letter from my bank. BT had attempted to take the payment early. I contacted BT and was assured my payment date was the 28th and they had no idea why payment had been attempted early. Later that day BT called to discuss the returned DD and I explained it was a BT error. A week later BT attempted to take the DD again. Once again I contacted them to be told my DD was definitely set up for the 28th and "there must be an error on the system" Later that day I received another call from BT to inform me my DD had been returned unpaid and again I explained that it was a BT error. Not trusting BT I cancelled the DD with the intention of making my payment online on the 28th. On 28th Feb before I had chance to make the payment I received a call from someone at BT who was mentioning late payment charges etc. I made it clear that any charges would be unacceptable as the error was down to BT and my payment wasn't actually late. I was asked to make payment over the phone but as it was difficult to understand each other I made it online and gave the payment reference number.
My online balance at this point showed as zero and so I decided against setting up another DD for BT to attempt to take money as and when they pleased. Late March I received a phone call from BT telling me my DD wasn't set up and I had an outstanding balance of £57.75. I explained I'd had a zero balance but it would appear that my online balance was showing incorrectly. The person I spoke to said he could set up a new DD for this amount but as a one off it would come out on the 13th - something to do with making sure payment was made before the new bill came out and it taking X amount of time for a DD to set up. This would be a one off payment and after it had been made I'd be contacted to set up a new DD.
On 20th April I received a call from UK based BT asking did I want to set up my new DD However to do this I would need to pay £120 over the phone. I asked why when I definitely had a zero balance, I'd received no bill and quite simply owed BT no money at that point. I was told there was a problem seeing all the data and somebody would call me back after the Easter weekend. Instead later that same day somebody else UK based phoned me asking me to set up my DD. I explained about the earlier phone call and she was confused as to why I'd been asked to pay anything as I clearly had a zero balance. I set up a new DD with her for £60 a month, payments to be made on 28th, starting 28th May. A few days after this my new bill arrived for £109.
On 5th May my bank called me to say once again BT had attempted to take the DD early but this time they'd attempted to take £109. Once again I called BT and this time spoke to an Indian gentleman who advised me to cancel the DD with my bank while I was on the phone with him, he'd cancel it at that end and then he would set up a new one. He said letters of confirmation would be sent out to me.
I sent an email to BT explaining all this and also saying I wasn't happy that they'd charged me £10 late payment charge on the new bill for unpaid DD. Had BT taken the payment when they should it wouldn't have been unpaid!! A gentleman phoned me back, assured me the £60 a month DD was set up for the 28th starting 28th May. He also emailed me confirmation of this.
On 9th May I received an email saying I had a "supplementary bill" so looked at my online account to see my bill had gone up by about £5. My DD wasn't showing as set up on the online account but I decided to leave it a couple of days before contacting BT. Later that day though I received three letters. One saying my DD had been cancelled as discussed, and two others saying my DD had been set up to be paid 28th of every month starting 28th May for the amount £104!
Before I had chance to call BT someone UK based called me to ask did I want to set up my DD as I had no payment plan set up. By this point I'd more than had enough and told her I had one email and two letters clearly saying my DD was set up and the only reason she'd be calling to ask me to do this would be if BT had cancelled the DD themselves. I refused to set up the DD yet again and she put me through to India based billing to discuss what was happening. I was told a DD wasn't set up on my account, that I couldn't set one up unless I paid my bill in full and that line restrictions are due to come into place on 29th May if the bill isn't paid in full.
Today my BT online account shows no DD set up. However my bank shows the new DD is in fact active. I have no idea when BT will take money, or for how much. I don't know what to do, do I cancel the DD and just pay all future bills in full when they come in and in doing so be penalised by BT for not paying by DD? Or do I just leave it and hope they finally get it right? Bearing in mind I've had two letters saying they're going to take £104 and an email saying £60 I can't see that happening.
It appears not one BT department speaks to the other, half the calls aren't logged and nobody at BT listens to the customer. I have spoken to Ofcom about this and they've advised me to give BT one more chance to sort this out and then go to the Ombudsman. I've just come across the forums and so am giving this a try to see if I can get any joy here.
At some point during all this I spoke to somebody UK based who told me to send my bank charge letters to BT which I have done but as yet have heard nothing in return! I've lost track of how many people I've spoken to and am at my wits end with it all.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

I'm even more concerned now after hearing back regarding my initial post. Apparently any cancellations or changes are showing as done by me using the self help platform on my BT account. This isn't the case. The actions carried out on certain dates listed on the email I received were all carried out by BT over the phone and not myself. I didn't even know it was possible to cancel a direct debit using the BT website. I thought it had to be cancelled at the bank and then a phone call to BT. I was logged onto my BT account while the phone calls were taking place but any action was carried out by BT and not myself.
BT are insisting I have no DD set up. Yet it clearly shows on my bank account that there is an active DD for BT. To confirm that, I've spoken to my bank today who have verified there is most definitely a DD set up to pay BT on the bank account. They've double checked the account number with me and it's definitely for my BT account. The bank are sending me a letter confirming it's an active DD for me to include all other details for the Ombudsman because I really feel this needs fetching to their attention.
To be fair to the person who has replied I have been told I can pay a small amount and set the DD up rather than pay in full or face restrictions. But despite BT's insistence that I have no DD set up my bank clearly states I have. I'm now going to have to cancel the DD that BT are sure isn't active and set it up again.
Incidentally the monthly payments I'm to make are £45 - less than the £60 and a lot less than the £104 previously mentioned! So on one hand I will have a satisfactory conclusion but on the other I have to still cancel a "none existent" existing DD, set a new one up and am out of pocket on bank charges caused by BT trying to take payment on the wrong date. I then have to trust they'll not do the same thing again.......
It's all like a stupid joke that's just not funny.

Problem with Time Machine, running Snow Leopard

Hi all,
Last week I had a new hard drive fitted into my iMac 8,1, after which Snow Leopard was reloaded (10.6.3 from the disc, updated to 10.6.8), followed by the restoration of data via Time Machine from my external hard drive. Whilst my Mac is now running beautifully, I am having problems backing up with Time Machine.
When I run a backup, it prepares about 100,000 items, then starts to backup, usually about 650mb. It crawls along in kb until it gets to about 1mb, then jumps quickly to the end, but then it adds extra mb on the end. Then it suddenly starts again "preparing x items....." and off it goes again.
I have tried repairing the backup disc, and it appears to be ok. I even erased it and started again. Time Machine did a full backup (139gb) in about 2 hours, then immediately added another 640mb at the end - strange, but I do at least have a full backup from yesterday. But now, everytime I run backup, it looks for the same sort of figure (650-700mb) and then goes round in circles.
Any help would be very much appreciated!
Thanks, David

Hi Eric
Thank you for your reply. Here are the screenshots for each change:
Having prepared about 95,000 items, the backup of 612mb begins
14 minutes later a message appears
Another 3 minutes and another message. You will see from this screenshot that the backup figure has changed to 613.1mb
Another 30 seconds and it all begins again....
And finally, 7 more minutes pass, another 96,000 items are prepared, and another 604.8mb backup begins.
I might add, that between posting this morning, and your reply, I also went into disk utility, chose the top leve of the external drive, clicked on the partition tab, charged current to 1 partition, renamed the drive, erased it, and did a full back up of 139GB. After 137GB it started again, looked for 602mb, backed them up and finished the backup, which is why TM states that the last back up was at 18:16 today.
Thanks again
David

Partitioning a disc already in use - for use with Time Machine

I just bought the upgrade to 10.5 Leopard, and I want to use my external disc (LaCie 500GB - a couple of months old) to back up using time-machine. The thing is, I've already been using it to backup manually, and to be sure, I want to keep that possibility.
But when I open TimeMachine, it says it will delete all contents and format my external disc if I want to use it as my TimeMachine-drive. Could I solve this by partitioning it using disc utilities so that, say 150GB's is for TimeMachine and the rest is for manual backup and temporary backup? Or will this delete the other contents I already have on the disc (about 200GB) that I want to keep there?

I had nothing but nightmares with my LaCie 500GB drive and Time Machine. I had it partitioned, and I could never go back to previous backups to restore a file. After finally reformatting the drive back to a singe partition, I got it to work. But then a month later the drive gave out and I almost lost 250GB or my media. DIskWarrior saved that catastrophe. I ended up getting the drive repaired. LaCie would not replace it, even though it was only 3 months old. Other people with LaCie drives have had issues with Time Machine also. I went back to using SuperDuper and doing scheduled backups with a new Beyond Micro drive I purchased. I don't trust this Lacie drive anymore for backups, especially it's partitioned.
-Bmer
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Help with Time Machine Backups not working..

Let me preface this by saying I have spent the last day scouring the internet for solutions to my problem. I have tried every option that I have run across and have had no luck in resolving my problem. As a last resort, I'm turning here in hopes that you can be of help.
I have a 2012 Macbook Pro running Moutain Lion. I use an external HD for my time machine backups. I am having an issue with Time Machine not functioning. The initial error message I receive when I attempt to use TM to backup is: "Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
I searched the forums and net and found several things to do to try and resolve this issue. My computer will freeze out and not let me erase, or re-partition the the hard drive, so I switched it over to an older macbook of my girlfriends and am successfully able to erase, and re-partition the drive (using disk utility) as suggested by several forum postings I have read. I am able to run disk verify and disk repair and both say the disk is "ok" with no issues. The moment the erase and partition is done, her computer prompts a message : "Would you like to use this disk for Time Machine Backups" which tells me it is working properly. When I move it back to my macbook pro and attempt to run TM backup, it will now work and copy about 10g of my 120g before shutting down with this error message:
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Rick's Backup Disk". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk."
If i attempt to re-run TM at that point, I get the original error message:
"Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
If I move the TM back to my Girlfriends computer and attempt to run TM, it will function properly and backup her entire harddrive. When I erase and try again on mine, I always end up back with the same issues. It's clearly something in my macbook that is screwing it up. Can anyone please offer some help! I'd be much appreciative.

rcury4 wrote:
"Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
See #C10 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Rick's Backup Disk". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk."
Not one of Apple's more informative messages.
There's a problem with a file on your system. See #C3 in the above link. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, what you've done, and the results.

Kernel Panic while backing up with Time Machine - now everything is GONE!

I got a kernel panic while i tried to back up with Time Machine....when i shut down the computer, and restarted it (with the external still plugged in, and on), it came up with an error message that said
"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
And my three options were to "Initialize...", "Ignore", or "Eject"...
I didn't hit either of those buttons, i was trying to contact apple for support only to find out that i am just a week past my minimum 90 day telephone support, so i am trying to scrape up enough to order the APP immediately.
However, in the meantime, everything on my external harddrive is gone...Disk Utility doesn't even see that there was once a Partition on that drive, and thus, it is not showing up on my desktop, and there is no information to be recovered...everything is gone.
This is kind of ironic because i was just reading an article about how people are losing their info on their User account after having the Guest Accounts enabled....logged into guest, and back out of guest...
I am a part of one of those statistics because i do NOT have the Guest account enabled at all...
Can anybody else help me with this?

where can i find the panic.log?
I did a spotlight search with no results.
I checked /Library/Logs, and didn't see a panic.log
I also checked ~/Library/Logs and didn't find a panic.log either....i was unable to find anything related to a kernel panic log, or anything.
Could you point me in the right direction for this please? Could it be that i had a kernal panic, and it did not record the log?
So what can i do to correct this?
Disk Warrior didn't detect the drive, and zapping the PRAM didn't correct it either.
I keep getting the error message i posted previously.
I even tried to plug the drive into my old 15" PowerBook G4 running 10.4 tiger to see if i could see the drive appear on the desktop, and i also got the same error there as well.
If i go into Disk Utility, into Partition, i have to create a Partition. There is absolutely nothing on the drive at all. Everything is gone because of a kernal panic - which happened when i was trying to use Time Machine to back up the drive.
I'm 1/2 afraid to do anything at the moment because i want to figure out what happened to the data i lost on my Time Machine backup drive, and how to get it back...at the same time, i'm afraid of losing all my information on my computer as well since people are having issues with the so called Guest Account issue that wipes everybody's user account's information.
Is there another scenario for this, could it be not just Guest Accounts deleting a users home folder, but also kernal panics related to Time Machine, which end up erasing your entire Time Machine backup drive too?
Apple really needs a fix for this and should somehow reward us with something for the unprofessionalism in their own technology.
Message was edited by: tool

Can I do a fresh install of os x to new SSD and restore applications with time machine?

I am upgrading to a new ssd. I have my current system backed up with time machine. Can I install/format (extended journaled) and then recover my time-machine stored application to my new ssd?

"BTW, you should NEVER use the Finder to copy items from TimeMachine. Use the TimeMachine application to recover files and applications."
I don't know how to use the finder to copy files. I am assuming I will be propted to use the TimeMachine application as a part of the clean install from snow leopard ( I am not upgrading to lion as of yet...). I will have my mac os x disk, time machine partition on a seperate external hard drive, BlacX 2.5/3.5 HDD usb docking station and new blank crucial m4 ssd at my avail. save for my wits...

Restore Mac with time machine, consequences for itunes library

Ok, here is the problem, if there is one. (Using SnowLeopard)
(I want to restore my Mac because I want to install Windows 7 as additional OS. However, therefore have to install OS X once more because otherwise partitioning the disc does not work).
I want to set up the computer completely in a new way, but with the help of time machine, so that the computer looks exactly the same as before with the only difference that I will be able to partition the hard drive afterwards.
I am in particular concerned about how Itunes will behave in this situation:
Since I have a very huge Itunes library and it took me a lot of time to create it, I want to be absolutely sure, that it works afterwards in exactly the same way as it does now, that means basically: Not being necessary to import any music into itunes library again, instead the music should appear in exactly the same way as I see it now when I open Itunes with all the artwork etc. This should normally be the case with time machine. But it is getting more complicated now and this challenges me regarding my itunes preferences:
I did NOT go for "organizing itunes library by itunes" + did NOT go for "copying files to itunes library when importing music". THis basically means I use my own structure of folders, some of the music is located extern, same is located on the mac. Itunes work perfectly fine with this preferences until now. Timemachine does only back up the music located on the mac harddrive of course. However Itunes on the other hand can reach the extern music and play it in the same way as the music located on the mac. Me as a consumer, I do not realize when using itunes where the music comes from.
So if I restore my computer and using timemachine to set it up, will itunes still work in the way it works now? In particular will itunes still know where all the different media files are located and that some of them are located extern? I do not want to import 200 albums once more. Otherwise I forgo installing Windows.
I am not exactly sure how Itunes works and how timemachine behaves in connection with itunes (especially with my settings), thus I would rely in your help now. I would appreciate your comments. Thanks for your help.

christian111113456 wrote:
Thanks for the hint.
However, does this safe my problem? When trying to partition my harddrive, it always says that a file has been changed and thus partition is not possible to proceed. So if I clone this harddrive and then reclone it back, woudn't I get the same error?
not if you have enough space on the drive overall. the most common reason for this error is hard drive fragmentation. cloning to an external, reformatting and cloning back defrags the drive as the cloning is done on file level not block level. I thought that's what you were trying to do. doing a full system restore will achieve the same thing as it also defrags the drive. and the end result will be exactly the same if you do a full system restore or clone. why did you think doing a TM restore would work when cloning wouldn't? of course, you need enough free space overall to do it. how big is your hard drive, how much space is used and how big do you want the bootcamp partition to be?

Problems after doing full restore with Time Machine

If I reinstall Leopard and and do a complete restore with time Machine, I have to erase my Time Machine backup drive and do a complete TM backup from scratch because TM will not pick up where it left off doing incremental backups. It wants to start over like it's never done any backups at all. It's a pain because it take me 4 or 5 hours to back up 270 GB. I've had to do this twice so far because once I had a problem with my startup drive and just today I made an external hard drive with leopard and restored all my files via TM.
Is there anyway to get out of starting over from scratch when I do a full restore with TM ?

The following procedure works for me if your restore happens to be from the last backup that Time Machine completed. (I'm not sure if it would work just as well if you restore from an older point in the Time Machine history -- but it certainly should!):
After you complete the full restore (which will force a Restart when it completes), log in and then immediately go to System Preferences / Time Machine and Turn Off Time Machine to prevent any premature additional backups.
Now go to System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy and drag the icons for all your hard drives (including your main hard drive and the Time Machine hard drive) from the Desktop into the Privacy list. This will stop Spotlight indexing of all these drives to speed things up for what follows. You will do the indexing later (see below).
If you have any sort of automatic virus protection active, disable it at this point to speed up what follows.
Then Restart again (to get things into a fresh state), and then immediately do a Repair Permissions for your main hard drive (using Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility). Be patient. This will take 30 minutes or more and the progress bar may not advance until the very end. Do not be alarmed when several hundred notifications come up, as most of them are minor tidying up items, but some are significant. For example, you will see the ownership get adjusted for every help file in every language for every Lexar printer the system knows about (minor). You will also see the permissions adjusted for the root directory of your main hard drive (significant).
And all of these permission and ownership repairs will happen EVEN THOUGH the files you backed up into your Time Machine may have had no such problems. They are, apparently, a result of the method that Time Machine uses to rebuild your file system during the restore.
When the permission repair eventually completes, Quit Disk Utility and Shut Down the computer.
Now reset the Parameter memory (PRAM). PRAM holds copies of certain system settings for rapid access. To do this, hold down the 4 keys Apple-Option-P-R continuously and press and release the power button. When you hear the SECOND startup chime, release those 4 keys. The system will continue to boot up normally. This makes sure the system's Parameter memory is in sync with the System Preferences resulting from the restore you just completed. It probably would have been anyway, but this makes sure. Among other things, this makes sure the system takes proper note of your "computer name" (System Preferences / Sharing) which is crucial to Time Machine's ability to recognize and use your previous backup database on the Time Machine hard drive.
Now log in and fire up Mail to let it automatically finish the restore of its mailboxes by importing the necessary mail lists. Quit Mail when it finishes.
If you have any other, application specific tasks to perform to complete the restore for any other applications, now is the time to do them.
Finally, go back into System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy, select the line showing your main hard drive in the list, and click the "-" on the bottom to remove it from the list. Repeat this for every other hard drive EXCEPT for your Time Machine hard drive. Exit System Preferences. Spotlight will now begin to re-index those hard drives from scratch. Watch this by clicking on the Spotlight icon in the menu bar. Wait for indexing to finish.
Your restore is now at the point where you can let Time Machine do a new backup.
I suggest you Restart again to get things into a fresh state (not truly necessary, but it is what I do). Then go into System Preferences / Time Machine and, at long last, Turn On Time Machine again. Then do a Back Up Now (right click on the Time Machine icon in the dock and select Back Up Now from the pop up menu).
Because of the restore, Time Machine will now do a Deep Traversal of your entire file system looking for EVERYTHING that has changed compared to the last backup on its hard drive (rather than depending on the file system transaction logs as it normally does to make incremental backups happen much faster). The "Preparing" stage for this will take a long time -- about as long as a Repair Permissions pass in Disk Utility. Eventually Time Machine will start transferring files. This will be a backup of significant size because all the permissions repairs you did above, etc., count as changes as far as Time Machine is concerned, not to mention that certain portions of the file system are rebuilt during the restore. But it should be WELL SHORT of actually doing a complete backup of everything on your system. I.e., it is just a particularly large, but nevertheless incremental, backup added on to the previous stuff on your Time Machine disk.
Crucial to this is that Time Machine recognizes the prior database on its hard drive as applying to your computer. Thus the permissions repair and PRAM resetting steps above.
When that backup eventually completes, go into System Preferences / Spotlight and remove your Time Machine drive from the Privacy list. Exit System Preferences and wait for Spotlight to finish re-indexing your Time Machine drive.
Restart once again, just to get things into a fresh state, and then re-enable any antivirus "live protection" stuff you disabled above.
You are done.
From this point on, Time Machine should do "normal" incremental backups, and the previous history of Time Machine backups should be accessible and used by Time Machine just as before.
--Bob
Message was edited by: BobP1776

Macbook backs up with time machine to time capsule, imac won't

I'm going nuts, and have spent hours trying to fix this. My family moved from PCs to macs a couple of years ago- we've got three Macs having varying success backing up with time capsule. 1. Our macbook backs up with time machine to time capsule- it even backed up today. 2. Recently attempted to back up the imac for the first time- it starts backing up (maybe 3%) but stops and I end up getting an error message-it has never backed up- 3. The macbook pro has backed up many times but recently has not backed up. It gets the same error message as the imac when time machine is used to back up to time capsule. As an added treat, i attempted to backup the imac with time machine to an external hard drive, it began backing up, stopped and I got the same error message: "time machine error unable to complete backup an error occurred while copying files." Little help!

dilagan wrote:
i attempted to backup the imac with time machine to an external hard drive, it began backing up, stopped and I got the same error message: "time machine error unable to complete backup an error occurred while copying files." Little help!
Yes, that message is not some of Apple's best work.
Most likely, there's a damaged/corrupted file that Time Machine is choking on. See #C3 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If you're getting a different message from the Pro, see #C2.

Can I replace hard drive with Time Machine backup?

I couldn't phrase this right to see if some already asked. I have MacBook with a 250gb HDD and I have a new 500gb HDD. I bought a USB Hard Drive enclosure and have been backing up with Time Machine. So my question is, can I take out my 250gb HDD and put in my Time Machine Backed Up 500gb, and boot up like normal? Or are there some steps I need to do?

No, you cannot do what you've asked.
What you can do is this.
1) using your install DVDs or an install USB, install OSX on the external 500GB drive. When setup assistant starts, point it to your 250GB drive so all your settings and files get migrated over.
2) now you can swap drives and it should work. Have your install USB handy incase something goes wrong. Put the 250GB drive in your external enclosure so you can access it if needed for a reinstall.
good luck

How does this work with multiple systems backing up with time machine

I was wondering as Apple states that this will do multiple time machine backups as in multiple computers, how does this do this? I am assumng that it will require me to partition the srive in the unit as multiple partitions. 1 for each time computer with time machine running.

I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure how to interpret your answer so I'll ask for clarification.
Do you mean that the backup belonging to each user will be protected by filesystem perms? In other words Alice's backup will be owned by Alice and only readable by her, ditto for the hyperthetical Bill?
I guess in other words, does Time Machine preserve file ownership perms?

At my wits end with Time Machine

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