Mounting any and all Time Machine Backups?

I have a 2 TB Time Capsule that is serving as my wireless router. None of my Macs are hardwired to it. It is backing up 4 Macs.
The newest Mac is a 27 inch iMac that I cloned from the Mac it will replace (24 inch iMac).
I know that in Migration Assistant, I can see all backups as possible candiates for cloning a new user on a Mac. However, is there a way to mount the various sparse bundles and extract files manually?
My plan is to redeploy the 24 inch iMac and remove my old home directory, but I want to keep an up-to-date TM backup on the Time Capsule just in case.
TIA for any suggestions.

Douglas Amsbury wrote:
OK a little more info.
1. I back up to an external hard drive.
2. If I open Time Machine I see a folder titled "Douglas Amsbury's imac"
This is not the recommended way to view your backups. Be +*extremely careful+* using the Finder on your backups; if you move, change, or delete anything, you can hopelessly corrupt them. And don't try to copy things that way, either, as you'll have permissions problems. Use the Time Machine interface (the "Star Wars" display), by clicking the TM icon in your Menubar and selecting the +Enter Time Machine+ option, or click the TM icon in your Dock.
3. If I open that folder I see a lot of folders with dates and serial number like "2009-05-08-091747."
4. If I open any of these folders I get a folder titled "Macintosh HD"
5. If I open this folder I get all the info on my HD.
6. The problem is that they all contain the exact same data as the last back up.
7. Thus I can not go back to a previous date and see what my HD displayed at that time.
8. It appears as though each time the back up updates all the previous folders.
Try this: via a normal Finder window, use the "gear" icon (or +File > Duplicate+ from the menubar) to duplicate a file or folder, so it has the original name plus "copy." Then do a backup (select +Back Up Now+ from the TM icon in your menubar, or right-click the TM icon in your Dock and select it.)
Then +Enter Time Machine.+ Navigate to your most recent backup. The "copy" should appear. Navigate to a previous backup, and see if the "copy" is there, also.

Similar Messages

Remove all time machine backups from a certain date and backward

Right, so here's what I want to do: I want to navigate back to a specific date -- for arguments sake let's say June -- and remove all time machine backups from that date and earlier. Is there an easy way to do so without going through every entry in time machine and "removing backup"?
I want to migrate my time machine backups to a new drive, but realize I don't really need EVERYTHING here since its for an older machine. So what I'd like to do is get my rather large 1.5 TB time machine backup down to a more manageable size and then migrate it to a new drive.

I don't recommend deleting Time Machine snapshots. If you have multiple backup volumes, which you should have, and you need to repurpose one of them, you should just erase it. But if you want to try it anyway, and if you're running OS X 10.8 or later (not any older version), see below.
Don't attempt this procedure unless you have at least one other complete backup of all the data. You should have another backup anyway — one is never enough to be safe.
Navigate in the Finder to your backup disk, and then to the folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the top level of the volume. If you back up over a network, you'll first have to mount the "sparsebundle" file containing your backups by double-clicking it. Descend into the folder until you see the snapshots, which are represented by folders with a name that begins with the date of the snapshot. Drag the ones you don't want to the Trash and empty. Sometimes, for unknown and unpredictable reasons, the Trash will fail to empty with a cryptic error message. I don't know of any way to recover from that condition except to erase the backup volume and start over.

Purge all Time Machine backups for a single user

On my iMac I have my regular user account and a separate "admin" account that I use when things get goofy and I need to back completly out of my system and make sure nothing is in the way when doing admin related tasks.
I was logged in and working on the "admin" account the other day and was waiting for a CCC restore of a disk to complete. When I returned I saw a Time Machine notice that it had completed the backup of ~250GB of data. Since this is only an admin account there is no data on the system to backup, so I'm assuming it backed up a bunch of system files.
Since these files should have already been backed up by my "user" account I want to clean off that 'wasted' 250GB of Time Machine backup, but I am afraid to go in and start deleting items from the TimeMachine screen as I don't want it to delete them from the disk in general.
I have already turned off TimeMachine for the "admin" account but I don't see anywhere in the preferences to allow me to purge all backups for this user.
Or, am I being too worried about the disk space and that 250GB was already covered by the "user" account versions of the files and that Time Machine has built in "deduplication" features?

I don't recommend deleting Time Machine snapshots. If you have multiple backup volumes, which you should have, and you need to repurpose one of them, you should just erase it. But if you want to try it anyway, and if you're running OS X 10.8 or later (not any older version), see below.
Don't attempt this procedure unless you have at least one other complete backup of all the data. You should have another backup anyway — one is never enough to be safe.
Navigate in the Finder to your backup disk, and then to the folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the top level of the volume. If you back up over a network, you'll first have to mount the "sparsebundle" file containing your backups by double-clicking it. Descend into the folder until you see the snapshots, which are represented by folders with a name that begins with the date of the snapshot. Drag the ones you don't want to the Trash and empty. Sometimes, for unknown and unpredictable reasons, the Trash will fail to empty with a cryptic error message. I don't know of any way to recover from that condition except to erase the backup volume and start over.

Macbook Pro to Mac Mini data sharing, sync, and/or time machine backup?

I currently have a MacBook Pro and am about to buy a Mac Mini. I do a good deal of multitasking on the MBP I and would like to use the Mac Mini as the "home base" of my dealings and my MBP as an extension of it, the way it should be. In short, I will have a desk for the new Mini but I don't really intend on ever being physically at it. Rather, I will be on my MBP or remoting in to it from a PC. At any rate, as an example, is it possible / what would be the best solution for being able to work on my iWeb site via my MBP if it's housed and stored on my Mac Mini?
Secondly, since I will now have 2 mac machines, there is a data question at hand. Specifically, is there a good way to sync all information and settings bewteen two macs running Snow Leopard? If so, what/how, if not, what would be the best option for accomplishing this type of goal?
Lastly, since I will now have 2 mac machines, how should I handle the time machine backups? I have a 2tb ext hard drive serving as a time machine backup for my MBP right now but how would I go about doing the same for the Mini? Should I / can I use the same drive for the mini or does it have to be a seperate time machine backup?
(For the record, I do have an additional 2tb ext hard drive that I would be happy to use as a sync point for all of this data if needed should it be possible to "share" data, apps, etc between the 2 machines. I would be able to broadcast it wirelessly via a device called pogoplug.)
I feel like there is a better and more efficient way to integrate what it is that I'm trying to do here. Any thoughts on the matter?

There are numerous solutions to sync information on two or more Macs. Try doing a google search for "Mac sync" or something along those lines.
As for Time Machine backups, you could connect an external disk drive to your Mac mini and use it as a Time Machine disk for the Mac mini and if you share it out, you can probably also use it to do Time Machine backups of your laptop, but I personally have not tested that yet so I cannot say with certainty that the sharing part will work.

How do I set up external storage and a Time Machine backup?

I am trying to organize my external storage for a new iMac with an 500G SSD drive. I have a new thunderbolt G-Raid drive and an aging Airport Time Capsule. I was thinking of storing music and pictures, as well as a Time Machine backup of the SSD, and storing a Time Machine backup of my music and pictures on the Time Capsule. Is this reasonable? Will I need to partition the G-Raid? Are there any special issues of which I should be aware?

Although it's getting a bit dated since the owner passed away this site given to us by the late, great Pondini will answer all of your questions about Time Machine and more http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html

HT201250 is there any way my time machine backups can get deleted accidentally?

I installed a new hard drive and am now trying to restore my old settings and documents from Time Machine, is there any way I selected the wrong disk and am deleting my time machine back ups?

katherinee38 wrote:
I installed a new hard drive and am now trying to restore my old settings and documents from Time Machine, is there any way I selected the wrong disk and am deleting my time machine back ups?
How are you doing this -- starting from your Recovery HD and using Restore From Time Machine Backups, or did you erase your HD, reinstall OSX, and are using Setup/Migration Assistant?
Are you saying your backups aren't recognized?
If so, and your backups don't appear, you might have been bitten by a bug we've just found. See #D10 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for a way to tell.
Let us know the results. If you do have the bug, we'll work out a recovery plan.
If you don't have the bug, we need to know just what you've been trying, and what's going wrong -- what do you see, or not see?

How do i reformat imac hard drive and restore time machine backup?

How do I reformat my iMac internal hard drive and restore from a Time Machine backup?
I have an iMac 20" Mid 2007 with a problematic hard drive.
IntelCore 2 Duo, Processor speed 2 Ghz
800 Mhz Bus speed
4 GB RAM
250 GB Western Digital Hard Drive
10.6.3
Was getting a question mark upon booting up, so I booted from a 10.6.3 Snow Leopard CD and ran disk utility. Repair disk was interrupted with an error message. 'Disk utility can't repair disk. Backup files, reformat disk and restore backed up files.'
1. Should I select Erase, Mac OS Extended Journaled, Erase?
2. If I do this, won't I lose my networkability, and therefore lose access to Time Machine backups?
3. If it were you, would you go ahead and replace the hard drive? Not sure I should trust this hard drive!
4. If I need to replace the hard drive, can you send instructions?
Thanks!

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. 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.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
If you have your Time Machine backup drive connected, then you can use Setup Assistant to migrate your Home folder, application support files, and third-party applications and system preference files. I recommend doing this via the Setup Assistant when the option appears.

Data Loss -- maverick kills mbp17 and related time machine backup

We started several days ago to install Maverick on our MBP17 / 8GB. The installation runs fine and we are excited to use the new maverick OS.
B U T
After reboot the system becomes unusable because all available memory was eaten up by kernel_Task and mds_Stores immidiately.
We contact apple support and the answer was incredible: "You should not use Maverick because it is new and the first version"
End of support. Ticket is still open and no answer is arriving to us.
Unfortnately we need our system for real work and we lost already some days !!!!. So we started a reovery process by our own knowledge.
Now we started to recover our system from Time Machine backup at our OS X Server ML. Things are becoming worse !!!!
First time recovery runs fine ( despite the duration of more than 8 hours ) but system doesn't boot. OOhps !
Second Timme recovery was done using Ethernet and gives us a booting system with Mountain Lion after 7 hour.
But the Time Machine Backups for this MBP17 at our server are no longer Available. Back volume missing, in use or whatever as error message is known to Time Machine.
Two Years of data are gone
Thank you Apple it's worse than your card application and even more worse than windows 8 upgrade process

Try a new post in the 10.5 Time Machine forum.
DALE

Need to reformat hard drive and restore Time Machine backup. What's the safest way to proceed?

I have a Mac desktop, purchased in 2007. We upgraded last year to Snow Leopard. It has been slow for a few days, and yesterday wouldn't go past the gray screen. Tried booting in recovery with no success, same for safe mode. Even tried fsck -fy. Eventually went to the Snow Leopard install disk and tried to repair disk, but got an "Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files" message. I've got Time Machine back ups on an external hard drive, but I want to make sure I do this right and don't make things worse. What steps do I need to take?

In most of the cases, that Disk Utility message means that the hard drive is damaged.
However, you can try to erase the disk and restore the Time Machine backup to see if it works. Follow these steps:
1. Insert the Snow Leopard DVD and press the C key while your Mac is starting.
2. Go to Utilities menu > Disk Utility, select Macintosh HD on the sidebar, go to Erase tab and erase the disk. If there's an error during this step, take the Mac to an Apple Store to get a new hard drive.
3. Close Disk Utility, go to Utilities menu, choose the option to restore a Time Machine backup and follow the steps.
If the computer is slow after doing this, take the Mac to an Apple Store as soon as you can

WRT1900AC and Apple Time Machine backups

I just bought this router, am getting a 27" iMac running OSX Mavericks, and wanted to put storage on the router to use for Time Machine backups. I have the latest firmware, but, the PC Magazine review of the router stated that it doesn't work with TIme Machine. Is that still true, or will it work now?
Thanks!

I can confirm the WRT1900AC DOES NOT work with a hard drive connected to it's USB port as a time machine disk. I have a 2Tb drive formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which is required by the Time Capsule utility to function properly, and the disc is visible using the SmartWiFi interface. However, when I enter the Time Machine Preferences on my Mac, and select the "Choose Disk" option, the drive does not appear as a option.
This is a terrible shame, since now I have to connect my old Time Capsule in Bridged Mode just to use the backup option on my wireless network. Other than this and a few minor quirks, the router is a stellar piece of equipment.
Hopefully Linksys will address this with a future firmware or once the open source software has been properly developed and this will be a perfect device.

Deleting and restarting Time Machine Backup

I just bought a new iMac and am giving my Mac Book Pro to my daughter. I deleted many of the applications and files on the Mac Book Pro. Can I go into the Time Capsule and delete the Mac Book Pro backup then have Time Machine backup so I get a fresh back up?

Can I go into the Time Capsule and delete the Mac Book Pro backup then have Time Machine backup so I get a fresh back up?
Yes, you can.
However, it will be much, much easier if you simply erase the Time Capsule disk rather than try to delete the MacBook Pro backup....which will take hours. The erase procedure will only take a few minutes in contrast.
This assumes that you do not have backups from other Macs on the Time Capsule.....which will also be wiped clean if you erase the Time Capsule disk.

Upgrade to SSD and restore Time Machine backup

Hi, I tried to install a new SSD on my MacBook Pro Late 2008, but I can't restore previous backup made with Time Machine.
I tried two way:
1) restore backup from bootable DVD, but in the selected disk the system can't find the backup;
2) restore from migration assistant, but the system does not recognize the external disk as Time Machine backup.
In past I restored many time the backup, but in the same HD, now the transfer to HD to SSD seems doesn't work.
Please help me!

I'm having the same problem
I've just installed a SSD on my Macbook Pro (late 2011) and i'm having real problema on restoring backups from my old HDD.

Can both the old(migrated from another external HD) and new time machine backup be read on iMac?

HI,
I lately migrated the time machine backup from an external HD(WB) to a new one(G Drive). If I connect the new one i.e. G Drive to my iMac for Time Machine, will there be a new folder created in G Drive? Will it be a new backup i.e. backup everything on iMac? Can the old time machine backup be read when I enter Time Machine on my iMac? Thanks in advance.

Hi, best info I can find on it is here...
http://pondini.org/TM/32.html

Leopard doesn't mount the disk with time machine backup!

Hi friends. It's my first time in this forum, and I'm sorry by now for my poor english.
My problem: One week ago I had some problem with hard disk, but after a visit to an Apple center and after a replacement of my disk the problem was solved.
Now I want to restore all my file and my system preference from an external hard disk (USB LaCie 500GB) when have made a complete backup with time machine.
But Leopard doesn't mount the disk in finder or in Utility Disco. I see it only in System Profiler. I try with my old iBook with Tiger and it mount correctly the disk! It's amazing! Please Help me, I need my file on my iMac for work!
Thanks and merry Christmas!!!

Similar thing for me as well. I however haven't made a backup using Time Machine.
In preparation for Leopard, I reformatted my laptop's hard drive and installed Mac OS X 10.5.1 fresh. As soon as I plugged in my trusty 500GB external WD MyBook Pro (trying both Firewire 400 and 800 on my MacBook Pro 17"), I get the following alert:
"Disk Repair
The disk "500GB" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. you must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible. OK"
Keep in mind, I run Disk Utility and "Repair Disk" and "Repair Permissions" religiously every week and have had no issues while running under Mac OS X 10.4.11. My other laptop running the 10.4.11 doesn't report any issues with the drive at all - only when I plug it into this one running 10.5.1.
Is there a firmware update for this drive? Is this Apple's issue? I have another LaCie Firewire drive and it works flawlessly even under 10.5.1.
Right now, I can't even use the drive as it's Read Only (due to the error).
In system logs:
Feb 9 19:02:59 Cam diskarbitrationd69: unable to repair /dev/disk4s3 (status code 0x00000008).
/dev/rdisk4s3: fsck_hfs run at Sat Feb 9 19:00:41 2008
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** /dev/rdisk4s3 (NO WRITE)
/dev/rdisk4s3: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM DIRTY
/dev/rdisk4s3: fsck_hfs run at Sat Feb 9 19:00:41 2008
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** /dev/rdisk4s3
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking Extents Overflow file.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking Catalog file.
/dev/rdisk4s3: Incorrect number of file hard links
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking multi-linked files.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking Catalog hierarchy.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking Extended Attributes file.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking volume bitmap.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Checking volume information.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** Repairing volume.
/dev/rdisk4s3: ** The volume 500GB could not be repaired.
The drive is reported to be "Ok" when running Disk Repair on other machines not running Leopard. As a test, I just "upgraded" my wife's laptop to Leopard and now I have the same issue on that machine.
Help.

Specific Files Deleted from All Time Machine Backups

Greetings all!
I hope you may be able to solve my problem here. Today I purchased a new late-2013 iMac 3.2 GHz i5, running OSX 10.9.3. I've had several computers this year and chose not to restore from my many backups, but rather transferred all documents, data, settings, etc. from my latest backup (completed today, which I know had all the original files) via Migration Assistant. Upon completion, I noticed that many of my folders and files were missing! My first response was to simply check my month-long list of backups for those specific folders and they were all missing as well. This came as quite a scare, as I run a design business and this is my main backup. Note: these are not files that would be on the list that Time Machine skips over; they're just my regular files (docs, pics, pdfs, etc.).
Now, in a few of the backups, in my User folder, there are more folders than others, along with a few seemingly random files (i.e. company A -> contracts -> onlyme.pdf), but the rest of the files are missing! Some backups include the main Music, Pictures, Documents, etc. and some only include a few. I've verified and repaired the disk, but this only made more files vanish from the backups! I have hidden files visible, which also has not helped. Is there something I'm missing? Disk permissions on Disk Utility are greyed out and I don't know of any other options. Can anyone advise? Are these files simply lost forever?
Thanks in advance!
Tim

If repairing the volume caused more files to disappear, then the drive is malfunctioning and must be replaced. That's why one backup is not enough to be safe. You need at least two independent backups on different storage devices.

Mounting any and all Time Machine Backups?

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