Erased my time machine,can it be recovered

OK, spent all day upgrading all of my Mac stuff. Erased my time machine thinking it was another drive, Yea I know but it was late. I figured no big deal I will just back it up tomorrow, then my house got broken into and they took my computer. So how messed up am I, can anyone or anything help?
Napatimeman

When you erase a drive in the usual way, only the Directory blocks are cleared. (that is why it only takes a few seconds.) The blocks that hold the actual files are unchanged. The data are still sitting there, PROVIDED you did not anything (or not much anyway) much onto the erased drive. Actually writing over every block on a a large drive (such as writing Zeroes) can take half-a-day), and then it is absolutely not recoverable by mere mortals.
Utilities like Data Rescue can retrieve such stuff, but probably NOT the filenames. In addition, a Boot drive or a backup has over 350,000 files representing Mac OS X on it. Data Rescue requires a different drive onto which to recover files -- it will not recover-in-place. And only if you can also recover the BackupDB files (the Time Machine Database) will you be able to have any hope of restoring any of it.
Did you have "Find My Mac" enabled on the stolen computer?

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Time Machine - Can't backup or Erase/Restore Disk - Following Mavericks upgrade

Hi Everybody, I have been looking through the internet to try and solve the issue I am having, I have seen people with similar issues but I can't seem to quite find the answer I'm looking for.
A couple of weeks following the Mavericks upgrade, I have started having issues with my time machine partition on my external hard drive (2TB Seagate - 1TB for Time Machine, 1TB for general large files). It started off with "The backup disk ""Time Machine" is not available" which led me to have a look into the issue. I have tried repairing the disk, which gave me the following error:
And "Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
This then lead me to try to erase the Time Machine partition, as far as I can tell, I don't think I need anything from in the past, and I have backed up most things onto the other half of the hard drive. However I can't erase the disk because of this:
"Volume Erase failed with the error: Couldn’t open disk."
The "Time Machine" volume is also grayed out. I'm really at a loss to figure out how to fix this, I'm not worried about recovering all of my time machine files I just want it to work from now on. I also don't want to lose any of the content that is on the other half of the partition.
I have tried putting volumes into spotlight privacy, but not sure what else I can try?
I'm also having issues reading files from an external server, but I'm not sure if this is related to Mavericks or on our side here.
Any advice would be really appreciated

This is exactly what just happened to me. Did anything work for you or did you have to buy a whole new drive? My 1.5tb time machine partition did what you described, while the other 1.5tb extra storage partition is fine.

I accidentally erased the Time Machine application. How can I reinstall it?

I accidentally erased the Time Machine application. How can I reinstall it?

Use Pacifist to extract it.

When I back up on my exertnal HD drive with time machine can I erase what on my computer HD for more space?

When I back up files on my exertnal HD drive with time machine can I erase what's on my Mac HD for space without losing what's on external HD?

If the data is valuable to you, redundant backups are essential. Time Machine is an excellent vehicle when you have to restore data that no longer exists on your internal HDD.
Mende1's suggestion of using Carbon Copy Cloner is excellent because it gives yous a HDD that is 'ready to go' should your internal HDD fail (as all HDDs eventually will).
For example, I have 5 copies of my iTunes folder, one each on three MBPs, on a HDD devoted strictly to iTunes and Time Machine (this does not include the iPod). One may view this as excessive but since I have over 100 GB in this application, I am very comfortable with this.
I advocate that the best backup strategy is Time machine combined with a boot HDD and a third HDD for the most important user data. If there is non essential data, the you may certainly compromise and use just Time Machine.
Ciao.

HT201250 What happened if a new backup has erased the previous one, can I still recover my files?

What happened if a new backup has erased the previous one, can I still recover my files?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
Time Machine doesn't erase old backups. That's only done when your Time Machine disk or Time Capsule gets full.
If you want to mean that you have connected the Time Capsule to another Mac to create another Time Machine backup, you should know that the old backup isn't modified, and you can still restore files from that old backup > http://pondini.org/TM/E3.html

Time Machine - can it act as a HD Clone?

Will doing a full recovery from Time Machine recover all of my applications and any associated authorisations and passwords?
If not, am I better using something like SuperDuper to clone my System HD.
I only ask as my System HD is starting to show signs of flakiness, and while I am fully "Time Machined", I have a horrible feeling I may have issues restoring and authorising some of my many music apps., should my HD turn it's toes up!
Thanks in advance everyone

Yes. Time Machine can do be used to do a full restore. You will have to boot from the install DVD and then start the TM Restore from there.
I have found doing the TM Restore to be slower then a restore from a bootable clone. I use SuperDuper to create the bootable clone. Then I replace the disk and boot from the clone. Once it is up and running from the clone I use SD to Restore the clone back to the new disk. I have found that method to be significant quicker then a full restore from TM.
Allan

Time machine can not access time capsule after upgrade from snow leopard to mountain lion

Two days ago I upgraded my 2009 17" MBP from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. That evening my time capsule/time machine combination worked fine and did an incremental backup of about 12 gigabyte. Yesterday - only one day later - the time machine backup did not work anymore.
It appears that the system can not find the time capsule - even though it shows the remaining free space on the time capsule (so it did find it after all).
The message is always the same:
Time Machine can not complete the backup "Time Capsule"
The image of the backup volume "/Volumes/Data/Pauls MacBookPro.sparsebundle" is not accessable (Error -1).
I also can not delete the backup image on the time capsule since it is read-only. And I do not want to format the time caspsule yet since my wife's MBAir is also using the same time casule.
I tried out all kinds of suggestions (hard and soft resetting both the MBP and the TC, entering the password again, setting the TC up again) all to no avail. No backup is possible anymore.

Mr. Zooot wrote:
Time Machine can not complete the backup "Time Capsule"
The image of the backup volume "/Volumes/Data/Pauls MacBookPro.sparsebundle" is not accessable (Error -1).
I also can not delete the backup image on the time capsule since it is read-only.
Sounds like you got this message earlier:
If so, see #C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Offhand, I don't recall anyone not being able to delete one via the Finder (but most were only backing-up one Mac, so just erased the disk).
You may have to wait for that message to appear again (24 hours later), or you might try holding Alt/Option with the TM icon in the menubar, and select Verify Backups if it will let you.

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion. I have a Laice 1 terabyte external drive that worked fine with Snow Leopard and now no show ... tried connecting it to front port and Mac Pro can't see it. Also lost Office,Quicken, and Final Cut Pro says: " You can't open application because Power PC apps are no longer supported" this is Not a good surprise!

Does the drive work when just directly connected? If so, have you prepped the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
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 Options 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.

Time Machine can no longer write to drive

I have been using Time Machine to back up my iMac G5 for over a year. About two weeks ago the computer started acting really strange so I actually restored the entire system from my Time Machine backup. Everything was working great until today. The external hard drive that I've been using all this time is suddenly "read only". How do I change it back to "read/write" so Time Machine can access the hard drive properly?

BobMeister wrote:
I have been using Time Machine to back up my iMac G5 for over a year. About two weeks ago the computer started acting really strange so I actually restored the entire system from my Time Machine backup. Everything was working great until today. The external hard drive that I've been using all this time is suddenly "read only".
It's very important to know exactly what you or the computer was doing just before this happened. Usually, things do not happen on their own.
How do I change it back to "read/write" so Time Machine can access the hard drive properly?
Changing it back when it's not clear why it changed in the first place is not always a good thing to do for several obvious reasons.
Right-click on the TM drive icon and select "Get Info"
Under Sharing & Permissions, you should see:
Your name (Me) Read & Write
(unknown) Read & Write
everyone Read only
Post back what you see and we can attempt to proceed.

I have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8 and want to restore my i photos from time machine. can not find iphoto libary in time machine, can"t not find home-pict. iphoto lib. in time machine

i have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8, and want to restore my i photos from time machine. Can not find i-photo libary in time machine, can't not find > home-pict. iphoto lib. in time machine. Please help.

On my HD it does not say ,restore, in yourname -pict. Iphoto lib.,
On the time machine, it , yourname etc, oes not show up at all.
Only right side of TM, your name etc. does not show.

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries to an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the externa

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives. Is this possible? Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

Time Machine can't copy my hard drive

Time Machine can't copy my hard drive, it says that it can't complete the safety copy because an error occured when files were copied to the safety copy. Does anyone recognise this problem? All I could find in System notifications about Time Machine is this: "localhost kernel[0]: Security policy loaded: Safety net for Time Machine (TMSafetyNet)"

John Galt wrote:
... Are you unable to select the external HD as a backup device?
pres92 wrote:
that's the problem -- my hard drive ("startup disk) is not listed, so I can't select it.
The reason is that the startup volume is not a valid selection for its own Time Machine backup.
The only drive listed is the Time Machine external drive. Obviously, I don't want to back up the time machine drive.
By default, a Time Machine backup volume is excluded from being backed up.
The appearance you describe is correct, otherwise I'm completely misunderstanding your problem.

HT201250 If time machine puts all of my photos onto my external hard drive using time machine, can I then delete the photos from my computer put view them again from the external hard drive? Basically, can I free up space on my mac but not lose years of p

If time machine puts all of my photos onto my external hard drive using time machine, can I then delete the photos from my computer but view them again from the external hard drive? Basically, can I free up space on my mac but not lose years of photos?

To add to Niel's comment bear in mind that if you have a backup copy on an external HD and later delete the orignals on your Mac HD you will then only have one copy - so no backup.
If the pictures are precious you should have at least two copies, and ideally another copy kept off site,

Back up with time machine can't finish, because volume with sparse bundle already seems to be in use

I have problems with time machine. The message I got (in Dutch) is "Het schijfkopiebestand '/Volumes/Back up schijf/iMac van Gerard.sparsebundle' dat voor de reservekopie wordt gebruikt, is al in gebruik." The sparsebundle seems to be in use so Time machine can't finsh back up process. Any idea what I should do to fix this? I'm using time machine over a wireless netwerk, backing up on a NAS form Lacie, connected to the netwerk via airport extreme. Ik normally works well.
regards,
Gerard

http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more.

Hi all
Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more. I only can back up external disks. Does anyone know how to fix this?
All answers are much appreciated

I don't know the answer but I have the same thing happen. I have two external drives I use for backup. Sometimes it can see one and sometimes another. Then sometimes it can't see either one. I will take one out for a while then plug it back in and then it may see it. Maybe it's a cable issue or something but I will be curious to hear what someone more knowledgeable says.

Erased my time machine,can it be recovered

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