Moving Time Machine Folders

How can I move my Time Machine folders from one external hard drive to a different one?

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

Similar Messages

  • 90% of pictures disappeared after new program. Time machine folders mostly empty. Downloaded my Carbonite file. Can I restore directly from this file or do I have to drag and drop 20,000 pix?

    90% of pictures disappeared after adding Maverick. My Time Machine folders were in the right order but mostly empty so useless for restore. Repair and rebuild attempts were not effective. Downloaded my Carbonite file which is now sitting on my desktop. Is there any way to use the restore command to rebuild my portfolio or do I have to drag & drop approx 20,000 pictures? Can album groupings and faces be retained?

    Do you still have the original library that was present at the time you upgraded to Mavericks?  If so apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
    Fix #1
    1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
    2 - run Option #4 to rebuild the database.
    Fix #2
    Using iPhoto Library Manager  to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
    1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
    2 - click on the Add Library button and select the library you want to add in the selection window..
    3 - Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option.
    4 - In the next  window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
    5 - Click on the Create button.
    Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
    Happy Holidays

  • Backup Time Machine folders into another External Drive

    I wanted to know if its possible to backup five different Mac computers Time Machine folders into one major external harddrive. Right now, each mac computer has a external harddrive for backup using Time Machine. I wanted to Backup each of these external hard drives with Time Machine folder into one major external harddrive.How can I bypass that.

    It's possible-just select the desired disk on all the macs.
    Unfortunately, you won't be able to continue using the same backups you have now; you'll have to start from scratch on all the computers.
    Good luck!
    Message was edited by: joshz

  • Why won't trash clear out old time machine folders?

    I have moved older folders into trash and when I click on Empty secure trash, it loads, gives me the banded progress, the goes away, never giving me the solid band that it is clearing out trash.
    Any suggestions?

    You're not supposed to delete folders from within Time Machine. Time Machine uses very specific journalling and indexing and if you delete folders in there you run the risk of losing all access to your backups.
    That being said try emptying the trash non-securely. If that is not visible as an option go into Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced and uncheck Empty Trash Securely.

  • Moving Time Machine backsups to another hard drive gives an error??

    My current 250gb HD that Time Machine was putting my backups on has gone sour. So.. I bought a 1.5TB Seagate for time Machine. I moved what I could from the old Time Machine HD (which still shows up in the finder) but I can't move the Backups.backupdb file which houses all my backups. I get an error "-1426"
    What should I do?

    Linda Baham wrote:
    The new drive I formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The old one is simply Mac OS Extended.
    And the *Partition Map Scheme?* That needs to be either +Apple Partition Map+ or GUID. Check by clicking the top line for the drive in Disk Utility's sidebar; it will be shown at the bottom.
    I cant "repair" the old backup drive. Disk Utility freaks out. Whenever I restart the computer, I get a pop up saying that the disk "Time Machine" could not be repaired... blah blah blah.
    Ah, then they can't be copied, either (and would you really want to copy corrupted backups?)
    +Disk Warrior+ or another such app might be able to repair them.
    Otherwise, they're unusable.
    If you haven't already, partition the new drive, so Time Machine has it's own, exclusive space. See #4 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

  • Moving Time Machine backups from Time Capsule to External USB Drive

    Hi all,
    hoping someone out there can help I'm trying to move my time machine backups from my old Time Capsule to my external USB drive. I've already used the Airport Utility to "archive" my Time Capsule to a USB connected WD MyBook Elite.
    Right now my WD MyBook Elite has both the archive, and recent (roughly 5 backups) of both my MacBook & MacMini. I've tried to follow the seemingly simple steps located in the FAQ's here [URL="http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/18.html#id22"]Copy NETWORK backups to be used LOCALLY[/URL] , but I cannot past step 1.
    [Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
    There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
    Any advice?
    I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
    Mac Mini & MacBook.
    Thank you in advance.

    Dark Heart wrote:
    [Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
    There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
    That's not referring to the sparse bundle you're copying FROM, but the new volume you just formatted on the USB drive you're copying TO.
    If you didn't just format the partition, that box may not be shown -- it not, there's no problem and you don't need to do anything in that step.
    I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
    Mac Mini & MacBook.
    I'm not sure what you mean by that: you cannot combine the backups of two different Macs. You can put them both on the same hard drive, either in two different partitions, or, if any are going to be backed-up over a network, in a sparse bundle.
    If I've misunderstood, please clarify exactly what you're trying to do.

  • Moving Time Machine Backup from Old Mac to New Mac

    I had my old MacBook happily backing up via Time Machine to my Time Capsule. Then I bought a new MacBook and moved all my files etc across with the Apple Migration Assistant.
    However, having problems with TM - tells me there is no room on my TC to complete my backup (not true, plenty of disk). However, I suspect this is because it views the backup data on my TC as "owned" by the old Mac and hence that chunk of disk is unavailable to the new Mac.
    Is there a way to associate the old backup data with the new Mac?
    Or do I need to wipe the TC clean and start all over again?
    Thanks,
    SM

    Hello only:
    I performed a similar migration a couple of months ago. In my case, I used a SuperDuper clone on an external firewire drive as the source, but what you describe (#1) should work fine. In any event, keep the G5 handy as you can firewire attach it to the new Mac if you wish.
    If I were you, I would just delete the files you do not wish to move from the G5, run a backup now for Time Machine, and then proceed with your transfer.
    Barry

  • Problem moving Time Machine backup in Mavericks (missing "Ignore ownership on this volume")

    In order to move Time Machine backup it is necessary to Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" at the bottom of the "Sharing & Permissions:" section is not checked.
    However, this option has disappeared from Volume info window after upgrading to Mavericks 10.9.
    Any idea how I can find this?
    Thank you.

    Once you're in the TM interface you will see a basically normal Finder window (with a lot of weird graphics, hence its other name The Star Wars interface )
    On the right of the screen is the timeline allowing you to move backward and forward in time. Once you find what you want you can select the files or folders and restore.
    As in the normal Finder multiple selections are allowed. I suggest you play around with it a bit at first and try restoring a file or a few files or folders just to get a feel for it.
    good luck
    regards

  • Moved Time Machine drive - can't see backup.

    I was having trouble with my Time Machine drive, which was connected by USB to my Airport Extreme.  I moved the drive to a USB connector on my MacBook Pro to improve the speed, and after formatting the drive, made a complete, new backup with Time Machine, which took about 8 hours.
    Then I moved the drive back to the AirPort and told Time Machine to use it for backup.  Time Machine doesn't see the earlier backup (I can verify that it's there using the Finder) and is now doing another complete backup of my MBP.
    What's wrong here?  How can I tell Time Machine to use the backup it made yesterday instead of starting over?
    Walt

    Actually, Tech Support told me that they support only Apple Time Capsules connected to the Air Port Extreme.  They most certainly do NOT support using Seagate drives such the ones I have been using successfully for over three years, on two MBPs.
    I firmly believe (but Apple does not want to hear this) that my problem originated with the erratic WIFI connections since I upgraded to Lion, which has been discussed at length in the forums.  Time Machine reported backups failing when the WIFI connection could nto be restored after waking from sleep.
    My wife's MBP, running Snow Leopard, is working just fine on the same hardware.
    Walt
    EDIT:  I tried "Inheriting" the backup that was made via the direct USB connection, but it still doesn't show up in the TM history.  The tmutil program is interesting - it does distinguish between the "machine_directory" - the backups.backupdb folder that was made by the direct USB backup, and the sparse_bundle file that was created by the AirPort backup.

  • How to resolve errors (-50 and -8058) when moving Time Machine backups to new disk?

    I'm trying to move my Time Machine backups (about 600GB total) to a new external hard drive.  I started the process last night, but after an hour or so received two errors, each repeated multiple times:
    "The operation couldn't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8058)." 
    "The operation couldn't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)."
    I opted to cancel the file transfer.  I looked up the error codes but I'm still not sure what they mean.  I found an old support article about error code -50 (Mac OS X 10.1: "Error Code -50" Alert Appears When Copying Files From a Remote Disk) and an old support article about error code -8058 that doesn't appear to be entirely relevant to my issue (Mac OS X 10.4: Error -8058, unable to eject when trying to copy a disc in Finder).  I've also found a number of Support Community discussions, none of which are particularly helpful.
    Questions:
    What do these two error codes mean?  Are the files that cause these errors somehow corrupt?
    If I click "Okay" when the error dialog appears, are the files that are causing the errors transferred or are they omitted from the transfer?
    If I transfer the files and click "Okay" when the errors appear, or if I use Terminal and cp -R as suggested in Mac OS X 10.1: "Error Code -50" Alert Appears When Copying Files From a Remote Disk, will I have trouble recovering files from the new backup disk?
    Do I need to verify/repair permissions on the original Time Machine disk before attempting the transfer?
    Is there some other method I should use (e.g. Terminal instead of Finder) to transfer the backups?
    Details:
    MacBook Air
    Mac OS 10.8.5
    Both the old and new Time Machine disks are formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

    The two drives are handled as separate drives, even if they have the same name.
    In essence, the old backups are from a drive that's no longer connected; see #E3 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

  • Problems Moving Time Machine to New Hard Drive, Error -8062

    I'm in 10.8.5, trying to copy my Backups.backupsb folder from my current 2TB ext drive to a new 4TB drive, following Apples instructions for changing the Time Machine drive.  Both are Seagates, single partitioned (GUIDE) formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)  
    The 2TB is nearly full, hence the move.  This morning after 12 hours of the projected 14 to copy the backups file over, I got an alert that action could not be completed because of Error 8062    I've found pages with suggested fixes from simple restart to more elaborate measures.  The one thing I've done so far is restart and check Disk Permissions for both drives, which read as okay. 
    But before trying again, since error occured 12 hours into the process (of course it did,) I would like to see if the portion of the file that shows in the folder, size 1.46TB out of the 1.93 total, could be "replaced" by the original folder and thus not have to copy everything again.  
    One apparent problem is that, after a similar attempt to do similar replacement after a problem 3 hours into copying, instead of asking if I wanted to replace it, it just started copying it with  "(original)" added to the end of the folder name.  That file tagged (original) is the 1.46TB partial copy.  So I deleted the much smaller initial partial copy, but of course the *true* original folder from the active Time Machine will not replace the existing partial copy.  I don't know if removing (original) from its name so it matches will help because I can't; the folder is greyed out and I can't alter the name.  I've tried changing Permissions on it, and tried Terminal commands that will supposedly change the name of a hidden file - nothing works.   Of course, I don't even know if it would ask to "replace" the next time I try, since it didn't do so when the folder names matched on the first attempt.   And since *when* does Finder not ask to "replace" an identically named folder, anyway?  This begs the question if it is simply not going behave like a normal folder with files no matter what I do to it.
    Is there anything else I can try?  Barring a solution, any other precautions I might take to try to avoid the joy of anohter "cannot complete" 12 hours in?   I've got multiple backups to make of loads of data, including a full extra backup to keep offsite, and would love to avoid such time wasters. 
    Thanks for you kind assistance!
    Brian

    This looks right on point and very thorough.  I've started a new backup directly to the new drive.  Since I don't necessarily need the old drive for storage of anything else for the time being, I will probably do as he recommends and keep the old backups ther,  at least until I'm reasonably sure I'm never going to need anything dating back that far, and long enough to confirm the new configuration is stable, and everything is there and backed up off site. 
    I"m all for simple solutions right now! :^)

  • Moving Time Machine to a new macbook

    I've just bought the newest macbook to replace my first gen macbook. I copied stuff across as usual and Time Machine seems already to go. (My TM disk is at work so I can't tell). But surely I don't want it to just set off adding to the backup of my first gen macbook? Does anyone know what I am supposed to do -- I was planning to start a new back up for this machine and keep the old one for the other machine.
    Michael

    Thanks everybody. My concern was that in the Time Machine pref's there is no way I could see of telling it to do an initial run and it was still showing `Oldest Backup: some date', Latest Backup: some date' where these dates really applied to the old machine. However when I got into work and plugged in the drive and selected it in Change Disk it changed to `Oldest Backup: -- ', Latest Backup: -- ' ie the dates went away and it is now performing a full backup of the whole 90 GB. Of course this is what you would hope and expect to happen --- well done Apple
    Michael

  • Moving Time Machine Drive from Direct Connect to Network Share

    I have a 1 TB external USB 2 drive I use for my Time Machine backup. I'd like to move that drive to a file server and continue backing up to it. The problem appears to be that when backing up to the drive as a network volume, Time Machine wants to create a new sparsebundle for the backup and not use the existing TM backup folder on the drive.
    Is it possible to migrate a Time Machine drive from direct connect to network while preserving the backed up data? Thanks!

    Kenneth Kirksey wrote:
    I have a 1 TB external USB 2 drive I use for my Time Machine backup. I'd like to move that drive to a file server and continue backing up to it.
    Depending on what "file server" you're using, that may or may not work reliably. Here's the criteria they must meet: Disks that can be used with Time Machine. And be careful here: just because some 3rd-party hardware claims to support Time Machine doesn't necessarily mean that Apple supports it, or that it will work in all circumstances.
    The problem appears to be that when backing up to the drive as a network volume, Time Machine wants to create a new sparsebundle for the backup and not use the existing TM backup folder on the drive.
    That's correct.
    Is it possible to migrate a Time Machine drive from direct connect to network while preserving the backed up data? Thanks!
    See #18 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

  • Error 18 after moving Time Machine to a bigger disk.

    Good evening, I have been running Time Machine since August and everything was fine. Now my internal drive is getting full and I wanted to move it to a bigger drive and since I was doing that I figure why not time machine.
    Here are the original stats.....
    PowerMac G4 DP 1Ghz Quicksilver
    1.25GB of RAM
    Two internal Disks 74.5 (Formated) each with the secondary being my primary disk.
    189.9 (Formated) GB Maxtor with 125GB at the end of the disk being devoted to Time Machine.
    10.5.7
    Following instructions and other users experiences from here
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2028949&tstart=0
    I copied my time machine disk using Disk Utility Restore to a Seagate FreeAgent 934GB (formated) disk, that work successfully and that was July 11th. A few days of mandatory backups and scheduled backups and everything worked well.
    So today I decided to test the integrity of the backups made recently before I erased the 200GB Maxtor and move my HD to there. Since there were no other options available I partitioned the FreeAgent 1TB drive with Time Machine on there to a 74.5GB Partition at the bottom of the disk with a 5GB of blank free space in between TM and the test partition. That took about an hour to partition. Before I left for work I loaded off of my Retail Install DVD and ran a repair on the FreeAgent Drive since TM hasn't done a deep transversal and I wanted to force it.
    According to my brother the repair went without a hitch, okay and he shut down the computer. When I came home started off of internal started a mandatory backup looked at the log message using the Time Machine Buddy Widget saw it was doing a deep transversal and I stepped out. When I came back I noticed Time Machine Menu had an "!" on it/in it saying there was an error, I loaded TM Buddy and it said there as an error 18 on the scheduled backup AFTER the mandatory backup.
    Sarting standard backup
    Volume at path /Volumes/ALN Perm Backup Disk does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
    Backup failed with error: 18
    Now the mandatory backup that I did when I came back went smoothly and so did the next scheduled backup apparently, however I am not sure if this is just a one time error or something else until the next schedule backup sometime tomorrow (right now the drive has been ejected and TM turned off.)
    So does anybody have any insight into the cause behind this.
    My theory is it could be since I partitioned the new Time Machine Backup to a smaller size but then again I have in past extended the old Time Machine backup by utilizing some free space I left at the end of the drive which is ummm 15.4GB.
    To clarify on the old Time Machine backup which is still holding original data...
    42.00GB of an Old 10.4 Installation
    125GB of Time Machine
    15.4 of unformatted free space.
    Hope all this information helps any questions please ask.
    Have a good night

    That particular error happens on occasion after switching a TM drive from one Mac to another, erasing your TM disk/partition, or attaching a new TM drive with the same name as an old one.
    You can usually fix this by simply re-selecting your TM drive in TM Preferences > Change Disk.
    Since your backups are now working, it's likely ok.

  • Moving Time Machine: New Hard Drive

    I have been using Time Machine on my 500GB USB 2.0 WD My Book for about a month now. I recently purchased a 1TB FW 800 WD My Book and would like to transfer my existing Time Machine backup data from the 500GB to the 1TB drive. There are a few things I am unsure of:
    1. How can I make the 1TB drive my Time Machine backup and still have all of the old backups from the 500GB drive?
    2. Since my Mac's internal drive is only 600GB, I'd like to allocate only that much space for the Time Machine backups. Am I able to partition the drive and use the other 400GB as storage that's accessible on both Macs and Windows machines?
    Thank you to anyone who is willing to help me out.

    Adam Fratus wrote:
    I have been using Time Machine on my 500GB USB 2.0 WD My Book for about a month now. I recently purchased a 1TB FW 800 WD My Book and would like to transfer my existing Time Machine backup data from the 500GB to the 1TB drive. There are a few things I am unsure of:
    1. How can I make the 1TB drive my Time Machine backup and still have all of the old backups from the 500GB drive?
    You can copy them, if you want. Copy the entire Backups.backupdb file via the Finder (Snow Leopard only; not Leopard), or use the Restore tab of Disk Utility as in item #18 of the
    Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip.*
    2. Since my Mac's internal drive is only 600GB, I'd like to allocate only that much space for the Time Machine backups. Am I able to partition the drive and use the other 400GB as storage that's accessible on both Macs and Windows machines?
    That's probably not a good idea. What's important is not the total size of your internal HD, but the amount of data that's on it (and will be on it in the foreseeable future). TM normally needs 2-3 times that much space (see item#1 of the FAQ Tip).
    Make your TM partition first, so it's easier to expand it later on, if need be. Then format the second partition as +FAT 32,+ so both Windoze and OSX can use it. See item 5 in the FAQ Tip for partitioning instructions.

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