Recover files with no Time Machine Backup and disk 'can't be repaired'

My Macbook Air (Mac OS X 10.7.4) was acting funny for a few days (crashing Safari, crashing Mozilla, crashing other third party software, requiring reboot, etc.). When I tried to reboot it, a loading bar and a rotating wheel came, but got switched off. It happened every time I tried. I got into Recovery mode (by pressing Command + R) to fix the disk. The disk could not be fixed. I tried reinstalling MacOSX, but it is not showing any disk to reinstall the OS in. I do not have Time Machine On.
I have some really important pictures and documents in the Mac. I want to save these files before I erase the whole disk. Any advice?
Thank you!
TL;DR
Mac dies while booting
Disk can not be fixed
Shows no disk to reinstall the MacOSX in
Never switched on the Time Machine
Want to save important files before deleting whole disk

One of the data recovery apps needs to be run on the disk. You have some options, none good:
• Take your Mac to an AppleStore (make a reservation at: http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/), or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (start here to find one: https://locate.apple.com/country). They won't run the recovery, but can tell if the drive is physically damaged. If so, and your Mac is under a year old, or covered by AppleCare, you won't have to pay for the replacement, but be sure to get the old drive back. It can then be put into an enclosure, making it an external HD for use with one of the other options:
• Take your Mac (or the drive) to a recovery service. They'll charge a large fee, and return an external HD with whavever data they can recover. You'd then need to erase the internal HD, install OSX, and try to reassembe your data from the external.
• Do it yourself. Buy an external HD (better, get two: one 3-4 times the size of the data on your Mac) and do it yourself. You'll install OSX on it and run from it to recover whatever data you can to the other external:
Start from the Recovery HD and format them both for a Mac (even if they say Mac Ready). See #1 in Using Disk Utility if you're not sure how to do that.
Then install OSX on one of them. When your Mac restarts, it will start from the external, and you'll set up a user account, etc, just as with a new Mac. When it starts again, you'll be running from a "bare-bones" system on the external HD.
Get one of the data recovery apps, install it on the external, and follow it's instructions to try to recover your stuff to the other external. As noted in the yellow box in the link above, you may get a lot of the orginal folder structure back, so you can just drag things to the proper location on the external you're running from. But you may find some or many files with partial names, perhaps numbers, etc. Some may have extensions you can identify (such as .png or .jpg), some may not. Try to open them and see what they are.
If you don't recover a lot, and are willing to spend yet more $$, you might try a different recovery app -- often one will recover things a different one can't.
When you've gotten everything you can off the internal HD, reformat it, then "clone" the external OSX drive to it and restart from the internal.
Then start making regular backups. If you want to use Time Machine, erase and use the one thats 3-4 times the size of the data it's backing up.
Also make periodic "secondary" backups to the other drive. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question
#27 for an explanation and some suggestions.

Similar Messages

Help Incomplete Time Machine Backup and I can't set ownership options

Two days ago my iMac HD stopped working and I decided it was time to upgrade my machine so I purchased a new iMac with Mavericks installed. I seem to only have a partial Time Machine Backup located on my NAS drive, so I read various threads about how to manually retrieve files from the .inprogress file. I was able to browse the package contents and when I navigated to Macintosh HD the folder was greyed out and when I attempt to open the folder it looks empty. When I select get info the Macintosh HD folder shows almost 80GB and over 160,000 files inside. I tried copying the folder onto the desktop which failed and also onto an external drive formatted the same way as the NAS - Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Case Sensitive). Everytime I try it says something along the lines of me not having the ownership rights to copy the file over.
I tried going to the NAS drive and the mounted sparsefile and couldn't figure out how to get the ignore ownership on this volume option. When I go to Disk Utility it says Owners Enabled Yes, I can't figure out how to turn that off to let me copy the file over. I tried some recommendations about creating an Alias to Macintosh HD and also setting up Automator actions Get Selected Finder Items > Get Folder Contents > Open Finder Items > Copy Finder Items (to desktop or external drive) both of these failed.
I also don't understand why I can't view the files inside the greyed out Macintosh HD as get info shows many files inside. The sharing and permissions already says everyone can read. Is there anyway I can recover some of the files? It would be so great!
Thanks for helping me.

I solved the problem and I hope this solution can help others with incomplete Time Machine Backups.
1. I made sure hidden files were shown by pasting the following line into Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true ; killall Finder
2. On NAS drive I have a folder called Time Machine Backup and inside that folder it lists the different users with Time Machine Backups. I double clicked the user with the incomplete time machine backup to mount it.
3. Once mounted there should be a folder called backups.backupdb > machine name > dateandtime.inprogress. I right click that .inprogress file and selected show package contents. This lead to another folder randomly named with numbers and text. Inside that folder you should see a greyed out Macintosh HD folder. The date of the greyed out Macintosh HD folder might read something like January 24th, 1984. This appears to be the date that the Macintosh 128k was first introduced. I read on another thread that the creation date of the folder is incorrectly set after a crash resulting in the greyed out folder.
4. Due to the NAS having ownership issues I was not able to drag either the greyed out Macintosh HD or the folder above it to an external drive or the desktop of my new computer. Automator didn't work either. Here is what did work: I trashed the folder with the greyed out Macintosh HD inside from the NAS and dragged it from the trash onto my desktop. The move took a few hours to complete and the files were now all successfully on the new computer.
5. Once on the desktop the Macintosh HD folder was still greyed out. The solution was to select in the finder: View > Show Path Bar, then search for any file you remember inside your backup. For example I searched the word download and files inside the greyed out Macintosh HD folder showed up. Left clicking the file confirmed the path, that it was from the greyed out Macintosh HD folder. Now you can simply right click one of the folders in the Path Bar and open in new tab if you have Mavericks. I still couldn't directly open the Macintosh HD folder in a new tab, but I could open any of the subfolders inside in a new tab, including the users which lets you access all the backup files. I tested in Mountain Lion that you can also choose Open in Enclosing Folder by right clicking the file that you searched for or right clicking the folder in the bottom of the Path Bar.
6. Once I was done organizing backup files, I turned off hidden files by pasting this line into Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false ; killall Finder
This took me days to figure out how to make use of an .inprogress file and greyed out Macintosh HD folder.
Hope this helps!!!

I want a new and more powerful (non-Apple) wireless router but I still want to use my existing Time Capsule to continue with my Time Machine backups and I still need the Time Capsule's Network Attached Storage (NAS) features and capabilities

THE SHORTER STORY
My goal is to successfully use my existing Time Capsule (TC) with a new and more powerful wireless router. I need a new and more powerful wireless router in order to reach a distant Denon a/v receiver that is physically located in a master bedroom some 50 feet away from my modem. I need to provide this Denon a/v receiver with an Internet connection so that it can obtain its firmware updates and I need to connect this Denon a/v receiver to my network in order to use its AirPlay feature. I believe l still need the TC's Network Attached Storage (NAS) features because I am not sure if the new wireless router will provide me with the NAS like features / capabilities I need to share files between my two Apple laptops with OS X 10.8.2. And I know that I absolutely need my TC's seamless integration with Apple's Time Machine (TM) application in order to continue to make effortless backups of my two Apple laptops. To my knowledge nothing works with TM like Apple's TC. I also need the hard disk storage space built into the TC.
I cannot use a long wired Ethernet cable connection in this apartment and I cannot use power-line adapters. I have read that wireless range extenders and repeaters are difficult to successfully set-up and that they will reduce data speeds, especially so when incorrectly set-up. I cannot relocate my modem and/or primary base station wireless router.
In short, I want to use my TC with my new and more powerful wireless router. I need to stop using the TC to connect to the modem. However, I still need the TC for seamless TM backups. I also need to use the TC's built in hard drive for storage. And I may still need the TC's NAS capabilities to share files wirelessly between laptops because I am assuming the new wireless router will not provide NAS capabilities for OS X 10.8.2 (products like this/non-Apple products rarely seem to work with OS X 10.8.2/Macs to provide NAS features and capabilities). Finally, I want to continue to use my Apple laptop and AirPlay to wirelessly access and play my iTunes music collection stored on the TC's hard drive. I also want to continue to use my Apple laptop, AirPlay and Apple TV to wirelessly watch movies and TV shows stored on the additional external hard drive connected to the TC via USB. Can someone please advise on how to set-up my new Asus wireless router with my existing TC in such a way to accomplish all of this?
What is the best configuration or set-up to accomplish my above goals?
Thank you in advance for your assistance!!!
THE FULL STORY
I live in an apartment building where my existing Time Capsule (TC) is located in my living room and serves many purposes. Specially, my TC is at least all of the following:
(1) Wi-Fi router connected to Comcast Internet service via Motorola SB6121 cable modem - currently the TC is the Wi-Fi base station that connects to the modem and has the gateway address to the Internet. The TC now provides the DHCP service for the Wi-Fi network.
(2) Wireless router providing Internet and Wi-Fi network access to several Wi-Fi clients - two Apple laptop computers, an iPod touch, an iPad and an iPhone all connect wirelessly to the Internet via the TC.
(3) Wired Ethernet router providing Internet and Wi-Fi network access to three different devices - a Panasonic TV, LG Blu-Ray player and an Apple TV each use one of the three LAN ports on the back of the TC to gain access to the Internet.
(4) Primary base station in my attempt to extend my wireless network to a distant (located far away) Denon a/v receiver requiring a wired Ethernet connection - In addition to the TC, which is my primary base station, I am also using a second extended Wi-Fi base station (a Netgear branded product) to wirelessly extend my WiFi network to a Denon receiver located in the master bedroom and requiring a wired Ethernet connection. I cannot use a wired Ethernet connection to continuously travel from the living room to the master bedroom. The distance is too great as I cannot effectively hide the Ethernet cable in this apartment.
(5) Time Machine (TM) backup facilitator - I use my TC to wirelessly back-up two Apple laptops using Apple's Time Machine (TM) application. However, I ran out of storage space on my TC and therefore added external storage to it. Specifically, I added an external hard drive to my TC via the USB port on the back of the TC. I now use this added external hard drive connected to the TC via USB as the destination storage drive for my TM back-ups. I have partitioned the added external hard drive, and each of the several partitions all have enough storage space (e.g., each of the two partitions used by TM are sized at three times the hard drive space of each laptop, etc.). Everything works flawlessly.
(6) Network Attached Storage (NAS) - In addition to using the TC's Network Attached Storage (NAS) capabilities to wirelessly back-up two Apple laptops via TM, I also store other additional files on both (A) the hard drive built into the TC and (B) the additional external hard drive connected to the TC via USB (there are additional separate partitions on this drive for these other additional and non-TM backup files).
I use the TC's NAS feature with my Apple laptop and AirPlay to wirelessly access and play my iTunes music collection stored on the TC's hard drive. I also use my Apple laptop, AirPlay and Apple TV to wirelessly watch movies and TV shows stored on the additional external hard drive connected to the TC via USB. Again, everything works wirelessly and flawlessly. (Note: the Apple TV is connected to the network via Ethernet and a LAN port on the back of the TC).
The issue I am having is when I try to listen to music via Apple's AirPlay in the master bedroom. This master bedroom is located at a distance of two rooms away from the TC's current location in the living room, which is a distance of about 50 feet. This apartment has a long rectangular floor plan where each room is connected to the next in a straight line. In order to use AirPlay in the master bedroom I am using a second extended Wi-Fi base station (a Netgear branded product) to wirelessly extend my WiFi network to a Denon receiver located in the master bedroom and requiring a wired Ethernet connection. This additional base station connects wirelessly to the WiFi network provided by my TC and then gives my Denon receiver the wired Ethernet connection it needs to use AirPlay. I have tried moving my iTunes music directly onto my laptop's hard drive, and then I used AirPlay on this same laptop to connect to the Denon receiver. I always get a successful connection and the song plays, but the problem is that the connection inevitably drops.
I live in an apartment building and all of the many wireless routers in this building create a great deal of WiFi interference on both the 2.4 GHz and 5GHz bands. I have tried connecting the Netgear product to each the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, but neither band can successfully maintain a wireless connection between the TC and the Netgear product. I also attempted to maintain a wireless connection to an iPod touch using the 2.4 GHz band and AirPlay on this iPod touch to play music on the Denon receiver. Again, I was able to establish a connection and successfully play music, but after a few minutes the connection dropped and the music stopped playing. I therefore have concluded that I have a poor wireless connection in the master bedroom. I can establish a connection, but it is intermittent with frequent drops. I have verified this with both laptops by working in the master bedroom for an entire day on both laptops. The Internet connection in this master bedroom proved to drop out frequently - about once an hour with the laptops. The wireless connection and the frequency of its dropout are far worse with the iPod touch and an iPhone.
I cannot relocate the TC. Also, this is an apartment and I therefore cannot extend the range of my network with Ethernet cable (I cannot drill through walls/ceilings, etc.). It is an old building with antiquated wiring and power-line adapters are not likely to function properly, nor can I spare the direct power outlet required with a power-line adapter. I simply need every outlet I can get and cannot afford to block any direct outlet.
My solution is to use a more powerful wireless router. I found the ASUS RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router which will likely provide a better connection to my wireless Internet in the master bedroom than the TC. The 802.11ac band of this Asus wireless router is totally useless to me, but based on what I have read I believe this router will provide a stronger connection at greater distances then my TC. And I will be ready for 802.11ac when it becomes more widely available.
However, I still need to maintain the TC's ability to work seamlessly with TM to backup my two laptops. Also, I doubt the new Asus router will provide OS X 10.8.2 with NAS like features and capabilities. Therefore, I still would like to use the TC's NAS capabilities to share files on my network wirelessly assuming the Asus wireless router fails to provide this feature. I need a new and more powerful wireless router, but I need to maintain the TC's NAS features and seamless integration with TM. Finally, I want to continue to use my Apple laptop and AirPlay to wirelessly access and play my iTunes music collection stored on the TC's hard drive. I also want to continue to use my Apple laptop, AirPlay and Apple TV to wirelessly watch movies and TV shows stored on the additional external hard drive connected to the TC via USB. Can someone advise on how to set-up my existing TC with this new Asus wireless router in such a way to accomplish all of this?
Modem
Motorola SB6121 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem
Existing Wireless Router and Primary Wi-Fi Base Station - Apple Time Capsule
Apple Time Capsule MC343LL/A 1TB Sim DualBand (purchased June 2010, likely the Winter 2009 Model)
Desired New Wireless Router and Primary Wi-Fi Base Station - Non-Apple Asus
ASUS RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router
Extended Wi-Fi Base Station - Provides an Ethernet Connection to a Denon A/V Receiver Two Rooms Away from the Modem
Netgear Universal Dual Band Wireless Internet Adapter for TV & Blu-Ray (WNCE3001)
Addition External Hard Drive Attached to the Existing Apple Time Capsule via USB
WD My Book Studio 4TB Mac External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0
Existing Laptops on the Wireless Network Requiring Time Machine Backups
MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012) OS X 10.8.2
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2010) OS X 10.8.2
Other Existing Apple Products (Clients) on the Wireless Network
iPod Touch (second generation) is model A1288.
iPad (1st generation)
Apple TV (3rd generation) - Quantity two (2)

Thanks Bob Timmons.
In regards to a Plan B, I hear ya brother. I am already on what feels like Plan Z. Getting WiFi to a far off room in an apartment building crowded with WiFi routers is a major pain.
I am basing my thoughts on the potential of a new and more powerful router reaching the far off master bedroom based on positive reviews on cnet.com, pcmag.com and pcworld.com. All 3 of these web sites have reviewed the Asus RT-AC66U 802.11AC wireless router as well as its virtual twin cousin 802.11n router. What impressed me is that all 3 sites rated this router #1 overall in terms of both range and speed (in both the 802.11n and 802.11AC flavors). They tested the router in real world scenarios where the router needed to compete with a lot of other wireless routers. One of the sites even buried this Asus router in a media room with thick walls and inside a media cabinet. This Asus router should be able to serve my 2.4 GHz band wireless clients (iPod Touch and iPhone 4) with a 2.4GHz Wireless-N band offering some 50 feet of dependable range and a 60 Mbps throughput at that range. I am hoping that works, but it's borderline for my master bedroom. My 5 GHz wireless clients (laptops) will enjoy a 5GHz Wireless-N band offering 150 feet of range and a 200 Mbps throughput at that range. I have no idea what most of that stuff means, but I did also read that Asus could reach 300 feet and I got really excited. My mileage may vary of course and I'm sure I'm making some mistakes in my interpretation of their data. However, my Winter 2009 Time Capsule was rated by cnet.com to deliver real world performance of less than that, and 802.11AC may or may not be useful to me someday. But when this Asus arrives and provides anything other than an excellent and consistent wireless signal without drops in the master bedroom it's going right back!
Your solution sounds great, but I have some questions. I'm using OS X 10.8.2 and Airport Utility (version 6.1 610.31) and on its third tab labeled "Wireless" the top option enables you to set "Network Mode" to either:
Create a wireless network
Extend a wireless network
Off
Given your advice to "Turn off the wireless on the TC," should I set Network Mode to Off? Sorry, I'm clueless in regards to how to turn off the wireless on the TC any other way. Can you provide specific steps on how to turn off the wireless on the TC? If what I wrote is correct then what should the rest of this Wireless tab look like, or perhaps it is irrelevant when wireless is off?
Next, what do you mean by "Configure the TC in Bridge Mode?" Under Airports Utility's fourth tab labeled "Network" the top option "Router Mode" allows for either:
DHCP and Nat
DHCP Only
Off (Bridge Mode)
Is your advice to Configure the TC in Bridge Mode as simple as setting Router Mode to Off (Bridge Mode)? If yes, then what should the rest of this "Network" tab look like? Anything else involved in configuring the TC in Bridge Mode or is it really as simple as setting the Router Mode to "Off (Bridge Mode)"?
How about the other tabs in Airport Utility, can they all stay as is assuming I use the same network name and password for the new Asus wireless router? Or do I need to make any other changes to the TC via Airport Utility?
Finally, in regards to your Plan B suggestion. I agree. But do you have a Plan B for me? I would greatly appreciate any alternative you could provide. Specifically, if you needed a TC's Internet connection to reach a far off corner of your home how would you do it? In the master bedroom I need both a wired Ethernet connection for the Denon a/v receiver and wireless Internet connection for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Power-Line Adapters - High Cost, Blocks at Least One Wall Outlet and Does Not Solve the Wireless Need
I actually like exactly one power-line adapter, which is the D-Link DHP-540 PowerLine AV 500 4-Port Gigabit Switch. This D-Link power-line adapter plugs into your wall outlet with a normal sized plug (regular standard power cord much like any other electronic device) instead of all of the other recommended power-line adapters that not only use at least one wall outlet but also often block the second outlet. You cannot use a power strip with a power-line adapter which is very impractical for me. And everything about my home is strange and upside down. The wiring here is a disaster and I don't have faith in its ability to carry Internet access from the living room to the master bedroom. And this D-Link power-line adapter costs $90 each and I need at least two to make the connection to the Denon A/V receiver. So, $180 on this solution and I still don't have a dependable drop free wireless connection in the master bedroom. The Denon might get its Ethernet Internet connection from the power-line adapter, but if I want to use an iPhone 4 or iPod Touch to stream AirPlay music to the Denon wirelessly (Pandora/iTunes, etc.) from the master bedroom the wireless connection will not be stable in there and I've already spent $190 on just the two power-line adapters needed.
Extenders / Repeaters / Wirelessly Extending the Wireless Network
I have also read great things about the Amped Wireless High Power Wireless-N 600mW Gigabit Dual Band Range Extender (Repeater) SR20000G and the My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender. The former is very powerful and the latter is easier to install. Both cost about $150 ish so similar to a new Asus router. However, everything I read about Range Extenders points to them not being very effective for a far off corner of your house wherein it's apparently hard to place the range extender in the sweet spot where it both gets a strong enough signal to actually effectively extend the wireless signal and otherwise does not reduce network throughput speeds to unacceptable speeds.
Creating a Roaming Network By Hard Wiring with Ethernet Cable - Wife Would Say, "**** No!"
Even Apple seems to warn against wirelessly extending your network (see: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4145#) and otherwise strongly recommends a roaming network where Ethernet cable is used to connect two wireless base stations. However, I am in an apartment where stringing together two wireless base stations with Ethernet cable would have an extremely low wife acceptance factor (WAF). I cannot (both contractually and from a skill prospective) hide Ethernet wire in the walls or ceiling. And having visible Ethernet cable running from room-to-room would be unacceptable, especially to the wife.
So what is left? Do you have a Plan B for me? Thanks in advance for your help!

Can I manually recover files from a Time Machine backup?

I'm just about to perform a fresh install of OS X Lion. I plan to re-install the apps I need from scratch so only need my files backed up (iTunes/Aperture library, documents folder etc). At the moment I have time machine backing up to an external USB disk.
Do I need to copy my Music/Pictures/Documents folders to another USB disk before doing a fresh install of Lion or can I just copy/paste them from my time machine backup disk (would save a lot of time)? I don't want to do a time machine recovery, recover preferences or apps etc - just manually recover my data.
Thanks.

JBF80 wrote:
I want to copy all of my files, but not settings or applications. I'm happy to copy/paste the Documents, Pictures and Music directories from the TM disk.
Well, that is what I said ("You can customize what to transfer")

Recover bookmarks between last time machine backup and reinstallation of OS

I recently had to reinstall my OS and use a time machine backup from about a month ago. I had bookmarked several pages between the last backup and when I reinstalled my OS. I did not save my bookmarks folder onto a flash drive beforehand (I know, I should have...). Does Firefox save my bookmarks online in a profile anywhere?

It's early 2011.
I have been able to purchase the upgrade under my username at the upgrade price. I didn't know that Lion stays under the previous owner's Apple account. I mean I got that when I tried putting the Lion Iso on a bootable drive (for the purpose of bootcamp) it said I needed the username and password of the Lion purchaser, but I went to get my own license then, but it was Mountain Lion at the upgrade price. I didn't think it had anything to do with my backup.
So looking back, that seems like a warning Apple should have put out for people to be wary of. "Hey, don't buy a laptop from someone and then upgrade, you'll lose everything." That's a load of crap. I thought I had no worries as long as I had a backup. I've never needed a backup, then the one time I thought I was in good hands. Nope, I try to do something, and it takes everything from me. That was a lot of data worth of stuff. 550 Gigs! I was shocked and in complete disbelief the moment I realized what I had done.
I just don't want to give this up.

I changed the name of my imac to reflect it's new location, but inadvertently, it unchecked the box to allow the administrative user account to administer the machine. I am trying to reinstall with a time machine backup and am unable

I need a little help. I changed the name of my imac to reflect it's new location, but inadvertently, when I saved the change, the system unchecked the "allow this account to administer the computer" so now I can't make any changes.... I tried to reinstall the OS, but it wants me to go online while installing and use my apple id, but this is not my iMAC, so I don't want to use my account. Also, I am working in a building that will not allow me network access until I authenticate, which can't be done unless I open the browser first. So I'm stuck at this point. I can't even restore a time machine backup that I have because it gives the error message that the system encountered an error. Any suggestions?

Ask the admin/owner to sign in.

How do I recover files from a Time Machine backup after a clean system reinstall?

I had a really funky problem with my Japanese input that is too weird (and irrelevant at this point) to go into here. The gist is that I took my 13-inch, Mid-2012 MacBook Air to the Apple Store in Osaka, and one of their geniuses told me he couldn't isolate the cause and that the only solution was to do a complete reinstall. Of course, I had backed up my whole disk to my Time Capsule before going to the store. The problem is, I cannot do a straight backup, because that will simply bring back the unsolvable problem.
I got the MacBook Air home and used the moving assistant utlity (sorry, I don't know the English name for it since my system's in Japanese) to resinstall all my applications. So far so good. The problem is, I have no idea how to get my files, photos, music, and movies from the Time Capsule into my new account. I didn't see any option for that when I ran the moving assistant utility, and I absolutely do not want to resinstall anything from the old Library Folder.
When I go into Time Machine mode, pinks lines on the right side of the screen indicate that Time Machine has all my old backups there, but when I try to navigate to them, I get only an empty black window. I assume that's because Time Machine does not recognize my old account and new account as the same account (and indeed there is no reason at this point that it should, since I don't know how to link them).
Any help would be very much appreciated.

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

How do I remove files from my Time Machine Backup and then how to exclude external hard drives from Time Machine?

How can I remove external hard drives from the Time Machine and exclude them in the future?

For deleting backups from Time Machine: http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
For excluding things from backups: http://pondini.org/TM/10.html
For general Time Machine advice (all courtesy of Pondini): http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

If you have been backing up on Timemachine.
All you need to do is enter time machine... Then the rest is obvious.
Find the iTunes folder and hit 'Restor'.
If not the only way to get all your iTunes music back is to enter iTunes Store.
On the right hand side you should see 'Purchased'.
Click 'purchased' and there you have it.

The iPhoto library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Reopen iPhoto with the Option key held down to choose another library.

I recently tried to look up my pictures on my time machine back up on an external hard drive. As soon as I try to open it I get the following message.
"The iPhoto library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Reopen iPhoto with the Option key held down to choose another library."
I have tried holding down the option key but still couldn't few the photos.
I want to know if there is anyway I can actually view these photos. I have over 85gbs of photos on the hard drive. I have tried googling and looking at pervious forums with the same problem but nothing is working.
Please help!

Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu. Search for "Restore items backed up with Time Machine."

HT201250 if my drive with my time machine backup becomes corrupt, what is a good tool to recover it?

if my drive with my time machine backup becomes corrupt, what is a good tool to recover it?

 Data recovery efforts explained
 Most commonly used backup methods explained

Time Machine backup and main drive corrupted. Help! (REWARD OFFERED)

Here's the deal:
I have a Macbook Pro and a Mac Mini both runnign Snow Leopard. I use the Mac Mini as a kind of media center / server, it has a few external drives connected to it. On of these drives (1GB) is dedicated to Time Machine, the Mac Mini (80 GB hard drive) backs up to it directly and the Macbook Pro (500 GB hard drive) does it over the network (Time Machine created a sparsebundle). This has worked well for years now. Occasionally I got the error that Time Machine needed to start a new backup because the old one was corrupt. That happened about 2-3 times a year (did the same thing when I backued up via USB). Now about 2 weeks ago, that error came up and I just let the Macbook Pro on overnight and connected the ethernet cable for faster transfer.
When I woke up, the Macbook Pro didn't respont at all, spinning beachball, no response at all beside mouse movement. I let it do it's thing for another 10 hours (while I was at work) and just held down the power button to power off and restart it. But all I got was the gray-on-gray flashing folder with the question mark in it, that's what you get when the Mac can't find bootable partitions. So I popped in the OSX Snow Leopard install disk, ran disk utility. It saw the hard drive, but no partition (i.e. Machintosh HD) on it. I checked the Time Machine backup and the sparsebundle was 300 GB (the Macbook Pro had 400 GB used, the remaining 100 GB were free). There is no way to restore from an unfinished Time Machine backup...
First thing I did was clone the internal (Macbook Pro) hard drive to a DMG disk image using DiskDrill (the only program I found that could recognize the drive at all, not even DiskWarrior could). I also bought the exact same hard drive model and partitioned it like the cloned the corrupted hard drive to the new one using ddrescue (a command line tool that doesn't quit upon i/o errors but proceeds and tries to recover as much as it can). It copied everything except 65 kilobytes, the corrupted drive seemed to be physically damaged in a bunch of sectors relatively at the beginning of the disk. Since I had now an exact copy on a fresh, healthy drive, I went crazy trying out Disk Warrior (didn't recognize the drive at all), data rescue, testdisc, p a Windows isk, etc. Only R-Studio (on windows) showed the EFI and Macintosh HD partitions on there, they started and ended on the same sectors on the corrupted drive and its clone. After some research, I figured that the partition table was corrupt so I reformated the clone disk using the OSX Snow Leopard install disk (1 HFS Journaled Partition with GUID Partition table). R-Studio showed the EFI and Macintosh HD on that reformated drive, again, same sectors as before. So I figured I could just copy just the bytes where the Macintosh HD starts from the corrupted drive to the clone (using ddrescue). That worked, after almost 24 hours, I had the clone drive with a "disk1" partition on it that even disk utility could see.
Now I was able to run Disk Warrior on it, but all it could do was recover a few Application folders (Resource-Folders and lproj-stuff), about 100 MB in total. It couldn't repair more of catalog file apparently. Luckily, Time Machine backed up quite a bit (300 GB out of 400 GB of data) and I was able to manually copy all the Dokuments, Desktop, user Library, Applications, Music, Download and Movies. Unfortunatley, only a little bit of the Pictures folder was copied. iPhoto library (80 to 100 GB) was nowhere to be found, backup must have failed right then. I can salvage the drives (time machine drive, original hard drive with a few broken sectors, DMG-image of that drive, 1-1 copy of that drive with partition table repaired) but that only gives me files with numeric names and today's date on teh JPEGs (instead of the date the picture was taken).
Is there any way I can recover that iPhoto library? It appears the catalog file got corrupted because the hard drive (only 8 months old...) failed on a few sectors. If I understand it correctly, the catalog file on HFS+ file systems is where the folder structure and file names are stored in a B-Tree. I can't imagine that some i/o error during backup can totally annihilate that file when it was working perfectly before. Here's a few things I want to try out but haven't figured out how so far:
- Time Machine had to start a new backup. There's plenty of free space on that drive so there's a good chance there's old data left on it. Is there a way to restore files (including file names) and fodlers from deleted time machine backups?
- Is there any way to re-build that catalog file from what is there left on the original hard drive? I can't imagine 65 kilobytes destroys it all.
- Are there other ways to recover my iPhoto Library? The raw JPEG (and AVI) files with correct file names or metadata would suffice.
Thanks in advance for any help, I'll actually reward the person with a working solution, 5 years of photo memories are somewhat important. It really ***** that a failure during a backup destroys that...

Final Update:
The catalog file on the original hard drive could not be fixed. Seems like Mac OSX tried to repair the catalog file while the sectors this file resides on failed. To make things worse the partition table was also broken beyond repair, even overwriting the sectors with a new correct partition table didn't help. DiskWarrior found less then 100 MB worth of stuff, mainly Applications folders.
I recovered pretty much everything from the incomplete Time Machine backup by right-clicking the sparsebundle and browsing through the folders with the long alphanumeric names, looking for the version of the folder with the most files in there. All I was missing was part of the ~/Pictures folder, i.e. photobooth pictures and the whole iPhoto Library. My best option was to recover these files using data recovery tools.
DiskDrill proved to be the absolute best, fast, responsive, efficient, and the only one able to mount the DMG-file with no valid file system on it. As there were many i/o errors and broken sectors on the original hard drive, I made a copy of it using a free command line tool called ddrescue (the standard dd tool just aborted when it encountered the i/o error). ddrescue copied the whole drive to a DMG image, I had 56 kilobytes with errors on the first pass, but it managed to shrink that down to just 4 kilobytes (wow!) after the second pass where it tries to re-read the broken secors. It took about 24 hours for a 512 GB 2.5" drive (5400 rpm) but well worth it. Be advised that ddrescue is really persistent and tries everything to recover those last errorneous bytes. At the very end of the process, the read/write head of the hard drive just goes wild trying to catch the data on the sectors with different momentum. This works but I assume this is pretty damaging for the original drive. I also copied it all to a new hard drive (again using ddrescue) and tried partition and catalog repair tools on that (DiskWarrion, testdiks, pdisk, etc.). Still no hint of a good result.
I made a deep scan on the clone hard drive with DiskDrill. At the end (after about 8 hours over USB) it found 13 partition (I assume that's the Macintosh HD, EFI and some DMG files lying around) and hundreds of thousands of pictures. I restored some JPG files just to check the quality, some were damaged, some were good with all the EXIF data intact. I just made it copy all JPG files into a folder. I know the pictures taken from my camera produce JPGs larger than 1 MB and smaller than 5 MB, so I sorted them by size and moved the smaller and larger files into seperate folders. I took the remaining folder (100 GB) and just dragged it into iPhoto. It imported them overnight. Auto-Split by events and I got my library back, alas with different file names, originals and edited versions side by side, lots of duplicates, some damaged, some not. But hey, all the pictures in chronological order. Okay there was also one large event with all the JPGs without valid EXIF data landed inside, iPhoto just takes the file creation date (i.e. the date where the recovered file was copied). As far as I can tell, these are all just data corpses, halfway overwritten copies, random pictures from the internet, desktop pictures, etc.
I started to work my way back through the events, deleting the duplicates and renaming the events. There's an app called "Duplicate Annihilator" which apparently can find duplicate pictures in iPhoto and mark them for you. The free version only does 500 pictures but if it works, I'll get the full version. It can mark th eduplicate photos by adding something to the picture comment in iPhoto so you can manually review it all. Good stuff!

Had a recent crash on my macbook, was previously using OS 10.6 I think. Restored from recent Time Machine backup and updated to OS 10.8.2 and now I cannot open Logic Pro 9. I get a 'No entry' Icon and a not supported on this type of Mac message. I cannot

Had a recent crash on my macbook, was previously using OS 10.6 I think. Restored from recent Time Machine backup and updated to OS 10.8.2 and now I cannot open Logic Pro 9. I get a 'No entry' Icon and a not supported on this type of Mac message. I cannot update either as anything up to 9.1.1 tells me I don't need it yet 9.1.2 tells me I need an eligable Logic Pro Version was not found in applications.
All of my files are stored in a separate hard drive with only the actual app having been on my Macbook. Should I just reinstall?

Hi
To run Mouitain Lion you need to update Logic.
For the updaters to work the Logic application must be:
a) Within the Applications folder, and not in any sub-folder
b) Named "Logic Pro" with no extra numbers or spaces
CCT

Time capsule as time machine backup and NAS?

I've read the TC section of the website and notice a blurb about computers able to connect to it as a HDD.
I realize the device has yet to be released but was wondering about this. I have a handfull of macs and a handfull of xp machines on my network (wired and wireless)
1 of my XP machine is just used as a file server. (1.5TB NTFS formated holding all video/audio/docs as well as having iTunes running to download HD podcast) All computers (Mac/XP) can access this. Five of my XP computers are MCE2005 which are configured to record SD and HD shows directly to this box.
I have yet to have a HFS formated drive to actually do time machine backups and I would like to start. I understand that going with TC I will loose some abilities I currently have by running a dedicated computer/file server but I like the fact that it is small and self contained.
I just want to make sure I understand the specifiations correctly. Can I make a various folders on TC and then map it to my Mac/XP machines via windows naming convention (ie \\TimeMachine\RecordedTV\)
I am in the process of upgrading my file server so this would be a perfect time to think about going this route. Should TC not meet my needs I will continue with my build of a Raid 5 server.

Until we get more information, at the present time the only certain thing we know about Time Capsule is that it will support TimeMachine backups.
What we don't know:
1. whether TimeMachine backups to network drives other than Time Capsule will ever be supported
2. whether the Time Capsule internal drive can be used for general file storage, or only Time Machine backups. Current information on Apple's web site could be interpreted either way. I suspect it can be used for general file storage - but that is just my opinion.
If it is not essential that you make a purchasing decision before Time Capsule ships within the next month (and more detailed information becomes available) I suggest you wait. My two cents worth of opinion - if it is general file storage that you want, and Time Machine automated backups are not a priority on the "wish list", then I think you would be far better off setting up your own network file server rather than using Time Capsule for this purpose.

Corrupted time machine backup and Migration tool

Thanks in advance to anyone that is able to help. Sorry for the long read.
Recently I replaced my hard drive because it was slowing down and had a very large number of bad sectors. After replacing the HD with a new one I tried to use migration assistant to move my information from the old one. As has happend with many bad hard drives it could not detect the old drive. This always happens if I try to migrate from a drive with bad sectors. The healthy ones always work.
So in an attempt to make the migration tool see the files and migrate them I am trying to use the old drive to spoof a Time machine backup.
First I set my old HD as the location of the new mac's TM backup just to get a TM backup file in place. The fist problem I ran into was that time machine backups are write protected at the kernel level and can't be modified. I found a helper module in the TMsafetynet kext that does this write protection and so, I can delete files in the backup like so.
sudo /System/Library/Extensions/TMsafetynet.kext/Helpers/bypass rm -Rfv /Volumes/TIMEMACHINEDRIVE/Backups.backupdb/whatever files to delete
And so, I removed and modified the files in the time machine backup slightly and migration assistant as well as time machine reflected the changes perfectly without error.
Next I deleted all that was in the time machine backup, I then moved the entire contents of my old drive into this time machine backup file in such a way as to mimic a normal time machine backup.
The good news is that time machine reads my jimmy rigged backup perfectly (which looks pretty wierd since there is no continuity between past and present), But migration assistant now does not see it.
If anyone is able to help that would be awesome. I replace bad hard drives all the time that won't copy with migration assistant, transferring the files manually isnt easy or clean. It's a pain.
Thanks a million for any advice!

Thanks in advance to anyone that is able to help. Sorry for the long read.
Recently I replaced my hard drive because it was slowing down and had a very large number of bad sectors. After replacing the HD with a new one I tried to use migration assistant to move my information from the old one. As has happend with many bad hard drives it could not detect the old drive. This always happens if I try to migrate from a drive with bad sectors. The healthy ones always work.
So in an attempt to make the migration tool see the files and migrate them I am trying to use the old drive to spoof a Time machine backup.
First I set my old HD as the location of the new mac's TM backup just to get a TM backup file in place. The fist problem I ran into was that time machine backups are write protected at the kernel level and can't be modified. I found a helper module in the TMsafetynet kext that does this write protection and so, I can delete files in the backup like so.
sudo /System/Library/Extensions/TMsafetynet.kext/Helpers/bypass rm -Rfv /Volumes/TIMEMACHINEDRIVE/Backups.backupdb/whatever files to delete
And so, I removed and modified the files in the time machine backup slightly and migration assistant as well as time machine reflected the changes perfectly without error.
Next I deleted all that was in the time machine backup, I then moved the entire contents of my old drive into this time machine backup file in such a way as to mimic a normal time machine backup.
The good news is that time machine reads my jimmy rigged backup perfectly (which looks pretty wierd since there is no continuity between past and present), But migration assistant now does not see it.
If anyone is able to help that would be awesome. I replace bad hard drives all the time that won't copy with migration assistant, transferring the files manually isnt easy or clean. It's a pain.
Thanks a million for any advice!

Recover files with no Time Machine Backup and disk 'can't be repaired'

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