How can I clone my Time Machine?

The external hard drive that I use for my Time Machine seems to be slowly dying. Occasionally, it won't mount. I did manage to back up all of my data and I got another drive (exactly the same make and model) and I'm trying to clone it before the first drive dies.
I tried copying all the files but that didn't work because of some permission problem. I tried cloning the drive with both Disk Utility and Toast, but got errors both times. The errors were not read errors (on the sick drive) but permission errors.
I don't want to create an entirely new backup on the new drive because I want to keep the history.
Any ideas?

It sounds like your drive is throwing errors. If that's the case, you may not be able to copy the repository, at least not the official way. Launch Disk Utility and run "Repair Disk" on the old TM volume. If it reports no problems, or if you're able to fix any problems it does report, then the following procedure might work:
In Disk Utility, select any volume and open the Restore tab. Drag the icon of your old TM volume to the Source field. Drag the icon of your new TM volume to the Destination tab. Click "Restore." If the operation completes without an error message, select the new TM volume and run "Repair Disk." Don't use the volume if it has any directory damage you can't repair.
If the old TM volume has directory damage you can't fix with Disk Utility, don't try to copy it. Just keep it around until you're sure you'll no longer need any of the data on it, then zero it and take it to a recycling center. Be aware that the contents may not be trustworthy. Don't write any more data to the old drive. Start a new TM backup on the new drive.

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from this support article:
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Yeap that all makes sense now.
Do you only have the current backup showing in the TM display?? Won't it fill in the rest?
Over wireless are you waiting for the indexing to finish.. ??
Previous backup may not show for a couple of hours.
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I have posted the details here. See if this helps.
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ivan wrote:
How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?
I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.
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Fire up *Disk Utility*, click the Restore tab, then drag your old and new TM drives into the Source and Destination fields. Click Restore, and a complete copy of your old TM files will be made on the new drive. Go to TM preferences and select the new drive, and it will continue backing up just as it left off.
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http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2595485&tstart=0

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http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101
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Last Modified: Nov 18, 2014

Can I clone my Time Machine hard drive, to another HD, and store Off Site?

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Hi Ian,
Sorry I missed the discussion last night. I'll tell you how I'm accomplishing the backup task and you can let me know if this is what you're trying to do.
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RobCob wrote:
I'm honestly only concerned about my photos and music.
You can Manually Backup your iPhoto Library and your iTunes Library to an External Drive without addition Software.
How to correctly move your media:
iTunes: How to move the library to an EHD
Early iPhoto: How to move the Library to an EHD
iPhoto '11: Move your iPhoto library to a new location
iMovie: How to move the Library to an EHD
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Rather than do that, which means starting over from scratch, losing all your edits, organisation and so on, why not simply use iPhoto Library Manager to revert the Library to the older version? Easier, less destructive.
The instructions on that are here
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If lots of disk space disappeared rapidly, a likely scenario would be that you're running something like VMware or Parallels, editing iMovie or iDVD files, have a very large Entourage mail DB, or generally are doing something where large (many-MB or GB+) files are being updated throughout the day, and thus big updates are occurring every hour. The documentation describes how to exclude system files, which at least in theory can be easily restored from the installation media, how to exclude certain directories or files which are large and/or frequently updated, etc.
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They may look normal, but if Time Machine doesn't recognize them, they aren't.
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How can I clone my Time Machine?

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