Does Time Machine make complete backups of Virtual Machines?

I am new to the forums, so forgive me if this has been asked before.
I have a MacBook Pro and have VMWare Fusion 3 installed.
I have Windows 7 and XP installed as virtual machines, and use an external hard drive to back up into using Time Machine. I have been given conflicting information regarding the backups being created by Time Machine.
I have been told that I should use a Windows backup program such as Acronis to back up the Windows installations separately from the Mac backups on the separate hard drive.
Someone else has told me that if I use Time Machine, then the Windows installations will be backed up automatically, as the Windows installations are effectively folders and files within the Mac software.
Just to confuse things, I have read somewhere that Time Machine cannot back up Boot partitions of Windows installations, but I can't remember where I read this.
I don't want to lose my Windows installations through not understanding the backup capabilities of Time Machine, so I am hoping that someone here can advise me as to what the best course of action would be please.
Can I trust Time Machine to back everything up and to be able to restore my whole machine, including Windows installations, from a Time Machine backup, or do I need to back up the Windows virtual machines separately by using Acronis.
Thanks
Kevin

1. TM will not backup a Boot Camp Windows volume.
2. TM will backup a VM disc image every time it changes unless you have excluded it via TM's Exclude list.
3. If the VMs change often then TM will backup each change thus consuming large amounts of space on the backup drive which is not recommended. Thus, it's best to backup VMs separately from within Windows using a Windows backup utility.
4. TM will not backup individual files and folders of a VM disc image. It will only backup the entire disc image.

Similar Messages

Time Machine cannot complete backup to MyBookLiveDuo

Time Machine cannot complete backup to MyBookLiveDuo
I am trying to use TimeMachine to setup a backup from a mid-2011 iMac running OSX 10.9.3 to a 4TB WD MyBook Live Duo drive on a network. I have 3 other MacBooks setup to use this shared drive using Time Machine as well as a PC using WD backup software.
The backup from the iMac is failing with a message “The backup disk image /Volumes/TimeMachine/PM’s iMac.sparsebundle could not be accessed (error(null)).”. After looking through Pondini I change the name of the iMac from "PM’s iMac" to "Family" but the problem is not fixed.
In fact the iMac seems to still uses the old machine name in the error message.
In the console I see the following messages
5/29/14 3:02:47.124 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
5/29/14 3:02:47.125 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.
5/29/14 3:03:22.547 PM spindump[427]: Saved hang report for Disk Utility version 13 (517) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Disk Utility_2014-05-29-150322_Family-iMac.hang
5/29/14 3:03:29.854 PM mds[37]: (Normal) Volume: volume:0x7fcffb877000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:03:53.026 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:04:49.260 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
5/29/14 3:04:49.261 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.
5/29/14 3:05:32.882 PM mds[37]: (Normal) Volume: volume:0x7fcffb89d400 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:05:52.689 PM apsd[61]: Unrecognized leaf certificate
5/29/14 3:05:55.561 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:06:44.339 PM mds[37]: (Warning) Volume: vsd:0x7fcffb82d600 Open failed. failureCount:6 {
DisabledRecycleCount = 6;
5/29/14 3:06:52.608 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
5/29/14 3:06:52.609 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Giving up after 3 retries.
5/29/14 3:06:52.814 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Backup failed with error 21: 21
5/29/14 3:07:12.831 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
Ha anyone seen this problem and been able to resolve it.
Thanks!

Time Machine cannot complete backup to MyBookLiveDuo
I am trying to use TimeMachine to setup a backup from a mid-2011 iMac running OSX 10.9.3 to a 4TB WD MyBook Live Duo drive on a network. I have 3 other MacBooks setup to use this shared drive using Time Machine as well as a PC using WD backup software.
The backup from the iMac is failing with a message “The backup disk image /Volumes/TimeMachine/PM’s iMac.sparsebundle could not be accessed (error(null)).”. After looking through Pondini I change the name of the iMac from "PM’s iMac" to "Family" but the problem is not fixed.
In fact the iMac seems to still uses the old machine name in the error message.
In the console I see the following messages
5/29/14 3:02:47.124 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
5/29/14 3:02:47.125 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.
5/29/14 3:03:22.547 PM spindump[427]: Saved hang report for Disk Utility version 13 (517) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Disk Utility_2014-05-29-150322_Family-iMac.hang
5/29/14 3:03:29.854 PM mds[37]: (Normal) Volume: volume:0x7fcffb877000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:03:53.026 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:04:49.260 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
5/29/14 3:04:49.261 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.
5/29/14 3:05:32.882 PM mds[37]: (Normal) Volume: volume:0x7fcffb89d400 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:05:52.689 PM apsd[61]: Unrecognized leaf certificate
5/29/14 3:05:55.561 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/TimeMachine
5/29/14 3:06:44.339 PM mds[37]: (Warning) Volume: vsd:0x7fcffb82d600 Open failed. failureCount:6 {
DisabledRecycleCount = 6;
5/29/14 3:06:52.608 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
5/29/14 3:06:52.609 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Giving up after 3 retries.
5/29/14 3:06:52.814 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Backup failed with error 21: 21
5/29/14 3:07:12.831 PM com.apple.backupd[220]: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/TimeMachine (FSVolumeRefNum: -106; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
Ha anyone seen this problem and been able to resolve it.
Thanks!

Does time capsule make duplicate copies of the files those are already exist in it?

Does time capsule make duplicate copies of the files those are already exist in it?

It's not clear just what you mean.
If you're backing-up your Mac, via the Time Machine software, to a Time Capsule or external HD, then yes, by default, Time Machine will copy everything the first time. Subsequent backups will copy only what's new or changed.
If you mean, can you back up other data on a Time Capsule, no, not with Time Machine. It can only back up TO a network location, not FROM one.

Does service reporting provide usage data of Virtual Machine NICs ?

Hello Guys,
Does Service reporting provide usage data of Virtual Machine NICs ? if yes how can I fetch that data.
awaiting reply
Thanks
NM-BG

Hi,
Thank you for reaching out to us. From a support perspective the way forward would be to open up a support ticket. Please refer to
this documentation on how to open a support ticket. Hope this helps.
Warm Regards;
Prasant

Does Time Machine make bootable backups?

I used a beautiful backup program called Backup Simplicity in Tiger that made a bootable Exact duplicate of my HD into my external drive. That's really I want to do.
This morning I tried Time Machine for the first time. It only put a backup folder on my external drive. That's not what I want to do.
So here's my question, if I totally erase my external drive will Time Machine make a bootable duplicate of my HD on my external drive also?
Also, is there a way to schedule Time Machine for backups manually?

No, TimeMachine doesn't create a bootable backup, nor can it be controlled manually. The purpose of TimeMachine is to work behind the scenes backing up changed files. Later, when you realize something is amiss, you can 'go back in time' and fix the problem. Admittedly, I'm a little shaky on the details of just how flexible the retrieval system is since I've not yet played with that feature yet. But as I understand it, if you installed a new program and your computer suddenly started going nuts, you'll be able to use TimeMachine to restore your computer to the point before you installed that program. Or, if you realize you improperly edited a file, you'll be able to retrieve the file prior to that editing session.
Apple's team realized three things: 1) most of us don't take the time to perform backups even though we know we should be doing it. 2) most of us don't really understand how to develop a good backup strategy. 3) computers today are so powerful that most of the time the CPU isn't working hard at all and those extra cycles might as well be put to use doing something useful. Hence, TimeMachine's design.
As you noticed, TimeMachine makes a folder and does its incremental backups inside. Since I have an external drive that is much larger than my boot/data drive, I'll continue to clone my boot drive to this external once a week, just as I've been doing. If disaster strikes and I need to use the computer right now, I can do so and at worst my data will be one week out of date. (I should then be able to use TimeMachine to retrieve the missing data but the important thing is that I'm up and running again as soon as I've rebooted.) Later (or if I have the time right away) I'll use TimeMachine to restore/replace my boot drive.

Errors with Time Machine (not completing backup, and needing to erase the ".inProgress" package)

I have in a previous discussion been talking about errors with my Time Machine backup. The errors were with a problem with Indexing a file, it fails and stops the whole backup. Each time it attemps another backup, it fills my ".inProgress" package with a (nearly) whole backup, filling my Time Machine hard drive, and thus errasing my previous good backups. The error occurs after about 95% completion.
In my last post of a similar disscussion, the problem was indexing the Preference Pane files and this caused the whole backup to fail. This was my last post there: (below in some additional info of my situation)
I did exclude the MobileMe.prefPane. And I got:
12/16/11 9:24:50.468 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
12/16/11 9:24:50.556 PM com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb
12/16/11 9:25:14.418 PM com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:36:15.650 PM com.apple.backupd: 758.92 GB required (including padding), 830.32 GB available
12/16/11 10:25:14.873 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 22.8 GB of 630.5 GB, 782749 of 2357620 items
12/16/11 11:25:15.335 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 86.6 GB of 630.5 GB, 1167675 of 2357620 items
12/17/11 12:25:16.227 AM com.apple.backupd: Copied 152.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1393795 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 01:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 305.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1413946 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 02:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 457.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1419190 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:19:07 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 1736865 files (568.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 17 03:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 572.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1848939 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Indexing a file failed. Returned 200 for: /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane, /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb/Tom iMac/2011-12-14-171406.inProgress/7DB524DD-EFB9-42A6-8A21-0A2A312EDA6D/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Stopping backup.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 2164998 files (581.1 GB) from volume Mac OS Lion GM.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Dec 17 03:40:50 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Backup failed with error: 11
This time it was the Mouse.prefPane that caused the error. I'd like to exclude the entire PreferencePanes directory.
This was my error message this time:
I just realized this was on my small Developers partition. Perhaps there is an error with the build, OR an error with the initial restore. I'd like to perhaps exclude the entire /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM. I expect that Time Machine is working fine with my main partition and the error happens when it's almost done with the Mac OS Lion GM partition.
The problem now is that I only have 265 GB of 3 TB available on my Time Machine HDD. If attempt another backup, it'll surely erase about 410 GB of my past saved backups. I've already lost 6 months, and I only have two months left of backups. I need to erase the ".inProgress" package again. That'll take time, and it's impossible to do from this main partition, even at root access. This ".inProgress" has a total of two (nearly) full backups; it didn't cleanup the first full backup attempt while starting the second,perhaps it would have had it finished. But I fear even if I exclude the whole "Mac OS Lion GM" partition, It'll create a third full backup before cleanup and erase ~400 GB of previous good backups. Then, I'll have a total of 4 (nearly) full backups! 3 TB is just enough without any past backups.
Maybe I'll just copy my documentations of my 'errasing the ".inProgress" package' last time (from the Mac OS Lion GM partition) and do a full restore of just that partition. Thus erasing the errors all together. If it doesn't fix the errors then this could be a bug in the build that doesn't allow Time Machine to work. I've always included this partition in Time Machine before, even with other Lion builds, so I suspect that it was an error in the initial restore. (I may be answering my own questions, and that the inital restore (of the small partition) is the problem, and I just need to re-restore the small partition)
Again, I'm going to have to erase the ".inProgress" file to regain 1.53 TB of space before proceeding.
Also, I gave myself permission to read the ".Backup.345781513.887697.log", the log that was created last night when I first started Time Machine this last time. It was interesting, but didn't show the error I could see from the console.
Right now, mds and mdworker appear to be going crazy even after I just now turned off Time Machine. I think I'll let it go for the rest of the night. Then I'll work on erasing the ".inProgress" package from the other partition boot up.
That was my entire last post. To add some information, I have two OS X partitons, both Mac OS X Lion. One is my large main partition, the other is one I don't mind testing with. I recently replaced my internal hard drive in my iMac and restored from Time Machine both partitions. This appeared to go smoothly. But I have yet to create a single successful Time Machine backup since. At first it was doing a Full Backup, which I didn't like, but now it just aborts around 95% completion. Each, time, it tries it fills the Time Machine hard drive with duplicate (nearly) full backups errasing my older good backups. I would like to erase the ".inProgress" file to save space.
My main question in this new discussion is does anyone know of a good way of erasing the ".inProgress" file? This is so I can preseerve my previous backups. ACLs and other permissions seem to make it impossible to erase from this startup partition, the one I'm running Time Machine from. Even at root level, if I give myself permission to change permissions or delete a file, it'll say Operation not Permitted instead of Permission Denied. I have been able to delete this ".inProgress" package before when booting from the other partition, but with great difficulty. I have had much help from another Member in this Support Community when it comes to solving my Time Machine problems. I think I have found the problem (indexing files in my small OS X partition), as stated in my copy& pasted post above, but I really need to delete this inProgress package first to save space before continuing!

Pondini wrote:
Gator TPK wrote:
Now I'll have to fix the small partition? How's the best way to do this? There could be thousands of files that won't index fine.
See if there's anything you haven't done, that applies, in the pink box of #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
Otherwise, since most (or all?) of the indexing errors are in OSX, you might want to just reinstall it. Something may have gone wrong sometime, that damaged those files.
I reviewed #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting and I have already done most of those things. I have just learned something new though:
When I included my Main OS X partition again, I got an indexing error for the first time for that partition. I might be interesting to note that the _spotlight process was running, and it's running again (the magnifying glass has a dot and it generically says "Indexing Tom's iMac"). mdworker, mds and backupd processes really are working hard, one moment they used over 500% of my CPU. It's nice to know for once quad core is good for something other than video encoding. (Now if they could just get the Finder to do more than 100.1%, only 1 thread is doing 100%, I'd like to see file size calculations 8 times quicker!)
I never got an indexing error once in the past 2 weeks for that large Mac OS X v10.7.2 main volume, and it had appeared to finish that partition backup before running into problems with my smaller test partition. Also, I had just updated the smaller test partition with a later build of Mac OS X. But It appears that the beta builds are clearly not the problem. I thought I could just restore again (from the December 4th backup) the small partition and both would be fine.
I'll finish reviewing all the suggestions on Time Machine - Troubleshooting and go from there. Hopefully, the _spotlight indexing simutaniously was the only problem. It's strange that the indexing hasn't happened since the original restore last week untill I finally got a good clean complete partial Time Machine backup. Why would the first Time Machine backup trigger indexing again?
For now, I'm going to exclude the Main Partition again, and let another good backup run. And try your suggestions. (And wait till mds, mdworker, etc. to finish!)
I have the logs of the first two sucsessful backups and the last two failed backups from the last 3 hours, if that would help.?

Time machine cannot complete backups - please help

I hope somebody can help me - my Time Machine has been unable to complete backups for about six weeks or so.
Having read some useful information on the support forums yesterday, I verified both my internal HD and my external disk. The external disk appears fine, yesterday my internal disc needed some 'minor repairs'. I booted from the Leopard disk, but could not find where to repair disk so simply verified disk again and it was apparently fine.
I have verified both disks today and they are again fine. However when I try to back up I get this message:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
Node requires deep traversal:/Users/macbookowner/Pictures/iPhoto Library reason:kFSEDBEventFlagContainsChanges|kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEven tFlagReasonFoundInDeepTraversal|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonMissedReservation|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 90.99 GB requested (including padding), 158.90 GB available
Error: (-8088) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Version Cue CS3/Client/3.0.0/VersionCueUI.framework/Versions/Current to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Debs' Macbook/2012-10-10-125404.inProgress/FDAAD4E0-7030-4317-925F-63C9D273908B/Macin tosh HD/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Version Cue CS3/Client/3.0.0/VersionCueUI.framework/Versions
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/macbookowner/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2012/30 Sep 2012/IMG_2772.MOV to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Users/macbookowner/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2012/30 Sep 2012/IMG_2772.MOV to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Debs' Macbook/2012-10-10-125404.inProgress/FDAAD4E0-7030-4317-925F-63C9D273908B/Macin tosh HD/Users/macbookowner/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2012/30 Sep 2012
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Users/macbookowner/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2012/30 Sep 2012/IMG_2772.MOV to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Debs' Macbook/2012-10-10-125404.inProgress/FDAAD4E0-7030-4317-925F-63C9D273908B/Macin tosh HD/Users/macbookowner/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2012/30 Sep 2012
Copied 20247 files (72.6 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
I have no idea what to do.
Can anybody help? Thankyou so much

A clone is an exact bootable copy of your Hard Drive.
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
(To Install OSX on an IntelMac the Drive it needs the GUID Partitioning scheme mentioned at the bottom.)
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/DU.html

Restore from Time Machine: "last complete backup" is not last backup

I'm trying to restore a backup to a new hard drive.
I did a last "Back Up Now" (around 5 PM) before beginning with the restore but when I go to start the restore it asks me to choose the last "complete" backup, and that was at 9 AM in the morning.
Am I right in assuming if I choose this "last complete backup" from 9 AM it won't restore all the files that have been edited between 9 AM and 5 PM?
If so, how do I get it create a complete backup, without doing a completely new (and time-consuming) complete backup?

I've seen this too. I'm not sure how to force a full backup. you could wait a couple of TM cycles and see if the backup you want becomes available on the list of full backups. You can also try forcing deep traversal (this will make backup time much longer but it's nowhere near as long as a complete new backup). To do that reboot in safe mode (hold shift at the chime till you see the login window). reboot normally and start a backup. It should do a deep traversal and maybe that will count as a complete backup.

Time machine cannot complete backup sparse bundle already in use

I'm getting an error message: time machine unable to complete backup, sparse bundle already in use?
Please advise, I need to find the "yellow brick road", guess it wouldn't be cool for a guy to click red slipper heels together?
Help? Much appreciated....
Macmanusider

What constructive purpose do these smart mouth answere provide? I have been through the "more like this" discussions and the mostly have answers referring you to "more like this". The troubleshooting links refer to old and outdated systems. After all these years, doesn't anyone have an intellrgent suggestion? Is there any way to make the Time Machine backups dependible? It's not worth the trouble to have to reconnect by USB, reboot the time machine, etc. every couple of weeks.

Time Machine not completing backup to Time Capsule

MY OS: 10.8.2
My backups to the Time Capsule are interrupted with this message:
Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to xxxxx's Time Capsule.
The backup disk image "/Volumes/xxxx's Data/My MacBook Pro (2).sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1).
Can someone tell me what I can do to fix this?
Thanks

http://pondini.org/TM/C17.html

Time machine makes 30 backups for the last two days, no backups for any earlier times: is there a way to control it?

I've been running Time Machine in the background for as long as I've owned my current Mac--- a few months. It is a completely generic set-up: it's a desktop (rarely shut off or asleep) connected to an external hard drive that is much larger (1 TB) than my internal hard drive (0.5 TB), and Time Machine is configured to save backups of my whole internal drive to the external drive. The external is half-full, and the internal is a little more than half-full. I often hear my external crunching away, working on something.
I recently needed to access an old file, so I went into Time Machine mode on the folder where it had been deleted a few weeks ago. While I'm not upset that it isn't available (it's my own fault for deleting it), I didn't expect the Time Machine to have such a bad distribution of saved backups. There are 30 backup snapshots of the past two days, and nothing earlier. I was expecting something more like a few from today, a few from this week, a few from this month, and a few going all the way back in time--- a broader distribution.
I don't see any way to control this in the Time Machine Preferences (in fact, very little control at all). Is there a secret way to control it, or some tip to ensure a more useful distribution of saved snapshots?
Thanks,
-- Jim

Thanks, but it doesn't exactly address my question. TimeMachineEditor allows me to set the intervals or times when backups occur, but it doesn't control the algorithm that decides which snapshots should be deleted. My problem was that Time Machine chose to delete all of the old snapshots and keep only the most recent ones: I'd like it to keep more of the recent ones than the old ones, but still keep some old ones.
In fact, the (unmodifyable) text on the Time Machine control panel says that it keeps:
hourly backups for the past 24 hours
daily backups for the past month
weekly backups for all previous months
That would be perfect if it were true.
Perhaps the algorithm did the wrong thing because the size of my internal hard drive varied quite a lot a few days ago: a process got out of control and used up all of my internal disk space. I killed the process and deleted its output (several times), so my internal disk eventually went back down to normal. Perhaps in the intervening hours, Time Machine made a backup, once an hour, and used up all of the external drive space. When it had to choose between keeping "weekly backups of previous months" and "hourly backups of the past 24 hours", it chose to keep hourly backups of the past 24 hours. This was the wrong choice in my case (it was the unwanted output) and is probably the wrong choice in most cases.
Is there a way to control the algorithm that decides which backups to keep and which to delete? I would have it delete the hourly, daily, and weekly backups in a way that preserves their relative distribution.
By the way, while I have made it sound like my problem was a runaway log file (something that would be easy to put in an excluded directory with Time Machine's "Options" button), it was a VirtualBox snapshot merge. The data in question are precious, but were unnecessarily copied many times while VirtualBox failed to merge them properly. I can't simply exclude a directory: I'm talking about a more general problem.
Thanks!
-- Jim

Time Machine makes full backup after permission repair.

I am struggling with this a couple of months but now I am sure. Each time I do a permission repair of my hard drive, Time Machine makes a full backup of roughly 200G. In this way my Time Machine disk can be full rather quickly. I seem not to be able to prevent this. Anybody having the same issue? Or, even better, having a solution? Thanks, Pierre

Thanks for your reaction.
No, only 10-20.
I do permission repair once every 4-6 weeks more or less as a kind of maintenance. No idea why but it happens to be like this.
This is in the log (and somewhere here the trouble occurred):
Jun 28 19:33:16 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[355]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/iMac van Pierre.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Jun 28 19:33:16 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[355]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Jun 28 19:33:22 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[386]: Mounted devices (\n "/Volumes/pierre.wolters",\n "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups"\n)
Jun 28 19:33:22 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[386]: Wont clean Time Machine Backups because disk image
Jun 28 19:33:22 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[386]: Mounted devices (\n "/Volumes/pierre.wolters",\n "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups"\n)
Jun 28 19:33:22 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[386]: Wont clean Time Machine Backups because disk image
Jun 28 19:58:02 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[355]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jun 28 19:58:04 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[355]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
Jun 28 20:13:30 imac-ethernet fseventsd[48]: event logs in /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.fseventsd out of sync with volume. destroying old logs. (930 2 930)
Jun 28 20:13:31 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[504]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/iMac van Pierre.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Jun 28 20:13:31 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[504]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Jun 28 20:13:33 imac-ethernet fseventsd[48]: log dir: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.fseventsd getting new uuid: 87C9B931-FE3E-48EF-818C-B78899942EB3
Jun 28 20:13:35 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[536]: Mounted devices (\n "/Volumes/pierre.wolters",\n "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups"\n)
Jun 28 20:13:35 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[536]: Wont clean Time Machine Backups because disk image
Jun 28 20:13:35 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[536]: Mounted devices (\n "/Volumes/pierre.wolters",\n "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups"\n)
Jun 28 20:13:35 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[536]: Wont clean Time Machine Backups because disk image
Jun 28 20:22:47 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[504]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/iMac van Pierre.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Jun 28 20:30:28 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[504]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jun 28 20:30:29 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[504]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
Jun 28 21:08:34 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[694]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/iMac van Pierre.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Jun 28 21:08:34 imac-ethernet com.apple.backupd[694]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Jun 28 21:08:37 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[727]: Mounted devices (\n "/Volumes/pierre.wolters",\n "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups"\n)
Jun 28 21:08:37 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[727]: Wont clean Time Machine Backups because disk image
Jun 28 21:08:37 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[727]: Mounted devices (\n "/Volumes/pierre.wolters",\n "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups"\n)
Jun 28 21:08:37 imac-ethernet CleanMyMacHelperTool[727]: Wont clean Time Machine Backups because disk image
I will check your suggestions.
Once again, Thanks.
Pierre

Why does IE8 running on XP and Win7 Virtual Machine deletes the history while I'm still browsing the same site with client-side hashbang routing?

Hello,
I have a asp.net mvc 5 web application running on .net 4.5 hosted on my local windows 8 machine on macbook pro using parallels. I'm running Internet Explorer 8 Version: 8.0.6001.18702 running on XP and Version: 8.0.7601.17514 running on Windows 7 Enterprise.
I've got both of the virtual machine source from www.modern.ie
My web application is attempting to provide single page user experience by having some client-side routing by using '#!/xxx' hashbangs in the url so that I can get and post via ajax and change the hash in the url without causing the page to reload. My
code works fine in IE9+ and other modern browsers.
However, I'm facing this strange issue in both of the IE8 versions. When running my demo app in IE8, I can login, view home page and can navigate from this home page to many details page. From the very first login page, all the pages are the result
of form's post action via ajax which then expects html from server and loads in the DOM. The page structure of my app is like summary form => Details page (can also contain summary forms) => Details...so on.
The above process works fine for few of the navigation steps. If I keep navigating from one page to another & go back, I have observed that the browser back button is removing the history items slowly. And a time comes when it totally forgets about
all the history pages that I visited to reach this current page I'm viewing!! It treats like I have just started my browsing session and this current page is the first page I've landed on with no back option. Now if I again try to navigate, I have encountered
problems like both the back and forward buttons gets disabled.
Hope, my words above is clear enough to explain this problem. The same application works fine in IE9+ and other browsers.
Till now, I have tried following steps on both VMs:
Resetting IE8.
Increasing disk space to 1024mb for temporary internet files storage.
Setting 'Never' for Check for newer versions of stored pages.
Disabling the automatic crash recovery feature didn't helped in this case. Found this on support website.
Deleted temporary files, history, cache, etc many a times.
Search many forums, posted question on StackOverflow, ASP.NET
Forums - but didn't helped.
Tried 'beforeunload' event of browser to see if any of the page is reloading because of submit or any other reason. But the page doesn't reload at all.
The issue is browser forgets about the browsing history while I'm still browsing the same site.
Is there any possible fix for the issue above? Does IE8 have any issues as many ajax form post is happening on every page?

I have really tried many things to identify any possible reason of the issue above. Even rewrote all my javascript navigation code and checked server-side code.
But the only place where I got the solution is at site: http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/bugs.asp which states that there is a bug in IE8 which reads like:
IE0012: IE Travellog broken when navigating back/away from a page with
a large POST form If there is a form input field with a value longer
than 523,659 characters, when you navigate away from the page, IE may
clear the current session's travellog (similar to history), disabling
the back and forward buttons. Repros in IE6 & IE7.
There are following solutions that you can go for:
- Check for the input field that has lots of characters as mentioned above and solve your problem.
- If you have control over the system where IE8 will be used, you can add the following registry key on that machine. There is no existing key, so, you need to add a new one:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TravelLog] "MaxSize"=dword:ffffffff
I am really relaxed to find this information as I spent really long time to solve this issue. Hope this will help someone.

Q: How to make complete backup of internal HD?

I want to upgrade to a bigger HD and want to make a backup of the full 80GB internal drive.
When using Disk Utility I can make images of folders but not of the internal HD.
I even can not make that image if I have booted from DVD or from external Firewire disk! Why?
I also cannot unmount the internal HD when booted from external HD or DVD.
why?
How should I make a complete update (including all invisible files and folders)?

####### SUCCESS ###########
Thank you to all who provided valuable knowledge here.
From the many methods suggested above, I chose to try the CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner). I let CCC make an image of my internal HD onto my external HD. (Oddly enough this only works if you boot from the internal HD, or, better said, in order to use CCC you have to boot from the source HD, not destination HD, which IMHO would be saver, but then.)
Despite I logged in as admin I had to give the admin password for every top level folder, about 20 in my case, a bit tedious, because you can not go away but have to stay near the computer all the time while it is copying. It lastet 3 hours...
Then I booted from the Tiger DVD and verified that the image was mountable, and error free. Also the repair section of the disk utility allowed to specify the new image as source, and the internal HD as destination. So I was well prepared.
Today I got my new HD (yippie!!!! 120 GB in my PowerBook!!!!) and when back home I booted from DVD, started disk utility again, repair section, and set the CCC-image as source, the new internal disk as destination, and go!
After exactly one hour the block transfer was complete.
I rebooted with external disk and DVD removed.
But shock! The Mac did not find a system disk! Why this?
I rebooted from DVD, and set the internal disk explicitely as start volume.
Okay that was what was necessary, the next reboot from the internal new disk was successfull.
Thanks again for all the help.
(Just to be save I bought an external HD case for the old HD so if it had not worked this way I would have had still other options, like booting from the external HD and using CCC for directly moving the HD content to the new internal disk, but I am glad that the straightforward way just worked.)

Time Machine- manually removing backups for different machine

Hey all-
I'm running into a problem where Time Machine is suddenly not able to back up my laptop anymore, due to the TM disk being out of space. As part of trying to figure out what was going on, I went to manually browse the TM disk, and noticed that there are backups of an old machine that I no longer have chewing up a lot of space on the TM disk. Is there a way for me to remove those old backups of a no-longer-existing machine from the laptop that I now have?
      Thanks!
             -c

lackhead wrote:
when I go into Time Machine, and double click on the "Time Machine Backups" icon under "Devices" in the left-hand navigation panel, all I see are the backups for the machine I'm coming in from. However, if I go to Finder, command-K and browse to my data store, I see sparsebundle files for my both my laptop *and* the now-gone-to-the-graveyard machine.
Ah, your backups are on a network?   In that case, it's easy:
If they're on a USB drive, connect it directly to your Mac and delete the sparse bundle for the old Mac via the Finder (that is ok to do).
If they're on a Time Capsule, see #Q5 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule.
In either case, if it takes an extraordinarly long time, see the blue box at the bottom of that article.
If I could do a screen/window capture in Time Machine,
For some odd reason, Shift+Cmd+4 doesn't work there, but Shift+Cmd+3 does.

Does Time Machine make complete backups of Virtual Machines?

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