Older Time Machine backups not available in Mountain Lion?

My wife relies heavily on Time Machine to restore old files that have been deleted or previous versions of a file. Recently I upgraded her Mac OS from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. Today she discovered that she is unable to search and/or restore files from any point before the upgrade to Mountain Lion, although she can see dates along the timeline that indicate that there are backups present. She has backups going back almost 3 years now, so this is a pretty serious potential loss. Is there a work around for this? If not, we'll have to roll back to her Snow Leopard OS from theTime Machine. Just FYI, her system specs are: iMac (24-inch Mid 2007) Mac OS 10.8.x 3GB RAM

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055

Similar Messages

Time Machine backup not working after Mountain Lion Install

Oh my. It seems that Mountain Lion and Lion Server are different species and cannot be interbred! Is this really true?
I am running OSX Lion Server on a late 2009 iMac with the main purpose of allowing the MacBook Pros in the house (both running Lion 10.7.4) to wirelessly back up to Time Machine. All has gone well until I upgraded one of the MacBooks to Mountain Lion. Now it appears that Time Machine via the server is no longer available on that MacBook. Also, the Server Admin app is also disabled.
My questions are:
Is it necessary to upgrade to OSX Server if I wish to use the server a Time Machine target for Mabooks running Mountain Lion?
If I do upgrade to OSX Server, is it also necessary to upgrade all the Macbooks to Mountain Lion?
Is OSX Server stable enough to bother with at this time?
Thanks in advance for your replies!

Well I can have a go at answering you questions
Is it necessary to upgrade to OSX Server if I wish to use the server a Time Machine target for Mabooks running Mountain Lion?
I'm not sure about this one as it didn't check before I upgraded my server to Mountain Lion but I would be suprised if a Lion Server (10.7.4) could not back up a Mountain Lion (10.8) client
If I do upgrade to OSX Server, is it also necessary to upgrade all the Macbooks to Mountain Lion?
No, I am running a mix of 10.8 and 10.7.4 clients with a 10.8 server and they all backup with Time Machine.
Is OSX Server stable enough to bother with at this time?
This is a very subjective area - my server is running well using Mountain Lion, it's not used heavily as it's mainly for backing up a few clients, running the built in wiki, web server, calendar and contacts. It's running fine and I like the additions enough to put up with the bugs [single sign on / kerberos is the one impacting me]. However if you search here you can find other who are having many more issues. This one is a personal choice you'll have to make.
For the server app, you have to run the same version across the server and the client to use it, you can always use screen share to get to the server and run the server app directly on the server. This is what I do when using a 10.7.4 client.
Hope this helps with you decisions.

How migrate from older time machine backup (not the latest)?

My old Snow Leopard Mac had a dying hard drive. In the last few days, files were disappearing left and right.
I bought a new Lion Mac, but I don't trust the Time Machine backup for the last few days and I would like to migrate the backup from just before the problems started.
I can't figure out any way to do this. Migration Assistant only offers to import the latest backup
And the full Time Machine Restore feature, which DOES allow you to pick a backup, only works on the original machine, which will not boot any more.
Can I somehow trick Migration Assistant by deleting the last few backups from the Time Machine drive and renaming the one I want to use to Latest? (I've made a copy of the entire Time Machine folder just in case...)
Any other way to do this? I'm sure many people are in this situation.

I have this same question. My hard drive died, and the last few Time Machine backups appear to be incomplete or corrupted. New hard drive installed now. Migration Assistant and Setup Assistant first refuse to even recognize my backup drive, then insist on migrating data from the newest backup instead of an older (but definitely complete and reliable) backup. So I haven't migrated anything and am still using my old (OS 10.4) computer until i get this straightened out. Ideas?

Time Machine backups not available after Lion upgrade

I just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion a week ago. Today I went to my Time Machine (backups on a Time Capsule), and can't access old files. Past dates are shown in purple, with dates since the Lion update in the usual gray. However, none of them show any files. Any ideas?

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055

Imac keeps crashing in time machine backup after upgrade to mountain lion

2008 imac kept crashing (shutdown and restart) during first backup after upgraded to mountain lion. The backup size was about 10GB but time machine crashed after a while (at most 2GB) and never completed backup. So, I don't have any backup since right before I upgraded from Lion. Any suggestion?

Something strange happened. I was able to get time machine to work by going out to the login screen (the account kept logged in) and let it run the backup with the screen off (screen auto off after a few min). I tried it on two different external drives and that did the trick on both. Since the initial Mountain Lion backup was huge (155 GB), I was quite surprise that it worked at all. I assume your MBP was a Lion to ML. I also just did a 2012 MBP upgrade but that one was smoother. I did not recall having crashing issue. One thing I did find during this was that my WD passport USB drive was corrupted. Not sure it was the cause or not. I had to erase and reformat to get it back to work. Maybe do a verify disk to confirm. Good luck.

Cannot Access Earlier Time Machine Backups After Upgrade To Mountain lion

I went into Time Machine to recover some past emails. It shows that it had backed up my emails for the last year, however it will not let me recover anything before my upgrade to mountain lion. Does anyone know of a workaround for this problem. Thank you.

Christopher Sant wrote:
Once it does finally recognize (after a good while) it simply says "Error, time machine could not complete the backup"
There should be more to that message. See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. 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, your setup, what you've done, and the results.

Time Machine backups not available on new MBP

Okay, I've had issues with an early 2011 15" MBP that I've had for a couple years. I was replacing it today. Did a backup last night (to a LaCie FW800 external drive). Brought the new MBP home today (2.4 GHz i7 Retina). I try to migrate during initial setup. It doesn't see my backup drive (via USB). I call Apple. Create new acct. and migrate. Still can't see the drive. I try plugging the drive into my Airport Extreme. Migration Asst. sees the drive but says there are no backups on it. I go into Recovery Mode, it sees 2 out of 8 backups, latest one being 18 days ago. Apple tech tells me to not use it due to it being a 10.8.2 backup on an old machine. I run out and get a FW to Thunderbolt adapter with the hopes of success. No success. I'm totally stumped. Googling isn't helping and neither is the senior tech I've been talking to.
A few notes.
In TM, it sees the old backups, but they appear as black windows that I can't click on
I tried putting the backup drive into a new enclosure. Same result.
I would rather avoid a clean install of everything or a manual migration. Any ideas before I do one of these things?

Ah, good. Connect it directly to your Mac.
Open the drive with the Finder. You should see only a single Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of the drive. If not, what do you see?
The Time Machine browser (the "Star Wars" display) normally only shows the backups of the Mac it's running on. You should be able to see the backups from the old Mac via the Browse Other Backup Disks, per the green box in #E2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
But Migration Assistant should see them (that's what it's for!).
Does it show anything at all on this window?
If not, the backups may be damaged. Try Repairing them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Time Machine backup not syncing after changed wifi network

I have an AirPort Extreme wireless router and have been backing up over my wifi network using an added hard drive on the USB port. I recently had to restore the AirPort Extreme and changed the password for the wireless network and now Time Machine wants to completely reformat the hard drive and start over.
Does anybody know how to bypass this and just continue to add to the current backups?

Well I can have a go at answering you questions
Is it necessary to upgrade to OSX Server if I wish to use the server a Time Machine target for Mabooks running Mountain Lion?
I'm not sure about this one as it didn't check before I upgraded my server to Mountain Lion but I would be suprised if a Lion Server (10.7.4) could not back up a Mountain Lion (10.8) client
If I do upgrade to OSX Server, is it also necessary to upgrade all the Macbooks to Mountain Lion?
No, I am running a mix of 10.8 and 10.7.4 clients with a 10.8 server and they all backup with Time Machine.
Is OSX Server stable enough to bother with at this time?
This is a very subjective area - my server is running well using Mountain Lion, it's not used heavily as it's mainly for backing up a few clients, running the built in wiki, web server, calendar and contacts. It's running fine and I like the additions enough to put up with the bugs [single sign on / kerberos is the one impacting me]. However if you search here you can find other who are having many more issues. This one is a personal choice you'll have to make.
For the server app, you have to run the same version across the server and the client to use it, you can always use screen share to get to the server and run the server app directly on the server. This is what I do when using a 10.7.4 client.
Hope this helps with you decisions.

HT3275 Time Machine backup not completed because "the backup disk image ....sparsebundle already in use"

Time Machine backup not completed because the "backup disk image"/Volumes/Data/MacBookAir.sparsebundle" is already in use. ??

Reboot the TC.. this is most common issue since Mountain Lion.
Look at the More Like This just on the right column.

I have my complete computer using Lion backed up on the time machine. Then I installed Mountain lion. I do not like it at all. Is there a way I can remove ML and put my old Lion system back pin my computer?

I have my complete computer using Lion backed up on the time machine. Then I installed Mountain lion. I do not like it at all. Is there a way I can remove ML and put my old Lion system back pin my computer?

If you have got a backup, press Command and R keys in boot and restore an old backup. You can install Snow Leopard and upgrade to Lion if you haven't got the backup

Why is Time machine backup not working after Mavericks upgrade?

Why is Time machine backup not working after Mavericks upgrade?

I had the same problem due to the Fire Wire port. Apple tested it told me it is OK!, I tried a new cable, and have tested both ports on my back up device. I find it strange that as soon as I installed Mavericks. The drive does work using USB. It could be a coincidence, I don't absolutely know at this point, my back up drive ports could stop working, but I doubt it!

Restoring a Time Machine backup on Mac OS X Lion

I planned on doing a fresh install of Mac OS X Lion — and clearing the hard drive and applications — rather than simply updating and keeping all my data. I figured a clean update could limit any bugs or issues I'd have.
I currently have a Time Machine backup from my computer running OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I wanted to ask if I could restore this backup onto the wiped machine once I've installed Lion. It's important for me to restore the Time Machine backup not only for my files and accounts, but also applications like the Adobe Creative Suite 5 where I only have licensing to download one copy. Is this possible, or is there any better way to do this? Thanks!

bbour38 wrote:
I planned on doing a fresh install of Mac OS X Lion — and clearing the hard drive and applications — rather than simply updating and keeping all my data. I figured a clean update could limit any bugs or issues I'd have.
Unless you're having problems you can't fix any other way, there's no reason to do that. In most cases, just upgrading is the easiest, quickest, most reliable way to go.
I wanted to ask if I could restore this backup onto the wiped machine once I've installed Lion. It's important for me to restore the Time Machine backup not only for my files and accounts, but also applications like the Adobe Creative Suite 5 where I only have licensing to download one copy. Is this possible, or is there any better way to do this?
If you do a full system restore, that will restore Snow Leopard.
Without a second partition or external HD, there's no easy way to erase your system, then install Lion, since you need Snow Leopard to do the download.
You can, if you really want to, download Lion, but don't install it directly; instead, copy the installer to a DVD, USB stick, or partition on an internal or external HD. See Making a Lion Install disc or partition for instructions.
Then erase your internal HD and install Lion from the copied installer, then when your Mac starts up, use Setup Assistant to transfer everything else from your backups. You may, however, have to re-enter purchase keys or serial numbers for some 3rd-party apps. See How do I set up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC? for details.
But in most cases the result will be exactly the same as simply upgrading.

Cannot access older time machine backups

I recently installed a new SSD in my MacBook and after reinstalling OSX Mountain Lion I chose to restore from a time machine backup. Everything went smoothly and all my files were restored. However, I tried to access a backup from before my restore but it's not showing it as being available even though the Time Machine preferences confirm that my oldest backup is from June 2011 and I can still access the folders that far back via finder. But I've never had this happen. Why it because its a new hard drive? Was it because of the recent 10.8.3 software update? Was it because of the "restore from time machine backup"? Every time I had done a clean install I just copied over the critical folders such as documents and itunes from my drive, never used the restore feature. My files clearly aren't gone, but I'm curious as to why this happened. Please help. Thanks in advance.

Have you done a new backup yet? If not, yes, Time Machine is looking for the backups on a different disk. As mende1 says, the procedure in #E3 should let you see them.
Once you start a new backup, Time Machine should automatically "associate" the new drive with the old backups, only do an "incremental" backup of the changes, and treat the old backups as if they'd been made from the new drive.
If not (ie, if it starts doing a full backup), you may be able to cancel the backup and do the "associatedisk" yourself, per #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting, especially the pink box there.

Time Machine Backup Not Working - Please Help!

Hey everyone - first post here, please help! I'm having trouble with TM. Here are the messages from Time Machine Buddy:
Starting automatic backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Forcing deep traversal on source: "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: AD5C219F-0EC8-32C3-B827-2FF171A4AE46 eventDBUUID: 68A67596-22DD-4FB5-AA49-390E857688E1)
Backup content size: 166.93 GB excluded items size: 34.36 GB for volume Macintosh HD
Found 842174 files (132.56 GB) needing backup
160.14 GB required (including padding), 824.43 GB available
Copied 74.41 GB of 132.56 GB, 693114 of 842174 items
Copied 130.6 GB of 132.56 GB, 728437 of 842174 items
Copied 731588 files (130.76 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Backup canceled.
Starting manual backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Forcing deep traversal on source: "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: AD5C219F-0EC8-32C3-B827-2FF171A4AE46 eventDBUUID: 68A67596-22DD-4FB5-AA49-390E857688E1)
Didn't get valid migration dates.
Found 842174 files (1.87 GB) needing backup
3.9 GB required (including padding), 692.16 GB available
Copied 85694 files (1.71 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Using file event preflight for Macintosh HD
Will copy (41.8 MB) from Macintosh HD
Found 430 files (42.2 MB) needing backup
2.23 GB required (including padding), 689.79 GB available
Copied 5022 files (46 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Created new backup: 2012-10-09-015038
Copying OS X Recovery set
Starting post-backup thinning
Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-50 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -50.)" (paramErr: error in user parameter list) deleting backup: /Volumes/Time Machine Back
I tried to back it up the first time, and it was taking forever, so I stopped it, and then started a new backup. Can someone let me know what to do so I can be comfortable knowing the machine is definitely backed up?
Thanks!

The indication that the backup completed successfully is the best evidence that it did. If you want something more explicit, you can proceed as below.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo tmutil compare
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Time Machine backup not completed with error "The disk was not ejected probably..."

I have been using an UBS 3.0 capable external 2.5" hard drive from Lacie to backup my old 21.5" iMac for the last 2 years without problem.
Recently I bought the new late 2013 27" iMac running 10.8.5 and try to migrate the data from the Time Machine backup without success. After a while, Mountain Lion complained with the below error and only data before this message appear were migrated. When I connected the same disk back to my old iMac and ran disk utility, everything looks fine and I was able to complete the TM backup. Eventually, I managed to migrate the data using network copy, instead of TM backup.
Now that my new iMac is back online and I tried to setup Time Machine backup using the same 2.5" Lacie drive, the same error message appeared again in the middle of TM backup (after 3 minutes).
Wonder if anyone ran into the same issue and if there is an issue with the UBS 3.0 port on the new iMac, or there is a work around to this problem.
Any help or pointer would be highly appreciated.
Cheers,
Richard

The system is losing connection with the drive for some reason, likely because the drive is losing power and unmounting, but there could be other reasons as well. Do you have access to an external power supply for the drive? If so then connect tthat so it is not relying on the USB bus power to keep the drive running. I have also found this to happen with some USB 3.0 enclosures, and it appears to be a compatibility issue with them and Apple's USB 3.0 drivers, so another option is to get a USB 2.0 hub and use that for the connection. Things will not run at USB 3.0 speeds, but the drives will not continually disconnect.

Older Time Machine backups not available in Mountain Lion?

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