How do I protect a Time Machine back up from being automatically deleted during new backups?

Hi, any help would be appreciated.
I used an external hard drive Time Machine backup to restore my music and photos after losing nearly everything during an update. I followed the instruction from Apple Support and turned on TM so I could enter and recover the needed libraries. Unfortunately I wasn't aware that TM would continuously backup for the next 7 hours as I searched for duplicate music files, merged iPhoto libraries, etc...until I received the message that TM had deleted all my backups (all the way back to 2010).
Just to head off the "how could you not know?!" comments - I had previously left TM off and just selected backup now when I attached the external drive.
The good news is that the backup I used to restore my music and iPhoto library from May still appears to be intact, so how do I make sure it doesn't get deleted the next time I back up? My concern is, once I've removed all the duplicate music and photo files I would like to back up again prior to upgrading to Yosemite - just in case I experience the same issues with losing files again I'd like to be prepared.
My external hard drive is an Iomega with 83.1 GB free of 320 GB.
I'm on a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro / 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 / 43.76 GB free of 159.18 GB
OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks
Any help would be greatly appreciated. If it's written for someone who is not very technologically advanced (read: step-by-step instructions) that would be even better! Thanks in advance!

You need to get a bigger external drive, 2 to 4 times the amount of data you are backing up. I would also recommend a minimum of 2 backups. You can do that with 2 Time Machine drives or use a clone to give you a bootable backup.
Time Machine FAQ
Try E1 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems
Time Machine Versus Clones and Archives
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

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How do I copy my time machine back up from a smaller Hard disk to a larger hard disk; so that I can then continue to back up, through Time machine, on the larger hard disk?

I am using time machine for backing up on an external hard disk. This has now become full and every back up results in the deletion of the first back up on the hard drive.
I have bought a larger hard drive now and am trying to copy the back up from the smaller hard drive to the new larger hard drive, using Finder. This is not happening and the message I am getting is
"The volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a back up"

Hello UmeshNB,
Thanks for the question. Based on what you stated, it seems like you are not able to move a backup to another drive. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you isolate or resolve the issue.
Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support
If it is not formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition. If you do not know how, see the steps in this article.
If the drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended but without journaling, OS X may state that "the volume has the wrong case sensitivity" to be used as a back up disk.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Mario

Help-Want to lock Time Machine back-up from being deleted

Hello there,
I used to have a macbook pro from november of 2006 that was loaded up with data from graduate school. As it was getting quite old, I wanted to get a newer laptop and chose the macbook air for many reasons. However, it doesn't have nearly as much storage/memory, so I could only transfer a fraction of the data files from my old laptop (pro) to the new one (air).
I am currently using TimeMachine to back up everything to a 4 terabyte external hard drive. Even though I originally transferred all the data via this drive and had a mirrored back up of everything in its entirety from my old macbook pro, now when I view the external hard drive only my macbook air is listed under Backups.backupdp.
I can still view all the original data and files from the macbook pro in my oldest back up, however, as I begin to fill up the hard drive I worry that this back up might eventually get deleted. Is there anyway to specifically cordone off this back up so that it is never deleted? I essentially want to lock it but am unsure if this is even possible, let alone how to do it.
Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!!
All my best,
pyo_pyo

I think I follow your post..
AFAIK there is no way to stop TM from eventually deleting the material from the oldest backup.. Indeed just hoping that the data is stored until the drive is full is not necessarily going to work.
You need to have another storage and copy the backups.backupdb to it. Store this drive in a draw somewhere.
Do you still have the old laptop . if so do not do a TM backup of it. Do a direct disk image plus copy and paste and perhaps TM as well.. of all the files and store that. Much easier when you later need access to a file to get it direct rather than extract it from a backup.
1TB drives are now so cheap .. if the data has any value to you. Go and buy one or two.. spread it around. Store offsite. If anything is valuable it is valuable to store offsite as well.

How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch?

How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch? I have a MacBook Air that was my wife's - now given to my daughter for school. My wife never used Time Machine to back up (she simply copied files to an external drive), so before clearing her files off the Mac HD, I tried using Time Machine for the first time with an external HD. However, the Time Machine back up repeatedly failed after about 2GB of 28GB of files. I manually copied my wife's 28GB of files to another external HD and deleted all the files off the Mac HD. I then reformatted the external Time Machine drive. But when I try to use Time Machine to back up the MacBook Air as it is now with my daughter's files on the Mac HD to the external TM drive, Time Machine acts as if the 28GB of my wife's deleted files are still on the Mac HD and fails back-up after counting to about 2GB, even though there aren't even 2GB of files on the Mac HD now and nothing on the external TM drive. I don't need to save any back-ups of how the MacBook used to be - I just need to start from scratch with how the computer is now. Can anyone please tell me how to get Time Machine to think the MacBook is a brand new computer and act as if it's a first time ever back up? I tried updating to Yosemite, and tried renaming the computer in System Preferences>Sharing, plus (as noted above) deleting all the old files off the Mac HD and reformatting the external Time Machine drive - none of that worked. All I can do at the moment is manually copy my daughter's files to an external HD - very frustrating.

Hmmm.. Office is not hard to restore.
You have something major wrong (Yosemite being the primary one).
Do a verify of the source drive.. to do that you will need to boot to the recovery.. and run the disk utility from there.. it sounds like your main disk is corrupted.
Once that is complete, delete the current setup of TM and try again.. use the widget to find out why it is failing..
See Troubleshooting.
A1, A4 and A5 for further info.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Good luck with it..
I would also download carbon copy cloner.. it is $40, but you can use it free for a time.. forget if a week or a month??.. to try out.. and make a proper backup before you start.. CCC is far more reliable than TM.. and in fact you might decide to simply forget about TM if it works and pays the $40.. because you can produce a bootable clone on the external drive which is a heck of a lot easier to use than TM.

HT201250 How do I partition my Time Machine back up drive (G-Drive) to back up both my IMac and my MacBook Air?

How do I partition my Time Machine back up drive (G-Drive) to back up both my IMac and my MacBook Air?

That's not needed, but if you want to do it, use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to create a new partition.
(70423)

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive?

How to Delete a Time Machine Backup - YouTube
If you want to remove an entire Time Machine backup on a backup drive, then the easiest way to do that is to erase the backup drive using Disk Utility. However, this will delete everything on the disk:
Drive Erase Snow Leopard and Earlier
1. 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 Utilities menu.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select the volume you wish to format from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

When using Time Machine, if I delete items from my computer, will they still be backed up to access later on my external hard drive? In other words, when time machine backs up again, will it delete the files from the back up?

When using Time Machine, if I delete items from my computer, will they still be backed up to access later on my external hard drive?
In other words, when time machine backs up again, will it delete the files from the back up that I have deleted from my computer?

No, I do not believe so. Time Machine would keep all those now-deleted files in previous backups, and as time goes by those backups might be deleted if you needed room, but it would still keep one backup from each day in last month, as well as one from each week forever, as long as you don't start running out of room, then just the oldest would be deleted to make room if needed.
I use a backup drive about double the size of my drive to be backed up, so I would guess it will never get to the point where deleted files being replaced by new ones being backed fill up that drive to the point where backups actually have to get deleted.

I would like to access an old Time machine back up from a Core 2 Duo Macbook, but no longer have a Mac. Can I access the backup from a cheaper old ibook, or would I need a Macbook. Is the OS important?

I would like to access an old Time machine back up from a Core 2 Duo Macbook, but no longer have a Mac. I am going to buy a used machien to acess this. Can I access the backup from a cheaper old ibook, or would I need a Macbook. Is the OS important?

right click on the folder that shows with the red negative sign, and select to "get info". In the long skinny window that appears, look in the "sharing and permissions" section. In the "name" column, you should see your current user name. Ensure the "privilege" is set to Read and Write. If your user name is not in the name column, click the + sign, and add it, ensuring the privileges are set to Read and Write

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Optical discs are prone to read errors, particularly when finger prints, fluff, etc. get on the reading surface, so redundant information is added in such a way that minor errors can be corrected. If the disc is damaged sufficiently seriously, e.g. a deep scratch running around a track, the error correction system fails to correct the error, and you will be unable to read that file on a computer by normal means. Note that only the last .VOB file that was scratched would be unreadable.
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How do I delete a Time Machine back-up from my trash?

I use an external hard disc for my Time Machine back-ups.
In order to make some room on the external hard disc for some other files I wanted to store while I reformatted their original disc, I moved the Time Machine bach-ups into my iMac Trash.
Now when I try to delete thes old unwanted back-ups I get this message -
There are some locked items in the Trash. Do you want to remove all the items, including the locked ones, or just the unlocked items?
I've tried selececting Remove All Items but they just stay there.
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I've tried switching Time Macine off in the preferences bu that doesn't help.
Can anyone help me with emptying them?

dear Sue
i've tried the alt solution to empty trash but it does not work
I still got the -8003 error
for emptying time machine backups that i foolishly put in the trash
i've also tried this solution using terminal and it did not work either
http://www.imore.com/how-force-empty-trash-your-mac-using-terminal
any help you might offer would be greatly appreciated
i am using a 24 inch iMac
OSX 10.6.8
Message was edited by: summer_laughter

How to Copy a Specific Time Machine Back-Up to Ext Hard Drive

I'm transitioning from a MBP early 09 to a MBA mid 11. I pruned the MBP pretty well to migrate items from it to the Air, but I want to preserve the last "full" Time Machine back-up of the MBP to an external hard-drive. Not the "latest" - as the lastest back-up includes the pruning need to migrate necessary items from the Pro to the Air - but one dated a few days before I began the pruning. How do I get that specific back-up (currently on External Hard Drive A - 250 GB) onto a new external hard drive (Ext Hard Drive B - 1TB)? I want to preserve that specific back up then ERASE Ext Hard Drive A to use as a portable for the the MBA. Thank you.

don't delete anything on the TM drive using finder. you can do it from TM interface. however, in your case it will not help because TM will always make a full backup after a system restore like you did and there is absolutely no way to avoid it. as suggested you might want to reformat the TM drive and start backups from scratch.
BTW, to delete a single backup you start TM, scroll back to that backup, click on the "gears" action button in Finder's toolbar and select "delete backup".

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I recently bought a second back-up drive for use with my MacBook Pro (running 10.9.4).
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I was wondering if there's an easy way to add the old back-up files from the old drive to the new drive as well. That is to say, I wish I had all the data that precedes my new back-up drive on BOTH drives. There's plenty of space on the new drive.
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Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
This technique will only work if the volume you're copying to is the same size, or larger than, the one you're copying from.
First, open the Time Machine preference pane and click the Options button. You may have to unlock the settings first by clicking the padlock icon in the lower left corner of the window. Authenticate as an administrator.
Delete the volume you're going to copy from the list of backup destinations. Then turn Time Machine OFF.
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How do I protect a Time Machine back up from being automatically deleted during new backups?

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