Old time machine backup partition erased, but new partition failed

I had a defective time machine backup and had to start over. My disk has 4TB. The original time machine backup contained two backups from different laptops and was in the largest partition of 2TB. I then had two addition 1TB partitions. I remade new time machine backups to each of the 1TB partitions for each of the mac book pros. When I went to delete and change the original 2TB partition I found I could minus it out to create free space, but all attempts to try to repartition it as 2TB or as 2 1 TB pieces and even a piece as small as 200MB failed and asked me to resize closer to the original partition.
I have seen many similar issues, but not quite like this. I have already shut down the external drive and unplugged it and the restarted my machine, but to no effect. I now have 2 1 TB partitions and a 2 TB empty space.
Any suggestions?
I'm a little afraid to copy the Time Machine backups to a new drive as I heard that is NOT a good idea.
Is this a problem created when a partition is used for a Time Machine backup?
Han

How are you looking for the backup?
Time Machine will only show the active backup.
You can hold down the Option key while selecting the Time Machine menu and you will have the option to Browse other Time Machine backups.
Here is some good info on how Time Machine "thinks:" http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

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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????!!!
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I've never used the Migration Assistant...have to look into that.
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The urgency isn't there for me anymore, I've already re-created the one doc I wanted to recover and the other file was my Windows XP virtual machine file...(I didn't want to have to re-install Windows from scratch - but I did)....so maybe this is a good time to "play" with that drive while I can afford to lose everything on it!

Old Time Machine Backup

OK this is complex so hope u can bear with me...
I backed up my computer with Time Machine running lion, or maybe snow leapord.
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OK it's actually called "inherit" it says:
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3 options
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sudo chflags 0 /Volumes/Volumename
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I've looked over Pondini's site and it's an awesome resource. I've learned a lot from it over the years. But my specific question isn't answered there.
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Can't get old time machine backups to delete from the trash can

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http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

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No problem.
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You need to do this in the Time Machine "Star Wars" interface from "Browse Other...."

Want to move an old time machine backup

I'm trying to backup an old drive before it fails.
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How do I enable ownership or force that file to be backed up?
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nowsthetime wrote:
Now I'm stuck with these files taking up space on a drive and no way to get rid of them without wiping the drive. Which is what I'll have to do.
Launch the Terminal app, in the window that pops up, copy & paste in this snippet, follow by adding a space, and then dragging one of those files into the window. Hit the return key and at the Password: prompt, carefully enter your admin password, and hit the return key:
sudo rm
so it looks something like this:
sudo rm /Users/username/Desktop/"name of file"
If that works, then collect the others into a folder and repeat, but use this as the leading part:
sudo rm -R
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sudo rm -R /Users/username/Desktop/"name of folder"

Is there a way to get my photos off an old time machine backup from an external hard drive?

Is there a way to get my photos off an old time machine backup from an external hard drive?

You will have to connect the Time Machine HDD and click on the Icon. You will see one folder called Backups.backupdb. Click on that and you will have to continue until you find the home folder. The iPhoto library (where the pictures are, not the application) will probably be in your pictures folder. You will have to drag that to your desk top. Then you will have access to individual images.
Ciao.

Help. I hit 'Restore All' in an old Time Machine backup

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mark

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. About the only recourse is to use a file recovery application like SubrosaSoft FileSalvage. You can run it in demo mode to verify that you can recover the photos you want before you have to pay for it.
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I've read lots of posts on this, but I can't seem to find the anwer to my problem.
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You should have used Setup Assistant, not Migration Assistant, to transfer your data. I suggest you start over by booting into Recovery, erasing the startup volume, and installing OS X. When you reboot, Setup Assistant will start automatically. Follow the prompt to import data from a Time Machine snapshot. The backup history will then be inherited. The first backup will still be a full one; that can't be avoided.

Old time machine backup partition erased, but new partition failed

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