Time Machine backup disappears when iMac sleeps

Tried finding this topic but could not find the specifics. I have an Intel iMac running 10.6.7 and I use a Mercury enclosure with a Seagate Barracuda 2TB SATA for Time Machine backup, connected with FireWire. Every time my Mac goes to sleep overnight, the next morning, the Time Machine icon disappears from the desktop. It's been disconnected, because when I run Check Time Machine, the log reads thusly:
<<Thu Apr 21 10:29:30 com.apple.backupd-auto Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.
Thu Apr 21 12:30:05 [0x0-0x2d22d2].backupd-helper Not starting Time Machine backup after wake - failed to resolve alias to backup volume
>>
Occasionally I'll get the error message on the Mac that a device has been "improperly disconnected" but most of the time when it sleeps the TM drive icon just goes away (even tho the backup drive is still on).
Any ideas? Can I fix this or have to live with it? Are there alternatives to TM that may work better?
Thanks for any help/suggestions.
Best,
Mike

I had the same problem as Bru-Hed, but with a Samsung G3 Station 1 TB with USB-connection. After waking up the MAC the message "improperly disconnected" appeared. Was happy with the solution you gave and changed the power save settings accordingly, the drive holds its power, but....... things did not change. Switching off the MAC and restarting gives no problems with the back-up drive, but after waking up I have to reinstall the back-up drive every time by disconnecting and connecting the USB-connector. After choosing the drive again in Time Machine, everything works properly until the next time the MAC goes asleep......
Any other solution to this problem ?

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Equipment.
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Verbatim [SamsungHD] [three years old]
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connected by USB 2 Cable
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Would like to verify Time Machine backup but when I enter TM and then open iPhoto, it only provides me a gray window telling me the size of the file. How do I make sure all iPhoto pictures have been backed up on Time Machine?

Would like to verify Time Machine backup but when I enter TM and then open iPhoto, it only provides me a gray window telling me the size of the file. How do I make sure all iPhoto pictures have been backed up on Time Machine?

HaJo-aus-BS wrote:
Since Snow-Leo time machine offers an option to verify backups, but I have found that it does not work for external disks attached by USB or FireWire.
Yes, that's for network backups only.
What can I do to make sure that the backups are OK?
You can tell if the File System (the various directories, catalogs etc.) is ok by repairing your backup drive, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
You can "spot check" whether the Time Machine "Star Wars" display seems correct.
You can do a full system restore to another disk per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions, then start up from it and see if things are there and seem to work.
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External usb disc used for Time Machine backup disconnects when Mac has been into sleep mode

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Hamish Morrison wrote:
Well yes in principal I'm sure you're right about the drive capacity but I don't believe its a space, or lack thereof problem. I can't say that there was any unusually large backup that occurred that might cause it to wipe off the older backups.
I have done verification on both source & target drives. No issues found. Same with Techtool.
Yes, I also run Superduper every day to an external drive so at least all is not lost when TM fails. All drives are permanently attached & the Mac runs 24/7.
I also run the TM Buddy widget, but it only records info so far back and the challenge is being aware that you have lost the backup when you don't check it every day. By the time I notice the problem the info that might help diagnose the problem is gone!
I understand but it's really impossible to say now what might have caused it without seeing log info. file system errors are one possible reason but you say all drives check out fine. anything else would be unverifiable speculation at this point. once thing i've noticed in the past that any kind of problems with superduper backups can cause this. so if you ever get any issue with superduper check what's happening with TM.

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It's TimeMachine,
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https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
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Time Machine Backups Disappearing

I am running an iMac 2.7 GHz with 12 GB memory and 2 TB Hard drive. I have a very large iPhoto library which has become corrupted. I entered Time Machine and grabbed the last backup and moved it forward. At that time, I could see backups extending into the past as usual. The file took 14 hours to be moved to the present and it had the same corruption problem, so I threw it away and returned to Time Machine to go further into the past - to my surprise all backups after late yesterday are grayed out / not accessable (no dates next to the timeline on right) - it looks like I just set up Time Machine yesterday instead of months ago. Since I never trust anything completely I did a manual backup a few weeks ago but I have done a lot of work on the library since then. Any way to re-gain access to those grayed out backups? BTW the Time Capsule disk is no where near full; not sure how this would have happened. Any help appreciated.

Hi:
I have never seen anything like that happen, but I am no "expert."
It occurred to me that you might try running repair disk on your external drive. Candidly, I do not know whether that will help either, but it might be worth a try.
You might also look at these articles about Time Machine problems to see if any fit your circumstance:
https://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?resultTypes=&dateRange=all&peopleEnabl ed=true&q=time+machine+backup+grayed+out&containerType=&container=&containerName =&username=&rankBy=relevance&numResults=15
Barry

Time Machine backups disappeared. HELP!!!

Last night I ran a Time Machine backup of my MacBook Pro just like I do every night, and it completed successfully. This morning I noticed a msg saying my backup failed because there wasn't enough room on the disk (I leave my Time Machine disk plugged in all of the time when I'm home). When I enter Time Machine it doesn't show any of the old backups--it looks like it's never used the disk. When I browse the disk in Finder I see a backups folder. I really need to have access to my backups! I've tried restarting the computer, and control clicking Time Machine and selecting "Browse other Time Machine Disks" and nothing seems to help.
The OS is 10.5.8
I will greatly appreciate any assistance anyone can provide!

Open Disk Utility & highlight the external drive, see if it needs Repair.
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Time Machine backup disappeared--devastating loss

Long story short, my system drive became corrupted and I wasn't able to repair it with Disk Utility or DiskWarrior. I knew my Time Machine backup was up to date on my Time Capsule, so I formatted (quick format) my drive and installed OS X again, thinking I could just reimport my info back from the Time Machine backup.
What happened is now the hard drive is not showing up in the sparsebundle file. The other 2 internal drives seem to be fine.
In retrospect, I know I screwed up process. But my question is, is there ANY way to make that backup available again? I know it all must still be there but somehow the link to it must have been broken and I can't access it.
I lost everything but the videos/photos of my 17 month old son is devastation. I really hope someone can save me here.
(I did use a recovery app (read only) on the system drive so I do have access to the raw data, but there are literally millions of files to sort through, many corrupted).

Frozo wrote:
Disk Utility returned "The volume Time Machine Backups appears to be OK."
That was quick!
Would you know what the preference file would be that holds the information as to which drives are being backed up? I may be able to do a content search for it on my recovered raw data files. Id be curious--maybe I had accidentally added the disk on the exclude list somehow!? Maybe I wasnt 100% sure, because I havent had to access it for over a year at least.
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
(That's the top-level Library folder, not the one in your user home folder). It contains the current instructions; if you make a change, that will be reflected in subsequent backups, but earlier ones won't be changed.
But of course, if you don't have the backups, you can't tell what was in that file.
Lets say it was recently deleted somehow, is there any recourse to pulling anything off it?
Even if it was recently added to the exclusion list (all internals are backed-up by default), that wouldn't affect prior backups. Those would still be in the Backups.backupdb folder, until the entire backup (or all backups of a selected item, as below) was deleted. Since you have at least a year's worth of backups, it would still have been there.
If you really want to double-check, Time Machine puts a hidden, somewhat cryptic, log in each backup folder. Among other things, it shows which volumes were backed-up.
First, you have to change the Finder to show hidden items. See #A3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting if you don't know how to do that.
Then via the Finder, locate the log file, shown in gray since we mere mortals are not authorized to read it, either:
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Open it with a text editor. Here's part of a sample, showing the "preflight" to back up two drives:
See if the "missing" drive shows up there. If not, it wasn't backed-up.
But then, even it it were physically delted, it wouldnt have been an accident, since it would have to be manually removed from each incremental folder and there are about 70 of them!
There is a "Delete all backups of ..." option in the TM browser that would do them all at once. It's almost impossible to do it by accident, though. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12.

Time Machine backups disappeared... in a way.

I've been having problems with my iMac for months now. I'm feeling like I'm on Microsoft PC again... not even joking.
I had to bring it to the Genius bar 4 times, first time my HDD was failing, was replaced (no more AppleCare so, shucks), but it started behaving even worst after that... they changed it AGAIN, I changed and upgraded the RAM to no avail, they did diagnostics, all was in fine condition... so their only idea was corrupted files or prefs.
So I reinstalled OS 10.8 clean and imported everything but the prefs (to start) and it seemed to do the trick... for about a month. And it went bad again.
Main problem was Finder : wouldn't see anything plugged in USB (or would stop seeing it after a few seconds/min), would get sluggish, I wouldn't be able to shut it off...
I got the SBBOD regularly, in any app...
And MAINLY... if I restarted or shut off and re-started, I would get stuck on the grey login screen... with no actual login screen (just the grey fabric-like background). Or, sometimes, just the white screen after the "dong", spinning gear, or not, apple icon, or not.
All in all... bad.
So... I re-installed OS 10.8 from scratch, AGAIN. But didn't import anything.
I had a fresh backup in Time machine AND I used Carbon Copy Cloner to get a full copy of my HD (not a startup disk, just the files). I also copied my documents on my macbook, just to be on the safe side.
(side note: to those intereste, is the iMac running well now? Seems so. But last time it did too, for almost a month... so I can't trust it at all, I don't dare start to use it as my main computer again, I don't know what to re-install and how long to run it before installing the next app to be sure I could put my finger on what the **** problem was, if indeed it WAS coming from my side and not something in the hardware!)
Main bug...
As I said, before I pulled the plug and did the clean install, I made sure I had a full, fresh backup on TM.
Now, if I plug in my backup HDD and look inside, I see, indeed, that the latest backup is from a few days ago. And if I open it, everything seems to be there (as far as I can tell. I'm far from being a newbie but I couldn't know if all the hidden files are there for all apps)
BUT... if I open, say, the Finder or Mail app and go in Time Machine to bring back "lost" files... it says my last backup (or last available files) are from 3 MONTHS AGO! Which is when my HDD first failed.
What the heck?!
Now... I'm happy to see the backups are in fact, there. But how do I access those files?
Why don't they show up?
Does it mean that nothing in Mail was backed up? Why wouldn't it be? (No, it wasn't selected as "exclude from backup")
Plus... all my documents are there in the latest backup... so, shouldn't they show up when I try to see them in Finder/TM?
Thanks!

Hey...
I'm not sure I get what you mean... do you mean if you move your mouse around on the grey "fabric" screen you eventually can "guess" where to enter your login and it eventually works?
In my case I also can move the mouse around, but I never got it to change to anything other than the arrow, and the Genius couldn't get it to do anything either... the only solution is to shut the computer off manually, unplug it from the wall, wait 10 sec, replug it, wait another 10 sec and try again...
(they tried all the possible options of starting with CTRL-this and shift-CTRL-that and nothing had worked)
Now we're getting off topic, but I'm happy to see I'm not alone!
And right now I'm almost happy because my iMac seems to be getting buggy again! Yup, almost happy because it's better than not knowing... and because it proves that it wasn't my data, HA! I knew it didn't make sense!
I tried to change preferences in Finder (show hard drives and start with Home folder screen) and it wouldn't take effect... I also got the SBBOD... so I tried to restart my computer... and now it wouldn't because iPhoto is unresponsive (I was using it with my externa HDD, but just so you know, last time things bugged it had not been used at all)...
AND... I also got the error message that "this disk has not been ejected properly"... while all my external HDDs have not been touched and my energy settings are set to NEVER go to sleep (except the screen). That had been a symptom before too. And killed an HDD or 2.
Isn't this fun.
Anyone knows how long the AppleCare repair lasts for? Is it for 90 days after the last time they had it, or since they first did ANY repair? 'cause I only have a few weeks left if it's the latter...

Time Machine backup/restore on iMac with SSD and HD...

Time Machine backs up the SSD and HD on my iMac into one "sparse bundle" for the computer. I need some direction on how to get to the HD backup in order to restore individual files and folders.
PLEASE do not give an answer like "Just enter Time Machine and click Restore." I have been trying to get this to work for hours - if it was so easy, I would not be asking. (I don't mean to sound rude so please don't be offended.)
Thanks for any help.

Sorry, Bob, I see that I didn't say at the beginning of this discussion, but the SSD has all my applications and OS X system. The purpose for the SSD is to run the system and apps faster, while having all files/documents on the slower and larger HD.
So my home folder (my UserName) in the left panel is on the SSD. I have no problem accessing the SSD backups in Time Machine.
When I choose the MacHD in Time Machine, I cannot select a date from the timeline of backups on the far right because all the backups are grayed out (not available). Choosing the SSD gives no access to the files from the separate HD.
I also have a MacBook Pro. It is backed up to the same Time Capsule using Time Machine and has its own separate "sparse bundle." But the iMac puts both of its separate drives into the same sparse bundle. I asked the Apple Support person I spoke with the other day whether I should have separated them before doing the backup, but he said no - it is backed up correctly.
Does anybody out there know if Apple has any specific support articles about using the two separate drives on one computer, whether for backup and restore or for any other purposes?

Time machine backup disappeared after upgrading OS from Lion to Mountain Lion.

I made a full backup of my 2011 Macbook Pro to my network drive through Time Machine in order to upgrade to Mountain Lion. However, after the upgrade, the backup could not be found. As it went through the install, I opted to recover the backup afterwards as I have read that you can do that after the upgrade. But the migration assistant could not find a backup.
So I looked in Finder at my external drive, and sure enough the backup is gone.
Some extra info:
So I don't know if this has affected anything important, I'm not that computer smart.
Prior to this I've been trying to get Windows 7 to work on bootcamp (still not working). I needed the OS X install disc, but I didn't have the install disc(I had OS Lion installed) and I bought the laptop from someone at work, so I couldn't get the Lion iso pulled from the recovery to a flash drive (it required the previous owners password to his apple account). Therefore I purchased the Mountain Lion Upgrade (Lion being no longer available. I didn't really want mountain lion). So when I started the Mountain Lion install, I had the "brilliant" idea to install it on the flash drive I had intended to use in the first place. Well, I didn't think it was gonna start the upgrade immediately after that. Anyways, after I realised my mistake I redid the install, process was the same, chose the main HD, went well. This was where I opted out of the recover-from-backup option. At this point I tried to restore my backup through the migration assistant. It said there was not enough room on the hard drive. I then noticed that all the memory used up prior upgrading was still in use, but under the old main user. I didn't do much with it, and thinking that my backup had my back, I did a full clean install. Another mistake. After the clean install, the migration assistant said there was no backup. I looked in finder, it was gone.
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Please advise.

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.
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I just don't want to give this up.

I have an external hard drive set up as a Time Machine backup on my IMac. I want to add a second external hard drive and put my Aperture Photo Library on it. Is there a way to have the photos on this second hard drive automatically back up to the Time Mac

I have an IMac with an external hard drive set up as a Time Machine for automatic backups. I want to add a second external hard drive and load my Aperture Photo Library on to it so that the library can be shared by both me and my wife. Is there a way to automatically backup the photo library that will be on the second hard drive to the Time Machine hard drive?

Open System Preference > Time Machine
Click Options....
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Time Machine backup disappears when iMac sleeps

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