HT201250 Viewing time machine backups

I cannot access my earliest backups on time machine, it only seems to only allow me access to backups within the past year, how do I view earlier backups?.

Time Machine doesn't keep backups indefinitely. As you run out of room on your Time Machine hard drive it deletes the oldest backups to make room.

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Can't view time machine backups from old computer on new computer

My macbook pro laptop recently died and I am trying to access its time machine backup data through Finder on a different computer. In each one of my folders from different dates, however, the majority of the computer folders I would like to access (i.e. desktop, documents, dropbox, etc) have a little red "no" sign in the corner and prompt the following message when selected:
"The folder “FolderName” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents"
How can I gain permission to see its contents? As the former user, I know whatever passwords are restricting these files, but I don't know how/where to go to give permission to these folders. I've tried going into Disk Utility and changing the permissions there, but to no avail, despite successful changing of the "Sharing & Permissions" to "Read & Write" for all listed accounts.
I'm currently trying to view this on an imac OSX 10.6.8. The dead MacBook pro ran OSX
thanks
kate

Hi Kate,
It sounds like you're running into an issue trying to recover that was on your previous Mac from a Time Machine backup. The article linked below will walk you through the process of recovering the data from your older Mac's Time Machine backup.
OS X: How to migrate data from another Mac using Mountain Lion and earlier
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889
Time Machine or other disk migration
If Migration Assistant isn't running on the target (new) Mac, open Migration Assistant (located in /Applications/Utilities/), select "From another Mac, PC, Time Machine backup, or other disk" then click Continue.
Connect your external hard drive if necessary.
Type in your admin password when prompted and click OK.
When the target Mac asks you for a migration method, select "From a Time Machine backup or other disk", then click Continue.
Select the Drive, Time Machine backup, or Time Capsule. If you select Time Capsule you will be prompted to enter the Time Capsule password. After entering the password, select the Time Machine backup.
Close all other applications on the source Mac, then click Continue to start the migration options.
The source Mac will ask you to select items to migrate.
You can customize your selection by clicking to open the disclosure triangles.
After you click Continue, the Migration Assistant will begin to transfer files to the target Mac. The amount of time that it takes for migration to complete depends on the amount of data being transferred and the speed of the network.
Note: To view documents that were migrated, choose Log Out from the Apple () menu, then login as the migrated user. The migrated documents will be located in the migrated user's home folder.
I hope this helps.
-Jason

HT201250 If time machine backups hourly. Why does it need to backup daily, weekly and monthly

If time machine backups hourly. Then why does it need to backup daily, seekly, and monthly?

It doesn't.
What it does is discard intermediate backups at the end of 24 hrs and keep just three spaced backups from the previous day.
At the end of the next day, that day's will be reduced to 3, and the previous 3 trimmed to one; the last backup of that day.
Daily backups are kept for a month, then trimmed to the last backup of the week.
The weekly backups are kept until the disc runs out of space and TM starts deleting the oldest ones.

Viewing Time Machine Backups of other computers

I recently got a new computer and the started with a fresh install. I am slowly copying files back over as I need them. I set up time machine for the new machine to the same disk. Now however I can't see the backup of the old disks through time machine. Is there a setting somewhere to do this or is there a way to see the old machines back ups?

chaseholden wrote:
It seems to me that Time Machine used to display an option to "Browse other Time Machine backups."
[snip]
In Time Machine (or somewhere) it used to say "Browse other Time machine Backups."
I cannot seem to find that option any longer?
If you have TM in the menu bar or the Dock, hold down the option key as you choose the TM menu or the TM icon in the Dock.

HT201250 Does Time Machine backup and restore Bootcamp?

I am replacing defective hard drive in an iMac that I primarily use as a pc under Bootcamp. I have to find some way to clone and restore the bootcamp partition. I was told today by a Genius at the Apple store that I should buy a 2 TB external (which I did for $150) and run Time Machine. He assured me that my bootcamp partition would be backed up along with the entire mac partition and that I would be able to restore everything perfectly on the new hd. Now that I am home and continuing my research, I can't find anywhere that says it will work. Documentation on Time Machine fails to mention bootcamp. So, does Time Machine backup and restore bootcamp or not? And will it be bootable after the restore? Help!

I think you've got it! I have never used WinClone so I cannot attest to how well it will work, but it's pretty much all lthere is. You will have to create a new Boot Camp partition on the new drive, and it should be the same size as the partition you cloned.
Be sure you prep the new hard drive:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. Quit DU upon completion and return to the installer. Now install Snow Leopard or restore from your Time Machine backup.

HT201250 Accessing Time Machine backups from other machines

I am using Time Machine to back up my iMac to Time capsule. The iMac will then be going to work with my husband and we would like to access the music and picture files with our two MBPs. Is this possible? I would be happy to only back up the iPhoto and iTunes libraries but that doesn't seem to work. Any advice on that?

It would be extremely inconvenient. You can Browse Other Time Machine backups, find the photos or music files on the backup, then restore them to your MBPs. Not very easy or convenient.
It would be better to transfer both Libraries to an external drive connected to the network, then set those up as your Music and Photo Libraries. Some network drives also offer iTunes and iPhoto sharing such that you can put the libraries on that network drive and access them from your MBPs. They will be shared out just like they were from the iMac.

HT201250 existing Time Machine backups to a new Mac

how do i migrate existing time machine backups to a new mac from my time capsule?

It took a little more research, but that link in the end solved my problem. After mounting the Time Capsule and the previous backup sparsebundle, I ran these commands to inherit the old backup (with <capsule> and <machine> representing the names of the Time Capsule and machine/hard drive respectively:
          sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/<capsule>/<machine>.sparsebundle
          sudo tmutil associatedisk -a / /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/<machine>/2012-12-09-114511/<machine>
          sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/<capsule>/
"2012-12-09-114511" was the latest snapshot that was there. According to the documentation, you can pick any snapshot, since the "-a" in that command will update all of the associated snapshots.

HT201250 erase time machine backup and start with a new Mac from scratch

see title

Is this a case where you are getting a new Mac and will then transfer data from your old Mac's Time Machine backup with Setup Assistant (which is the ideal way)?
See here.

HT201250 Will Time Machine backup the files on my desktop?

Will Time Machine backup the files on my desktop? Backup files anywhere on my computer even if they're not neatly in the document folders?

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3107
Most commonly used backup methods explained

HT201250 Finding Time Machine backups in a file mode not star look.

How do I look up by back-ups for time machine in a file format, not the star format?

It's what I assumed.
An iWork document created with the format introduced by iWork '09 is in fact a folder packed with a specific tool.
If we remove the name extension, the system can't guess that it's an iWork document.
According to the structure of the file, it recognize it as an archive and it unpack it.
It's a variant of what I do when I want to study the contents of the index.xml file describing a document.
In my scheme, I rename wxyz.pages as wxyz.pages.zip
When I unpack it, I get a document wxyz.pages which is a Pages document in the old structure.
When Time Machine give you a document entitled wxyz, it's important to add the extension name by yourself.
If you forget and expand the beast as a folder, nothing is lost. Just rename the folder waxy as waxy.pages and Pages will open it.
From my point of view, the fact that Time Machine return a document without its name extension is a bug in Time Machine.
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 2 mai 2011 22:30:54
Please :
Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community
To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

HT201250 Can Time Machine backup files stored on external hard drive

Can Time Machine back up files that are stored on external hard drive and save them on a different external hard drive?
I have my pictures stored on an external hard drive connected to my iMac. I want to make an exact copy of the pictures folder on a separate external hard drive. Can Time Machine do that?
If yes, how?
If no, what's a good way to create a mirror of the folder on External Hard Drive #1 (the original) on External Hard Drive #2 (the backup)?
I am not opposed to manually copying every couple weeks or month, but (1) it's less convenient and (2) I got an error message the first time I tried this saying the files couldn't be copied because some of the files being copied had the same name as each other (not exactly that, I'm at work and don't have the message in front of me right now, but that was the gist of it).
Thanks!

1. Yes, if both drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
2. Reformat the drives if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, and remove the drive with the pictures from the list of items set to be excluded.
(110331)

HT201250 last time machine backup showing as partially done. how to retrieve that?

Hi all,
took backup on time machine, which showed completed backup and reformatted my mac. trying to restore data i found that the last backup shows in progress. now is there any possibility of retrieving my data, especially pictures and videos.
Kuldeep

Use the previous snapshot.

HT201250 "Your Time Machine Backup Disk can't be found" ? Disk is attached and running, apparently smoothly.

I am getting this message that my backup disk cannot be found. However, it was working fine just yesterday and there is no indication that the disk itself has crashed. It appears to be running as usual. Any suggestions about how to get my iMac to "find" my lost Time Mache disk will be appreciated.

Have you tried restarting your computer and disk?

HT201250 Time Machine backup disk not found

I recently reconfigured my external disks, creating a 500GB oartition for Time Machine backup. thefirst time I set up Time machine to use that partition all went well. Seconed time it failed "cannot find backup disk."
This is a 24 inch, mid 2007 iMac OS X 10.8.2. I am using two external backup drives - 1T LaCie with 4 partitions and a BlackX removable adaptor with a WD 1T drive plugged in. Both are formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) In the view below the top "Time Machine" drive at the top is a duplicate of the last drive in the list.
If I select the top drive - I have the option to "Remove Disk" - NOT to "Use this Disk." So I have to select the bottom "Time Machine" drive. The backup will then run once but on the second try I get "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Time Machine". Unable to complete backup. An error occured while creating backup folder." Whether I remove the top listed disk or not doesn't seem to matter, sometimes it finds the drive, sometimes not!
The BlackX is a USB connected directly to the iMac. The other partition on that drive contains movie clips and they run fine.
There is a backup folder on the Time Machine drive with six backups - however I have to "reset" the Time Machine each time to get it to backup. It craps out on the second try every time. Got me buffaloed! Any ideas?

Assuming you have nothing on your Time Machine volume that you need, erase that volume and Verify it from Disk Utilities. Repair if necessary. Then, go into the Time Machine Preferences and Remove the selected drive to use. Now, reselect it and try a backup.

HT201250 How can I migrate a Time Machine backup from an external hard drive to a new TimeCapsuls?

I just got a 2TB Time Capsule. I want to migrate my time machine backups on an external hard drive to the new Time Capsule. I have about 430Gb of files to back up; I don't want to wait 7-8 days for the backup, unless I have to. I am using OS 10.7.5 (forget which cat that is). I have mounted the TC drive as 10.0.1.1; I tried to drag and drop from old to "data" on TC, but I get the error "The volume is the wrong format for a backup." Any ideas how I can move my old files to the new, and bypass creating a brand new backup file?
Thanks.

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
If you really want to start over: you can access the Originals folder simply by going to your Pictures Folder and finding the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.

HT201250 Viewing time machine backups

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