Complete (Non-incremental) Backup Using Time Machine

When the Time Machine icon in the top bar of the desktop is clicked on and Back Up Now selected, does a complete backup starting from scratch result, or does Time Machine perform an incremental back up?
JohnnyS

It performs a backup as usually (minus the schedule). If it is the first backup, it is complete, otherwise the backup is incremental.

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I cannot restore my backups using Time Machine - please help!

My iMac has been returned from repair and as part of this was reset to its factory settings, depeting everything. I took backups using Time Machine to an external hard drive before it went off for repair, and after it came back I restored the data - so I thought. It seemed to work for a long time, but on completion no files had been restored, and all the backups from before the iMac went for repair are now inaccessible in Time Machine. However as far as I can see they are still on the hard drive however.
The iMac has since been backing up the now empty machine to this hard drive, over-writing the data, but I have now switched Time Machine off.
How can I restore my back-ups and recover my data please?
John Wood

'depeting' is a typo for 'deleting'. I don't seem to be able to edit this out above

HT203177 My backups using Time Machine to my Time Capsule worked fine until a week ago. Since then it gets stuck on "Preparing ...". I have left it preparing overnight and it doesn't get past this stage. What else can I do? Bob

My backups using Time Machine to my Time Capsule worked fine until a week ago. Since then it gets stuck on "Preparing ...". I have left it preparing overnight and it doesn't get past this stage. What else can I do?

Mavericks does really nasty stuff..
Try manually mounting the sparsebundle and extract the files you want.
Yet another Pondini reference. http://pondini.org/TM/15.html
We have avoided Mavericks you see knowing that it would cause these kinds of issues..
You never ever load a new OS without doing a disk image beforehand.. TM is not reliable enough or trustworthy to be depended on.
If none of the above work..
I would get a USB drive on the computer and install Mountain Lion or whatever OS you had before you unfortunately upgraded to Mavericks.. Then use TM from that decent installation but mount the sparsebundle and choose the backup from a date well before mavericks was installed.
Once you have extracted the files.. or even done a full restore you might be able to extract the files you want.

I recently upgraded my Macbook pro with a new Hard Drive. I then transferred the data using Time Machine. Now when I want to backup using Time Machine again, it won't do it as it did before to the same external HD. How can I get it to reconnect?

Purchased a new, larger solid state drive to replace my old drive. I installed OSX then I had Time Machine do it's magic.
Now when I want to do a backup using Time Machine, it tells me that the external HD is full. When I did so prior to upgrade, it would erase old backups and then do a new backup.
Please help. I am worried about losing files, and am tired of seeing the "Time Machine hasn't backed up in xxx days" Error Message.
Thanks.

it thinks yours is a new machine so it doesn't want to start deleting another machine's backups
see the bottom of this page
http://pondini.org/TM/19.html

I recently bought a WD My Book Live to backup using Time Machine, now that I've upgraded to and my old NAS won't support Mountain Lion. The WD drive appears in the Finder, it doesn't appear as an option when setting up the backup disc in Time Machine.

I recently bought a WD My Book Live to backup using Time Machine, now that I've upgraded to and my old NAS won't support Mountain Lion. The WD drive appears in the Finder, but it doesn't appear as an option when setting up the backup disc in Time Machine. Any ideas please?

" now that I've upgraded to and my old NAS won't support Mountain Lion. "
Do you have a few words missing in the original question ?.
When i upgraded from LION to MOUNTAIN LION it made NO difference at all to my MyBook Live !!!
reading the original post again and again, do you in fact have two My Book Live units, an old one and a new one ?
tim

HT201250 Can I do a backup using Time Machine on a server, or it needs an external drive only?

Can I do a backup using Time Machine on a server, or it needs an external drive only?

Time Machine can back up to a server. The drive or partition used still needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
(65169)

Incremental Backups in Time Machine taking forever

Greetings all,
I have read the various posts about slow initial backups with Time Machine. I, on the other hand, had no such problem. However, now that my initial backup is complete I find it takes quite a long time for Time Machine to do its hourly thing. I mean a LONG time. The machine will sit for minutes at a time doing nothing, then copy a few kilobytes of a reported 239 MB backup. Then when it finally does complete - roughly 30 minutes later - it will sit for 10 or 15 minutes at the "Finishing backup" stage. At this rate Time Machine is running almost constantly - by the time the darnned thing finishes it's almost time to start again. It didn't do this on my G5 quad core with the same amount of data (about 850 GB). Does anyone have any ideas why this might be happening?
Thanks for your help.

Your Majesty!!
Sounds like your incremental backups are quite fast!
I have a mid 2011 iMac with SSD and 2TB HDD, and Time Machine incremental backups take anything up to 5 hours, sometimes longer. Trivial amounts of data are usually involved, but the log reports very large numbers of files.
One time I completed a Time Machine backup, rebooted and initiated another backup immediately with very few apps running (Console, Activity Monitor), and after several hours, the backup log said it had backed up over 800,000 files but only a very small amount of data.
I have a case open with AppleCare since July 1st. They have a whole lot of logs and other information being analyzed.
You will find others who have the same unresolved problem at - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3144862?start=0&tstart=0

Macbook Pro 2012: Backup using Time Machine

I am running Mavericks. I have not used Time Machine before. I am assuming I need an external hard disk or can I make a copy in iCloud? I have Parallels with Windows 8.1 VM. Will both those also be backed up? Thanks,

You can't make a backup of your MacBook Pro on iCloud. There's no enough cloud storage available to do this. Instead, make backups of your files on an external drive with Time Machine. See > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
By default, Time Machine will make a backup of all your files in the OS X volume. If you don't want to back up your Windows 8.1 virtual machine, open System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, press the + button, go to Documents folder and add the Parallels folder to excluded items, so it won't be backed up

Why can't I restore backup using Time Machine and/or Disk Utility

Backed up my entire computer on a Buffalo Ministation as I need to install new OSX and don't want to lose any files. Tried the handful of options listed in Support to restore and nothing is working. Using Time Machine, the Restore button is greyed out so I can't select it. Using Disk Utility, when adding the source image, the Open button is greyed out so I can't select it. Please help.

Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Revert to non mavericks os using time machine backup

i have installe mavericks and it has rendered my printing useless, i now wish to use my time machine backups to revert to a previous time without mavericks. this shouldn't be difficult but i have no idea how to go about it. my time machine backups are available via a wireless link to my nas drive.

I Diff wrote:
my backups are on a remote nas drive is this a problem?
Possibly. Time Machine is guaranteed to work with a Time Capsule, an external hard disk connected to it, or a mounted internal or external volume on the source Mac. NAS devices are supported but there a lot of caveats.
From OS X Mountain Lion: Disks you can use with Time Machine
"If your backup disk is on a network, the network server must use Apple File Protocol (AFP) file sharing, and both your computer, and the networked backup disk, should have Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later. The AFP disk must also be “mounted” (available to your computer)."
Since only a Mac can run OS X, what the above means to me is that the NAS must essentially be a Mac.

Problems starting a completely fresh total backup on Time Machine - Help!

I recently had an iMac which refused to boot. I reinstalled from a combination of Time Machine restore and the original system disc. It still took 7 hours to get all the preferences and odd programmes which didn't seem to restore back to working order.
I wanted to do a complete Time Machine backup starting from scratch using a fresh 500Gb ext hard drive. I did the following as suggested:
1.On the Time Machine Preferences window, click the Options button. Note anything in the exclusions box, then click Cancel to return to the main window. Note the settings of other option(s), then turn Time Machine OFF and quit System Preferences.
2.If you're backing-up to an external HD, eject, disconnect, and power it off for a few moments, then reconnect it.
3.Delete the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist (in your top-level Library folder, not your home folder).
(You may have to navigate to it; a Spotlight search won’t show it, and a Finder search won’t, either, unless you include System Files. If you have a problem finding the file, see item #A7.)
4.Go back into Time Machine Preferences, re-select the drive, re-enter any exclusions and other options you noted in step 1. Note that the oldest and latest backup dates won't appear on this window until the next backup is done.
5.A 120-second countdown to a backup should appear. If you close the window, it should begin immediately.
The Mac HD has a used space of 150 Gb, but before the new TM backup started it counted thousands of files which were 'excluded' even though I hadn't asked for this. When the actual backup started it was saying that it was backing up a total of 68 Gb. Surely this can't be correct. I know that TM automatically omits a number of system files but surely not 82GB worth? I have a feeling that despite trashing com.apple.TimeMachine.plist it may be picking up from where the 'old' external hard drive (which contained the previous total TM backup) left off?
All I want to do is start afresh using this new 500Gb EHD but ensure that the whole of drive is backed up. How do I do this or is there a better way of backing up the whole drive on a regular basis?
Thank you.

Colin Cadle wrote:
I recently had an iMac which refused to boot. I reinstalled from a combination of Time Machine restore and the original system disc. It still took 7 hours to get all the preferences and odd programmes which didn't seem to restore back to working order.
I wanted to do a complete Time Machine backup starting from scratch using a fresh 500Gb ext hard drive. I did the following as suggested:
You didn't really need to do all that. Those instructions (from #A4 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html]) are for a "full reset" of Time Machine, such as, when there's a problem with the preferences file, to get Time Machine to continue backing-up to existing backups.
When you back up to a new or erased drive, Time Machine starts fresh.
The Mac HD has a used space of 150 Gb, but before the new TM backup started it counted thousands of files which were 'excluded' even though I hadn't asked for this.
When you did this, was the old TM drive connected? If so, that's probably what was being excluded. Time Machine will automatically exclude the +*currently selected+* backup drive, but if it finds a different volume containing TM backups, it won't exclude the entire drive, since there might be other data on it; so it excludes just the backup files on the drive. Your best bet is to eject and disconnect the old drive; otherwise, specifically exclude it.
When the actual backup started it was saying that it was backing up a total of 68 Gb. Surely this can't be correct. I know that TM automatically omits a number of system files but surely not 82GB worth?
It's possible. Depending on exactly went wrong, and exactly what you did, some things may not have been restored to the proper places, or the sizes being reported are inaccurate.
Exactly what did you do? Did you, for example, select your internal HD in the "Star Wars" display, and tell TM to restore it?
How much data was on your system before all this started? Was it about 150 GB, or was it more like 70 GB?

How do I perform a complete restore to Mac using Time Machine

I need to restore my MBP (10.8) from Time Machine backup. Problem is, when I attempt to perform a full restore it says the last full backup available is a month ago.
How can I recover all the changes since my last full backup?
I've reestored the last full backup, but I've now "lost" all changes made since the last full backup. I can open Time Machine and view or restore individual files, but that's tedious and error prone (bound to miss a few).
How can I perform a FULL restore. ie. Back to the last backup (the full backup from a month ago), and then recover all changes made up until the last "incremental" backup - which only included the changes?
Alternatively, how can I identify all changes from last FULL backup to the last "incremental".

Insert its first original DVD, restart with the Option key held down, click on it, use the Disk Utility to erase the internal drive, and install a new OS.
(94325)

Using Time Capsule as a 'wireless' router and backup using Time Machine

I have a question about backup speed on my 1 TB Time Capsule. I purchased a Time Capsule about a year ago and have an imacg5 and two Mac laptops that I setup to use the wireless router capability and as the backup drive for all three computers.
I was experiencing a problem in that the backups from the imacg5 were never completing even though the Time Machine window said it was only backing up several MBs. In order to 'fix' the problem I finally 'erased' all of the backup files on the Time Capsule using Airport Utility. I had also run Disk Utility on all of the drives to verify and fix any problems.
When I initialized the wireless connections and initiated backups I connected to the imacg5 to the Time Capsule with an ethernet connection as well as via Airport and began 'backing up' my laptops, then started by backing up individually, various disks on my imacg5.
The laptops have rather small disks and backed up rather quickly. The imacg5 has hundreds of GB of data spread across several disks. I had decided to 'backup' the disks individually in case that had been the cause of my original problem.
My systems disk, Macintosh HD, backed up about 110 GB at the rate of 8 GBs per hour. I was encouraged.
My next 'data' disk, LaCie 320 #1, backed up about 209 GB at the rate of 2 GBs per hour. I was confused. This 'backup' took several days to complete. Once it completed, Time Machine has run about every hour as expected and completes the backup in about 3 minutes.
I still have two more disks on the imacg5 to backup. Does anyone have any idea what rate I should expect or should I just add the drives and let it take its course?

I say just do it!
When connected via ethernet I turn off the airport connection on the computer. I found that frequently my mom's macbook pro would choose the wireless connection to her Time Capsule rather than the ehternet connection to do the back up. This was slower than via the ethernet.

Can you wirelessly backup using Time Machine?

If I get the Time Machine will I be able to backup wirelessly through the wifi network???
Apple CEO

Time Capsule TC = hardware router and hard disk designed to work with Time Machine.
Time Machine TM = software in the computer designed to run background backup.
What you buy is a Time Capsule..
And yes, that is the whole point of the TC..
Its fundamental design is a backup device for laptops over wireless so they do not need to be plugged in to do backups.
You are using it exactly for the intended use.

HT3275 Unable to backup using Time Machine after hard drive was replaced

I recently had my hard drive fail and I had the hard drive replaced. I restored everything from my Time Capsule without a problem. Now when I go to backup with the Time Machine, it stalls. It states it is "backing up: 12.2MB of 227GB" for the past four hours. I have attempted to restart the backup and have had the same thing happen. Any suggestions? Thanks!

If you have restored the backup, did you correctly inherit the old backup when you setup TM again??
See Pondini on inheriting backups. B5 and B6
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Install the widget.. A1
Do a full reset of TM.. A4
Do a verify of the disk and the backup.. A5.
I strongly recommend you simply start over.. this happens with TM sometimes.
Archive off the old backups if you still want to keep them.. no bad idea in case there is something still to transfer.
In the airport utility erase the hard disk of the TC.. and then start again.
Make sure you do at least the first backup by ethernet as it is many times faster than wireless.

Complete (Non-incremental) Backup Using Time Machine

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