Time Machine does not erase old backups

Hi,
I have a problem using Time Machine on my MacBook Air. I use a LaCie 500GB Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive for backup. The external drive has 3 partitions, one of which is dedicated to time machine and measures 128 Gb. It happens very often that I receive an error message saying that Time Machine cannot complete backup as there is not enough space and that I should manually remove old backups. Time Machine is supposed to do that automatically. The backup partition is of the same size as the internal flash drive which is not even full so I don't see why there should be a problem.
I also have a MacMini with an external Iomega drive and same setup (3 partitions on the external drive and the Time Machine dedicated one of the same size as the internal drive) and I never had an issue with the Time Machine not erasing old backups to make room for the new ones.
How can I fix the problem on the MacBook Air?
Many thanks in advance,
Igor

How much space is currently in use on the volume TM is backing up from? If it needs to do a large backup for some reason, there may not be space to do so without deleting so much that you are left with less than a full backup. TM needs the backup drive to be a minimum of 2-3 times larger than what is being backed up.

Similar Messages

  • Time Machine does not recover old backups

    Dear All,
    I have a Time Machine disk for a long time (from the Leopard days) and have been using it without any trouble even after updating to Snow Leopard (iMac- intel).
    However, a few days back I upgraded my system with the latest Snow Leopard release (over software update) to install the Apple Store application.
    Now, today, when I put my Time Machine disk in, it correctly shows all the backup dates correctly (on the right hand side Time Machine index pane), but I could recover only files from my Snow Leopard backups. The Leopard backups, though shown correctly do not reveal anything when I click on the date.
    I am feeling desperate as some of my important files are in Leopard backups. Any help would be welcome!

    Madhurjya wrote:
    Now, today, when I put my Time Machine disk in, it correctly shows all the backup dates correctly (on the right hand side Time Machine index pane), but I could recover only files from my Snow Leopard backups. The Leopard backups, though shown correctly do not reveal anything when I click on the date.
    What you see in the "Star Wars" display depends on how you get there. If you're starting from a Finder Window, then entering Time Machine, be sure the Finder window shows something that was backed-up on Leopard.
    Or, try the procedure in #E3 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    If nothing helps, try Repairing your backups, per #A5 there.
    I am feeling desperate as some of my important files are in Leopard backups.
    Do you mean you've been deleting things from your system, counting on Time Machine to keep the backups indefinitely? If so, that's NOT a good idea. See #20 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).

  • Time machine does not appear to backup an external HD.  how do I get that included in the backup?

    time machine does not appear to backup an external HD.  how do I get that included in the backup?

    In the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-C, or select
    Go ▹ Computer
    from the menu bar. A window will open showing all mounted volumes. Select the one in question and open the Info window. What is shown as the Format in the General section? If it's not "Mac OS Extended," Time Machine can't back up the volume.

  • Time Machine does not see original backup file on Time Capsuel after reset.

    I recently moved. I have a Time Capsule which is also my airport base station. I have about 7 months worth of back-ups on the drive for an iMac and a MacBook. The local cable company would only hook up the modem directly to my iMac and would not set up through the Time Capsule as it is not one of their routers. No problem. I did it once -- I could do it again. After discovering that it was not as simple as plugging the ethernet cable into the Time Capsule (after doing so, the Time Capsule recognized it had internet feed -- the iMac recognized the Time Capsule/Airport network -- but I could not get onto the net.) I discovered that I needed to do a hard reset. The instructions said the files would not be erased. They were not. I can still see the original back-ups for both computers in finder. But Time Machine does not recognize that either computer was ever backed up. There is no history and when I try a back-up it begins from scratch and creates a brand new back-up file.
    How do I get Time Machine to recognize the original back-up files? I tried "choosing disk" in Time Machine preferences but it only lets me choose the actual disk (the Time Capsule) and not an individual back-up file
    Thanks in advance to the collective brain trust.
    Robert

    I saw a post on another discussion about this subject, and one user found this workaround:
    2) Start the backup via wireless connection. Stop the backup. Unplug external HD and plug in via USB or FW (you want FW800). Time Machine appears smart enough to continue your backup in a manner that is useable by the AEBS.
    This only makes sense for the first backup (or if you have a lot of data for one particular incremental backup), as it removes the whole convenience factor of wireless.
    The post got this reply:
    Thx for your #2 tip on using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Base Station, then switching to a wired connection. Worked perfectly.
    Started the TimeMachine b/up wirelessly, allowed it to run for a couple minutes, then stopped it, unplugged the USB drive from the AEBS, plugged it into the computer directly via FW400, opened TimeMachine and it recognized the Disk. Ran TimeMachine via the wired connection, after it finished I ejected it, plugged it back into the AEBS, initiated the AirDisk in the finder, then opened TimeMachine and presto!!
    Awesome tip. Note: this works for first-time TimeMachine wireless backups only. Saved me over 40 hours of wireless waiting!!
    http://gizmodo.com/370017/how+to-use-time-machine-with-an-airport-extreme
    Can anyone confirm that this will work?

  • Time machine will not delete old backups

    time macine will not delete old backups....is there a manual way to do it

    Just let it run. It will manage itself fine, you may benefit though from reading Pondini's Time Machine FAQs

  • Time Machine does not run automatic backups

    For the last couple of days TM is refusing to run the hourly backups.
    Manual backups run fine, but not the automatic ones.
    Modifying the exclude list seems to have no effect on the manual backups.
    It keeps using the "old" exclude list, i.e. the one I had before the problem
    started.
    In /var/log/system.log I find the following message every hour:
    Nov 18 21:26:03 macdelta com.apple.backupd-auto[12774]: Not starting scheduled T
    ime Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.
    I checked the plist
    /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
    and it seems to be fine. It is identical to the one in another mac that shows no problems with TM. The same is true for the other plists related to backupd in that directory.
    Question 1: What are all the plists that control the behaviour of TM
    Question 2: How do I resume hourly automatic backups?

    My laptop's drive is encrypted and my laptop is with me at all times. The backup disk remains at my desk and does not have a cable lock. The important thing to consider here is that even if your laptop drive is encrypted (e.g., through FileVault), the TimeMachine backups *are not* (unless you are logged out of your account when you backup--at which point, why bother using TimeMachine over a simple disk cloner such as SuperDuper!?).
    Anyway, that's off-topic for now. You mention that it changed the element of the plist that identifies the backup volume, do you mean the UUID element? I noticed it changed:
    10.6.4:
    <key>DestinationVolumeUUID</key>
    <string>040F3E3C-11BF-3AF9-8813-2B6110B200A0</string>
    10.6.5:
    <key>DestinationUUID</key>
    <string>24E15602-063A-3930-B1FE-F2DB15865083</string>
    In addition, after doing a reset (while attempting to trouble shoot this issue), the new plist is missing some things the old plist had--for example:
    <key>HostUUIDs</key>
    <array>
    <string>00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F2C65E0C</string>
    <string>25233988-B93F-56AF-B940-F386CB4442EC</string>
    </array>
    Thoughts?
    -Chuck

  • Time machine does not notify re backups

    Time machine used to send notifications"10 days no back-up"
    It no longer happens since Yosemite installed.Can this be adjusted? Thanks

    Its also saving "missed" backups to your hard-drive for later transfer to time machine - so the backup is still occurring - just not to the time machine disk (same for Icloud  backups).
    As it is baking up the engineers may have decided you do not need a message -- you may want to give feedback to apple (this is not the place - go to apple support - that you till would like the message because ....... 
    If you are using a laptop - consider getting a docking port (if available) for home use - that way you can have all hardware hooked up to the docking port so the time machine drive should load up and backups continue while at home.   (docking ports make it easy to hook up printers, drives, full keyboards and an extra monitor to a lap top and keeps the laptop off the desktop so it can get some air).

  • Time Machine does not see old Time Capsule backsups after change in network setting?

    Hi all,
    Just brought our TC to our summer home for the season and have a few issues.
    Instead of using it as our router, I added it to our existing AEBS network.  After doing this, all of our macs did not backup for a day or so.  Once I noticed this issue, I pointed them all back to the TC drive and backups have begun again.
    However, 8 months worth of backups are no longer accessible via Time Machine on any of the macs. The files are there on the TC disk and they sorta show up in Time Machine.  That is, they are showing up on the right hand side as dates and little lines, but these dates and little lines are dead links. (the equivalent of being greyed out and unavailable)
    Why did this happen when simply changing the TC network settings?  More importantly, how do I fix it so my older backups become available again?
    Thanks!
    Stu

    The grayed-out lines mean that whatever's in the Finder window wasn't backed-up on that particular backup.
    Try selecting your Computer name in the Finder sidebar (or pressing Shift+Cmd+C) before Entering Time Machine.  That will show one folder representing each the volumes (disks or partitions) currently connected.  Without changing anything on the Today (Now) window, click one of the backups in question.  That should show a folder for each volume that was included in that particular backup.

  • Time Machine does not display old files: the star wars screen stays stuck

    I have been looking for an known report, but can't find it.
    In Time Machine, I don't see the 'star wars' panels anymore. It was working when I installed it.
    In an activated Timemachine screen, the date slider on the right of the screen does not react. Only the front most screen is seen = "now".
    I used to have time machine on an airportextreme; but because of adding a shared USB printer I had to move the external HDD to my own iMac.
    Time machine tells the backups are successful.
    Did I do something wrong by moving the HDD around?
    Did I do something wrong with 'permissions'? [I added myself as a user with read permissions.]
    Should I reinstall Timemachine?
    thanks in advance
    albert

    alberti-nl wrote:
    Hi, and welcome to the forums.
    I used to have time machine on an airportextreme; but because of adding a shared USB printer I had to move the external HDD to my own iMac.
    Time machine tells the backups are successful.
    Did I do something wrong by moving the HDD around?
    Sort of. Time Machine stores backup differently when they're done locally vs. over a network.
    Double-click your external HD. It should have a "sparse bundle" including the name of your computer. Those are your network backups.
    Double-click the sparse bundle to mount it, then try Time Machine again. If that doesn't work, quit Time Machine and control-click the TM icon in your menubar, or right-click the TM icon in your Dock, and select the +Browse ...+ option. That should show your backups in a small window; select them and click the +Use Selected Disk+ button.
    Post back with your results and we'll explain further and see how you want to proceed.

  • Time Machine does not display older backups.

    Running 10.6.4 with Time Machine saving to a Time Capsule, for the past year.
    Opening Time Machine displays the bars for older backups but does not display dates/times against them and I cannot move backwards or forward to select an option to restore. However, it does mount the Time Machine backup disk image on the desktop and I can browse this and restore a file using Finder. So, I know that I have my years-worth of backups on the Time Capsule, but how can I get Time Machine to display them -- I'm guessing it needs a re-instal of Time Machine?
    cheers
    Birdflier

    Hi Pondini,
    I got it fixed today, thank you everyone for your help. The thing that ended up fixing it was deleting the hidden files ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" and ".002332b4a7fc" on the root directory of the time machine disk. Now my months worth of backups are viewable again!
    I didn't find this on your website (maybe I didn't look hard enough). If it's not there, perhaps it would be a good thing to add to your site? Hopefully it will save a few people some frustration! Thanks for making the site - it looks like a great resource.
    --Hayden

  • Time Machine does not recognize older backups after restore

    Leopard Server OSX.5.8, Mac Mini Intel
    After a severe failure I had to restore the server (I used a fresh, spare Mini to restore to) from a Time Machine backup.
    Everything went fine so far.
    I tried to continue the backup on the same external harddrive, but the backup history is no more recognized by Time Machine, it want to backup the whole drive from the beginning.
    The disk is full which is normally not a problem, as Time Machine deletes the oldest backups to deallocate space.
    I don't want to lose the old history. What can be done to make Time Machine using this backup set again?

    Hi Pondini,
    I got it fixed today, thank you everyone for your help. The thing that ended up fixing it was deleting the hidden files ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" and ".002332b4a7fc" on the root directory of the time machine disk. Now my months worth of backups are viewable again!
    I didn't find this on your website (maybe I didn't look hard enough). If it's not there, perhaps it would be a good thing to add to your site? Hopefully it will save a few people some frustration! Thanks for making the site - it looks like a great resource.
    --Hayden

  • Time machine will not delete old backup when space is needed

    Time machine says there is not enough space to complete backup yet will not delete old backups

    Start with C4.
    Time Machine Troubleshooting

  • Logic Board was replaced - Now Time Machine does not show previous backups

    Hi
    Bit desperate here.
    My Apple store changed my hard disk and the logic board along with it.
    I'm now aware that this means my MAC address has changed - which is what your Time Machine looks for when it tries to back up.
    So now the backups are failing, and I KNOW there's a HINT offered on macosxhints.com
    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101&query=Time%2Bmach ine%2Blogic
    - but I have absolutely NO previous experience with TERMINAL and minute I try to re direct terminal to my Time Machine Volume : it tells me there is no such file or directory. It's all gobbledygook to me. I think the person that wrote it ASSUMED some previous knowledge of using terminal.
    The things I DO know are: My MAC address number, and my TM Volume is called The BIG BACKUP (not Time Machine). It doesn't
    Can anyone make this clearer for me, or indeed is there an easier way.
    I know I could just tell TM to change disk and just star afresh - but I'm under the impression that it's very uneccessary for me to lose all my previous backups.
    Hey, many, many thanks if you can help
    Simon

    Hello K.V.
    (I'm having to come back to this when I get a minute at the moment)
    Many thanks for your suggestions so far. Several things have occured:
    Firstly I did what you instructed in your last post, that seem to let me go on without any further errors - so I then when back to my desktop - dismounted The BIG BACKUP and restarted the whole mac, remounting the The BIG BACKUP. I went to the 'Back Up Now' commend to test it and it failed, sayind it could not find the file or directory.
    So this evening I started in terminal from scratch - when I got to the ls -al command I noticed that my old address was no longer in the list, it was on the line before the new address before (I also punched in the wrong mac address intially but spotted it and rectified my mistake .001f5beb34e5 being the correct one) as you can see from below it now says my old address is No such file or directory.
    Here is a copy of what happened
    Last login: Mon Jul 21 19:27:07 on ttys000
    simon-evanss-imac:~ simonevans$ cd /Volumes/"The BIG BACKUP"/Backups.backupdb
    simon-evanss-imac:Backups.backupdb simonevans$ xattr -p com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress "simon-evanss-imac"
    No such file: simon-evanss-imac
    simon-evanss-imac:Backups.backupdb simonevans$ xattr -p com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress"simon-evanss-imac"
    simon-evanss-imac:Backups.backupdb simonevans$ cd ..
    simon-evanss-imac:The BIG BACKUP simonevans$ ls -al
    total 104
    drwxr-xr-x@ 16 simonevans staff 612 20 Jul 22:44 .
    drwxrwxrwt@ 6 root admin 204 21 Jul 21:13 ..
    -r-------- 1 simonevans staff 16 24 Apr 23:56 .001f5beb34e5
    -rw-r--r--@ 1 simonevans staff 6148 21 Jul 19:08 .DS_Store
    drwx------ 3 simonevans staff 102 24 Apr 23:55 .Spotlight-V100
    d-wx-wx-wt 3 simonevans staff 102 19 Jul 09:25 .Trashes
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root staff 0 25 Apr 09:23 .com.apple.timemachine.supported
    drwx------ 8 simonevans staff 272 21 Jul 19:32 .fseventsd
    drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root staff 102 20 Jul 22:56 Backups.backupdb
    -rw-r--r--@ 1 simonevans staff 1024 1 Jan 1970 Desktop DB
    -rw-r--r--@ 1 simonevans staff 2 1 Jan 1970 Desktop DF
    -rw-r--r--@ 1 simonevans staff 0 1 Jan 1970 Icon?
    drwxr-xr-x 5 simonevans staff 170 24 Apr 23:55 MANUALS
    drwxr-xr-x 5 simonevans staff 170 24 Apr 23:55 SOFTWARE
    simon-evanss-imac:The BIG BACKUP simonevans$ sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/"The BIG BACKUP"
    Password:
    Access control lists are supported on /Volumes/The BIG BACKUP.
    simon-evanss-imac:The BIG BACKUP simonevans$ sudo mv .001b639a9935 .001f5beb34e5mv: .001b639a9935: No such file or directory
    simon-evanss-imac:The BIG BACKUP simonevans$ sudo mv .001b639a9935 .001cb37264bc
    Password:
    mv: rename .001b639a9935 to .001cb37264bc: No such file or directory
    simon-evanss-imac:The BIG BACKUP simonevans$ sudo mv .001b639a9935 .001f5beb34e5
    Password:
    mv: .001b639a9935: No such file or directory
    simon-evanss-imac:The BIG BACKUP simonevans$
    Very confusing huh.
    To be honest now, I guess my prime concern is if I've made any damaging changes to things I don't understand or not - and I think it may be best if I accept the Time Machine starting afresh from square one by clearing the external drive and re-directing TM to it. I could live with this I guess, so long as it worked.
    What do you think?
    Many thanks
    Simon

  • Time machine does not show latest backups

    My Time Machine backup to an external NAS (WD Mybook World Edition) runs without any error on the GUI, but when I look into the Time Machine finder history I can only see backups which are 13 days old (June 1st).
    here is the log of the successful (?) run:
    13.06.12 07:49:17,673 com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
    13.06.12 07:49:37,736 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 07:50:09,976 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 07:50:31,443 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
    13.06.12 07:50:35,076 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
    13.06.12 07:50:35,091 com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb
    13.06.12 07:50:42,703 com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Users/florian/Pictures/Aperture Trial Library.aplibrary/Database/apdb reason:must scan subdirs|missed reservation|
    13.06.12 07:50:43,331 com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
    13.06.12 07:51:11,996 com.apple.backupd: 1.33 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
    13.06.12 07:51:11,998 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
    13.06.12 07:56:03,871 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1766 files (739.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
    13.06.12 07:56:15,835 com.apple.backupd: 1.34 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
    13.06.12 07:58:16,546 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1323 files (313.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
    13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: Starting post-backup thinning
    13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
    13.06.12 07:58:45,592 com.apple.backupd: Backup completed successfully.
    13.06.12 07:58:49,102 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
    13.06.12 07:58:49,661 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
    13.06.12 07:59:41,572 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 08:00:09,835 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 08:00:30,871 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
    13.06.12 08:00:33,932 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
    Configuration:
    Mac OS X 10.7.4
    WD MyBook World Edition 2TB 01.02.12 with MioNet
    Any idea what's wrong?

    My Time Machine backup to an external NAS (WD Mybook World Edition) runs without any error on the GUI, but when I look into the Time Machine finder history I can only see backups which are 13 days old (June 1st).
    here is the log of the successful (?) run:
    13.06.12 07:49:17,673 com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
    13.06.12 07:49:37,736 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 07:50:09,976 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 07:50:31,443 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
    13.06.12 07:50:35,076 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
    13.06.12 07:50:35,091 com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb
    13.06.12 07:50:42,703 com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Users/florian/Pictures/Aperture Trial Library.aplibrary/Database/apdb reason:must scan subdirs|missed reservation|
    13.06.12 07:50:43,331 com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
    13.06.12 07:51:11,996 com.apple.backupd: 1.33 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
    13.06.12 07:51:11,998 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
    13.06.12 07:56:03,871 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1766 files (739.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
    13.06.12 07:56:15,835 com.apple.backupd: 1.34 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
    13.06.12 07:58:16,546 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1323 files (313.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
    13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: Starting post-backup thinning
    13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
    13.06.12 07:58:45,592 com.apple.backupd: Backup completed successfully.
    13.06.12 07:58:49,102 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
    13.06.12 07:58:49,661 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
    13.06.12 07:59:41,572 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 08:00:09,835 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
    13.06.12 08:00:30,871 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
    13.06.12 08:00:33,932 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
    Configuration:
    Mac OS X 10.7.4
    WD MyBook World Edition 2TB 01.02.12 with MioNet
    Any idea what's wrong?

  • Time Machine does not see older backups on Time Capsule

    I use a wifi network to connect to the internet as well as a USB modem.  The result is that my Time Capsule is not always connected.
    I set up my Time Capsule (using the wifi network) and ran what I believe was a successful backup.
    Now Im trying to run another backup and I have my iMac connected using the wifi network.
    When I open Time Machine it show an icon on my desktop saying "Time Machine Backups"  Inside this is lots of folders that appears to be some form of backup.
    If I then click on "Select Disk" it give me the Time Capsule as a option to select. Once this is done it says 1.76TB of 2TB available.
    Below that it says Oldest backup: None AND Latest Backup: None.  Below that is the white and blue backing up bar that has been running for some time with "preparing backup..."
    I have the Time Capsule connected to the iMac with a LAN cable...thinking that this will speed up the process?

    vlakvarkie wrote:
    Below that it says Oldest backup: None AND Latest Backup: None.
    Once you're disconnected from the backups, those fields won't be shown until the next backup completes successfully.  (Prior to Lion, it showed a couple of dashes -- instead of None.  We've asked for either the dashes back or something like "unknown" or "not available," but so far they haven't changed it.)
    Below that is the white and blue backing up bar that has been running for some time with "preparing backup..."
    That can take quite a while, especially if it's been a while since the last one.  See #D1 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
    I have the Time Capsule connected to the iMac with a LAN cable...thinking that this will speed up the process?
    Yes, by all means.  It should be 2-3 times faster, and much more reliable, than WIFI.

Maybe you are looking for