How can I delete a Time Machine backup which did not complete?

I was running a Time Machine backup when the disc got unmounted. Therefore I know all of the data is not backed up.
I would like to delete that entry and rerun "Back Up Now" to start over.
I tried deleting the folder with the latest time stamp on the drive and ran "Back Up Now". There was a very small amount of data that it then backed up.
Obviously there is a large gap in manually managing this process and I would like to know the best fix.
Thanks in advance.

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
tmutil compare | open -ef
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear below what you entered.
A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.
Caution: Under some conditions, tmutil may falsely flag files as not having been backed up when in fact they have been. It can be confused by multi-linked files, or by files with a modification date earlier than the one in the snapshot. This will not be an issue for most users. If the results of the above procedure surprise you, inspect your snapshots directly.

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    from this support article: 
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  • How can I make my Time Machine backup copy-able again?

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    ./Macintosh HD/.DocumentRevisions-V100/PerUID/501/23/com.apple.documentVersions/A075BE7D-54 1F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef/index.pages/Contents:
    ./Macintosh HD/.DocumentRevisions-V100/PerUID/501/23/com.apple.documentVersions/A075BE7D-54 1F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef/index.pages/QuickLook:
    big-screen:2013-06-11-002736 shenandoah$
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    David Bean wrote:
    So copying from a one-week-old TM volume was failing
    Have you run Repair Disk on it?
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    That does get damaged on occasion.  I haven't seen it in quite a while, so it's pretty rare.
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    First, open the Terminal app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Be very careful with this app.  It's a direct link into UNIX, the underpinnings of OSX, but without the protections of OSX.
    In Terminal, the prompt looks like this:  <Computer Name>:~ <your name>$
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    Copy, do not type, the following after the prompt:
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1
    and press Return.
    You should just see the prompt again.
    Then see Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12 to delete all the backups of it.
    and from the live system filestore so they don't get copied out to a backup again.
    Yes. You will, of course, lose all previous versions, but since the file is corrupted, you may have lost some, most, or all of them already.
    When done, run the same command to hide the invisible items, but replace the "1" with a zero.

  • Can I delete older Time Machine backups?

    I have an extensive set of Time Machine back-ups on an external drive for a machine that I no longer own. I want to keep a back-up of that machine...but just one copy, not the multiple copies that exist now.
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    As Kappy says, you can do this via the TM interface, and from another Mac, but it's rather tedious.
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  • Can you delete older time machine backups

    I recently upgraded to a new iMac.  I had been using an external drive for backing up my previous computer.  I would like to use this same drive to back up my new computer; however, I need to delete some of the older backups in order to have enough space.
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    Any help would be much appreciated.
    Thank you.

    I would let Time Machine 'do its thing' and delete backups as it is designed to. You probably won't hurt the integrity of the backup, but you could delete something you might want. How big is the drive? You could always buy a new drive and backup both computers to that and keep backing up the older computer to both drives. Having 2 separate backups on 2 separate hard drives is desirable because hard drives do fail.

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