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.

Similar Messages

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. 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.

Time Machine backups keep failing

My backups to external disk keep failing; it shows only 100 MB of available space. OK; Fine; so I tell it NOT to back up a number of extra folders; in an attempt to add extra space; but I can't change that 100 MB number, no matter what I do. Is there a fix. Should I repair the external disk?
thanks
Message was edited by: raspberryaddiction

Are you running Leopard or Snow Leopard? You've posted in the Snow Leopard forum, but your signature shows 10.5.3, and the handling is different.
If you're on Leopard, go to +Time Machine Preferences > Options+ and remove the check from the +Warn before old backups are deleted+ box, and try again. Time Machine will delete your oldest backup(s) to make room for new ones, if it can.
If it still fails, or you're actually on Snow Leopard, see #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time machine backup keeps failing on specific folders

Hi,
I have checked the forum and tried all relevenant suggestions, unfortunatly to no avail. I was wondering if any users would have any sparks of genius and point me in the right direction....
I currently run time machine with an apple time capsulae and my Imac, it seems to run for most files and folders ok but will fail on the microsoft user data folder (with the NO copy error in console) as well as a few other random ones (such as the parralell virtual machine). As this stops my backups I have excluded them and it runs fine for now, although its not Ideal as my e-mails or virtual machine is not backuping up (these are the most important). i have check my friends mac and his time machine seems to backup completely and fine.
Any ideas, as the reason I bought the time capsule is to have the best backups available.
Thanks in advance.

Hi,
I have checked the forum and tried all relevenant suggestions, unfortunatly to no avail. I was wondering if any users would have any sparks of genius and point me in the right direction....
I currently run time machine with an apple time capsulae and my Imac, it seems to run for most files and folders ok but will fail on the microsoft user data folder (with the NO copy error in console) as well as a few other random ones (such as the parralell virtual machine). As this stops my backups I have excluded them and it runs fine for now, although its not Ideal as my e-mails or virtual machine is not backuping up (these are the most important). i have check my friends mac and his time machine seems to backup completely and fine.
Any ideas, as the reason I bought the time capsule is to have the best backups available.
Thanks in advance.

Time machine backup keeps failing

I have a WD 2TB my book essential disk for about a year. I've kept it connect to my airport extreme. Starting a few days ago, the AE keeps dropping the connection to the disk -- rebooting solves the problem for a while. So I decided to connect the disk directly (via USB) to my macbook pro 13". In the past this has always worked. However, now when Time machine does it's backup it gets about 10% of the way through and then it quits giving the non-specific message:
Time machine error
The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.
I've run repair both on disk utility and drive genius 3 on the disk and both say that there is no problem. Any suggestions?

That's one Apple's more infuriating messages, but there's usually another phrase after "Time Machine Error."
Most likely, Time Machine is having a problem with a file, but they don't bother to tell you that.
See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will probably lead you to #C3.
It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, what you've done, and the results.

How come time machine backup keeps failing?

I tried to backup my MacBook Pro yesterday, and this message keeps coming up. I don't know how to find the source of the file so I delete it. PLEASE HELP!
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/TOSHIBA EXT/Backups.backupdb
Backup content size: 71.0 GB excluded items size: 11.4 GB for volume Macintosh HD
71.61 GB required (including padding), 232.24 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/41a6559609c6ec55ef64a890d8aea0a2c1108bdc to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/43075daaa3b38f8595cb61b4dd7ea807cecda5ef to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/431e876e53d4cb7eb5720f97ce57657d3709525d to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/443e0c9ae4b514a2e2734ed6724806a690f64844 to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/468e5305bf13330e283971e5ad479fd85bae6910 to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/46ae0423167be414ab5fc9ceafc584d255973f2b to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/47888fb2cbc9a9775d7cb50a2f9552e954902a1e to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/47e7968eb1d9474802371b7b87e91d6fceeeb09a to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/48bc96429425dec94a31a1012f9b1c2ec688a997 to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/48e464b975903c21c074a18854b947d0c3361880 to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/4a5a242bcd4c5df7fea0506d714ec4ee6e34243e to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/4bae3b7b9be6f1474b0e4a9546e12728ffbb3705 to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/4c199f880e283e28951bc559f09de9ff9304de04 to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/tuantran/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/22c9458c9a2167d80342d395669a50310c5b8aa4-20120330-231 835/4ca5152d34ad4849f523d28a8d1114db2310ed4d to (null)
PLEASE HELP! (also, my MacBook Pro is still under warrenty, should I just bring it to the Genius Bar?) Thanks.

Boot from your recovery partition (command-R at startup), launch Disk Utility, select your startup volume, and run Repair Disk (not Repair Permissions.) If any problems are found, repeat. Then reboot as usual and try again.

Since upgrading to Lion, my time machine backups are failing - error message: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska's MacBook.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1). Any ideas?

Since upgrading my Macbook to Lion, the time machine backups are failing - error message: "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska’s MacBook.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1)." I have rebooted the TIme Capsule and it worked OK, but don't want to do that every time. Any suggestions? Thanks

Any new info on this?
I had the exact same problem and went crazy and spent a hecka lot of time trying to deal with my brand new 2TB Time Capsule and almost brand new MacBook Pro. Then I thought I fixed it...and I tried SO MANY things, I don't really know what did it...except taking out any apostrophe's in names of stuff that Apple puts in there...BUT...now it's back.
Grrr...

I had my hard drive replaced and since my Time Machine backups say failed

I had my hard drive replace and since my Time Capsule backups are failing. The exact message is:
The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk.
The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk.

No, replacing your hard drive has nothing to do with it. There is a problem with your backup drive. As far as Time Machine is concerned replacing a drive is no different than buying a new computer. Time Machine will need to make a brand new backup from scratch.
If you have a large enough backup drive this may not be a problem. Otherwise, you may not have sufficient space to maintain a new backup and keep the old one. So, I would suggest under the circumstances that you erase your backup drive, then start a new Time Machine backup from scratch.
Drive Erase
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After Disk Utility loads select the volume you wish to format from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the Disk Utility main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
For additional help with Time Machine: Visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.

Restore from Time Machine backup is failing

The internal drive on my daughter's iMac has failed for the second time in less than two years. I'm not able to restore from the Time Machine backup. The Time Machine restore process failed last time as well. Not surprisingly I'm now questioning whether Time Machine is an appropriate backup solution.
First question: *Is Time Machine a reliable backup and restore solution?*
- I get no errors whatsoever during backup from Time Machine
- Have yet to successfully be able to restore system (TM is 0 for 2 for us)
Second question: *Is it an issue with my setup?*
Based on the Macs and other items I already had, the setup that the local Apple store recommended to me for backup is what I followed. Here's a summary:
- 4 Macs on a network with Airport Extreme for router/wireless access
- Mac mini with 10TB of external storage has one 2 TB drive setup as a centralized Time Machine drive, which all the Macs on the network connect to
Backups all work with no error messages. Restoring individual files here and there through Time Machine has worked fine. Never really needed, but I tested it a few times from each Mac just to ensure everything was working fine.
Unfortunately, when my daughter's iMac internal drive failed I discovered that the restore not work. First issue was that restoring the system during OS X install was not an option because I was not able to get it to use the network drive. I was told to go ahead and install OS-X and then use the migration assistant, which unfortunately didn't work. Summary of what happened:
- My account on the iMac was successfully restored
- The main account with all the critical data (my daughter's) was created, but none of her data (iTunes music, school work, photos, etc) were restored
- No error message at the end of the restore
I know the Time Machine backup for her account was working as I had specifically checked to make sure that her iTunes music and photos were included in the backup just a week ago. Since the backup was being done to a drive connected to another Mac on the network, her iMac's backup was stored as a sparsebundle. In speaking with Apple support this morning, they had me try to mount the backup by double-clicking on the sparsebundle, which results in an error message indicating that it is corrupt. ARG!
After two failed restores, I'm convinced I need to change the setup either moving to drives directly connected to each Mac (seems like a waste) using Time Machine or switch to another backup tool.
What are your recommendations?

It may be helpful for others for me to post the approach I've decided to take, which seems to be working well.
Background:
I've confirmed with an Apple genius and with support, that the likely issue with both of the failed TM restores is that the TM backup was corrupted by the drive failures. Files get corrupted and are backed up to the drive. That is why in both cases it is the specific account that was running (also the highest priority for restore) is the one that is corrupted.
In nearly 3 decades of computing, I've yet to ever need to restore a single file or folder that I accidentally deleted. It's just not a scenario I care about. TM seems to fit this requirement well and has a very cool user experience to do it. Unfortunately, it also seems to have a tendency (0 for 2 in my case) to fail at restoring after drive failure.
Decision: no TM in my back up approach.
My primary need is for backup in case of drive failure. I also have some files that are extremely important that I want redundant backup for.
Decision:
1. ChronoSync for bootable backup clone of drives scheduled monthly and done over the home network. Can easily be triggered manually if there is a big change (SL install, etc) that I want to make sure is included
2. ChronoSync based sync of just critical files to a shared network drive that syncs daily. This is actually a large amount of data and includes family photos (Lightroom catalog and all photos), iTunes libraries, PLEX media library and other user created files.
Pluses:
1. Allows me to keep drives centrally located, which is definitely preferable for me
2. Easy rotation of drives with critical files for offsite storage
3. Over the network sync is fully supported by ChronoSync
4. Easy yet highly configurable UI. Unlike with TM I'm finding I can get the software to do precisely what I want, when I want.
Cons:
1. $40 cost for ChronoSync
I also looked at SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner.
I tried implementing the above first with SuperDuper, but found the setup confusing and the overall execution and sync was not what I expected. For example, SuperDuper encountered some file errors and just halted the sync as a result.
I tried Carbon Copy Cloner next. The setup was more intuitive than SuperDuper; even though the UI is not as polished. I kept the offending files on the drive to see how CCC handled them. It did much better in that it identified the file issues, but completed the sync for the rest to the files on the system. Clear error message at the end with summary information and the ability to look at the details in the log.
Since I wasn't thrilled with either SD or CCC, I decided to check out ChronoSync. For me, it does a very good job of presenting a simple UI with the ability as need arrises to get in to adjust and fine tune the specifics (options, configuration, schedule, etc) to precisely what I want. Scheduling, including sequencing, is very well done. Performance was the best of the three. Full cloning and incremental sync/backups with ChronoSync were the fastest. Not really an issue for me, but still a plus. A big plus for ChronoSync was that it did by far the best job of maintaining file permissions. SuperDuper did the worst. For some reason after all three uses of SuperDuper with the backup approach above many of the original files had user and file permission changes. For example, user name was "Rachel" with Read/Write access. After sync/clone, user became "_unknown" with read/write access. CCC did a better job; though I did have a number of issues when using cloned drive to boot (these were resolved) and with restore some file permissions were not maintained.
I really think Apple (at least retail and genius employees) should be clearer about the limitations and issues with TM. After my first failed restore, I was told it was an unusual and very rare case. I was assured that the approach (including using a network drive was fine). With a second failed restore from TM, it became crystal clear in my opinion that this is not a very rare occurrence; and that there are fundamental aspects of TM that make it susceptible to backup corruption when a drive fails.
TM is a sexy solution for incremental file backup and restore when you accidentally delete a file or folder. If that's what you need, go for it. As part of a backup solution for drive failure? I just don't see the value UNLESS you want to have incremental hourly, daily, weekly, monthly backups that you can use for accidental deletions. The accumulation of all those snapshots ends up taking up a fair bit of space. I was surprised at my actual backup storage needs in my switch to the above approach.
Your needs are likely unique to you, so your mileage may vary. This is just my perspective after a fair bit of pain and a lot of discussion, reading and testing.

Time Capsule backup keeps failing

MacBookPro connected via ethernet to 1TB TC. Had same problem as many other users: backups hanging or failing repeatedly. So I completely erased the TC and started again. Backup proceeded well for about 8GB (out of 70GB total backup) but then the backup hung again, and Console started displaying this crash message, repeated endlessly:
=============
Sep 28 07:57:41 MacBkPro mdworker[1248]: fcntl to turn on FCHECKOPENEVT failed!
Sep 28 07:57:41: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Sep 28 07:57:41 MacBkPro ReportCrash[1249]: Formulating crash report for process translate[1248]
Sep 28 07:57:41 MacBkPro ReportCrash[1249]: Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/translate2008-09-28-075741MacBkPro.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
Sep 28 07:57:41 MacBkPro com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bdd0.translate[1248]): Exited abnormally: Bus error
==============
Now every time I start a new backup, when TimeMachine gets to around the 8GB mark it repeats precisely the same scenario.
HELP!

Nobody seems interested in this specific issue, but just in case anybody else is experiencing related problems, I offer a solution. To get an idea what's happening during backups, open "Console" (/Applications/Utilities/Console) and select the "system.log". Keep reading the last few lines as they scroll by.
===
mdworker1248: fcntl to turn on FCHECKOPENEVT failed!
===
"mdworker" is related to Spotlight indexing. I tried every other solution mentioned in this entire "TC" discussion area without success. I then turned OFF Spotlight indexing. (This took many hours of research to accomplish ... if you want to do it, just go get "OnyX" v1.9.9 - cost $0. Go to "Parameters" and select "Spotlight").
Everything is now working fine - the computer has never been more responsive and Time Machine backups have never been faster. I don't use Spotlight and have no use for it. (And yes - I know what it does).

Time machine backup keeps going up - slow over via airport extreme

I have a 2tb external drive that ive just connected to my airport extreme, purely to use for time machine backups.
I realise the first backup will take a while, my hard drive currently has 810GB of data on it according to the mac itself. When i first started the backup time machine said the backup was 865GB, however its now been going for over 4 days and still hasnt completed, its on about 830gb now, but it keeps going up, its now saying 830gb of 920gb completed.
So why does the backup take a ridiculous amount of time (the MBP is plugged into the airport via ethernet, then the drive to airport via usb) i thought using ethernet directly to the airport would speed it up, its purely over cable so why is it so slow?
And why is my backup now saying its 920gb when my hard drive only has 810gb in total of data?

That's one Apple's more infuriating messages, but there's usually another phrase after "Time Machine Error."
Most likely, Time Machine is having a problem with a file, but they don't bother to tell you that.
See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will probably lead you to #C3.
It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, what you've done, and the results.

Time machine backup keeps running, total rising

Hi all,
My Macbook Pro (late 11, osx 10.8.2, everything updated) has suddenly started having a roblem with time machine. I'm using an external harddisk (Western digital Passport, 500 Gb) to backup my 250 GB Internal SSD. It's been working fine for the 5 months I've had them both. Now it has suddenly developed a problem where the Time Machine backup looks like it will go on for an infinite amount of time:
When the backup starts, after teh "Preparing backup..." cycle, it starts off displaying a sensible amount of backup to run (e.g., "backing up 0 MB of 980 MB"). Then after hitting or getting close to that total, the target amount rises contantly to always be ahead of the backup amount, i.e., it will start:
backing up 1.2 GB of 1.7 GB
backing up 2.3 GB of 2.5 GB
backing up 4.6 GB of 4.8 GB
etc
The longest I've left this for is about 25 minutes and it has no signs of stopping. Is there a solution to this problem? I noticed some similar questions on the forum but from 2 years ago, and some links that were suggested as possible answers are now no longer working. Any help gratefully received!

I did find a solution which appears to be working, at least in my case. Here is what I discovered was happening on my Mac Pro:
On one of my internal hard drives, I had created 4 different folders, and those folders contained various sub-folders. Just for the sake of this discussion, We'll call them folders 1-4. When I checked Get Info on the HD as a whole, it told me 1.12 of 2.0 TB was used, which was accurate. When I checked folders 1-4, their totals all added up to 1.12 TB used. However, When I went into certain SUB-folders within folders 1-4, and added up their totals using the Get Info command, it did not equal the total HD space used when I checked the main folder as a whole.
In other words, if I had 3 sub-folders in the "Main" folder #2 - and folder #2, using Get Info, said it contained a total of 450 GB, when I add up the 3 sub-folders contained within folder #2, it would equal 750 GB.
These extra GB, located in only a couple of places on sub-folders of the HD, were confusing Time Machine. It would act as stated above... it would take the total of 1.12 TB for that drive, attempt to back it up, but when it reached that total, suddenly, OS X ML would realize there was more data in folder #2's sub-folder, and the numbers would continually rise until the external backup drive was full, thus creating an error on Time Machine's backup.
Now, I don't know why this happened. Apparently when I deleted certain files and emptied the trash, it didn't completely erase them. I've tried using "Secure Empty Trash," but with the large video files I use, the empty procedure freezes before it can finish. I cannot explain this phenomenon because I'm not well-versed on the inner-workings of OS X.
My solution was simple, albeit a pain. I went into the sub-folder, selected all the items inside (folders, documents, videos, audio, etc.) and moved them out of that sub-folder. Now, they are all floating freely in folder #2. Then, I deleted that sub-folder, emptied the trash, and then re-created that sub-folder with the same name. Finally, I moved all the items from that sub-folder back into the newly created one, and voila!!!! When I added up all the sub-folders totals via Get Info, they matched exactly what Get Info proclaimed for folder #2!
Again, don't know why this happened, but I was able to successfully back up everything, and have had no troubles in the week and a half since.
If any of this doesn't make sense, please feel free to ask questions. But this is how I solved the problem.

Damaged Time Machine Backup- fsck failed

I have an IOmega USB drive that I've been using for backup. It is one that is just powered off the USB port. A couple of days ago, out of the blue, it threw up a "Device Removal" error. Somehow it thought I had pulled the USB plug without ejecting first. I had not.
Now it is not showing up on my desktop at all. The fsck process is running on it and keeps failing. Is there a terminal command I can run to mount the drive without fscking? At this point, I will just reformat the drive and try making a fresh backup. However, I can't reformat (at least using Disk Utility) because I can get the drive mounted (because it keeps trying to fsck).
Thanks

Jane Garcia wrote:
I may try Data Rescue but I may have another solution if I can make this work. I managed to get the backup drive to mount on my desktop--it's amazing what shaking the thing can do!--and it has two folders: Backups.backupdb and lost+found. I tried to copy the first one onto my desktop but it has 37,000 files and there isn't enough room.
If you've been backing-up your entire system, it should have several hundred thousand files, minimum.
The very existence of the lost+found folder means there's trouble.
Is there a way for me to hook up the new external backup drive and the old one and drag those two folders from the one to the new without having to go via my own hard drive?
Doubtful it will work; if the backups are damaged, as they certainly appear to be, the copy will fail.
Also, if this works, doesn't that mean that any TM backups onto the new external drive will co-exist with the old folders as opposed to absorbing them into the new TM backups?
If the backup completes successfully (highly doubtful), you should be able to continue backing-up to the copied Backups.backupdb folder.
Your best bet is to simply put the old drive "on the shelf" and let TM start fresh on the new one. You can always view and restore from the old ones (at least from the un-corrupted parts of it), via the Browse... option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17.

My time machine backup keeps failing

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for