Time Capsule - Time machine error "backup disk image could not be mounted"

Recently I lost a folder and attempted to resore from my Time Capsule backup (which I started when it first shipped) not only did it fail, but know I get the message "backup disk image could not be mounted" when I try to backup. I have used Airport Utility to try and sort - that shows green light and it is connected by ethernet 9and shows in network (I can see the sparsebundle). I have been trying for a couple of weeks now - any ideas??

John & Joel,
I've done some research and put together some ideas.
"The backup disk image could not be mounted"
*“Disconnect All Users…”:*
If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule on the left.
Click “Manual Setup”.
Select “Disks” at top of window.
Click “Disconnect All Users…” at bottom of window.
Now try Backing up again.
*Stalled .inProgress Files:*
Select the TC in the SideBar of the Finder window.
Click "Connect as...". Enter your TCs password.
Double click the blue folder that appears in the finder window. The sparsebundle should now be visible.
Double click the sparsebundle and then click “Skip” in the checksum message.
Once “Backup of (Users Computer)” mounts in the Sidebar open the folder containing past backups. Are there any “.inProgress” files there. Delete them.
Unmount the backup drive and try backing up again.
*Permissions Issue:*
Select the TC in the SideBar of the Finder window.
Click "Connect as...". Enter your TCs password.
Double click the blue folder that appears in the finder window. The sparsebundle should now be visible.
Highlight the sparsebundle and “Get Info” (Cmd-I). At the bottom of the Get Info window open the “Sharing & Permission” section. Beside “Everyone” it should say “Read & Write”. If it does not, change it.
Now try performing a backup again.

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  • Time Machine Error: Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted

    Time Machine was working just fine with Time Capsule for the first two days, then today I got the above error message.
    The drive and the backup image both show up in Finder. I can even copy files from the Time Capsule to my hard drive.
    I just can't get Time Machine to backup to the Time Capsule, even if I manually hit "Back up now".
    Any ideas what I can do to fix this?

    I may have fixed this ... I renamed my TC to a shorter name with no space and no apostrophe - just a few letters. That seems to have cleared it up - at least for now. Time will tell ...

  • Time Machine error: backup disk image could not be created

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    Many thanks

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  • Time Machine / Time Capsule Error: Backup disk image could not be mounted

    So I'm trying to back up to time machine, which used to be working fine, but I have this problem happening on two computers now (which probably means the error is in my Time Capsule.)
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    I'm caught in the same loop, with no end in sight. I've only been using Time Machine and Time Capsule for 2 months. This week it stopped working. First error message:
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    Checking the Time Machine preferences, "Last backup" would read "backup failed"
    When I got this error, all the wireless functions went offline, even thought the TC light was still green.
    I would shut down, shut down the Time Capsule, shut off my modem reboot everything in order.
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    4. tried to delete the sparsebundle, but it would choke at almost the end, sometimes it would just crash the finder, sometimes say "Sorry, an unexpected error occurred," sometimes "Operation cannot be completed because the item 'bands' is in use." I even tried to Stuff the bundle with 'delete original' checked, but the stuffing, after about 15 hours, jammed near the end (stuffed 20 gigs of 35 gigs).
    5. tried to reselect the TC, and run backup anyways ... now it can't find the volume, back to the error messages and crashing Finder
    6. checked password in Keychain, all ok.
    Now what??
    Do I use Airport Utility to erase it? At least TC is still showing up there. Or press the rest button on the back of the Time Capsule to reset to factory defaults?
    I've resigned myself to losing my backups. Now I would just like to get it up and running again.
    In hopes,
    Linda

  • Time machine - "the backup disk image could not be mounted"

    SInce a few days, I am unable to backup via Time Machine.
    I always get the message:
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    The backup disk image could not be mounted
    I use an Apple Time Capsule and still have more than enough free space on it.
    Use OS X 10.5.5
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    Rosy,
    *_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
    First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
    Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
    *Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
    If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
    Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
    *“Disconnect All Users…”:*
    If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
    Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule on the left.
    Click “Manual Setup”.
    Select “Disks” at top of window.
    Click “Disconnect All Users…” at bottom of window.
    Close the Airport Utility.
    Now try Backing up again.
    “I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
    *Proper Computer Name* #
    Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
    According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
    (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
    Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
    Let us know if any of the suggestions above resolves your issue.
    Cheers!

  • Time Machine error - backup disc image could not be mounted

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    BTW--when I go into finder and click on my .sparsebundle, I get the following:
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  • My Time Machine / Time capsule gets the error:  The backup disk image could not be mounted

    My time machine / time capsule gets the error:  The backup disk image could not be mounted.

    Reboot the TC.
    If you normally have multiple computers backing up, under Lion there seems to be some issues.. you need to force other users off the system. You can do that through the Airport utility, manual setup, disks, disconnect all users. Note carefully if you use Lion you probably need to download the real airport utility.. 5.6 to accomplish anything useful.

  • Time machine error: The backup disk image could not be mounted

    Time Machine worked OK for several months. Now I get this error every 10 minutes or so.
    I unplugged Time Machine capsule and "Change Disk" in Time Machine options.
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    Help please because I will probably have to archive and reinstall Leopard. I need the backups,
    Christine

    Christ1ne,
    Before you reformat the disk, consider these causes of this error.
    *_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
    First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
    Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
    *Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
    If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
    Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
    *“Disconnect All Users…”:*
    If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
    Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule on the left.
    Click “Manual Setup”.
    Select “Disks” at top of window.
    Click “Disconnect All Users…” at bottom of window.
    Close the Airport Utility.
    Now try Backing up again.
    One poster reported: “I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
    *Proper Computer Name* #
    Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
    According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
    (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
    Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
    # Try removing the apostrophe from the disk images name (sparsebundle).
    *A Stalled .inProgress Files:* #
    It may be that the previous backup attempt was ungracefully interrupted leaving remains that Time Machine can’t deal with.
    Stop any current backup attempt. Choose “Stop Backing Up” from the Time Machine menu.
    Open the Time Machine Preferences and turn “OFF” Time Machine.
    Open your Time Machine drive.
    Open the folder labeled “Backups,backupdb”.
    Now open the folder containing backups of the computer in question.
    Are there any “.inProgress” files there. Delete them by dragging the file to the Trash. Or Ctrl-Click the file and select "Move to Trash" from the contextual menu. (Give this time as deleting a large file on an external disk can take a while.)
    Turn Time Machine back “ON”. Now try backing up again.
    NOTE: If the above procedure becomes impossible to perform, try accessing the disk image from another Mac. Some have discovered that attempting a repair from another computer succeeds where the original computer failed.
    Let us know if any of the suggestions above helped to resolve your issue.
    Cheers!

  • Time Machine Error Message: "The backup disk image could not be mounted"

    I just installed Time Capsule and the initial back up was going smoothly. Now
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    This works, if there is no corruption in the sparse image. But after weeks of backups, my sparse image on a USB disk attached to an Airport Extreme was corrupted.
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    On Time Capsule, I have heard folks having success with attaching the image, and then repairing it:
    hdiutil attach -nomount -readwrite /path/to/sparse/image
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  • TC Error "The backup disk image could not be mounted."

    My new time machine was working fine for a couple of weeks now I am getting this error message constantly. Does anyone have any suggestions what to do?
    "The backup disk image could not be mounted."

    I posted the same thing a couple of threads down, I deleted the back up then went into the time machine options and choose the time capsule option again and did another full backup and now it seems to be working properly.

  • The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted

    I've successfully installed Time Capsule on my network and it is working correctly. I can access it via wireless and choose it from Time Machine. The initial backups go well, and I can access them if I enter Time Machine. However, at some point, it creates a disk image on my desktop and then returns the error The Backup Disk Could Not Be Mounted. The only way to restore everything to normal is to reboot.
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    Thanks!

    I have a similar problem. At first, TM worked with both my machines. Now it works with the mac air but not the ibook. I get the Backup Disk Image Could not be mounted error message.
    Here's what conole say:
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    4/22/08 11:56:34 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Mounting disk image /Volumes/Fran's Time Capsule/Fran's Desktop_000d93460426.sparsebundle
    4/22/08 11:56:51 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Failed to attach to disk image, returned: 109
    4/22/08 11:56:51 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Failed to mount disk image /Volumes/Fran's Time Capsule/Fran's Desktop_000d93460426.sparsebundle
    4/22/08 11:56:51 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Backup failed with error: 21
    4/22/08 12:04:54 PM com.apple.launchd[72] ([0x0-0xd00d0].com.apple.systempreferences[815]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 824 PPID 1 check_afp
    4/22/08 12:05:05 PM Disk Utility[878] ********
    4/22/08 12:05:05 PM Disk Utility[878] Disk Utility started.
    4/22/08 12:05:24 PM mdworker[805] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
    4/22/08 12:06:37 PM mdworker[805] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
    4/22/08 12:08:25 PM Disk Utility[896] ********
    4/22/08 12:08:25 PM Disk Utility[896] Disk Utility started.
    4/22/08 12:08:40 PM mdworker[805] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
    4/22/08 12:09:04 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[899] Mounting disk image /Volumes/Fran's Time Capsule/Fran's Desktop_000d93460426.sparsebundle
    4/22/08 12:11:31 PM kernel SetCryptoKey R: len 32, idx 1

  • "Backup disk image could not be mounted"

    I have been using time capsule successfully for about 5 months. But now it has suddenly started returning a time machine error "the backup disk image could not be mounted".
    Anyone got any suggestions?

    towersfamily,
    *_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
    First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
    Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
    *Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
    If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
    Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
    *“Disconnect All Users…”:*
    If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
    Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule on the left.
    Click “Manual Setup”.
    Select “Disks” at top of window.
    Click “Disconnect All Users…” at bottom of window.
    Close the Airport Utility.
    Now try Backing up again.
    One poster reported: “I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
    *Proper Computer Name* #
    Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
    According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
    (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
    Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
    Let us know if any of the suggestions above helped to resolve your issue.
    Cheers!

  • Error Message: Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted?

    Hi...
    I just got my Time Capsule and I’m getting that error message, every so often. I assume it’s doing it’s periodic check to see if anything needs backing up - and something isn’t being recognized.
    Any steps to correct this?
    Comments, suggestions and opinions are welcome.
    Thank you in advance...

    We've been through a long discussion of this exact problem in another thread. Perhaps you should read it for answers. Look for it here.

  • The backup disk image could not be mounted - I found the cure?!

    Hi all,
    being a recent Windows to Mac convert I was very happy about my new MBP together with a brand new 1 GB TimeCapsule. First time, worked like a charm backup and restore. Then, last backup with 10.5.2, install 10.5.3, "Backup now" - nothing. I was pretty p*ssed and thought: that is exactly why I didn't want to use Windows anymore. I thought, Apple can't be doing the same cr@p as the Redmond dudes. Well, they did. Soon after 10.5.3 was out word had it that 10.5.4 as already around the corner so I figured, I'll wait for it. Just to be disappointed. After hoping for a solution in these forums none of the just re-assign the backup drive solutions worked for me.
    Having found a solution somewhere about mounting the TC manually I managed to run backups again which clearly showed that the fr@cked it up as it indicated a stupid permission issue. I then took a look at the error message again:
    "Network mountpoint /Volumes/Time Capsule not owned by backupd... remounting"
    So I went and looked for that backupd and found it within /System/Library/CoreServices. Knowing that it did work last with 10.5.2 I figured, let me grab the 10.5.2 combo update and restore the backupd + the backup.bundle from the old version and give it a shot (making backup copies of them first).
    Sure enough, told it to install them 2 to the default location, re-selected the TimeCapsule as backup target, hit "Start Backup" et voilà: currently "Backing Up: 1.4 GB of 5.1 GB"
    Bottom line: Apple messed up the backupd binary somehow - way to go, QA team!
    Anywho, seems to be working now. Also access is working at this point. Have to recheck if Time Machine still works if the TC is not mounted due to the running backup.
    Maybe someone else can verify this to see if it helps them too?
    Cheers!

    Actually the path is shown in the system log. (My log had just rolled over and I didn't see the exact error message anymore - had used "locate" to find it)

  • SUDDENLY "the backup disk image could not be mounted"

    I have been using an external hard drive over my wireless network for months to back up with Time Machine. Now it seems suddenly it is unable to back up to the drive. I think I recently had an airport update, but I'm not sure if that is related.
    I did some searching and found that Apple claims that an external HD will not work over wifi (which i think is BS and just an attempt at selling more time capsules). Anyone know a fix for this? Did my airport update disable my ability to use this external HD now?
    Thanks!

    After disconnecting the drive and connecting it to my laptop, I cannot connect to it through file sharing either. I go to click on it and I get "an unexpected error occurred (error code -43). I also checked the drive with disk utility and everything was ok...

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