My Time Capsule won't remove old backups so that it can keep backing up

My TC is associated with a few Macs and has gotten to pretty much full capacity, so not when it attempts to back up it says no more room blah blah blah. I was of the impression that it'd remove old back ups so as to maintain its backing up function. At least that's what it says on the tin.
I'm confused.
Would I be correct in "assuming" that it will only remove old back ups of the first Mac it was associated with and that it won't remove back ups so as to fit in a new Mac.
Standing by.
Regards
Gav

When you upgrade the OS it gets confused.. and it stops being able to delete old backups because which are necessary to a viable install is no longer known.
That is a very big backup that you have posted the screenshot.. and the simple fact is with multiple computers sharing the TC it may simply not be able to reduce its backup enough to fit.
Here are your choices.
1. Different backup location.. USB drive plugged into the computer or into the TC and use that.
2. Archive off the old backups and start over with erase and redo the backup of all the computers.
3. Delete just the backup of the computer you are trying to backup now assuming that will leave enough space to actually do the backup..
But it is not worth bothering unless you have at least 2x the drive space used..
4. Open the TC (assuming it is gen4 or older and replace the drive with a new one.. say 4TB)
For a really old TC this is not worth it.. but gen3 or gen4 might last a while.
5. Buy a brand new TC.. and start new backups to that. Erase and dispose of the old one.

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Time capsule won't delete old backups

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http://www.tombridge.com/rta/2008/01/after-the-apple.html

Time Machine won't delete old backups.

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Considering the disconnection problem in your other thread, your backups may be corrupted. Try repairing the sparse bundle per #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.
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hrishikesh wrote:
instead of looking at the last back up, from a few weeks ago, and updating from there, it insists on creating a new folder for my computer (My Computer 2) and doing a back-up of the entire
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Best Regards,
freesparks

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Time Machine does not completely remove old Backups

Hi all,
since the upgrade to SL it seem that Time Machine has problems to completely remove old backups completely. The "removed" backups do not show up in Time Machine anymore, but the backup folders and part of their contents can still be seen in Finder.
The number of expired backups not removed is growing. I know one should not fiddle around with backups in Finder or Terminal - but the system does not allow me to remove any of the files/folders anyway.
Here is part of the log:
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2009-08-06-211832
Error -47 deleting backup: /Volumes/Drobo/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro HGA/2009-08-06-211832
Deleted backup /Volumes/Drobo/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro HGA/2009-08-06-211832: 1.75 TB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 5 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
Any suggestions?
Thank you for helping
Heinz
Message was edited by: Heinz-G?uenter Arnold

Heinz-G?uenter Arnold wrote:
since the upgrade to SL it seem that Time Machine has problems to completely remove old backups completely. The "removed" backups do not show up in Time Machine anymore, but the backup folders and part of their contents can still be seen in Finder.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
That happens occasionally, in both Leopard and Snow Leopard, sometimes after something was deleted from the Finder, but also after an abnormal shutdown or improper disconnection of the TM disk.
Run a +*Repair Disk+* on it via Disk Utility, in your Applications/Utilities folder. If it finds errors, but can't fix them all, run it again (and again) until it either fixes them all, or can't fix any more.

My Time Capsule won't remove old backups so that it can keep backing up

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