Permissions on backups.backupdb

My son's external WD 1TB HD that he used with Time Machine for his backups crashed. He sent it to me and using Newer Technology's Universal Drive Adapter, I am able to get it booted and see all of his files. I was able to copy his folders with his work product (he is an animator using a Mac Pro and MacBook Pro) but when I tried to copy "backups.backupdb" it tells me that the file cannot be copied because it is permissions based. Yet, it does not ask for a password. Is there something special that needs to be done to copy the backups.backupdb file?

If you wish to clone a copy of the TM backup drive do not attempt to simply copy files. Backups.backupd is the entire TM backup folder. It contains everything TM has backed up to the drive. Because TM uses specialize file links you simply cannot copy the folder. Instead you should clone the entire drive's contents to another properly partitioned and formatted drive. Use the Restore option of Disk Utility. The TM backup drive is the source device while the drive to which you are cloning is the target/destination device.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external drive to which you are cloning.
Source means the TM backup drive.

Similar Messages

How might I move my Time Machine Backups.backupdb file to a partition on a different drive to enable reformatting the drive it is on, so that might put it back in place later?

I have an external drive I use as my Time Machine backup location.
Recently, I started getting an error on it. It tells me there is a problem, and to repair it with Disk Utility. Disk Utility cannot verify the disk, and needs me to repair it, but it cannot repair it. It advises me to copy all of the important files from this disk to another location, and then reformat the drive.
So, I have copied all of the files that were not part of the Backups.backupdb folder structure to a partition on another disk, and removed them from the defecting drive, leaving ~250GB of files in the Time Machine backups files.
I cannot seem to get this to copy to a ~350GB folder on another drive, formatted Journaled, Extended as recommended.
What do I do?

A Time Machine backup is owned by TM.. this is standard kind of issue.. the very fact that you cannot copy it suggests it is corrupt.. or you cannot change permissions on the whole file.. let me assure you the way TM works.. what you have so far copied is completely useless.
Have you run a verify of the backup??
The fact that disk utility is not working means something is wrong.. it should be able to fix a drive..
And the fact the drive is only 12-18months old is also not relevant.. the present state of the drive is too poor to be considered reliable.
What type of drive is it.. ie USB2 USB3 and what brand??
It is not just the disk that can go bad but the controller/power supply as well.. and some brands seem to have bad batches.. eg seagate USB drives I was seeing recently.
I prefer drives where I buy a shell and put the drive into it.. so I can move the drive to another shell without breaking warranty (or the case).
The actual command for terminal I always just look up when I want to do them.. I am getting old and I have no space left for command line stuff.. although it was all there in the past.
eg today I hit. http://www.cnet.com/au/news/using-the-os-x-terminal-instead-of-the-finder-to-cop y-files/
This includes the rsync command.. lets try this one..
I can copy my downloads directory to a time capsule disk. I start with login as super user just to make sure I don't have permissions issues.. you should definitely do this. running rsync is great as it will give you info when it fails and it will do incremental if you run it again later. You construct the command by simply dragging the folder from finder into terminal and slightly modifying it as per the article above.. So my actual command as I am copying deliberately to a new folder on the TC.. You don't want files to land on the root.. even if it creates another folder.
$ sudo su
Password:
sh-3.2# rsync -av /Users/Ray/Downloads/* /Volumes/DataTCgen3/downloads/
building file list ... done
#A 12v25v Descrip.doc
$T2eC16V,!)!E9s2fB+iqBQNKwsSzpQ~~60_3.JPG
$_12.JPG
0198f23d9wahwkzzsf20dk15czcy.pdf
0340039AINETCNCTKGS.PDF
I have 60GB or so in this folder and it is copying at about 20MB/s over ethernet.. so it is not super fast.. but there is probably some error checking going on at the same time.

HT5096 Need to move Time Machine Backups.backupdb folder from old to new USB disk! Help!

I have followed the suggestions at : Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support
However, these fail - If I format GUID, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), I get an error that case sensitivity must be enabled.
I have unchecked the box "Ignore ownership on this volume" as suggested, so that is not the issue.
This error DOES go away if I (ignoring the article's suggestion" format the disk as GUID, Mac OS Extended (case-sensitive, Journaled).
Then, I can initiate the copy. It will begin copying my 2.5+ Million files (1.66T) but it will begin to fail near the end (28 hrs later) with errors like "__DS_Store already exists" and "Invalid Instruction (100)" and I can't stop or complete the copy. I must unplug the USB cable, as an interrupt or eject will fail as an operation is in progress.
I would appreciate, more than anything, some command line invocation that will accomplish my task. I have tried:
"sudo cp -rP /Volumes/Source/Backups.backupdb /Volumes/Target/" both as a user, and also after a sudo su - as root. All fail, citing permission errors.
There's something special about the way the folder security "goes deeper" than unix permissions, and I can't seem to find a way to copy the stinking folder! Please help! I am looking at the tmutil command but don't see an appropriate verb action for moving a time machine directory.
Any help would be appreciated! I don't really want to "dd" the entire volume!
Thanks!
Joe

Update. I used a free control panel ("secrets") to make invisible files appear and was able to find the trash folder on the external drive. I was able to move the backup folder while holding the command key and have had two successful hourly backups. The only problem that remains now is the trash file for the external drive.
In regards to erasing it, that is not really a viable option right now because I am in the process of switching to this new 1TB drive and it has some other folders on it that I may need access to in the next few days. I installed my 500 GB (that I previously used for TM backups) into my intel iMac (5,1).
Before doing that I cloned everything from the 500 to the 1TB using carbon copy cloner. Now I'm just going back and cleaning things up. Which is why I need the ability now to not have things immediately deleted.

Can't copy Time Machine "Backups.backupdb" to another drive.

My external Time Machine backup drive now displays this message every time I connect it to my Mac.
Mac OS X can't repair the disk "Backup Drive"
You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can’t save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can.
Since this is a Time Machine drive, I found these instructions here -- Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive -- that say to copy the Backups.backupdb to a new drive.
Every time I do this, the process gets to about 150,000 files then crashes my Mac. Sometimes it's a grey screen with words telling me to hold the Power Button down to force a reboot. Sometimes it just crashes and reboots itself.
I've repaired disk permissions and it keeps happening.
How do I copy Backups.backupdb to a new drive when the process keeps crashing my Mac?

Try using one of the clone apps to copy. It's possible the drive is too damaged and the files will not copy.
Both of these applications can be used to create a clone.
SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

Migrate Backups.backupdb Folder to new disk AND MERGING 3 Systems HELP

Hey everybody. I need some help migrating and merging some old Time Machine backups. The partition on the new drive where I have to move the data is where I've been doing my current TM backups, so it has it's own Backups.backupdb folder.
I WANT PanGalacticGargleBlasterDisk to look this:
DESIRED OUTCOME:
________________PanGalacticGargleBlasterDisk___GUID PT_________
Time Machine Partition
Non Time Machine Data
Backups.backupdb
machineA
machineB
machineC
CURRENT SITUATION:
________________PanGalacticGargleBlasterDisk___GUID PT_________
Time Machine Partition
Non Time Machine Data
Backups.backupdb
machineA
________________TowelDisk___APM PT____________________________
Time Machine Partition
Non Time Machine Data
Backups.backupdb
machineB
machineC
Constraints:
• I have no other drives big enough to clone this TM data to.
Other Notes:
• All Partitions are formatted Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)
• I DO have Carbon Copy Cloner
• I am not terribly afraid to use the Terminal if necessary
I've had trouble moving the Backups.backupdb folder before, so I'm hoping someone out there understands all these file permissions better than I do. Thanks!

Thanks. Pondini's FAQ #18 (http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/18.html) says:
• You cannot merge two or more sets of backups, even for the same Mac.
I guess I would have to reformulate my immediate goal as:
A) Reformat the disk with the older TM data [Backups.backupdb(machineB, machineC)], while
B) Retaining the "powers and abilities" of those Time Machine backups so I can restore and boot from those systems in the near future.
That's more important than actually merging the TM backup folders.
NEW POSSIBLE SOLUTION?
Can get the data in the Backups.backupdb folders to reside on the same partition for just a little while? For example:
1. Create a disk image from the partition with [Backups.backupdb(machineB, machineC)].
2. Move the disk image to the on the same partition as the other Backups.backupdb(machineA) folder partition in non-functional state, NOT as a folder.
3. Reformat the now empty drive.
4. Restore the partition that had the [Backups.backupdb(machineB, machineC)] folder in it to some other partition in the future?
What would I need to check to make sure this works (permissions?, formatting?, PT type?, etc.)
Thanks for your help!

Copying the 'Backups.backupdb' from my Time Machine drive to another drive

I wish to keep a copy of the 'Backups.backupdb' (approx 110G in size) also on another drive than the drive I use for Time Machine. I drag 'Backups.backupdb' from the TM drive to the other (have tried both a USB2 and a FW400 drive), I key in the password for my Mac. It starts to prepare for copying, and then nothing seems to happen.
Is this a function that is somehow 'not allowed' by the system? I left it like that last night and nothing happened til morning, so I cancelled the function.
The 'Backups.backupdb' is on a 120G disc and contains backup for three Macs.
I'll be grateful for any help.

Assuming both drives are local, then the Restore tab of Disk Utility will copy the whole drive (probably more than what you want). Easy to use but be careful.
I don't know how to do an afp (Time Capsule) drive. /usr/bin/ditto has trouble.

Deleting an older Backups.backupdb/(hostname) dirs from a Time Machine disk

Last year I replaced my old Xserve-G5 with a new MacPro. The Xserve had an external hard disk it used for Time Machine backups. I didn't format the disk when changing servers on the theory that I'd want to keep a few months of backup history.
Fast forward to today, and the backup disk is starting to get a bit full, and now that I have enough of a backup history, I want to delete the snapshots from the Xserve. If I try to:
sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Xserve/
I get a lot of "Operation Not Permitted" errors. Inspecting in "Server Admin" shows that there are ACLs setup on the per-host directories inside of Backups.backupdb set to Deny most activities. Any attempt to remove or change that ACL, or add your own 'Allow' ACLs show the changes get reset back to the single Deny rule immediately.
How do I claim back my space? Formatting would be an option, but would destroy my backup history. I would consider plugging it into an alternate (non-production) machine and booting it off the install DVD, but the drive is a DroboPro, which requires some drivers to work.

Enter Time Machine from the menu bar icon or Dock, select the appropriate backup then click on the gear button at the top of the Finder style window, you will see a delete back up option in the list.

HT203322 Still having issues with installing Yosemite after deleting "Backups.backupdb" on the internal hard drive. I have restarted multiple times and cannot find any other back up files, yet I still receive the same error message during installation.

I am using a 2011 iMac on 10.6.8. I recently downloaded the Yosemite upgrade and during the installation process ran into the "this disk is used for time machine backups". I ejected the external drive I use for time machine backups and turned off time machine in the application. I then followed the instructions of the help article (OS X: Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups - Apple Support) by moving the folder "Backups.backupdb" that I was able to find on my internal hard drive to the trash. I have restarted several times after completing this process. I am still running into the same error during the installation process. I have searched the hard drive for any other backups and I cannot find any. I searched the hard drive using the command cmd-shift-g and searched for “backups.backupdb” and was unable to find any folders or files. Any other suggestions?

I have resolved the problem - I did not actually delete the "backups.backupdb" folder, I only deleted the contents of the folder. I must have only searched on the user account for the folder after I thought I had deleted it. Thank you for the assistance everyone and I apologize for the inconvenience!

Time Machine Backups.backupdb with "Lacie Rugged 500GB External Hard Drive"

So I bought a Macbook Pro Yesterday. I have a black Macbook from a few years ago and wanted to transfer my Hard Drive onto the new Macbook Pro. I have an external hard drive called "Lacie", made by rugged/neil poulton with 500GB of space. So yesterday I plugged it into my old Macbook and used time machine to store all of my data on the external hard drive. After it was done I plugged the external hard drive into my new Macbook. I ran Time machine and it took about an hour. Then I clicked on my "LACIE" hard drive icon on my desktop, and dragged the folder "Backups.backupdb" into my Hard Drive on my new laptop. Then a Copy window popped up and said "preparing to copy to Macintosh HD". After about 5-10 minutes the Copy Window displayed "Copying 489,020 items to Macintosh HD, Zero KB of 206.96 GB- Estimating time remaining..." I've left this window open for the past 2-3 hours and nothing has happened. It's still remaining at "Zero KB of 206.96 GB-Estimating time remaining...". Does anyone know how I can fix this problem? Did I skip a step? I feel like after 3 hours it would have at least transferred something or changed somehow. Should I rerun Time Machine?
Thanks a lot.
-Luke

jpdemers wrote:
Copying a Time Machine archive from one hard drive to another is a very slow process, especially over a USB connection. You're talking about almost half a million separate files, and the drive not only has to write them all, it has to create a directory that lists and locates all of them. I'm not sure why the Finder's "Copy" window sticks at zero KB., but if you're patient (we're talking 15 hours or thereabouts, depending on the performance of the drive), it will all get transferred eventually. You can see the dated folders popping up on the target disk, if you check on it from time to time.
I've done it for archiving purposes, prior to getting Firewire drives, but this is entirely the wrong way to transfer files to a new system. (For one thing, you're copying thousands of system files that aren't relevant to the new Mac, and thousands more that already exist.) Why do things the hard way, or the wrong way, when Setup Assistant was created for this specific task?
Amen.

Time machine backup error: (2) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID path:/Volumes/TM Backiup/Backups.backupdb/Paul Stenquist's iMac/2012-01-29-123208.inProgress/0055E719-759A-43A5-90AE-A47E9AB414C1/Jack 2/04-10/05 size:37. Help?

Time machine worked well for months. Now, an error every time. Replaced hard drive. No luck. Backup buddy said:
(2) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID path:/Volumes/TM Backiup/Backups.backupdb/Paul Stenquist’s iMac/2012-01-29-123208.inProgress/0055E719-759A-43A5-90AE-A47E9AB414C1/Jack 2/04-10/05 size:37. Can someone help?

Time machine worked well for months. Now, an error every time. Replaced hard drive. No luck. Backup buddy said:
(2) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID path:/Volumes/TM Backiup/Backups.backupdb/Paul Stenquist’s iMac/2012-01-29-123208.inProgress/0055E719-759A-43A5-90AE-A47E9AB414C1/Jack 2/04-10/05 size:37. Can someone help?

How Do I Restore the Old Backups.backupdb in Time Machine. It Replaced It With a Reinstalled OS's Backup.backupdb But Time Machine Is Still Filled at 1.9TB of 2TB

Hi. I fresh installed Mavericks but I didn't transfer my files from Time Machine coz' I was going to do it manually with (folders like documents, pictures mainly) when it asked (before it lets you boot to the Finder) but as soon as I chose to let the freshly installed Mavericks use the Time Machine with the old backups, it replaced it with a new Backups.backupdb. The good thing is the old backups seem to still be there because, the freshly installed OS X is only around 11GB but the Time Machine is 2TB yet it's filled with 1.91TB (only 90GB freespace).
Is there a program to somehow see these old backups, so I can backup it manually copy and paste to their respective folders on the newly installed Mavericks? Or a Terminal command to make that possible, let me see the old back ups (I hope it's just hidden, retrievable)? I've switched off Time Machine for now coz' there's not much to back in the newly installed Mavericks.
Thank you in advance.
God bless, Rev. 21:4

Thank you. It's all back to normal (took around 7 hours on the late 2009 iMac). Time Machine's become better now compared to the last time I used it to migrate everything automatically (Snow Leopard days). With Maverick's Time Machine, it's almost like a cloning (except for the password) tool now. But it's always great to name the account and maybe the hardisk the same names so can just replace a newly installed OS.
God bless. Thanks again.

I moved my Backups.backupdb folder to a larger hard drive and the transfer went fine with the space taken was correct but when i open my Backups.backupdb folder and browse there is actually no folders or files, the folder shows 280gig used but empty?

So i draged my time machine Backups.backupdb folder from my external hard drive to a larger external hard drive, the folder size was 280gig and took some time to transfer and once transfered i checked the size on the larger drive and the folder size was correct 280 gig. Job done i thought but the next day (stupidly after formating my oringinal drive) checked the Backups.backupdb i see that there is actually no folders or files in the Backups.backupdb??? when transfer the file it shows the 280 gig and names the files being tranfered but i just can't find them. Any clues how i can acces these files?
Thank you in advance for any help and let me know if any specifics are needed

That is not the proper way to do what you want. You need to use Disk Utility to clone the old backup drive to the new backup drive.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new backup drive. Source means the old backup drive.

Time Machine - Deleted Backups/backupdb

I've searched everywhere but I haven't seen this exact scenario. So, here's the deal: I got a new AirPort Extreme, recently, and was reading online that I could attach my external HDD to it, via USB. I'm thinking, "Great! I can take this thing off my desk, to give me more room." I ejected the XHDD and connected to the APE. I could see it under Devices/Shared, and when double-clicking on it, I could access all my files. (I have other folders on the drive; Movies, iTunes Music, eBooks, etc. Using AirPort Utility, I could not select the drive to use as a Time Machine backup drive. I had been using this XHDD for TM backups, for a while, when connected directly to the iMac. I then read "Sadly, we can't do a Time Machine backup and then move it to the AEBS, so we have to do it this way." So, I deleted the Backups/backupdb folder, and everything in it, so I could then reattach the XHDD to the AE and set it up to work for TM backups. I DID NOT delete my other folders. When the Trash finished emptying the 2.5+ million files, I tried to eject the drive, but got a message saying that it was in use and could not be ejected. I thought it might be performing some residual background task. After about an hour, I tried again to eject - No Joy! So, I rebooted the iMac. Now, the volume won't show up on my desktop and it has been sounding like its working (doing something) for the past couple of hours. I can see the drive in DiskUtility, but there is no volume listed under it. Not sure what I should do to get this thing to mount. I'll worry about the TM issues later -- right now, I just need to access the other folders on the drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I do have Data Rescue, as a last resort, I guess...

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Ouch!
First, you need to know that Time Machine backups via an Airport Extreme are "iffy" and +*not supported by Apple.+* See Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Second, Time Machine works best when the backups are in a separate partition. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). If yours had been done that way, you could have simply erased the partition via Disk Utility, in a matter of moments.
I don't know what's wrong with the disk now.
Disconnect it from your Mac. If it has it's own power supply, unplug it or turn it off for a few minutes. Reboot your Mac again, just to be sure everything's cleared, then reconnect it (via a different port, if possible) and power it on.
If that doesn't help, what does Disk Utility show for the *Partition Map Scheme* on it (at the bottom of the window when you select it)?
If it's either +Apple Partition Map+ or GUID, that's correct. If not, that may be at least part of the problem. Does it show the correct *Total Capacity?* What does it have for *Write Status?*
If you have a copy of +Disk Warrior,+ or another 3rd-party heavy duty disk repair app, it might be able to fix it.
Otherwise, yes, you may need +Data Rescue.+ Make sure it's a compatible version.

I removed a back up folder from the backups.backupdb folder and I need it

Help! I know I screwed up by using Finder and not Migration Assistant to remove a backup folder for my old G5 from the backups.backupdb folder that Time Machine uses to store backups. How can I get it back into the backups.backupdb folder again or gain access to that data now? It is very important data and I really really need it back!

Hi, and welcome to the forums. Sorry it's under such dire circumstances.
If you're still using the G5 (you've posted in the Snow Leopard forum), turn Time Machine OFF immediately. Do not write anything to the disk in question.
Did you empty the trash? If you didn't, you may be able to recover some things from it, but +*do not attempt to put it back!+* That will further corrupt your backups.
Did you remove the folder for a whole backup (named with the date & time of the backup), or something from within one of them?
Were the file(s) you're looking for present on your system at the time of any other, remaining backup?
Once we know a bit more, we may be able to steer you in the right direction.

Accidentally moved backups.backupdb to trash, now stuck badly. NEED HELP!

Hi everyone,
I recently bought a new macbook pro to replace my much older, aging one. I was nearing the end of migrating everything over and needed to reformat my TIme Machine drive to allow a new backup file to start on my new computer. So, hooking up my portable harddrive to my computer, I moved the backups.backupdb folder to the finder trash and tried to delete. Realizing it won't delete I tried to move it back to the drive but it started copying instead. Now realizing I'm in trouble I went on here to try and find an answer. I did that whole process of,
cd /volumes/"Time Machine"/
sudo -rm .Trashes
in Terminal, and let it work for a couple hours, only to cancel b/c it didn't appear to be working. Now I don't care at all about the files on the time machine drive, I just want them gone from the drive AND the files gone from my finder trash. I then went into disk utility and went through the process of erasing the drive. I let it sit over night, hoping that when I woke up, the drive would be empty. Unfortunately, it's been at the "unmounting disk" step all night.
I am in some serious need of help guys, I have no idea what to do.

Hi,
Have a Look Here... Under Troubleshooting
Pondini TM Tips Links
Index
http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Index.html
Cheers,

Permissions on backups.backupdb

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for