Existing Backup Drive re-mounted; now TM creates DMG on my desktop

What am I doing wrong? I decided to unplug my external drive that had been backing up TM for about 2 days. When I re-mounted it, although TM still recognized it as my backup drive, it started a new backup file on my desktop. Clearly I want it to not only recognize my backup drive, but also to continue to create and use the backup history from the same archive. What do I need to do?
tia.

webweave,
Welcome to the Apple discussions!
Generally, as discussed above, having 2 mount points for the same disk in the volumes folder won't prevent a successful backup. But in your case (#15!), that's a problem. More often than not, they are being created by Time Machine because you already have one or more instances of the Time Capsule disk mounted on your desktop. Ejecting the TC disk when it is not needed is the best way to avoid creating multiple mount points.
If you have any further questions, please post them in a new thread. You can refer back to this discussion with a link if necessary.
Cheers!

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Time Machine backup drive failed. Now what?

I bought a new drive and need to get my Time Machine files off the old failed drive. I'm sure there are plenty of discussions about this but I can't find any. (I so dislike the new design for the support communities.)
The old drive sometimes lets me access TM so I want to take advantage of one of those times to get everything across. I know it is a very slow process if it can be done.
Any suggestions?
Thanx

Jane Garcia wrote:
I may try Data Rescue but I may have another solution if I can make this work. I managed to get the backup drive to mount on my desktop--it's amazing what shaking the thing can do!--and it has two folders: Backups.backupdb and lost+found. I tried to copy the first one onto my desktop but it has 37,000 files and there isn't enough room.
If you've been backing-up your entire system, it should have several hundred thousand files, minimum.
The very existence of the lost+found folder means there's trouble.
Is there a way for me to hook up the new external backup drive and the old one and drag those two folders from the one to the new without having to go via my own hard drive?
Doubtful it will work; if the backups are damaged, as they certainly appear to be, the copy will fail.
Also, if this works, doesn't that mean that any TM backups onto the new external drive will co-exist with the old folders as opposed to absorbing them into the new TM backups?
If the backup completes successfully (highly doubtful), you should be able to continue backing-up to the copied Backups.backupdb folder.
Your best bet is to simply put the old drive "on the shelf" and let TM start fresh on the new one. You can always view and restore from the old ones (at least from the un-corrupted parts of it), via the Browse... option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17.

Time Machine error - backup drive not mounted

Our family has 3 iMacs now running 10.5. One has a hard drive connected to it. The others are networed via a couple of Airport Extremes. The network is fine (all have internet). Time Machine is running fine on the iMac connected to the hard drive and on one of the others via the network.
But on the 3rd I keep getting an error that the backup drive is not mounted. It can mount it manually and see it (and its files) fine. The hard drive is configured so that everyone has read & write access. I've tried restarting it and resetting prams. I've tried connecting to the hard drive as a guest and as an authorized user. I still get the same error.
Any ideas? Thanks.

It seems to be working now. I trashed the old sparsebundle file and let it start from scratch. Wish I thought of that earlier .......
Message was edited by: Neil Stone

Backup drive not mounting.

Here is the scenario.
I was trying to install Leopard the other night when I ran into the HFS volume issue. or whatever. So, I already had my Tiger system backed up to the old 80 gig hard drive that was in my Macbook before I upgraded to a 200 gig model. Everything fit on there just fine, as i haven't added much since then. I went ahead and reformatted so that I could put Leopard on my machine. Everything when smoothly, after I booted up from the old drive that is in a case connected via USB and switched it to the GUID format. After Leopard was installed I could see the volume from Tiger and the Windows volume that i had on there from boot camp. However, when I let the computer do a system update, the Tiger part of the partition no longer shows up when I connect the old HD via USB. The partition for Windows shows up, but no Mac OS X.... Is there a way to retrieve the information on that partition of the drive? I have tried and tried to mount it, verify it, repair it... all with no success. I even reinstalled leopard to rid the system of the updates, but to no avail. I'm pretty lost about it and would hope that this is a fixable problem.
Message was edited by: iMarsh87

I am going to try to use DiskWarrior to rebuild the directories... Searched google for some forums on other situations. Sounded like a good idea.

Can I tell iMovie to ignore my backup drive when it mounts?

Sometimes my backup drive is mounted when I launch iMovie and it starts optimising the back up. Is there a way to tell iMovie to ignore the backup?
Thanks

Would not have thought the fact dvd is connected via usb would make any difference to being able to eject/open dvd tray
Try using eject command from a terminal see if it works
MrG

Transferring data from 750GB backup drive to new MacBook Pro with 256 Gb PCI-e flash storage?

Yesterday my late-2008 aluminium unibody MacBook died - absolutely and definitively. I've tried SMC reset multiple times to no avail. However, it served me well for almost six years and it's now time to move on. I've decided to buy a 13 inch MacBook Pro Retina with 256Gb PCI-e flash storage. Obviously, it will come with Mavericks installed as the operating system.
When it died, my MacBook was running OS X 10.8.5, the original hard drive had been replaced with a Western Digital 750GB, 7200 rpm drive of which I believe about 350GB was used. I keep two x 1Tb Lacie Rugged backup drives, each of which has both Time Machine and SuperDuper Bootable Clone backups.
My questions are these -
1.     How should I proceed to transfer my data from my external backup drives to my new MacBook Pro Retina, given the difference in storage capacity of my existing backup drives and my new MacBook Pro?
2.     I have over 32,000 photos in my iPhoto Library which, obviously, consume a big slab of disk space. I'm not sure how I go about 'quarantining' the iPhoto Library so that it doesn't use all the flash drive storage.
3.      One of the Lacie Rugged's has a 'triple interface' - i.e. USB 2, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. The other has a USB 2 and 2 x Firewire 800 (IIRC).    The MacBook Pro Retina has two USB 3 ports and two Thunderbolt 2 ports. I want to continue to use the Lacies as my backup drives. Am I better off to use the USB ports or should I invest in a Thunderbolt to USB cable? Does it make any real difference in terms of backing up (which, in my case, doesn't have to be all that speedy).
4.     What else should I be thinking about? I know I'm bound to have overlooked the most obvious problems but can't think what they may be ...
Cheers
Tricia

Patricia Henwood wrote:
3.      One of the Lacie Rugged's has a 'triple interface' - i.e. USB 2, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. The other has a USB 2 and 2 x Firewire 800 (IIRC).    The MacBook Pro Retina has two USB 3 ports and two Thunderbolt 2 ports. I want to continue to use the Lacies as my backup drives. Am I better off to use the USB ports or should I invest in a Thunderbolt to USB cable? Does it make any real difference in terms of backing up (which, in my case, doesn't have to be all that speedy).
USB3 is backwards compatible with USB2, so you can use the old USB cables. For faster data transfer rates, Firewire 800 would be available using this adapter:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapte r
Firewire 800 is about twice as fast as USB2, theoretically.
Ciao.

How can I force Time Machine to use existing backup sparsebundle files?

I backed up both my OSX Mountain Lion MBP and MacOSX Snow Leopard iMac to the same USB Disk. I then plugged this USB Disk into my Time Capsule, and configured Time Machine in both macs to use it through the network. But Time Machine insists on creating new backup sparsebundle files, ignoring the existing ones. How can I force Time Machine to use the existing backups.backupdb sparsebundle files instead of creating new ones?

How can I force Time Machine to use the existing backups.backupdb sparsebundle files instead of creating new ones?
You can't. Time Machine works differently over a network than it does with a locally-attached drive. What you could do is delete the folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the top level of the volume, which contains the backups you made via USB. You should then be able to backup to the same sparsebundle locally and over the network. But I wouldn't recommend doing that. Certainly don't do it unless you have at least one other complete backup (which you should have anyway.)

Creating a portable backup drive that's encrypted

I've been considering an off-site backup solution like Carbonite to protect my files, particularly now almost all of my photos etc are digital and on my mac. I use Time Machine to an external desktop drive for day to day backups, but want to protect against loss from theft or fire.
I'm not keen on paying annually for something like Carbonite, and instead have been thinking of a small pocket-size portable hard drive that I can take with me regularly if I'm away from home. However, I'm also conscious of losing the hard drive and not wanting anyone finding it to have access to the files on there. Is there an easy way, without buying any new software, of making a portable external hard drive encrypted, so that I can regularly backup files to it, but if it gets lost, others can't access the files on there?
Cheers

Use Disk Utility to create an encrypted sparse bundle disk image. Store the .sparsebundle file on your external drive. Mount the disk image by double clicking it. Copy your data to the mounted virtual drive. Eject the virtual drive when done. You can also store the disk image password in your keychain so that you do not need to re-enter it when you mount the image on your own Mac.
If your drive is lost, the contents will only be retrievable be somebody who knows the disk image password.

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verif

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verifying and repairing it but had no luck. I also tried mounting and unmounting it but still no solution. Anyone to help please?

Looks bad. I would strongly advise backing up the stuff on the other two partitions as soon as possible in case the rest of the drive goes wrong.
Beyond that, Disk Utility has limited abilities to repair disks, DiskWarrior uses a different approach and might, emphasis might be more successful. It has certainly done the job for me in the past when Disk Utility could not.
See http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

I have a free agent desk 500GB external hard drive. Since updating my iMac OS to mountain lion recently, it will no longer backup, stating "an error occurred while creating the backup folder". Can anyone help me with this?

I have a free agent desk 500 GB external hard drive. Since updating my iMac OS to Mountain Lion it no longer backs up through Time Maching like it did in the past. Now, after completing its work it says, "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder." I cannot find any sites that help me fix this. Do I need to purchase a new external hard drive?

Hi Aaron,
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.

New TC but now Time Machine can't find network backup drives

I had a 2 GB TC replaced under warranty (many thanks to LaPastenague who suggested I may be able to get a replacement under warranty). Configured the TC using Airport Utility, and after a bit of messing around (had to delete and re-find the USB printer) everything seemed to be working fine. However ....
I have a MyBookWorld network drive as an alternate Time Machine backup disk, and my MacBook found both the TC and MBW and backed up to them alternately just fine.
However on another MacBook I removed the MBW drive as a backup disk in TM preferences, and now I can't add it back to that Macbook's list of backup drives. I get the "can't find that server" error dialogue. Which is crazy because the other shares on the MBW drive are visible - it's just the backup partition (WD_Backup) that isn't found. I figure it's trying to connect to the IP address of the previous TC, which probably changed when I replaced the TC, or something.
Help please !
TIA ... John.

Manually mount the directory in finder.
This is so much more important on Mavericks than it used to be due to its default to SMB networking.
I guess I also do not know if you should mount this via AFP or SMB but try both.
So in Finder.. Go.. connect to server.
Type in the actual name or IP of the device.
AFP://MBW.local/WD_Backup (where MBW is the network name of the device. local is the domain (assuming it is connected to the TC))
No luck try AFP://MBWIPaddress where you simply type in the IP.
You might find it is easier to pick up the directory from the other Mac where it is working.
Click on Get Info and look at the directory URL info.
If no luck use SMB://MBW.local etc.
Come back to us if it still does not show up.

Moved TM backup drive from USB to Airdisk, now is not recognized

I have a USB external TM backup drive that I need to relocate. I have an Airport Extreme that I plugged the disk into and now TM does not recognize the disk as a backup of my computer. The disk is mounted and selected in TM but it wants to do a complete backup. Is there something special that needs to be done after moving the disk for TM to recognize it as a backup of this computer?
Thanks.

krreagan wrote:
I have a USB external TM backup drive that I need to relocate. I have an Airport Extreme that I plugged the disk into
I hate to have to tell you this, but backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.
and now TM does not recognize the disk as a backup of my computer.
Because of the different way Time Machine stores it's backups when they're done over a network, you can't keep backing-up to the same set of backups. See the blue box in #E2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Tried to move sparsebundle TM backup to External HD, now HD will not mount

Long story short, I have a Macbook Pro 15" i7. I was making backups to an apple time capsule via time machine. My internal HD crashed (making clicking noises, not booting), got it replaced by apple, thinking my backup would work. Sparsebundle file is not recognized by migration assistant and will not mount via Disk Image Mounter or Disc Utility. I attempted to move the sparsebundle file to an external drive (Avastor HDX-800 1.5 TB) via FW800. It was not making any progress so I stopped the copy, deleted the sparsebundle from my Avastor Drive and unmounted it.
Now my Avastor Drive will not mount at all. Disc sounds fine and has barley moved since the incident. The drive was backed up last week but there are some essential files I made within this week that are very important.
What can/should I do?

bglawe wrote:
Hey! Thanks so much for responding so quickly.
I am currently archiving my disc on the TC to an external USB drive so hopefully I should be able to repair that disc and get my sparsebundle to work.
You're doing that via +Airport Utility?+
My main problem is however that the FW drive that I briefly attempted to copy the sparsebundle to will not mount at all. Like when I plug the drive in, nothing happens. The Avastor FW drive has FW800 FW400 and USB 2.0 connections and none of them work. The drive sounds like it is undamaged (no looped processes or clicking). Is there anything I can do to get that drive to mount (so i can see it in finder/disc utility)? Even if its with disc warriors?
I'm sure you've done some or all of this; the standard way to try to mount a balky disk is:
Disconnect and power it off for several minutes.
Check that all connections are snug and secure.
Restart your Mac, then connect the drive.
If that doesn't work, try again with different ports, cables, and combinations (a plug that works fine in one port may not make good contact in another one.
If it has it's own power supply, check those connections, too. Try a different outlet. See if you can hear it running, or feel the vibrations.
Try it on another computer.
But from your description, it doesn't sound good for the drive.

Before upgrading my system from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion I had taken a backup of iPhoto in my external drive. But now when I try to open that package, I'm directed to app store to buy new iPhoto. How can I retrieve my photos without buying iPhoto?

Before upgrading my system from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion I had taken a backup of iPhoto library in my external drive. But now when I try to open that package, I'm directed to app store to buy new iPhoto. Why would apple install iPhoto by default with Snow Leapord and make us import all our photos in it at the first place, and now ask for money if we want to retrieve our photos back on mountain lion? What if they make contacts a paid app with the next OS upgrade, and then bully us to pay money if we want our contacts? This is something very dissappointing on Apple's part. I need answers here.

I fail to remember if the installer gave me an option to keep my applications.
The Mountain Lion installer will not delete applications. It will only mark applications, that are not compatible with your current system with a "forbidden" sign in the icon. And you cannot launch them.
Does your iPhoto icon in the Applications folder look like this?
Then your iPhoto version is incompatible and cannot run with Mt. Lion. If it is iPhoto '11, with a versionnumber starting with 9.x.x., you can upgrade it by downloading a newer version from the Apple downloads site http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1650.
But if you have 8.x.x, you need to buy an upgrade.
Regards
Léonie

Drives stopped mounting with FW800, but FW400 is OK. Worked OK before, but won't now. Tried new cables, zapping pram, Disk Repair Utility. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Drives stopped mounting with FW800, but FW400 is OK. Worked OK before, but won't now. Tried new cables, zapping pram, Disk Repair Utility. Any suggestions? Thanks.

If your external drive does not have an independent power supply, you may wish to consider a couple of lower-cost options before tossing the drive. Bus-powered drives have no external power source and must get all their power from the computer. They can exceed the computer's USB energy budget.
Cheapest option:
1 Meter USB 2.0 A to 5 Pin Mini B Cable - Auxiliary USB "Y" Power Design for external hard drives.
This gets power from two of the computers USB porst sna can provide enough power to wake up an under-performaing bus-powered drive.
If you don't have enough ports to use this, try the next cheapest option:
Newer Technology 7 Port Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Hub with Power Adapter for Mac & PC
Such a hub has a an independent power supply to make up for wahat the comptuer fails to provide.

Existing Backup Drive re-mounted; now TM creates DMG on my desktop

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