Time Machine deleted all the files on my external HD

I have started a new Time Machine backup on a larger external HD.
Time Machine deleted the folders and files stored in that HD before starting the backup procedure.
How can i recover the files i had on my HD?
Thank you!

This means that the drive was formatted incorrectly for use with TM and it had to reformat it. it warns you before doing so. your chances of recovering your data are not great as it may have been overwritten by TM backups. stop using the drive ASAP (turn TM off) and try data recovery software like Data Rescue II or Filesalvage.

Similar Messages

Time Machine deleted all the back up files on my TimeCapsule

My computer required an erase and install. I was using 10.5.8. I reinstalled the OS but I did not do a restore from my Time Machine when I first booted it up. However, I wanted to continue to use my time machine back up (basically continue to add files to the existing backup), but it would not allow me to point to the existing Time Machine back up.
As a result, Time Machine tried to create a new backup folder. I thought this would be fine, and that I would worry about why I could not use the current back up file on my Time Capsule later on. Well, Time Machine has deleted my old Time Capsule and all the information that was inside it and now I have only a back up of one day.
What happened? How could Time Machine over write a backup that I had previously?

I updated to 10.5.8 and then I got a blue screen. I tried to do an erase and install and then I could not get beyond the grey screen. I took it in to the genius bar and had to get them to start things working again. They used their external drive to boot me up from 10.5.8.
I did not use my time machine backups to put my information back on my computer. I used the files for documents movies and photos which I had dragged and dropped on to a USB external HD (A Western Digital Passport).
I did not want to lose all the incremental past back ups on my Time Capsule (the white 1 TB box with the apple logo - definitely a time capsule). I wanted to keep using the old time machine back ups in case I ever needed to restore an odd file here and there.
Well, that day has come and I can not restore from my Time Capsule. I actually deleted this entry (albeit too late) and I have realized I do have 700 GB backed up.
You were right, if I do #17 I can access the old "sequence" of back ups, I suppose that TM thinks that I have a new computer after my erase and install.
So when I click and hold on TM in the dock I can browse other time machine disks. However, whenever I try do do a restore, computer hangs and I can't actually use the back up.
How can I get my MBP to go back to the old sequence TM files? If I go to system preferences, it says that my oldest back up is January 8, 2009. That would make me think TM machine knows those files are there. BUT! When I click on TM in the dock and I start TM, when I get to the Star Wars style screen where you can see the windows go back in time, it only has backups as far as yesterday.
So ultimately, my question is, how do I permanently get back to that old sequence of back ups and why does it always hang on the restore?
Thanks so much for your help - my lost files depend on it!

OMG... Time machine deleted ALL the backups, even latest..

Hey All...
I have just experienced a nightmare. If anyone can help I would be in your debt.
Here we go...
I was trying to move the backup of old computer ( partition A ) to a new partition ( B ) on same ext. hard drive.   Not enough space in partition b so I looked into deleting some old backups before copying A to B using restore in disc utility.
Inside time machine I was using the cog thing to select delete backup... selected the oldest backup, thinking this would delete only the oldest backup.
It deleted ALL the backups on A, including the latest.
This had work files on it that are important so it's a bit of a disaster. I have had a great backup stradegy for the last 15 years and have NEVER before lost anything. Here is my details...
Macbook Pro 2.2 GHz
10.7.5
External drive 4 partitions
Partition A was backed up using 10.6
From a G5 which I deleted the files from.
I am hoping the files could be recovred from either the G5 or the hard drive or my trash on the macbook pro?
I have and will not do too much on my computer like disc utility stuff or empty trash etc.
It's a long shot, but anyone have any ideas..?
Thanks in advance..

The...........Haggis wrote:
Thanks for your prompt reply Pondini,
I could have selected all in error but I am sure I didn't. I guess I must have.. grrr.
I cannot see any when I enter time machine.
Ok. It's just that I've never heard of it erasing more than what was selected.
It's possible something went wrong, and at least some of the other backups are still there. Especially if no other changes have been made to the TM drive, you might try running Repair Disk on it with Disk Utility. Unlikely to help, but it's worth a try.
The G5. I erased the drive using disk utility and haven't used it since. There is 2 drives on that machine, the drive we are talking about is not bootable it's just storage.
Since you already have it, you might want to try running the File Salvage app on it (you'll probably need another HD, or at least partition, to receive whatever it finds).   The results might be more usable than the results from the TM drive, since they're "ordinary" files and folders, not all the "hard links" Time Machine uses.
EDIT:
I had the ext drive hanging off my Mac Book pro 10.7. Ext drive had TM backups of 2 laptops and G5.
Hold on a minute -- how were all those backups made -- by connecting the drive directly to each Mac, or were any made over a network (wired or wireless)? Are they / were they all in the same partition, or separate ones?
Message was edited by: Pondini

After 10.8.3 update, time machine rebackups all the files in the home

Yesterday evening I have updated my MacBook Pro'11 from 10.8.2 to 10.8.3
Next time machine backup works for the whole night and now I can see that it rebackups the whole home user folder. It shows all the files in my home directory have been changed somehow. As a result, a huge amount of backup history is dropped on the time machine backup drive.
Is it okay? Why TM thinks my 350 GB of personal files have been changed after system update?

Ok, I didn't go in and check every file on the iMac last night when it did a full backup so will take your word for it. Doing this once with the new install seems reasonable to me, and with the large external drives I use is not a problem...well, except for the noise the drives make for such a long time will writing the backup
I am just happy knowing there is a good base for rebuilding the internal drive if I need it.

HT201250 My macbook pro crashed and I had to install a new hard drive. I restored from Time Machine backup all the files from my old hard drive onto my new one.

Does it really back up the whole new drive or does it only back up what's been added? It seemed like it was doing the whole thing when I tried it. I stopped it. Don't want to use up all the space on my external. Is there something else I need to do or did I mess up by not doing the migrating thing? thanks!

If you installed a new hard drive, it has nothing on it and yes TimeMachine is going to take forever to restore everything back.
I guess you'll have to erase and start over again now.
Too bad, you should have made bootable clones in addition to TimeMachine, they can restore in a hour or two depending upon content, they are also option key bootable.
TimeMachine has to go through and calculate all the files it needs to bring forward, the files are strewn all over the drive. The read heads are moving all over the platters all the time from fast sectors to slow ones, not matching what's occuring on the internal drive.
With a clone the files are defragmented and optimized, the drive reads one file, moves the heads a tiny bit and reads the next all the while transferring exactly to the internal drive, they are more in step with one another, thus it's much faster restoring from a clone than TM.
Most commonly used backup methods

Time Machine Deleted ALL the backups!

Today, TM was cleaning up the old backups as it does every so often, however it inadvertently deleted ALL of the backups.
1) Can I recover my backups?
2) If so, how can I recover said backups?
3) How can I prevent this from happening again?
Thanks.
What a bummer....

TheChemist wrote:
May 30 15:12:50 francoisimac com.apple.backupd[500]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 423.93 GB requested (including padding), 123.83 GB available
The "padding" is workspace, etc., that TM needs on the backup drive. It's about 20%, so Time Machine estimates it needs to back up about 350 GB. That's the symptom: there isn't enough room for that.
The one question I would love answered is what would trigger a pre-backup thinning?
Not enough room for the new backup. In that case, Time Machine first deletes "expired" backups, then your oldest ones.
Unfortunately, there's no way to tell what that 350 GB was. After a backup finishes successfully, you can see what was backed-up, but not before.
So, you need to start with #D4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). Something you're running is apparently causing a very large, but not full, backup (a full one would need about the 500 GB that's on your internal HD, plus another 100 GB temporarily).
If you still can't figure it out, erase the drive and do a full backup. Then immediately do another. If it's quite large, see #A2 in Troubleshooting to download +Time Tracker+ or BackupLoupe to see what's causing the huge backups.
If it's small, turn Time Machine off. Periodically, run a backup manually. (Select +Back Up Now+ from the TM icon in your menubar, or by right-clicking the TM icon in your Dock). Sooner or later, you should see a very large one, and hopefully it will complete so you can see what caused it, via +Time Tracker+ or BackupLoupe.

How can I delete all the files in the Adobe CS4 Master Collection from my machine?

How can I delete all the files in the Adobe CS4 Master Collection from my machine. I have tried Control Panel but it will not do anything, there are no error messages, it is like as if it is ignoring my instruction. Why should it be so difficult to delete programs one does not want. Any ideas please.

Moved from Cloud forum to Downloading, Installing forum
Try running the Adobe Cleaner Tool
http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs5-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

Time Machine deleted all my folders now wont restore

Big trouble here and I am lost as to how to fix it.
I have a Mac Pro, and two users on it
All the Users folders (home folders) are stored on a separate HDD, moved from there usual location on the system drive and the home folder locations changed in Accounts/Users/advanced options.
This morning I wanted to restore everything as it was a few hours ago.
So I opened Finder and navigated to the relevant 'Users' Hard drive.
Then opened Time machine from the dock.
Went back to the correct restore point and clicked Restore.
This was the root of the drive.The Root contains one folder called users
This has two folder for the two users.
Inside each one are the user folders you would expect to see:
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Library
etc
TM said Preparing to restore.Asked for admin password and began restoring.
it then gave a message saying I do not have sufficient prvilidges for the current operation and quit.
It quit after deleting all the files in both users home folders but before it restored anything.
So now I am left with two empty home folders, each containing just one sub folde 'Library', and that looks about half empty.
So basically it has trashed my user data..everything gone and it wont restore.
How do I restore the data back from the Time machine drive? I have turned off time machine backups for now so no more backups are made, and am afraid to log off or turn machine off in case some data vital for log in has also been deleted
Thanks
Neil

Definetly Admin user....two users on here, both admin.
The Time machine Drive is an internal 1TB drive.
Definitely selected the correct backup folder...It showed something like
Preparing to copy 13,000 files 133Gb, 3 hours to go, then the progress bar started up, then it said that some files that were beign replaced needed admin privileges, and asked for user-name and password.
I entered admin user-name and pwd, and it continued for about 10 minutes, then failed saying I did not have the correct privileges.
I do have a third un-used Admin account that has it home folder on the system drive. I am going to try logging in as that, reformat the user data hard drive and try a restore from there, see if that does it.

Time Machine deleted ALL my backups

I was using time machine for quite a while to backup my hard drive and then stopped it for a while. When I turned it back on today, it backed up my ENTIRE hard drive (50 GB) and deleted ALL the old files & time machine backups.
The files and information on those old backups were extremely important. Is there any way of getting these back? Or am I SOL.
Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any help.

If TM completed what was most likely a new, full backup (which it will do after a long period without backups), then much (or most) of your old backups have already been overwritten.
It is possible that you might be able to recover some data from the rest of the disk with a +Data Recovery+ app, such as Data Rescue II, or a 3rd-party service. Neither is cheap or certain.
If you want to try that, stop using the disk immediately. To find such apps & services, look for +Data Recovery+ or +Disk recovery+ via Google, VersionTracker.com, or MacUpdate.com

HT3275 My Time Machine deletes ALL previous backups

Every so often, Time Machine deletes ALL previous backups and starts over from scratch. It has done this several times in the last year. I have not changed any hardware or the name of the computer. Why is this happening? Makes me very concerned that I now have NO backups while it chugs away rebuilding a 210 GB backup.
Just got an error message:
Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup. Time machine could not delete the backup disk image "/Volumes/Joe's iMac.purgeable"
HELP!
iMac 27: 8GB, 2.9 GHz Intel Core I5
OS X Yosemite 10.10.1
Backup volume is Western Digital MyBookLiveDuo with 2TB and 1.8TB available

Hi Joe,
Have you Repaired both drives first, then Repaired Permissions on both?
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imagine something not being covered there.

Shpuld I leave time machine on all the time?

I have time machine on all the time. My concern is backing up every hour seems excessive, and I wonder if turning it off and only on once a week is better.
Furthermore, my LaCie external hard drive is annoyingly noisy.

You can do that or you can use a third-party utility to change the schedule. If you use your computer daily, then file change daily, and you may wish to have those changes backed up.
TimeMachineEditor 4.0
Time Machine Backup Scheduler 1.4.2
TimeMachineScheduler 4.0b8

I bough a Mac Pro 2010 second hand and deleted all the files without backing up now is asking me for the Apple ID of the person who installed maverick,any ideas

I bough a Mac Pro 2010 second hand and deleted all the files without backing up now is asking me for the Apple ID of the person who installed maverick,any ideas

If the Mac's firmware was updated, you can try this Internet Recovery:
Hold down Command + Option + R during restart or bootup; hold until you see a spinning globe (takes up to 10 minutes). Once in the Utilities window, use Disk utility to wipe the drive, then return to the window and choose to reinstall OS X. If that works, the OS will be installed without being tied to an Apple ID.
FWIW, if the firmware was updated, you will not be able to use the Snow leopard disk to install - I just did several tests and it does not work. You can, however, possibly install the SL onto an external drive and then clone it to the internal or (if you have a clone), boot from that and clone it back - I just tested that as well.
If the firmware was not updated, then you can use the SL install disk.

How long does it take to delete all the files in a lost MacBook Pro?

How long does it take to delete all the files in a lost MacBook Pro?

Quite a while since there may be 1/2 million files or more to delete. There is only one quick way, and that is to reformat the drive.

How to delet all the files?

I was creating a web site. I messed it up. I want to delete all the files and start all over. How can I delete all the files?

I could delete all the files except the root folder. It says you can't
delete the root folder. Also how can I delete the files from the Dream
Weaver opening page where it lists all the existing file names?
Masil M. Masilamani,P.E.
Structural Engineer
Mobile:405-203-8323

Will updating my ipad delete all the files and apps i have there?

Will updating my ipad delete all the files and apps i have there?

Perform a complete backup before hand and all will be well. You just restore the backup after the update. If you have a backup password, be sure you haven't forgotten it. The details of what is backed up differ a bit if you are outside of the states. Read this article for details:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766

Time Machine deleted all the files on my external HD

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for