Can not connect to Time Machine back up file after restore

After receiving my G5 iMac back from the Apple Store I had to restore from my Time Machine backup (they had to erase the hard drive). The backup seemed to go fine until it hit the "Network settings." It froze there for a couple of hours. Everything else seemed fine. I quit the back up and restarted my iMac and it seems to be doing fine. I did notice that some of my shareware programs need to have their keycodes re-entered and when I open up a program that has not run since being restored I get that warning window telling me that it is opening an application for the first time.
But here is the main issue...Time Machine doesn't recognize the previous back up file. I do not want erase the current file to start over...just in case something didn't get properly restored. I much rather just have Time Machine recognize the existing file...anyway of doing that? I do not have enough room on my external hard drive to have 2 backup files.
Thanks...Lenny

I am having a similar problem - when I updated to Mavericks the install seemed to go OK until the last minute, then it literally hung for hours. I decided to re-boot the computer. From there, it seemed like the Mavericks install was a "clean" install, and it was like setting up a brand new computer. All of my programs were kept, but it lost all of my files from finder, as well as all my e-mails, etc. When I tried to backup from Time Machine, none of the buttons seem to work, and I can't get it to work. Also, before the install my 500 GB Time Machine drive was showing almost full, now it shows about 300 MB full. I also tried to migrate the files from the Time Machine drive to the iMac, still with no luck.
Good thing I had migrated my iTunes and photos to other external drives, and I was able get those back. Losing 500 MB of photos probably would have given me a heart attack.
Any suggestions?
Arrrgh!

Similar Messages

Migration assistant can not find a time machine back-up

I'm attempting to restore data from my old mbp to my new mbp 15". I hook up my time machine back-up from the old mbp and open migration asst. Get throught the windows till it attempts to find my time machine - just hangs up here.
Any ideas to try would be appreciated.
John

No, both the backup and the new system are OSX10.6.
I'm afraid your solution doesn't work. If I go through finder and open up the folders on the backup, and try, for example, to open my "Movies" folder (which is one I dearly hope to recover), I get a message that:
"The folder "Movies" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents."
I have tried Repair Permissions, but this doesn't help. All of the important folders have a little red stop sign on them.
Thanks though.

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down eliminate

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down menu with the gear box symbol to eliminate

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation: What are Local Snapshots? http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

Will existing Time Machine back ups build after 1 account migration

I have one i-Mac happily backing up with Time Machine to an external hard drive.
I have just bought a second i-mac (the old one's filling up) and propose to use migration assistant to move an admin account from the old to the new i-mac leaving two other accounts (and their files etc) on the old one. I see from some posts that it seems as if Time Machine will start a new back up series for the new i-mac's back ups (cos its a new MAC address). But what about the old i-mac? Will that continue to extend the existing (old) Time Machine back up files, albeit without my transferred account and its files? I'd like to end up with the old i-mac continuing to work with and build its Time Machine back ups (less my account and its new files) and have a new back up series from the new i-mac building to a separate partition on the external drive.
Second minor point: I have read that putting a partition on the external drive is the best way forward as it will stop competition for space and allow changes in one set up in future to have no impact on the other. Is this the best way forward?
Does this all make sense?
Sorry but I can't see an answer in the forum to what must be a reasonably common issue in this expanding mac world.

I then tried to move it (TM back up files) off with Restore, whilst preserving the TM back ups but I couldn't seem to do it to the i-Macs hard drive nor to partition that to allow this to happen (assuming the lack of a discrete partition was the problem).
That's likely correct. This only works if you restore one entire partition to another, and check the +Erase destination+ box.
The problem was that I could not (maybe for the same contiguous reasons) create a new partition on the old i-Mac just to temporarily move the TM back up to. Without it I could not 'empty' the WDC firewire drive and partition it prior to returning the TM back ups to it albeit contiguously in a dedicated partition.
Unfortunately for me to retain the TM back ups for the account I moved to the new i-Mac, I will have to leave that account on the old i-Mac as well. I can't see a way around that? If I delete the account on it then surely I will lose the ability to Log onto it and then to click TM and see back in time on that account?
If I understand you correctly, that will be true eventually, but not immediately, as TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything that's no longer on your internal HD. That will depend, of course, on how long TM can keep it's backups. But while they're still there, if you log on with Admin privileges, you should be able to view the old backups.
Not sure I explained myself clearly. Sorry. Having understood from your earlier help that 'migrate' actually means 'make a copy in another place', I have the migrated account in two places: one now dormant, on the old i-Mac and two, where it is migrated to (the new i-Mac). But TM continues to back up all accounts, indeed everything, on the old i-Mac by dint of its MAC address. So to see the migrated account's past history I assume I have to access the version on the old i-Mac. To put it another way, when logged into one account on the old i-Mac I believe it is not possible to see the TM history and files of another account on that i-Mac despite TM backing the entire HD. You have to be logged in to that account to see it. On the new i-Mac, with its different MAC address, TM is busy creating the first TM back up and I assumed that in the migrate it did not bring TM history as I had read that it is MAC address specific.
The only issue (apart from having this account's history spread over two machines (pre-today on the old i-Mac's TM and today onwards on the new i-Mac) is that I have all the files on both machines. I am not worried about security only unnecessary usage of disk space. It isn't critical, there's lots of it, but it just seems wasteful and untidy. Unless you guys know otherwise?
If I understand what you've done, you do have duplicates of the current contents, but only one copy of the old backups (on the old F/W drive).
On the old i-Mac I have the two accounts I wanted to stay there plus the now dormant account I migrated. TM continues to work away at memorising ALL these although there will be no further changes to the dormant migrated account as I will not be running it on the old i-Mac. On the new i-Mac I have the migrated account of which TM is now creating its first (huge) back up but starting today. There is no history here. So I have copies of everything; its just that the old history of the migrated account remains on the old i-Mac and a new history (does that make sense?) is building from the new one. My point was that if I were to delete the dormant account from the old i-Mac, then I could not access it to use TM with it. I believe TM only shows the history of the account and screen you're in at the time?
There is an option in TM that will allow you to selectively +Delete all backups of+ selected items. +Enter Time Machine,+ locate and select the item(s), click the "gear" icon in the Finder window's toolbar, and select the +Delete all backups of ..+ option.
What you can't do is, keep the backups of only previous versions of things that were changed or deleted. It's all or nothing.
Not sure I understand this. What would have been nice but I do not think is possible is to have moved the account to the new i-Mac together with the TM's back ups of that account and continue to build it up (whilst having access to its history) on the new i-Mac. If that were (is?) possible I could have totally deleted the old account and with it its files from the old i-Mac, freed up some HD space and had a full AND growing TM history all on the new i-Mac.
Many thanks for staying the course and for your continuing help.

Deleting Time Machine Back-up Files - HELP!

I tried to delete a time machine back-up file from my external drive (to clear space), I dragged it into the trash ... when I tried to empty trash it looked like there were 1000s of files being deleted. That scared me so I stopped the trash from emptying. Now I can't get the file out of the trash. I try to drag it out and it just copies. So two questions: 1) how do I get this file out of the trash? 2) how do I delete all of these back-up files - well, I don't need to delete all of them but there are so many? Do I really need all of these time machine back-ups? If I do delete them - what am I actually deleting? Are they just copies of my harddrive or is it a problem to delete them (when I look in the file that is in my trash it seems like it is my whole system ...). Sorry for all of the questions but I am in a bit of a panic. Also, I did try to delete the files by going into time machine, clicking on the gear icon, selecting a file and clicking on delete, nothing happened. Any thoughts, suggestions, advice most welcome!

wcaroliner wrote:
So two questions: 1) how do I get this file out of the trash?
See #E6 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
2) how do I delete all of these back-up files - well, I don't need to delete all of them but there are so many? Do I really need all of these time machine back-ups? If I do delete them - what am I actually deleting? Are they just copies of my harddrive or is it a problem to delete them (when I look in the file that is in my trash it seems like it is my whole system
You shouldn't have to delete old backups. Time Machine will do that automatically when it needs space for new ones, unless you have the +Warn when old backups are deleted+ box checked in +Time Machine Preferences > Options.+ Just remove the check.
If you have other data on your Time Machine drive, in the same partition, that's not a good idea. It needs to be moved elsewhere, so Time Machine has it's own, exclusive space. See #3 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
The backups have a complex and somewhat unusual structure; there's a bit of "smoke and mirrors" going on there, where it appears that every backup is a full copy of your system, and it is, in a way, but isn't in another. Seems contradictory, I know. See [How Time Machine works its Magic|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Works.html] for an explanation.
I did try to delete the files by going into time machine, clicking on the gear icon, selecting a file and clicking on delete, nothing happened.
You should have gotten a confirmation prompt, then one for your Admin password. If you didn't, the backups may be damaged/corrupted. Repair them, per #A5 in Troubleshooting.

Can people see my Time Machine back ups?

If people are connected to my wireless network, are they able to access the contents of what is in my Time Machine drive? I know there is no way to actually encrypt or password protect it, so I am worried about people being able to see my personal information. Thanks!

Can people see my Time Machine backups?
No, not unless they are logged on as you from your Mac.....or they go through a really convoluted process that would still require that they know the main admin password of your Mac.

I had to restore my 2006 MacBook Pro back to factory settings (Tiger 10.4). Can I use my Time Machine back up from Snow Leopard to put it back the way it was?

I cannot locate my Snow Leopard disks but I was able to use the Tiger disk that came with the computer to restore it. However, it completely erased it and set it back to Tiger. Can I use my Time Machine to put Snow Leopard and my data back on the computer?

You can't restore a Time Machine backup made with Snow Leopard onto a system with Tiger. You can, but you will damage Mac OS X.
In order to restore your Time Machine backup, you should have your Snow Leopard disc. Then, insert it and hold the C key while your MacBook Pro is starting. Finally, choose your language, go to Utilities menu (on the menu bar), choose the option to restore the backup and follow its steps, so you will recover Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Why can't i find Time Machine Back Up Device in Hard Drive

Why can't i find Time Machine Device in Hard Drive when i have plugged it already. White light just keeps on blinking.

Understanding and resolving a blinking status light
Here are the reasons that the status light may blink:
Your Time Capsule has detected that the internal hard drive has reported a SMART error
The base station has not yet been configured
The base station has been reset.
A new firmware update is available for the base station.
No IP address is available for the base station.
A Wi-Fi base station in Extended Mode is out-of-network Wi-Fi range of a primary Wi-Fi base station.
The WAN Ethernet cable is unplugged from the Wi-Fi base station.
The Wi-Fi base station lacks a path to the Internet (or local router).
Internet access may be temporarily unavailable from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
A persistent, blinking, amber status light indicates that your base station may require your attention.
How to resolve a blinking amber status light alert
Launch AirPort Utility to determine why your base station status light is blinking amber.
AirPort Utility opens automatically if your Wi-Fi base station requires your attention. You may also choose to launch AirPort Utility at any time.
In the AirPort Utility window, locate your Wi-Fi base station and double-click on it to open the Summary window. Note: If you have more than one Wi-Fi base station, double-click on the icon for the Wi-Fi base station that has the amber circle next to it.
When the Summary window appears, double-click the amber circle to the right of Wi-Fi base station Status to open the Status window.
The Status window lists any conditions that require your attention. Respond to each item until there are no more items listed.
Eliminating the blinking, amber status light may require making changes to a specific setting, or putting a checkmark in the "Ignore" checkbox beside any option you don't wish to change. A checkmark simply tells the AirPort that you are aware of the issue and you have chosen to ignore it. For example, you may wish to leave your AirPort open without a password so that anyone can join your wireless network.
Click Update to apply your changes (the base station will restart).
After the base station has restarted, the status light should be green and not blinking. If the status light stays amber in color and blinks after the Wi-Fi base station restarts, you may repeat the steps above.

Can I encrypt the time machine back up disk?

I have about 62GB on my time machine back up disk. It just occured to me that anybody who gets a hold of my back up disk, has all my info. Is there anyway to encrypt the back up disk, and password protect it?
If there is will I still be able to use this back up in case of data loss from my computer?
Thanks.

You can't restore a Time Machine backup made with Snow Leopard onto a system with Tiger. You can, but you will damage Mac OS X.
In order to restore your Time Machine backup, you should have your Snow Leopard disc. Then, insert it and hold the C key while your MacBook Pro is starting. Finally, choose your language, go to Utilities menu (on the menu bar), choose the option to restore the backup and follow its steps, so you will recover Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Can i do a time machine back to snow leopard from Lion?

After hearing lots of good and bad about Lion, i've re-considered paying the 29 and doing an upgrade. Mostly because of the full screen two finger swipe feature.
would you agree that feature alone is worth the upgrade?
if i didn't like it, could i do a time machine back to snow leopard no problem? I don't have any installation discs.
Thanks for your feedback.

Lion has lots of good features, but the trouble is it has lost nice features too. You can ONLY tell what you think after a week or so of use.
"Going Back To Snow Leopard" is a LOT of work - you will have to use the DVD install disk that came with your computer to erase Lion and install SL from scratch. That means saving your valuables in SL first (Time Machine or some other external drive export like Carbon Copy Cloner). It takes hours of your day, but can be done.
Lion needs a lot of care (adjustments) to make it behave the way you like it - it is REALLY different at first, but there are ways to make it behave a LOT more like SL by tweaking options in System Preferences and so on. It also takes hours to index - leave your machine on for 24 hours after you first install Lion - it will speed up a lot quicker that way.

Time machine back up failing after itunes update

I am having a massive problem with my Time Machine back up.
My set up is as follows
late 2011 Macbook Pro 13" running latest version of Yosemite
An older Airport Extreme running version 6. something (latest version)
Macbook connected via WiFi on the 5Ghz
Connected via USB to the Airport Extreme is a Western Digital 2TB hard Drive.
My last successful back was 5.40pm on 1st February 2015. The only changes to the system that have been done since that time is an updated to the latest iTunes version.
This is what is happening.
Time machine shows the disc as connected and that there is 905GB of 2TB avaialble.
When the back up starts it finds the disk, prepares the back up and than starts.
It states the back up is about 29GB in size (so more than enough room on the hard drive).
The back up begins and after about 10 minutes (or somewhere around 4 or 5 GB) the back up fails and a pop up window in top right hand corner comes up saying that the back up has failed as there is not enough room on the Time Machine Backup (that is what I have called the drive).
I have run it a number of times and always the same thing.
I have run a disk utility check on the hard drive and run a repair disk and veriofy disk and both stated that there drive was fine with no problems.
I have powered down the entire network, shut the computer down and rebooted the whole thing but still the same problem.
I can't think of anything else I can do. Any suggestions from anyone greatly appreciated.

Problem solved. Can't remember what I did though!

Finder Freezing when time machine back up files

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

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

Problem Emptying Trash filled with Time Machine Back Up Files

I have needed to create more space on an external hard drive that I use for TIme Machine back up of my hard drive. I took some of the Time Machine back ups [2011 and 2012] and dumped them into my trash. I have gone into my Preferences and removed the check mark beside the "empty trash securely" so that I can get rid of the folders faster. I have a Mac X snow leopard operating system 10.6.8.
However, it takes about 1o hours to have the trash "preparing to empty trash" identify about 175,000 files. I don't know how many I have in their but it has got to be over a million.
What can I do to get rid of all of these files from my Time Machine back up? I don't want to wait five or six days before the trash starts to empty. Appreciate any help you can give. Thanks.

http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html

When is it safe to delete older Time Machine back-up files?

I have a 2 TB back-up drive for Time Machine back-ups. It is half full. Is it safe to delete some of the older files? If so, which ones? If the first back-up is a full back-up and not an incremental back-up, I would not want to delete it would I?

Read http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
Allan

Can not connect to drive on airport extreme n after sleep

When I put my MacBook to sleep without disconecting HD I can not connect to it. I get a server not available message. I have to reboot airport extreme. Any suggestion?

There's at least three discussions on this. The problem is that when your computer goes to sleep, there is a possibility that your router will renew DHCP and your IP number will change. This causes the drive to disconnect in a bad way and it will not reconnect. The default setting on the router is only 4 hours so some people have tried setting the number really high to fix the problem however this is not totallly reliable.
Reliable Fix:
Assign static IP numbers for all computers that use the hard drive. You can either do this by going to the DHCP tab and entering MAC numbers for each machine under the "reserve IPs" option, or you can do it the old fashioned way by configuring each computer in network preferences with a static IP number.
For my network, I am configuring this on the computers for non portable hardware and using the "reserve" option on the router for portables.
If you use your air disc while away from home on a network where you do not have this sort of control over assigning IP numbers then don't let your computer sleep without first disconnecting the drive.

Can not connect to Time Machine back up file after restore

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