Time Machine Backups Not Recognized When Drive Added to Airport Extreme

Since January, I have been taking backups of my Mac Pro with Time Machine and a SimpleTech external drive plugged into a USB port.
Recently, I purchased an Airport Extreme router and decided that plugging the SimpeTech drive into the router would provide access all the times. After plugging the drive into the router and providing the correct password, Voila!, instant access.
Later, when it became time for the next scheduled backup, initially TM could not find the drive. No problem... in TM preferences, the SimpleTech drive was listed as available, and so it was a simple matter to telling TM to use that drive.
So far, so good... but now the issue.
Instead of creating the next incremental backup in the set, Time Machine created a new folder and started taking a full backup of the entire HD as if it were the first backup being taken. Incidentally, the name of the computer in the original backup set was "Ron's Computer". Now, TM says that it is backing up "Ron's Computer 78989018975923789637289795278957928". Obviously, I would like TM to continue taking backups of "Ron's Computer" using the original set of incremental backups.
Have I incorrectly added the drive to the network?
Was there something I failed to do in the TM setup?
I interrupted the full backup assuming that (a) it could not be merged with the original set of incrementals and (b) I would not/should not do so anyway.
Anyone else have this issue? Resolution?

I commented on another thread and came to a surprising revelation:
Time Machine backups are created differently depending on if the target drive is connected locally or if it is connected as a network attached storage (NAS) device.
Your initial backup was via a local HDD. Once connected to your AXBS, TM treats your external HDD as a NAS. Now TM will create a sparsebundle backup which is DIFFERENT than your initial local backup. It cannot add to your first backup even though it's right there on the drive. I believe you can still access the backups (ctrl-click the TM icon -> Browse other TM disks). If the old backup doesn't have too much important info, just continue with the new backup as the wireless backup option is functional. I don't know if the old backup will be deleted without warning if space starts to run out, though.
If you are intent on continuing with the old backup (January is a long time), check out these links (not really for the faint of heart):
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7860904&#7860904
http://rolf.haynberg.de/?p=83
Good luck and welcome to Apple Discussions!

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Recovered Time Machine backup not recognized..

This is a strange situation/horrible situation to explain. We had one of our iMacs lock up unexpectedly, and on restart it just hung all the time. We booted from the Snow Leopard install disc, ran Disk Utilities verifying/repair option which noted the drive had serious errors. We do use Time Machine on an external drive, but unfortunately the last backup performed was ".inprogress" as it was tagged. To add more problems, the entire TM backup folder (..all of it) was trashed/deleted and we had to recover the entire contents via recovery software (which took forever sadly).
With the contents recovered completely (luckily) we decided to move forward. We formatted the hard drive/installed OSX again on the iMac and went to restore using the Restore from backup function on the installation disc. However, when we pointed Snow Leopard to the external drive it did not recognize the TM backup. We tried the Migration assistant as well, and no luck, simply won't see the TM backup (even though the backup folder and all its elements seem to be all there).
We can see our files buried in some folders in the backup, as well as images, but replacing those manually I'm sure will run into permissions issues. We're open to suggestions at this point as this iMac served as a media server for us.

RavenMac wrote:
To add more problems, the entire TM backup folder (..all of it) was trashed/deleted and we had to recover the entire contents via recovery software (which took forever sadly).
That recovered some files, but they're no longer in a form that's recognized as Time Machine backups, so you won't be able to restore/recover them normally. See the blue box in [Data Recovery|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Recover.html].
We can see our files buried in some folders in the backup, as well as images, but replacing those manually I'm sure will run into permissions issues. We're open to suggestions at this point as this iMac served as a media server for us.
Are the recovered files on a separate HD? If so, right-click it on your Desktop or Finder sidebar, and select +Get Info.+ See if the +Ignore ownership on this volume+ box at the very bottom is checked. If it is, you should be able to copy the recovered files. If not, click the padlock, enter your Admin password, then check the box.
Figuring out what and where they all belong (and which version is the most recent) will not be easy.
Once you get this sorted out as well as you can, consider keeping "secondary" backups. What happened to you is quite unusual, but obviously possible. See #27 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 some suggestions.

Time machine backups not recognized

Ok, first off. I have read and searched as much as I can on here. But I'm confusing myself. So I'm going to ask and hopefully get a clearer idea of what to do.....
Here's my setup, iMac with a networked external hard drive.
So I have don't backups since oct 15th, even restored files once, everything worked great.
Well since I had to transfer a large file to the drive I connected directly to the iMac via Ethernet, much faster than over wireless. I've done this many times with no issues. Everything works fine once I go back to wireless.
So I disconnected from the iMac and connected back to wireless, time machine didn't want to find the drive and asked if I wanted to eject it, so I did and figured I'd just reconnect once the drive came back up. Once again, like I always have.
When I did this, this time it said there were no backups done and it tried to start a new backup to that drive, I stopped it.
Well now I can not find any of the old backups on that drive, but the drive does show 1TB of time machine backups on it. So they are there, but every time I try to connect that drive, it only sees the attempted backup it started today and I can't get any of my old files from previous backups.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

Haha, yeah I am doing that as your replied. No luck yet.
http://Pondini.org/TM/17.html is what I'm trying. I'll check your link next.

Can Time Machine back up a USB Drive connected to Airport Extreme?

If I connect 2 USB drives to an Airport Extreme via a USB hub, can I use Time Machine to back one up to the other? I've found multiple discussions about how to use an Airport Extreme disk as a Time Machine backup disk, but nothing on this. I want to use one disk as network storage (i.e. use the Airport extreme as a NAS), but I need a backup solution for that disk.

That's disappointing. I actually have a separate NAS already, configured for RAID1: a ZyXEL NSA220. Worked fine when I only had windows machines, but isn't reliable with my MACs, and doesn't support extended journaled format, so I need a different solution. I was hoping to just use a USB drive attached to my airport extreme to replace it, but I can't do that if I can't back up that USB drive.
Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? Surely this can't be that uncommon a scenario?

Time machine backup keeps going up - slow over via airport extreme

I have a 2tb external drive that ive just connected to my airport extreme, purely to use for time machine backups.
I realise the first backup will take a while, my hard drive currently has 810GB of data on it according to the mac itself. When i first started the backup time machine said the backup was 865GB, however its now been going for over 4 days and still hasnt completed, its on about 830gb now, but it keeps going up, its now saying 830gb of 920gb completed.
So why does the backup take a ridiculous amount of time (the MBP is plugged into the airport via ethernet, then the drive to airport via usb) i thought using ethernet directly to the airport would speed it up, its purely over cable so why is it so slow?
And why is my backup now saying its 920gb when my hard drive only has 810gb in total of data?

That's one Apple's more infuriating messages, but there's usually another phrase after "Time Machine Error."
Most likely, Time Machine is having a problem with a file, but they don't bother to tell you that.
See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will probably lead you to #C3.
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 doesnt see my USB drive, connected to Airport extreme =(

Hello,
I've been trying to figure this one out for almost 3 weeks now, but with no luck. I have a usb hard drive, connected to airport extreme. I've clicked on "setup time machine", select "choose disk", there is no disk to select. So I click on the "set up time capsule, it takes me to airport utility. I then click on the "disk" button and file sharing is enabled.
I can mount the disk through the finder, just fine and able to transfer files back and forth, however time machine cant seem to pick up the drive. Would love to be able to use time machine to do backups, So can someone please help?
osx 10.5.5 with airport utility 5.3.2
Thanks in advance!

Well this has worked for me. I have a Freecom 500Gb usb hard Drive connected through an unpowered 4-way USBhub to an Airport Extreme Base station. After mounting the Air Disk hard drive on my powerbook, I then dragged the disk to my user folder, thereby creating an alias. I have put that alias in my login items and now TimeMachine works beautifully. I've repeated it on a Mac Mini (also using OSX 10.5.5) and that seems to be fine too. Admittedly the back-ups take a long time over airport, but fine via Ethernet.
Good luck everyone who struggles with this.
David

Time Machine backup not recognized?

I have a Time Machine configured drive that I have been using since 2010. I recently tried connecting it to my Airport Extreme backup over the air. It worked, but very slowly so I attempted to connect directly to my iMac again. Now Time Machine wants to backup my hard drive all over again. I can still access old backups, but it will not continue using the file on the drive. How can I reconnect the backup database to Time Machine?

The format of a network backup is different from that of a local backup. They're not interchangeable.
The backups you made on the AirDisk are unreliable. I suggest you put that drive aside and start a new backup set on another, locally attached, external drive. When you're sure you'll no longer need the data on the first drive, erase it and start over. You need more than backup anyway.

Errors when transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive.

Hello,
I need some help transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive. Let me explain what happened.
I have a Mac OSX Mountain Lion that was upgraded to Mavericks when the upgrade came out. Prior to upgrading, I've been backing up WD Passport Mac with the proprietary software "WD Unlocker on it". It worked flawlessly but after upgrading to Mavericks, I decided to backup and noticed that once i inserted the WD Passport, my screen will flicker, windows will close and reappear.
I decided to read up on this and discovered that Mavericks is not compatible with the "WD Unlocker " program on the Passport drive. Since I already have a backup in place, i decided to restore my computer to factory settings and when I attached the Passport drive with my backup on it, My device will see the backup but it will keep spinning for hours without restoring my backup. I decided to read further on this and I got the same Mavericks compatibility conclusion.
I then copied my entire backups.backupdb folder to my Mac desktop and formatted my WD Passport external drive and got rid of the proprietary software "WD Unlocker".. Once this was completed, I then tried to copy my backups.backupdb folder to my external drive within finder. Each time i tried, i get error messages and permission messages. Even when i changed the permission on the backups.backupdb folder to read & write for everyone, i still get the permissions error.
Please helppppp. I have over 500gb of vital data in my backup.
Thank you.

Since you don't really have a question, I will give you a very broad information source for the next time you have a Time Machine question.
Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Oh, you cannot use a computer whose only disk drive is the target of a an OS X cloning operation regardless of what software is used for the clone. You can, however, use the source drive except if you try to clone using Disk Utility.

Does Time Machine backup other external hard drives?

I am using a Seagate 500 GB to backup my data. Will Time Machine backup another external hard drive on which I store my iMovie projects? If so, how do I access them in the Time Machine mode? Thanks in advance.

nachdenki wrote:
strange, my external HDs were added to the exception list automatically. maybe because they wouldn't fit on the time machine volume.
It seems to depend on when the drives were connected. When you first turn Time Machine on, it only excludes the TM drive itself, and any drives not formatted HFS+.
If you connect a drive later on, that drive will be excluded automatically.

Time machine backup for external hard drive

Recently purchased an external hard drive to clear up space on my iMac, to store photos and videos. Have been using Time Machine on Time Capsule to back up iMac. Have found that Time Machine backups hang up when it appears to be backing up the external hard drive. What do I need to do to get Time Machine to back up external drive as well as iMac? FWIW, I am also backing up a second iMac to the same Time Capsule.

Can you verify that....
1) External drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2) The external drive has not been "excluded" from backups in Time Machine Options

Time machine backup not usable

Hello,
My hard drive died on me a few months back so I bought a new one and have been trying to use my time machine backup (on an external drive) and my computer won't recognize it and won't read it. I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion when it came out but since its only downloadabe, I don't have a copy of the operating system so I used my Snow Leopard Install DVD. I was wondering if my time machine backup won't work because it was made on Lion and I'm trying to back up on Snow Leopard since its essentially a downgrade. My next step is to buy Mountain Lion (instead of going to an Apple Store to get back Lion since its no longer downloadable) and see if I can at least access my time machine backup. Most of my computer content is on the cloud except for my music and my photos. I really would prefer to not have to reinsert all my CDs to get my music library back but it can be done if necessary. But all my photos are lost if I cannot access that backup. Any ideas?
Thanks!

I've tried that. And I can't find it. I've even looked through my purchase history and its not there. I just had a flash that I might have bought it with my boyfriend's account so I think that I'll just upgrade to Mountain Lion hoping that my time machine will work. His account is not accessible right now. Anyway, I don't really see any reason why it wouldn't work on Mountain Lion if it works on Lion.

Transfer Time Machine backups to a new drive

Is there an automated or an easy way to transfer my current Time Machine back ups to the new Time Capsule (I am sure I will inevitably buy it]. Looks like a great system for notebook users but I wouldn't like to start again with time Machine I like having the security of back ups I have already accrued. My current drive is certainly not full and won't be for a while.

So far not very many people have had much success in copying their Time Machine backups to a new drive although the Restore option in Disk Utility ought to be able to do this. However, SuperDuper will support that capability when their new Leopard compatible version is released which should be in a week or so.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/

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!

Can Time Machine Backup to Two Different Drives?

I have many Apple Computers, and I was wondering if it were possible to have time machine backup to two different drives.
I want it to back up My documents, Mail, and other files/folders that I access often to a partition of my internal drive every minute.
And
I want it to back up Everything on my Mac to my external each night upon connecting it to my mac.
I take my MacBook everywhere with me and I need to make sure that the files I work on the most stay Perfectly Accessible no matter what, and I don't want to sacrifice too much space for that procedure. I would rather just be able to do constant backups of my most used files and folders, and then do a system backup each night to make sure I always have what is needed.

Let me add some more observations. I use two disks, one at home (its a mounted volume on another Mac at home) and the other is a portable disk that I attach to my MBP at work. This works fine.
About your details - TM backs up every hour. If you look around you'll find some posts that give instructions on changing the frequency (I haven't paid attention to these, so I can't help you). However, backing up to another partition on the same drive is not what I'd recommend. If the drive dies, you may lose both partitions.
As for doing constant backups of the most used files and at night doing a system backup - it seems to me you aren't "getting" TM. This sounds like the type of backup strategy one uses with "regular" backup software. I don't think I'd recommend backups every minute, but for short intervals, why not just do a default backup of everything. It doesn't really back up everything, just things that have changed. The only time it does a complete backup is the first time you use it with a specific drive. After that it no longer does complete backups, unless you reformat the drive and start from scratch.

Can I turn off Macbook while Time Capsule is archiving Time Machine backup to a USB drive?

My Time Capsule is archiving my Time Machine backup to a USB drive attached to it. I have initiated this process on my macbook (on the same lan with the Time Capsule), on which I am monitoring the archiving progress on the Airport Utility. Still almost a couple of days to go... Can I turn off my Macbook, or will that interrupt the process of archiving?

If LaPastenague is willing to do a "test", then we will all know more.
Opened my big mouth.
The archive is happening.. I turned off the computer it was setup from.. running Mavericks and latest utility once I got it started. I have been checking from v6 utility on Mountain Lion.. and it is excruciatingly slow. But is running.
I can check the progress but v6 utility is utterly and completely useless.. it continually shows the same numbers.
v5 utility does show it is crawling along.
v6
20min later..
Look, look, there is a tiny blue fleck in the progress bar!!
v5 utility shows the actual progress. Actually tells you total and amount backed up so far.
Amazing how advanced v5 utility is over v6.
The estimate of 10hours is probably correct at the present rate of progress. I suppose for 500GB, around 50GB/hr is about what we expect from TM backups etc.
I will post another picture in an hour and probably kill it then before I die of watching paint dry.

Time Machine Backups Not Recognized When Drive Added to Airport Extreme

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