Incomplete Time Machine Backup - How to Recover Files?

Hi Everyone,
Yesterday, while downloading the new OSX Mountain Lion I did a backup to an external hard drive with time machine. For some reason I apparently ejected the HD while the backup wasn't complete. Today while installing Mountain Lion I had two unpleasant surprises, first I couldn't install because it said my disk needed repair so I had to format it, second when I did recover from backup I realized my last backup was incomplete.
Bottom line I managed to reinstall from a previous backup (couple of weeks) and I even managed to open the incomplete backup and get back most of the files, with the curious exception of jpeg and avi. I can open the photos and movies but I can't save them to any other location...
Anyone has any idea of what should I do?
Thanks in advance!
Jeronimo

Hi,
Thanks a lot!
I will do so at once.
Cheers,
Jeronimo

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Help Incomplete Time Machine Backup and I can't set ownership options

Two days ago my iMac HD stopped working and I decided it was time to upgrade my machine so I purchased a new iMac with Mavericks installed. I seem to only have a partial Time Machine Backup located on my NAS drive, so I read various threads about how to manually retrieve files from the .inprogress file. I was able to browse the package contents and when I navigated to Macintosh HD the folder was greyed out and when I attempt to open the folder it looks empty. When I select get info the Macintosh HD folder shows almost 80GB and over 160,000 files inside. I tried copying the folder onto the desktop which failed and also onto an external drive formatted the same way as the NAS - Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Case Sensitive). Everytime I try it says something along the lines of me not having the ownership rights to copy the file over.
I tried going to the NAS drive and the mounted sparsefile and couldn't figure out how to get the ignore ownership on this volume option. When I go to Disk Utility it says Owners Enabled Yes, I can't figure out how to turn that off to let me copy the file over. I tried some recommendations about creating an Alias to Macintosh HD and also setting up Automator actions Get Selected Finder Items > Get Folder Contents > Open Finder Items > Copy Finder Items (to desktop or external drive) both of these failed.
I also don't understand why I can't view the files inside the greyed out Macintosh HD as get info shows many files inside. The sharing and permissions already says everyone can read. Is there anyway I can recover some of the files? It would be so great!
Thanks for helping me.

I solved the problem and I hope this solution can help others with incomplete Time Machine Backups.
1. I made sure hidden files were shown by pasting the following line into Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true ; killall Finder
2. On NAS drive I have a folder called Time Machine Backup and inside that folder it lists the different users with Time Machine Backups. I double clicked the user with the incomplete time machine backup to mount it.
3. Once mounted there should be a folder called backups.backupdb > machine name > dateandtime.inprogress. I right click that .inprogress file and selected show package contents. This lead to another folder randomly named with numbers and text. Inside that folder you should see a greyed out Macintosh HD folder. The date of the greyed out Macintosh HD folder might read something like January 24th, 1984. This appears to be the date that the Macintosh 128k was first introduced. I read on another thread that the creation date of the folder is incorrectly set after a crash resulting in the greyed out folder.
4. Due to the NAS having ownership issues I was not able to drag either the greyed out Macintosh HD or the folder above it to an external drive or the desktop of my new computer. Automator didn't work either. Here is what did work: I trashed the folder with the greyed out Macintosh HD inside from the NAS and dragged it from the trash onto my desktop. The move took a few hours to complete and the files were now all successfully on the new computer.
5. Once on the desktop the Macintosh HD folder was still greyed out. The solution was to select in the finder: View > Show Path Bar, then search for any file you remember inside your backup. For example I searched the word download and files inside the greyed out Macintosh HD folder showed up. Left clicking the file confirmed the path, that it was from the greyed out Macintosh HD folder. Now you can simply right click one of the folders in the Path Bar and open in new tab if you have Mavericks. I still couldn't directly open the Macintosh HD folder in a new tab, but I could open any of the subfolders inside in a new tab, including the users which lets you access all the backup files. I tested in Mountain Lion that you can also choose Open in Enclosing Folder by right clicking the file that you searched for or right clicking the folder in the bottom of the Path Bar.
6. Once I was done organizing backup files, I turned off hidden files by pasting this line into Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false ; killall Finder
This took me days to figure out how to make use of an .inprogress file and greyed out Macintosh HD folder.
Hope this helps!!!

I reformatted drive with Time Machine Backups, can I recover them ?

I had an iMac and an External Firewire drive used for Time Machine Backups, All my Personal Files and Music were backed up to the External Drive using Time Machine. The external Drive is a LaCie 500GB Triple Interface Drive. After a few days of upgrading to Leopard on my iMac I noticed that the External Drive was causing some problems, programs were hanging and as a result I had to remove the drive to use my iMac. I later ran Disk Utility to find that there was invalid node struture on the drive. this for some reason could not be repaired.
In between I bought a new Mac Pro and sold my iMac, when I went to transfer everything from the external drive backup from Time Machine I was still having problems so it took me ages but I transferred 11GB of data from the External to another iMac I got a loan from my friend.
I repaired and reformatted the external on my friends iMac not using Leopard and the drive is perfect now, I then transferred the files 11GB back from my friends iMac to the external drive but now all I seem to have is thousands of alias's.
I don't know really how Time Machine stores its backups and this is my own fault for not reading up on it first. Currently I am using Data Rescue II to scan my external drives free space for my deleted files hoping to recover all of them to my new Mac Pro.
Can someone please advise if this will work and if not how can I get my files back. Also is is worth mentioning that when I was having problems with the external drive I noticed that there was something like 250GB Free, and 11GB used not sure where the rest of the 239GB went to? Does Time Machine have files stored invisible or something?

Use migration assistant to move your files. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889

Time Machine Backup and storing certain files, switching to lion

Hey Gang,
I need to unload my harddrive.
Whats the best way to do this? I want to keep some files off my harddrive to free up space. But i want to access them anytime. Should i just do i time machine backup then delete the files and still have access to them? Or should i keep the files out seperate from a time machine backup.
what do you think?
also, i'm getting a 2 tb drive to do a time machine so i can switch over to lion, and if i dont like it, switch back. Any idea's on that front?
Thanks

I woke up 05:00 a.m this morning, so I'll try to grab my coffe and be more specific:
Of course, in general you should not delete backups.
But:
1) How does your Time Machine Volume react/get filled if you happen to MOVE 100 GB of files between backuped volumes, for instance?
2) If the license for Leopard and Snow Leopard or other software, REQUIRES me to delete all copies of the software from the machine, I need to know a) How I delete all backups of the Snow Leopard partition files. And b) Other software: if the App spreads itself into Libraries, Caches and whatever places, I actually need to know more of the general subject on how I according to the legalese and my own wish, need to find such places in the file system. And delete all copies in Time Machine backups.
I am familiar with the general principle of never deleting anything if I do not have to. I have zillions of mail files from the nineties still left in my Mail folders. Never do something that is hard to reverse, if there is not good reason for it.
I am new to participating in the Communities, so, yes I'll try to keep the discussion to what the question was!
But right now - please if anyone could answer the problem I already described here, I would be thankful. I'll not argue that Time Machine deletions has to do with the general problem of exactly how Apps occupy the file system.
But I now realise that I could ctrl-click my Snow Leopard partition and delete it from the Time Machine volume. I'll try that when I get so far!
Thanks!
/groundliner

Time Machine incomplete backup - how to recover files

I did not complete a Time Machine backup due to a failing hard drive. I can see from the space left on my external drive that Time Machine backed up a substantial number of files. Is there a way to go into the backup file to recover a few key files? - Luckily I also have a Carbonite cloud back up too but one file did not make it to Carbonite
Thanks

Help recovering files from an incomplete time machine backup.

I set up a network drive as a time machine backup for my mac and my wife's. As the initial backup was being created, her hard drive crashed!
Most of her drive had been backed up. After some reading I was able to repair the .sparsebundle file which contained the partial backup and mount it. Once mounted there is a .inprogress file which is the partial time machine backup. I can right click and choose "Show Package Contents". This lets me browse the folders backed up folders and see that most or all of her files are there, I have even opened a few office documents and saved a copy.
The problem is that if I try to move any of the files or folders I get Error code - 1426.
I'd rather not have to individually open each document and save as. Is there another way to recover the files? Does anyone know a way to explore the contents of a package in the command line?
Thanks

try copying the files from terminal.
use the following terminal command
ditto --noacl path/to/sourcedirectory path/to/destinationdirectory
to get a path to a directory you can drag it to the terminal window.
make sure all the spaces in the above command are there.

Not enough space on my new SSD drive to import my data from time machine backup, how can I import my latest backup minus some big files?

I just got a new 256GB SSD drive for my mac, I want to import my data from time machine backup, but its larger than 256GB since it used to be on my old optical drive. How can I import my latest backup keeping out some big files on the external drive?

Hello Salemr,
When you restore from a Time Machine back up, you can tell it to not transfer folders like Desktop, Documents. Downloads, Movies, Music, Pictures and Public. Take a look at the article below for the steps to restore from your back up.
Move your data to a new Mac
http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht5872
Regards,
-Norm G.

Time machine backups cache and temp files?

Just bought a new external usb disk and used it as the time machine backup volume. All time machine configurations are remained as default, so it would backup all my current HD. While watching it estimating the time that the first backup would take, a question jump out in my mind:
Will time machine backup all files "honestly"? Will it make a copy of every file including the Internet cache and temp files when I'm browsing websites? I'm used to watch youtube a lot, and the temp flv file would be large (though I don't know where it is stored on Leopard). If these files would be backup-ed as well, I think it would be a great waste of disk space.
Can anyone confirm that those caches and temp files would be copied or not? If it would, how to prevent this? Thank you.

If you wish to exclude anything from the backup simply drag the item into the Exclude list. For example, you can save considerable space by excluding the /System/ folder. Cache files would be found in the /Library/ and /Home/Library/ folders. Each folder contains a folder named Caches. There is no specific folder in which temporary items as stored that is visible to the user because the operating system will usually delete temporary files on its own. This may not be the case for a specific program, however. Browsers may maintain their own reserved cache and temporary files, and manage them on their own.
I do not think, however, that TM backs up caches or temporary files. I find no such items in my TM backup - only the folders. I do not back up my /System/ folder.

Cannot install Yosemite as hard drive is used for Time Machine Backup, How Do I Change This?

I have a 2010 MacBook Pro and when I attempted to install Yosemite the MacBook Pro Drive is greyed out and a message appears that read,"drive is used for Time Machine Backup." How do I change this to install Yosemite?
Thanks,
Scott

Well, if you don't want to use that drive for Time Machine anymore, then you should format it using Disk Utility. Then you can install Yosemite on it.
You should, of course, have another full backup somewhere. I really can't state this strongly enough: You should have a full and complete and up to date backup of all your data before you upgrade to OS X Yosemite.

Will full restore from Time Machine backup replace fresh system files?

My ol' iMac G5 has been sluggish and buggy lately. I'd love to do a clean install of Leopard, and then do a full restore from a Time Machine backup.
My question is, will this help? Or will the Time Machine backup simply replace the newly installed system files, leaving me with the same sluggish, buggy OS?

no, this will not help. when you do a full system restore TM will wipe your hard drive and replace everything with the copy of the system at the backup time. You might try doing an erase and install followed by using migration assistant to migrate your user data and/or applications form the Tm drive. that might result in a cleaner system. however, the cleanest way would be to do an erase and install followed by manual migration from the TM drive. Use [this post|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507] as a guide on manually migrating your data. You'd also have to manually reinstall all your apps.

Slow Time Machine backup with seemingly unnecessary files being processed

Here are logs from three consecutive hourly backups during which my machine was not being used. Note that it takes 8 minutes to complete the backup, even though very few files have been added to the disk (I do webcam captures every 15 minutes via a cron job, that's it). What I find bizarre is that the backups appear to be performed twice, and the first time, it says it's copying a large number of files, though the total file size is very small.
I've looked on the board here and tried various solutions, e.g., I've reindexed Spotlight, checked my disk (no problems), removed the apostrophe from my computer's share name, and applied the 10.5.6 Combo Update.
Anyone have any other suggestions?
Thanks!
Feb 19 08:03:08 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Starting standard backup
Feb 19 08:03:17 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Backing up to: /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb
Feb 19 08:03:45 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.45 GB requested (including padding), 214.67 GB available
Feb 19 08:07:11 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Copied 58667 files (46 KB) from volume gb.
Feb 19 08:07:35 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Copied 59139 files (448 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Feb 19 08:07:36 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.45 GB requested (including padding), 214.67 GB available
Feb 19 08:07:42 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Copied 27 files (20 bytes) from volume gb.
Feb 19 08:07:51 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Copied 364 files (229 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Feb 19 08:07:54 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Starting post-backup thinning
Feb 19 08:11:17 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Deleted backup /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/My iMac/2009-02-18-070723: 214.67 GB now available
Feb 19 08:11:17 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
Feb 19 08:11:17 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86068]: Backup completed successfully.
Feb 19 09:03:08 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Starting standard backup
Feb 19 09:03:17 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Backing up to: /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb
Feb 19 09:03:45 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.45 GB requested (including padding), 214.67 GB available
Feb 19 09:06:55 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Copied 58675 files (47 KB) from volume gb.
Feb 19 09:07:18 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Copied 59142 files (449 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Feb 19 09:07:19 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.45 GB requested (including padding), 214.67 GB available
Feb 19 09:07:26 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Copied 27 files (20 bytes) from volume gb.
Feb 19 09:07:34 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Copied 364 files (229 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Feb 19 09:07:38 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Starting post-backup thinning
Feb 19 09:11:01 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Deleted backup /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/My iMac/2009-02-18-080738: 214.67 GB now available
Feb 19 09:11:01 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
Feb 19 09:11:02 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86218]: Backup completed successfully.
Feb 19 10:03:08 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Starting standard backup
Feb 19 10:03:17 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Backing up to: /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb
Feb 19 10:03:48 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.45 GB requested (including padding), 214.67 GB available
Feb 19 10:07:14 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Copied 58683 files (36 KB) from volume gb.
Feb 19 10:07:52 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Copied 66813 files (522 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Feb 19 10:07:53 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.45 GB requested (including padding), 214.67 GB available
Feb 19 10:08:00 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Copied 27 files (20 bytes) from volume gb.
Feb 19 10:08:08 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Copied 369 files (229 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Feb 19 10:08:11 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Starting post-backup thinning
Feb 19 10:11:52 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Deleted backup /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/My iMac/2009-02-18-090731: 214.67 GB now available
Feb 19 10:11:52 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
Feb 19 10:11:53 My-iMac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[86374]: Backup completed successfully.

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
First, it's easier to monitor backups via the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window.
It's not unusual for TM to do what seem to be double backups. When it first starts, TM looks at the +File System Event Store,+ a log kept by OSX of all changes to the file system on your disk. It then estimates the size needed, and begins the process. When it finishes it's pre-backup "thinning," if any, and copying of changed items, it then checks again for any changes made during the backup, and does a quick copy of those items.
TM does occasionally get something wildly wrong about counts and file sizes, as it clearly has for you. Sometimes this seems to be a problem in the File System itself, so I'd suggest you use Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) to do a +Verify Disk+ on your internal HD. If it shows any errors, post back if you don't know how to use your Leopard install disk to fix them.
While you're at it, a +Repair Permissions+ wouldn't be a bad idea (takes quite a while -- at least 20 minutes).
You might also want to download the TimeTracker app, from www.charlessoft.com.
It shows most of the files saved by TM for each backup (excluding some hidden/system files, etc.). This may give you some clues as to what's actually being backed-up on each run.
Give those things a shot and let us know the results.

Can I use my time machine backup to migrate my files to macbook pro retina from my macbook pro 15 inch?

I'm using a macbook pro 15 inch mid 2011 running on mountain lion.
I have a complete backup of my files on time machine. If I get a macbook retina, whats the best way ti migrate?
Can I use my time machine to restore to the new retina mac?
Thanks

I'd just use the Time Machine restore function when setting up your new machine. If you don't have the TB>FW adapter, how do you plan to connect to your external drive with your TM backup? You may have to resort to Migration Assistant - but it would be helpful if you had the TB>Ethernet adapter so that you could hardwire both machines to your router - going wireless is going to take a long, long time. If your external has a USB port, you could use that for a TM restore...
Clinton

Gigs of hourly Time Machine backups, how can this be? How do I see exactly.

Good day everyone, this is my first post here. I have been a Microsoft laptop user for 15 years, and just bought a Macbook and just switched to Mac. My wife says that I have "been obsessed" for the last few weeks with Apple Apple Apple, Mac Mac Mac ....
After 2 weeks of switching (tired of constant windows problems), I can honestly say that I am IMPRESSED with the Macbook and Mac OS X. You can see that it's an operating system designed to easily and quickly complete "any task at hand".
*On to my question,* I have Time Machine set up, and basically it does it's magic every hour to an USB Hard Drive. However, recently I have been checking to see by clicking my mouse on the TM icon in the upper right file menu, to see "how much TM is backing up".
Sometimes it says that it's backing up a few megs, and sometimes it says that it is backing up 4 gig. There's a BIG DIFFERENCE.
I am basically using Safari, Mail, iCal, Address Book, XP thru my Parallels virtual partition, and other basic programs like an HTML editor for my houseboat website. http://www.all-about-houseboats.com ( I couldn't help but mention the site)
So my question is:
*I don't see how I can accumulate a 4-6 Gig of changed data in an hour?*
*Is there any way to see exactly the files that TM is backing up every hour?*
I know there's many knowledgeable people here, and I find the Apple/OS X environment totally refreshing compared to the Microsoft Windows world. If anybody here has the same issue, or can direct me to how to see what's being backup, or to a simple software to see where these "gig's" of occasional hourly changes are coming from?
Again, thanks for reading my first post, IAN...

houseboats wrote:
*Is there any way to see exactly the files that TM is backing up every hour?*
Welcome to Apple Discussions
I use the TimeMachine Buddy widget
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html
Easy to use and just a middle mouse button away
Here is a typical output:
Backup requested by user
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/LaCie_2/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 556.5 MB requested (including padding), 152.81 GB available
Copied 643 files (12.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 542.0 MB requested (including padding), 152.80 GB available
Copied 372 files (247 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Does a time machine backup also restore system files?

In my case, I've deleted a lot of system files including desktop wallpapers and stuff, because I split my drive into two partitions, and started running very low on space on my primary partition. Now, I want to go back to two partitions, but I am unable to. Hence I have to format my Mac to do so. What my question is is this. If I use Time Machine after formatting to restore a backup, does that also include system files, like wallpapers and etc., or only user files? What about my keychain, browser data like cookies and other user data from my applications? Does all of that come back too? If it does, then I think that the other system files might come back too, right? I specifically remember deleting files from the Application Support folder. Also, every time after finishing a backup, my disk takes hours for encrypting the backup. Is that normal?
PS : I use Mavericks.

Malcolm J. Rayfield wrote:
Well, I did not maintain backups before I deleted the files. What then?
Download and reinstall Mavericks from the App Store. It won't delete any user files.
Correction
It should not delete any user files.
The OP should backup before starting this, in case of error.

Time Machine Backup - All JEPGS & PSD files are lost

I have backed up all my photos (JPEGS & PSD Files) on my external hard drive before re-installing the operating system.
My machine is up and running again.
When I inserted my external hard drive in the USB port, a back-up was made on the time machine.
I can’t seem to find any JPEG files on my external hard drive,
the specific folders are all still there with a thumbs.db file in each folder.
Would you be able to tell me where all my JPEGS (photos) have gone?
Is there anyway I can retrieve these photos?

OK the scenario you have described does not sound good. Selecting that same external drive to be your Time Machine drive may have resulted in that drive being re-initialised meaning that you have lost whatever data was previously on it.
If you view your Time Machine drive through Finder and you only see a folder structure similar to the following image where is shows a folder named Backups.backupdb (as mine appears, though ignore the "OWC Icons & Shareware" folder as that is specific to my drive) then I am afraid that the files and folders that were previously on it would have gone.
!http://www.wrxownersclub.com.au/forum/timemachine.jpg!
Chris

Incomplete Time Machine Backup - How to Recover Files?

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