Can't see time machine files

I had my 2007 MacBook Pro backed up to an external hard drive with time machine, but didn't update it for almost a year and now it seems to have forgotten the device. I can't "go back in time" or see any files the user folder in the external hard drive. How can I see my stuff again?

Sallymuffin wrote:
Selecting the disk to browse from right clicking the icon didn't work either.
What do you mean? Does the disk not appear in the window? Or nothing happens when you select it and click Use Selected Disk? Or ??
If not, the backups may be corrupted (or, after a year, the drive may not be functioning properly -- most drive makers say they shouldn't go that long without being used for at least a bit every 90 days or so, as the bearings may lose their lubricant).
See if you can repair the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

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Macbook air can't see time machine?

macbook air can't see time machine?

Can it see the external drive? Look at Section B
Time Machine Troubleshooting

Can't access Time Machine files since upgrading to Mavericks

I have searched the community and found that people have experienced issues backing up to Time Machine since upgrading to Mavericks, but my problem appears slightly different from the ones I've found. I can see that my Time Machine is actually backing up since the upgrade as it was before the upgrade. The issue I'm having is that I can't access the backed-up files in any way.
When I try to open time machine it launches the "space view" with all of the historical tabs lined up for me to scroll through, but imediately closes that window and gives the error message: "Can't connect to a current Time Machine backup disc". It's so weird, because it says that there have been backups completed since the upgrade (most recently this morning). If it wasn't writing to the disc, it would have showed me an error of some sort.
What I am, specifically, trying to accomplish is that I need to restore some iTunes playlists that I somehow managed to delete this past weekend. I figured that I would easily be able to access the library file that contains the playlists from Saturday morning, when I KNOW that playlist was still there, and just restore it. Now that I am seeing that I can't access any of my time machine files, I'm realizing that I have an even bigger problem, and that all of my files are, essentially, going without backup at this time (assuming I can't access the files that have already been backing up).
If anyone has some insight as to how I can fix this problem, I would greatly appreciate it.

Hi John, (The above was for your attention) I'm 72 and must've hit the wrong button!!!
I followed your instructions to the letter, but sadly, no success...all my backups are showing on the TM external HD, but I cannot access them after instsalling 'Mavericks'
I spent the entire day on and off the phone with Applecare (they are very nice, and I'm sure they know most of the stuff needed; but not this problem. They are phoning back tomorrow as the senior chap was not available.
I love my apple products, and like you, have been using their gear for well over 25 years...not studying the things, but using them all the way through.
My present Mac, a 24" iMac is nearly 7 years old, bought on December 11th 2007, and this is the first time I have had a significant problem, and never a virus..got bless em!. I bet there are not many Windows users around who can say the same!
However, if I cannot access my backups, I'm a bit lost, as all my accumulated stuff is there!
I guess the worst case scenario is that I revert to OS X 10.7.5, and wait 'til the bugs are ironed out in Mavericks....Ho Hum
Message was edited by: briinoz

Lion can't see Time Machine drive that Snow Leopard does

We just set up a backup system for our group. It's a 8 Tb Pegasus drive attached to a Mac Mini Server. I have set up 4 Macs running Snow Leopard with no problems at all. Two systems are running Lion and I can not get Time Machine to see the backup drive. We are connecting via AFP on a network.
Any ideas or remedies? Thanks!

If I'm understanding correctly, your 4 SL machines work fine with the drive. Your Lion machines do not seem to able to see the drive in TM.
But your Mini server is a Lion server correct? It can browse and backup to the Pegasus on its own right?
The link Linc cited is related to an issue with older storage devices that use legacy AFP and no longer work properly with Lion machines. Even if the legacy is enabled you can only browse the drive and can set the drive for TM, but will not be allowed to use it for TM (TM errors will say as much). But this Promise Pegasus? is a brand new Thunderbolt using product entirely which subsequently makes me think that can't be the case at all.
Random thoughts:
How about LAN traffic firewall? Any chance you have the AFP port blocked internally?
I briefly flipped through a manual on the Pegasus... and it doesn't even offer any hints on time machine or shared usage. I guess there isn't anything particular on the disk side to do besides plug it in and the disk arrangements.
OS side... buggy sharepoint setups? TM usage is a selectable function for any particular sharepoint. I'm not sure how you are setting it, but have you tried to create a sharepoint on the Pegasus (a folder stored on it and not the root) and share it out with TM allowed? You should be able to see that at least.

Mountain Lion Mail - Can't see time machine recovered mailboxes

If anyone can please help!
Somehow upgrading to mountain lion I lost mail. I recovered these from time-machine. For a while I could see them in the left-most pane under a heading called Time Machine. But in archiving some old content this folder-header (like iCloud or on your mac) disappeared. I know that the mail is still there as I can search for it. Weirder still, if I create a new mail-box I can see a Time Machine folder under 'on your mac'. I just can't get to the mail! The screen-shot below shows two folders (one containing all my recovered mail sub-folders) in the 'create a new mailbox drop-down' but only one in the left-pane under 'on my mac'.
I really need to be able to use this mail; sort of why I backed it up....

Same problem here. After hitting the Restore-button in Time Machine to restore an e-mail, Time Machine is supposed to make a folder in Mail with the recoverd mail(s), but doesn't. Accessing by doing a search doesn't always lead to the restored file.
Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.2

New Macbook hard drive can't locate Time Machine files of backup on external drive

I just got my hard drive replaced as it was failing. Just before I took it to the apple store I backed up my hard drive using time machine, on a separate hard drive: phew! I checked that time machine was operating fine before I took it in to get the new hard drive - it was fine, I was able to "go back in time" and access my files.
I tried to reload from time machine as soon as it started up, but it wasn't working, so I figured I'd just work on transferring the files after I booted up. Now I have a new hard drive and then plugged my external hard drive with the back up stored on it into my computer, but it cannot get the backup on my fixed macbook! It says it can't find it, and when I've looked at the disk in Finder (in backups.backupdb) it shows as a folder of my computer's name, and the only file inside is It is called: 2013-11-22-133614.inProgress (not even the correct date of the back up!).
Now time machine won't go back in time any further than the age of the new hard drive.
I can't understand that it seemed to be there, but now it is incomplete - this is ridiculous!
What has happened?
Has Time Machine failed me?
Are the files there somewhere hidden away?

Check here, Pondini has extensive info on TM:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

Can't see time machine drive and can't boot

Last week the internal hd on my Mac mini (mid-2010) began failing. I took it in and AppleCare replaced the drive. The genius told me they loaded 10.7.3 and I should be able to use Time Machine (TM) to bring it all back. So I go home, plug in my TM drive and the Mac can't see the drive the TM is on. And yet I know it recognizes the drive because if I turned it off it would give me the nasty warning about disconnecting before unmounting. So not knowing what to do I went and popped in the installation disc that came with my Mac mini (10.6), and booted with the cd. I told it to restore from TM, and this time it sees my drive and transfers the data. When it restarts I get the gray screen with a null (not permitted) sign. So I can't make heads or tails of it an decide that maybe I have to make a clean install and then upgrade to 10.7.4 and then try time machine (I'm grasping at straws now). Only when I attempt to to restart after installing 10.6 it go from a gray screen to a blue screen (of death) and just sits. I'm baffled and don't know what to do. Could my time machine disk, which was backing up a failing internal HD, have been bad? What do I do?

Hello:
If I were you (and I am not), I would bundle up the repaired computer and your Time Machine drive and take it in and ask the Apple person to bring it back to life. IMHO, that should have been done the first time.
Barry

After Kernal Panic can't see Time Machine Drive

I have a usb iSub speaker.
Apparently it is NOT compatible with Leopard but I have been following certain threads with interest as I hate to sell it just yet.
Yesterday there was a post that said if you go into Audio MIDI Setup and change some settings, then change them back- your iSub will work!
Well when I was in the Audio MIDI Setup utility I experienced a kernal panic (first since using Leopard)
After that I was not able to boot past the Grey Apple Screen.
I even left it overnight and it would not start.
I finally reverted to my old Tiger backup external drive- I booted to that, then started my Tiger DVD,
I ran Disk Utility, then Repaired permissions and I am back up and running.
My Time Machine hard drive is not showing on my desktop though! (I have 2 external drives- one is my old Tiger cloned back up with SuperDuper- the other is my TimeMacine backup)
I tried looking for it with DiskUtility but it is not seeing it either.
Any advice would be helpful at this point.
One other thing...it seems to be writing....the case the hard drive is in has lights on it and it is blinking..and I can hear it slightly.

Hello:
If I were you (and I am not), I would bundle up the repaired computer and your Time Machine drive and take it in and ask the Apple person to bring it back to life. IMHO, that should have been done the first time.
Barry

Migration assistant can't see time machine disk

New hard drive to replace broken one - Migration Assistant doesn't see the external hard drive with my time machine backup, even though it mounts to the desktop... Anyone else had this problem? Using a MacBook pro with OSX 10.8.4

Here are the articles I have on Migration Assistant. None of them had the answer to your problem (or at least I couldn't find it). Check what you did versus the recommendations in the articles is about the best I can offer.
Migration Assistant
Migration Assistant (2)
Migration Assistant – Tips and Tricks

Set up and migration assistant can't see time machine back ups

Hi. Trying to cut this short.
I Tried installing osx 10.8. Halfway through the installation it told me I didn't have enough free space. Helpful.
i tried to restore from time machine, the back ups were viewable, but it said i couldn't as the disk was in use or couldn't be un mounted.
Ive now deleted the hard drive and reinstalled 10.7.5.
Set up couldn't restore from time machine back ups as it couldn't find them.
Ive started osx and tried to use migration assistant. It can't see the time machine back ups.
However, if I open the time machine app it can see the back ups.
I've rebooted in recovery and

Seems my text has vanished. This site is terrible on my iphone. Would expect better.
I've rebooted in recovery and tried to restore from time machine but again it won't find the back ups.

One client can't see Time Machine Server

The environment consists of an Xserve running 10.5.6 with all updates. There is a share set up as a Time Machine backup share point. All of the clients, with the exception of one, can "see" the Time Machine share point when they open up Time Machine to set it up, and the backups have been going great. The one remaining client cannot see the share point and hence can't back up.
Any ideas?
Steve

We are having the same problem with our Xserve (10.5.6, all updates installed). I am trying to set up a network share that our users can back up to using Time Machine, but the network share doesn't appear. I suspect that it has something to do with Bonjour and our separate ip subnets. We're a University campus, so we have many subnets - the server will run on a 20.x subnet and the clients will (mostly) be on a 60.x subnet. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what can be done?

Can't Access Time Machine Files

Ok so last night I did a complete backup with Time Machine on an external HD...I made sure one the backup was done that it had in fact did a complete back up. I was able to scroll through the previous backups of everything...Mail, iPhoto etc. It was all there.
The reason I did the backup was I wanted to reinstall Snow Leopard. So once I got the OS reinstalled I went to access my Mail, iPhoto on the Time Machine backup so that I could have my pictures, emails back but it won't let me restore them. I can see the different backups and the time stamps etc. but it won't let me click and restore.
Am I missing something here? Did I do something wrong?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

cplume wrote:
Ok so last night I did a complete backup with Time Machine on an external HD...I made sure one the backup was done that it had in fact did a complete back up. I was able to scroll through the previous backups of everything...Mail, iPhoto etc. It was all there.
The reason I did the backup was I wanted to reinstall Snow Leopard. So once I got the OS reinstalled I went to access my Mail, iPhoto on the Time Machine backup so that I could have my pictures, emails back but it won't let me restore them. I can see the different backups and the time stamps etc. but it won't let me click and restore.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Most likely, when your Mac started up again after erasing and installing OSX, you set up a user, rather than letting +Setup Assistant+ transfer everything from your backups. So now you have a user that isn't the same as the one that "owns" the data in your backups.
Your best bet is probably to start over: erase the internal HD again, install OSX again, and when your Mac starts up again, transfer everything from your backups. See #19 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum) for details.
Why did you want to do this? If all you want is a fresh copy of OSX, you can just install it, without touching anything else.

How can I access Time Machine files?

I installed an external 500 gigger external drive and dedicated it to Time Machine in June 2011. In October 2012 I upgraded to Snow Leopard and checked Time Machine only to find that all dates prior to that date were grayed out. I thus lost access to some important files since the automatic back-up began anew in November 2012.
The Finder indicates that the external drive contains over 100 GB of saved files which must be the ones under the grayed-out dates. There are no photos or movies on the Time Machine drive as I am using another external for those. I have used every trick and tried every advice given in this forum including a Utilities-Repair of that drive - to no avail.
How can I regain access to the contents hidden under the dates which do NOT light up when I pass the mouse over them?

I suggest you read Pondini's Time Machine articles; http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html

Renamed home folder but now can't see time machine backups

Per instructions from Apple forum , i renamed my home folder from Home to <myname>. In so doing, the home folder did not get renamed on my time machine backups backed up over time capsule. How do I either rename my home folders on my backups or "connect" my new account name to my old account name backups?

Pondini has some instructions for inheriting old backups.
See B5 and B6 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
In the end.. you might find nothing works.. and directly altering the TM backup is really not going to work.. so you may end up needing to do a wipe and restart with a fresh clean backup.
You need to realise you have made a major change to the system.. and the backup is not going to work, if the home folder name is changed. What it probably will do is backup the new home folder in the next incremental backup.. so you will still have both your old and new names.. this is correct btw.. you cannot make that sort of change and have the TM forget the old name.

Mac with new drive/system can't see Time Machine backup.

The drive on my wife's MacBook Air went bad and we got it replaced at the Apple Store. She started the Air, went to restore her files from her Time Machine/Time Capsule backup and her backup was not listed.
Then we tried again and the migration assistant says 'connection failed.'
I checked the volume from my Mac and the 'sparsebundle' is on the Time Capsule.
Any ideas?

This is a guess, but I'd try mounting that "sparsebundle" before you launch Migration Assistant.
If that doesn't help, check item #19 of Time Machine FAQ.

Can't see time machine files

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