Does Time Machine still ignore mounted disk images? Specifically, encrypted sparse bundle disk images?

My Time Machine backs up to Time Capsule which cannot be encrypted. I also have confidential data in an encrypted sparse bundle disk image in my home folder. When TM backs up and the encrypted sparse bundle disk image is mounted and I'm accessing the data, does TM back up the data "in the clear" decrypted form or does it exclude the disk image because it's mounted? I've done a little research, but there's conflicting information. Not sure what happens in Lion now...

Time Machine does not backup mounted disk images! The encrypted sparse bundle disk image was mounted, I updated a doc and did a TM backup - the file was not listed in the TM repository and the doc remained unchanged in the encrypted sparse bundle disk image on TM. Then I ejected the disk image and did a TM backup - the updated doc was backed up in the encrypted sparse bundle disk image! Thank you!

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Does Time Machine back up mounted disk images?

I keep certain sensitive data encrypted on a .sparsebundle file. If this file is mounted when Time Machine kicks in, will Time Machine back up the unencrypted data to my backup disk?
Martin S Taylor

I see. But it's not the sparsebundle I'm worried about: I'm concerned about the contents of the disk being backed up.
From what you say, I'm assuming the contents are never directly backed up whether encrypted or not: if the disk is unmounted, then obviously the contents can't be backed up (only the .sparseimage file itself); and if it's mounted – well, they're just not backed up, because this isn't how Time Machine works.
Have I got this right?
Martin

If i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?

if i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?
I just moved my itunes off my macbook pro because it was taking up too much space and put it on an external hard drive. i have a second external hard drive that i use for time machine. when i update time machine next will my itunes files be removed from the backup since they are no longer on my internal hard drive (what time machine backs up?) basically, i want to make sure i have a second copy of my itunes besides the one on my first external hard drive and i was wondering if time machine will still have all of that data (on the second external hard drive).
i cant find this answer anywhere!!! thanks so much!!!

Check to see whether or not it's excluded in the Time Machine pane of System Preferences.
Items deleted from the hard drive won't be deleted from the backup until the backup location runs out of space.
(63157)

Does Time Machine track changes to disks made by other operating systems?

I run 10.8 Mountain Lion on my main partition but also occassionally boot to a copy of 10.7 Lion on a separate partition in order to run a version of Quickbooks for Mac that isn't supported in 10.8. Time machine is only turned on in 10.8 and backs up all internal disks and partitions when I'm logged into that operating system. My question is does time machine in 10.8 notice changes made to any of the internal disks made by me while I was booted into 10.7 Lion?
Occassionally I reboot into 10.7 Lion to run Quickbooks for Mac 2011, do work, make changes to files, ect. When I log back into 10.8 Mountain Lion and Time Machine does it's normal back up thing, does it recognize changes that were made to internal disks, folders, and files that were made when I was previously booted into 10.7 Lion? Or does Time Machine in 10.8 Mountain Lion only recognize changes that are made when it's running?
Thanks Peeps!
ben

When I log back into 10.8 Mountain Lion and Time Machine does it's normal back up thing, does it recognize changes that were made to internal disks, folders, and files that were made when I was previously booted into 10.7 Lion?
Yes.

How does time machine use the external disk space??

does time machine back up only the changed or new stuff or does it back up everything? does this mean that if on "day one" it backed up 600 gb worth of data, the next back up on "day 2" would be 600gb+a few more things, or would it be 600gb+600gb+the few more things? Does it back up "day one" in a whole package and "day two" in another package, or does it back up "day one", plus only the different things made from "day one" to "day two""?
similarly, does it keep stuff from the first back up ever, plus anything new or modified in the following back ups, then when it is full, does it let just the oldest files drop off? or does it drop off everything from the initial backup? that is, if I had 20mb of changes would it erase only 20mb of data to make the new data fit, or would it erase all 600gb from say "day one"?
thanks for the answer!
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
<Email Edited by Host>

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Why does Time machine still ask for a disk when it is switched off?

My Time Capsule recently died, PSU problems , I think. So I went into system prefs and deselected the Time Capsule as the back-up disk in Time Machine and switched off Time Machine. Yet every few minutes I get a window appearing telling me Time Machine can't find a back-up disk. Why is this happening and how do I stop it? Thanks
Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon, 6 Gb RAM, OS 10.8.2

Mountain Lion may expect to be using a local disk if external is not available..
Delete the plist.. this gives info.. whether it helps I don't know.
http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html

Does Time Machine backup an entire disk image?

Currently I am on Tiger. I have Leopard in my drawer and will install it when 10.5.1 is released.
I have a question about Time machine.
Currently I use Deja Vu to backup my entire startup disk Disk-A to another disk-B. I can swap these over as startup's if a problem occurs.
Can I do the same thing with time machine?
Thanks,
Steve.

I'm assuming that your disk B is a bootable clone of disk A. If that's the case then, no, Time Machine doesn't do that. However, you can use your Leopard install disk to restore a bootable version of your system and all your files from Time Machine's backups. Time Machine has the advantage of being able to do that type of restore from previous dates and times, unlike a single clone. You can also use Time Machine to restore specific files that you have deleted, accidentally or otherwise, from your main drive.
I use both a bootable clone and Time Machine and consider them complementary backup solutions. BTW, 10.5.1 was released on the 15th.

Time Machine Backup of mounted disk

Hi,
For sharing my iPhoto Library among multiple users on a MacBook Pro running, currently 10.6.8, I have by a Apple Support guide created a disk image file, and mounted it for storing my pictures without permission issues.
However, to account for future expansion, the disk image is made to be 100 GB, while current photo library size is approx 50 GB. Is there any way of getting Time Machine to backup the files within the mounted disk, rather than backing up the disk image file itself? So that the size of the backup at present would be the actual size of contents of the disk, rather than the whole disk image file itself? And furthermore, by copying a disk image file, will the actual files within also be backuped?
Hoping this makes sense to some you you, thanks!

Create a sparse bundle disk image and copy your library there. A sparse bundle disk image consists of strips, rather than one single file. The bundle will expand to fit your needs by adding strips. If things change in the bundle, TimeMachine should be smart enough to only backup the changed strips, not the entire image. So if you tell Disk Utility to create an empty sparse bundle disk image of 1000GB and you put in only 50 GB, the bundle will only occupy 50 GB.
When you delete loads of data, you can even shrink back the disk image (through a terminal command) to free up real disk space.
Message was edited by: eljonco, added shrinking info

Does Time Machine still do incremental backups after a restore?

Hi --
We have a 500GB external iomega drive that just died and I have been working to restore it's files from Time Machine onto a new 500 GB drive. I formatted the new drive and gave it the same name as the old one, and it looks like Time Machine was smart enough to do the right thing and restore the files to their original locations.
However, this morning -- within 24 hours of completing the restore -- we see an error message from TM saying it is out of space and it cannot perform a backup. It claims that about 450 GB are needed, which is about the same size of all the files we restored. Is it possible that once backup files are restored they are not longer considered backed up, and thus Time Machine immediately tries to back up all the files it just restored? I assumed it would still do incremental backups but recognize that restored files do not need to be backed up again unless / until they are edited...
Thanks,
Ram on

felciano wrote:
Hi --
We have a 500GB external iomega drive that just died and I have been working to restore it's files from Time Machine onto a new 500 GB drive. I formatted the new drive and gave it the same name as the old one, and it looks like Time Machine was smart enough to do the right thing and restore the files to their original locations.
That's quite unusual. Normally it does a full backup immediately: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338
See #C4 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time machine can't mount disk ,hard drive,after its been formatted for windows

i want to use time machine but it can't mount disk as it has been used with windows

You will need to repartition and reformat the drive for use with OS X:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Possible solution: Time Machine can not mount disk

Like many of you, my Time Machine started acting up after working fine for months.
I have an external USB (Western Digital 500GB) drive connected to a Airport Extreme (N-speed) as an AirDisk.
I have an iMac (iSight 160GB) connected via ethernet to the AEX and a MacBook (60GB) connected to the AEX. Both have less than half HD usage.
After a few months, the MacBook would fail to backup properly: “Unable to Mount” message after the TM process was going for a few minutes. I could access the WD drive in R/W mode otherwise from the same machine. I read on these boards that I should erase the sparsebundle on the WD drive associated with the MacBook. I did that, and all was then well.
Fast forward a few months, again the same problem on the same machine. I ran DiskWarrior against the WD drive to ensure permissions were fine. Mind you that the iMac TM backup’s have been working fine all along.
Yesterday I solved my problem by reading various tips on these boards:
- Always mount the AirDisk via “==> Go ==> Connect to Server” within the Finder
o As per Apple KnowledgeBase article
- *Proper Computer Name*
o Ensure that your computer has a proper name in the Sharing Preference pane.
o Go into System Preferences --> Sharing.
o Is the box labeled “Computer Name” empty? If it is blank, you need to put in a name for your computer. Otherwise Time Machine won’t be able to perform backups. Additionally, Time Machine needs to differentiate this computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" vs "Office iMac"). As a result, no two Macs should have the same name. If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a unique name for this Mac.
o Also, Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
o (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
o Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
The combination of these two steps has my MacBook working smoothly once again with Time Machine, Airport Extreme and an AirDisk.
GOOD LUCK

Most likely, the power interruption corrupted the sparse bundle containing your backups.
Try to repair them per #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Does Time Machine still work when logged out?

Potentially dumb question here... but will Time Machine continue backing up if I log out? I don't want my administrator user account always logged in, but I want to make sure our central files are constantly being backed up.

Hi,
I logged out of my server before going home last night. When I came in today, there are Time Machine updates throughout the night.
To check this yourself, just logout and then the next time you login, open your Time Machine volume and see if there are any updates. I think you'll find that there are.
Hope this helps!
David

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? Only one Sparse Bundle, same name.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? There is only one sparse bundle but when I enter time machine I don't see my historic backups. I use a synology DS212 for my time machine. Started a new backup which is 218gb but it says 618 gb is occupied therefore it looks like 2 or 3 backups are still on the disk. Before my NAS issues the last backup was in 2014. As you can see there is a second sparse bundle from 2012. Not sure what that is.

This is an old message now, but what happened to me similarly was:
I had a major computer crash and through complicated pathways ended up reinstalling (Mavericks) as a new user (long story).
At least I had good Time Machine backups on an NAS drive (Synology DS212j), or so I thought - when I started Time Machine up again, the old backup file was gone, replaced by a new one using my "new computer" name. The old file was gone both by directly mounting the NAS drive and by clicking "Enter Time Machine".
It's like I had {OldShareName}.sparsebundle and then it was replaced by {NewShareName}.sparsebundle, all of the old info vanished.
(I have spent a week finding old files elsewhere and have completed a satisfactory self-restore. It pays to "archive" [my own variation of] as well as "back-up".)
My belief is that if this were a wired-netword-drive, e.g. plugged right into my iMac with a USB cable, then the old file would have remained.
But this is an NAS drive, connected directly to my Airport wireless router, and I don't know the significance of the fact that it stores its Time Machine backups as "sparsebundle" files rather than simply as plain(er) files.
As usual when things get complicated with computers (not just Apple computers) there was never a warning message. Something like "YOU'RE ABOUT TO DELETE A TIME MACHINE BACK-UP FILE!!!" would have made my life a lot simpler.
BTW, I did try a "restore from Time Machine" option the first thing I had my "new computer" (old hardware, 2009 iMac) up and running, using Migration Assistant, and it ran for many hours and then failed in the wee hours - what that has to do with anything I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that I have a question about this other than "why do these things happen to me?", but it's a warning. Apart from that I've been very happy with the stability and reliability (but not the cost or set-up complexity) of NAS vs. directly-cabled external drives.
Charles

My time machine cannot complete my back up saying the "sparse bundle could not be accessed" error -1 Help please

My time machine cannot complete my back up. The message I receive says the "sparse bundle cannot be accessed. (error -1) Help please.

GG,
Please read over Pondini's Time Machine Troubleshooting guide, specifically C17.

HT3275 trying to back up on time machine and get error message saying ... sparse bundle is already in use -can't complete backup

sparse bundle already in use-can't complete backup

On your iMac....
Open Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
Click on the Time Capsule icon, then click Edit in the small window that appears
Click on the Base Station menu at the upper most top of the screen up where the File, Help, etc menus reside
Click on Restart
Wait a few minutes and try another backup

Does Time Machine still ignore mounted disk images? Specifically, encrypted sparse bundle disk images?

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