HT201250 What happens when you select Enter Time Machine to restore from backup and nothing happens?

I have Time Machine running on my Mac for several years. No need to restore from a back up until today. I can see the time of my last backup and that was late yesterday. But when I press enter Time Machine nothing happens.
What do I do next?

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

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Updating Time Machine after restoring from backup

Hello,
I use both SuperDuper and Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro to an external drive. My computer's internal hard drive recently died, and my most recent backup was from SuperDuper, so after I replaced the internal drive, I restored my system using SuperDuper.
With the new internal drive, Time Machine still recognizes my previous backups and lets me access my old files -- but when I try to create a new backup, it wants to delete nearly one year and 100 GB of old backups from the external drive to make room for new ones. I'm not sure why it feels the need to do that; all the Created and Modified dates on my files appear to have been preserved, so only the usual incremental update should be needed, and I have over 50 GB of free space on my backup drive for it.
I'd prefer not to lose that archived content. Any idea how I can continue using Time Machine without starting from scratch?
-Ken

kengagne wrote:
With the new internal drive, Time Machine still recognizes my previous backups and lets me access my old files -- but when I try to create a new backup, it wants to delete nearly one year and 100 GB of old backups from the external drive to make room for new ones. I'm not sure why it feels the need to do that; all the Created and Modified dates on my files appear to have been preserved
That's not what it uses to determine what needs to be backed-up (since they can be changed), but it doesn't apply to this case anyway.
Since you have a new drive, even if it has the same name as the old one, Time Machine knows it's a different drive and will back it up completely. You cannot prevent it.
This is actually for your protection; if you had a drive named "Music" and replaced it with a different drive, with different content but also named "Music," surely you'd want Time Machine to know it was different and back it up?
In fact, you can have two or more drives on the same Mac with the identical names; OSX (and Time Machine) know they're different, and can keep them separate without a problem.
If you really need backups kept that long, you need a bigger drive for Time Machine. Your best bet is to let it start fresh on the new one, and keep the old one "on the shelf" until you're sure you don't need it anymore. You can always view and restore from the old one, via the +*Browse ...+* option, per #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Or, if you really want to, you can copy the backups from the existing drive to a larger one, then continue backing-up to them. See #18 in the FAQ.

What happens when you interrupt a Time Machine restore.

I recently bought a new MacBook Pro. After I started the Time Machine restore, I realized it was going to take around 12 hours to complete. After about 45 min, I hit Command + W which shut down the computer. I have now decided I do not want to use the Time Machine backup at all and would like to start from scratch.
I have two questions...
1. Did interupting the restore cause any harm? Do I need to wipe the disk and start from scratch?
2. Are there 45 minutes worth of transfered restore files hidden somewhere on this machine?
Since it's a new machine I would like to start with a totally clean install and I fear that the interupted restore may have done something.
Any help would be great!
Thanks,
-Rick

Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with networks that require any kind of authentication other than a WPA or WPA2 Personal password.
When the Mac OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and erase the startup volume. Then quit Disk Utility and install the Mac OS. When you reboot, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you import the data from one of your backups. For details of how this works, see here:
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC Using Setup Assistant on Lion

HT4528 I was using my phone, set it on my bed for maybe ten minutes, went to use it again and the screen was black and it was unresponsive. Nothing happens when I plug it in, I tried a soft reset and nothing happened either. Is there anything I can do?

a friend of mine said this happened to her, and apple told her to leave it plugged in for a while. I've already had it plugged in for several hours and nothing has happened. I haven't been able to get to apple yet but I was wondering if there was anything I hadn't tried yet?

Try to connect in recovery mode to your computer, explained in this article:
iOS: Unable to update or restore

HT1766 what happens when you cannot remember your password to restore the backup?

I am trying to update my iPhone and I cannot remember the password I used for my backup. How can I get round this please?

You can't. If you can't remember the password you can't use the backup. If there were a way around this it would defeat the purpose of having password protection.

I tried to install a new hard drive using Snow Leopard to back up with Time Machine. When I installed the new HD I installed Leopard (10.5) on it and tried to use time machine to restore the backup I had made using 10.6. Kernel panic screen occurred.

I backed up my system using 10.6 Snow Leopard's Time Machine to an external hard drive. I did this because I purchased a new internal hard drive to upgrade my 2007 White Macbook from 80GB to 320GB. When I installed the new hard drive, I installed 10.4 (Tiger) and then 10.5 (Leopard) and once Leopard was in I tried to use Time Machine to restore my backup from 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and received a kernal panic screen directly after the bootup.
The screen had code asking for 10.6, so does this mean that the computer is searching for Snow Leopard? If so, how can I do this? Will a bootable drive with Snow Leopard on it be able to solve the issue or will I somehow need to find a way to wipe out this new hard drive?
-Steve

Booting From Snow Leopard Installer Disc
1. Insert Snow Leopard Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
Drive Preparation and Installation
1. 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. After formatting is complete quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.

I have 2 auxillary disk drives for my MacBokk Pro. Time Machine uses one for backup and I use the other for storage, but I am unable to create a new folder or drag and drop files or folders to the aux drive.

I am unable to create a new folder on either of my auxillary disk drives. I can access the files and folders that were there when I transferred one of the drives from a PC. Time machine uses one for backup and I want to use the other to store photos which are large files. An help would be appreciated.

Thanks for the reply. If I reformat the drive will I be able to access the files on it from the MAC. I do not share the drive with a PC. The files were originally created on a PC which I no longer use. I do want to continue to access the files put there by the PC. I would like to not have to copy them over to the MAC hard drive just to use them. The second aux drive is new and works fine because it was formatted by the MAC. I can drag and drop files there and work with just as if they were on the internal drive.

Time machine won't backup. Says disk is full ( stand alone disk). Souldn't it delete enough to create new backup. Last backup was 7/20/11. When I click "enter time machine' it goes to mail screen and nowhere else.

Time machine won't backup. Says disk doesn't have enough room. Shouldn't it delete old info to make space for new.
When I click on "enter time machine" it takes me to the last backup 7/22/11 and doesn't allow me to go further back.

No idea's?
I'm starting to think I just need to delete the sparsebundle file altogether and start over again...

What do I do when I get this Time Machine message? The backup disk image "/Volumes/Mark McConnell's Time Capsu/Mark's MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use.

What do I do when I get this Time Machine error message?
"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Mark McConnell's Time Capsu/Mark’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” is already in use."

Unplug your Time Capsule from power. Wait 10 seconds and then power it on again. When the light goes green try backing up again.

Downloaded CC and followed the directions to install PS but when I click download trial it sends my to CC and nothing happens. What is going wrong?

Trying to download free trial of PS. Every time I click download it sends me to the CC screen and nothing happens. It acts as though it is already downloaded but we have verified that it is not. Anybody know anything about this problem?

Link for Download & Install & Setup & Activation problems may help
-Chat http://www.adobe.com/support/download-install/supportinfo/
OR
Some download & install troubleshooting links
-Comodo Security kills download http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1460361?tstart=0
-http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/activation-network-issues.html
-http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/error-downloading-cc-apps.html
-http://forums.adobe.com/community/download_install_setup
-http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/troubleshoot-cc-installation-download.html
-http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/errors-or-unexpected-behavior-websites.html
-http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/unknown-server-error-launching-cc.html
-Server won't connect https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1233088
-Enable Mac Root User https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1156604

Cannot enter Time Machine after upgrading from Snow Leopard

Hi all,
I've had Lion installed for a few days now and am enjoying the changes to OSX.
Last night I wanted to delete a few redundant files out of my TimeMachine backup and found I could not open the application at all.
I can still backup to Time Machine successfully (so it indicates with preparing, backing up progress (xGB of yGB), finishing, etc). So for the last few days everything appeared to be functioning as expected until last night, when I tried to enter Time Machine.
My specs:
iMac (Oct 2010), 4GB, 1TB, 3.6GHz, backing up to a WD My Passport Essential (1TB) via USB 2.0 (25% full)
I can see the destination drive (and its contents) on my desktop, via Finder and can select it via TimeMachine System Preferences (Select drive). There are no issues 'seeing' or accessing the drive in normal use.
Trying to open the Time Machine application, I have tried via the TimeMachine icon in the TitleBar (ie 'Enter Time Machine'), via Mission Control (double-clicking on Time Machine), typing 'Time Machine' into Spotlight and selecting it from the resulting list, but in all scenarios, nothing happens. Nothing at all. And yet I can backup to Time Machine without a hitch.
I have seen a number of online conversations about the AFP spec having been changed by Apple and third party periphial manufacturers being slow to comply, but using USB, I'm not sure this applies to my case? I have used Macs at home for 8 years and have never heard of AFP until now... So I don't really know if I am impacted by this or not (don't think so).
There have been some troubleshooting solutions involving identifying and deleting the com.apple.timemachine.plist from the Library/Preferences folder (going from memory here) which I did (had to use PathFinder to find the file).
Unfortunately that did not help and Time Machine still refuses to open. There are no errors appearing as a result of trying to open TimeMachine. I have checked the Console, but nothing obvious appears there. I have read others are prompted with an error about AFP, but I get no such error. I can copy files to the drive okay so I can't see how it is the drive. Just Time Machine not wanting to play...
Can anyone suggest anything?
I do have Snow Leopard SuperDupered to another 320GB WD drive if I need to go back, but I don't really want to if I can help it...
Thanks,
Alex Makin

Well finally, after 2 days of trying to work out what was the issue, I have resolved the problem.
Its very strange given that I can successfully back up but not restore, as described in my original post.
One thing I neglected to mention was the fact I had set up my Time Machine backup to use 'sparsebundles'. This allows me to have the external drive plugged into my Airport Extreme and use much like Time Capsule.
It didn't seem relevant at the time since I could backup successfully (and still now, I can't understand why Time Machine knows where to back up to, but doesn't know where to restore from).
I didn't have the Time Machine icon sitting in my dock (never needed to since if I need to restore, I access TM from the TitleBar icon). So in putting the TM app in the dock I played a little around with it by clicking it (as you would normally for any other app in the dock) and eventually held down the mouse key to bring up the menu. Tried 'Enter Time Machine' a couple of times without luck, before trying a menu item along the lines of "Try another backup destination' and voila!! Time Machine opens, animated stars, vertical time line, etc.
Well hang on now... Why the heck can't TM have worked this out already?? Why do I need to look somewhere else for my Time Machine backup, when I've already told TM (in System Preferences) where the backup is?
Pretty darn odd, but there you have it. It was there the whole time, but according to TM, it wasn't...
I still have to select the menu item 'Try another backup destination' each time I want to enter TM, but at least I know where to find it...
I'm assumming its the sparsebundles setting (which I'm sticking with), but at least I know its not my iMac, its not the hard drive, its not Lion (well, it sort of is as Snow Leopard knew where to find it...)
Alex Makin

Downloaded the 30 day trial, but when I try to open it "Adobe application manager" opens, and nothing happens. Help!

I've tried several times now, but every time I try to open Premiere Pro the Adobe application manager opens, and nothing more happens.

Okay, I'm a super-noob, so please bare with me. This is what I've done so far...
*Installed the 30 day free trial version of Premiere pro CC (2014), which led me to install "Adobe creative cloud". From there I installed Premiere Pro.
*When I double clicked on the Premiere Pro icon after successful installation the icon only appeared briefly on my dock before it was replaced by the "Adobe application manager" icon. No new windows appeared and nothing happened.
*I then tried to uninstall Premiere Pro, but the uninstall window looked broken. There was only "-" symbols where there was supposed to be text.
*Since I didn't know what to click on in the uninstall "guide" I closed it down and dragged the entire Premiere Pro icon to my waste bin, and the emptied it.
*Thought I'd try to install the trial version again, and that something might have gone wrong the first time around. When I tried that I was only redirected to the Creative cloud where the Premier Pro icon is still listed under installed apps.
*I then tried to uninstall Creative cloud and re-installed it in hopes that it would update and let me install Premiere Pro again, but the damn thing still thinks I have Premiere pro installed.
I'm really frustrated now, and have no idea what to try next. If adobe had some kind of phone support I'd call them, but this is the only place I have found when I try to click on support.
Please help if you can. I'm attending a course soon where I need to have premiere pro installed on my mac.

Time Machine deleted my old backups and crapped out midstream

I had just gotten my failing hard drive replaced, and restored from Time Machine backup. So far so good.
So a week later, I wanted to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but figured I should be responsible and run Time Machine backup again before doing the upgrade just in case something goes wrong.
The Mac has a 4TB drive, which has 2TB free. The backup drive is a 4TB external drive, which has (or had) Time Machine backups going back two years or so. It still had over a TB of space left. I clicked on Backup Now and let it run overnight. I noticed it said "Deleting old backup to make room" or something like that, which I thought was normal.
I woke up in the morning to find that Time Machine had crapped out in the middle, and said that it couldn't complete. I realized that it had deleted all my old backups. It didn't need to do that, since the only files that had changed would have been less than a GB, and it had over a TB of space to work with.
It must have thought that everything on the drive had changed since the last backup, and it wanted to backup the entire drive. As such it tried deleting all my old backups! But it failed, and stopped in the middle.
Now I have a drive that still says there is only 1.2 TB of space on the drive, but I can't see the files! Even with Tinkertool, I can't see anything beyond the one most recent backup.
Can these files be recovered? I am totally ticked that there isn't some kind of confirmation like "Are you sure you want to delete X?"
I actually need to have some of these older backups, as they include files that had been deleted before the latest backup that I may need to retrieve. Any hard drive experts out there? Any terminal commands that can make these files accessible, even if I have to retrieve them manually?

To clarify, this all happened under Snow Leopard as I had said. My profile lists Tiger, since I haven't cared to update my personal profile since using that OS, and in fact I still use Tiger among other versions. I manage a lot of users. And I never got to upgrade to Mountain Lion on this system, as explained in the post above. So I don't see the confusion.
I don't think the model of Mac makes a difference for this type of problem, but in case it does, the incident was on a 2010 Intel iMac with a 4TB hard drive and 8GB of RAM. I would have mentioned that if this was a problem with hardware specific to the model of Mac. But this is more of a universal issue.
But to stay on topic, I'm guessing my old backups are toast. But if anybody has any experience with recovering from Time Machine deleting their old backups, I would be happy to hear from them. In the meantime, I am going to try to do some old fashioned file recovery, and see what I can salvage.

Restored my ipod and nothing happened

is there someone out there that can help me? i accidentally hit the hold button a few days ago, and disabled my click wheel. i put the hold button on unhold, but my click wheel is still locked. i tried updating and restoring and nothing happened. does anyone have a thought as to what i should do to get it working again??!! i need help!!! PLEASE!!!!

does anyone think this is fixable, or should i just get a new one???

HT3728 since Oct 25 my time capsule is not working properly. I enter the time machine to check my backups and the only thing I see is balck screen on every single day since I put it to work on my house. Any ideas on what's going on?

I am having problems with my time capsule.
It's not backing up... if I enter the time machine, all I see is a black page, any day I look, since the day I bought it.
Was not like this before Oct 25...
Any ideas on what's going on and what should I do to make it work again?

Check the USB cable first to make sure that it is operating correctly on another connection.
You may need to use a powered USB hub with the drive since the USB port on the Time Capsule is not a high powered port like you have on your Mac.
You may need to use the powered hub even if the hard drive has its own external power supply.

HT201250 What happens when you select Enter Time Machine to restore from backup and nothing happens?

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