Cannot restore from Time Machine... "not enough space" but there is

I am trying to restore a 140GB file from Time Machine. I can see it both through the Time Machine interface and by going through Finder.
I have 202GB free on my Mac hard drive. Whenever I try to restore the file, or copy it through Finder, I get "Preparing to Copy" for a while and then "The item can't be copied because there isn't enough free space".
No idea how to resolve this - any ideas?

Gosh, I was not expecting that and nothing mentioned in iCreate or MacFormat tuition articles. My task is to move and partition data from my external hard drives, so that I can create partitions to hold various storage for BOOTCAMP to use.
Looks like my external drives are not capable of the task!

Similar Messages

Cannot restore from time machine

I installed a new SSD into my late 2012 mac mini along with the current HDD. Turned it on formatted the SSD and everything work fine. Next I wanted to transfer OSX and applications to SSD and use HDD for just storage. I backed up using time machine. I looked into a few different was to transfer OS. DIsk utility was wanting to create a fusion drive from the 2 drive. I went with this option.
It wiped the drives and made a new single storage group. I tried restoring from time machine a couple of times but this would not work saying: 'An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk' I went back into disk utility and checked the disks. Repaired the errors it said and tried again. Did not work.
Next I tried deleting the disk again and installing Mountain Lion from scratch from the internet option in recovery mode. This took I long time and got as far as nearly installing osx but got stuck on 15 mins remaining. I left this all day while I was at work.
Tried doing this a second time and it started downloading from the internet again but something must have gone wrong because when I came back it was back in recovery mode screen.
So not sure what else I can try to get this fixed. There is a suggestion online that this is a known problem with Mountain Lion and 2012 machines, but that doesn't really help me get working agian. The only other thing I can think of trying is un-fusioning the 2 drives and trying to install on just one to see if this works.
Does anyone else have any other steps to try?

Some drive partition configurations can result in the OS X Installer reporting that it cannot create a Recovery System. If this happens, you might want to quit the installation and create an external OS X hard drive with a Recovery System first. You can continue installing OS X on your computer's startup drive after creating an external Recovery System.
Where did yo install the SSD? Lower bay (one nearest the bottom cover) or the uppter bay (normally empty on single drive Mini?
Some users have reported problem with an SSD in the upper bay. Maybe because of the new cable or because of that SATA bus.
Try installing the SSD in the lower bay iff it is not there. Also if yo do not want a Fusion drive, disconnect the HD during the install if the SSD has enough space for the TM backup

Cannot restore from Time Machine or Reinstall - MacBook Pro Yosemite

Hi all,
I recently started using a new Mac (Macbook Pro 15" with Yosemite) about 2 weeks ago. Upon startup it asked whether I wanted to encrypt and I said yes. It then froze for about 30min with the spinny wheel. After the startup was finally complete I used it normally for the next two weeks but the FileVault encryption in Security & Privacy never completed. It was stuck on "encryption paused" and underneath said "Connect to power adapter to continue encryption". Nothing I did fixed the problem. I then did a Time Machine Backup onto a USB with plans to restore from Time Machine. The backup went successfully with no issues. I put the Mac into recovery mode (command+R) and did Restore from Time Machine Backup. It was able to find my Time Machine Backup on the USB, and in the next window "Select a Destination" it found my HD. I clicked restore and there was an immediate error saying that I should restart the computer and try again. From then on in "Select a Destination" it now says "No Time Machine backups were found." This is strange because I already selected the time machine backup and should be looking for a destination now, but regardless nothing can be found.
From there I went to Disk Utility and verified. There didn't appear to be anything wrong. I did repair disk and it didn't seem to do anything.
Then I tried to do a Reinstall OS X. On "Select the disk where you want to install OS X" the only options are my USB with the backup, or "Recovery HD". If I click Recovery HD there is a pop-up saying "This disk is locked." There are no other choices for install, and leaving Recovery mode doesn't appear to be possible.
Does anyone have a solution to this? So far my experience with Yosemite on two different macs has been torture and I do not recommend.
Thanks!

You have a warranty. Take it back and ask the store to fix it for you. You do not need to encrypt the drive, but the Yosemite installation does so automatically unless you select the option not to do so during the install process. You need to look for that carefully. As of now you would need to turn off FV2 to decrypt the drive which takes about as much time as encryption does - quite a while unless you have a small capacity SSD.

Cannot restore from Time Machine since upgrade to 10.7.3

I am using a Mac Mini (Mid 2010) using the 2nd HD for backups of Time Machine.
Yesterday, the Mac could not start up and always stop at the First Aid panel (which contains i) an option for restoring from time machine, ii) reinstall Lion, iii) help online ... Whenever I choose restore from backups, the Mac was frozen at the multiple language choice panel. So, I have to reinstall OS Lion. It's successful. Then I restore from backups in 2nd HD and the strange thing happens. It doesn't matter what version of backup I choose, it appears that the contents in my wiki is updated only to March 2012. When I browse the Time Machine, it's really a surprise that I update 10.7.3 by the end of March 2012. Since then, despite the fact that the backups run regularly and backups versions appear in Time Machine, the contents of my wiki (which is added and modified everyday) are not updated. All backups under 10.7.2 are okay.
Can anyone know about this problem?
Best regards,

Well, I know about the problem but do not know a solution I am afraid. I had the same problem where the wiki, calendar and addressbook were a couple of months old after a restore from time machine two weeks ago. I did not relate this to the upgrade to 10.7.3, but that could easily be the case. I never did time machine restores before.
I was able to restore calendars from client side time machine backups (a lot of work), but the wiki I could not restore to an up-to-date version. My guess is that files were restored correctly, but not the postgresql databases. So I started to make daily backups from postgresql myself now. This post helped me with that:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17008934#17008934
Another thing I started doing was creating a bootable clone on a usb disk with carbon copy cloner, which is incrementally updated twice a day now.
But I hope that Apple will fix this in an upcoming update. I would be nice if you could rely on Time Machine backups.

Can I select or deselect what all is restored from backup? Not enough space

I was low on space. Did a backup in itunes. Deleted a bunch of stuff and was having trouble restoring so I did a software upgrade. I didn't have enough room to do the software upgrade before deleting all my stuff. Now that I have updated the software, I cannot restore from backup. Is there anyway to deselect some items to be restored? I would like my messages back. I can manually put pics and songs back on. Thanks for your help.

yes you could exclude the system folders and whatever else you want.
If you have space on your external drive, I would recommend letting it back up everything. If something did happen, you could restore your whole system much more easily that way. All you would have to do is insert and boot off the Leopard install DVD and follow the menu's to restore your machine from a Time Machine Backup.
If you don't backup your entire drive (including the system folders, etc). then you would have to reinstall Leopard, reinstall all your applications, and then restore your files from your time machine backup.

Time Machine - "not enough space to back up" despite large drive

Hi,
I have a 2.7GHz Quad-Core 27" iMac from July 2011. It has a 2TB HD which I back up to an external single partition 2TB HD (WD MyBook) over Time Machine (TM). The iMac HD has about 1.4TB on it.
It was "just working" until about 2 weeks ago, when I got a message that says in essence "not enough space to back up: only 600GB available when 1.4GB is needed". There is one succesful 1.4TB backup. I get the error message hourly as it attempts to back up then fails. Previously there were multiple time stamped (houry, daily etc) backups but when I first got the error message, there was only one left, implying that TM deleted the earlier ones in its quest for more space.
As there is a 2TB drive to back up 1.4TB, there should be loads of space as each backup should just log the changes, not the whole drive.
However, TM is acting as if it needs the full 1.4GB free for each delta backup, rather than just space for the changes. This is new behaviour as it did not need this before.
I have googled the issue extensively, checked FAQs etc and found two potential causes.
The first is that I changed the name of my computer around the time that the problem appeared. This can apparently cause TM to not recognise old backups. I therefore deleted the old one and rebuilt my backup from scratch, hoping that the new name would be used. I was able to do one backup before the same issue appeared again.
The second is that the sparsebundle needs to be resized manually due to a bug, but I can't find the sparse bundle on the external HD, even using Disk Utility (this maty be because I am being very stupid - I am a recent Mac user and do not have much experience of digging into OS X's innards)
I am now at a loss as to what to do.
I would be very grateful indeed if anyone had any thoughts that they could share.
SE.

Semper Eadem wrote:
I got a message that says in essence "not enough space to back up: only 600GB available when 1.4GB is needed". There is one succesful 1.4TB backup.
It's trying to do a near-full backup for some reason, and it's already deleted all but the last remaining backup trying to make room. It was probably trying to back up about 1.2 TB, since it adds 20% to the estimated size. That's likely your entire home folder.
The first is that I changed the name of my computer around the time that the problem appeared.
No, that shouldn't cause it. Apparently on some of the very first versions of Leoaprd, it did, but not since.
The second is that the sparsebundle needs to be resized manually due to a bug,
No, there isn't a sparsebundle on backups made to an internal or directly-connected HD. Those are used only for network backups.
What else did you do around the same time you changed your computer name? See #D4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for common causes.
I'd recommend turning TM off, erasing the drive and doing a "full reset" per #A4 in that same link. Then exclude most of the large folders in your home folder, per #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. Then run a backup, and immediately run another.
If the second backup is more than a GB, use one of the apps in #A2 of Troubleshooting to see exactly what got backed-up the second time. That may tell us what's going on.
If it wasn't large, start removing the exclusions, one at a time. Run a backup (that should back up the excluded item(s), then run another and see how large it is. That should pinpoint the problem.

Restore from Time Machine not recognizing External Drive

Hi all,
I woke up the other day to a black screen and a frozen macbook pro (4 months old). It wouldn't boot up past the gray screen, so I tried to repair the drive with the install disc. It said that there are no errors (liar!), so I wiped it and tried to restore from my latest Time Machine backup (should be the day prior).
However, when trying to restore through the install disks, I only see a backup from April (5 months ago). Even if I try to restore from that one, it says that I don't have enough disk space and won't do anything for me.
Migration assistant in OSX doesn't see my external drive, even though I can access it through finder.
I just want my system back to what it looked like prior to my crash. Shouldnt Time Machine have this capability?
Thank you for any help.

Robin Ryan wrote:
Hi all,
I woke up the other day to a black screen and a frozen macbook pro (4 months old). It wouldn't boot up past the gray screen, so I tried to repair the drive with the install disc. It said that there are no errors (liar!), so I wiped it and tried to restore from my latest Time Machine backup (should be the day prior).
However, when trying to restore through the install disks, I only see a backup from April (5 months ago). Even if I try to restore from that one, it says that I don't have enough disk space and won't do anything for me.
Migration assistant in OSX doesn't see my external drive, even though I can access it through finder.
I just want my system back to what it looked like prior to my crash. Shouldnt Time Machine have this capability?
Thank you for any help.
You should take your question to the Time Machine forum. More experts there on TM than you can ever imagine.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1342

10.5.8 mac pro cannot restore from time machine backup

Hey there,
I've had a mac volume die on me so I ordered the 10.5.8 cds from Apple. I installed the OS on a new hard drive and trying to migrate from time machine backup and the backup failed to move both my user and application settings. I've tried using the migration assistant, this also fails and doesnt show me the correct volumes in TM. Please help!

What have you done to repair and rebuild the directory of your old drives?
One word of caution is that Alsoft Disk Warrior is/was not (not sure latest version) to deal with the huge size of some TimeMachine backup volumes which as Ricks said, are complex and prone to failures.
I wanted to see how it would work to have one TM drive for dailys, another for just run once a week, and system clone before any updates. Plus a small handy emergency only boot drive volume (40GB).
So you are stuck with 10.5.8 due to cost of software applilcation upgrades? and with Lion there is no support for old PowerPC, no Rosetta to run and support those. And then ML coming soon which seems to drop support for pre-2008s.
Metadata is trash as in temp cache and in a smart backup - like CCC and such - would never be backed up or shouldn't be - they should be deleted and is one case and use for things like CCleaner to be run (until Safari and Chrome do job limited age and size of disk caches).
Caches and temp files and logs can be source of problems.
SyncServices - 10.5.x started using that and that would get messed up at least when I looked at it 10.5.2+ era.
I'd dual boot SL and 10.5.8
10.5.x came out 4.5 yrs ago. In that time I upgraded boot drive couple times, formatted/initialized when it came out and again a year later 10.5.6 and then with 10.6.0 or about once a year to clone, erase, restore.
You used your backup drive for two years.
Originally hoped that it would be easy and possible to clone TM backup drives for safety and so you coudl take a good set with a year of data on it and instead of start over, take it and make a copy for archive your files. A good file history.
There are programs that add to and help manage and allow the user to look at and choose backup sets from different points in time. I take it you can't do that.
I would invest in more backup drives, internal and external, while try to build a new solid footing and foundation - so you can install, clone, do more modifications and installs and updates, so you never have to redo.
With backup clones you would never have to worry about reinstalls or lost files. CCC will with a large enough volume also allow archive of file changes. TM is probably good - for those that didn't and dont' like to backup.
I would hope though have seen enough errors, but you are using the initial TM backup program which has had three more OS versions and 3 yrs since to improve form 10.5.8 (came out June '09).

Time Machine-not enough space

I started getting messages that there was not enough space on the external hard disk I use for Time Machine. I tried to trash older files but I was having difficulty, so I used Disk Utility and erased the disk. I pressed back up and I now get a message "Preparing". I guess this will take awhile, but will be functional again? I've used Time Machine for three years and never got the message "not enough space" before. Isn't it supposed to delete oldest backup to give space for the newest one? Is there a preference I need to check?
Thanks,
Stu

I'm having a similar problem. I have a Mac Pro running OSX Server 10.5.8. The system disk is 1 GB and the Time Machine is 1 GB. Both are approximately 75% used and 25% available.
Yesterday, I got an error message that there wasn't enough space, and it appears as though it's not automatically deleting old backups.

Can't restore from backup because not enough space on iphone? huh?

I am trying to simply restore my iphone from a backup on my laptop because I accidentally deleted an app of mine with important data. When I go to restore the iphone though from a backup it tells me that it can't restore b/c not enough space on iphone. I don't see how that makes sense since if it's a backup from the same iphone I'm using, how can there ever not be enough space to restore it? I've also already searched other peoples problems and my hard disk has plenty of space on it where itunes and the backups are installed. I've tried moving the temp and tmp folders but that didn't do anything.

I restored to an older backup which seemed to go through but now when I then try to restore to a newer backup it says on the phone "restore complete" and then it gives me same error message on computer. When I look at phone it seems to have restored my notes and contacts, but not my SMS or my calendar.

Time MAchine won't back up due to not enough space, but there is

TIme Machine won't back up. Displays this:
Actual capacity of the external backup drive is 999.68 GB and available is 135 gb .
The imac internal HD capacity is 999.01GB and used space is 636.321 GB.
This problem has occured periodically in the last 12 months or so, so prior to OS version10.8 install in Jul 2012.
I previously called AppleCare, as I have a contract, and tech said I just need to reformat the external drive and start over.
I did that the last time this happened a few months ago, but I don't like that option, as it eliminates all the prior backups,
What if I needed to try to recover something I deleted 3 weeks ago, for example. I couldn't do so as all backups would have been deleted, of course, by me having refomatted the drive and basically starting over. Also, I noted in another post about a person having a problem due to using a partitioned drive. Mine is not partition, as far as I can tell. See this:
Any ideas? Thanks

The solution is essentially "simple." You need a larger hard drive for these backups or you need to use a different backup solution. By this I mean using backup software that does not preserve an archive of old copies of a file, but simply erases old copies in order to replace them with the new copies. By replacing your backup drive can always accommodate the drive it backs up if it is large enough - say the same size. I can suggest:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
All of the above are capable of being scheduled. Synk Pro makes immediate backups of any changed file on the hard drive. You may configure it to archive changes (like Time Machine) or to delete prior copies.

Time Machine claims not enough space, but there's plenty

Hello --
I'm having a problem with my Time Machine backup ever since upgrading to Yosemite. After the initial backup, I get these errors: "The backup disk needs 838.03 GB for the backup but only 712.05 GB are available. Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files."
However, there is plenty of space. The initial backup took up about 898 GB of my 1.61 TB machine. Subsequent incremental backups should only take up a fraction — and I'm confident that I haven't added hundreds of gigabytes of new data to my disk. However, each time Time Machine tries to run its backup, I get the same error.
Time Machine is backing up both my small internal hard drive (128 GB) and the rest of the backup comes from an external drive. It worked fine under Mavericks, but under Yosemite it seems that Time Machine doesn't realize that the hundreds of gigabytes on the external drive has already been backed up before and doesn't all need to be backed up again.
Any thoughts? I had a backup that was several months old earlier; once I started getting this error, I wiped that backup thinking that a fresh backup might sole the error. No such luck.
I'm running Yosemite 10.10.0 on a mid-2011 MacBook Air, backing up to a Sinology NAS. (My wife who is still using Mavericks is continuing to successfully backup to the same drive.)
Thanks everyone!
- geoff

I have the exact same problem with almost the same setup: MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) running Yosemite 10.10, an external harddrive and a Time Capsule 2 TB (4th Generation, Version 7.6.4). I even took the same actions as geoff2 (deleting the complete set of backups from Mavericks and making a new complete backup on Yosemite). On my internal harddrive 270 GB are occupied, on my external harddrive around 980 GB are occupied and the MacBook of my girlfriend is also backed up to the Time Capsule. At the moment around 646 GB are available on the Time Capsule.
Now I get the same error message saying, that 977 GB are needed for a backup but only 650 GB are available. Interestingly backups without the external drive connected will complete without any problems.
The external drive has a "GUID Partition Table". So it seems both of Linc Davis suggestions don't apply to the problem (we both have either GUID Partition Table or Logical Volume Group and the issue appears both on a NAS-Storage and on a Time Capsule).
Looking for additional information I looked into the console and found the following report: "Inheritance scan may be required for '/Volumes/Dolphin', associated with previous UUID: BA36E38E-71F9-39E1-BF72-36AF9D4BB45F". "Dolphin" is the name of the external drive. What does that mean? Is it of any relevance? For more information I will post all the reports concerning the backup below (it's mainly about trying to free more space on the TC by deleting old backups). "Yosemite" is my internal OS X Volume, "Hamster" is the name of the Volume on the TC, "Nifty" is a Nifty mini drive in the SD-Card-Slot.
I already verified the backups using the Option-Click on the menu bar symbol and I deleted and rebuilt the Spotlight index but it changed nothing. We could of course delete the backup volume (NAS or TC) and start a new backup, but I have a feeling, that the issue will appear again afterwards. Any other suggestions?
08.11.14 16:46:06,033 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Starting manual backup
08.11.14 16:46:06,071 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/Hamster
08.11.14 16:46:11,000 kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Time Machine-Backups on device disk6s2
08.11.14 16:46:13,146 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Disk image /Volumes/Hamster/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2).sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
08.11.14 16:46:14,908 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Backing up to /dev/disk6s2: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb
08.11.14 16:46:19,914 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Inheritance scan may be required for '/Volumes/Dolphin', associated with previous UUID: BA36E38E-71F9-39E1-BF72-36AF9D4BB45F
08.11.14 16:46:27,375 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Will copy (10 MB) from Yosemite
08.11.14 16:46:32,745 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Will copy (0 KB) from Dolphin
08.11.14 16:46:32,748 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Will copy (0 KB) from Nifty
08.11.14 16:46:32,749 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Found 137158 files (954.27 GB) needing backup
08.11.14 16:46:32,752 com.apple.backupd[4227]: 977.06 GB required (including padding), 646.65 GB available
08.11.14 16:46:32,765 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2)/2014-11-08-164619.inProgress/B65EE357-083D-4E0B-900B-42910289B9C4 containing 4 KB; 646.65 GB now available, 977.06 GB required
08.11.14 16:46:32,767 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Removed 1 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
08.11.14 16:49:20,472 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2)/2014-11-07-111400 containing 627.9 MB; 647.28 GB now available, 977.06 GB required
08.11.14 16:49:20,472 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Removed 2 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
08.11.14 16:50:12,817 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2)/2014-11-07-171215 containing 59.4 MB; 647.34 GB now available, 977.06 GB required
08.11.14 16:50:12,818 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Removed 3 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
08.11.14 16:50:48,156 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2)/2014-11-07-183323 containing 42.4 MB; 647.38 GB now available, 977.06 GB required
08.11.14 16:50:48,156 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Removed 4 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
08.11.14 16:51:07,147 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2)/2014-11-08-112446 containing 25.3 MB; 647.41 GB now available, 977.06 GB required
08.11.14 16:51:07,147 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Removed 5 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
08.11.14 16:51:28,134 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2)/2014-11-08-132002 containing 11.5 MB; 647.42 GB now available, 977.06 GB required
08.11.14 16:51:28,134 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Removed 6 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
08.11.14 16:51:28,135 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Deleted 6 backups containing 766.6 MB total; 647.42 GB now available, 977.06 GB required
08.11.14 16:51:28,136 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Nov 8, 2014
08.11.14 16:51:29,353 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Backup failed with error 7: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
08.11.14 16:51:36,000 kernel[0]: hfs: unmount initiated on Time Machine-Backups on device disk6s2
08.11.14 16:51:37,508 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Ejected Time Machine disk image: /Volumes/Hamster/Nikos MacBook Pro 13" (2).sparsebundle
08.11.14 16:51:38,227 com.apple.backupd[4227]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
08.11.14 16:53:43,804 SystemUIServer[431]: Attempt to use XPC with a MachService that has HideUntilCheckIn set. This will result in unpredictable behavior: com.apple.backupd.status.xpc
08.11.14 16:53:43,806 com.apple.prefs.backup.remoteservice[529]: Attempt to use XPC with a MachService that has HideUntilCheckIn set. This will result in unpredictable behavior: com.apple.backupd.status.xpc

The Program Cannot restore the system partition not enough space

Hi..,
When i try to restore my pc using OKR Button, I am getting This Notice from OKR Application.
"The Program Cannot restore the system partition because there is not enough available space on the hardrive"
Please help Me ...
Thanks in Adavance.

Hi Jaulpellissery,
Welcome to Lenovo Community Forums
I’m sorry to hear that the OKR (One Key Recovery) is not working as expected and displaying error message, this issue will occur if any changes are made in HDD (Hard Disc Drive) partition. Please let me know if you have made any changes in the partition space.
Hope to hear back soon
Best Regards
Shiva Kumar
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Cannot Restore from Time Machine Backup

Hi everyone,
I recently formatted my hard drive due to some issues with boot camp. I had planned on using my external hard drive that I used with Time Machine to restore all of my stuff. However I have been having some major issues restoring from my backup. I select Restore System from Backup and than my external disk with my time machine backup on it. Everything seems to be working correctly until i hit 21.5% and then the restore stops and the screen goes gray. I get a log of what went wrong and it says i hit an error when restoring four songs from my itunes library. If anyone can help me figure out what I can do to fix my problem I would be immensely grateful. Thanks

dougcleary wrote:
I get a log of what went wrong and it says i hit an error when restoring four songs from my itunes library.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
What does the error message say? Does it name the songs (files)? If so, are they some you loaded very recently?
If so, try selecting a backup prior to when you loaded them.
If not, or you don't know, try repairing your backup disk. Instead of selecting +Restore system from backups,+ select +Disk Utility,+ then select your TM drive and do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on it. If it finds and fixes anything, you may be able to do the full restore.
If not, your best bet may be to install OSX, then when your Mac boots up, and +Setup Assistant+ asks if you want to "transfer" data from a different Mac or it's backups, do that. See #19 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Select everything except the folder your iTunes library is in (Music, unless you've moved it). That will get everything else so you can boot up and run normally.
Then use Time Machine's "Star Wars" display to restore as much of your music as you can, per #15 in the FAQ. You may have to try several times to get what you can, and avoid what you can't.

Restore from Time Machine, not bootable?

I had some problems on my hard drive, so I erased my OS X partition and restored it from a Time Machine backup. Now, the OS X partition will not boot. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do?
I do also have a Windows XP partition installed via Boot Camp.
edit: As far as I know, I did not exclude the system folders from my Time Machine backups.
Message was edited by: kjb

Before trying the restore, I had a problem with, for example, System Profiler crashing. I first ran Disk Utility from the boot drive, and when I tried to verify the disk, it suggested running Repair Disk from the install DVD. When I tried to repair the disk, using the Disk Utility on the Snow Leopard DVD, it tried three times to repair the disk before giving up, with "invalid node structure" each time. It then suggested erasing the partition and restoring from a backup; after that, I get the circle with the line through it when trying to boot OS X.

Cannot restore from Time Machine... "not enough space" but there is

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