I am unable to access prior Time Machine backups.

I am unable to access prior Time Machine backups. I can see previous backups when I enter TM but they do not respond when I click on them. My TM is backing backups and at one time I was able to access them. I am logged on to my Mac Pro as the admin. I am running 10.9.5 and the TM disk is an internal 2 TB drive with 12 GB free.

The 12 GB free may be the cause.
Also see:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Similar Messages

After Mountain Lion update - problems synching contacts and accessing previous Time Machine backup

I have just set up a MacBoook Pro with a new SSD drive to replace the internal hard drive. I made sure I had a current Time Machine then connected the SSD drive externally and installed Mountain Lion. I installed the SSD drive into the computer. Before restoring applications from the Time Machine backup, I enabled the root user, logged on as that and deleted all other accounts as I have previously had issues with creating a new account from a backup and making that the 'home' user.
All went well except that a few seconds after I opened Contacts they all disappeared. They were replaced with two entries - one for Apple and one with the name of the home account.
I tried to retrieve Contacts from the Time Machine backup. I could see all the past dates but they were all red and inaccessible.
I looked at Contacts in my account at iCloud.com - they were the same 2 contacts as my local machine. I went through the installation process again but made sure that there was no connection to the Internet on completion. My contacts were intact. I exported them to a file and turned on the Internet. A few seconds later, my Contacts were gone..!
I imported from the backup I had made but, after a few seconds they were replaced with the two contacts from iCloud. Nothing I tried would allow me to add the contacts and have them synch to iCloud. I finally found a workaround:
1 disconnect from the Internet
2 import Contacts from the export file
3 select all contacts (ctrl-A) and drag them to the 'on my mac' account in Contacts
4 connect the Internet and watch all the contacts disappear from the iCloud account
5 select all contacts from the 'on my mac' account adn drag them to the iCloud account.
6 watch them synch to iCloud
I still don't understand the problem - perhaps someone can enlighten me - but here's the workaround if someone is having the same problem.
And I still can't access the Time Machine backup that I used to setup the MacBook Pro. Looking at the files within the Time Machine the backup. it looks as though it is probably a permissions issue but I don't see why as the account I am using is the same name as the one used to create the backup. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Jeff

I think you went about this the wrong way. ok....
Could you please try this... (1) Open Address Book - keep it as the main window. (2) Enter Time Machine from the icon in the menu bar... do you have that icon? If not, Open System Preferences, Click Time Machine, put a check mark in Show Time Machine in Menu bar. Close System Preferences. Go back to your addressbook. Make it the primary application open. Now go to the icon in the menu bar that represents TimeMachine and click Enter Timemachine. You should see your stuff...
if you dont...
I would also try...
Open system preferenes. go to the icloud tab. sign out. then sign in.
jdxxs wrote:
I have just set up a MacBoook Pro with a new SSD drive to replace the internal hard drive. I made sure I had a current Time Machine then connected the SSD drive externally and installed Mountain Lion. I installed the SSD drive into the computer. Before restoring applications from the Time Machine backup, I enabled the root user, logged on as that and deleted all other accounts as I have previously had issues with creating a new account from a backup and making that the 'home' user.
All went well except that a few seconds after I opened Contacts they all disappeared. They were replaced with two entries - one for Apple and one with the name of the home account.
I tried to retrieve Contacts from the Time Machine backup. I could see all the past dates but they were all red and inaccessible.
I looked at Contacts in my account at iCloud.com - they were the same 2 contacts as my local machine. I went through the installation process again but made sure that there was no connection to the Internet on completion. My contacts were intact. I exported them to a file and turned on the Internet. A few seconds later, my Contacts were gone..!
I imported from the backup I had made but, after a few seconds they were replaced with the two contacts from iCloud. Nothing I tried would allow me to add the contacts and have them synch to iCloud. I finally found a workaround:
1 disconnect from the Internet
2 import Contacts from the export file
3 select all contacts (ctrl-A) and drag them to the 'on my mac' account in Contacts
4 connect the Internet and watch all the contacts disappear from the iCloud account
5 select all contacts from the 'on my mac' account adn drag them to the iCloud account.
6 watch them synch to iCloud
I still don't understand the problem - perhaps someone can enlighten me - but here's the workaround if someone is having the same problem.
And I still can't access the Time Machine backup that I used to setup the MacBook Pro. Looking at the files within the Time Machine the backup. it looks as though it is probably a permissions issue but I don't see why as the account I am using is the same name as the one used to create the backup. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Jeff

Unable to use Migration assistant to access my Time Machine backup???

I recently had hard drive issues in my IMac G5, archive and install would not work and required an erase and install this happened twice over two months so I decided to install a new hard drive on my four year old machine, replaced a 160 with a 500 and beefed the RAM up to 2 gb -- a friend and Mac 'expert' did the installs for me... after bringing the machine home I went to reinstall all my files & profiles from time machine using 'Migration Assistant' - I choose the second option, and my external hard drive fires up but then in the Select System to Transfer screen it remains blank, I click on Time Machine and get 'A storage location for Time Machine backups isn't setup.' I click on 'Setup Time Machine' and it opens Time Machine with an On Off toggle, it is Off so I toggle to ON, then get a setup Time Capsule screen, I click on that, it opens Airport Utility and scans for my network, it finds my Airport Extreme and two Airport Expresses, but what does this mean? I have no idea what to do from there... Any suggestions would be appreciated

Should be, if the eMac is running 10.5.x be sure to turn off TM backups though.

Cannot access old time machine backups

Hi,
I recently had some issues regarding my MacBook Pro and decided the best course of action would be to ensure it was completely backed up; reinstall OS X Yosemite and pick the old backup for useful files.
Unfortunately, when it came to resetting up Time Machine, it asked me if I wanted to use the existing backup. I imagined the safe answer would've been "Yes" and that it would've been smart enough to create a clean backup at the date of restore.
It seems that this is not the case...
Any backup, despite being listed on the Time Machine interface, prior to the date of restore was "greyed out" and could not be accessible. Unfortunately, the "Browse other Backup Disks" option didn't work (are there issues with this option for NAS backups?), and unfortunately, a repair disk doesn't seem to either.
I have only managed to get the .sparsebundle (encrypted) drive to mount once by using a repair disk; every other time I attempt to remount using repair disk, the button is greyed out. :/
The time I did get into the "Time Machine Backups" volume; only once backup was listed for ".inProgress" – a 70GB file (the sparsebundle is ~500GB+).
Any ideas on steps I can try to find these phantom files?
At present, Disk Utility doesn't have the "Repair Disk" option available and DiskWarrior 4.4 is throwing up error 2154; low memory; on a 16GB RAM rMBP.
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
Jamie

I am having a similar problem and do not understand the solution. I have a new Macbook and transferred my data from my Powerbook G4. However, I cannot access anything! There is a no entry sign on the folders and if I click them I get this message: 'The folder “Pictures” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.'
Help - but please, in simple language
Thanks

Cannot access prior time capsule backup

Hi,
About 2 weeks ago I ran into a problem with my iPhoto library. I was trying to import photos from a camera and it took forever. After watching iPhoto being non-responsive for several hours I decided to force it to quit via the Activity Monitor. After I re-launched iPhoto, I noticed that there were many photos missing (shown as grey boxes) in my iPhoto library, but I can still locate the original photos through the finder. I did a rebuild in iPhoto but that did not fix the problem. In the meantime, my Time Capsule was running and did several backups. After tinkering with the iPhoto problem for another day without much success, I decided to restore from Time Capsule the version of the iPhoto library before I ran into the import problem.
The first time I tried to restore from Time Machine, it failed because I didn't have enough disk space left on my MBP. My old iPhoto library was 150 GB but I only had 10 GB of free space left on my MBP. So I decided to erase the rebuilt iPhoto library (around 120 GB) and other large files on my MBP to free up some space. When I tried to empty the trach can, it took hours and eventually became stuck with little activity going on. After waiting patiently for a few more hours, I decided to re-launch the Finder but could not and had to force it to quit. Then I rebooted. Afterwards, I took everything out of the trach can and placed files into the trash can one at a time and emptying it with only one item in the trash can. I was able to delete and empty the trash can this way, but a new problem appeared. In both the Activity Monitor and Finder's Get Info, the space free number stopped changing regardless of how many files I deleted and emptied on my MBP. By my own estimate I should have at least 180 GB of free space but the system seemed to think that there was only 140 GB of free space and I still could not restore the original iPhoto library.
I thought perhaps by forcing the Finder to quit while it was trying to empty the trash can had somehow corrupted the file system. So I re-installed Lion from the recovery disk assistant. When Lion was installed and going through its initial set-up procedures, I made the mistake of not choosing "restore from time machine backup" because I was afraid doing so would also restore the corrupted file system. I also made the mistake of accepting the default name for my MBP instead of using the name I had before. Fortunately re-installing Lion did resolve the free disk space issue. Next I rebooted with Lion's recovery disk assistant and chose "restore from time machine backup". The restore took a long time and did work, but it restored to the snapshot of my system without the iPhoto library. Because the restore took a long time, I wasn't sitting at my desk the entire time. After the restore was completed, Time Machine did a backup under the name machine name. Now I cannot find my old Time Machine backup from which to restore my original iPhoto library.
I have tried holding down the control key while clicking on the Time Machine icon to invoke the "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" option, but it found nothing. From a Finder window, I can connect to my Time Capsule. It shows that there is a disk called Data-1. When I open Data-1, there is a MBP13.sparsebundle, which is not the original sparsebundle. Is there a way to re-access my old Time Machine backup?
From the Time Machine panel in systems preferences, it shows that there is only 20 GB of space left in Time Capsule (out of 500 GB). I think my old backup is still there. I've read Pondini's Time Machine Troubleshooting but still cannot resolve this problem. What am I missing? Any insight is greatly appreciated!

enterprise_in_ca wrote:
I had to have my Time Capsule repaired a few years ago.
By Apple? I've never heard of them repairing one; they just replace them. Any idea what they did?
Since then, the backup disk was always labeled Data-1. I have restarted my Time Capsule a few times and the result is the same each time.
What do you see via the Finder? In Column View, it should be something like this:
I also tried to use TechTool Pro to check the Time Capsule but couldn't do so because connecting my MBP to the Time Capsule's USB port does not seem to give it access. (Is there a way?)
No, the USB port is for connecting a disk or printer only, not a Mac. Disk Utility or similar 3rd-party apps can't see the TC's disk; they can see, and may be able to repair, a sparse bundle if you can mount it via the Finder. See #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
I suspect that my old backups are still in the Time Capsule but because my computer name has changed it is not allowing me access to the old backup.
Changing the computer name won't cause that. Replacing the logic board in your Mac will, or sometimes if the sparse bundle is damaged, Time Machine will create a new one.

How can i access the Time Machine backup on my QSAN NAS device?

Hi
I have a QSAN TS412 TurboNas. I have set it up to be used for Time Machine backup and it works fine.
I have anothe device with over a year worth of backups on it and i would like to transfer them to the QSAN device, however the TimeMachine location is not accessible in finder, only the TM app can access it.
I am not the farmiliar with MAC's but am sure there must be a way to get the files where i want them.
Any help is much appreciated.
Ben

Byocky wrote:
Hi
I have been trying to talk to QSAN, but it is very tedious. They are not the most helpful of companies.
I have 10.7.4, it is supported by QSAn, but they just say that it cannot be accessed by finder.
I though a "wiz kid" in the forum may know what to do.
Ben
Gotcha, well good luck...maybe someone has experience with them.

Cannot access older time machine backups

I recently installed a new SSD in my MacBook and after reinstalling OSX Mountain Lion I chose to restore from a time machine backup. Everything went smoothly and all my files were restored. However, I tried to access a backup from before my restore but it's not showing it as being available even though the Time Machine preferences confirm that my oldest backup is from June 2011 and I can still access the folders that far back via finder. But I've never had this happen. Why it because its a new hard drive? Was it because of the recent 10.8.3 software update? Was it because of the "restore from time machine backup"? Every time I had done a clean install I just copied over the critical folders such as documents and itunes from my drive, never used the restore feature. My files clearly aren't gone, but I'm curious as to why this happened. Please help. Thanks in advance.

Have you done a new backup yet? If not, yes, Time Machine is looking for the backups on a different disk. As mende1 says, the procedure in #E3 should let you see them.
Once you start a new backup, Time Machine should automatically "associate" the new drive with the old backups, only do an "incremental" backup of the changes, and treat the old backups as if they'd been made from the new drive.
If not (ie, if it starts doing a full backup), you may be able to cancel the backup and do the "associatedisk" yourself, per #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting, especially the pink box there.

Cannot access old time machine backup

Dear Community,
as you can see in the image below, Time Machine preferences shows that my oldest backup is from August 25, 2012.
However, if I access the Time Machine, the oldes backup I can access is only 2 days old. All the remaining backups cannot be accessed from the GUI! They can be accessed if I manually mount the time machine, though.
Any idea why this is happening?
Thank you for your suggestions.

Thanks for the suggestion. I didn't know about the option+clik.
Unfortunately the option is grayed out and I cannot select it.
However, if I select "Broswe other backup disks" I am presented with a list in which all items (about 10) except the first one and the last one are like this:
i.e. the drive name is empty. The first option is the name of an old backup (not used anymore), and the last one is the name of the current backup. I tried selecting any of them but the result does not change.
The time machines are correctly mounted, but I still cannot access the data from the TM interface.

Access my Time Machine backup with another Mac?

The HD on my 24" iMac just bit the dust and I am using my old eMac to try to get some work done while I wait for another. Fortunately, I have a Time Machine backup. Is it okay to access files off my Time Machine backup with my eMac, as long as I don't change anything? I don't want to mess up my backup before I can restore it to my new Mac.
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Should be, if the eMac is running 10.5.x be sure to turn off TM backups though.

No permission to access my time machine backups after restoring.

I reinstalled osx mountain lion on my macbook pro and restored my computer from a time machine backup. Now when I try to access my old backups time machine tells me that I have no permission to access those files. How can I regain access to my old backups?

See Pondini's Tips, for starters.

Unable to use a Time Machine backup

I am getting very frustrated, as I cannot use a Time Machine backup the way I want to.
Short story, my Macbook Pro Retina (running Yosemite) is, and have for a while been, a litte buggy and slow, so I wsh to to a clean install of OSX, and use migration assistant to recover files and settings. I have tried to to a complete restore, but this hasn´t helped.
The problem is, the migration assistant can´t find the backups. When I restart with Cmd+R and prompt a restore from TimeMachine backup, it CAN find both mine, and other backups stored on the disk. But after I do a clean install, and get to the assistant, it CAN´T find any of the backups.
The backups are on a WD 2TB disk, connected via my Mac Mini.
I have tried creating another account on the fresh install, and verify disk and permissions. One time, that actually made the assistant find the backups, but I have never been able to recreate this. I did not try to copy the files on that occation, somehow.
I don´t understand how the two backup modes works differently. Complete restore cand find the files, assistant cannot.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The backups are created via a Mac Mini sharing the Time Machine disk. My backup is created as a disk file on Timemachine/Mybackup, and the Mac Mini backup is another level down on Timemachine/backups/Macmini. I don´t know if this has anythong to do with it.
On trying to recover, I have plugged the external drive directly into the MBP.
I have had to go back and to a complete restore every time, but I am not satisfied with this result.
I have tried to explain as good as I can, and will be very grateful for hints and tips.

A possible reason for backups not to be available in Migration Assistant is that the computer doesn't have a name, or the name is corrupt. Open the Sharing preference pane and check the name. If you can't do that, reset the PRAM. Credit to ASC member Csnote for this observation.
Otherwise, starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of the home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of the home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You may have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch. That would be the only point of doing a clean installation.
You'll have another problem because you erased the startup volume. The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of the backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set the backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of the computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Accessing Old Time Machine Backup From a New Account

I have had problems with my old Account and decided to create a new Account. I can "see" the old Time Machine backup lists from the new Account, but can't open or restore them to the new Account. I get the message that I do not have sufficient privileges although I set the new Account up with Administrator privleges.

You should have used Setup Assistant, not Migration Assistant, to transfer your data. I suggest you start over by booting into Recovery, erasing the startup volume, and installing OS X. When you reboot, Setup Assistant will start automatically. Follow the prompt to import data from a Time Machine snapshot. The backup history will then be inherited. The first backup will still be a full one; that can't be avoided.

Can I switch external hard drives and still access old Time Machine backups?

I have a Mac Book Pro linked to 2 1TB external hard drives, one used as my Time Machine Back up, the other used as a manual ad hoc back up and to store even older files.
The TM back up drive is now full. If I just unplug it/switch it off and plug in and set up a new 2TB hard drive as my TM back up, will I still be able to access the back ups on the original TM drive if necessary, through TM?
Wil it be a start over situation with the new drive, performing a complete back up to begin with?
Or would you advise me to transfer the old back folder to the new drive, given that it will be larger?

Hi den.thed,
Thank you for this - I think the easy option by far appears to be to leave existing backups on disk 1, and plug in disk 2 and start over.

Is there anyway to access deleted Time machine backups

I have a fairly new Imac [Sep 2011] with an SSD and 1TB ,setup b apple.
Because of a simple mistake, I messed up this and in doing this I must have deleted Backup on Time Machine. Only backups I am seeing now are from my Network Macbook Pro
Is there anwa to reverse my mistake, get original configuration back and also the TM backups?

Thanks RM
I may be wrong but I understood there was a difference between deleting a backup on computer and deleting backups on TMachine.
Are not files kept on TM until its full.?
If so then somewhere on TM must be data that can be accessed?

I am not able to access old Time Machine backups after OS install.

Hi,
I recently did a fresh install of Mountain Lion. The system was getting sluggish from garbage collection, so I wiped it clean and started from scratch. Prior the install, I ran one last backup just in case. I went to restore some of my apps, like iWork '09, and I could not find any backups prior to my install dates. I can see the files when I open up my Time Capsule with Finder. But I cannot restore them using Time Machine.
I tried dragging the iWorks programs over to the Applications folder, but the applications crash (Pages 4.2, Numbers 5.2, and Keynote 2.2). I then tried going into the App Store and reinstalling them from my Purchases list. All of my store bought purchase are there, but the iWork ones. Which is odd, because they were updated from the App Store program after I dragged them over.
The iWork programs I need from the backup. Everything else is backed up in iCloud, iTunes, and the App Store. I really need to get Pages up and running again. Does anyone know what to do? All else is irrelevant.

If you installed iWork apps from a DVD, you need to use that DVD and reinstall the apps. Then update iWork to current using Software Update. There are other components from the DVD that need to be installed. I tried the same thing once and realized I had to reinstall and not restore from a TM backup.
If you purchased the iWork apps from the App Store, you should be able to redownload and install these again. If the download button is greyed out, make sure your TM back up and/or clone drive is unmounted. Otherwise, the App Store will see this and think the apps are already installed.

I am unable to access prior Time Machine backups.

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