Time Machine - All or Nothing??

So... I had TWO MBPs crash this week. One had screen death, the other (has been a real lemon from the beginning, 1 year old) HD crash. Almost everything is backed up on TM, thankfully. But - I need just a few files to do some work... and Time machine wants to put EVERYTHING from the backup on the temporary machine. I am seeing this using Migration Assistant.
What I was hoping to do - was get pages (the app I need) and the file I was working on... and just bring those over. If that's not possible... I'm stuck in the water.
Unless I'm reading this wrong, TM is not a good backup system in the event of a system crash. Great if it's working, but not if it isn't.
Help!??!

PJGinFL wrote:
So... I had TWO MBPs crash this week. One had screen death, the other (has been a real lemon from the beginning, 1 year old) HD crash. Almost everything is backed up on TM, thankfully. But - I need just a few files to do some work... and Time machine wants to put EVERYTHING from the backup on the temporary machine. I am seeing this using Migration Assistant.
What I was hoping to do - was get pages (the app I need) and the file I was working on... and just bring those over. If that's not possible... I'm stuck in the water.
Unless I'm reading this wrong, TM is not a good backup system in the event of a system crash. Great if it's working, but not if it isn't.
There are four ways to restore from Time Machine:
Restore your entire system to the exact condition it was in at the time of any backup. See #14 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Use +Setup Assistant+ to set up a new Mac just like the old one. See #19 in the FAQ.
Use +Migration Assistant+ to transfer some or all items, similar to Setup Assistant.
Restore individual items via the normal +Star Wars+ interface. See #15 in the FAQ.
If you want only selected items (fewer than the selections offered by +Migration Assistant,+ you can pick and choose via the "Star Wars" display, but there may be problems with complex applications.
I don't use Pages, so don't know about it; but many complex apps that are installed with their own installers put things in various places. If you know what & where all those pieces are, you can restore them and the app will work fine; if not, you'll have to reinstall.

Similar Messages

Clicking the Time Machine icon does nothing.

So I have backed up to an external hard-drive, and would like to confirm my backup. But clicking the Time Machine icon does nothing.
Is anyone else experiencing this?

Thanks all. I had used my external hard-drive on a PC previously, and thought that Time Machine would reformat it correctly, but erasing the external hard-drive with Disk Utility seems to have addressed the issue. I can now open Time Machine by clicking the icon in the dock, just as I was trying to do before... in vain.
So that problem being solved, I now have a question: If I have a Boot Camp partition (I do), will it be backed up by Time Machine as well? How can I check? I.e. how can I open that partition from Mac OS / Time Machine?

Time Machine - all backups gone, backups fail

I've been backing up with time machine for 10 months via direct USB connection. I've recently been receiving a string of Time Machine error messages including "Error completing backup, an error occurred while creating backup folder" and "backup disk not available." When I clicked "enter time machine" all of my backups were GONE. Nothing there but "now".
I repaired disks, verified disks, unplugged and rebooted, all several times. After unmounting then repairing the external hard drive, TM was able to complete one backup but the problem came back within a day. All the old backups have disappeared completely.
Ideas?

That sounds like a problem with your external HD. All those messages indicate a problem writing to it.
When you say you've verified and repaired disks, does that include both your internal HD and your TM drive? If not, do both just to be sure. Then, before attempting another backup, try the Browse option, per #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). If your backups are there, and not corrupted, that should show them.
Also check all connections to the external. Use different ports, cables, and combinations of the two (a plug that works fine in one port may make intermittent contact in another).
If the drive has it's own power supply, check those connections as well.
Restart your Mac, if you haven't during all this.
Check with the maker for firmware updates.
How old is the drive? Is it still covered by warranty?

After restore backup from time machine, all thumbnails in photos are blank. How to fix ?

After restore backup from time machine, all thumbnails in photos are blank. How to fix ?
I'm using Yosemite 10.10.3 and Photos. i have tried repair database, but no success .

Try these for the first attempt:
First be sure to have a backup copy of the library if you already don't have one.
OT

I'm running OS X 10.6.8-Why is Time Machine all of a sudden backing up 225GB of data after 2 years of perfect service? I have not added, deleted, or upgraded anything, Help!

I'm running OS X 10.6.8-Why is Time Machine all of a sudden backing up 250GB of data after 2 years of perfect service? I have not added, deleted, or upgraded anything.

USB 3.0 drives work on USB 2.0 but you do get 2.0 speed. They are cheaper because they are popular PC drives. If you get a new computer you'll get the bump to 3.0 speed.
I like the Seagate USB 3.0 Backup plus drives. They come formatted for PC but easy to format in Disk Utility. Seagate Backup Plus Right now the 1T is more than the 2 & 3T drives
This Western Digital drive has good reviews: WD My Book Hard Drive for Mac 2 TB $99.
Locally, Best Buy seems to have the best prices.
USB 3.0 is 10x faster than USB 2.0
Thunderbolt is 12 times faster than FireWire 800 and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0.
Format new drives with Apple's Disk Utility rather than the software that come with the drive.
My plan was to rid a lot of the stuff I have on my computer (to a hard drive) anyhow once it had backed up.
I wound't necessarily backup those files to Time Machine. I would copy to the external drive then delete from computer. Only backup to Time Machine the data you would want to restore to your Mac if there was a problem. The backup will go much faster this way. Time Machine backup is slower than just copying data in my experience.

Time Machine Restore does NOTHING - URGENT!!!

I just got a brand new MacBook Pro 17", installed all my software and run Time Machine which successfully creates backups. But when starting the Time Machine application in the dock, nothing happens. I would expect the display with the list of backups, but the application does not seem to even get going. This is scary as I will rely on this backup process. I also installed a lot of software and do not plan to go back to factory install at all.
Anybody can help?

I've heard too many people reporting problems with Time Machine, and worse, problems with restoring from a previously functioning (or so it seemed) Time Machine backup. In the past, I've personally had trouble restoring individual files from a Backup (the app that used to come with .Mac membership) backup. For these reasons, I now use Carbon Copy Cloner to simply copy the files I want onto an external drive. Since there's no proprietary file format involved, just pure copy of files, I always know that, even if Carbon Copy Cloner for some reason stops working, I've at least got manual access to the files.
Sorry to be a pessimist, but from the reports I keep hearing, TM just isn't safe enough to trust data that you can't replace to it. Yes, I know you only hear the bad and not the good, so it could only be 2% of people having trouble... but in the event of a problem, a 2% chance of permanently losing irreplaceable pictures of my children when they were little is still too much.

Why did Time Machine all of a sudden do a full backup, earsing months of backups to make room on my 1T drive?

The question says it all. I had backups going back for about a year. Then today, seemingly for no reason, Time Machine deiced that it needed to do a full backup. Now the earliest backup is only March of this year. To answer any initial questions, no I've done nothing with or to the computer to warrant a new, 25+ Gig backup, let alone a 300 + gig one.
Thanks in advance

1macprincess! wrote:
What is the benefit to using a cloning tool vs. a backup other than full control. is a backup a mirror image while a clone is an exact copy? should i be cloning my stuff or backup is ok if i needed a full restore for HD failure?
thanks!
Cloning is a mirror image of your boot drive/partition (minus bootcamp partition) which is hold option bootable.
It can be used as a backup as you can just update the clone so it mirrors changes on the boot drive.
Since a clone is bootable, it makes a good option when you need to boot off a dirve other than your boot drive, especially if it fails.
You can most certainly reverse clone while booted from the clone.
So lets say your hard drive fails and Apple replaces it, well if you have a clone you simply clone back onto the new drive.
You should still be making backups of important files regardless, to something else too.
With backups you have the time advantage, you can backup files and date them, then make another backup and date those.
Some people like myself and others rotate a clone every two weeks, just in case we have to go back for something .
With a little management backing up is not problem you just have to leverage what you need and we don't know that at all.

After restoring contacts from time machine, all groups are empty

I had to restore a backup of my address book folder from time machine. Library/Application Support/Address Book, I also removed deleted the com.apple.addressbook.plist files. When I open address book, all the contacts and group names show, but the groups are now empty when I click on them. Any thoughts?

Quit Contacts or Address Book if it’s running. If you use iCloud, uncheck the box marked Contacts in the iCloud preference pane.
Triple-click the text on the line below to select it, then copy it to the Clipboard (command-C):
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Metadata
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V), and press return.
A Finder window will open with a folder selected. Move the selected folder to the Desktop, leaving the window open for now.
Relaunch the application and test. If there’s no improvement, quit and put back the item you moved, overwriting the newer one that may have been created in its place. Otherwise, delete the item.

How to Recover in Lion From Time Machine all my systems at it was an hour a go?

Hi There,
I just make a mistake and delete many system files from the Lion now I would like to reatore all my laptop at the point it was 2 hours a go, I have tImeMachine working well. but I got Lion online, so I don't have the Installation Disk, to reinstall any suggestions?
Thx
hvillero

See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14 for detailed instructions.

When I open Time Machine all I see is the desktop. Where r the other folders?

All I see are copies of desktops that were bacjed up on my time machine. I can only restore the desktop. Where can I find the rest of hard drive contents?

See Here How do I view or restore selected items?
Video here http://support.apple.com/kb/VI29

HT3275 Time Machine backup does nothing

Question: Is there a magic fix I can apply? or do I need to format the backup disk and make a new backup from scratch? or do I need to replace the backup disk with a new one? Or am I asking the wrong questions?
After a mysterious freeze yesterday, followed by a shutdown and restart, Time Machine claims it is "Preparing backup ... Finishing backup" and is done very quickly. It does not spend its usual long time looking through a couple of hundred megabytes of files, nor does it do the subsequent stage of actually transferring data to the backup disk. "Entering" Time Machine seems to show it's at least a little confused: a test file created on the desktop fails to show in backups, while old files that have been moved appear on some backups, vanish on others.
I'm not much good with log files, but they show something like this:
12-02-29 10:54:49.260 AM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
12-02-29 10:54:49.287 AM com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/Jim Clarke backup/Backups.backupdb
12-02-29 10:54:50.247 AM com.apple.backupd: 3.11 GB required (including padding), 334.62 GB available
12-02-29 10:54:50.726 AM com.apple.backupd: Copied 29 files (153 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
12-02-29 10:54:51.329 AM com.apple.backupd: Starting post-backup thinning
12-02-29 10:54:51.330 AM com.apple.backupd: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
12-02-29 10:54:51.459 AM com.apple.backupd: Backup completed successfully.
The "29 files(153 bytes)" part is always the same, except for once when it said "21 KB" instead of 153 bytes.
I'll be very grateful for guidance. There's lots of advice on Time Machine out there, but I can't find anything relevant to this situation.
Jim Clarke

Time Machine uses the modification times of folders to determine whether their contents need to be scanned for changes made since the time of the last snapshot. For some reason, that criterion occasionally fails, and TM doesn’t scan folders with contents that have changed. You may be able to get backups to resume by updating the modification times of all your folders.
Important: This procedure will change the modification times of all folders on the startup volume. It won’t affect anything that’s not a folder, and it won’t change your existing backups at all. If you have a reason to want to keep the modification times of folders as they are, STOP.
Before proceeding, you must have a current backup of all data. Since your existing Time Machine backups may not be current, you’ll have to back up in some other way; for example, by starting a new TM backup set on another external drive. It’s a good idea to do this anyway, as you need more than one backup.
Launch the Terminal application by entering the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. If that doesn’t work, then in the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens. Another way to launch Terminal (if you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later) is from LaunchPad: click the Utilities icon, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy – do not type – the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo find / -xdev -type d -exec touch {} \;
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
The command may take several minutes to run. When a line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, quit Terminal.
The next snapshot will take longer than usual, because all folders will be scanned for changes. When it’s complete, check the results to see how much data has been backed up.
This procedure will only affect the backups of your startup volume. If you back up other source volumes with Time Machine and are having the same problem with those, you’ll need to take additional steps.

Time machine all recent backups missing after reboot

I accidentally deleted an important file on my mac, and when i opened time machine, i discovered that my it couldn't be found wirelessly. The green light was still on the front of the device but my mac couldn't locate it.
I'm not sure exactly how long it has been since timecapsule made a backup, but i have a clear memory of it working about 3 months ago.
I rebooted it and now its running, and has backed up.
My problem is when i go into the "star wars screen" to view past backups, the only backups are from today and then next most recent are from July 2012 when i first bought the time capsule, everything else in between has disappeared. It definitely had 2013 backups.
Are the backups from 2013 still there and can't be seen, or have they been deleted permanently?

I presume then you upgraded to Mavericks?
It has a nasty habit of doing this.
If not on Mavericks please tell me what OS you are on.
Did you search by Finder.. after mounting the sparsebundle.. ie do not use Time Machine directly.
I know this is silly question .. but if you deleted the file is it in Trash??
If you deleted from Trash an immediate recovery is possible at times.. you will need to purchase a recovery software unless your are good with the CLI.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4070374
If it is deleted weeks ago then recovery is unlikely as the area of the drive will have been written over.

Error Backup failed in Time Machine all of a sudden

I'm using 10.5.3 with Time Machine. I also have Super Duper saving to the same disk, a LaCie 1T. This setup has been working fine since December until last night. The last backup was fine and I had to shut off time machine overnight. I turned it on this morning and now every backup has failed. Last week my hard drive died and had to be replaced but Time Machine didn't balk at that. Any ideas?

Okay, I fixed permissions on the internal hard drive and ran the backup again. Same thing as before, it gets 2.25GB and then quits. Here's the log:
7/26/08 3:16:55 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Backup requested by user
7/26/08 3:16:55 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Starting standard backup
7/26/08 3:16:55 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Backing up to: /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb
7/26/08 3:23:27 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] No pre-backup thinning needed: 91.58 GB requested (including padding), 233.76 GB available
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/.TechToolProItems to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/.VolumeIcon.icns to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/2008 MB clip.iMovieProject to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/2008 MB clip.mov to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/60th anniversary card to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/60th Anniversary.dvdproj to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/Arcsoft to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/Brass Choir .iMovieProject to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/Brett's Hard Dirve to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:23:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/Celeb Duets.zip to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/DSCN0244.MOV to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/DVD Archive to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/ECOH docs to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/Extra Applications to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/Games to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/High School Directions to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/iMovie Archive to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/iPhoto Library to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/iPhoto Library 1999, 2004-2005 to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/iPhoto Library 2006 to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Stopping backup.
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Error: (-36) copying /Volumes/Gabrielle's Brain/Movies to make to /Volumes/Spock's Brain/Backups.backupdb/Sandra Hall’s iMac G5/2008-07-26-151657.inProgress/FA4576F7-BB1A-44A4-9F03-4FB4EBFB31DE/Gabrielle' s Brain
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Copied 101 files (2.2 GB) from volume Gabrielle's Brain.
7/26/08 3:25:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Copy stage failed with error:11
7/26/08 3:25:51 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1061] Backup failed with error: 11

Trying to recover excel 2011 file from time machine, all excel file edited after Lion install come back as corrupted.

file that were not edited since Lion install recover fine.

file that were not edited since Lion install recover fine.

Does time machine backup all users on a machine

I have a Macbok Pro with 3 users. I just bought an iomego eGo portable HD. My Time Machine preferences excludes nothing. I would like to know if Time Machine is backing up the other users data. If not, will backing up their data (uner their profile) erase mine?

Time Machine will back up the whole hard drive, including all users on it, unless you have it set to back up only certain folders.

Time Machine - All or Nothing??

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for