Time Machine backup not visible in Disk Utility, nor accessible through Recovery Assistant

Hi,
I want to recover from a Time Machine backup but the external HD where it was stored now shows empty (1TB available) and the name 'backup' has been replaced by 'untitled'.  It was fine yesterday.  How do I get my backup back?  Is there external software I can use, something throught Terminal? 
Thank you,

Yes, that's option B as she still has the IMac but I'm curious as to why the TM backup isn't working - just in case I need to do this on another machine down the road, it would be nice to know what's going wrong with the more convenient TM restore option.... Thanks!

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  • 10.5 Time Machine backup not visible in 10.6 Migration Assistant

    Hello everyone,
    Helping my not-so-tech savvy auntie move over from her old 5,1 iMac to a newer 8,1 MacBook. Her old iMac has a Time Machine backup on OS 10.5.8. I plugged in the Time Machine to the new MacBook (which is on a clean install of OS 10.6.8) and for some reason the Migration Assistant is not picking up the Time Machine in the "Select Your Disk" section. All I can see is the MacBook's internal HD. The Time Machine backup is showing up in Finder, however the disk's icon is yellow, not Time Machine green.
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    Yes, that's option B as she still has the IMac but I'm curious as to why the TM backup isn't working - just in case I need to do this on another machine down the road, it would be nice to know what's going wrong with the more convenient TM restore option.... Thanks!

  • Time machine does not appear in Disk Utility

    Time machine does not show up in Disk Utilities, connected by ethernet.  I need to erase the disk.  How to solve?

    I am sorry - I simply do not understand your instructions!
    I have 2 Time Capsules and have been using both.  However a few days ago they quit working.  I have had to turn off Time Machine because I am getting hourly alerts that back-up failed because there is not enough space.  It does not delete old backups to provide additional space.  I am willing to erase both to try to get them working again but I cannot figure out how to erase and setup the drives.  Hence I turned Time Machine off.
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  • Time Machine backups not visible

    I've got a problem where Time Machine does backups like it should, but when I enter into Time Machine to view my backups, none of them are visible. Its a bit odd... in Time Machine I see bars on the right (indicating the backups) but there are no dates listed next to the bars (apart from the one at the bottom that says "Now"). If I move my mouse over the bars, they expand to indicate that I'm selecting them, but clicking has no effect.
    I have seen this notice from Apple regarding the problem:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760?viewlocale=en_US
    When I first set things up, I had spaces in my computer's name... but Time Machine worked back then. At some point I changed the computer name to a name that did not have spaces and contained only characters that were with Apple's designated list. I've never gone into Time Machine to view backups since I've done that until yesterday, so I don't know when my problem started happening.
    I've tried renaming my computer name back to the original name (with the spaces) just to see if the backups would show up again. No luck. I've now renamed my computer back to a name with no spaces to fall under Apple's guidelines. Still no luck.
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    I've run Disk Utility's repair on both the external drive and the disk image and they seem to be in good shape.
    I'm considering just reformatting my drive and starting the backups all over from scratch, but this seems to be a drastic approach. Further, it lowers my confidence in relying on Time Machine. Any suggestions on how I might fix this?

    I have a similar problem, my computer name has non ASCII characters, the backups are there but don't show up when I time travel. I need to get some files from one of the backups, so I can't just reformat and begin again, but your message makes it seem that changing my computer name to a valid name won't allow me to access the backups that were made with the invalid name.
    It would be nice if the Apple document you reference would give some help to solve the problem rather than just tell us what we did wrong.
    Surely there is a way to access the backups that are on the drive.

  • Time machine backups not visible-changed computer name

    I found that I could not access any of the Time Machine back ups. I checked and the computer name had an apostrophe in it, also spaces. I changed the computer name to remove those and used ASCII characters only. The was yesterday evening. I still can't see any of the backups, although I've heard the hard drive I use for TM running a couple of times since then.
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    I do not see the backups thru Finder or thru the TM browser. I can get into the Time Machine browser, but the only time period displayed is today. The arrows to move backward and forward don't do anything and the bars along the right side are not labeled with dates or time as they should be. Thanks for any help you can offer.

  • HT3275 Time Machine backup not completed  because "the backup disk image ....sparsebundle already in use"

    Time Machine backup not completed because the "backup disk image"/Volumes/Data/MacBookAir.sparsebundle" is already in use. ??

    Reboot the TC.. this is most common issue since Mountain Lion.
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  • My time machine does not want to save any more the data from my powerbook 13" Snow Leopard; i get the message "Time Machine could not suppress the disk image of saving "Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/PowerBook _2011_03_21_123627 sparsebundle" What should I do?

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    Alain

    Could that read " . . . could not access . . ."?  If so, try repairing your backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
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  • Why is Time machine backup not working after Mavericks upgrade?

    Why is Time machine backup not working after Mavericks upgrade?

    I had the same problem due to the Fire Wire port.  Apple tested it told me it is OK!, I tried a new cable, and have tested both ports on my back up device.  I find it strange that as soon as I installed Mavericks.  The drive does work using USB.  It could be a coincidence, I don't absolutely know at this point, my back up drive ports could stop working, but I doubt it!

  • Time Machine backup not completed with error "The disk was not ejected probably..."

    I have been using an UBS 3.0 capable external 2.5" hard drive from Lacie to backup my old 21.5" iMac for the last 2 years without problem.
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    The system is losing connection with the drive for some reason, likely because the drive is losing power and unmounting, but there could be other reasons as well. Do you have access to an external power supply for the drive? If so then connect tthat so it is not relying on the USB bus power to keep the drive running. I have also found this to happen with some USB 3.0 enclosures, and it appears to be a compatibility issue with them and Apple's USB 3.0 drivers, so another option is to get a USB 2.0 hub and use that for the connection. Things will not run at USB 3.0 speeds, but the drives will not continually disconnect.

  • Time machine - backup not found yet visible

    Hello,
    I am having trouble setting up Time Machine on a new Macbook Air running OSX Yosemite 10.10. 
    I have an external hard drive connected to a first generation Airport Extreme, and it is running fine and backing up on my other computer, a MacBook Pro which is running OS X version 10.7.5 and AirPort Utility 6.3.1.
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  • How to restore a time machine backup from a corrupted disk

    Hi.
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    +Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.+
    +Invalid node structure+
    +Volume check failed.+
    +Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.+
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    ANY help is greatly appreciated

    ohnoono wrote:
    Hi.
    I have quite a problem. I recently downgraded to os x 10.5.4 due to the requirements of Digidesign's Pro Tools. I did so with a clean install in order to have the most optimized computer possible without loads of unused data. I had backed up my data using Time Machine on an external hard-drive (LaCie, 1 TB) so I wasn't worried about losing important data.
    However, when I inserted my external hard-drive after the clean installation it turns out to be corrupted in some way. It is only recognized in Disk Utility, it doesn't mount on my desktop.
    Disk Utility is unable to repair the disk. The errors are:
    +Verify and Repair volume “Kristoffer's back-up disk”+
    +Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.+
    +Invalid node structure+
    +Volume check failed.+
    +Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.+
    I went out and bought "Data Rescue II" at once to try to recover my data. It works fine with the stuff I've manually dragged to the disc but the Time Machine backup folders seem compressed in some way (It's only about 86 MB). And when I click a file restored from one of the Time Machine folders it seems like it's just a shortcut to an "original file". I get this error when double-clicking such a file:
    +The alias "filename" could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found.+
    Is there some way for me to get Time Machine to understand the back up disk even though it's corrupted?
    no, that's quite impossible. you may try using Disk warrior on that drive. it's known to be able to fix the kind of error that DU is reporting. if that doesn't work your only hope is data recovery. If Data Rescue II doesn't work you can try other data recovery software like Filesalvage or try professional data recovery services (those can can a fortune).
    Or some other way to retrieve my data?
    I have TONS of extremely important data on the disk so it would cost me a huge amount of work to format the disk and start from scratch.
    ANY help is greatly appreciated

  • Encrypted Time Machine Drive not visible

    Hi,
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    Last login: Thu Jul 18 12:51:04 on console
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    CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    |
    +-- Logical Volume Group 6E1361BB-CAF7-468D-9CD5-5A77ED37C763
        =========================================================
        Name:         -none-
        Status:       Initializing
        Size:         0 B (0 B)
        Free Space:   -none-
        |
        +-< Physical Volume 161162B5-ABCE-4540-BA90-A3EA9E2E956B
            Index:    18446744073709551615
            Disk:     disk3s2
            Status:   Failed
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    Any help to get my nearly 4TBs of music, movies, photos back would be awesome!
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    Are there any utilities that can help "uncorrupt" the volume so I can rescue my data?
    The only thing you can do is destroy the Core Storage logical volume, which will remove all data. If there is anything other than backup data on it, you're in a recovery situation, which is a job for professionals.
    You should immediately start a new backup on another storage device. Don't do anything else with the computer until that's done.

  • Time Machine Backup Not Performed (OSX Server)

    On a newly installed 10.6.4 OSX Server (MiniServer hardware), I am trying to do a Time Machine backup to a freshly formatted external FW drive (GUID Partition map). Whenever I attempt a first backup I get a dialog:
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    Disk Utility can find no problem on the drive. Repaired permissions, and verified both disks (Boot and Data) to be backed up.
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    Can the Boot drive of a server be backed up with Time Machine?
    (Both drives get cloned every night, as well as Time Machine and offsite Retrospect backups.)
    Thanks.

    Gary Hobish wrote:
    "The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the hard disk. The problem may be temporary, try again later."
    See #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.
    If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
    Can the Boot drive of a server be backed up with Time Machine?
    Yes.

  • Help with Time Machine Backups not working..

    Let me preface this by saying I have spent the last day scouring the internet for solutions to my problem. I have tried every option that I have run across and have had no luck in resolving my problem. As a last resort, I'm turning here in hopes that you can be of help.
    I have a 2012 Macbook Pro running Moutain Lion.  I use an external HD for my time machine backups.  I am having an issue with Time Machine not functioning.  The initial error message I receive when I attempt to use TM to backup is:  "Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
    I searched the forums and net and found several things to do to try and resolve this issue.  My computer will freeze out and not let me erase, or re-partition the the hard drive, so I switched it over to an older macbook of my girlfriends and am successfully able to erase, and re-partition the drive (using disk utility) as suggested by several forum postings I have read.  I am able to run disk verify and disk repair and both say the disk is "ok" with no issues.  The moment the erase and partition is done, her computer prompts a message : "Would you like to use this disk for Time Machine Backups" which tells me it is working properly.  When I move it back to my macbook pro and attempt to run TM backup, it will now work and copy about 10g of my 120g before shutting down with this error message:
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    rcury4 wrote:
    "Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
    See #C10 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
    "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Rick's Backup Disk".  An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk."
    Not one of Apple's more informative messages. 
    There's a problem with a file on your system.  See #C3 in the above link. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.    If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, what you've done, and the results.

  • Time Machine Backup Not Working

    I connected my external hd to my computer to do a backup. But ended up running out of time, had to stop the backup and disconnect my harddrive to leave.
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    You can't do much if the disk won't mount.
    Try this...
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    You may also want to run sudo diskutil repairVolume /dev/(the number of the disk)
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