Cannot back up to time machine after restore

I've been using Time Machine successfully on my 2009 27" iMac 3.06 ghx Core2Duo (Mountain Lion 10.8.2).
Recently I started having drive issues, so as usual, I ran Disk warrior 4.4 and it came up with some errors that could not be fixed and it suggested backing up all my data, wiping the drive and restoring from a backup.
I booted into recovery mode, wiped the drive and restored from my lastest time machine backup. Everything was restored successfully, except now Time machine is ignoring my previous backups and wants to make a brand new initial backup and there is not enough room on the backup drive to do this.
How do I make it use the previous backups and continue on from there without making a brand new complete backup? I would like to avoid wiping the drive and starting anew.

Time Machine has no way of knowing that the restored files are the same as they were before, so it backs up everything.
What you should do is start a new backup on a new, larger external drive. You need more than one backup anyway to be safe. When you're sure you'll no longer need the data on the old drive, erase it and start over.

Similar Messages

Why does my iMac (with Mountain Lion) no longer recognize my external hard drive I have used as a back up via Time Machine after the hard drive was accidentally unplugged?

Why does my iMac (with Mountain Lion) no longer recognize my external hard drive I have used as a back up via Time Machine after the hard drive was accidentally unplugged?

Do you mean the external hard drive is not mounted on the iMac desktop?
Check if Disk Utility sees the drive. Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility. If the external shows up in the left column, select it and click on Mount.
If it does show up this way, I recommend using DU to Repair Disk.

Cannot back up with Time Machine/Capsule after new drive installed in MacBook Pro

MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running 10.8.5.
I just had a larger hard drive installed by Tekserve. This is to be my first back up since installing the new drive. I have 2 back ups: one to my Time Capsule via WiFi, the other to an external Le Cie via USB.
Time Machine just gives me preparing to backup but goes no further, just stuck in that mode. I suspect that it can't find my old drive, which it backed up till now. But I cannot find a way to correct this possible snafu. I do not see an option in Preferences.
Any thoughts?
Thanks

Just so we are clear.. were your files all recovered from backup after the install of the disk?? Did you supply one of the backups to the company who did the installation so they could do the recovery?
You do want to be careful not to damage the old backup.. it might really be better to start over a clean new backup.
TM should be reset. It sounds like they did recover your settings.. Please check Pondini here.
A4 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Also use A1 to check what the log is saying about TM.. the old backup will need to be fully indexed and checked if you intend to keep using it.. and that will take several hours to the TC if you use wireless.. The problem people expect fast starts but that is not possible unless you are doing a new backup.
You can also check some of the other help files there eg D1 long preparing for why that happens.

How to get back into Time Machine after restore?

I have a MacBook. I had to take it in for repairs. Fry's gave me a loaner Macbook. I successfully used the Migration Assistant to copy all my backups onto the loaner Macbook. All my apps and docs seem to be here.
But now I want to be able to "mount" to my old Time Machine backup "stream". I tried the control-click on Time Machine in the dock to connect to a previous backup, but when I enter Time Machine I can't find any history. I should have like 2 years worth of backups.
Any hints on how to "get back on" an old time machine sequence after a restore?

RichieW13 wrote:
I have a MacBook. I had to take it in for repairs. Fry's gave me a loaner Macbook. I successfully used the Migration Assistant to copy all my backups onto the loaner Macbook. All my apps and docs seem to be here.
But now I want to be able to "mount" to my old Time Machine backup "stream". I tried the control-click on Time Machine in the dock to connect to a previous backup, but when I enter Time Machine I can't find any history. I should have like 2 years worth of backups.
Any hints on how to "get back on" an old time machine sequence after a restore?
TM keeps the backups for each Mac separate, and normally only shows the ones for the Mac it's running on, even if there are other Macs' backups on the same disk/partition.
Also, sometimes TM will start a new "sequence" of backups, as if they were from a different Mac.
To see these "other" backups, you need the (badly named) +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option. It's available by holding down the Option key while selecting the TM icon in your Menubar, or by control-clicking (right-clicking) the TM icon in your Dock.
You'll see a selection screen showing all the disks/partitions that have TM backups on them. Select the one you want, and you'll be taken to the normal TM "Star Wars" interface, where you should see all the backups on that disk/partition.

Time Machine after Restore

My mid-2011 21.5 inch iMac running OS 10.9.5 had been running very slow (all 4GB of RAM was constantly in use) so I dropped it off at an Apple Store Genius Bar for a week of diagnostics. The tests showed all the hardware was fine so they wiped the drive and suggested I rebuild it from my Time Machine backup excepting do not load the “settings” portion. I did that and I don’t think that helped the memory or speed issue much, but now I cannot run a Time Machine backup. TM thinks there is an archive from a different machine on my back up drive and there is not room for another.
How do I tell Time Machine to use the existing archive?
Thanks,
Mike M.

Eric - thanks for those links, and I actually did see them before I posted. But those instructions include having transferred "Settings" when restoring (from my original Time Machine backup) but the Apple Genius Bar folks suggested not to copy that portion since it may have been the cause of my problem. (Time Machine never asked whether I wanted to create a new backup...) So I don't know if that messes up the solutions on your links. After reading it a couple of times, it sounds like my solution would be to follow the "pink box" steps in B6 but frankly I'm not 100% sure (because I did not transfer "settings") .
In any case, I may just start a new archive on another hard drive and eventually delete the current one when it gets old enough.
Thanks,
Mike M

Updating Time Machine after restoring from backup

Hello,
I use both SuperDuper and Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro to an external drive. My computer's internal hard drive recently died, and my most recent backup was from SuperDuper, so after I replaced the internal drive, I restored my system using SuperDuper.
With the new internal drive, Time Machine still recognizes my previous backups and lets me access my old files -- but when I try to create a new backup, it wants to delete nearly one year and 100 GB of old backups from the external drive to make room for new ones. I'm not sure why it feels the need to do that; all the Created and Modified dates on my files appear to have been preserved, so only the usual incremental update should be needed, and I have over 50 GB of free space on my backup drive for it.
I'd prefer not to lose that archived content. Any idea how I can continue using Time Machine without starting from scratch?
-Ken

kengagne wrote:
With the new internal drive, Time Machine still recognizes my previous backups and lets me access my old files -- but when I try to create a new backup, it wants to delete nearly one year and 100 GB of old backups from the external drive to make room for new ones. I'm not sure why it feels the need to do that; all the Created and Modified dates on my files appear to have been preserved
That's not what it uses to determine what needs to be backed-up (since they can be changed), but it doesn't apply to this case anyway.
Since you have a new drive, even if it has the same name as the old one, Time Machine knows it's a different drive and will back it up completely. You cannot prevent it.
This is actually for your protection; if you had a drive named "Music" and replaced it with a different drive, with different content but also named "Music," surely you'd want Time Machine to know it was different and back it up?
In fact, you can have two or more drives on the same Mac with the identical names; OSX (and Time Machine) know they're different, and can keep them separate without a problem.
If you really need backups kept that long, you need a bigger drive for Time Machine. Your best bet is to let it start fresh on the new one, and keep the old one "on the shelf" until you're sure you don't need it anymore. You can always view and restore from the old one, via the +*Browse ...+* option, per #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Or, if you really want to, you can copy the backups from the existing drive to a larger one, then continue backing-up to them. See #18 in the FAQ.

How to set-up Time Machine after Restore

After having restored an entire system back from Time Machine, it looks to me as Time Machines wants to completely backup all data already held on the hard-disk. With this effect, the harddisk is not big enough. I do not want to buy another disk. Is there any way how to persuade Time Machine that it should use the existing data on the disk?

Hi Aulia,
I don't believe that you will be able to have Time Machine understand that you only want it to continue with the same data : once it has detected that a file changed, it makes another copy, even if you know that it's the same file : it's based on messages telling it that a file has changed, not on files comparison.
I think that the "inprogress" file will be replaced by another one if you let TM do it's job : it won't make a third copy of your data. If there is enough space on the disk, you can let TM continue, and try to manage with the following trick, with patience and much care.
Make sure that the "Action" menu is visible in a Finder's window (it is if you did not customize the toolbar to remove it), and dive into Time Machine. Select a item in the window : the Action menu now has an item that should read "delete all backups of this element" (or something like that : I'm translating my French version). Take care that "all" here really means ALL versions in the backup : the only copy left would be on your main disk.
The next backup may not make a fresh copy unless you help it a little : after all, there was no message telling TM that the original was changed, since it was not ! Just do anything in the folder containing the item that you deleted from the backup (like creating and immediately deleting a folder there) : this will tell TM that something has happened there, the next backup will check the folder, detect the missing element and make a fresh copy.
Having only one copy of a really important folder may not suit you, even if it's only for the short delay until the next backup. You can make a copy of it, and run TM to backup the copy (a right click on the icon in the dock shows a "backup now" item). You now have a backed up version, you can delete the original, and all the backup copies of the original with the previous method. But if you rename the copy back to it's original name, it will be saved again... just iterate one more time !
I hope that this can help you, but please do not hesitate to try and validate your method on small copies before you delete something in your backup !
PS : I just tested my proposals with my 33Gb iMovie Events folder : a new copy of an event folder is created in the backup each time you rename an event, and I gained more than 40 Gb by deleting all previous redundant versions.
At least, it works for me !

Restore Time Machine after restoring Hard Drive?

My iMac HD crashed and the good news is I was using Time Machine and it appears to have done an excellent job of restoring the drive. However, it is now trying to do a "full backup" onto the drive that already has the TM data so of course there is no room. Apple support describes this as normal behavior, but to me "normal" would be allowing me to pick up where I left off as if the drive had never failed. The only solution I can think of is to erase the TM backup and start over, but then of course I can never go back in time and the time machine is no better than a mirror image of the drive the day it died. Anyone know how to tell TM to go directly to incremental back ups?

geocip wrote:
Just to close the loop I did a quick erase using disk utility and started a new backup. If anyone from Apple is reading this,
No, nobody from Apple (except, perhaps, a moderator watching for language, rants, etc.) reads these forums. Make suggestions here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/
it would be a nice touch to have an option once the disc has been restored to continue the time machine archive or start a new one. At the very least a waning that tells you a full backup will commence and whether or not your drive has enough capacity.
Agreed, but it doesn't always do a full backup (sure wish somebody could figure out why), and If there isn't room, the backup fails almost immediately, with a fairly clear message.
At the end of the day of course this is so much better than restoring a windows volume it's not even funny!!

Cannot back up using Time Machine - MacBook OS X 10.5.8

Hello there
I am having trouble backing up my files using Time Machine.
I was using an old external hard disk. When I started using Time Machine, I didn't know about partitioning it. It worked for about 2 years until around the February of this year. I kept getting the error message "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume." The advice on the Apple web page suggested only restarting the computer and trying again. This didn't work. I then read about partitioning the external hard disk. I tried that and I still had the same error message. I came to the conclusion that my external hard disk was just getting old and wasn't up to the job.
So today I bought a new external hard disk. I partitioned it and then tried again with Time Machine. And I had the exact same problem. With about 10GB to go on the back up, the same error message appeared.
What can I do to get Time Machine working again? Could it be a corrupt file? Any advice would be very welcome. I am very nervous that I currenlty have no back up.
Thanks.

Pondini, one of the high level users of these forums has compiled a great reference page for Time Machine. It includes this page which seems like it addresses your question.
Best of luck.

I have to turn in my old computer before receiving new one. can I back up using time machine then restore to new computer/

I have to turn in my old computer before receiving my new one. Can I restore a backup from time machine to my new computer?

Yep.

My Lacie external hard drive will not back up on Time Machine. Says there's not enough space. This has happened with every single external I've purchased. Thought TM was supposed to delete old backups??

My Lacie External backed up on Time Machine after the first back up but now says there's not enough room. I thought TM deleted old back ups to save new versions. What am I doing wrong. This happens to me constantly. Every single external hard drive I've purchased for the MacBook Pro (5 of them) has not worked either initially or at the second back up. It either isn't formatted properly so I have to go to Genius bar to help me set up for the first back up, or after the first back up, it says there's not enough space and I have to go back to Genius Bar. Is there a way I can fix this on my own?

I just purchased 2 external hardrives. a LaCie Minimus and a G Drive. Each 1 TB. The guy at Apple told me that would provide 2 good TM backups for me. My internal HD has 750 GB capacity, of which I'm using 700 GB. Perhaps the ratio is not great enough. I do wish they would have told me this before I purchased the two Bummmmer! I even had them format and get the first back-ups going because of issues I've had in the past. I also just bought a 750 GB for photos.
So, I won't be able to buy another bigger external since I've just purchased 3. Ugh. Well, I'll just exclude some files and divide things up. Eventually, I just want my 20,000 iphotos on one of the 1TB externals, and a TM back-up on another so that iphoto will function once more. It really hates how many photos I have and is brutally punishing me for it.I seriously need to do some housecleaning!
Thanks for the advice. Just moved from US to Australia last week and was hoping to upload a few photos and the domino effect has lead me to this. Just went to Genius Bar in Perth today and they told me how to reformat drive to transfer iphoto library over, but I got stuck at trying to back-up my TM.

How do I recover backups from Time Machine after using Migration Assistant?

I had to get my Macbok Pro erased (at Apple store) this week. I used Migration Assistant to pull everything back in via Time Machine from my external hard drive (through Airport Extreme).
Annoyingly then accidentally deleted all work Mail folders. Going back in to Time Machine to Restore, all the historic Mail folders now seem to have disappeared.
Can anyone please advise?

Back up all data to at least two different storage devices, if you haven't already done so. The backups can be made with Time Machine or with a mirroring tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Preferably both. You must be certain that you can restore everything to the state it's in now.
Boot into Recovery, launch Disk Utility, and erase the startup volume. This operation will destroy all data on the volume, so you had be better be sure of your backups. Install OS X. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.
When you reboot, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you import the data from one of your backups. For details on how this works, see here:
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC Using Setup Assistant on Lion
Don't import the Guest account, if it was enabled on the old system.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with networks that require any kind of authentication other than a WPA or WPA2 Personal password.

HT201250 When restoring Time Machine after a failure, does it also restore the files to the same order, for example - within iPhoto I have pics/ videos in folders and sub folders organised as family/events etc - will it go back to this exact order after a

When restoring Time Machine after a failure, does it also restore the files to the same order, for example - within iPhoto I have pics/ videos in folders and sub folders organised as family/events etc - will it go back to this exact order after a restore?

Hi Stavros0203,
When restoring your entire system from a Time Machine backup, it is restored to the state it was when that backup was made. See this article for reference -
OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

Cannot restore iPhoto Library from Time Machine after clean install

I was experiencing various problems with my MBP and wiped the hard drive after meticulously backing up everything with Time Machine, or manually. I reinstalled everything. I was relying on Time Machine to restore my photos and events in iPhoto. When I select "Browse Backups" in iPhoto, I can see all of my backups, but can select none of them. Any ideas to save a decade worth of photos?

Hi a:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
I am preaching, but +"wiping/erasing a HD"+ should be reserved for true disasters. That is a Windows process.
Now, trying to help (I treasure my own photos - a lot), go to your home folder (~pictures). If something called iPhoto library is there, highlight it, open Time Machine, and then restore it.
If that does not fix the problem, try posting in the iPhoto forum. There are some real experts with iPhoto problems that may be able to help.
Barry

Configuring Time machine to Restore after a failer

Hi
how to Configurr Time machine to Restore after a failer ? should i just set the time machine to backup to the external hard disk that have the backup and it will automatically detect it and can use it ? what if there is another backups for another Mac's ?

PureHeartKnight wrote:
Hi
how to Configurr Time machine to Restore after a failer ?
Do you mean you want to recover your entire system from your TM backups? If so, see item 14 in +Frequently Asked Questions+ at the top of this forum for details.
Or do you mean, once your Mac is recovered, how to start new TM backups?
When you first boot after restoring, you may want to immediately turn Time Machine off, as it's next backup will probably be a full one -- everything it just restored will be backed-up again. You cannot prevent this, only delay it. It will of course take quite a while, and a lot of space on your TM disk, so you may wish to wait until you're sure your system is the way you want it, or even erase your TM disk with Disk Utility and let your backups start anew.
what if there is another backups for another Mac's ?
That may become a problem. TM knows which backups are for which Mac, and will not mix them. But if there's not room for the first backup of the restored Mac (see above), you have two bad choices: erase the disk, and start both Macs over again with TM; or delete all the backups for the failed Mac via the TM interface (see item 12 of the same article).
If you decide to erase the disk completely, you may want to partition it before beginning backups, so each Mac's backups have their own, exclusive partition, to prevent this hassle in the future. See item 5 for instructions if you want to do this.

Cannot back up to time machine after restore

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