Time Machine Error and Disk Utility?

I backup 3 Macs to our TC. Last night, my MacBook started having problems backing up to the TC. Several times it has attempted to backup, but it fails with this message:
"The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."
When I try to use DU to repair as suggested, the drive does not mount, whether or not I connect to it in the Finder or not. Airport Utility reports no problems with the TC and the other two computers are happily backing up hourly to it. There is 500 GB of space left on it.
When I open the TC drive, I see two sparsebundles for ths laptop, only one for each of the other computers. It appears to me that there is something wrong with the sparsebundle/s for this computer only. Can I simply drag those to the trash, connect via firewire to TC, and start fresh? I really don't want to have to erase the whole TC and redo the other computers.
Is there another solution I am missing?
Thanks for any help.
Kathy

Kathy Cardoza2 wrote:
Can I simply drag those to the trash, connect via firewire to TC, and start fresh?
That should work, except for the item about "connect via firewire", as a Time Capsule has no FireWire port. Could you have meant Ethernet? That should speed up the initial backup significantly.

Similar Messages

Time Machine Volume and Disk Utility

I'm trying to figure out whether or not I can use Disk Utility's Repair Disk command on a Time Machine volume. Time machine is taking a very long time to finalize its backups. I don't know if there are directory issues that need to be addressed or if it's due to the very large size of the directory. I've been using Time Machine on this computer since last January and the Time Machine directory (the disk's catalog of files used by the OS) takes up over 7 GB of disk space! It's so large that DiskWarrior will no longer work on that volume. DiskWarrior, like all 32-bit OS X applications, has a limit of 4 GB. I can't be the only one in this situation. I don't want my Time Machine backup to get hopelessly corrupted and then have to start agin. I'm trying to be proactive about correcting any issues before they become serious.

See my reply to Steve Darden in this Topic.
You should not use Disk Utility in the normal manner. Time Machine uses hard links in a non-standard manner, which will cause normal repair utilities to complain, as Steve is finding.
If you read Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues you will see that it only recommends Disk Utility to "Attempt to repair the backup sparsebundle", not the actual Disk Volume itself.

"Time machine error, The disk image cannot be mounted" What can I do??

I ran the time machine. Then, "preparing backup" showed up for a long time. After that, a window pop out: "Time machine error, The disk image cannot be mounted" What is disk image? What can I do (I can't back up anything)
P.S. I use time capsule for backup. there were no problem on connection

I'm having the same issue. I do not have TC as my base station. It says right in the book that if you choose, you do not have to have it run as your router, just as a part of your existing wireless network. All software is up to date and I have already shortened the name of both my TC and TC disc to 6 characters and no spaces! I've already spoken with someone today about this. He really didn't know. Have tried backing up both wirelessly and directly connecting with an Ethernet cord. I had to finally call because when I attempted to register the product to get online support, apple.com didn't recognize the serial number!!! The gentleman on the phone got it registered for me. I bought the TC from an official apple store and for whatever reason when he put in the serial number his computer said that this TC was so "old" I guess that there was technically "no support." That basically means that even though my parents just purchased this for me a week before Christmas, that it was made a year ago and the warranty is not good?? I need to do more research on that. Right now I am very unhappy about this. I am a firm apple user and have been for years, but this is frustrating.
I had read somewhere else (not sure I've been searching apple for what seems like forever now) to make sure that the TC was showing up in "devices" of the Finder. Mine doesn't show up there, but rather in the "Network" window. Is this an issue? If it is, can anyone tell me how to fix that. I have Time Machine backing up to my TC, so I do not see why it would be.
UPDATE: I just opened up my TC on the "Shared" section of the Finder window and deleted the old "sparsebundle" (I had no clue that anything had backed up way back at 3:30pm on Dec 29) and now I get a slightly new message: Time Machine Error: The backup disc image could not be created." So now the word "mounted" is replaced with "created." This error showed up a lot sooner than the original one. Ok, no clue. I am going to try to Change the Disc again, and try again. I will post another update.
Message was edited by: kryzma

Time Machine error: backup disk image could not be created

Iet up my new time capsule day and it's working great. Now that I've got everything sorted out, I'm ready to do the initial time machine back up on it. I went into preferences, changed the backup location to my TC and clicked 'back up now'. Very quickly I get a message that the backup failed: "Time Machine Error - The backup disk image could not be created".
I've searched the apple support area but haven't been able to figure this one out. Can anyone help, please? This is an initial backup. (FYI, it worked great on my old external drive.)
Many thanks

I had the same problem. I installed my Time Capsule, fired up Time Machine and got an error that said "The backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 436.8 GB but only 182.2GB are available."
Coincidently, these are the same sizes as the space used and the space available on my iMac's drive.
I looked in /Volumes and saw that the sparsebundle was being created on the local disk and not on the main disk. Trying to backup again gave me the "Time Machine error: backup disk image could not be created." message.
I poked around the forums, and found a post about the machine name setting in sharing. I decided to give it a look, and lo and behold, I did not have a machine name. So I gave my box a name, kicked off Time Machine again, and it worked.

HT3275 Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

My Mac mini time capsule is showing an error Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

I had a similar problem and I solved it as follows -
In Time Machine - > I deselected time capsule Data Disk as a destination.
Then I pulled the power plug on the Time Capsule, twiddled my thumbs for 15 secs, plugged the power back in.
Went back t Time Machine -> Re-Added the Time Capsule Data Disk as destination. And then tested by selecting Backup Now.
All went well and the backup picked up from before the problem.
BTW - I also have a USB drive connected to Time Capsule that is an alternate disk for Time Machine to backup.
In Mountain Lion the GUI lets you add more than one Time Machine backup destinations very easily so I think it a good idea to have redundancy.
Hope this helps.

Time Machine Error, backup disk couldn't be mount

I have a USB drive plug to my Airport Extreme and I use it for Time Machine. Today I had a message saying: "Latest Backup:Failed"
Time Machine Error
The Backup disk image could not be mounted.
The hard disk is there, I can drag, drop, copy, delete files on that disk. There's is a big file call Serge'siMac_001ec205f583.sparsebundle, the file does not seem corrupted, I could probably drag it to the Desktop. How can I mount the backup disk.
Serge

I had the same problem and found out how to fix it
You can check the whole process here in a post I wrote for the Hardmac blog (it's rather long...):
How I saved my corrupted Time Machine sparsebundle image…

Recover files with no Time Machine Backup and disk 'can't be repaired'

My Macbook Air (Mac OS X 10.7.4) was acting funny for a few days (crashing Safari, crashing Mozilla, crashing other third party software, requiring reboot, etc.). When I tried to reboot it, a loading bar and a rotating wheel came, but got switched off. It happened every time I tried. I got into Recovery mode (by pressing Command + R) to fix the disk. The disk could not be fixed. I tried reinstalling MacOSX, but it is not showing any disk to reinstall the OS in. I do not have Time Machine On.
I have some really important pictures and documents in the Mac. I want to save these files before I erase the whole disk. Any advice?
Thank you!
TL;DR
Mac dies while booting
Disk can not be fixed
Shows no disk to reinstall the MacOSX in
Never switched on the Time Machine
Want to save important files before deleting whole disk

One of the data recovery apps needs to be run on the disk. You have some options, none good:
• Take your Mac to an AppleStore (make a reservation at: http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/), or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (start here to find one: https://locate.apple.com/country). They won't run the recovery, but can tell if the drive is physically damaged. If so, and your Mac is under a year old, or covered by AppleCare, you won't have to pay for the replacement, but be sure to get the old drive back. It can then be put into an enclosure, making it an external HD for use with one of the other options:
• Take your Mac (or the drive) to a recovery service. They'll charge a large fee, and return an external HD with whavever data they can recover. You'd then need to erase the internal HD, install OSX, and try to reassembe your data from the external.
• Do it yourself. Buy an external HD (better, get two: one 3-4 times the size of the data on your Mac) and do it yourself. You'll install OSX on it and run from it to recover whatever data you can to the other external:
Start from the Recovery HD and format them both for a Mac (even if they say Mac Ready). See #1 in Using Disk Utility if you're not sure how to do that.
Then install OSX on one of them. When your Mac restarts, it will start from the external, and you'll set up a user account, etc, just as with a new Mac. When it starts again, you'll be running from a "bare-bones" system on the external HD.
Get one of the data recovery apps, install it on the external, and follow it's instructions to try to recover your stuff to the other external. As noted in the yellow box in the link above, you may get a lot of the orginal folder structure back, so you can just drag things to the proper location on the external you're running from. But you may find some or many files with partial names, perhaps numbers, etc. Some may have extensions you can identify (such as .png or .jpg), some may not. Try to open them and see what they are.
If you don't recover a lot, and are willing to spend yet more $$, you might try a different recovery app -- often one will recover things a different one can't.
When you've gotten everything you can off the internal HD, reformat it, then "clone" the external OSX drive to it and restart from the internal.
Then start making regular backups. If you want to use Time Machine, erase and use the one thats 3-4 times the size of the data it's backing up.
Also make periodic "secondary" backups to the other drive. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question
#27 for an explanation and some suggestions.

Time Machine Error and Can't Unmount Disk

I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I think Leopard must be optimized for Intel Macs, and I'm guessing my problems have to do with using a G5. Anyway, I have a 250G start up drive and a 500G second hard drive which I've been using for Time Machine back ups. A few days ago I began getting errors that time machine could not complete its back up. No details whatsoever.
I looked at several articles and it appeared that I needed to create a partition on my 500G drive and do something else, I forget what. But when I attempted to do this, I got a message that the "disk could not be unmounted". What does this mean and what do I do now?
thanks!

Hi! You shouldn't have to partition it but it does need to be in the Mac format which you can check in disk utility. AS for the failure to unmount often when you get this message if you'll watch the disk actually goes ahead and dismounts and you can just attempt to erase again and it will go ahead and erase. Tom

HT201250 Time Machine error - backup disk is not available

A new external USB disk was installed and fromatted as per apple and manufacturer instructions. Time machine backup was initated but had to be stopped after 2-3 hours. Upon resuming using "backup now" function an error message reported - Time machine could not complete the backup. The backup dis is not available.

Never mind, I fixed the problem by removing a lock feature from my external drive.

Disk read error, and Disk Utility won't open

Have a PowerMac G4 dual 800mhz, with two hard drives. Mac OS X 10.3.9 is installed on HD1. I use HD2 for miscellaneous files.
Using the Azureus bittorrent client, I'm getting "Error: Disk read error - Input/output error, read fails" in the Status column when trying to download something to HD2.
However, I'm able to upload files from HD2 for other users, and I'm also able to play video files that are stored on HD2 without problem.
The real issue is that when I went to see if I could fix anything by opening Disk Utility, it won't open. It goes into an immediate state of Not Responding. It won't listen to me when I tell it to Force Quit... I have to wait a long time, or restart the computer, to get it to stop showing up in the dock.
Any advice would be appreciated.

To repair a startup volume you must do the following:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Why reward points?(Quoted from Discussions Terms of Use.)
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Lacie 1TB external HDD recently stopped doing Time Machine backups. Disk Utility recommends that the disk needs to be repaired.

I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
It recently stopped doing the backups, so I checked Disk Utility and it recommended that I repair the disk. How long does it take for Disk Utility to repair a 1TB external HDD?
Other things to consider:
- Cant find the disk in the Finder, I used to be able to do that before.
- When I tried to go a Time Machine backup, it said the disk was not available.
Upon using disk utiliy, I successfully verified the disk. Then I initiated the disk repair process.
The current status:
- checking file system
- Volume repair complete
- Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
The progress bar says "Verify and Repair volume "LaCie"" - the progress bar does not indicate how much has been done or how long it will take.
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,476,416 Bytes)
Mount Point: Not Mounted
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
All other status fields blank.
Any one know how long it will take for Disk Utility to repair the external HDD? Any other ideas as to how I can get the Lacie HDD to reconnect with the Macbook and resume normal operations? i.e. Time Machine backups, accessing contents through the Finder.

purduegrad_macguy wrote:
I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
Mine Failed after 3 years and 4 months of using it as a Dedicated TM Backup drive...
When I used Disk Utility for repairs... it went from 7 minutes to 4 hours and after about 10 minutes it was saying 40 hours...
So I just replace it with a New EHD...

Time Capsule - Time machine error "backup disk image could not be mounted"

Recently I lost a folder and attempted to resore from my Time Capsule backup (which I started when it first shipped) not only did it fail, but know I get the message "backup disk image could not be mounted" when I try to backup. I have used Airport Utility to try and sort - that shows green light and it is connected by ethernet 9and shows in network (I can see the sparsebundle). I have been trying for a couple of weeks now - any ideas??

John & Joel,
I've done some research and put together some ideas.
"The backup disk image could not be mounted"
*“Disconnect All Users…”:*
If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule on the left.
Click “Manual Setup”.
Select “Disks” at top of window.
Click “Disconnect All Users…” at bottom of window.
Now try Backing up again.
*Stalled .inProgress Files:*
Select the TC in the SideBar of the Finder window.
Click "Connect as...". Enter your TCs password.
Double click the blue folder that appears in the finder window. The sparsebundle should now be visible.
Double click the sparsebundle and then click “Skip” in the checksum message.
Once “Backup of (Users Computer)” mounts in the Sidebar open the folder containing past backups. Are there any “.inProgress” files there. Delete them.
Unmount the backup drive and try backing up again.
*Permissions Issue:*
Select the TC in the SideBar of the Finder window.
Click "Connect as...". Enter your TCs password.
Double click the blue folder that appears in the finder window. The sparsebundle should now be visible.
Highlight the sparsebundle and “Get Info” (Cmd-I). At the bottom of the Get Info window open the “Sharing & Permission” section. Beside “Everyone” it should say “Read & Write”. If it does not, change it.
Now try performing a backup again.

Disk Utility - get errors and disk utility can not repair, even start ext.

Hello
I am using Mac OS X 10.5 on a MacBook Pro intel 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, Intel and Boot Camp / Win XP installed.
To check my user rights and repair the main HD I have installed 10.5 on my external 500 GB USB 2.0 HD. Started from it and started the disk utility trying to check and repair the Macintosh HD Partition (not win xp). I got following error messages:
2007-12-01 10:47:12 +0100: „Festplatten-Dienstprogramm“ wurde gestartet.
2007-12-01 10:47:20 +0100: Zugriffsrechte für „Macintosh HD“ reparieren
2007-12-01 10:53:51 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „usr/libexec/load_hdi“ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:53:51 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskManagement.framework/Versions/A/Resources /DiskManagementTool“ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:53:51 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DesktopServicesPriv.framework/Versions/A/Reso urces/Locum“ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:53:52 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Install.framework/Versions/A/Resources/runner “ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:53:55 +0100: Die Zugriffssteuerungsliste wurde gefunden, jedoch nicht für „private/var/root/Library/Preferences“ erwartet.
2007-12-01 10:53:55 +0100: Die Zugriffssteuerungsliste wurde gefunden, jedoch nicht für „private/var/root/Library“ erwartet.
2007-12-01 10:53:55 +0100: Die Zugriffssteuerungsliste wurde gefunden, jedoch nicht für „private/var/root“ erwartet.
2007-12-01 10:53:57 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Admin.framework/Versions/A/Resources/readconf ig“ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:53:57 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Admin.framework/Versions/A/Resources/writecon fig“ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:54:00 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „usr/libexec/authopen“ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:54:01 +0100: Die Zugriffssteuerungsliste wurde gefunden, jedoch nicht für „System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/CannedSearches/All PDF Documents.cannedSearch/Resources/version.plist“ erwartet.
2007-12-01 10:54:01 +0100: Warnung: Die SUID-Datei „System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/OwnerGroupTool“ wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert.
2007-12-01 10:56:07 +0100: Die Zugriffssteuerungsliste wurde gefunden, jedoch nicht für „Applications“ erwartet.
2007-12-01 10:56:07 +0100: Die Zugriffssteuerungsliste wurde gefunden, jedoch nicht für „Library“ erwartet.
2007-12-01 10:56:11 +0100:
2007-12-01 10:56:11 +0100: Reparatur der Zugriffsrechte abgeschlossen
2007-12-01 10:56:11 +0100:
2007-12-01 10:56:11 +0100:
Translation: wurde geändert und wird nicht repariert. = was changed but was not repaired.
Because it can not repair the errors I have started "repair disk". It says "can not unmount Macintosh HD". Even if I have started from the external disk?
So I get my install CD (Mac OS X 10.5) and started from that. I got the same errors with that disk utility.
Can someone tell me, if this are "right" errors or do I have to try more to repair this errors? My computer is running fine.
I am a bit irritated now.
Best regards
arjello
Message was edited by: arjello
Message was edited by: arjello

Way back in Jaguar Disk Utility would pop up dozens of "advisory" messages of no interest nor meaning to anyone except possibly some programmers. This needlessly alarmed regular users. The same thing is happening again in Leopard. The SUID messages are not meaningful nor are they errors, in effect they are announcements that some list being consulted by the utility says one thing, the actual files say something else, Disk Utility is going to assume there is a reason for actual setting and not going to change it, but you (it's kind of assuming you are the programmer) should know this. If the "Die Zugriffssteuerungsliste" is German for ACL (Access Control List) it is the same deal: an ACL was found, but no one told Disk Utility there was suppose to be one.
If the messages bother you download the whole 110MB 10.5.1 update and run it. It quiets down the output for all the SUID statements save one. Might even shut down the ACL advisories--don't know because I haven't bothered to download 110MBs of updater, I just ran the patch update.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Time Machine Error: Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted

Time Machine was working just fine with Time Capsule for the first two days, then today I got the above error message.
The drive and the backup image both show up in Finder. I can even copy files from the Time Capsule to my hard drive.
I just can't get Time Machine to backup to the Time Capsule, even if I manually hit "Back up now".
Any ideas what I can do to fix this?

I may have fixed this ... I renamed my TC to a shorter name with no space and no apostrophe - just a few letters. That seems to have cleared it up - at least for now. Time will tell ...

Time machine files and disk space warning.

hello, i have ran into some unknown issues with my os x and even though there have been similar topics discussed i would like to address mine and i hoe someone can help me out.
1. I am not sure if I accidentally turned on time machine or not , but at some point when i restarted a computer i noticed different folders and files that i have not created myself on my HD such as
.com.apple.timemachine.supported
.fseventsd
.hotfiles.btree
.Spotlight-V100
.Trash
.vol
var
etc
tmp
I do not know if this folders are safe to delete, since i am not using time machine.
2. Trying to download rather big file 34gb i received numerous warnings that my disk isfull, and it is not. i have 105GB used and 126GB free, also I am using 4gb RAM. so there should not be a problem. I saw a few topics regarding disk space warning, that were suggestinng that the user runs an application which shows where most of HD is used.
I cleaned a few stuff, but still, how can I prevent from this warning to appear.
Thank you for any suggestions

can i hide them?
Update: found terminal command to hide the successfully.
i ran verify disk and verify disk permissions and everything is OK.
following reports were made:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.
Verify permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
Permissions differ on "private/var/log/secure.log", should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r----- .
Permissions differ on "private/var/spool/cups/cache/rss", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are drwxrwxr-x .
Permissions differ on "Library/Preferences", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Library/Application Support", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Developer/Examples/JavaWebObjects/DataBaseSetUp/dbdump.sh", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rwxrwxr-x .
Permissions verification complete
Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
Permissions differ on "private/var/log/secure.log", should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r----- .
Permissions differ on "private/var/spool/cups/cache/rss", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are drwxrwxr-x .
Permissions differ on "Library/Preferences", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Library/Application Support", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Developer/Examples/JavaWebObjects/DataBaseSetUp/dbdump.sh", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rwxrwxr-x .
Permissions differ on "Developer/Examples/JavaWebObjects/DatabaseSetup/dbdump.sh", should be -rwxrwxr-x , they are -rw-rw-r-- .
Permissions repair complete
still bugs me why i am getting this warnings, nothing today but you never know when next one will pop...
Message was edited by: g3m1nn1
Message was edited by: g3m1nn1

Time Machine Error and Disk Utility?

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