HT201250 Parallels PVM files missing in TimeMachine backup

I did my first backup with Time Machine and noticed my Parallels PVM files where not in the folder that was backed up? I had two PVMs. A 60GB Windows8 and a 8GB Ubuntu. Is there a limit for TimeMachine for file sizes to be backed up?

One thing I suggest, is that you get a USB drive and
be very judicious at doing manual backups. Reason is
that with a VM such as your 60gig Win8, every time you
open it, when you quit Time Machine will back it up. This
could very quicly use up a lot of disk space. Also, it could
also slow things down signifigantly.
In reality, if you are backing up your data regularly on your VMs,
you really only need to do occaisional back ups of the machine
itself.
When it comes to data, whether in a VM or on the Mac itself,
you can never have to many backups.
On a personal note, I don't use Time Machine because the issue I
have with it is that you won't find out if it did its job until you need it.

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Trying to restorer a Parallels .pvm file crashes

Maybe I'm not supposed to let my Time machine backup the Parallels 5.0 windows-xp folder?! Anyway, I can't get Windows XP, in Parallels, to run suddenly. So I decided to try and restore from any previous dates.
Whenthe Restore process starts, it stalls out in a minute and says error-36 ... and that parts of "WindowsXP.pvm" can not be read ... this is for any previously backed-up Parallels windows-xp.pvm file I have.

You are correct.
To Time Machine, the Windoze system is one gigantic file, and TM will likely choke on it, in addition to backing the whole thing up anytime there's the smallest change.
You need to exclude it from Time Machine (see #10 in hte Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum), and use a Windows app to back it up.

My backup file missing (info.plist)

I did upgrade from 4.2.1 to 4.3.3
but my 4.2.1 backup file missing.
missing is only 5 files ( Info.plist Manifest.mbdb Manifest.mbdx Manifest.plist Status.plist )
I was recorver HDD so got 4 files ( Manifest.mbdb Manifest.mbdx Manifest.plist Status.plist )
but Info.plist file is dont found.
please help me.
how can I restore from my backup file?
(orry, my english not good. )

When you look for the backup it could be possible that its saved as loaderbackup instead of just backup. What version of the desktop software do you have?

Macbook was fixed, paid for backup, files missing

On friday my computer shut off without warning while i was on the internet. I took it into the apple store and the genius guy thought that it might be the magsafe. So I had the magsafe checked out because no matter what was reset the computer would not start. The magsafe wasnt the problem, they thought it was the logic board. So I brought in my western digital external drive and paid apple to back my computer up before they sent it away to be tested.
on wednesday i was called and told my computer is ready. So I rushed to the store and grabbed my compter and the external and rushed them home before I had to be to work.
that night i went to look for a file on my computer and it was gone. in fact a large portion of my files were gone. so i went to the external and did a retrieval. it loaded the folders but not the files.
to get to the files i have to go through finder, and follow that chain until i can get to my files. My problem is that I still have files missing. It doesn't look like they backed it up since my last backup....what can i do, i'm missing some important artwork that i did for clients and contests. My father and I feel like if i paid for the service than why wasn't it done properly.
any suggestions because the phone line is no help. should i take it back to the store?

I too have this exact same problem. I recently replaced my hard drive and before doing so, did an entire system back up. When i went to restore the files onto the new hard drive there doesn't seem to be any files to back up from my time machine. Nothing!!! Pls can someone help?????

Re-install Snow Leopard from TimeMachine backup

Hey guys,
What is the advance of re-installing Snow Leopard from a TimeMachine Backup, cause it installs just like before?? Or does it remove some (crap)files??
Thnx

Gizburdt wrote:
I backuped my MAcbook (Snow). But it is running a little bit slow, so i want to re-install it from the backup. But I wonder, if i re-install it from the backup. Isn't it slow again, cause It installs all the files back on my Macbook.
If you do a full restore of your system, almost everything will be put back. The only things missing will be the ones that Time Machine excludes automatically: system work files, most caches, your logs, trash, etc. So unless you have a corrupted cache (which is much easier to fix by clearing it), it's not going to help much, if at all. The only exception would be, if your HD is nearly full and badly fragmented, it may speed up a bit, but not for long. A much better solution would be to delete some old stuff.
If you do a new install of Snow Leopard from your Install disc (and load the "combo" update), that will get you a new version of OSX without touching your apps or other files. So if there's a problem with your installation of OSX, that may fix it.

Consequences of including Windows.pvm file?

i had an issue with my parallels virtual installation on my MBP and realize I was excluding the .pvm file from my backups which I would like to start /including/.
is there some issue with the fact that this is a 40 or 50 GB single file as it relates to doing incremental backups? i mean, i guess i am asking if this is going to take up a very large amount of space very fast for some reason.
there was some suggestion on the parallels boards to set parallels to store the data as a set of 2GB files which might cut down on the size incremental backups take up but I don't want to do anything unless i absolutely have to.
can i back up this file without huge increases in the amount of space it takes up??
TIA

OK. Thank you.
Can I just ask here if anyone knows if this is pretty straighforward in Parallels? I mean, I guess there is some Option that tells the software to store the data in 2GB pieces and that this does not have any consequences or deleterious effects...
Thanks!

Music files missing? Seems like iTunes bug...

I recently noticed that many of my music files are missing, and that the selection appears to be somewhat random. They are retained in iTunes, but have the ! next to them. So, doing the logical thing, I tried to locate them, and the files themselves are missing, but their iTunes link is preserved.
In an effort to continue to do the logical thing, I then systematically went through my CD library, re-loading all the missing material back into iTunes. This was extremely tedious, but appeared to fix most of the issues (obviously, the ones were the CD case was mysteriously empty were left unfixed). The files played fine at that time. Then I carried the computer upstairs to my home office, where I proceeded to plug it in to do a time machine backup on the newly transferred files.
Now here's where it gets really strange... The time machine backup went swimmingly without hitches, to a relatively new USB 3.0 drive. I then set about organizing the music, so that it would all be in the iTunes music folder (User(me)/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ directory, the one automatically made by iTunes on installation). Many of the songs linked perfectly, and I didn't have to re-link the songs to their new location, as one might expect. So, I then thought I would sit down to enjoy this new library that I had spent a day bringing up to speed and organizing again. And, low and behold, songs are missing--again. Not just the ones that I couldn't replace, but some of the newly replaced ones. For example, Track 12 of an album might be missing, but the files for Tracks 1-11 and 13+ are all present.
As other people who have experienced this problem previously have noted, there does seem to be a slight preference for songs whose artist and/or title include accented characters, although my detection ability is more limited now, as I have since lost many of these original CDs, and so the songs were not replaced within the library. But, while they account for about 5-10% of my overall library, they accounted for about 50% of the songs missing at the beginning of yesterday's overhaul.
And what makes matters really strange is that when I tried to look up the missing files--which I know myself to have imported yesterday--in the fresh time machine backup I made right after importing all that music, they are all missing.
So, it appears that iTunes is systematically deleting files at random. While I'm tempted to try to put the missing ones back on (fewer are "re-missing" than I was able to replace, so it's a little better), this doesn't exactly seem fruitful, given the fresh deletions.
The original music files were encoded a long time ago, and have been copied and re-copied (and recopied... ad infinitium). It appears that everything that I encoded on the really old system (before iTunes really became popular for this sort of thing) were preserved; however, the issue seems to temporally localize around the time I started using iTunes for most of my music encoding needs (except, of course, for the little issue about files that were imported less than 24 hours ago).
A few other notes:
- I did not delete these files accidentally. I'm more careful than that.
- The files are not there (they're not just hidden--I already checked for this).
- iTunes has retained the link to where it believes the file should be.
- The issue appears to have originally arisen quite some time ago, as these files are systemically missing from all backups made by time machine. However, it wasn't all that long ago that I deleted my entire library and started over (about 2 years, so the files should have been natively present on 2 of my macs) by re-importing all the files in my music folder. This newly created library has since become the "master" library that is propigated to all my other computers (although I don't trust iCloud for obvious reasons, given this fiasco--Thanks, Apple...)
- I have not elected to have iTunes manage my music folder, or automatically copy things to the iTunes music folder when importing (although this is the default destination, so they are imported there, but not duplicated there when imported from elsewhere on the hard drive).
- I am currently running OS X 10.6.8 on an Intel Mac (yeah, yeah, I'd upgrade the OS, but software that cost more than the computer isn't 10.8--or even 10.7--compatible).
If anyone has any thoughts on how to prevent this issue in the future, I'd really appreciate it. I think the music files themselves are just... gone. But, I would like to be able to have them stick around for a bit when I get around to dedicating another day to trying to import them from their CD.
Does anyone know a piece of third party software that allows you to sync and update iDevices? Hopefully one that doesn't take over my music library and decide to delete things of its own accord?

I was lucky to be able to use a PC, that after trying numerous times actually read the external hdd, I quickly copied all files over to a backup hdd and recovered all files. After that I ended up in contact with Western Digital about the incident and they recommended to completely erase (7-pass erase) of the hdd, which ended up taking over 5 days to do. They gave me no reason as to "Why" it would have happened but if I erase and reformatted of the hdd and the problem reoccurred they recommended to get the unit replaced.
I was lucky to recover all my files.....keep trying on different computers if you can, and copy what you can get hold of. The 7-pass erase will delete pretty much every trace of information on the hdd with no chance of recovery.
So far since the incident its been running ok but I not longer trust the hdd to be stable. Not a simple nor quick process / solution I'm afraid.
Good luck!
Once you have recovered your files (or as many as you can get hold of) and ready to erase the hdd:
(THIS WILL ERASE ALL YOUR DATA, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP BEFORE PROCEEDING)
Connect the drive directly to the Mac, open Disk Utility.
Select the drive and click on the "Erase" tab Select the "7-times zeros" to completely erase the drive.
Once the erase have completed format the drive to your selection.

How to access a single file folder in timemachine using another computer as my own was stolen?

Help!
My Macbook Pro was stolen!
I made backups with timemachine. But now there is no other Mac in the area to access this, and a windows computer does not read it. I am also nowhere near an Apple store.
Possibly next week, via a colleague, I will have access to another Macbook. How do I find and restore then the single file folder in the timemachine backup. which has all work related documents, onto the desktop of this other computer, so that I can then transfer it via USB stick to a windows operated desktop computer?
Thanks for any tips!

No, there's no good way to do this. You *could* (if you can run an .exe file off the flash drive) try the Flash Projector, if you can run the SWF as a standalone application.
Adobe Flash Player - Downloads

How to copy a networked TimeMachine backup to a USB drive and restore from it?

Hi,
I backup my MacBook Air with TimeMachine to my QNAP NAS which offers a TimeMachine backup service and I can restore data from it OK.
Working in IT, and being a bit paranoid about important data loss, I am concerned that if I was robbed or my house burnt down I would most likely lose both the MacBook and the TimeMachine Backup on my NAS :-(
To protect against this I have backup my (linux based) NAS to an external drive that I keep offsite. This drive is encrypted to keep my data secure with a Linux form of encryption (cryptsetup) and hence can't be plugged into a MacBook to try and restore from it - I doubt this would work either as the TimeMachine data is not located in the root of the drive.
So what I have done to test my restore process is to mount the encrypted NAS backup that include the TimeMachine backup folders on a Linux machine and then copy the TimeMachine data to the root of an HFS+ formatted external USB drive.
But, now I am stuck as how to try and restore something from this to my MacBook to see if the copy of the TimeMachine backup is good. If I press the Alt key on the TimeMachine icon, I can select an alternate backup device and when I enter TimeMachine to browse the data, I can browse the structure but there is no option to go back in time !! It seems like it is not possible to restore from this copy of the TimeMachine backup.
Does anyone know if this should be possible, and if so, what am I doing wrong here?
Rgds
Gary

For anyone else that may be in a similar situation, I can confirm that this does actually work.
I am unsure why I was not able to mount the original sparseimage that I copied to the USB drive before, but I have gone through the entire process again and I could successfully mount the TM sparseimage onto my MacBook and restore files from within it using TimeMachine to my Mac.
This is a Disaster Recovery solution only needed for if both my NAS and Macbook get stolen or damaged so I am happy with this solution for now.
I will try the restore process several more times from my monthly backups to reassure myself that the first failure to mount the sparse image was an anomaly.
This is the process that I have tested:
Configure MacBook to backup to TimeMachine Service running on QNAP NAS device.
Perform regular backup of QNAP NAS Device (Linux) including the TimeMachine backup data to an external USB drive with encryption enabled and store this device safely off-site
In time of loss of both NAS and MacBook, Time Machine data can be recovered to another Mac without the need of the NAS using the following process:
Mount the external drive containing the backup of the NAS filesystem (ext4) which is encrypted onto a Linux host so it is readable - use the cryptsetup luksOpen options to access the encrypted filesystem then mount it.
Mount a n empty HFS+ formatted USB drive on the Linux host
Use Rsync to copy the sparsebundle from the external NAS drive backup disk to the root of the USB Drive
Insert the HFS+ formatted USB containing the sparesbundle into the Mac's USB port
Double click the sparsebundle to mount it onto the Mac as a Volume
Using Alt button and the TimeMachine icon, select use alternative backup disk and you should see the TM backup in the sparsebundle
Enter TimeMachine and you should be able to restore any/all files
Hope that helps someone else and thanks to LaPastenague for pointing me in the direction of some of the answers I needed.
Rgds
Gary

Music files missing/hidden in folder on network hdd

Hi all,
I have setup my home net work with a iMac (mountain Lion) backed up by a TimeCapsule and at the back of the TimeCapsule I have a 2TB networked external HDD. My iTunes library is located on this HDD, I take care not to start up iTunes before this networked external HDD has propoerly mounted to avoid any conflicts with links to my itunes library files and folders.
The other day I noticed a few missing files (the dreaded exclamation mark !), not too bad a figured, I located a few manually but reached some that does my head in...... Out of the whole album there are two files "missing", the other ones play as they should. When I try and locate the missing files the folder comes up empty.....
I have even checked the songs that do play in the same album....they dont show up either, even though they still play in iTunes (yes, they are all located at the same location). The album was originally ripped from a CD and I don't use iTunes Match or Genius.
I have tried to find the files by:
1."open in finder" - files missing / whole folder empty
2."through finder and located the drive and folder" - files missing / folder empty
3."copy file location from "get info" and paste into "go to folder" - the file temporarily appears in the finder window but dissapears shortly after / folder yet again empty.
4. I check the folder "get info" from my finder and it says "zero bytes"
5. I can't use Search because its on an external HDD and there fore not indexed
6.I have tried to copy the folder to the desktop but still shows empty....
7. I have tried to "organise" my library, still no change.
What the..xxx..is happening..?
From what I can gather, the files are actually there but not visible through the finder window (even though the folder appears to be 0 bytes).
The problem being that I can't locate my missing files because I cant see them any more......
Am I missing something (like show hidden folder on a Mac) or has it got to do with anything else...? How can I fix it..? I have found posts that relate to windows users forced their W7 to show hidden folders but nothing yet on Mac.....
Help.
//Fred

I was lucky to be able to use a PC, that after trying numerous times actually read the external hdd, I quickly copied all files over to a backup hdd and recovered all files. After that I ended up in contact with Western Digital about the incident and they recommended to completely erase (7-pass erase) of the hdd, which ended up taking over 5 days to do. They gave me no reason as to "Why" it would have happened but if I erase and reformatted of the hdd and the problem reoccurred they recommended to get the unit replaced.
I was lucky to recover all my files.....keep trying on different computers if you can, and copy what you can get hold of. The 7-pass erase will delete pretty much every trace of information on the hdd with no chance of recovery.
So far since the incident its been running ok but I not longer trust the hdd to be stable. Not a simple nor quick process / solution I'm afraid.
Good luck!
Once you have recovered your files (or as many as you can get hold of) and ready to erase the hdd:
(THIS WILL ERASE ALL YOUR DATA, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP BEFORE PROCEEDING)
Connect the drive directly to the Mac, open Disk Utility.
Select the drive and click on the "Erase" tab Select the "7-times zeros" to completely erase the drive.
Once the erase have completed format the drive to your selection.

Restore mail from af Timemachine backup

Hello.
My server crashed some days ago due to a harddisk failure.
I had a Timemachine backup from the server, but you can't restore a server that way, so I installed from fresh.
Now I'm missing a lot of mails
Is it possible, to restore the mails from the timemachine backup?
Hoping for a good answer.

Hi Thomas,
first of all, if you have some mails in your backup, ignore the following answer, otherwise take a line of coke before.
I don't want to frighten you but I experienced a crash a couple of years ago and I remember that I was very surprised that Time Machine does NOT backup /var (where mails are stored). I had to explain to my users that all their mails was lost.
Since this day, I use mailbfr to backup the mail database.
Joan

Where can I get help re: a file missing from Pages in iCloud?

Where can I get help re: a file missing from Pages in iCloud?

If the file was also on a mac, then there was a local copy of the file in ~/Library/Mobile Documents. If you use Time Machine or any other backup program on your computer, then try restoring the file(s). Similarly the same thing would be done on a PC, but I'm not sure where the icloud local copies are kept.

I do not have permission to move TimeMachine backup?

I've been having this issue for some time now. I have several small external storage drives that I would like to re-sort and move some of the backups from TimeMachine onto a new cloud based external drive.
I want to do this for two computers I have regarding the TM backups.
Anyway, my small externals are full and I need to do some resorting and reformatting and putting things in so they actually make sense again. I also need to do this since backups keep failing on this drive I am using and it's been quite a few months now and there is no solution to fix this.
What I want to do is copy the current directory that TimeMachine makes onto the large cloud drive (Backups.backupdb) and keep it there. When I try to move / copy this directory I keep getting an error! How can I have no permissions when it's my computer? Right now if I try to drag and drop it into the new server I get a pop up saying, "The volume is the wrong format for a backup" - this is a new one.
We have the cloud device split up into two areas, one for me and one for my husband. I'm also hoping I can designate a specific area for each of our backups as well.

Hi Twitchin Kitten,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. Based on what you stated, it sounds like you are trying to move a TimeMachine backup to another drive. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help the issue.
Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support
Check the format of your new backup drive
Connect the new backup drive to your Mac.
Open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder).
In Disk Utility, select the new drive's icon to make sure it has a GUID partition and is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can check this from the "Format:" line at the bottom of the Disk Utility window. If your new backup drive is not formatted this way, reformat it, selecting the option for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition. Back up any important data from your new drive before you format it.
Set permissions on your new backup drive
Open a new Finder window.
In the sidebar of the Finder window, click the icon of the new backup drive.
Choose Get Info from the File menu.
Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" at the bottom of the "Sharing & Permissions" section of the Get Info window is deselected (unchecked).
Cheers,
Mario

I want to make a TimeMachine backup in a new hard-drive I just bought. It says it has to erase the info but as the drive is new there's no info in it, so what it is going to be erased?

I want to make a TimeMachine backup in a new hard-drive I just bought. It says it has to erase the info but as the drive is new there's no info in it, so what it is going to be erased?
I had to format it after I bought it so that it could work with windows and Mac and I'm afraid that if I erase the info in the hard-drive, the format will also change. Is that possible to happen? Or the format will stay the same?
Thank you

Do you want to continue to use it to share and store files between Windows and NTFS and Mac which uses HFS?
Maybe you need another drive. I would never have only one backup and one "live" data set.
you probably installed something, whether it is current or well supported or not, that came with the drive to allow writing to NTFS.
TimeMachine has to use HFS only and use Apple GPT (GUID) format.
sometimes erase changes a drive to GUID when you click on the raw hard drive name in Disk Utility. other times you can erase a volume and leave the partition format type as is. The wording use to be clearer when people knew when and how to initialize, format and setup a drive. And sometimes a message on the screen says it will be only launches Disk Utility and not to the PARTITION tab to make changes.
In addition to TimeMachine, having a clone of your system or data or both can be very useful as well. Drives fail.
And with a MacBook Air you probably have a smallish internal hard drive and might need to store media files and data on another drive to supplement the internal SSD.

Software RAID (level 0) with Timemachine Backup

Hi
I am in the process of ordering a Mac Pro (two 2.26GHz Quad Core, 12GB) and will be using four 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda hard drives. I have read many posts on these discussion pages relating to RAID, etc but can't seem to find an answer to my query.
Is it possible and effective to stripe two drives together and use that as my boot/files and then stripe the other two and use that as a timemachine backup.
Also is Apple's in-built software RAID able to do this and without much strain on the CPU?? The £560 RAID card is not looking to pleasing to my wallet!
Many thanks in advance and apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.

Time Machine does not benefit from anything other than mirror perhaps, and even then, I prefer to have two backups sets as a priority, and only then go with mirror.
I can think of better uses for internal drives than to have two devoted just to TimeMachine.
And "0+1" was 'briefly' tried by many and given up, and not supported post-Tiger, that does have too much overhead and problems - and slow.
Fast boot drive, dedicated scratch, and 3rd drive for media files and data, would be a good start. SSD or 10K VelociRaptor boot drive perhaps.

HT201250 Parallels PVM files missing in TimeMachine backup

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