Problem with external HD Time Machine Backup

I have a external HD which has always worked fine under snow leopard. Since upgrading to lion I keep getting the following message
The identity of the backup disk has changed since the previous backup.
The disk may have been replaced or erased, or someone may be trying to trick your computer into backing up to the wrong disk.
And after this the drive disappears from the desktop appearing agian only after restart.
What can I do do rectify this? Delete and re-intialise the drive?

In the Time Machine preference pane, change the backup device selected to None, then change it back to the external drive.

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Problems with creating a Time Machine backup on external HDD

Hello!
I tried to make a new Time Machine backup file on my external harddrive today.
Unfortunately it stopt after about 6 or 7 gb with the popup:
''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''
I'm certain that the HDD (Western Digital 1Tb) was correctly formatted (Mac Os Extended (Journaled)). It's the same type as my internal harddrive.
I also have a Time Machine Buddy logfile. Maybe that will help in finding the problem.
Also noticable is that after the backup failure, I can't seem to restore or format the external HDD. Once I connect it to a regular pcc and remove and reinstall the driver, I can use it again.
here is the logfile from the latest backup try:
Starting manual backup
Error determining directory contents for /Volumes/Time Machine: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “Time Machine” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7faa73422f70 {NSFilePath=/Volumes/Time Machine, NSUserStringVariant=(
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Error -36 applying backup protections to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok size:37
Error -36 applying backup protections to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok size:37
Backup failed with error: 2
Thanks in advance!

And I spoke too soon, backup just failed with:
22/10/2012 15:44:24.266 com.apple.backupd[555]: Stopping backup.
22/10/2012 15:44:24.267 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:24.267 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error: (-47) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Documentation/DocSets/com.apple.ADC_ Reference_Library.DeveloperTools.4_5.docset/Contents/Resources/Documents/recipes /xcode_help-project_editor/Art/BuildingTargetsintheCorrectOrder.m4v to /Volumes/Storage/Backups.backupdb/cizin/2012-10-22-152514.inProgress/ED608989-4 CF3-4713-8E62-3A32E8CC3917/Cizin/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Docum entation/DocSets/com.apple.ADC_Reference_Library.DeveloperTools.4_5.docset/Conte nts/Resources/Documents/recipes/xcode_help-project_editor/Art
22/10/2012 15:44:28.221 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Copied 249786 files (10.64 GB) from volume Cizin.
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Copy stage failed with error:11
22/10/2012 15:44:31.231 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Resource busy
22/10/2012 15:44:34.239 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Resource busy
22/10/2012 15:44:34.239 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:34.358 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Storage/Backups.backupdb/cizin size:37
22/10/2012 15:44:44.739 com.apple.backupd[555]: Backup failed with error: 11
Time fo a bug report.

I just restored my 13" MBP i5 at the apple store to the newest version of Lion after issues with a previous Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard- this time I created a new account and just ported files and folders, and now MS Office doesn't work. Help?

I just restored my 13" MBP i5 at the apple store to the newest version of Lion after issues with a previous Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard- this time I created a new account and just ported files and folders, and now MS Office doesn't work.
^^ that's the main problem. Here's the full history.
I bought a new 13" i5 MBP, early 2011 edition. I had an old white Macbook 2.14 ghz core2duo on Snow Leopard. I attempted to port over my time machine backup, but encountered problems in that my User was inaccessible from the new computer after the import finished, and I had to go in and change the root password, etc, and for some reason or another, I couldn't install any programs at all from that administrator's account. By "couldn't" I mean I could install them, but upon installation they would never boot. So, I took it to the apple store and did a clean install from the most up to date Lion OSX. Then, I created a brand new admin account, instead of trying to import the old one, and things seemed great. Then, I just imported my old files from the TM backup, but not any system settings, permissions, or user data. Just my Docs, pics, vids, apps, and itunes stuff.
Here's where things get weird again. I imported this stuff under the name "old", but all of these folders have a red negative sign on them, marking them as restricted. So, from my main admin account, I cannot even peruse these folders. Since I didn't import user data, I can't sign in to the "old" account to change permissions. I already tried to change the permissions from system preferences, but that didn't change anything. And now, for whatever reason, of all the apps that were imported then, MS Office is the only set of apps that does not work. When I click on it, it just says there was a problem and asks if I'd like to send a report to apple. I tried reinstalling it to no avail. I'm an English student, so i really need access to Word. Can anyone help? The Apple store is a major detour for me and would like to fix this issue myself.

Most likely you have Office 2004 which are PPC-only applications and will not work in Lion. Upgrade to Office 2011. Other alternatives are:
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.)
Open Office (Office 2007-like suite compatible with OS X.)
NeoOffice (similar to Open Office.)
LibreOffice (a new direction for the Open Office suite.)

3 TB external for Time Machine backup of /new/ 2 TB HD

i feel like i finally got things to stop moving around with my 2 year old move to mac and i am wondering the following:
i have a 3 tb external that is backing up my MacPro internal Snow Leopard drive that is 1 TB. I also have an additional 1 TB internal drive that is running a clone backup using CCC.
i would like to upgrade to Lion and have 2 - 2 TB Black Caviar drives that i am considering using to replace the 2 - 1TB drives listed above.
should i start my TIME MACHINE backup to the 3 TB drive /fresh/ and should i expect problems with a new 2 TB primary drive?
I just can't see dropping more cash on an even bigger drive but at the same time i could use the extra space with the 2TB primary drive.
TIA

Not to worry.
See item #E3 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Can't start with Snow Leopard Time Machine backup in Lion

Hi,
I have seen coverage in MacWorld (http://www.macworld.com/article/161421/2011/07/migrate_time_machine_backup_to_ne w_mac_in_lion.html) of using my Snow Leopard Time Machine backup as the starting point for my Lion TM backup. This saves all my revision history of all my documents and makes them available in Lion. However, when I follow the steps given in the MacWorld article, I don't get the same set of dialog boxes and am never given the option to use a previous disk.
Any hints to getting this to work would be much appreciated.
-Eric

A whole lot about Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
Pondini's Time Machine FAQ

Migrate Data from External (non time machine) backup to new HD

I have a late 2007 iMac that HD went bad. Only 51 sectors were bad and I was able to Carbon Copy off 99% of the data onto an external drive. I have gotten a new HD installed and have restored the Lion OS. My question is, How do I migrate all of the data that I was able to save to new system so everything is there? For example, all of my saved emails, Pictures, desktop, etc, etc.
Thanks for any help that you can give.
P.S. I tried renaming the Applications and System folders out of the way, starting the new drive at a "T"arget drive on the iMac and then copying those two folders (What would copy) onto the new HD on the iMac ... unfortunately it didn't show any success.
Thanks again!

Okay, I have finally completed the task that I set about trying to complete a week ago.
I reformatted the drive s instructed above as one partition of GUID Mac OS Journalled format.
I then wanted to clone my Time Machine back up hard drive to the new hard drive in Disk Utility. When I tried using the restore function, it would copy all the back-up's that had been created using "Backup", but would error out on the first app when copying the time machine backups.
Confused, I then tried Carbon Copy Cloner and it too errored out, but on the third app in the apps folder of the first time machine back up file.
Before giving up I tried to clone the hard drive using Super Duper!
11 hours later I now have a perfectly working cloned hard drive. I redirected my time machines to the new hard drive and it backed up to the correct folder as if nothing had changed. So all is good now and I just wanted to thank everyone for their advice.
Thanks.
PS. I have no idea why DU and CCC errored when copying... but at this point, I don't really care. It worked with Super Duper!

Help with Restoring from Time Machine Backup with new Hard Drive

Hello. Recently, my hard drive died in my 24" Early 2008 Aluminum iMac. Luckily, I had a time machine backup, and I took it upon myself to replace the 320 GB Hard Drive with a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda disk. The hardware replacement (although difficult) went fine. Now, I'm having a bit of trouble restoring the new drive from my time machine backup. The new disk shows up in Disk Utility with the correct capacity. I formatted the new drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using my installation disk. My only problem is that the drive isn't showing up when I am choosing which drive I want to restore my time machine backup onto. I can pick out the backup I want perfectly fine, but I can't find the new drive. Any help?

UPDATE: I restarted it (Classic IT Crowd "Have you tried turning it off and on" moment) and the drive shows up on screen. Right now, I'm waiting for it to "Calculate disk size needed for restore" and I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE 2: Currently restoring. Let's see if it's successful.
Message was edited by: funman895

How to take os recovery with out using time machine backup

I ve just bought a macbook pro & I m very new to MAC OS. I wanna to take recovery of only Original OS with out using time machine & I also dnt want 2 store my personal files & stuffs. Pls guys suggest some tips for recovering my os If any problem occurs in future.

S@ggy wrote:
I ve just bought a macbook pro & I m very new to MAC OS. I wanna to take recovery of only Original OS with out using time machine & I also dnt want 2 store my personal files & stuffs. Pls guys suggest some tips for recovering my os If any problem occurs in future.
It's not real clear what you want to do.
Do you mean you don't want to back up your personal data at all, just the operating system? If so, why? Usually it's the personal data -- documents, photos, videos, etc., that are most important to folks, so should be backed-up.
Or do you mean, you have some sensitive data that you don't want anyone to be able to recover if they get your backup disk? If so, Time Machine can encrypt the backups, so anyone without a backup can't recover anything.
Or something else?

Issues with restoring a Time Machine backup onto new Macbook Pro Retina

I recently got a new Macbook Pro Retina and I've been trying to restore a Time Machine backup made today from my old Macbook Pro laptop. I didn't restore from the first start up (foolishly, seemingly) simply because of the trivial reason of wanting to see the system all clean and new.
I've tried the Migration Assistant but it gets stuck on "looking for source..", despite having the ex.HD plugged in and double checking the existance of the backup itself on the ex.HD.
I've also tried booting the laptop up in the 'restore' mode (cmd R) and restoring from there but it sends me in a constant loop of 'this backup was from a previous model of laptop' or something to that affect. It also doesn't display the recent backups at all, only displaying those from the beginning of this year for some reason. All backups are in the same place on the ex.HD so its not an issue with locating the backups.
Really stuck on this one! Would really appreciate some help!
Thanks a lot, and merry Christmas

Yes, you can restore to another machine if needs be.

Total iMac failure! Please help. Problems with freezing, and time machine

My iMac has started to go crazy over the last week. It started crashing repeatedly, so much so that it could take me 10 tries just to get it going. I was able to run disk warrior and disk utility and neither of those came up with any issues. I took it into the apple store and they repaired permissions and cleared the cache and of course nothing happened while the mac was in the store.
When I came home I started trying to clear out excess files and organize to save space and memory. I downloaded cleanmymac as well as crucial.com's scanner as recommended by the mac genius. Unfortunately, that night after everything had been working fine, the computer started crashing all over again. I get lines through my screen, it locks up, things get distorted, etc.
In addition, I noticed today that all of my time machine backups have been deleted from my machine. The only one that exists is a huge one that was created the day after it was examined at the store. I have no idea how that happened as I have not touched the time machine settings. To make matters worse, the time machine will not even back up now. It says there isn't enough space. (There are 160GB available). Shouldn't it just be making incremental backups? All I am doing at this point is deleting files anyway!
If anyone has any suggestions at all, please offer them!!!

Hi, unfortunately it sounds as though your Mac needs the attentions of an Apple Service Technician.
You do not say how old your Mac is or if you have Applecare..
In any event I feel you will do best as I previously said -> Apple Service Technician.
Don't forget to L I S T all your issues/worries......L

Problems trying to restore Time Machine backup to a new computer

Hi there-
I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro and want to downgrade it from Lion to Snow Leopard. I have Time Machine backups from my slightly older MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. However, when I attempt to restore from the Snow Leopard backup, I get a message stating I can't restore that backup because it was done on a different computer. Is there a way around this so that I can essentially just overwrite my new computer with my latest backup of the older running Snow Leopard? Thanks in advance-

I should say though, I don't know for sure if a complete disk wipe will allow you to boot off the 10.6.3 Snow Leopard disks or not, as I don't fully understand how the firmware works. There are two parts I know of, the hardware firmware and the EFI software firmware.
EFI supposedly has it's own partition on the drive, which should be able to be completly erased.. When I installed rEFIt however (it's a alternate firmware allowing me to boot other operating systems), it required two reboots for it to take hold.
I also should say I've never taken a factory Lion installed machine and put Snow Leopard on it.
So far what I've been able to determine is the firmware is blocking the booting of the 10.6.3 disks (the only retail version there is) so you can't install Snow Leopard, if the firmware can be flashed to a earlier verison the 10.6.3 disks should boot as the hardware drivers for 2011 MBP's reside on the 10.6.3 disks.
But if you have a second Mac, then the target disk mode of the link above should work, you can also create a large HFS+ journaled partition in Disk Utility in Lion and then use Target Disk mode of the other Mac to install Snow Leopard there.
I wish you luck, you might have to visit MacRumors or another Mac site to get further information. The Lion machines are very new, Apple is resisting attempts to downgrade from Lion to Snow Leopard and not many have done it yet.
I bought my machine pre-Lion so I can stick with Snow and avoid the Lion pain, but have it on another older Mac for experimental puposes (quad boot).
I'm pretty sure rEFIt will allow you to boot off the 10.6.3 disks.
I'm sorry if I couldn't have been more help, I'm still learning how to get around this 10.6.3 block myself.
If I had a factory Lion machine, I would most certainly post a blog how to downgrade the SOB to 10.6 somehow.

Help with configuration of Time Machine backups on a wireless network

Hello,
I was wondering if someone could help me with the configuration of Time Machine on a wireless network. I have it working some what but I am unsure if this is the best way or if it is the right way.
I have a G4 Mac mini connected to a Airport Extreme base station via ethernet.
I have a Lacie 500GB USB drive connected to the Mac mini (Lacie is formatted GUID)
I have a Macbook that I connect via wireless to the Airport and perform backups to the Lacie 500GB via wireless.
I initially had the USB drive connected to the Macbook and Time Machine worked flawlessly.
Now that I have the setup mentioned above configured, Time Machine works but... now instead of creating folders under the Backups.backupdb folder it is doing a initial backup of everything and creating a .sparsebundle file.
I am not sure if this is working correctly? Have I configured it correctly?
Permission on the Lacie? I am also controlling the Mac mini using ARD.
Perhaps I should format the drive and start from scratch and identifying the Lacie 500GB as the Time Machine backup drive for the Macbook.
I am NOT backing up the Mac mini to the Lacie 500GB
Another question is of course the initial backup over wireless will be very slow but after that it should be quicker as only files that change are backed up correct?
Hope to have some feedback on this as I believe a lot of people are trying this setup as a workaround to not being able to backup to a Airport USB drive.
Macbook and Mac mini are both using latest Leopard with updates.

James I think what you've done is correct. The thing to be aware of is that TM backs up to a directly connected HD using a Folder and deposits data into this folder in Finder format making it easy to navigate. When TM backs up to your networked HD attached to the Mac mini as you've configured for your MacBook a sparsebundle disk image is created by TM.
Now when TM on the MacBook executes it will auto mount that sparsebundle disk image on the MacBook to perform the backup and then dismounts it.
If you invoke the TM browser on your MacBook while the TM backup is in progress the TM browser has something to work with and will display the TM history. If however, on your MacBook you launch the TM browser when the TM backup is not executing you will see no history. What you need to do is to mount that network Mac mini LaCie 500GB USB HD on your MacBook and I believe you can then see the TM history.
This is very similar to the AirDisk feature that Apple dropped off from the TM feature list just prior to Leopard GM release on Occ 26.
Now having said all that, I'm a little puzzled why the TM browser launched on the MacBook isn't auto mounting your backup volume (the LaCie USB HD) as this is clearly what's required. This maybe a bug that should be reported to Apple via their Feedback process.
Hopefully I've understood your configuration and what you've posted as an issue(s).

Help with restoring from Time Machine Backup from another computer

I was required to dump my Mac OSX on my MacBook Pro and convert to a windows machine to use a testing software that did not allow boot camp. Before doing so, I backed up my hard drive to a partition of my iMac via a wireless connection. I am now using a boot disk to try to restore my system from the Time Machine backup on the iMac. I have logged onto my wireless network, but the Mac OSX Installer just keeps saying "Searching for Time Machine Backups..." My iMac is on (typing this now) and is active on the network. What do I need to do to be able to see my Time Machine backup from my MacBook Pro?

Hi m,
I don't know if this would make a difference or not, but you could try booting the iMac in FireWire Target Disk Mode.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

How to use an external as Time Machine backup that was previously a Time Machine backup

My MacBook Pro drive died a few months ago. Thankfully it was fully backed up to an external with Time Machine. I seem to grab something from the backup every week from various libraries, but I now need to back up my new drive. I am cheap and do not want to buy yet another external especially as the older backup is a TB and nowhere near full. Does anyone know if I can use the old external with the old HD back-up as a back-up for the new drive without having to erase and reformat (i.e., keep the old HD back-up in tact)? Thanks in advance for a response.

You can use it, provided there's enough space, but to be safe you really need more than one backup.

Link my Macbook with an existing time machine backup of the same macbook.

I am using time machine via an airport extreme with an external drive. This works fine most of the time. But sometimes time machine loses the connection with the airport extreme. Instead of refinding the backup location I have to set the whole thing up again and the macbook will start a complete new backup instead of taking the existing backup as a starting point. How can I tell time machine to use the ols backup as a starting point?

No. Only those Apps that are not installed on the new will migrate over.

Problem with external HD Time Machine Backup

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