Automating backup to a disk image

I've been playing with Automator to create a backup of some files (Safari Bookmarks, AddressBook items, etc). I was able to create a workflow that involved selecting these items, copying them to a folder, and then zipping that folder up. That worked fine, but I wanted to use a Disk Image instead, so I recreated the workflow as:
Get Specified Finder Items (The Disk Image) >
Open Finder Items (opens the Disk Image) >
Get Specified Finder Items (The Files) >
Copy Finder Items (copies to the Disk Image) >
Upload Files (Transmit, uploads the Disk Image to my backup server).
The workflow is failing on Copy Finder Items (to the disk image).
The msg is "Couldn't create: /Volumes/MacbookProUserBackup/MacbookProUserBackup.sparseimage"
I have already crated the disk image, and it mounts in the workflow fine, it's just for some reason Automator won't copy to it.
Anyone have any ideas?

I would first create a blank disc image large enough for what you need. Mount the disc image on your Desktop. Use the Restore option of Disk Utility to clone the TM backup to the mounted disc image. Do not use simple copy for this.
Note that the largest disc image with which you can work is a dual-layered DVD that can store about 9 GBs. If your TM backup is larger than this then you cannot put it in a disc image. But you can clone the backup to another hard drive.

Similar Messages

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    Message was edited by: zurc

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  • Time Machine error: Disk image could not be mounted

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    baltwo wrote:
    Your profile info indicates that you're running Tiger. If so, post to those forums. If you're running Leopard, update your profile info. What are you trying to protect and from who? Is your computer secure?
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    What am I trying to protect? I thought I put it in the first line - statements from banks and credit cards.
    From whom? From unwanted entities who may get access to my computer, in any way.
    I didn't get the part about the safe. Can I or can I not back up an encrypted disk image to an external drive "as is"? What about possibly opening it up on another computer? And how about putting it on a FAT-formatted disk? I repeat my original questions, but for a reason - they seem to have not been answered.
    I do not have auto-login, and I remember my strong login password. I don't have my root account enabled. Under this scenario you think my data is going to be secure? What about if someone were to get control of my computer? Forgive me on this one, I am a switcher so there is a general paranoia about such things which I would like to clarify before reorganizing my life.

  • Can windows backup to a TC image

    This has been touched on in several threads but I'm still not sure of the answer. If one makes two disk images on the TC, can one be used for the mac with Time Machine and the other by a windows machine for backup? If so any caveats?
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    Likewise, I'm interested in the same question, but for a different reason: backing up to a NAS. Since a disk image gives you a nice virtual HFS+ partition, it seems a lot less suicidal than trying to shoehorn a Time Machine backup into whatever the NAS's native filesystem happens to be.
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    But it's almost impossible to find this information on the Web -- Googling for this topic results in a bunch of noise about Time Machine's sparsebundle images. I managed to find one similar thread:
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    But that thread, like this thread, so far doesn't have any solution.
    I'm going to try to copy an existing TM backup to the disk image and see if that works. Will post again later, and hope that someone might have a solution someday.
    Incidentally, if all you want is encryption, apparently you can get an encrypted TM backup by manually creating the sparsebundle file and turning on encryption. See the parent thread to this comment:
    http://www.macosxhints.com/comment.php?mode=view&cid=98733
    Anyway, let's hope someone might have a time-machine-inside-a-disk-image solution someday...

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    Hi there. I have a question regarding Automator and Encrypted disk images. I've put together a workflow that grabs files in my home folder. My home folder is utilizing FileVault. I'm grabbing things like my iphoto library, documents folder and such. On an external usb drive I've created an encrypted disk image about 100GB. My goal is for the automator action to "successfully" mount > copy > unmount the encrypted image.
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  • I am having issues with Time Machine. Error message "The backup disk image could not be created.

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