Failed Mavericks Install / Time Machine

My iMac is stuck in a loop after failed Mavericks install. The message told me to back up data, erase and install again. Naturally, I hadn't run Time Machine in a month and had some important files to try and save (stupid, I know). Fortunately, I got the real important stuff backed up using firewire mode and an old MacBook.
At this point, the iMac can't boot into either safe mode or into the disk repair with my old Snow Leopard disk. My question is whether I can now connect my external drive with an existing backup to the MacBook and have it make a backup of the iMacs contents. I'm curious whether Time Machine will recognize the iMac's hard drive as the same volume even though it is mounted on the MacBook as an external drive. Will this work or should I go buy a new external drive and try and clone the iMac's contents?
I have AppleCare but I'd like to take care of this prior to taking it in as they may want to replace the drive. The Time Machine method seems preferable so I can restore the system exactly the way it was very easily.

Similar Messages

New Mavericks Install-Time Machine disk causes Wifi failure.

Just recently upgraded to Mavericks and have encountered a strange problem. When my Time Machine external disk is attached, my machine (MacBook Pro 15 Intel 2.53 i5) refuses to connect to my home Wifi (Airport Extreme), giving an error message wanting me to run Wifi Diagnostics. All other devices connect normally to this router. I noticed this morning that when I eject the Time Machine disk, it immediately connects to the Wifi without a problem.
Has anyone else noticed this behavior?

redsox15 wrote:
I know that my last full backup was on September 11th (time machine kept getting hung up on Preparing... after that, another reason for the reinstall)
Not a good sign.
Try to repair the backups, per #A5 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).

I'm trying to install Time Machine and Airport Update V 1.0 but installer

keeps returning error message: You cannot install Time Machine and AirPort Updates on this volume. This update requires Mac OS X 10.5.2 or newer.
I am in fact running 10.5.6. Would the fact that this update was dated in March of 2008 have anything to do with it? I think it's the latest update for TM and Airport.
Any suggestions?

Kappy, how'd you get so smart. On further investigation I discovered that I had already downloaded and installed that update. I will follow your advice in the future, not risking showing off as a fool.

Cannot locate lost work or install time machine

Is the only way to retrieve "lost" information via time machine? If not, please let me know how, and if so I cannot install time machine on my computer as it keeps coming up saying "Airport Utility cannot find a wireless device installed"-do I need another device to keep this information and cannot just keep it on the hard drive?

toothmom wrote:
Is the only way to retrieve "lost" information via time machine? If not, please let me know how, and if so I cannot install time machine on my computer as it keeps coming up saying "Airport Utility cannot find a wireless device installed"-do I need another device to keep this information and cannot just keep it on the hard drive?
Welcome to Apple Discussions:
If by "lost" you mean deleted, there is no way to recover the data, especially if other files have been created since the original was deleted. The area on the HD has been overwritten.
TM does not backup to a wireless device unless that wireless device is TimeCapsule
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=735
You need an external HardDrive that is 3 to 4 times as large as your internal drive connected directly to your computer.

When I try to install Time Machine update I get this message: You cannot install Time Machine and AirPort Updates on this volume. This update requires Mac OS X 10.5.2 or newer. I have OS X 10.5.8.

When I try to install Time Machine update I get this message: “You cannot install Time Machine and AirPort Updates on this volume. This update requires Mac OS X 10.5.2 or newer.” I have OS X 10.5.8.

It's bundled with 10.5.3 and newer and can't be installed separately on those OSes.
(59310)

I installed time machine but I can't find it in system preferences?

I installed time machine but I can't find it in system preferences? How do I access it? Light is green but is it backing up?

???
You installed Time Machine or Time Capsule? Time Machine is part of Leopard (OS X 10.5.x). If you are referring to Time Capsule, you set it up via AirPort Utility. You should have the install disk. If you are talking about Time Machine, can you confirm you have OS X 10.5.x? Your signature indicates you only have Tiger (OS X 10.4.11). If that is correct, you need to upgrade to Leopard.
Welcome to Apple Discussions!

Updated to mavericks but time machine wont back up?

Updated to mavericks but time machine wont back up. I have tried and tried.it will not delete old files like it used to.Please help

I bought a new MacBook Pro in late august this year, and since then I`ve had some serious problems backing up my iPhoto library. I have searched severals forums in both english and norwegian, with no luck. But today, I found this... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4116
Thank you so much, Pondini. You made my day
Kind regards, Erlend.

Upgraded to Mavericks and time machine backups keep failing.

I upgraded to Mavericks a few days ago and now I find my time machine backups keep failing. I first tried turning off the power to the time machine then turning it on again and I managed to get one complete backup but that took over 20 hours to complete.
The time machine backup mode never seems to get beyond " preparing backup" then showing the message "backing up failed, disc already in use"
The time machine backup worked fine before I upgraded, is there a way round this problem or will I have to go through reloading the time machine as if it were a new piece of equipment?
My wife's iMac is still on mountain lion 10.8.5 and the backups on the same Time Machine work fine.
Any help would be gratefully received
Greg

Hi,
I have exactly the same problem.
MBP 2011 running 10.9 named "ebook"
MacMini running 10.8.5 server with TM share
everything works fine UNTIL for some reason the MBP is interrupted during a TM backup ...
After that I get the disk already in use error !
Rebooting the MBP wont help, but I narrowed the problem down ...
Looking on the Mini server I noticed :
- the TM backup user stays connected over AFP, even after several hours of inactivity and a couple of reboots of the MBP. Killing the AFP connection works, But problem stil continues !
- looking on the MBP with "lsof | grep ebook" showed me that the SparseBundles were still in use by the AFP process ... Using the Server control panel and restarting AFP solved that ...
After restarting the AFP process the remote TM Backup started to work again !
A couple of days later, the same problem occurred again, fixed it by this work around ...
I hope there will be a more permanent solotiun for this !

After upgrading to Mavericks my Time Machine gives me error message.

I use a WD Live Book that keeps my security copies on my home network. Since installing Mavericks I get an error message saying that it cannot perform security copies cause sparse file already exists and refers back to latest copy 48 days ago.
However when I do go in to Time Machine it seems to show that for the last 3 days scurity copies have been done.
But when I try to do a a new security copy invariably the top menu says that copy has failed.
Has anyone experienced the same thing? Is there anyway to check clearly if Time Machine is now working properly or not?
Thank you for any replies...
MF

Dear Matt,
Basicaly I think what happened was what your article describes:
Time Machine keeps track of files and folders that have changed since your last backup so that it only backs up those files and folders. If Time Machine loses track of files and folders that have changed since the last backup, it compares an "inventory" of your current data to an inventory of your backup. When this happens, Time Machine preferences displays a "Preparing..." status message for a longer period of time. See Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine preferences may display "Preparing" for a longer time.
Message: Time Machine starts a new, full backup instead of a smaller incremental backup
However none of the reasons the article presents were the cause I think, since I only tried to backup after the installation of Mavericks. Maybe time capsule hadn't updated right after? I really don't know. However I am glad to say that the problem seems to have fixed itself. It took a long time preparing a backup and finally did a complete backup of roughly 200GB which took a while. (which I am still to verify if it has deleted backups from before the installation of Mavericks due to lack of space).
Anyhow its backed up and seems to be working fine now. As to why it's happened and how it got fixed or what the problem actually was... I really don't know.
Thank you for the reply, it was helpful at least to determine what might have gone wrong.
Best,
Miguel F

Mavericks server time machine restore problem

i have a mac mini with mavericks server installed
i have backed up my imac to the mac mni server without any problems can enter time machine and install files but when trying to do a system restore
This is where my trouble arises, initially the window is populated with a username of "root" which is of course the user name I'm running under on the install disk, I change that to my user name or user nickname (have tried both) and enter my password for the osxbackup.local machine and I end up getting a dialog box with "There was a problem connecting to the server osxbackup.local" it goes on to say Check the server name and ip address and if problem continues contact my administrator. So I'm stuck here, I know my username and password are correct I've tried variations between my name and nick name but always get the same error. I get the same error if I use a 10.9.0 install disk as well. It seems that it is unable to contact the server based on the message but clearly the network is operating or we wouldn't have gotten this far. The only thing I see is in the error message it says "osxbackup.local." note the period after local. I assume that is a formatting thing and not an incorrect address and I know of no way to change this anyway. So what I thought would be a "simple matter" has like most things turned into an ordeal getting stuck on something that should be very simple. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this?

Do not rely on Time Machine to backup OSX Server. It does not work for restores and Apple says not to use it for server. Use Carbon Copy Cloner.
Also, you should Raid 1 mirror the server drives so if one drive fails you have the 2nd drive that keeps running and you just swap out the bad drive and redo the mirror. You also need to have another backup and disaster recovery plan in place in case both hard drives fail. This mean an external backup drive to run carbon copy cloner to. Also some sort of offsite backup is also needed.

How do I import my itunes plalists into Mavericks from time machine backup

I just did a clean install of Mavericks, and it won't let me restore iTunes from my Time Machine backup. I imported all the media, but I can't import the playlists. When I grab a playlist file, I get "it doesn't appear to be exported."
Any ideas about how I can navigate, show hidden files, if necessary, to get my playlists back?
Thanks for any help!

Son of a gun...it worked. I tried that two days ago and if failed...or it was pilot error and I did something wrong. In any event, what I did was go directly to the Time Machine folder and drag out the iTunes library.itl onto my Mavericks desktop, then put it into the iTunes folder, then restarted iTunes and Bingo it worked.
Thank you very much.

Unable to recover Mavericks via Time Machine on iMac (2011). I have one Time Machine backup from this week On new Time Capsule. I already attempted safe boot and NPRAM reset. Hard drive and permissions verified as ok.

Some more history - I'm not too techie so added everything in I thought might be significant!
- Installed Mavericks on iMac in October 2013
- experienced regular low memory issues - used Memory Clean app as a workaround
- last week decided to upgrade installed memory from 4gb to 16gb. Faster loading but still running out of memory - just takes longer to do so.
- also last week purchased 2gb Time Capsule (to back up 660gb on 1TB drive)
- one successful Time Machine backup completed last weekend.
- I decided to try and clear some space, tidy my folders, old music files, delete duplicates etc (Not system files)
- then tried out 'time machine restore' just to test it out. Deleted files and folders recovered ok using Time Machine menu (the one that looks like outta space)
- yesterday, Avast Anti-Virus flagged virus detected (sorry, I didn't manage to capture details) and quarantined file, but I couldn't get any windows to respond so forced Mac to shutdown.
- attempted regular reboot , system hanging on white/ apple symbol screen.
- attempted Safe reboot - reboot stalls at mess 'BootCacheControl: unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist no such file or directory.
(I don't know if this is significant)
- attempt NPRAM reset, reboot hanging at Apple symbol still
- attempted reboot into Disk Utility. HD drive verified ok. Permissions checked and Safari permissions fixed (only)
- finally attempting restore from Time Machine Backup via Disk Utility. Stalls at 'select a backup source'. Menu is 'searching for Time Machine Backup....'
Nothing is listed, after a few mins machine just goes to sleep.
My Time Capsule and networks are all switched on. No idea what to try next!

Most of the problems like this that people report on this forum are due to bad "utilities" like Memory Clean and Avast.
Your Mac probably didn't have a virus. There has never been an OSX virus "in the wild". Third party antivirus software is of very dubious utility on Macs. Macs are not PCs. OSX has anti-malware protection built into it already.
Do you have any other third party "utilities" on your Mac, such as CleanMyMac or MacKeeper?
Is the RAM you installed the recommended type of RAM for your Mac?
Take a look at this page: Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
But your OS may be damaged beyond repair, or beyond what disk utility is able to repair.
In that case you have a few options:
There is a small chance that a (reputable) third part utility like Techtool Pro 7 may be able to fix your OS.
Try to boot into single user mode (restart, hold down ⌘S until you see a black screen with white text) and repair your hard drive. Here's a reference with directions: Repair Your Hard Disk in Single User Mode | Everything Macintosh
bite the bullet, boot into the recovery partition or internet recovery, and erase your HD, reinstall Mavericks from scratch, and start over. Your documents are probably still on your Time Machine Backup. I wouldn't reinstall the documents via a migration- you don't want to reinstall bad system files along with your documents- but you could copy them one by one back to your internal HD. And most importantly- don't reinstall any third party "utilites" like Memory Clean or Avast (or any other third-party antivirus software, for that matter).

What should i do i cant install time machine back up .I need urgent help please :(

Hey guys ! please help me tomorrow is my exam and I don't have my laptop for study . A while ago I needed windows on my mac and while installing it via boot-camp I somehow managed to wipe whole mac partition even recovery so I was left with only windows on my mac.
My Condition :- No recovery PS. I have external recovery on my USB. I saved those files from internet recovery was tired of downloading 1GB every time to get into recovery. )
No mac OS
no recovery partition .
so now the problem is I always thought that I do have a time machine backup on my hard disk so ill just install it simple .
I tried internet recovery ... then got into recovery ... tried to install my time machine backup and it said .. [ ERROR CREATING RECOVERY PARTITION ]
I had the time machine backup of OSX mavericks .
when I tried the reinstall OSX option it said it will download mountain lion . I was like fine download it whatever .. i tried the download but every time I try it get stuck at a point with some error . (maybe cause of my slow internet )
I have reinstalled the windows 8.1 but I cant use X-CODE on it .
what should I do
I want my OSX backup
my friend have a ISO of Mavericks and mountain lion both will they help ?

Recovery Partition Creator 3.8
Recovery Partition – Recreate Without Reinstalling
Recovery Partition – Recreate Without Reinstalling (Requires Installer)
When you go to Internet Recovery use Disk Utility to repair the drive and repair permissions. Then erase the partition, formatting it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click the option button and select GUID. Then try to install the OS.

Data transfer: ext hard drive to new Mac with Mavericks using Time Machine

Data from old computer is on ext hard drive. I delayed transfer to new Mac. Now using Migration Assistant bit I don't know if it is working or just hung up. It shows 'looking for other sources' for over an hour. Please advise.

In general, most people will recommend Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! You can find either one easily enough with a web search.
However, in your case, I imagine you are going to have a hard disk returned to you all by itself, and you will need to install it in an enclosure. Don't let that bother you as this is easy to do and the enclosures are not expensive ($40 or so).
Once that is done, I would recommend you set up your brand new Mac by answering all the questions during initial setup as usual. Be sure to use your correct Apple ID - probably the same one you used to log into this support forum. When you reach the point in which it asks you if you would like to transfer your old documents and settings, connect the old hard disk and select it as the source. It will take some time as it copies all its contents to your new Mac. All your familiar items will be exactly as they were on the failed Mac.
After that, you can use the old hard disk as a Time Machine backup. When you are satisfied everything on your new Mac is running as it should, go ahead and erase the old disk. Then, tell Time Machine to designate it as a backup, and the rest is automatic.

System Preferences stuck after Yosemite upgrade- advice on reverting to Maverick from Time Machine backup?

I just upgraded to Yosemite from Maverick overnight on my mid 2012 MacBook air via app store. On first boot up this morning, I did NOT choose to encrypt my hard drive or use iCloud during set-up. I was proceeding thru the set-up steps, then got an unresponsive iCloud system preferences window, with a small drop down window to set up an apple id, asking for birthday, security questions, etc. I have an apple id, and drop down is too small to reveal security questions or allow me to respond. Quit didn't work, and I started trolling this support site to find out what to do. I finally managed to force quit it just now. I am NOT a power user, I use my computer for email, photo organization, internet surfing, and some docs and spreadsheets. (I retired and switched to MAC to avoid all the microsoft BS, and haven't looked back. :-)
After reading all the posts here of people having trouble with yosemite on my critical uses, (email, etc) and the complicated answers to fix things, I am really out of my league. My goal now is to get to where I was last night before the upgrade, and wait until Apple fixes the many issues people are discovering before trying Yosemite again. I did do a complete Time Machine backup prior to the upgrade. My questions:
1. What issues, if any, are people having after reverting back to Mavericks after a Time Machine recovery?
2. Are there any special instructions to do this restore that are not in the standard restore instructions? Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support
I am a bit concerned to move forward, so any advice or re-assurance will enable me to take the next step. I am gonna hang out and see what I hear before I take the plunge to time machine restore!

Yes, Mavericks has smashed people's old backups.. start a new backup in a different location.. or archive off the old backup from the TC onto a USB drive.. wipe the drive and start again. You can then access the backups on the USB any time you want.. plug it into the computer and use TM to look at the files.
Spend a bit of time reading how TM works.
And what you can do with it.
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Even if you just skim through FAQ.. check out how to mount TM backups from another mac..(effectively your old Mountain Lion install is another mac).
http://pondini.org/TM/17.html
Keeping your old backup intact makes good sense.. !!

Failed Mavericks Install / Time Machine

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