My Time Machine keeps backing up and won't stop.

My Time Machine keeps backing up and won't stop.  The problem started when it said I was out if space.  It is supposed to delete the oldest backup.  Now I cannot even backup at all.  It just keep going and never stops, although it really does not work at all.  I have used the disk utilities and iI have Zeroed out. The TC is a 1 TB and is about 13 months old. Right now it says "79.9 MB of 104.9 MB" and "backing up 961,837 items". I do not have the check mark in "Notify after old backups are deleted." It will stay stuck like this for hours and hours.  The TC is plugged into a U-verse router and the 27" MAC is plugged into the TC.

So you already wiped the old backup and started again??
If that is the case it did a fresh full backup ok?
How much free space is on the TC now?
Do you happen to have multiple network links? Meaning do you have TC bridged to the U-verse router.. with both ethernet and wireless working at the same time. I discovered this one all by my loansome.. having multiple paths does not seem to worry most things on the computer.. but it totally kills TM.
I had the same sort of thing happening in testing a TC I am fixing. So I have multiple ethernet and wireless. The incremental backups became extremely slow.. by turning off wireless and one ethernet so there is only one route to the TC.. it flys again.

Similar Messages

  • My Macbook won't start, and I must reinstall the disk. I haven't used time machine to back up, and I want to use an external drive to back up now. How can i do this from the utilities page?

    I am currently in Zambia on missions work and my computer is constantly exposed to heat. I have just been trying to avoid using it during the hottest part of the day. Today though, I started it up and it was stuck on the grey page with the rotating circle for over an hour, then once the circle left, it remained frozen on the gray page. I used command + r at startup to go to the utilities page to analyze the disk. It found that there were problems with the disk, but then it could not fix those problems and told me to backup as much information as I could and reinstall or redo it all. I haven't ever used time machine to back up any of my information, but i have an external drive that I can use right now to backup my files. I can't get into my computer though to backup the files. How can I use this external drive to backup my files while the computer is currently messed up? Please help.

    Emergency Backups (Data Recovery)
    A)          Format an external disk:
              (This will erase all data on the external disk.)
              Boot in recovery mode (power then Command-R).
                        Alternative: Network recovery boot (power then Command-Option-R keys)
              To format (and erase) the destination recovery disk:
              Plug in the drive you are about to erase.
              Select the volume that is NOT your system disk.
              Click on Partition.
              Pull down under Partition Layout to 1 Partition.
              Click on Options…
              Select GUID Partition Table.
              Name: Emergency Backup (or whatever you prefer)
              Format: Select Mac OS Extended (journaled)
              Click Apply.
              Click Partition.
    B)          Try to boot in Safe Mode (power then Shift key).
              (This will be a slow boot.  Be patient.)
              If it won’t boot in Safe Mode, jump to C.
              If it boots in Safe Mode, try to boot in normal mode.
                        If that fixed your problem then start a Time Machine backup.
                        http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
                        https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055
              If not, boot in Safe Mode again.
              Go > Computer.
              Double click on the system disk.
              Drag the Users folder to the recovery disk.
    C)          To clone the disk:
              Boot in recovery mode.
              Select Disk Utility.
              Try to repair the system disk twice.
              Whether or not the repair succeeds:
              Drag and drop the system disk to Source:
              Drag an drop Emergency Backup to Destination:
              (Take care not to reverse this order.)
              Click Restore (the lower Restore button).
    Once your system is healthy, maintain two reasonably current backups.  (Time machine restores can fail.)
    Create either two Time Machine backups (good) or one or more Time Machine backup(s) and one or more bootable-clone backup(s) (better).
              Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create bootable-clone recovery disks.
              See https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
              and https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031

  • HT201250 I had turned off the time machine auto back up and now when I try to turn it back on it keeps looking for a disk even though the time capsule is shown, do I have to set it up again as an initial?

    I have been using the time capsule to back up both my iMac and recently added MacAir, it has been working fine but recentlky I had turned the time machine off on the Macair and now when I try to turn it back on it keeps looking for a disk even if I select the time capsule. Do I have to start the backup for the Macair as a new backup?

    That happened to my brother earlier. He went into Facebooand then into another app and the same thing happened. he ended up having to restore it. Mine stayed with the Apple logo for a bit but its back to normal after pressing the buttons a million times. I hope you get your problem sorted. Goodluck!

  • How can I use time machine to back up and play media?

    I just bought an external hard drive that I wanted to back up some media files onto (music and photos).  I also want to stove videos/movies on the hard drive and play them from there.  A few questions:
    1. Is that the same as backing up with time machine or is it referred to as something else?
    2.  Can I use time machine to add new files, or should I do that manually?
    3. Once the files are on my hard drive, can I remove them from my computer or should I keep them there?
    I know that these questions may seem obvious, but I'm concerned about losing files because I don't understand what time machine actually does.  Please feel free to ask me questions if you need to understand my question better.  Thanks!

    Time Machine makes a backup of your hard drive, which you can restore from, but not use as a repository of data.
    Time Machine automatically makes incremental backups as you change things on the Mac HD.
    Time Machine is not an archive, meaning if you make a backup, and then delete the originals from your Mac, Time Machine will eventually delete the copies it has made.
    However, if you copy the files directly to the external, then you can remove them from the computer. But, those will be your only copies. If that disk dies, they'll be gone. So, that's really not a backup. It's the only source.
    You can back up to Time Machine and also store other files on the same disk.

  • Time Machine keeps "Backing Up", but doesn´t starts.

    (am doing copy and paste of this question from other site which I posted, so to fix the issue, don´t get freaked out)
    Hey everyone. I had my time machine in only wifi mode for like the last month or so, then I redicided to use the backing up feature and all kinds of weird things started happening.
    At first, it just gave the message "Backing up" for hours, and it would just keep at that message. (I know that at some point it can take hours to actually start the backupafter it´s been of fo a while, but it´s not this case here) Then like yesterday it started backing up, but I turned down the computer as I thought it would be normal that my time capsule would work normally.
    I unplugged it, and hited the reset switch several times, and nothing happened. It would not work. Am not a computer technician, I spend most of my time making music, so any help would be appreciated to keep my precious files safe. Cheers.

    See my response to your other thread.

  • How to use Time Machine to back up and restore from 2 external hard drives

    Hi I need some help
    I am about to switch internal hard drives and kept a time machine back up to an external hard drive until I had filled it up. That was a few months ago and in order to make space I deleted some files from my internal drive. In the last few months I have filled that space (About 50GBs)on my internal drive. Needless to say those new files aren't backed up.
    What I want to do is after switching internal hard drives restore everything including the new files apps and updates etc via time machine
    Can I back up my most recent computer situation as it is to a new external hard drive using TM and then restore that to the new internal hard drive and then restore specific folders from my first external TM hard drive?
    Thanks a million
    Rotang

    I am sorry, i am confused about what exactly you are trying to say here.
    well, Time machine works on very simple concept. it backs up either all the data from your computer or only selected data(customized) from the computer.
    to restore you can follow these steps as mentioned below
    To restore files:
    Open a window for the item you want to restore.
    For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. If you want to recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail.
    If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
    Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock.
    If Time Machine isn’t in the Dock, look for it in the Applications folder.
    Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the backups Time Machine has created.
    If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it.
    The windows behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
    When you find the item you want to restore, select it and then click Restore.
    You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk.
    If an item you restore has the same name as another item on your computer, you’re asked if you want to keep the current item, the restored item, or both.
    The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if it is found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored item to its original location.
    And with regards to your question,
    Can I back up my most recent computer situation as it is to a new external hard drive using TM and then restore that to the new internal hard drive and then restore specific folders from my first external TM hard drive?
    yes, you can do that but but this can be done only by navigating into the Time machine restore folder and then copying the uptdated folder to the destination folder(drive) manually..
    http://mac-support.blogspot.com

  • Yosemite: Time machine app backs up but won't launch

    Since upgrading to Yosemite, my MacBook Air continues to run Time Machine backups (to a Synology NAS) but the actual Time Machine application fails to launch - the icon reacts to the clicked state but then nothing.
    I'm running OSX 10.10.1 and my NAS is a DS211+ running DSM 5.1-5004 accessed via an Airport Extreme running 7.7.3
    Any clues?

    A third-party NAS is unsuitable for use with Time Machine, especially if it's your only backup. I know this isn't the answer you want. I know Time Machine accepts the NAS as a backup destination. I know that the manufacturer says the device will work with Time Machine, and I also know that it usually seems to work. Except when you try to restore, and find that you can't.
    Apple has published a specification for network devices that work with Time Machine. None of the third-party NAS vendors, as far as I know, meets that specification. They all use the incomplete, obsolete Netatalk implementation of Apple Filing Protocol.
    If you want network backup, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external storage device connected to another Mac or to an 802.11ac AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base stations support Time Machine, not any older model.
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    If you're determined to keep using the NAS with Time Machine, your only recourse for any problems that result is to the manufacturer (which will blame Apple, or you, or anyone but itself.)

  • Time Machine keeps backing up to wrong external hard drive

    I had TM working fine for several months with my LaCie external HD named "LaCie" via Firewire 800. I bought a larger LaCie HD, daisy chained to the open FW800 port on "LaCie", named it "LaCie 1TB" and moved the "Backups.backupdb" folder to it using the Disk Utility restore function per several posts found here. I changed TM preferences to point now to "LaCie 1TB" and everything worked.
    Then I deleted the "Backups.backupdb" folder from "LaCie" and renamed the HD "LaCie 500". I moved my video files there and changed TM preferences to delete "LaCie 500" from the "do not backup" list. I reran TM and it again worked including backing up "LaCie 500".
    Now the problem. Whenever I first turn on the external HD's, TM immediately begins making a new backup on "LaCie 500". I stop it. If I then select "Back Up Now" in TM, it correctly backups to "LaCie 1TB". I always delete the "Backups.backupdb" created on "LaCie 500". And it always repeats this at the next HD restart but always works correctly if the drives are already turned on when the next backup time is reached.
    Is this a bug in TM or is there something I can do to stop it other than hooking up "LaCie 1TB" to a FW400 or USB port and making sure I turn it on first? I don't want to do that. Seems it should only backup to a drive named the same as the name selected in TM preferences. I have other drives to hook up too so it could get worse. Thanks.

    Pondini wrote:
    Just how did you do that? Did you erase the volume with Disk Utility, or use the Finder?
    I just erased it with the finder.
    So tonight I turned off TM and deleted the two preferences files. I turned TM back on and set it up again. It said the next backup was in a few minutes so I shut down the drives and waited a few minutes. I restarted them and nothing happened. I checked TM and it now said the next backup was in about an hour. I turned them off and on again and nothing happened. I also restarted the computer and the lock on the TM prefpane was unlocked again so that isn't fixed.
    I then used some other tools I had and found a hidden file named ".001ff35b9356" on both drives. The file contents were:
    V∞=„:ïA
    Ç ıE…· ‰
    I deleted this one on the first drive, "LaCie 500". I also noticed they both had a file called ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" on them but I left that alone.
    I shut down and restarted both drives. Neither one mounted. So I shut them down again and this time they both mounted. TM did nothing. I had previously noticed that the icon for each of these drives changes to a time machine icon instead of the standard hard drive icon. For comparison I attached another old external drive I had and its icon stayed the standard hard drive icon. It also had the ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" file on it but not the ".001ff35b9356" file on it.
    I shut both drives down and waited for the next scheduled backup time to pass. I started them both up and again nothing happened and TM said the next backup was another hour out. I told it to back up now and it worked. So I'm not sure now what is happening. It isn't automatically backing up at all when I first turn on the drives. It seems just to push the next backup out an hour if they aren't attached when the times comes. I don't know how it's supposed to work. I thought it would start a backup immediately if it was overdue. When the drives are off TM says the next backup is "When disk is connected" but that isn't what it does now. I guess I'll use it for a while and see what happens next.
    This shouldn't be this hard. Thanks for your help.

  • My time machine wont back up and keeps saying The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/karen's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use.

    My Apple Time Capsule stopped backing up a few weeks ago and after upgrading to Mavericks on my IMac I keep getting the message:
    The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/karen’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use.
    I have no idea what to do and am new to having a Mac -
    Also a friend had orginally set my wifi up to be called "Karen's wifi" and it has also stopped connecting to the wi fi also so am using ethernet connect.
    Can someone please give me an idiot's step by step guide please so my back will work again?
    Thank you

    Locate the Time Capsule
    Pull the power cord from the back of the Time Capsule
    Count to ten
    Plug the power cord back into the back of the Time Capsule
    Wait a few minutes, then try another backup
    If you are having WiFi connection problems, you should start another separate post for that issue.

  • After upgrade to mavericks: time machine keeps asking for my back up disk and won't open unless i plug in the disk. any solutions?

    after upgrade to mavericks: time machine keeps asking for my back up disk and won't open unless i plug in the disk. any solutions?
    before the upgrade, i could open time machine without the need for having the back up disk plugged in.

    Ok. I got it to work, sort of....
    As I mentioned before I tried the "disk password" and the "Time capsule Password" options to see if I can start the back up again or start a new backup. Neither worked. So I tried the firmware down grade, but like you said that did not work. I then decided to try the "Account password" option and I have never used this option before becasue it states that if there is data on the drive it would not be acessable after creating an account. Since I wiped out the disk that was nno problem. When I created the new account and choose the drive it asked for the user name and password. I entered the info for the new account I just created(FYI this has nothing to do with your login username and password), bingo! It worked!
    Now I have two partitions on the TC disk. The old one and now the new account. I am guessing this is to be used if I have multiple computers, which I don't.
    I any case, I am going to wipe out everything again and try again to do a backup the way I had it before.

  • I can not get Time Machine to back up an external WD Passport 2 TB drive!  Has anyone else had this problem?  The drive is new and I was running Snow Leopard and upgraded to Lion and it still won't do it.  Time Machine backs up the internal drive fine.

    I bought 2 2TB WD Passport Drives with the intention of housing my iTunes/iPhoto libraries off my older MacBook.  I have successfully transferred the Libraries to one and am using the other one for Time Machine.  In Snow Leopard I could back up my computer to Time Machine no problem but when I did not exclude the iTunes/iPhoto drive the back up fails.  Both drives have been reformatted, permissions repaired and checked in Disk Utility and one was replaced.  I have been to the Genius Bar now 5 times.  I have tried using USB drive and FireWire.  Both drives are recognized and are working properly otherwise regardless how they are connected.  Finally yesterday the Apple store installed Lion to see if that fixed the issue and it did not.  Time Machine successfully backed up a USB Flash drive, and today I will try an older external drive.  Any ideas on what else to try??? Do I have to resort to third party software like Carbon Copy Cloned to get this done?  Any ideas why this wont work?  I am using a FireWire converter but as I said, both drives are working normally otherwise (libraries working, time machine working for the computer's hard drive.  Any ideas would be appreciated!!?

    Thanks so much but none of that helped.  It was driving me crazy because it would back up another external drive.  I just changed the name of the drive from iPhoto/iTunes Library to Media Libraries and IT WORKED!! I guess for some reason it didn't like the drive being called iPhoto or iTunes ???? I don't understand but I have tried so many solutions and exchanging things out but the name change did it????!!!
    Thank you for your help and replying to this.  Guess I made my own issue!

  • Time machine keeps growing in size or backing up a size far greater than it

    Apologies if this is covered elsewhere but after hours of searching I still haven't been able to find a resolution which is actually fixing my problem.
    When my time machine tries to back up the size of the back up just keeps growing and growing - a problem which has been reported several times but none of the solutions are fixing the problem for me. I've completely reset time machine (disconnect external hard drive, deleting the preferences from ~library/preference, then reset up with my exclusions) and the problem just reappeared.
    I've gone through this routine several times and in most cases had no joy. On one occasion I thought the problem had been resolved as it did the initial backup and then a couple of hourly backs and then suddenly it returned a message saying it had insufficient space (trying to back up 470GB but disk only has 300GB available) which was just ridiculous as the full back up size was under 50GB.
    I've verified the disk on several occasions and it always comes up clean. In a fit of desperation I've even tried reformatting the external drive with no improvements
    I'm at the point of deleting time machine from my laptop and going back to the old Backup program. Can anyone offer any thing else I could try.

    Hi, and welcome to the forums.
    Have you Verified your internal HD (and Repaired any externals that are also being backed-up)?
    If so, it's probably something damaged or corrupted in your installation of OSX. I'd suggest downloading and installing the 10.6.4 "combo" update. That's the cleverly-named combination of all the updates to Snow Leopard since it was first released, so installing it should fix anything that's gone wrong since then, such as with one of the normal "point" updates. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1048 Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards.
    If that doesn't help, reinstall OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc (that won't affect anything else), then apply the "combo" again.

  • Time Machine keeps giving me an error message when I try to back up to my Lacie drive.

    Time Machine keeps giving me an error message when I try to back up to my Lacie drive. It won't back up and I can't find where to fix it.

    I was having the same problem with my LaCie hard drives, both of them had errors like that and wouldn't eject properly. They would be fine after turning off and then remounting and so on, but then it would start again after a while. So I looked on LaCie's web site for any software updates and I found a usb firmware update from last October and applied it to both drives and now they're perfect. Sorry, I can't find it on their web site right now, but you might want to remember this if it persists and apply the update if you haven't.

  • HT201250 I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was?

    I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was? I want to make sure I will still have various important files on my new computer, like my songs in iTunes, my photos in iPhoto, etc, etc. Thanks so much in advance!

    Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
    When you turn on the new iMac for the first time, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the external disk and follow steps to restore all your files to your new iMac. Your new Mac will have the same settings and programs as your old computer.
    In other cases, I would recommend to restore the whole backup without using Migration Assistant or Setup Assistant, but a Late 2012 iMac uses a special OS X build, so the OS X version that you're using on your old Mac won't work on the new one. For more information, see > http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

  • Time Machine to back up MacBook AND External Drive?

    I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
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    I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
    After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have. Any advice on how to set this up without losing my data would be appreciated. Thank you!

    1980qt50 wrote:
    I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
    I bought another 1TB G Drive to use as a back up
    That may not be large enough. It varies greatly depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine usually requires 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. So add-up the space used on your MacBook's internal HD and the amount used on the other drive. If that's less than 500 GB, you'll probably be fine. If it's between 500 GB and about 750 GB, it might work, at least for a while.
    I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
    Most likely, piece of cake.
    After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have.
    No, Time Machine won't wipe out your data.
    First check the Format of the media drive. You can do that via +Get Info+ in the Finder. In the General area of the Info panel it will show Format. If it's any variation of +Mac OS Extended,+ then Time Machine can back it up. If not, your best bet will be to switch drives -- format the new one for your Mac, copy the data to it, then erase and reformat the old one to be used for your backups. Post back for instructions if you need to do that.
    You should erase and format the Time Machine drive with a single partition, per #5 in the FAQ.
    When you're ready to start Time Machine, click the Options button in Time Machine > Preferences. See if the media drive is listed in the exclusions box; if it is, select it and click the minus sign. Then Time Machine will back it up.
    You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial

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