How to make a Time Machine drive writable?

Hello,
I had an iMac (1TB) and backed it up on a external HD using Time Machine (running Mavericks) Now i want to make changes to the Time Machine HD (I don have the iMac anymore) I have a 500GB MBP, so i cannot restore the backup.
Is there anyway i can make the Time Machine HD writable as i want to delete / move a couple of folders/files from it.
If i can boot from the TM HD also i am ok. Any suggestions would help.
TIA..
Yo

Time Machine deals with something called "snapshots" - and you can delete these snapshots if you are trying to find room on the Time Machine backup disk or make the space of what it consumes smaller.
But not sure what you're trying to do - so just to make it more clear, are you trying to get the size of all the Time Machine backups small enough so that you can do a restore to your new MacBook Pro or are you trying to make room on the Time Machine disk in order to backup the MacBook Pro to the Time Machine disk you now have?
So which scenario are you trying to accomplish?
In any event I would not start removing files on your own from the Time Machine backups - you risk corrupting the whole Time Machine backup database.

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How to make transfer Time Machine back up to clean harddrive?

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I also noticed that I am not even able to copy anything to desktop or remove items from the quick startup bar at the bottom.
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peakaboo09 wrote:
I have just recently upgraded to Mountain Lion but for some reason when it tried to restart, it wouldnt load past the first start up screen. Had to do a complete clean reinstall, and start from scratch. I just got done using migration assistant to copy what I thought would be everything that was backed up but only copied the applications and such.
Did you use Setup Assistant when your Mac started up after reinstalling OSX, or did you set up a user account, then later on use the Migration Assistant app? If you used Migration Assistant, your data is in the user account(s) you transferred, not the one you created. See Problems after using Migration Assistant for details.

How do I make a hard drive "forget" that it was once a (no longer used) Time Machine drive?

I'm starting a new thread on this question in the hope that someone new will notice it.
I've started using a larger hard drive for my TM backups. I want to be able to use the previous drive for other things BUT I also want to keep the oldest TM backup, just in case. In order to do that I want to move all but one day's backup to the trash but of course get the "The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified." message. I also, of course, can't change the name of the backups.backupdb folder for the same reason. In older OSs it was possible to use a Terminal command to bypass all this but it would seem that it's no longer possible to do this in Mt. Lion.
Note that the old drive is NOT being used in Time Machine, so that's not the problem.
Does anyone know how to make Time Machine realize that the drive is now just a drive, not a Time Machine drive? Obviously I know I can just reformat it but then I'll lose ALL the files. I want to keep one day's worth, so reformatting is not the solution. I do know that I can copy everything over to another drive but I don't have another drive large enough to do that, so need to unflag the one set of files as TM backups and trash the others.
Any help gratefully accepted.

I think I understand your question, but I'm puzzled at what you are trying to accomplish.
Let's say you've been using TM for a year, now you start a new backup set on a different device.
What you seem to want to do is delete all the backups in the old backup set on the old except for the very first backup - ie. the oldest.
That would mean that you would retain the oldest backup from 1 year ago, and all the new backups from the start of the new set forward. Deleting all the past year's backups except for the very first plus the new backups going forward on the new device. Is that what you want?
The only way I know of doing this would be to manually delete in TM all the undesired backups -slow and tedious for sure,
On the other hand, you want to keep the last backup of on the old device then....
Assuming that you started the new back up set shortly after the last backup on the old device, then the first backup on the new and the last on the old are almost identical for all practical purposes.
If that's what you want I'm not sure it accomplishes anything useful.
Can you clarify what you want to achieve/do, so we can help you better.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.

Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
          Destinations:
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                    Total size: 999.86 GB
                    Total number of backups: 64
                    Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 999.86 GB < (Disk used 453.81 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
          /sbin excluded from backup!
          /usr excluded from backup!
          /System excluded from backup!
          /bin excluded from backup!
          /private excluded from backup!
          /Library excluded from backup!
          /Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy

HT3275 EMERGENCY!!!!!!!! NEED TO RETREIVE AN ACCIDENTALLY DELETED BACKUP! BACK UP FROM MY TIME MACHINE DRIVE???? In other words, I emptied out a folder on my main MAC to make space and the next subsequent backup backed up the EMPTY FOLDER and then delet

EMERGENCY!!!!!!!!
IS THERE ANY WAY TO RETREIVE AN ACCIDENTALLY DELETED BACK UP FROM MY TIME MACHINE DRIVE????
In other words, I emptied out a folder on my main MAC to make space and the next subsequent backup backed up the EMPTY FOLDER and then deleted the "old backup" that actually contained the contents of the very important folder.
Now only the emptied folder exists on my MAC and in the two backups on my Time machine backup drive.
This was clearly a big mistake on my part not realizing that the "old backup" being deleted by Time Machine would include backed up files that I had no intention of getting rid of....
What can I do now?
Is DATA RETREIVAL even an option?
I am sure that the Folder of files that I need are on the most recently deleted "OLD BACKUP" but how do I get to this, if even possible?????
Super desperate situation here...
M

inna-help-me wrote:
Is DATA RETREIVAL even an option?
It may be possible to recover some of the data, if it hasn't been overwritten, but it won't be cheap or easy.
You've posted in the Time Capsule forum, but you mention a "backup drive." If your backups are on a Time Capsule's internal HD, instead of an external HD, it's even worse.
See Data Recovery.
Good luck.

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Hello lramospsych,
To move your iTunes media library to a different location, take a look at the article below to walk you through that process. Make sure that you have everything organized before you move everything over.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
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How do we regain control over our Time Machine drive revisited

+I posted this question as two posts over in the+ *Intel-based iMac* +forum but I think I may have put it in the wrong place. Please forgive me if you've already read this over there. If someone tells me how to delete a post I will or perhaps a Moderator can/will do it for me.+
+O M Oz+
Recently our 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo started into a cycle of rebooting itself during the startup sequence. Eventually we decided to Restore the disk from the Time Machine Backup which is kept on an external 1TB La Cie drive.
After the Restore was complete; Time Machine attempted to do a backup run but we got an error message saying the drive could not be accessed to write the backup. Only the very last backup could be seen from the Star Wars screen. The icon had changed to the generic usb drive icon with a padlock.
I attempted a Full Reset of Time Machine by deleting the Preferences as described in the Troubleshooting thread. Since then we have not been able to access the Time Machine drive at all with either Time Machine or Finder.
A check of Sharing and Permissions shows that all users are listed having custom access which seems to mean you cannot read or write the drive. Disk Utility reports the drive as seeming to be okay when run in either Verify or Repair modes.
I have also attempted to run the sudo command from Terminal with no success. I'm running out of ideas. I don't want to do a low level reformat of this drive yet because it IS a backup drive and I'm not clear on the status of the restored drive.
*Next Day after sleeping on it, I posted...*
I've been thinking it over carefully and think I might have done the damage myself.
Before things went pear shaped I needed to back up the 80GB Hard Drive for a laptop but was just a little short of space on the 1TB drive. In Finder I went into the backup.backup folder and deleted the oldest backup under Finder.
From what I NOW know of the data structures of Time Machine I suspect this would have also removed the backups of whatever it is that logs the various permissions. Am I right?
If I am right can I recover from this and still save the the older backups?
Old Mac Oz

I half expected you would be the first to reply, Pondini
Pondini wrote:
Old Mac Oz wrote:
. . . The icon had changed to the generic usb drive icon with a padlock . . .
. . . *we are not able to access* the Time Machine drive at all *with either Time Machine or Finder*. > >. . .From what I NOW know of the data structures of Time Machine I suspect this would have also removed the backups of whatever it is that logs the various permissions. Am I right?
Not exactly, but yes, that can damage your backups.
Try to repair them, per #A5 in the Troubleshooting Tip. If that succeeds, your backups are probably ok. If not, It's possible that +Disk Warrior+ can. It's expensive (about $100), and probably a good investment for the future, but there's no guarantee.
I have already tried that but Disk Utility reports that there is nothing wrong with the disk; clearly that is wrong. I cannot reset the permissions to let me (as the Administrator) even read the disk
If that succeeds, and the 80 GB backup from another Mac is still there, you can delete it via Time Machine. See #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
The 80GB backup was a simple Finder copy from the extracted Hard Disk onto my Time Machine disk, just simply regaining Finder access will allow me to rescue that
Also, everything you restored to your internal HD is considered as new, so it must be backed-up again. That will, of course, take a lot of space. It's possible that Time Machine deleted a large number of your old backups to make room. If it didn't, because it couldn't do the backup, it will when it can.
I understand that is what should happen.
So . . . try the repair. If that works, see if the old backups are still there, and also see how much space is available on your TM drive. If there's not enough room for a new full backup of your internal HD, plus 20% for workspace, TM will have to delete some old backups. If the disk isn't well over twice the size of the data it's backing-up, your best bet may be to erase the drive and let Time Machine start fresh.
I am coming to that conclusion. The drive is plenty big enough, it's a Terabyte backing up a 300GB disk. Activity Monitor and Finder using +Get Info+ both tell me the drive has 931.39GB available with about 907GB used, we just cannot access any of the data this usage represents due to the locked permissions.
Since I last posted I have also tried resetting PRAM and running sudo from Terminal as per #C5 in the Troubleshooting Tip to reset the permissions to no avail.
The Restore has not been a success so I am probably going to have to wipe the whole computer and rebuild the system, something I am understandably unwilling to do.
I asked here because the problem seems to be related to a recent Time Machine run and the drive I used. Am I asking my question in the correct forum?
Thanks for your input so far.
Old Man Oz

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I already have a NetGear wireless router… but it only has ethernet ports out, no usb.
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That has been clear since early in this thread.
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Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
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Do not backup your startup volume to another partition on the same drive. If the drive fails you have nothing. Always backup to another drive or volume on another drive.
The I/O error usually means there's a problem with the drive. Clone ASAP, then repartition and reformat the main drive. Then restore the clone. Here's the basic process:
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
Boot from the external hard drive.
Erase the internal hard drive.
Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
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Erase internal hard drive
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Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
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Remove the drive from the list of items set to be excluded. It needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this to be possible.
(110504)

How to make a Time Machine drive writable?

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