Time machine doesn't show older backups anymore after restoring one

After restoring a backup, my older backups are not shown anymore in my Time Machine. Although it's said that the oldest one is from 2010.
how ca i get them back?
thank you for helping!

Try right-click on the Time Machine "clock" icon on the dock
Click Browse Other Time Machine Disks
See if your old backups are there

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Backing up to a thumb drive - time machine doesn't delete older backups when it's full. I will have to erase and re-do the drive. Why?

Backing up to a thumb drive - time machine doesn't delete older backups when it's full. I will have to erase and re-do the drive. Why?

You are both right.
Time Machine can backup FROM:
It cannot back up a USB thumb drive.
Time Machine can backup TO:
•A USB thumb drive (but most aren't large enough, and are very, very slow)

Time Machine doesn't recognize past backups anymore

My Macbook pro just came back from being repaired (issue with the video display).
I think they had to replace the logic board or graphics card or both - but I'm not sure.
Everything works fine now... except for Time Machine.
Before the Macbook Pro was shipped off I would backup regularly to an external hard drive.
While my Macbook was gone I had to use some of the backup files from within the Backups.backupdb file system. So on my Powerbook G4 with Tiger I had to go in manually and copy files over. No big deal... or so I thought.
Now Time Machine does not recognize the past backups from before I shipped the MacbookPro.
It just wants to start an entirely new backup again.
Is there a way I can get Time Machine to recognize my old backup again?
I'd hate to have to go in manually from now on. It's not exactly convenient.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

OK, I didn't explain that well...
So here is what I'm typing in and what I'm getting back (the name of my computer being "Jason Argo's Computer":
Last login: Thu Jul 17 22:22:16 on ttys000
Macintosh:~ Jason$ cd /Volumes/Chubs/Backups.backupdb
Macintosh:Backups.backupdb Jason$ xattr -p com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress Jason Taylor's Computer
I don't know why but I'm getting nothing back now. Before I was getting errors saying no such directory exists. I've typed in ls as well and get nothing.
Any ideas?

Time Machine doesn't show any backups even though the data is being backed up

Time Machine is set to backup my Mac regularly and it seems to be doing so since the backups are being written to my backup disk.
However, when I enter Time Machine, none of the backups in the past show up on the Time Machine screen.
Is there a way to have Time Machine recognize the data it has backed up?

I restarted my Mac and all's well. Odd.

After motherboard swap, Time Machine doesn't recognise older backups

Hello,
After I had my motherboard replaced on my MacBook Pro, my older backups are not recognised. Is there any way to access this data?
Many thanks in advance.

Hello,
Time machine uses the MAC address to identify each computer and as your logic board now sports a new MAC address TM can't see it.
I haven't tried this but Barry Sharp, posting on macosxhints suggests:
If you attempt to backup after the MAC address has been changed the TM backup will indeed fail and report it cannot found the TM backup volume. This is because the hidden file with the name of the MAC address (minus the colons) does not match the new MAC address.
All that is required here is to goto TM Pref panel and click on the "Change Disk..." button and reselect the TM backup disk and then manually force a backup via the Dock's TM icon "Back Up Now". The backup will now run and the new MAC address will be created as a hidden file alongside the old one. You can use sudo to remove this old one.
TM backup will proceed as it would have normally done without the MAC address change and without a deep traversal of all volumes that have not been excluded ...
from:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101
Note: he points out the original suggestion at the start of that hint is unnecessary.

Time Machine HD not showing latest backup, can't restore system

Please forgive the short story, but I'll give as many details as I can:
Last night I successfully installed XP on my MacBook Pro using Boot Camp. I decided to do the same to my iMac (21.5" 2010 Version). I used Boot Camp to initiate the partition process to create my Windows partition. It told me that I had files that couldn't be moved and I would have to:
1. Backup my startup disk (the main and only internal hard drive)
2. Reformat the hard drive I want to create the Windows partition on
3. Restore from the backup
4. Use Boot Camp to create the new partition
I completely understand why I have to do this. There's files spread physically all over the drive, and backing up and restoring is the free alternative to defragging. So I use Time Machine to back up my internal drive to an external drive. The total transfer was about 330 GB. I had to leave for about three hours and left it to do its thing. When I came back, the iMac had restarted and was waiting for my password to log on. I did so and looked in Time Machine and saw that the next back was scheduled for 10:37 pm. It was set to backup every hour. Simple math tells me the last backup - the one I had left for three hours - had finished at 9:37 pm. And that made perfect sense.
I then boot the iMac from the OSX disk and use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the main drive. I did this without any qualms since I was sure the backup worked. It wiped and reformatted my drive and I go to Time Machine to restore and.......
NO BACKUP FILES ARE FOUND
The external was spinning. I could hear it doing something. So I decided to try it manually in Disk Utility. In selecting the source of the restore Image, I navigate through the external and find, not a backup file, but a ".inProgress" file. I'm guessing that the initial backup +did not+ complete correctly and I've now just lost all of my data.
Can anyone please tell me that I'm wrong?

weerez87 wrote:
When I came back, the iMac had restarted and was waiting for my password to log on.
Unless you have your Mac set to automatically log you off after a period of inactivity, your Mac should have been as you left it. It does not shut down, restart, or log you off after completing a backup.
Could there have been a power failure?
I'm guessing that the initial backup +did not+ complete
That seems likely.
and I've now just lost all of my data.
Maybe, maybe not.
Just to be sure, check the backup drive via the Finder. Be +*very careful+* using the Finder on your backups; if you accidentally move, change, or delete anything, they can be corrupted.
There should be a single Backups.backupdb folder at the top level, containing a single folder named for your Mac.
Inside that should be a folder for each backup, named with the date and time; plus a "latest" alias, plus the in.Progress file (it's actually a "package").
If there are any named, dated folders, those are completed backups; you can restore your entire system from them. See #14 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).
If not, select the "in.Progress" file and see how large it is, via +Get Info.+ That may take a while; the larger it is, the more of your data is there. If it's over about 6 GB (your system folders), right-click it and select +Show Package Contents.+ It should contain the same folder structure as your internal HD; go all the way to the bottom and see how much is actually there (some of the items toward the end may be empty).
If it looks like most everything is there, you may be able to recover most of it, by drag and drop.
If not, +*stop using your internal HD.+* Unless you did a +Secure Erase,+ your stuff is still on the internal disk, and most should be recoverable, but it won't be quick or easy. See [Data Recovery|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Recover.html].
Keep us posted.

My Time Capsule/Time Machine has been showing Preparing Backup for past 48 hours continuously!

My Time Capsule reported Full the other day. I now have only 26.8MB of 497.96 GB available. Since then it seems to backing up continuously. The Time machine preferences window shows "Preparing Backup" andnothing else, and it has been doing so for at least past 48 hours. Any ideas as to the problem?
Stuartyboy

Yes, the problem is the drive is full.
If you have other files or TM back from other computers, TM on your computer having issues will not be able to delete enough to get sufficient space to backup.
Read how to clean up and delete parts of backups.. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Not a good idea though.
Solution.
1. Buy a new bigger TC.. cheaper (Than the original 500GB at least), faster and now the smallest is 2TB.
2. Plug in a USB drive.. archive the TC.. then erase it and start a fresh set of backups.. April 1st great day to do it.
3. Open up your old TC.. remove the 500GB drive and install a 2TB (if Gen1 a 3TB might even work). Google for how to do a hard disk upgrade.
Problem.. old power supply could die the day after and then the total cost would approach 1. Better to backup, wipe the 500GB and sell it on ebay and buy a new TC with 2 or even 3TB (2TB is better value IMHO).
4. Plug in a USB drive .. formatted to HFS+ and use that as the target.
Very slow. much slower than the same drive plugged into your computer.

Time machine doesn't show non-current drive.

I had an external hard drive die. I need to restore the files, but since the drive's not there anymore Time machine doesn't list it. How do I access the files without manually finding them on the backup drive?

See > http://pondini.org/TM/E3.html

Time Machine doesn't connect to backup volume

I am trying to 'Enter the Time Machine' and it simply hangs. It tries to connect to the server but gets stuck on 'Connecting with backup volume. Eventually, I get the error message "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup - the backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Larry's iMac.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1)."
I think everything I had in the Time Machine has been lost as it shows 998GB of 998gb free. Annoying but not disastrous as my iMac hard drive is working fine. I just want to be able to backup before upgrading to Yosemite.
I'm on OSX 10.8.5
Can anyone help?
Thanks!

See C-17 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time Machine doesn't acknowledge initial backup

I purchased a Time Capsule and quickly and happily built a new 802.11n home wireless network with it. Yay. Then I hooked up my iMac to the Time Capsule via ethernet to do my initial Time Machine backup, knowing that it would take a LONG time (~400GB). Well, it took about 3 days to complete (which seems suspiciously slow...), but anyway, it finished sometime in the middle of the night. In the morning I looked at the Time Capsule and sure enough, there was the big-*** "sparse bundle" backup. Time Machine seemed to be in the middle of doing a relatively small backup, about 140MB, which I figured were the changes since I began the initial backup a few days before. However, I wished to unplug the ethernet and let it continue wirelessly, so I did so. However, Time Machine seemed to just hang there with the backup no longer progressing. Since I could simply have it redo the backup a little later without any real data loss, I just stopped the backup mid-progress. I unplugged the ethernet cable and the world seemed well. Then I clicked in Time Machine to begin a new backup.
Of course, I expected this backup to be a rather small one, but I realized that Time Machine was about to begin another ~400GB backup! In fact, there was no information in the "Last Backup" field, so apparently Time Machine could not see the massive initial backup and was about to start all over again. Well, I am NOT about to wait another 3 days for it to do that, especially if the problem reoccurs, so I halted the backup and set Time Machine to "off."
Now, what to do? Why can't Time Machine see the initial backup? Why is it trying to do another full backup (very little data changed on my system in the 3 days)? Did my stopping the "hourly" backup somehow "break" things?
Advice? Thoughts?

I'm not sure how the sparsebundle is identified by the computer, but if it is uniquely identified by the network connection used (ethernet, airport, firewire networking, etc.) then it could very well not identify the previous sparsebundle you made via Ethernet as being the one for your computer via Airport. I dont remember this being the case for me when I had my PowerBook backing up to my PowerMac via both Airport and/or Firewire networking, but I could be wrong...it was a while ago. Even though you seem to want to lean away from this, I'd recommend remaking it and just letting it go. You can use your computer in the mean time and allow the process to run in the background. It will pause and resume as the backup disk is available until the process is complete.

Time Machine Doesn't Seem to Backup Titles and Keywords in iPhoto

Hi
I have just noticed that Time Machine does not seem to backup certain metadata attached to the photos. Do you know if I am doing something wrong here?
Using iPhoto version 7.1.5.
Thanks
Adam
Message was edited by: Adam Lippiatt

Someone was doing manual backups of their photos and I said - 'why don't you just use time machine'. I assumed it kept everything - but I thought I would check.
What I did
1. Opened iPhoto in Finder
2. Entered Time Machine
3. Found an example Photo I wanted to Restore (I chose a photo with a different Title to the 'name' of the photo (given to it by the camera) and one with a keyword).
4. In Time Machine I could see the correct Title, but not the Keyword.
5. Selected it > Restore
6. Photo restored after giving a 'Duplicate' warning. Photo restored only has the 'name' but not the Title or the Keyword.
Any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Adam

Time machine doesn't show backups

So I my logic board died and I decided to reformat my computer after it was repaired just for a fresh start. My time machine has all the backups, however, when I tried to restore from it, i opened up time machine to see that NOTHING was there. I set the drive to be the same drive used before and the drive DOES actually contain all the backups. It's just when i open up time machine to restore nothing is there. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Yes, sorry, I didn't read the initial post carefully enough.
If babolat is still at the restore stage, the best answer is to boot up from the Leopard install disk and choose Restore from a Time Machine Backup from the Utilities menu. This will get the system back where it was and may also associate the backup directory with the new hardware (not totally sure of the latter though).
The backed up data itself can be accessed using the Browse Other Time Machine Disks option in Time Machine. I believe the Migration Assistant approach will work to get the full user across, but will not associate the existing backup directory with the new hardware.

Time machine doesn't delete old backups when disk is full

TM disk is 750GB. It tells me there is not enough room for backup…then I look into TM and find there ARE NO BACKUPS anymore. (There were a few days ago.) All backups are gone, except for one two days ago, which was when I began getting the "no room" error.
I assume I've lost everything, as the TM disk shows only the backup from 2 days ago. True?
Do I just format and start again?
Is there a fix for this "no room" message? (It says oldest backups are deleted when disk becomes full. But it doesn't do it.)
Do people rely on this?

How much data is TM backing-up? (What's shown for +Estimated size of full backup+ under the exclusions box in TM Preferences > Options?)
Note that your Time Machine disk should, in most cases, be at least twice the size of the data it's backing-up. See #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
It appears that Time Machine needed to do a large backup, perhaps a full one, for some reason, and deleted as many old backups as it could (but it won't ever delete the last remaining one, as that would leave you with no backup at all), trying to make room.
If in doubt, Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages for that run here, along with the amount of data that TM is backing-up.

Time Machine doesn't seem to backup my recent data

I have a porblem that TM doesn't seem to be backing up my recent data.
If I enter TM, the 'Now' tab on the timeline shows me exactly what is in my folders, or in iPhoto etc.
If I go back to even the most recent TM date (eg 1 hour ago) then my recent data is missing. Specifically, I can see data from a about a month ago, but nothing kore recent than that is shown. So folders has no recent files, and iPhoto has no Events added in the last month or so.
I first picked this problem up in January, and what I now notice is that my data definitely refects changes since January. So this seems to not be a problem with TM working with my user account (I have multiple user accounts on the iMac, and TM is working for the others). TM is working but seems to have a lag of about a month!

Doug:
I don't have an answer for you, but I noticed the same problem while spot checking my backups, as I occasionally do. Troubling, if I can’t depend on TM to back up properly.
Booting into Safe Mode (the only “simple” remedy I could find on the Internet) did nothing.
The missing files all occur within the last month. Although the missing files are IN my home folder, most new files in my home folder ARE properly backed up, including the Desktop Folder.
At the same time, I noticed that the problem seems confined to one group of subfolders. As an experiment, I duplicated the enclosing folder (renamed as “xxx copy”), performed a Time Machine backup, and found THAT folder would back up properly. So, the contents of “xxx” won’t back up, but duplicating it as “xxx copy” WILL back up.
I can also move all of the original CONTENT of “xxx” to a new folder, and it WILL back up properly.
I can also place a new file in the original problem folder "xxx", and it WILL back up. (Go figure.)
There’s something about the enclosing folder “xxx” that won’t allow folders/files after a certain date (about a month ago) to be backed up, whereas a duplicate of it WILL back up. At the same time, putting a new file in "xxx" WILL back up.
Now I’m worried about what other folders might be a problem. Fortunately, I back up twice with an off site system . But I would like to know what’s wrong with TM, so I can depend on it. Hopefully someone can weigh in with a proper diagnosis and "fix" so we can depend on TM again.

After full TM restore to new HD, TM doesn't show older backups and won't run

Also will not perform a backup again because it says the backup is too large for the backup disk?
I can deal with backing up to a new external HD, but how can I find older file backups from this particular external drive?
Are they gone?
(the current external is partitioned. an older bootable backup that has a capacity of 250.39 GB with 171.96 available
and a TM partition that has a capacity of 749.34GB with 363.88GB available.)
I tried to change the partition in disk utility but i could only drag down the non-TM partition. It wouldn't let me add room to the TM partition.
Is this happening because the new internal HDD is larger than the previous HD?
Current capacity of internal is 999.86 with 606.3GB available.
There seems to be plenty of room to fit the above.
What's the deal?

The size of the partition for Time Machine depends on the size and amount on data on your hard drive. The general rule of thumb is Time Machine should have 2-4 times the amount of space as the data on your hard drive. There shouldn't be any problems with a partitioned drive. I'd also consider having 2 backups as hard drives do fail. Either another Time Machine backup or a clone and Time Machine. Since you are using Snow Leopard, a clone would probably be easier than constantly switching drives in System Preferences.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Time machine doesn't show older backups anymore after restoring one

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