Time Machine: Can I use my backup to setup my new iMac?

Hello
I'am planing to change my 20" iMac white 2.16GHz to a 24" iMac alu 2.8 GHz .
Is it possible to restore my 20" iMac's data from the back up drive to this bigger machine, without to lose anything?
With TimeMachine of course.
Thanks

I read it somewhere (I don't remember it now) that in the set up process of a new computer it asks if you like to transfer information from some other place and you need to select an account in the time machine and choose what (like applications, folder, some settings) you want to transfer. So I think the configuration would not be a problem.
You can search for some support articles at http://www.apple.com/support/find/ and see if you can get some information.

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Installed GoFlex 1.5 TB external drive on my iMac running OS X 10.7.4 and error says Time Machine can't create a backup folder. Any solutions?

Installed GoFlex 1.5 TB external drive on my iMac running OS X 10.7.4 and error says Time Machine can't create a backup folder. Any solutions?

Well, to unmount the drive, you can use the Terminal application.
Start in Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
When the Terminal window opens, type - without the quotes and with the space at the end - this:
"diskutil unmount "
Then drag the icon of the unmounted drive from the desktop into the Terminal window - the drive location will be added to the end of the command above. It should look something like this:
diskutil unmount /Volumes/volumename
Then press enter (return).
That should unmount the drive. Now you can try the Time Machine process again with perhaps a different interconnect cable for the GoFlex.

Time Machine can't use the disk image because it can't be written to.

Time Machine can't use the disk image because it can't be written to. help!

VictorSMiller wrote:
I just started getting the same message. I'm using a Western Digital My Book 3TB disk. Normally I have the backups done with the disk attached to Airport Extreme.
I hate to have to tell you this, but backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.
Backup failed with error: The target disk image volume is read-only.
Most likely, you got this message before all this started:
What that doesn't explicity say is, the backups failed the verification. When that happens, Time Machine marks the sparse bundle as damaged and won't back up to it anymore (even if Repair Disk can't find the problem). See #C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for details.

Lion's Time Machine - Can't create a backup?

Time Machine can't make a backup... I even went ahead and wiped out the drive and tried to create a new backup.
All it says is that it couldn't complete the backup and to try later as it might only be temporary.
This is critical for me and a not at all light in importance. Had I known this along all the other issues with Lion existed I wouldn't have upgraded. For now I am keeping my MBP safe from Lion...
I guess I just have to suffer the damage on my 27" IMAC..
I would use a BR Disk to do a back up of my files, but NO.... MACs don't support Blu-Ray disk drives, STILL!!
Apple you need to fix this and other issues.

Apple's ingenuity in their advances can be hailed by millions as I myself give them credit where credit is due, such as devices like the iPad and iPhone/iPod. But when a company only bothers to alert you to a couple of apps that Lion can't run and moves them to a folder for the user to delete or update but leaves devices and other industry standard software packages rendered useless with no warning when they have extensively tested their OS against 3rd party manufactured devices and software, whom they are partnered with, then yes they can share in the blame just as Microsoft takes the blame for operating systems that do the same such as VISTA.
I am sure that with enough time all of the 3rd party companies will undoubtedly get on board at some cost that will get pushed down to the end users. They will either update, upgrade or conform.
Apples mentality in the past hurt their stock prices, they used to only use their own Risc based processors and they refused to adapt and incorporate to the needs of their users desires for better faster chipsets and industry software such as Office. They adapted!
Refusing to incorporate the ability to use Blu-Ray technologies when companies such as Pioneer,LG, and Cyberlink are prepared to release the software for the Mac, Apple just has to give the go ahead, then yes, its their fault again. The industry in general isn't blind, they have a reason. Manufacturers want to create things that work with Apples Operating system and do, but they aren't allowed to release it without approval from Apple. They need Apple's support and acceptance for something like Blu-Ray to make it. Otherwise its just another hack and shunned by any cautious person that wants to make sure that their purchase won't cause them more problems than its worth. Blu-Ray is a matter of licensing and a major reason that Microsoft won't incorporate it into their own media player, but they leave it up to 3rd party software companies to absorb that cost and create their own players that can play back Blu-Ray movies within the Windows platform. Apple wants to keep Blu-Ray off of their machines as they can't obtain an exclusive license to the codec for Blu-Ray movies for Quicktime. The same mentality that they had before with their processors. So even the ability to read and write to the medium is out of the question.

HT201250 I run time machine on my iMac using an external hard drive. I just bought a MacBook Pro and want to know if i can run time machine on it using my wireless network on to the iMac external hard drive

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The error that I am getting is this "Time Machine can't use the disk image because it can't be written to." Any ideas on the fix for this?

The error that I am getting is this "Time Machine can't use the disk image because it can't be written to." Any ideas on the fix for this? When I go to the Time Capsule my Macbook Pro shows that it is locked, I think I did something wrong, but can't figure how to unlock it to see if that fixes it.

As far as we know, Time Machine cannot write to a disk image. It needs to write directly to the Time Capsule disk.

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Time Machine won't use existing backup folder

Time machine gave me the can't find back up drive error. I did what the support site says, went into the preferences, and reselected the appropriate drive, but now it won't use the existing backup folder. It keeps making a new one called 'user's MacBook Pro 2'. How do I force it to use the old folder, so that I can access my old back-ups?

gilesrulz,
First, you need to determine WHY it's not choosing to continue using the previous backups.
Has your computer changed in some way? Logic board replaced by Apple?
You reinstalled the Mac OS X system software?
*_Time Machine Always Performs a Full Backup After a Full Restore_*
Actually, this is normal. Anytime your hardware has changed, or you have reinstalled the operating system again, Time Machine will perform a new full backup. Consider the following according to the KB article below:
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338]
So even on unchanged hardware, if you reinstall your system software and restore your user data, Time Machine starts anew, and you will not be able to resume backing up with the same history as the previous backups.
While there may be ways to fool/hack Time Machine into recognizing previous backups without performing another full backup, they are likely rather elaborate.
Ultimately, though, in a couple of months, all the effort to preserve old backups may seem pointless. After all, Time Machine will eventually purge away that data anyways as it replaces it with new files.
It may simply be easier to begin a fresh series of backups while saving the previous backups until your satisfied that you have enough history built up. Then delete the old backups.
Hope this clarifies some things.
Cheers!

After Migration Assistant, Time Machine refuses to use old backups

I've got to say I'm pretty disappointed with Time Machine.
I just dropped $2,000 on my second-ever Mac, a 15" MBP (Core i7 2GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 5200rpm hard drive, the stock low-end 15" config). From what I'd heard about Migration Assistant, I believed it would easily move my stuff over to my new Mac. For the most part it did, but a few things didn't transfer. Other posts on the topic detail them accurately - Desktop icon layouts, some settings, Growl, etc.
I told Migration Assistant to use my Time Machine backups, which have been happening without incident for a long time. My oldest backup is December 2010.
Now that my new MBP is about 99% set up like my old MBP, I am having a problem with Time Machine.
I get the error "Time Machine could not complete the backup. This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 355.61 GB but only 176.44 GB are available."
Looking at the Time Machine drive in Finder, I found that Time Machine is trying to create a new folder for backups and do a full backup. Where there was once one folder, "[My Name]'s MacBook Pro," there is now an additional folder, "[My Name]'s MacBook Pro 2." Time Machine is trying to back up into that second directory.
Now, I get it that this is a different computer. But really, if I use Migration Assistant to restore my Time Machine backup, I think it would be safe for OSX to assume that I want to continue using those backups. What is especially disappointing for me is, there were things that Migration Assistant did not restore properly. I probably haven't found them all. That makes it CRUCIAL that I have my Time Machine backups, but it seems that Apple thinks it's perfectly normal for me to want to FORMAT my Time Machine drive after Migration Assistant did a half-*** job of migrating my data. I need those backups now more than ever.
I do also have an online backup, but I still don't feel very comfortable destroying six months of local backups just to make Time Machine work again. Both MBPs were running the same (latest) version of Snow Leopard, so it stands to reason all that needs to happen is a very small incremental backup.
I have been Googling for hours. All I've found is a procedure for 10.5 that doesn't work in 10.6 where I get down into the Terminal and change a MAC address in a file on the Time Machine volume. But that's it. In fact it seems like there's no answer.
Come on Apple, you do everything else better than the competition. Why do I have to nuke six months of backups or buy a new 2TB external drive to make Time Machine work again? I assure you I want to continue making incremental backups against my old Time Machine backups, and promise to hold you not responsible should I screw something up by grabbing an old system file or something from February.
Would appreciate any help anyone could offer.

Did you use Setup Assistant when your new Mac first started up, or skip that, create a user account, then use the Migration Assistant app in your Applications/Utilties folder?
If you used Setup Assistant, when you started your first backup you should have gotten the message in #B5 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It sounds like you didn't (or chose Start New Backup). And no, the Leopard procedure doesn't work on Snow Leopard. That's what #B5 is for.
Usually, if you use Setup Assistant, Time Machine will still say it's going to do a full backup, and make room for it, but actually do an incremental backup (very, very slowly).
Either way, it usually deletes a lot of old backups. We're hoping that will be fixed in Lion.
Once it's decide to make a new backup, there's no known way to prevent it.

Time Machine - Can't Explore Previous Backups, Can't Open Image!

I have a two-fold problem with my Time Machine.
1. I plugged in my USB hard drive into my Macbook Pro, and let it backup. Then, I plugged it into an Airport Extreme n (Fast Ethernet) and it resumed the backups successfully. But, regardless of whether I had it plugged in through USB or wirelessly, I could not see on the Time Machine program any previous backups (i.e. flip through past times).
I had previously been able to see older backups, before all the time machine updates, and when the hard drive had been plugged in through USB only. But after all the updates, my time machine backup failed to recognize, and I deleted the whole thing.
One difference I noticed with the backups with prior to and after the updates, was that before, it would have a backup folder, whereas now, it uses an image format. Which brings me to:
2. When time machine is doing a backup, I am able to see the image loaded. I can browse through it and see all the backups through the finder.
When Time Machine is not backing up anymore, however, I can no longer see the image. When clicking on the “sparsebundle,” I get the following error:
The following disk images failed to mount
Image: Macbook Pro_001b….
Reason: Operation not supported on socket
Anybody know why these two issues occur?
Thank you for your help!
2.2Ghz 15" Macbook Pro
OS 10.5.2 (all updates installed)

The backup can be corrupt.. you are on Lion so this is no surprise. Are you backing up over wireless.. it would be much less of a surprise.
http://pondini.org/TM/D3.html
Read the troubleshooting as TM is much more complex than a simple copy this file over to there.

Time machine can't access the backup disk ''time machine backup'' on WD My Cloud, Time machine can't access the backup disk ''time machine backup'' on WD My Cloud?

Every time I try to start my Mac's time Machine receive above message and it seems no possible to reopen/start properly the application.
What is error OSS 2?

WD Back up connection problems for Networked WD hard drive
“Connection failed”
“Can not find server”
“There was a problem connecting to the server “WD ShareSpace-Backup”.”
There may be two problems and associated solutions:
Read only access
It may be necessary to “create” a disk for the WD back up.
Change Read Only Access
The WD hard drive may automatically create a share for the Time Machine. This share appears in Finder as “WD_Backup”
If you open WD interface through a web browser and go to
Advanced Mode > Users>Folder Share permissions
You will see it as “back up” or similar.
As indicated by others click on the icon on the far left – a pencil and paper – and change the “NFS Access” from “Read Only” to “Full Access”
For Networked back up dives it may be necessary to “create” a disk for the WD back up.
The WD hard drive may automatically create a share for the Time Machine. This share appears in Finder as “WD_Backup”
The password is “backup”, although others have suggested it is sometimes “admin”
If when you open “Time Machine” and “Select Disk” time Machine says it “can not find…” or “can not connect to…” the server/disk it may be necessary to “create”, ”map”, or manually force your mac to connect to the “WD_Backup” folder share.
To do this
Open Finder
Select GO>Connect to Server
In the box at the top enter the IP address for your WD drive. You can find this in the top of your web browser or through your web browser interface with your WD Drive:
Advanced Mode >Network>LAN
The IP address will probably be in the format
“192.168.0.X” where “X” is a number particular to your network
In my case X used to be 2 but then changed to 3 – I don’t know why.
Click “Connect” and enter the Name and password
Name: “WD_Backup”
Password: “backup”
Click “registered user” and click “connect”
Click the “+” button to add the server to the list in the lower box.
Now open “Time Machine”
Click “Select Disk”
Your new “disk” / Folder share should appear in the list with the IP address below it thus:
WD_Backup
On “192.168.0.X”
As in the screen shot below.
Select this disk by clicking on the disk and then on “use disk”.
You should now be away………….

Time Machine: Can I use a smaller external hard drive with larger internal?

Can I use a 250G external hard drive with and 500G unfilled internal drive with time machine? Or will time machine require I a 500G? I don't plan on filling the internal drive for a long time and don't want to buy a new external drive right now.

Yes, but you are very likely to get in trouble very quickly.
The problem is that TimeMachine saves multiple versions of any file modified, and if that file happens to be large, you can quickly fill up your TimeMachine drive such that it is throwing away older versions faster than you would desire.
Also if your boot drive's storage usage gets even close to the 250GB external drive's capacity, TimeMachine is likely to stop working.
If possible, I would suggest an external drive that is twice as large as your boot drive, or at least 1.5 times larger.
I guess you could repartition your boot drive so it is smaller than your external disk so you would be less likely to use more space than could fit on the external.
Personally, my opinion about backups is that much of my data is impossible to replace (family pictures, etc...), and spending money on backup hardware is a small price to pay for securing those memories. I also try to have it backup in more than one location in more than one way.

Time Machine can see my old backups, but not open them

I have been using Time Machine with a Time Capsule (1TB) since last June (on this machine) - quite a few backups in there.
Last night when I went to backup, first time in a few days, it said the machine had never been backed up and started the preparing the disk thing - I couldn't find a problem, everything looked fine on my time capsule - couldn't do anything else, so I let it run. This AM it had finished the backup (in fact several) and when I open Time Machine it shows me as having backups all the way to June '08 -- however, it cannot seem to open anything earlier than last nights -- if I try to scroll to them it greys out. If I try to directly click on one, I get an empty finder window that never seems to update (at least not for 5-10 min) and then I cannot get any response from anything, have to restart to get out.
There are two things that I can think of that could have caused this -- I updated to 10.5.6 since my last backup, and I backed up a second Mac to the same time capsule in the interim (that backup went fine and seems to be working, but very slow)
My console is not reporting any errors (for backup or for anything else). It would be nice to get back to my old files, it certainly seems to know they are there. Any thoughts?
thanks
Jim Hendler
RPI

I'm having this same issue and would like to know what I might be able to do.
I started using TimeMachine so that I could wipe my internal HD and be able to restore the settings. Now that I've wiped the HD TimeMachine doesn't seem to be doing what I expected it to do or I don't know how to restore the files.
Any help would be wonderful!

New TC but now Time Machine can't find network backup drives

I had a 2 GB TC replaced under warranty (many thanks to LaPastenague who suggested I may be able to get a replacement under warranty). Configured the TC using Airport Utility, and after a bit of messing around (had to delete and re-find the USB printer) everything seemed to be working fine. However ....
I have a MyBookWorld network drive as an alternate Time Machine backup disk, and my MacBook found both the TC and MBW and backed up to them alternately just fine.
However on another MacBook I removed the MBW drive as a backup disk in TM preferences, and now I can't add it back to that Macbook's list of backup drives. I get the "can't find that server" error dialogue. Which is crazy because the other shares on the MBW drive are visible - it's just the backup partition (WD_Backup) that isn't found. I figure it's trying to connect to the IP address of the previous TC, which probably changed when I replaced the TC, or something.
Help please !
TIA ... John.

Manually mount the directory in finder.
This is so much more important on Mavericks than it used to be due to its default to SMB networking.
I guess I also do not know if you should mount this via AFP or SMB but try both.
So in Finder.. Go.. connect to server.
Type in the actual name or IP of the device.
AFP://MBW.local/WD_Backup (where MBW is the network name of the device. local is the domain (assuming it is connected to the TC))
No luck try AFP://MBWIPaddress where you simply type in the IP.
You might find it is easier to pick up the directory from the other Mac where it is working.
Click on Get Info and look at the directory URL info.
If no luck use SMB://MBW.local etc.
Come back to us if it still does not show up.

Time machine can't find older backups

Hi guys,
I am experiencing issues with Time machine, which can't find older backups after clean install of OS X Yosemite 10.10 to my MacBook Pro 17 early 2011 model.
Important to say, I am using NAS Synology DS213j as my Time Machine backup disk.
When opening Time Machine window, I am getting only one restore date (actual date) even my TM folder contains backups since February 2014.
Curious thing is, that Migration Assistant utility can access the data when restoring my old profile.
Can anyone please advise what's wrong?
Thank you
Brachaci

Even weirder -- the problem I described above happens only with certain windows. WIth others, I can open the earlier backups.

Time Machine: Can I use my backup to setup my new iMac?

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