My Time Machine backup keeps failing. I get a message the "Volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup". Please advise.

My Time Machine backup keeps failing. I get a message the "Volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup". Please advise.
Thanks, Howard

You can change the case sensitivity of the sparsebundle.. but I really doubt the error is real.
See A8 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
The sparsebundle should have case sensitivity turned on.
I cannot even fathom how it could have changed.
Let me recommend before you start fooling around with the sparsebundle.
Do a full network start.
Power everything off.. start up modem.. wait 2min.. power up the TC.. wait 2min.. power up any other network gear like switches.. wait..
Now power up the computer and try it.
If the error is the same.. I would do a factory reset of the TC.. give it all short names, no spaces and pure alphanumeric. Then reset TM .. see A4 in the same reference as above.. and do a verify of the backups.. A5 above and try the backup again..
No luck..
Then erase the TC and start over.. it is sometimes necessary as TM does get itself in a knot.

Similar Messages

The volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup

Updated to OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 and when trying to restore my backup (using TM) into my iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) get the following message: "The volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup."
Any help would be appreciated!

That's not how you restore.
Move your data to a new Mac - Apple Support
OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system

HT1553 My motherboard failed and was replaced at the Apple store but I did not have my backup with me for the tech to download. When I try to download, a window comes up that the volume has the wrong case sensitivity and will not download. Thank you for a

I did not have my backup with me when my hard drive failed and was replaced at the Apple store. Now it will not download to my new hard drive. A message says that "the volume has the worng case sensitivity for a backup". How can I resore my data from the backup?
Thank you

This is a user-supported board. You are not addressing Apple here. Nor is it a good idea to post your private information to a public forum. You should edit your post immediately.
Unfortunately no one here can access your support history. You must respond to the emails directly.

After the last update that I received I'm getting "This version of iTunes has not been correctly localized for this language please run the English version". How do I fix this?

After the last update that I received I'm getting "This version of iTunes has not been correctly localized for this language please run the English version". How do I fix this?

Hello LKBrown608,
The article linked below provides some useful information that can help get iTunes running on your computer.
Issues installing iTunes or QuickTime for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1926
Cheers,
Allen

I have somehow compromised by Time Machine. Error Msg is "Time Machine.app can't be modified or deleted because it's required by Mac OsX. Would you please advise what I can do?

Hi All,
I have somehow compromised by Time Machine. Error Msg is "Time Machine.app can't be modified or deleted because it's required by Mac OsX. I wish to restore previously files that are on my external hard drive. I was doing just find a couple of days ago. Would you please advise me on what I can do to restore it's finctionality?
Yours feeling more than a bit stupid,
David

Click the Apple menu at the left end of your menubar. Select "About this Mac." You will get a window like this:
Your Mac OS version is indicates in the image by the upper red arrow. While you are there, please tell us what information you find for "Processor," where the lower red arrow is pointing.

HT5096 My drive is formatted properly but at step 11, I still get "the volume has the...." and no option to move past that point. What now?

Maybe it's because I'm sharing my time machine with another computer but I can't find anything about splitting the backups now that I have my own drive.

Exactly the same issue, with added complication that i'm also backing up another external HD..
trying to consolidate backups of 2 computers onto the one drive to free up my original time machine drive which was too small for what i needed..

Can't copy TM usb backup to Time Capsule - "wrong case sensitivity"

I tried Pondini's tip from here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1964018#18
"18. How can I copy my TM backups to a different location?"
"To copy LOCAL BACKUPS to be used on a NETWORK:
SNOW LEOPARD: First, configure Time Machine to back up to the network location, and start a backup. As soon as the sparse bundle is created, cancel the backup. Then, if possible, connect the new drive directly to your Mac. Use the Finder to mount the new sparse bundle, and delete the Backups.backupdb folder inside it. Then drag the Backups.backupdb folder from the old volume to the new sparse bundle."
My problem comes when I get to this point. I get an error message...
"the volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup".
..and it won't let me drag the Backups.backupdb folder.
The source is a Western Digital usb MyBook originally set up under Leopard but now being used under Snow Leopard. The target is a new Time Capsule.
Thanks for any help you can offer.

Bob Mayo wrote:
Given this sudden issue, can the Time Machine backup on the MyBook drive be saved -- and is it still a reliable to use as the base for future backups on the Time Capsule?
I wouldn't waste any more time on it; I'd recommend putting it "on the shelf," in case you find you need something from it, and let Time Machine start fresh on the TC.
You can always access the old backups, via the +*Browse Other Time Machine Disks+* option, per #17 in the FAQ Tip.
By the way, I've been working on the copy procedure. Here's a draft of the new version of the part you'd use, if you decide to:
|
|
_*3. To copy LOCAL BACKUPS to be used on a NETWORK_*
*SNOW LEOPARD only; you cannot convert Local Backups to Network on Leopard.*
|
If you're copying to a Time Capsule, configure your Time Capsule for your network. (See the documentation that came with your Time Capsule for information about setting it up on your network.)
If you're copying to a USB drive to be connected to a Time Capsule, Airport Extreme, or other Mac, connect it directly to your Mac and format it with either the GUID or APM *Partition Map Scheme,* and either +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ or +Mac OS Extended Case-sensitive, journaled)+ Format. See item #5 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* if you need detailed instructions.
a. Configure Time Machine to back up to the network location, and start a backup.
b. As soon as the +sparse bundle+ is created, cancel the backup (that may take a few moments).
c. If possible, connect the new drive directly to your Mac (or a Time Capsule via Ethernet).
d. Use the Finder to mount the new sparse bundle.
e. Double-click it to mount the +Time Machine Backups+ partition inside it.
f. Click the +Time Machine Backups+ partition to open it, and delete the Backups.backupdb folder inside it.
g. If the old backups are case-ignorant (per the yellow box above), you must change the new sparse bundle to be case-ignorant, too:
|
1. Select the +Time Machine Backups+ partition in Disk Utility's sidebar and click Erase.
2. Select the +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ Format, and click the Erase button. That may take a few moments (to unmount, erase, and mount the partition again).
3. Via the Finder, do a +Get Info+ on the +Time Machine Backups+ partition.
4. Click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt.
5. Remove the check from the +Ignore ownership on this volume+ box and close the window.
|
h. Via the Finder, drag the Backups.backupdb folder from the old volume to the new +Time Machine Backups+ partition. Enter your Admin password when prompted. After a few moments, you may also get a prompt saying that you'll need to enter it again later: click Continue.

How can I backup data from a case-sensitive volume to a NON-case-sensitive volume?

The case-sensitive volume in this instance being a desktop-mounted disk image volume.
A tragi-comedy in too many acts and hours
Dramatis Personae:
Macintosh HD: 27" iMac 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (iMac10,1), 12 GB RAM, 1 TB SATA internal drive
TB1: 1 TB USB external drive
TB2: 2 TB USB to Serial-ATA bridge external drive
Terabyte: a .dmg disk image and resulting desktop volume of the same name (sorry, I don't know the technical term for a .dmg that's been opened, de-compressed and mounted -- evanescently -- on the desktop)
Drive Genius 3 v3.1 (3100.39.63)/64-bit
Apple Disk Utility Version 11.5.2 (298.4)
Sunday morning (05/08/11), disk utility Drive Genius 3's drive monitoring system, Drive Pulse, reported a single bad block on an external USB2.0 1TB drive, telling me all data would be lost and my head would explode if I didn't fix this immediately. So I figured I'd offload the roughly 300 GB of data from TB1 to TB2 (which was nearly empty), with the intention of reinitializing TB 1 to remap the bad block and then move all its data BACK from TB 2. When I opened TB1's window in the Finder and tried to do a straight "Select All" and drag all items from TB1 to TB2, I got this error message:
"The volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup."
The error message didn't tell me WHICH volume had "the wrong case sensitivity for a backup," and believe me, or believe me not, this was the first time I'd ever heard that there WAS such a thing as "case sensitivity" for a drive. I tried dragging and dropping some individual folders -- some of them quite large, in the 40GB range -- from TB1 to TB2 without any problem whatsoever, but the majority of the items were the usual few-hundred-MB stuff that seems to proliferate on drives like empty Dunkin' Donuts coffee cups on the floor of my car, and I didn't relish the idea of spending an afternoon dragging and dropping dribs and drabs of 300GB worth of stuff from one drive to another.
Being essentially a simple-minded soul, I had what I thought was the bright idea that I could get around the problem by making a .dmg disk image file of the whole drive, stashing it on TB2, repairing and re-initializing TB1, and then decompressing the disk image I'd made of TB1, and doing the "drag and drop" of all the files in resulting desktop volume to TB1. So I made the .dmg of TB1, called "Terabyte," stashed that .dmg on TB2 (no error messages this time), re-initialized and then rebooted the iMac from my original Snow Leopard 10.6.1 disks and used Disk Utility to erase and initialize TB1 -- making sure that it was NOT initialized as case-sensitive, and installed a minimal system on TB1 from the same boot. Then I updated that 10.6.1 system to 10.6.7 with System Update, and checked to see that Disk Utility reported all THREE drives -- internal, 1TB, and 2TB -- as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and no "case sensitive" BS. I also used Drive Genius 3's "information" function for more detailed info on all three drives. Except for the usual differing mount points, connection methods, and S.M.A.R.T. status (only the Macintosh HD internal, SATA 1TB drive supports S.M.A.R.T.), everything seemed to be oojah-***-spiff, all three drives showing the same Partition Map Types: GPT (GUID Partition Table.) Smooth sailing from here on out, I thought.
Bzzzzt! Wrong!
When I opened the Terabyte .dmg and its desktop volume mounted, I tried the old lazy man's "Select All" and drag all items from the desktop-mounted drive "Terabyte" to TB1, I got the error message:
"The volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup."
I then spent the next three hours on the phone with AppleCare (kids -- when you buy a Mac ANYTHING, cough up the money for AppleCare. Period.), finally reaching a very pleasant senior tech something-or-other in beautiful, rainy Portland, OR. Together we went through everything I had done, tried a few suggestions she offerred, and, at the end of three hours, BOTH of us were stumped. At least I didn't feel quite as abysmally stupid as I did at the beginning of the process, but that was all the joy I had gotten after two solid days of gnawing at this problem -- and I mean SOLID; I'm retired, and spend probably 12 hours a day, EVERY day, at the keyboard, working on various projects.
The AppleCare senior tech lady and I parted with mutual expressions of esteem, and I sat here, slowly grinding my teeth.
Then I tried something I don't know why I was so obtuse as to not have thought of before: I opened Apple's Disk Utility and checked the desktop-mounted volume Terabyte (Mount Point: /Volumes/Terabyte), the resulting volume from opening and uncompressing the .dmg "Terabyte".
Disk Utility reported: "Format : Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive)." Doh!
Obviously, TB1, the 1 TB USB external drive I'd actually bought as part of a bundle from MacMall when I bought my 27" iMac, and which I had initialized the first day I had the iMac up and running (late November 2009), had somehow gotten initialized as a Case-sensitive drive. How, I don't know, but I suspect the jerk behind the keyboard. Whatever the case, when I created the Terabyte disk image (the drive's original name: when I erased and re-initialized it -- see above -- I renamed it "1TB" for quick identification), the original drive's "Case-sensitive" format was encoded too. So when I tried to drag and drop EVERYTHING from the desktop-mounted volume "Terabyte" to the newly initialized and "blessed" (now THERE's a term from the past!), the system recognized it as an attempt as a total volume backup, and hit me with "The volume [the desktop-mounted volume "Terabyte" -- BB] has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup." And, of course, the reinitialized TB1 was now correctly formatted as NOT "case-sensitive."
Well, that solved the mystery (BTW, Disk Utility identified the unopened Terabyte.dmg as an "Apple UDIF read-only compressed {zlib}, which is why the .dmg file could be copied to ANY volume, case sensitive or not), but it didn't help me with my problem of having to manually move all that data from the desktop-mounted volume "Terabyte" to TB1. I tried to find a way to correct the problem at the .dmg AND opened-volume-from-.dmg level with every disk utility I had, to no avail.
Sorry for the long exposition, but others may trip over this "case-sensitive" rock in the road, and I wanted to make the case as clear as possible.
So my problem remains: other than coal shovel by coal shovel, is there any way to get all the data off this case-sensitive desktop-mounted volume "Terabyte" and onto TB1.
Not that I know whether it would made any difference or not, one of the things that got me into this situation was my inability to get "Time Machine" properly configured so it wasn't making new back-ups every (no lie) 15 minutes.
Philosophical bonus question: what's the need for this "case-sensitive," "NOT case-sensitive" option for disk initialization?
As always, thanks for any help.
Bart Brown

"Am I to understand that you have a case-sensitive volume with data that you want to copy to a case-insensitive volume? And the Finder won't let you do it? If that's what the problem is, the reason should be obvious: on the source volume, you may have two files in the same folder whose names differ only in case. When copying that folder to the target volume, it's not clear what the Finder should do."
Yes, I understand all that... NOW.
What I had (have) is a USB external 1TB drive (henceforth known as "Terabyte") that I bought with my 27" iMac. I formatted, and put a minimal (to make it bootable) system on Terabyte the same day back in late November 2009 that I set up my 27" iMac. Somehow -- I don't know how -- Terabyte got initialized as "case-sensitive." I didn't even know at the time that there WAS such a thing as "case-sensitive" or "NOT case-sensitive" format.
Sunday morning (05/08/11), Drive Pulse, a toolbar-resident utility (that's Part of Drive Genius 3) that monitors internal and external drives for physical, problems, volume consistency problems, and volume fragmentation, reported a single bad block on the volume Terabyte, advising me that it would be best if I re-formatted Terabyte ASAP. I thought I could open Terabyte in a Finder window, Select All, and drag everything on the drive to ANOTHER USB external drive of 2 TB capacity (henceforth known as TB2). When I tried to do that, I got an error message:
"The volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup."
First I'd heard of "case sensitivity" -- I'm not too bright, as you seem to have realized.
Oddly enough (to me), I could move huge chunks of data, including a folder of 40GB, from Terabyte to TB2 with no problem.
Then the scenario unfolded per my too-convoluted message: several hours of trying things on my own, including making a .dmg of Terabyte (henceforth to be known as Terabyte.dmg) -- which left me with the exact same problem as described in the previous 4 paragraphs; and my 3 hours on the phone with AppleCare, who at least explained this case-sensitive business, but, after some shot-in-the-dark brainstorming -- tough to do with only one brain, and THAT on the OTHER end of the line -- the very pleasant AppleCare rep and I ended up equally perplexed and clueless as to how to get around the fact that a .dmg of a case-sensitive volume, while not case-sensitive in its "image" form (Terabyte.dmg), and thus able be transferred to TB1 or TB2 with no problems whatsoever, when opened -- either by double-clicking or opening in Disk Utility -- produced a desktop-mounted volume (henceforth known as the volume "Terabyte," the original name of the case-sensitive volume from which TB1.dmg had been made) that had the same case-sensitivity as the original from which it was made.
In the meantime, having gotten the data I needed to save off the physical USB "case-sensitive" volume Terabyte in the form of Terabyte.dmg, I erased and re-initialized the physical USB "case-sensitive" volume Terabyte, getting rif of the case sensitivity, and renaming it TB1. But it all left me back at square one, EXCEPT I had saved my data from the original "Terabyte" drive, and reformatted that drive to a NON- case-sensitive data now named TB1. The confusion here stems from the fact that problem case-sensitive drive, from which I made Terabyte.dmg, was originally named "Terabyte". When I re-initialized it as a NON case-sensitive drive, I renamed it TB1. I'm sorry about the confusing nomenclature, which I've tried to improve upon from my original message -- usual text-communication problem: the writer knows what he has in mind, but the reader can only go by what's written.
So, anyway, I still have the same problem, the desktop-mounted volume "Terabyte" still cannot be transferred in one whole chunk to either my internal drive, TB1, TB2, as the Finder interprets it as a volume backup (which it is), and reads the desktop-mounted volume "Terabyte" as case-sensitive, as the original volume -- from which the disk image Terabyte.dmg was made -- had been at the time I made it.
"As long as that situation doesn't arise, you should be able to make the copy with a tool that's less fastidious than the Finder, such as cp or rsync."
I'm afraid I have no idea what "cp or rsync" are. I'd be happy to be educated. That's why I came here.
Bart Brown
Message was edited by: Bartbrn
Just trying to unmuddy the water a bit,,,

Backups keep failing

Hi All
I have been a TC user for some time and generally all has been well!
Until recently.....
The backups keep failing and I can't always connect to the disk.
I have more than 1 Mac so its not the computers
I had Apple replace the TC ( as was having problems with the N network.. )
But still getting the problem.
Its backs up lots of data but just before it gets to the end of the data transfer it zero's the amount of data and starts sending it again!!!
Any ideas?
Its all latest firmware and Mac OS so could be that...
Anyone else seeing the problem?
Alan

I have an airport extreme with a hard drive hanging off the back via USB and am having somewhat similar problems.
If I turn the HDD off and back on, it will reconnect to the HDD and I can start a backup or browse the disk but after a few minutes, I get the "Connection failed" error which states: The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and your network connection and try again."
It's strange because if I open AirPort Utility, the disk is still there and shows all the information about it and its three partitions (2 for time machines and one for network drive). It seems that this started with the latest version of the Airport Software but this is just speculation. Additionally, multiple restarts of the Airport Extreme doesn't resolve the issue.

Time Machine - hard drive failed, isn't recognized by Finder

Hi,
Yesterday I went to plug in my Time Machine external hard drive to my Macbook Pro (Mid 2010, running Mountain Lion 10.8.2). The hard drive is a 320 GB Toshiba hard drive that I salvaged from an old laptop. The EHD is in a Kingston enclosure and connects to my Mac through USB (1 cord for everything). I have been using this setup for probably about a year at least.
Anyways, when I plugged it in yesterday, it did not show up in Finder. The blue light on the outside of the enclosure was still lit, and I could hear the hard drive spinning normally. I tried a couple other USB cables, but to no avail. The USB ports work with other things (e.g. my flash drive). I turned off Time Machine, and restarted my computer several times. Nothing worked.
I went into Disk Utility, and noticed that the hard drive itself appears, but the Time Machine partition is greyed out right underneath it. DU says on the bottom that the Time Machine is Not Mounted, and gives the format (Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)) and the capacity (320 gb).
When I try to eject through DU, it gives me this message:
The disk “Time Machine” could not be unmounted.
Make sure that all applications and files are closed on this disk.
BUT, it isn't even mounted!
I figured that I would just try to erase the hard drive, since it's only a time machine backup. Nope! It hanged right at the very beginning trying to unmount the disk that isn't even mounted.
I've looked on Google and on these boards and haven't found anything that could help me...so...
Help?
Thanks!

No luck.
I clicked on the hard drive itself (Kingston 320 GB) and clicked "Erase". I waited about an hour with the only activity being a striped bar at the bottom of DU saying "Unmounting".
So I tried just erasing the Time Machine partition. I immediately got this message (or something along the lines of it): "Disk Utility cannot erase the disk. Cannot open disk."
I tried mounting and unmounting the time machine partition, but would get messages saying that the disk cannot be unmounted, and that the disk cannot be mounted. Rather contradictory!
I tried ejecting the hard drive through DU by clicking the "Eject" button, but it said it could not eject the disk because it was in use, or something along the lines of that.
Any other advice?

Upgraded to Mavericks and time machine backups keep failing.

I upgraded to Mavericks a few days ago and now I find my time machine backups keep failing. I first tried turning off the power to the time machine then turning it on again and I managed to get one complete backup but that took over 20 hours to complete.
The time machine backup mode never seems to get beyond " preparing backup" then showing the message "backing up failed, disc already in use"
The time machine backup worked fine before I upgraded, is there a way round this problem or will I have to go through reloading the time machine as if it were a new piece of equipment?
My wife's iMac is still on mountain lion 10.8.5 and the backups on the same Time Machine work fine.
Any help would be gratefully received
Greg

Hi,
I have exactly the same problem.
MBP 2011 running 10.9 named "ebook"
MacMini running 10.8.5 server with TM share
everything works fine UNTIL for some reason the MBP is interrupted during a TM backup ...
After that I get the disk already in use error !
Rebooting the MBP wont help, but I narrowed the problem down ...
Looking on the Mini server I noticed :
- the TM backup user stays connected over AFP, even after several hours of inactivity and a couple of reboots of the MBP. Killing the AFP connection works, But problem stil continues !
- looking on the MBP with "lsof | grep ebook" showed me that the SparseBundles were still in use by the AFP process ... Using the Server control panel and restarting AFP solved that ...
After restarting the AFP process the remote TM Backup started to work again !
A couple of days later, the same problem occurred again, fixed it by this work around ...
I hope there will be a more permanent solotiun for this !

My Time Machine backup keeps failing...how do I find out why?? MacBook Pro 5,1 OS 10.5.8, 6GB ram backing up to new OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 2TB

Forgive my clumsiness ---
My Time Machine backup keeps failing...how do I find out why?? MacBook Pro 5,1 OS 10.5.8, 6GB ram backing up to new OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 2TB

Have you formatted the disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?
Caio.

My time machine backup keeps failing

My Time Machine Backup keeps failing . Does anyone know what I should do

Launch your console program (located in the utilities folder) and click on all messages in then left column then type "backupd" in the filter box in the upper right. Read the messages, it may give you a clue as to what's causing the problem.

Can't get iCloud to back up on IPhone 5. Have 7.1 GB available. Backup keeps failing while I am plugged in and connected to wifi

Can't get iCloud to back up on IPhone 5. Have 7.1 GB available. Backup keeps failing while I am plugged in and connected to wifi. It will show backing up now and estimated time 20 plus hours and always ends up failing after a couple hours

You need at least 50 MB of free space in order to back up to iCloud. Rather than backing up, have you tried importing the photos to your computer and deleting them from the camera roll as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083?

HT201250 Time Machine not keeping hourly backups.

My Time Machine backups don't seem to be working correctly. It doesn't appear to be keeping hourly backups. When I enter Time Machine and look at the backup from just one hour ago, the newest file is from several weeks ago, not one hour ago.
Same thing with monthly backups. At a certain point, the backup history skips several months.
I've scoured the internet but can't seem to find anyone else with this problem or a solution.

That's odd. Mine go away after 24 hours like clockwork.
As VA2020 says, it's probably not a significant space problem, but worth investigating, especially after that long a time.
I'd suggest downloading the Time Machine Buddy widget, which extracts TM's messages from your logs and displays them in a little window. Check your last few backups, especially for messages about "thinning".
As an example, here's my most recent set, showing routine deletion of an hourly:
*Starting standard backup*
*Backing up to: /Volumes/TmBackups/Backups.backupdb*
*No pre-backup thinning needed: 133.2 MB requested (including padding), 175.83 GB available*
*Copied 492 files (2.7 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.*
*Starting post-backup thinning*
*Deleted backup /Volumes/TmBackups/Backups.backupdb/JPs.G5.iMac/2009-01-19-191145: 175.83 GB now available*
*Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed*
*Backup completed successfully.*
If yours look hinky (pardon the technical term), especially any sort of failure message, or not being able to delete old backups, copy and post them here (be careful to get all the messages, as they often overflow the little window).
One question: have you used any of the 3rd part apps or postings about modifying TM's preference file to alter the backup schedule?

My Time Machine backup keeps failing. I get a message the "Volume has the wrong case sensitivity for a backup". Please advise.

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for