Restoring time machine backup stuck at end

Hello!
I recently suffered a random filesystem failure and had to reinstall the OS. I was running 10.7, in fact, I turned on my MBP to install 10.7.1.
After a lengthy download, the installer prompted me to restore from a Time Machine backup, which I'm keeping since my last hardware HD failure. I chose to restore, and the installer detected my Time Capsule, loaded the backup, and started restoring.
I left it overnight and, come the following morning, the restore hadn't finished yet. Again, I left it while I was at work, and came back 8 hours later to find the screen in the exact same way I left it in the morning.
After some tests trying to restore the backup (including a failed back-to-Snow Leopard attempted recovery, couldn't connect to my TC), I figured I would reinstall Lion from scratch and use Console.app to check the progress using the system log when restoring using Migration Assistant.
My first surprise was when I tried to run Migration Assistant using the root user, which made Migration Assistant crash, so I had to create a second administrator user in order to restore my original administrator account.
After leaving it run its course, I started noticing that the Migration Assistant was trying to restart opendirectoryd, and that it was failing to start, citing error 71 "profile could not be found" (or opened, instead of found, I really don't remember and don't have the log here with me).
I then went into the terminal to check if the restored data was on disk, which it was, so, after a couple of attempts of launchd to restart opendirectoryd, I pulled the plug and shut the machine down cold (no shutdown process, just held the power button).
When the computer started up again (I have verbose boot mode on), it stalled at macx_swapon (again, or something like that, I don't remember), and didn't move in the whole hour and a half I let it sit there.
I tried booting single user mode, but the only thing I got to do was check if the restored data was there (which it was), and try to create my user (which I couldn't).
I've had success restoring backups from that Time Capsule but for another Mac.
Is there any way I can restore my computer back to the exact state of the Time Machine backup? FWIW, the TM backup is a data-only backup (i.e. doesn't have the OS with it), so a disk clone is not an option.
I really would like to avoid going the "fake manual restore" option of creating the same user, moving the files manually and so on, it's a PITA
Thanks in advance,
Nico

Sorry, can'thelp. But:
I trust TM only for rescuing individual files. I tried a full restoration of my Lion system, as a test, and everything was restored and seemed OK except half my Mail messages were missing. A few months ago, on OS 10.5.8, TM suddenly told me that it had deleted some files. The files deleted were all from Jan. 2010 to four weeks before! I know that it does this if the TM disc is getting full, but I had not created any large files in the preceding few hours. Also, the TM disc had loads of space left, yet when the message came, TM's GetInfo showed the disc nearly full!. I had to erase the disc and start again.
I don't find TM reliable. I make my backups in the form of bootable clones, scheduled every day in Carbon Copy Cloner.

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I am an amateur or hobbyist photographer. Recently I noted that I have over 70,000 photos in iPhoto and it was really dragging. Kept telling myself to clean it up but never found the time. The other day, it said this version needs to be upgraded. Clicked ok, and when done, all my photos were gone. I have the iPhoto Library on an external and I could see that "it" was still there (almost 700gb) so I went to work trying to find a solution. Went through all of the rebuilding options with no luck and then got my stupid, "I got this" hat on. I said, no problem, I have Time Machine and I'll just restore the iPhoto Library from a few days ago when I know it was working fine. Deleted that "corrupted" library first, went to Time Machine and didn't realize that TM, at the VERY same time, must've run out of room and reset itself - it only had a brand new backup with the now-empty iPhoto Library in it. Luckily, I found all of my photos and have them safe on an external. I've also decided to backup to a cloud site (should've done a long time ago!!) and I'm researching which photo-management software will be best to catalog my pix going forward (likely Lightroom) as the Apple peeps said iPhoto isn't really built to handle that type of load.
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In the end, do I chalk this up as a learning experience and spend 2-3 days recreating albums and organizing my photos? Or, is there a way that I can get all that organizational data back - from the iPhoto package contents, restoring from the external, or restoring an old TM backup?

What I would do is restore the older version to a different location. Then first try the following on it:
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2 - run Option #4, Rebuild Database.
If that doesn't do the trick continue with
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.>Click on the Add Library button,
2 - select the library you want to add from those in the selection window.
3 - make sure that in the rebuild window the checkbox "Scavange orphaned photos" is checked.
4 - now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
5 - in the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed. Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

Restore Time machine backup from a stolen computer to a different Mac Pro

*My Mac Book Pro was stolen.* It had some Time Machine backups, but Time Machine had stopped working about 6 months before it was stolen. I had stopped using the USB drive since TM would never complete. (2 issues)
1. When I plugged in this USB backup disk to the Mac Pro just now, it asked me whether to use Time Machine with it. It told it no, ask me later so I could browse it first.
2. It looks like the old problem with Time Machine not backing up the stolen laptop shows up as a file called "2008-09-22.204132.inProgress". I am hoping that the backups previous to that one are okay. So far, browsing the files appears to me that my data is intact but perhaps spread across 40 folders.
So now, what should I do to retrieve the data I want?
A. Copy the data files and pictures manually without Time Machine? How do I know I will get the latest versions?
B. Use Time Machine with this disk and somehow ask TM to restore to a different machine? (Is that even possible?) (Will it merge the files into my user folders?)
C. Use Migration Assistant?
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The old MacBook Pro definitely did not have Snow Leopard but the MacPro does to which I want to copy the data. It probably had Leopard. But honestly my user data is not necessary, just primarily the data, pictures, DVD projects, etc.
As a side note: My old laptop and my MacPro used the same username and password.

lhbilly wrote:
*My Mac Book Pro was stolen.* It had some Time Machine backups, but Time Machine had stopped working about 6 months before it was stolen. I had stopped using the USB drive since TM would never complete. (2 issues)
1. When I plugged in this USB backup disk to the Mac Pro just now, it asked me whether to use Time Machine with it. It told it no, ask me later so I could browse it first.
2. It looks like the old problem with Time Machine not backing up the stolen laptop shows up as a file called "2008-09-22.204132.inProgress". I am hoping that the backups previous to that one are okay. So far, browsing the files appears to me that my data is intact but perhaps spread across 40 folders.
So now, what should I do to retrieve the data I want?
start Migration Assistant located in /Application/Utilies. it has an option to migrate your data and applications from a TM backup. migrate what you want. note that users will be migrated to new users so to access your old home directory you'll have to log out and log in as the migrated user.
A. Copy the data files and pictures manually without Time Machine? How do I know I will get the latest versions?
B. Use Time Machine with this disk and somehow ask TM to restore to a different machine? (Is that even possible?) (Will it merge the files into my user folders?)
C. Use Migration Assistant?
D. Copy and paste the entire file structure to a directory someplace and pull off the data as I need it?
*End result: I want my external hard disk wiped ASAP, and in the meantime I want my data files preserved.*
The old MacBook Pro definitely did not have Snow Leopard but the MacPro does to which I want to copy the data. It probably had Leopard. But honestly my user data is not necessary, just primarily the data, pictures, DVD projects, etc.
As a side note: My old laptop and my MacPro used the same username and password.

Time Machine Backup Stuck in a Loop?

Since upgrading to ML I've noticed that my Time Machine backup icon seems to be in constant motion. I've also noticed that it never seems to be backing up as it's been stuck at "427kb of 479mb" for the past hour. I'm backing up to a Time Capsule and can access the time capsule just fine.

Sly Park Mark wrote:
After installing the new hard drive in my macbook, I once again booted up from the install disc and told it to restore my hard drive using my last time machine backup (which was created one day before the initial crash). Once again, the computer got stuck on the grey startup screen mentioned above.
Two possible causes:
You used a Leopard install disk, instead of a +Snow Leopard+ one. All you needed to do was install Snow Leopard over it; but since you've now done other things, your best bet is to just do it over, using a Snow Leopard disc.
Whatever was going wrong with your internal HD damaged some things on your system, and that damage was backed-up, so is restored along with everything else. In that case, do it over, but select an earlier backup.

Restore Time Machine backup to newly-formatted Macintosh HD

I recently had to erase and re-format my internal start-up drive ("Macintosh HD," formatted GUID Partition Table) while troubleshooting. Turned out it was a failed main logic board, display and display LED backligh, so it was in the Apple Store for 2-3 weeks (long story). I have my Time Machine backups on an external 2TB USB drive, which has its own system, and is bootable. The newest Time Machine backup I have is from 11/13/11, but I thought I'd be safe and do a belt and braces backup, so I used Carbon Copy Cloner to backup Macintosh HD to a disk image. Somehow, I royally screwed it up, and I have THREE CCCloner backups on my 2TB drive (as well as the Time Machine backups). The three CCCloner backups are:
2011-10-26 (October 26) 15-52-21, total 14.18 GB (no System or Users folders)
2011-11-13 (November 13) 21-47-17, total 16.86 GB (System folder = 136.1 MB; Users folder = 1.54 GB)
2011-11-20 (November 20) 18-58-00, total 12.84 GB (System folder = 27.6 MB; Users folder = 1.05 GB)
It would seem I somehow invoked an incremental backup in CCCloner, and I do manual Time Machine backups.
The problem here is two-fold:
1. Between 11/13/11 (last Time Machine backup) and 11/20/11 (last CCCloner backup), I did a LOT of work, that I don't want to lose, but I don't know how to reconcile the three CCCloner backups. I've been in communication with the developer of CCC, but apparently he's taken the weekend off, and we have not yet worked out a way to cleanly reconcile the three CCCloner backups, which is what I would MOST like to do, as it contains the whole week's work between 11/13/11 and 11/20/11.
2. When I erased and reformatted my startup Macintosh HD, I, of course, severed any link between it and the Time Machine backups on the 2TB USB drive.
I suppose the quick and dirty way to get back to my Macintosh HD status is to do the following (found in an Apple Support Archived document):
"Once the drive has been formatted, quit Disk Utility to return to the installer. Go back to the "Utilities" menu again, and choose "Restore From a Time Machine Backup." Connect your Time Machine backup drive, and allow it to be scanned for valid backups. Choose your latest backup from the list provided, choose the destination for the restoration (the newly formatted "Macintosh HD"), then let it do its thing."
Then cherry-pick the new-to-11/20/11 items out of the CCCloner folders. Not an elegant solution, but I can't think of any other. I don't mind reformatting the Macintosh HD again, but then having to pick through the CCCloner dustbin is a big PITA
Anyone have any ideas?
Bart

<< Are the backups in a separate partition? If not, that may be a problem.
How about the CCC backups? >>
Nope to both.
<< That doesn't make sense. A CCC clone should contain the most recent version of everything (unless you omitted things). Where are you getting those sizes? >>
Individual folder "Get infos."
<< Yes, that's how you do a full system restore from your Time Machine backups. >>
Which I did last night, needing to move on with a number of projects.
<< You should be able to use the Finder to find files on the CCC backup from your home folder with Last Modified Dates since 11/13 (or, perhaps better, the free Find Any File app, which will let you pick any folder), and copy them. >>
<< May I ask why, with an iMac, you're doing all your backups manually, rather than letting at least some of them, especially Time Machine, run automatically? >>
The discussion below with Mike Bombich, of CCC, to which I replied just a couple minutes ago, may help explain some things (it will NOT explain my stupidity -- my only excuse is that I was pressed for time after a long and pointless search in all the wrong places for a very severe problem I was having, as you'll see). Why I didn't do a Time Machine backup just before I took my iMac in for service is a question I can only answer by saying "Duhhhh..."
Email from Mike Bombich and my reply between dotted lines
December 3, 2011 8:04:33 PM EST
Hi Bart:
<blockquote>Choosing the "2TB" drive as the "source" in CCCloner would give me the actual, bootable 2TB's system, which has few, if any, of the permissions, settings, etc. that were part of the the original Macintosh HD System files, which is what I'm trying to recover.</blockquote>
Unless you backed up another system to the 2TB volume since November 20, then that volume definitely has everything from your Macintosh HD as of Nov 20. You ran this task at that time:
2011-11-20 18:57:58 -0500
Task: Copying selected files (-psn_0_106522)
Source: Macintosh HD
Mount point: /
Destination: 2TB
Destination path: /Volumes/2TB
Settings
Archive deleted items, owner: bartonbrown
Archive modified items
Do not automatically prune archives
Which means that everything from your Macintosh HD volume was copied to the 2TB volume, and anything that was already on the 2TB volume was moved aside to the _CCC Archives folder. With the exception of the presence of the _CCC Archives folder, the 2TB volume was an *exact* replica of your Macintosh HD volume when that backup task finished on Nov 20.
I think this actually means that the restore process should be really easy. CCC won't copy the contents of the _CCC Archives folder (unless you choose it as a source folder explicitly), so if you choose the 2TB volume as the source and Macintosh HD as the destination, your Macintosh HD volume should be back to the state it was in on Nov 20. I don't see any need to exclude anything from the restore -- anything that wasn't on the Macintosh HD volume was moved to the _CCC Archives folder.
As an aside, you aren't going to find the bulk of your (most recent) Macintosh HD items in the _CCC Archives folder, that folder contains items that were on the 2TB volume when you started that backup task (which means there probably are some pretty important items in the _CCC Archives/2011-11-20 (November 20) 18-58-00 folder). You will find some items from Macintosh HD in there, but they're older versions of files from previous backups, and items that you have since deleted from Macintosh HD.
<blockquote>is there any way to back up onto an already bootable drive with CCCloner and STILL be able to choose the INDIVIDUAL CCC backup I want to restore the Macintosh HD drive.</blockquote>
Yes:
1. Create a new folder at the root level of the destination volume (e.g. "Macintosh HD 12-03-11")
2. Choose "Macintosh HD" from the Source menu
3. Choose "Choose a folder..." from the Destination menu and select the new folder that you created on the destination
When you want to restore from that, you'd boot from the 2TB volume, then in CCC choose "Choose a folder" from the Source menu and select that folder as the source.
You could also choose the "Create a new disk image" option, but I personally prefer backing up to a folder if the destination volume is formatted as HFS+.
Lastly, one thing to keep in mind with either of these solutions is that subsequent backups directly to the 2TB volume (with default settings) will cause the unique backup folder on the destination to be archived. You can avoid that by using CCC's "Protect root-level items on the destination" option. That's the setup I alluded to earlier, in the "I want to back up my startup disk and a data volume to the same backup disk" article.
Mike
To which I replied:
December 4, 2011 1:13:45 PM EST
Hi Mike --
"Unless you backed up another system to the 2TB volume since November 20, then that volume definitely has everything from your Macintosh HD as of Nov 20 ...and anything that was already on the 2TB volume was moved aside to the _CCC Archives folder. With the exception of the presence of the _CCC Archives folder, the 2TB volume was an *exact* replica of your Macintosh HD volume when that backup task finished on Nov 20.
Oddly enough, it wasn't: for one example, the Time Machine backups, which were NEVER on the Macintosh HD volume, are still on the 2TB backup volume, untouched, and so are literally thousands of files and folders I had backed up directly to the 2TB backup volume -- and thousands more I'm pretty sure weren't -- that DIDN'T end up in the _CCC Archives folder, but at the root level of the 2TB volume.
I wish I'd done a window grab of the 2TB backup volume's window before I did my 11/20/11 backup, and before I restored Macintosh HD from Time Machine, but I was so caught up in testing -- 60 hours worth, and all to no purpose -- for what a senior advisor fromr a company whose name is associated with the pomaceous fruit of the species M. domestica (genus Malus, family Rosaceae) was positive was a problem with third-party memory, just before we finally set up the FOURTH Malus domestica store appointment and I had to bundle the iMac up and drag it 40 miles to discover that the "Senior Advisor" was wrong and I was right -- for a change -- that it was a failed main logic board, well... I was working against time, I finally ran OUT of time, and all I can come up with to account for the current state of 2TB is that didn't do the CCCloner backup correctly. (I know that sentence is really poor grammatically, but when one has to tiptoe around landmines, circumlocution is better than circumambulation.
Last night, I had to restore Macintosh HD from Time Machine, which worked fine, except I now have literally hundreds of gigabytes of duplicate files (better than lost ones!) spread over 3 drives. The only recourse I can think of now is to use TidyUp! to winnow out the duplicates and try to understand better how to use CCCloner for backups, or surrender and use Time Machine.
Thanks for all your help. I have a couple other projects I wanted to finish up today, but I can see the day is going to be devoted to salvage operations...
I will just add this: The 2TB USB drive I use as a backup for Time Machine has been bootable since before I started using it as a backup, as is my 1TB USB drive, and all three -- Macintosh HD, 1TB, 2TB -- are at OS X 10.6.8. I also manually back up individual items to both 1TB and 2 TB drives.
Bottom line is, I obviously don't quite know how CCC works, and I thought I could back up -- at the last minute -- my internal, regular start-up drive, "Macintosh HD," to a Disk Image with CCC.
As for Time Machine, its constant and unfathomable-to-me backing up drove me nuts, so I turned it off, and used it to back up, manually, about once a week. Stupid? Yes.
Mea culpa
Bart

Restoring Time Machine backup from Time Capsule. Very slow times solved

For me at least . .
Like many people it seems, I have had enormous problems trying to restore data using Time Machine on a Time Capsule. The data had been backed up fine. The problem was the time for restore which initially was projected at 125 hours for 235GB. Reality suggested that (after 24 hours) this estimate was going to be about right and clearly unacceptable.
I cancelled the backup and read as much as I could across bulleting boards.
The main impression was of a howl of frustration from the many people who had experienced the same problem.
The collected actions below were assembled from many threads and ultimately ended in success. I hope they help.
My initial setup was as follows:
PowerMac G5 Power PC (2005) with 8GB DDR SDRAM (1000BaseT Ethernet connector). Mac OSX 10.5.8
1TB Time Capsule on Ethernet network via a 100BaseT Hub.
I was restoring to a 1TB USB 2.0 Seagate External Desktop Drive (ST3100005EXD101-RK) attached via a USB Hub to the G5.
Having read some threads, I did all of the following:
• I brought the TC into my home office and connected it directly to the Ethernet Port of the G5 to allow the most direct connection from TC to G5
• As suggested in one thread, I replaced the Cat5 ethernet cable I was using with a Cat5e cable (Cat6 is better) to allow 1000BaseT connection to the G5.
• I turned off Time Machine backups and MobileMe Sync.
• I terminated all unnecessary applications the computer
I restarted the restore and the result was the same.
I read more widely and then did the following:
• I reformatted the Seagate target drive using GUID and Mac OS Extended (Journaled). (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility>choose top level of target drive>Partition>choose number of partitions under Volume Scheme (1 for me)>Options (button under partition window)>GUID Partition Table>Apply and wait quite a while. I had originally had it as Apple Partition Map and GUID was recommended on one particular thread.
• I plugged the target USB drive directly into the USB port on the front of the G5 to eliminate the hub as a potential cause of the slow data transfer.
• Readings suggested that Spotlight might be trying to index one or both of the TC and the target drive. To prevent this the author suggested adding the TC unit and the target drive to the Privacy tab of Spotlight (System Preferences>Spotlight>Privacy. Click + at bottom of window and navigate to target drive/s to add). Activity monitor showed as much data being sent as received so this seemed a likely contributor to the problem. I added both drives as described.
• Somewhere it was mentioned that IPv6 might be causing the problem. I turned it off (System Settings>Network>Built-In Ethernet>Advanced (bottom right of window)>choose “Off” in Configure IPv6 drop box.
• I unplugged the Internet connection from the TC to ensure no chance of this being a factor.
• My G5 doesn’t have an Airport but if you do you should also turn this off. You want to be quite certain that there are no connections that either the computer or the airport can channel data through other than the Ethernet cable.
• I don’t have anti virus software but this should also be turned off as it seems this was slowing down data transfer for many people.
• I shut down the G5, the USB target drive and the TC and restarted them all. After start up, I once again shut down all unnecessary programmes.
I restarted the Restore and, after the customary long wait as it added up all the files to transfer, it announced that the restore would take 4 hours (as opposed to the five days it had suggested previously).
Activity Monitor now shows data transfer rates of 17mb – 18mb per second and it looks like 4 hours is going to be about right. It also shows large amounts of data being received but now with negligible amounts being sent.
I’m afraid I don’t know which of the above is the bit that solved the problem. It could be a combination but I believe that if you do all the above, your restores / backups will all go at an acceptable speed.
A last note to thank all those individuals whose wise words I scoured for these instructions. I hope their collected suggestions are of some use to others.

The migration assistant or the original backup?
I tried WiFi, Ethernet and on the second attempt with a fresh backup on a USB drive.

Restored Time Machine Backup, now can't find files

So, after a wipe of my computer and a reinstall of Snow Leopard, I encountered a couple problems restoring my data.
1) Migration Assistant wouldn't find my user in my time machine (which was only used for this computer)
2) I resorted to the "browse other time machine disks" feature by right clicking the Time Machine icon in the dock. From this I was easily able to find my backup and restore it.
After the files finished copying (approx. 254 gb), I was unable to find them anywhere on the drive. Finder and Disk Utility both told me that there was 254 gigs being used (that wasn't being used before, this is a clean snow Leopard install), I just can't find them anywhere.
I went to disk utility do verify permissions, it looks like there was some problems, so I repaired them, still no luck. I also logged in as root to see if I could spot them anywhere, no luck.
Can anybody out there point me in the right direction?
I really would not like to re copy all of those again, as 250 gb over USB 2.0 takes quite a while...

m-avila wrote:
Used these forums a lot for questions since my iMac is my first Apple computer. This is my first post though. My hard drive went bad so I brought it to an authorized Apple service center and had it replaced under AppleCare. My computer is back and ready for action with a newer OS (had OSX 10.5.7 I believe and now have 10.6.3).
Do you mean they installed Snow Leopard, and didn't give you a Snow Leopard disc? If so, that's a violation of the license, but worse, it means you can't do some things you may need to do, including a full system restore of a Snow Leopard Time Machine backup. Either make them put Leopard back on it, or buy a retail Snow Leopard disc ($29).
They also installed iLife '09 and I believe I actually had '08 on there.
That's also not good.
I did exactly what happened above - tried restoring from my Time Machine backup and ended up using 320GB that I now can't find. When I try to restore individual files I get the message that a file with the same name already exists. Is it possible to restore my files but KEEP this later version of OSX and iLife?
No.
If I do the "Restore From Backup" the way I'm supposed to (as outlined in #14 Time Machine FAQ), will I erase the newer versions of iLife and OSX?
Yes.
How can I get these files back
You can't, and shouldn't, without the necessary discs. Those versions of iLife probably won't work on Leopard anyway.
free up the 320GB that is now tied up
The full restore will do that. The first thing it does, after your final confirmation, is to erase the internal HD. Then it copies everything from your backups.
and keep iLife '09?
No.

Impossible to restore time machine backup?

How in the world can I restore a Time Machine backup to my MacBook Air???
I have a full time machine backup on an external USB drive. I can't however connect that USB drive and the external CD drive at the same time.
I also have no idea to get the shared disc on my Mac Mini to show up in the boot window (can connect to my wifi network, but nothing shows)...
I accidentally erased my drive while trying to erase my free space, now I can't figure out any possible way to ever restore the data...

This really *****, the 92.5% seems like it will be my best attempt...
There are 2 files that time machine restore doesn't seem to like... There part of an older program, Hemera Photo Objects, Volumes 1 & 2...
There's a data file for each of the 2 programs... Vol1Thumb.hta & Vol2Thumbs.hta... For some reason these 2 files come up with an error (something along the lines of:
Cannot restore the file /Volumes/[....]/Vol1Thumbs.hta to (null)
Cannot restore the file /Volumes/[....]/Vol2Thumbs.hta to (null)
I don't believe the files are corrupt (the likelihood that these 2 separate files installed at 2 separate times both ending up in a bad sector seem unlikely, especially when the app has several other files that don't generate this error)... Unfortuantly modifying a backup seems impossible (I've tried everything, including "sudo rm Vol1Thumbs.hta" but I get an error stating that its not possible to modify a backup...
I'm running out of options... Still wondering why things can't just work like they're supposed to...

Initial Time Machine Backup Stuck on "Indexing Backup"

I have Mac Mini running 10.7.2. I just got an external hard drive and am trying to run an initial back up using Time Machine. I am running my computer in Safe Mode as it won't start in regular mode. I formatted the HD and began to run Time Machine back up. HD is connected via USB 2.0 wire.
It has now been 12 hours and is still on Indexing Backup... Is this normal for initial back up? I know it takes a long time for initial but this doesn't seem right.What do I do to correct if it isn't correct? Should I stop and try again?

Thank you very much. With your info I gave up on the back up and ran Disk and Permission Repair for the 3rd or 4th time and crossed my fingers and restarted my machine and it WORKED! I ran time Machine back up and when I woke up this morning it was all done! Yeahhhh!
I wasn't sure what was causing it not to start in regular mode and as I'm not too much of a techie I was scared that I was teetetering on the brink of losing everything. The machine would run so I didn't think it was a hard drive issue, but not knowing for sure I was concerned and after losing everythign once before years ago, I was worried. I have it backed up on line but wanted a 2nd (local) version that wouldn't entail tying up bandwidth for days. In the end it worked out!
But the short answer is, Time Machine Backup does NOT work in Safe Mode...

Restore Time Machine backup after hard drive crash

My hard drive on the mac book crashed, so I replaced it. Now I need to get my time machine back up on the new drive. I've already started using the computer and reinstalled lion, so I'm not getting the original "backup" screen. How do I find my old time machine backups?

Your best bet is to do a full restore from your backups. See #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Restoring Time Machine Backup on new SSD

Using STOCK HDD 500GB 5400RPM, Have a Time Machine backup on an external Seagate USB 3.0 drive, about 140GB used on my disk, if I restore to a 240GB SSD will it work smoothly or will there be problems due to the lower capacity on the 240GB SSD?

Andyl1980 wrote:
I am wondering if restoring the time machine backup that i currently have on to the new SSD after i have installed it by holding down the OPTION key at restart and selecting RESTORE FROM TIME MACHINE....
This is the best option if you want to keep everything you had on your old hard drive.
Another option you have is to reinstall OS X through OS X Recovery (hold Command and R keys while your Mac is starting up) and then, restore the backup during Setup Assistant, so you can choose what you want to restore. This may give you better performance, as OS X will be cleaner

OSX Yosemite : time machine backup stuck in preparation stage

Time Machine Backups on Hard Drive as well as on my Time Capsule seem to be stuck in preparation stage for the whole day. Any idea what i need to do to solve this issue ? Appreciate the assistance. Thank you.

Look at this Trouble Shooting link, especially D2:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Ciao.

Time Machine Backup Stuck on Preparing Backup for 12 hours

Hello,
I have a 2011 iMac and am running OS X 10.7.2. Up until a few days ago, my Time Machine backups (to a USB 2.0 external hard drive) were running fine. Now, when Time Machine tries to back up, all it does is display the progress bar with the words "Preparing backup..." below. This message will remain indefinitely (I've let Time Machine run for as long as 12 hours and nothing changes).
I have done a fair amount of searching online regarding this problem and have tried the steps in Pondini's troubleshooting list ( http://pondini.org/TM/D1.html ):
1. I first tried downloading and running the Time Machine buddy widget. I installed it but the widget was just blank. So, I went into Console and saved one my logs instead. My log consisted of a huge string of similar entries. Three of these entries are shown below:
1/28/12 12:12:53.629 PM          com.apple.backupd          Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “yprime.h” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7f91ae359590 {NSURL=file://localhost/Volumes/JQTimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Jason%20Qu int%E2%80%99s%20iMac/2012-01-25-234450/Macintosh%20HD/Applications/MATLAB.app/ex tern/examples/shrlib/yprime.h, NSFilePath=/Volumes/JQTimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Jason Quint’s iMac/2012-01-25-234450/Macintosh HD/Applications/MATLAB.app/extern/examples/shrlib/yprime.h, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f91ae358480 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}
1/28/12 12:13:20.758 PM          com.apple.backupd          Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “yprime.mexmaci64” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7f91ae071010 {NSURL=file://localhost/Volumes/JQTimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Jason%20Qu int%E2%80%99s%20iMac/2012-01-25-234450/Macintosh%20HD/Applications/MATLAB.app/ex tern/examples/shrlib/yprime.mexmaci64, NSFilePath=/Volumes/JQTimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Jason Quint’s iMac/2012-01-25-234450/Macintosh HD/Applications/MATLAB.app/extern/examples/shrlib/yprime.mexmaci64, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f91ae072e40 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}
1/28/12 12:13:47.893 PM          com.apple.backupd          Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “include” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7f91ae071010 {NSURL=file://localhost/Volumes/JQTimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Jason%20Qu int%E2%80%99s%20iMac/2012-01-25-234450/Macintosh%20HD/Applications/MATLAB.app/ex tern/include/, NSFilePath=/Volumes/JQTimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Jason Quint’s iMac/2012-01-25-234450/Macintosh HD/Applications/MATLAB.app/extern/include, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f91ae072050 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}
2. I then tried performing a "full reset" of Time Machine, as explained on Pondini's page. This didn't fix my problem.
3. Finally, I used Disk Utility and clicked "Repair" for my external hard drive --no problems were found. I also selected my internal hard drive (my main drive with OS X on it) and clicked "Verify"; no problems were found.
Any ideas what might be going on? Note that I had emptied about 70 GB of files from my trash and deleted some other movies from my hard drive soon before these problems cropped up.
Thank you very much,
Jason

This issue has been reported a few times, and it's clearly a bug in Time Machine, but I'm not sure what triggers it. TM creates multi-linked directories, and it seems that these links sometimes get broken.
The first thing you should do is a start a new backup set on another drive. You should do that anyway, because one backup isn't enough, even if you're not having problems with it.
Was the MATLAB application one of the items you had deleted from the source volume? If so, and if you're sure you'll never want to restore it from a backup, I suggest you delete it from the TM repository by entering TM, selecting it in a snapshot, and then choosing "Delete All Backups of..." from the action menu (gear icon.) You may have to do the same with other items that are giving the same error.

Restoring time machine backup stuck at end

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