Time Machine backup disk selection error

I'm trying to set up a TM backup of my boot disk in OS 10.6.8 to a partition on an external HD in a eSATA III enclosure. I have not used Time Machine before so I mistakenly chose the destination partition for TM as the disk to be backed up. Now Time Machine will not let me choose that partition as the destination without displaying some variant of the below error message:
--------error message-------
Are you sure you want to back up to the same device your original data is on?
The volume “TM_System” you have chosen for storing backups is on the same device as the volume “TM_Data” which is being backed up.
To fully protect your data, you should back up to a volume on a different device.
--------end error message-------
The eSATA drive has two partitions, TM_System (for my boot disk TM backup) and TM_Data. After my original mistake of choosing "TM_System" as the disk to be backed up, Time Machine thinks that the volume I want to back up is on the eSATA drive but I want to back up an internal drive with one volume named "Boot". How do I get Time Machine to forget the eSATA drive partitions so that when I try to select one as a destination it does not think it's backing up to the source volume? Could this mean there is something broken with Time Machine preferences, or that something is wrong with the eSATA card?
Also, I notice that there does not seem to be a way to choose which drive is to be backed up. Does Time Machine always assume the startup disk is what's to be backed up? Is there a way to back up an internal HD or volume which is not the startup disk?
Thanks for any help.

I do not have an alternative disk to back everything up to at hand, no.
You need one. In fact, you need at least two. The one you have is malfunctioning. One backup is never enough to be safe.

Similar Messages

Error Dialogue: "Time Machine Backup Disk Can't be Found"

Hello -
I am trying to "Enter Time Machine" (which is on a Time Capsule); but when I try this, I am met by the error message "Your Time Machine Backup Disk Can't be Found" with the option given to "Set up My Time Machine".
Needless to say, my Time Machine has been set up for months. When I look in the preferences, it clearly shows the disk I'm connected to (here's a screenshot of the error dialogue alongside my Time Machine preferences: http://cl.ly/1HGk).
Any idea what the best course of action is here.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: notice from the screenshot that Time Machine thinks the earliest backup is only 1 day prior. This is also strange as I have said I've had Time Machine working on this Time Capsule for months. I called Apple about this and was told that a software update had gone out yesterday that reformatted the drives and started the backups all over again. While completely fishy - I don't remember agreeing to any software update dialogue about erasing my Time Capsule - I took them at their word. Not sure if this is related, but thought I should mention it.
Thanks Crew!

MattLat wrote:
Hello -
I am trying to "Enter Time Machine" (which is on a Time Capsule); but when I try this, I am met by the error message "Your Time Machine Backup Disk Can't be Found" with the option given to "Set up My Time Machine".
Needless to say, my Time Machine has been set up for months. When I look in the preferences, it clearly shows the disk I'm connected to (here's a screenshot of the error dialogue alongside my Time Machine preferences: http://cl.ly/1HGk).
Any idea what the best course of action is here.
The +sparse bundle+ containing your backups may be corrupted. Repair it, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If that doesn't help, try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 there.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: notice from the screenshot that Time Machine thinks the earliest backup is only 1 day prior. This is also strange as I have said I've had Time Machine working on this Time Capsule for months. I called Apple about this and was told that a software update had gone out yesterday that reformatted the drives and started the backups all over again.
That's the first I've heard of that. They may have been referring to the +Time Capsule Backup Update 1.0+ update several weeks ago, that some folks got but others didn't. If it finds a problem, it sends the message in this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4076 The existing sparse bundle is renamed and locked, and a new one made.

Since upgrading to Lion, my time machine backups are failing - error message: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska's MacBook.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1). Any ideas?

Since upgrading my Macbook to Lion, the time machine backups are failing - error message: "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska’s MacBook.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1)." I have rebooted the TIme Capsule and it worked OK, but don't want to do that every time. Any suggestions? Thanks

Any new info on this?
I had the exact same problem and went crazy and spent a hecka lot of time trying to deal with my brand new 2TB Time Capsule and almost brand new MacBook Pro. Then I thought I fixed it...and I tried SO MANY things, I don't really know what did it...except taking out any apostrophe's in names of stuff that Apple puts in there...BUT...now it's back.
Grrr...

Time Machine Backup Disk Cannot be found

While my iMac was in sleep mode, I disconnected the power to my external, firewire time machine backup disk. The backup is a Western Digital hard drive.
Now I get the error message "Your Time Machine Backup Disk Cannot be Found"
I have rebooted the computer with the disk connected and the disk still doesn't show up on the desktop.
I rebooted the computer with the disk powered up but the firewire disconnected, then connected the firewire. The disk still doesn't appear on the desktop.
I tried Disk Warrior, and Disk Warrior doesn't see the external Time Machine disk.
What to do?

Dan Mackey1 wrote:
While my iMac was in sleep mode, I disconnected the power to my external, firewire time machine backup disk. The backup is a Western Digital hard drive.
That might corrupt your backups, but shouldn't make the disk completely un-usable.
Disconnect it and power it off for several minutes, turn Time Machine OFF, then Restart your Mac again. Let your Mac get powered-up and running before connecting and powering the disk on. Then see if Disk Utility can see it.
Is this a dual-mode disk? If so, try connecting via USB -- it may work that way.
Can you tell if it's running? Is it one with a light, and/or can you hear it run or feel it vibrating?

Verify Disk failed for Time Machine backup disk

Thread <http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7930301&#7930301> discussed a similar issue, but it was closed without an answer so I'm opening a new one.
After a power failure I ran Disk Utility to Repair Permissions on my boot disk and Verify Disk on another that I use to store media files; neither had significant problems. Then I ran Verify Disk (verify, not repair; and disk, not permissions) on my Time Machine backup disk. It started spitting out the errors shown below. The time remaining counted up to 16 minutes, but wasn't coming down very fast so I left it running overnight. My machine is set to not sleep or spin down the disks. The next evening it was down to 12 minutes left, and was still spitting out the same errors. The second evening it was done, having failed out as shown in this log file excerpt:
2009-06-20 22:25:48 -0400: Verifying volume “Backup”
Starting verification tool: 2009-06-20 22:25:48 -0400
2009-06-20 22:25:50 -0400: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2009-06-20 22:25:50 -0400: Checking Extents Overflow file.
2009-06-20 22:25:50 -0400: Checking Catalog file.
2009-06-20 22:35:21 -0400: Checking multi-linked files.
2009-06-20 23:08:17 -0400: Checking Catalog hierarchy.
2009-06-20 23:16:59 -0400: Checking Extended Attributes file.
2009-06-20 23:18:34 -0400: Checking multi-linked directories.
2009-06-20 23:31:05 -0400: 2009-06-20 23:31:05 -0400: Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 3763501)
2009-06-20 23:31:05 -0400: 2009-06-20 23:31:05 -0400: 2009-06-20 23:31:05 -0400: (It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
2009-06-22 15:14:54 -0400: 2009-06-22 15:14:57 -0400: Incorrect owner flags for directory hard link (id = 7746623)
2009-06-22 15:14:59 -0400: 2009-06-22 15:15:00 -0400: 2009-06-22 15:15:02 -0400: (It should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)
2009-06-22 15:20:35 -0400: Checking volume bitmap.
2009-06-22 15:20:37 -0400: Checking volume information.
2009-06-22 15:20:39 -0400: 2009-06-22 15:20:41 -0400: The volume Backup needs to be repaired.
2009-06-22 15:20:43 -0400: Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.2009-06-22 15:20:44 -0400:
2009-06-22 15:20:44 -0400: Disk Utility stopped verifying “Backup” because the following error was encountered:
Filesystem verify or repair failed.
At that point the whole system was extremely sluggish, and the access light on the backup disk was flashing steadily. The pmTool process seemed to be running away, but the system wasn't responsive enough for me to do much about it, so I held down the power button to shutdown. Upon the 2nd restart the system booted and seems to be OK, but I'm leery of running another Verify Disk.
What's going on? Are those errors anything to worry about? Is it possible to run Verify Disk on a Time Machine backup disk? What about Repair Disk?

John Seal wrote:
2009-06-22 15:20:43 -0400: Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.2009-06-22 15:20:44 -0400:
2009-06-22 15:20:44 -0400: Disk Utility stopped verifying “Backup” because the following error was encountered:
Filesystem verify or repair failed.
At that point the whole system was extremely sluggish, and the access light on the backup disk was flashing steadily. The pmTool process seemed to be running away, but the system wasn't responsive enough for me to do much about it, so I held down the power button to shutdown.
Any time Disk Utility says you need to repair a disk, you need to repair it. Period.
So run it. If it fails to repair everything, run it again (and again) until it either repairs everything or can't repair any more. If it can't repair it, post back and we'll discuss options.
There's no point in running +Verify Disk+ on an external drive; just run +Repair Disk.+ The only time +Verify Disk+ is needed is for your internal HD (because you can't repair the disk you're running from).
And you need to do that again because of the forced power-down. Any time there's an abnormal shutdown, it's possible the file system on your internal HD can be damaged. Usually it isn't, but it's possible. If that says you need to repair it, you'll have to boot from your Leopard Install disc and use it's copy of DU. Post back if you need to do this but don't know how.

How do I manually erase my Time Machine backup disk?

I have a 500GB external hard drive with only 43 GB left after years of serving as a Time Machine backup disk for another computer. I wanted to use the same disk for my new computer. The new computer's backup is 130 GB, and when I connected the old external drive, Time Machine said "The backup disk needs to be 130.37 GB for the backup but only 47.24 GB are available. Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files." So I manually deleted the files I found on the external drive onto my computer's trash.
Big mistake. Apparently, there are still only 47.24 GB on the external, but there are no apparent backups or files on it. Furthermore, I can't restore the deleted files to the external hard drive because there isn't enough space on it. Too late, I did some searching and discovered that you can't delete files from a Time Machine external drive manually; you can only go through the gear icon in Finder and remove backups in that way.
So why does my external drive say that it has only 47 GB out of 500 even when there is nothing on it? Is there any other way to manually erase/reformat it?

Try opening Disk Utility and select the highest level drive name on the external drive. Click on the Partitions tab. Remove all the partitions on the drive by selecting each and clicking the "-" sign in the lower left corner of the partition table view. Then choose 1 Partition from the dropdown of partitions to create. Make sure the format shows Mac OS Extended-Journaled. Click Apply.
The above should delete everything on the drive and create a new single formated partition.

Time Machine "Backup Disk Not Available" over WAN

I have port forwarded port 46 (TCP and UDP) to port 548 a Mac mini server running Mac OS X 10.6.8, and I have Time Machine backup disk on it set as a share point with Time Machine support enabled. On my Mac Pro running OS X 10.8.5, I am able to connect via AFP to my server with the address "afp://my-ip-address:46" and can read and write on the backup disk share point. I tested that, and it works. When I am on the same LAN as the server, I can use that disk for Time Machine and have been doing so for years. However, I cannot do a Time Machine backup to that share point over the WAN. When I open Time Machine preferences, I can select the share point as my backup disk, but once I start the backup, it says "Backup disk not available" and fails to start. How could I fix this problem?
In case you're wondering, I forward port 46 to port 548 instead of port 548 to port 548 to minimize hacking attempts. Last time I used a default port, a computer in Taiwan started spamming SSH authentication failures.

I did find this article via Google
<http://www.macgurulounge.com/make-time-machine-remotely-back-up-to-your-time-cap sule/>
Personally, I use CrashPlan (free option using my own disks) to backup over the internet. It works very well when I'm away from home. Everything is encrypted.

How do I create more space on Time Machine backup disk?

How do I create more space on Time Machine backup disk?

since time machine in Snow Leopard stops backing up when there's no more space on the disk,
That is has not been my experience, and does not appear to be agree with this Time Machine documentation:
Backup drive fills up
As your backup drive begins to fill up to its capacity, Time Machine intelligently deletes the oldest backups to make room for newer ones (and will alert you if the "Notify after old backups are deleted" option is selected in Time Machine preferences).
from : Mac 101: Time Machine

Time Machine Backups disk not automatically unmounting after backup completes in Lion

I am using Time Machine over WiFi on a 3rd party USB drive shared as an AirDisk through an Airport Extreme router. Ever since switching to Lion (clean install), I have noticed that the Time Machine backup disk will not automatically unmount after a backup is completed. This creates a problem when my MacBook Pro comes back from sleep. Specifically, the WiFi notification icon in the Finder toolbar indicates that WiFi is connected, even though it's not connected to a network, and I am unable to connect to any networks for what seems like several minutes until the Time Machine backups disk disappears from the desktop and WiFi actually connects.
Since the disk was not cleanly unmounted, Time Machine then keeps complaining that the sparse bundle file is locked and cannot be mounted every time it tries to do a backup. I have to either disconnect/reconnect the USB drive physically from the router, or restart the router every time this happens to resolve the issue. That is getting really annoying to have to do every time. I suppose I could manually unmount the Time Machine disk after every backup but it's ridiculous to have to do that every time I want to put the computer to sleep.
Is anyone else experiencing this issue and is there a fix?

For others who might be having this problem - I was able to resolve it by connecting my backup disk to my mac via USB, completely erasing it, and starting over from a new backup. Disk Utility was not reporting any errors when I verified the disk, but I went ahead and repartitioned it and started fresh. The disk now automatically unmounts after backups complete.

HT3275 message: "Your Time Machine backup disk can't be found." Mountain Lion. Western Digital "MY Book" "Home edition"

Intalled Mountain Lion. Now get message: "Time machine backup disk can't be found. Using Western Digital "My Book" "Home Edition"

Wow, I feel really stupid. I spent a couple of days trying to troubleshoot this problem.
1. Open TM prefs.
2. Click "Select Disk..."
3. Select "None" and apply changes.
4. Click "Select Disk..." Select your disk and apply changes.
*5. When the password prompt appears, MAKE SURE THE NAME IS THE NAME OF THE AIRPORT BASESTATION, and not the name of your Mac.
6. Run a backup.

HT201250 My MacBook Pro (using OSX 10.7.5) suddenly can't find the Time Machine backup disk, which is on the harddrive of my desktop iMac. What to do?

My MacBook Pro (using OSX 10.7.5) suddenly can't find the Time Machine backup disk, which is on the harddrive of my desktop iMac. What to do?

Inherit a Backup
Inherit a Backup (2)

How do I get back iphone app information from a DELETED Time Machine Backup disk

Hi People,
here is what happened:
I have been using an iPhone App (Audio Memos Free - The Voice Recorder) to record song ideas (I am a songwriter). I have been using it for years.
I backed up my iphone to itunes, and backed up my mac on Time Machine. After a month or so I did a fresh OSX install on my mac, copied all of my files back from Time Machine into my mac, and tried to set up Time Machine. I was not able to do so, so I had to format the Time Machine Backup disk and doing a "fresh" mac Time Machine Backup.
After a week or so, my iphone asks me something like "you do not possess the rights for one or more applications". do not know what i did, but after 1 minute my iPhone was wiped out of all my apps and app contents. I had also the icloud app sync, so i did not worry, recovered from icloud notes, contacts, and all other things. so i did another backup to itunes.
Now i discover icloud did not recover or save the "Audio Memos Free" app content. I know the data are hidden into the Time machine Backup HD, but i do not know where to search for the itunes backup in it.
I know it is in library, but library won't show up.
Any help would be much appreciated.
PS there is a chance that, even without a data recovery, my latest itunes backup was containing these songs, but i do not know how to fish that out of the Time machine drive.
Thank you in advance.

I would email iTunes Customer Service:
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/browser/
CG

Restored system from Time Machine backup disk but the system could not start-up

On MacBook Pro early 2008, restored the entire system from Time Machine backup disk to the entire disk.
The previous system on the backup disk had FileVault turned on.
The restore completed successfully and I was prompted to restart the system via the new restored system disk.
I heard the normal start-up sound, then the Apple logo, but it stuck at the logo screen. And the cooling fan run at almost full speed?
I have been waiting for a few hours, guessing it might FileVault the disk.
Finally I have to shutdown the machine as it stuck at the logo screen forever.
Anyone has the same issue? Any ideas?

BTW, I also tried Repair the system disk, Fix permissions via Disk Utility.
I guess I must lose some files either during the backup or the restore.

Migration Assistant won't see my Time machine backup disk

Hi,
I've seen some other discussions but they apply to slightly different situations and turn out to be too complex for me to follow. My situation is this. My Dec 2008 Macbook running Lion just died. Not sure what the problem is but it seems to be the hardrive. It will take me a while to get it fixed and in the meantime I have a farly new mac mini running Lion.
I also have been making Time Machine backups to an external drive. I read that I could migrate content from a time machine backup and I connected the backup to my mac mini and launched Migration Assistan (MA), seleted the option to migrate from a Time Machine backup. MA is stuck trying to find my disk even though it shows up in Finder. This is the screen I'm talking about http://screencast.com/t/AC0OiVzxx
I'm hoping there is the equivalent of a little on/off switch that I'm not seeing and you can direct me too.
How can I get MA to see my Time Machine backup disk? Thanks for your help.

sorry, i don't know what else it could be then. if you have another external drive you can try doing a full system restore from the TM backups onto that drive and see if MA will recognize that drive and migrate from it. other than this there is always manual migration. slow and tedious but it can be done. see this link for help with that
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507

HT1338 Error preparing Time Machine backup disc- size error usually not being multiples of 512, encryption

Trying to encrypt Time Machine backup disc getting message - Error preparing Time Machine backup disc- size error usually not being multiples of 512, encryption.

I got the same problem.
But I think it cannot be related to not being a multiple of 512.
As when I devide the number of bytes 3.000.592.982.016 by 512 is equals 5860533168.
3.000.592.982.016 / 512 = 5860533168.
So what could be the real problem?
With kind Regards

Time Machine backup disk selection error

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