Time Machine Backup [Update Needed] for User

So I made a time machine backup of my MacBook Pro to put on my MacBook Air, and when I did it created 2 users. One says Administrator (my normal one) and the other says [Update Needed]
However, when I log on to the [Update Needed] user, everything is the exact same. I just cant figure out what update it's referring to. When I go to system preferences > Users/Groups, only the Admin user is listed there.
Any ideas on how to fix?

dgordon412 wrote:
(80 GB, had only 200 MB free)
That's likely corrupted your system. You should have a minimum of 10% - 15% free at all times. That's almost certainly why it wouldn't restart.
even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free.
There must be something else on the drive; if you erase it, it should have just under 80 GB free. Is there another partition?
Did you erase with a Leopard Install disc or a Snow Leopard disc? If you used a Leopard disc, that might explain showing only 74.2 GB free (it counts differently).
If so, use your +Snow Leopard+ install disc to do a complete reformat, and try to restore the backup. A Leopard disc cannot restore a Snow Leopard backup. Even the Snow Leopard disc may not work, as it's just too full and/or your system was damaged by getting too full.
All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless.
Having an OSX drive that full will make your Mac extremely sluggish, cause data corruption and/or loss, apps to crash, etc.
Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.
If you can get your Mac running, you need to make several GBs of space immediately.
If all else fails, reformat the internal HD and install OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc, then use +Setup Assistant+ after the Welcome video to transfer +*most, but not all+* of your stuff from the backup. Omit the contents of one or more large sub-folders in a home folder (such as Photos, Music, or Movies).
See #19 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.

Similar Messages

HT201250 How long should an initial time machine backup of tack for 675 GB?s with a USB external hard drive?

How long should an initial time machine backup of tack for 675 GB?s with a USB external hard drive?

Not much faster than 40 GBs-60GBs per hour. So, minimally, around 12 hours.

Time machine backup too big for empty disk??

So I restart my MacBook Pro a few minutes after completing a full Time Machine backup. When it restarts it goes through the grey startup screen, then gets stuck on the blue screen just before the desktop normally appears. This happens whenever I startup. I am still able to hit the power button and get the Restart/Shut Down dialog, so I restart using my Snow Leopard boot disk, run Disk Utility, repair permissions, and repair disk, but the problem still remains. I decide to Restore from Time Machine Backup, so I erase my disk (80 GB, had only 200 MB free), go to the Restore screen and connect my backup disk. Now the weird part -- it says my latest backup is too big for the disk, even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free. All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless. Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.

dgordon412 wrote:
(80 GB, had only 200 MB free)
That's likely corrupted your system. You should have a minimum of 10% - 15% free at all times. That's almost certainly why it wouldn't restart.
even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free.
There must be something else on the drive; if you erase it, it should have just under 80 GB free. Is there another partition?
Did you erase with a Leopard Install disc or a Snow Leopard disc? If you used a Leopard disc, that might explain showing only 74.2 GB free (it counts differently).
If so, use your +Snow Leopard+ install disc to do a complete reformat, and try to restore the backup. A Leopard disc cannot restore a Snow Leopard backup. Even the Snow Leopard disc may not work, as it's just too full and/or your system was damaged by getting too full.
All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless.
Having an OSX drive that full will make your Mac extremely sluggish, cause data corruption and/or loss, apps to crash, etc.
Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.
If you can get your Mac running, you need to make several GBs of space immediately.
If all else fails, reformat the internal HD and install OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc, then use +Setup Assistant+ after the Welcome video to transfer +*most, but not all+* of your stuff from the backup. Omit the contents of one or more large sub-folders in a home folder (such as Photos, Music, or Movies).
See #19 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.

Unable to access time machine backups after creating new user profile

Hi,
I had visited the Genius Bar with some problems with iTunes not opening. The Genius had indicated that I likely had some corrupt files and that the easiest fix would be to create a new user profile... So we did...
After transferring all my data over to the new profile and setting everything back up as I like I deleted the old (presumably corrupt) user profile. To my dismay I no longer have access to any of my time machine backups that were created prior to setting up my new user profile... They appear to still all be there. However, I am unable to select any of the dates prior to the new user profile's creation and the deletion of the old profile...
Please help...
Thank in advance,
Des

desbiss wrote:
After transferring all my data over to the new profile and setting everything back up as I like I deleted the old (presumably corrupt) user profile. To my dismay I no longer have access to any of my time machine backups that were created prior to setting up my new user profile... They appear to still all be there. However, I am unable to select any of the dates prior to the new user profile's creation and the deletion of the old profile...
That's correct. What you see in Time Machine's "Star Wars" display depends on what you have the Finder window set to. While looking at the new profile, you can't see any backups that were done before it existed.
You're right, they're still there, for now, but are grayed-out in the timeline at the right, because what's in the Finder window wasn't backed-up then.
If you select your internal HD or Computer Name in the sidebar, you'll be able to see those backups.
But since they're for a different user, you won't be able to view inside that home folder or restore from it -- one user, even an Admin user, doesn't normally have access to a different user's data.
It's doubtful, but you might be able to create a new user with exactly the same name as the one you deleted, log on to it, and see if the old backups appear.

Time Machine backup too large for backup disk

My Mac hard drive is 750GB (25GB free).
My LaCie external dedicated backup hard drive is 1TB (342GB free).
I am now getting the error "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup" "This backup is too large for the backup disk"
I thought once my initial backup of 750GB happened, it would be incremental backups from then on (with old changes betting deleted as space was needed for new changes).
Is this not the case? Do I need a much larger backup drive or something?
Thanks much for any help.

It's true but Time Machine has also to make complete backups again in case you want to restore your Mac with a more recent Time Machine backup.
Clearly the external drive you have doesn't have enough storage to back up your Mac. As you have about 725 GB of used space, I recommend you to get at least a 3 or 4 TB external drive to make backups, and even with this, don't think you will have more than four backups. Another thing you can do is to remove folders from the backup in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options

Why isn't my time machine backup updating a new drive correctly?

I bought a new larger hard drive and I am trying to use time machine (lion) to restore the new one and copy all my files. I made a Lion startup disk and use the disk utility to erase the new drive and then choose restore from time machine backup. The process runs great and then after about 3 hours it finishes and restarts the computer. Then the white screen with the grey apple and little spinner below it pop up and the spinner just spins forever.
Does anybody know what I am doing wrong? Thanks

It looks like it tries to start loading safe mode and the loading bar appears under the spinning lines under the apple but then the bar gets almost half full and just dissapears. I'm left with just that grey apple screen and the spinning lines again.
The only other startup option that seemed to get me somewhere other than the grey screen is when I hold the "option" key and choose from the hard drive or the dvd drive to boot. I can run from the dvd OS X disk that I made. Is there anything I can do there?

Why did my Time Machine backup drive need 712GB for initial backup

I recently replaced the failing 1TB drive in my wife's old mid-2010 27" iMac with a 2TB drive (OS X 10.9.4, 3.6 GHz, 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3). After bringing all of her data on board, I erased and reformatted the backup 2TB hard drive and initiated a fresh backup using Time Machine. I was surprised to see that Time Machine needed 650+GB for the initial backup. I checked the new HD and sure enough, it reported 652GB of data.
What puzzles me is that the hard drive has only four visible folders, Applications, Library, System Info and Users Info, holding 15GB, 9GB, 6GB and 30GB respectively -- a total of roughly 60GB.
Any idea what the additional 590GB of required storage is holding and whether it's necessary? Could there be old data hidden somewhere on the iMac's new hard drive? I've looked at hidden folders and files in the top level folder. There are a couple dozen or so, including one named .DocumentRevisions-V100 (from old Mac).
However, I can't display the contents of the hidden folders and they won't calculate or display the folder sizes, so all that leaves me a bit in the dark.
Any suggestions on how to identify and reduce the amount of data I'm backing up? I'm afraid the 2GB drive will soon be overwhelmed with data.
Thanks.

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator. Ignore any other messages that appear in the Terminal window.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Where is the Time Machine backup of my home/user folder?

I just realized that Time Machine hasn't created any backups of my "home directory"/"user folder" ... i.e. I can't find any of my documents or pictures (e.g. the iPhoto library) on the external hard drive.
I checked whether I somehow had listed my user folder on the "exclusion list", but the only thing listed there was the external hard drive (which makes sense).
Does anyone know what I can do about this? I really need Time Machine to backup my photos!!!
(I am using Mac OS X 10.6.4)

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

(Non-Time Machine) backup software recommendations for Snow Leopard

I have been a long time user of Retrospect Desktop backup software, up to and including version 6.1. It has saved my skin at least twice when I've had catastrophic hard drive failures. I've been using 6.1 successfully in Leopard, under Rosetta. However, as I prepare to upgrade to Snow Leopard, I discovered Retrospect 6.1 will incompatible. According to Roxio:
+Snow Leopard stores some files, including some applications and all files in the /System/ directory, in a compressed format. Retrospect can only restore files in their uncompressed format. This means that a complete OS restore will require an additional 4-5 GB of available storage space on the destination. When /System/ files are restored uncompressed, the Mac OS X may complain about certain files, such as fonts and kernel extensions, not being installed properly.+
Naturally I thought about upgrading to Retrospect 8, which is supposed to be compatible with Snow Leopard, until I read the disaster stories of bug-ridden unfinished Retrospect 8.0 software being released as golden master without a manual. These inexcusable problems persisted through 8.0 and 8.1. Version 8.2 is in beta and addresses restoring from previous version backups and PowerPC compatibility, but it remains to be seen if Roxio will salvage Retrospect and return it to a position of respectability. (Too bad EMC bought Dantz years ago.)
In any case, I'm now looking for other backup software. I need software that does incremental backups, can restore the system to a previous state existing at the time of a given previous (not necessarily most recent) backup, and supports user-defined rules for file inclusion/exclusion, as well as automated scripts. Automatic verification of the backup by comparing original files to the backed-up version (like in Retrospect) is nice, though probably unnecessary most of the time. Time Machine is nice but in my experience doesn't support some of these features and I'm not entirely comfortable relying on Time Machine alone because I've encountered some problems in the past where my backups were lost.
I'm considering Carbon Copy Cloner, but not sure it does true incremental backups and can restore the system to a state that existed at the time of a previous -- rather than most recent -- backup. Also considering Intego's Personal Backup and ProSoft's Data Backup 3.
I would love to hear any recommendations you might offer regarding these or any other backup software solutions.
Thanks.
Message was edited by: Anthony M Kassir MD

In any case, I'm now looking for other backup software. I need software that does incremental backups, can restore the system to a previous state existing at the time of a given previous (not necessarily most recent) backup, and supports user-defined rules for file inclusion/exclusion, as well as automated scripts.
Time Machine can do all that except the scripts - I'm not sure what you're wanting to script - and it doesn't have rules for exclusion, but does let you exclude any items you specify. From the sounds of it, though, you're trying to make your backups more complex than they need to be. Keep it simple and there's less chance for something to go wrong.
I'm not entirely comfortable relying on Time Machine alone because I've encountered some problems in the past where my backups were lost.
You shouldn't be comfortable relying on any single backup program. Backup software is still software, and as such can have bugs and suffer failures. For optimum safety, you should use two different backup programs to maintain a minimum of two separate backups.
I'm considering Carbon Copy Cloner, but not sure it does true incremental backups and can restore the system to a state that existed at the time of a previous
CCC does do incremental backups, but restoring to a specific state might not be entirely possible. When a file is added, it is simply added to the clone when CCC runs its next backup. There's no way to know which files were added when, AFAIK. When a file is removed, it is moved from its old location in the clone to an identical path inside a dated folder in the same location as the clone.
Personally, I rely on a combination of TM and CCC. I keep one backup with TM, which lets me go back to any time I want. I also keep several CCC clones of just my user folder (everything else is easy enough to recreate if necessary), with one of them in the safe deposit box at the bank at all times.

How to check that a time machine backup is ready for use?

Two of us share a time capsule via ethernet.
One machine has died and will need to be restored -- it's been recommended to me to format that machine's drive before reinstalling Leopard.
Now I know that my machine has faithfully backed itself up. I can assume that her machine has been backing itself up, but I don't know that for sure, for sure. Is there a way I can check out the capsule from my machine to confirm that it contains a backup set for the other machine before I format its hard drive and do the reinstall?
Chuck

chuckbo wrote:
Yes, I understand that part -- not quite what I'm asking, though.
Is there a way, from my machine, to confirm that her machine has been actively doing backups on the capsule that we share? If I can confirm it, I'll go ahead with the clean wipe on her machine and do the reinstall from time machine. But if I can't find her backup, then I'll have to do a different approach.
Yes. The TC has 2 sparse bundles, one for each Mac. Mount the sparse bundle for her Mac, and use the +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option. It will show, among other things, the timeline of backups on the right of the "Star Wars" display. Those are her backups.

Does Time Machine backup my Office for Mac Email and Calendar?

I am using Microsoft Office for Mac for my business. I utilize the Email and the Calendar.
Time Machine periodically backs up my PC to an external hard drive. Does it also back up my Email and My Office Calendar?
and how do I get it back if my internal hard drive crashes?

Yes, it does.
(111686)

I'm having a problem with logging into a FileVault-protected user account after restoring from Time Machine backup.

Hi all,
My computer had been running really slowly for a while, so I decided to erase the whole hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and then I was going to restore the files I cared about from Time Machine. The main account, which had all my documents and photos, was FileVault-protected. The last thing I did before erasing the hard drive was to run one last Time Machine backup. As far as I remember, I always ran Time Machine backups with the FileVaulted user logged in.
I don't remember whether I was using FileVault 1 or 2. I had been using FileVault 1, but I installed Lion as soon as it came out and I thought I had migrated to FileVault 2 at that point.
Once I erased the hard drive and reinstalled the operating system, I browsed the Time Machine disk and, within the Users folder, there was no folder for the main user account. When I tried to reinstall everything by restoring from Time Machine backup, I'd get the option for all the user accounts, but when I tried to log in with the main one I'd get the dreaded "You are unable to log in to the FileVault user account "User" at this time. Log in failed because an error occurred." Finally, when attempting to restore from the Time Machine backup again, I noticed something strange: After the computer got to about 10% done restoring, it declared itself completed successfully and rebooted.
I've tried a number of tips that came up from questions about similar issues on the Apple support forum, but had no luck. Is there any way to get these files back? Did they ever even get backed up?
Thanks.

Hroodbwai wrote:
I can't find it! not sure what's going on but the only folder shown is the " Shared" folder.
Did you have only the one user account? If there were others, they should also be in the "Users" folder. You probably won't have access to the files inside them, but they should be there.
From what can make out, it looks like it's not backed up any of the files for the filevault account. Can't see user folder when looking through previous backups in Time Machine galaxy view.
Are you doing that from a Finder window set to your internal HD, or your computer name? It should look something like this (with the Finder in List view):
|
|
I'd been logging out and backing up manually on a regular basis.
Scheduled backups should run normally; but they won't back up the File Vault sparse bundle, nor will any run manually.
The only time it's backed-up is when you actually log out.
You should have seen this window on logout:
|
|
followed by this one:
|
|
If you didn't see the second one, or cancelled it, the account wasn't backed-up.

Use TC 2TB for Time Machine Backup and Storage simultaneously?

Hi
I am planning to buy a TC 2TB.
I would like to know if the TC can be used as a Time Machine backup device and for storage simultaneously?
for example:
Can I use 1TB for Time Machine backups and 1TB for storage.
Please let me know if this is possible?
Thank you

I tried for ages to seek a relatively easy way to do this.. i.e. partition it, it's a huge pain! You can, but i'm pretty savvy and got bored and confused! What I did do was switch the TM back-ups to manual so they don't end up filling the disk. Trust me it's the easiest and best option!

HT4718 I have an external hard drive that I used as Time Machine Backup. I have not used it for a while and now, when I plug it in computer says: This disc is not readable. I want to recover the backups and not erase and reformat the disc. Thank you in

I have an external hard drive that I have used as Time Machine backup, but not for a while. Now when I plug it in, computer says this disc is not readable.
I want to keep the backups on it and not erase and start over.
Thank you in advance.
Gregor

It sounds like something went wrong with the drive. Did you drop it? How long has it been sitting around unused?

File Sharing drops regularly, Time Machine Backups are delayed on OSX 10.7.3. Solution?

Hi there folks,
I'm having an issue with the new 10.7 server. We're running 10.7.3 Server on an Late 2006 XServe with 10GB RAM , connected to a Drobo Pro for Time Machine Backups of our 50+ users via our internal network.
Recently, Time Machine backups have been getting delayed, stating that they can't connect up to the backup drive (which is out Drobo Pro handling 16TB of space). The Drobo Pro hass not unmounted, and all the IP Addresses coming from and going to the Server handling the backups will still ping.
We've also be having trouble with Server resident drives and shared folders that people can mount using the ⌘+K shortcut or "Connect to Server" option in finder. People will choose the IP address, and finder will think for a few minutes then give an error stating that it cannot connect the the specified IP. The only way I can reestablish connection to the file sharing through a remote computer is to remote or physically login to the server, then go into System Preferences and turn "File Sharing" off, then on again. After that, the ⌘+K on a remote machine can find the drives again.
It's driving me crazy why this is ocurring. I don't know why, and people in the office are beginning to complain that they can't access certain files on the servers or are worried because their backups are not completeing.
It should also be known that a majority of the machines we have in the ofice are still running 10.6.8, with only a handful on 10.7, as we haven't had the time to make the major switchover yet.
I'm not the best when it comes to server software or Unix CLI managment (the office outsourced our Network Admin to the east coast), so I'm a bit stumped.
Does anyone have any suggestions to try? Is there a link between the number of Time Machine Users and the connection failures? Should I just tel the NetAdmin to create a script that will restart the File Sharing protocol on the server every couple of hours?
Hopefully someone will be able to help.
Thanks,
JYHASH

I started having connectivity issues to my 10.6.8 server from my 10.7 client immediately after updating the client to 10.7.3. FWIW. Takes forever to connect, when it does. After just milliconds before.

Time Machine Backup [Update Needed] for User

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for