Time Machine error- backup directory

Yet another person with the same error: Time Machine backup has been working just fine for about 2 months to a Time Capsule. Suddenly, all I get is "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup directory." No matter what I do, I get the same thing. I've done many of the things listed in other postings:
- turning time machine and laptop on and off (repeatedly!)
- clicking on the Change disk and re-choosing my Time Machine/capsule
- reinstalling the latest 10.5.3 update.
I don't know what else to do- I'd really rather not go nuclear and reinstall the whole dang computer. Help! Any other ideas (not cryptic, please, explain, for me and everyone else out there with this problem)?
Thanks

First make sure that the disk is still good. Use Disk Utility on it. Since I don't have a TC I'm not sure of the exact procedure. You may be able to do it over Ethernet.
If the top level directory checks out, then mount the sparseimage (fire up TM from the dock and then cancel out) and then use Disk Utility to Verify the disk image.
- gws

Similar Messages

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 Requires 2,211,365.5 GB!

Hello - I have searched the posts and nothing seems to touch on this specifically - I have been using Time Machine successfully for months and this has only started to happen in the last few days.
I have a white Macbook, 10.5.6 with an upgraded 150GB hard drive. I do backups sporadically (once or twice a week), as I don't want to keep my Macbook connected to a hard drive and I find using the airdisk feature on my AEBS takes too long and slows down the network. This has been working fine for me for months, but now I get the following message:
Time Machine Error
This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 2211365.5 GB but only 125.5 GB are available.
I tried reformatting my disk (250GB hard drive) and the problem still arises. There are no external drives or anything connected to the Macbook at the time.
Can anyone help? I don't want to go out and buy a Hard Drive with a 3million GB capacity!
Thanks
Ian

ChunTzu wrote:
If TM is seeing a ridiculous amount of info to backup like that (2 million gigs is probably not a real number I am guessing) it probably means you have file structure problems that are causing TM to count a folder infinitely in some kind of loop... like maybe a file link to itself that kind of thing.
A disk check usually repairs these sorts of problems and should alleviate your issue.
I believe you are correct and I would add that this case might require stronger medicine such as DiskWarrior to repair the directory structure, if that it the issue.

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…

Time machine error - backup fails due to sparsebundle already in use

Since upgrading, Time machine reports backup error:
TIme Machine Error
The backup disk image ...sparsebundle is already in use.
Any thoughts?

Thanks russ. After the initial upgrade to Mt Lion, no backups have been made. Every attempt reports the sparsebundle error. I recently updated to 10.8.1 and a whole new set of problems have shown up which is having me question the wisdom of continuing to invest in Apple product.
I have decided to pack it in with regard to the timecapsule product, as it is just too unreliable, and certainly not worth the continued time and effort it has been taking to try and get it to work. I have instead gone with an online backup service, Crashplan. I have the backup service I am seeing and I am no longer frittering away valuable time on something that ought to just work.
Problem solved.

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 Error, Backup to large - 496 avail and only 79 needs backed up

I have a 1 TB TM with 496.9 GB available (I already have 1 computer backed up on TM)
The second computer I want to back up has 80 GB used of a 500 GB HD.
Time Machine prefs show 496.9 GB available on TM and shows the back up will be 79.1 GB total.
But I get a error each time I try to back up saying " Time Machine Error, This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 614.1 GB but only 496.9 are available."
Two questions:
How can 496.9 GB be to small for a 79.1 GB backup?
Why does a 79.1 GB backup require 614.1 GB of space?
Thank You
Doug

Here's what Backup Buddy says:
Starting standard backup
Backup destination alias resolved to path: /Volumes/Doug's Time Capsule
Disk image /Volumes/Doug's Time Capsule/Jackie’s_001b63b59975.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Jackie’s
Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Jackie’s/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Backup of Jackie’s
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 432.7 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume Backup of Jackie’s
Backup content size: 80.2 GB excluded items size: 1007.5 MB for volume Macintosh HD
Starting pre-backup thinning: 614.25 GB requested (including padding), 496.85 GB available
No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
Backup Failed: unable to free 614.25 GB needed space
Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Ejected Time Machine network volume.

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.

Time Machine error - backup drive not mounted

Our family has 3 iMacs now running 10.5. One has a hard drive connected to it. The others are networed via a couple of Airport Extremes. The network is fine (all have internet). Time Machine is running fine on the iMac connected to the hard drive and on one of the others via the network.
But on the 3rd I keep getting an error that the backup drive is not mounted. It can mount it manually and see it (and its files) fine. The hard drive is configured so that everyone has read & write access. I've tried restarting it and resetting prams. I've tried connecting to the hard drive as a guest and as an authorized user. I still get the same error.
Any ideas? Thanks.

It seems to be working now. I trashed the old sparsebundle file and let it start from scratch. Wish I thought of that earlier .......
Message was edited by: Neil Stone

Time Machine error - backup disc image could not be mounted

I have a LaCie external hard drive attached to my Mac and (through Time Machine) there are several other macs, including my own, which back up to this device (through the network).
One of the other macs has suddenly started to bring up an error message when it tries to back up - "backup disc image could not be mounted". But my mac is backing up without any problems. I've tried switching the LaCie on and off but it still won't back up anymore
Can anyone help?

BTW--when I go into finder and click on my .sparsebundle, I get the following:
The following disk images failed to mount
Reason: Operation not supported on socket

Time Machine Error -- Backup Volume is Read Only

I suddenly started getting this error today when Time Machine runs. I use a 1 TB WD My Book as my Time Machine drive. When I select get info on the backup folder on the WD drive and check sharing and Permissions tab, it states directly under this label that "you can only "read" even though I am the administrator and it shows me as having read and write access in the table below the "you can only read" message.
Any thoughts?

See the following:
What to do if Time Machine reports you don't have permission
This was posted in the Apple Discussions by V.K. I have only modified it slightly to be more generic.
The problem seems to be that 10.5.6 changes permissions on a file so that even the root user doesn't have write peivileges. I have no idea why they did this. The workaround suggested in [an]other post will probably work, too, but i did something less drastic. Instead of deleting the file I changed permissions on it, and it worked just fine. An added benefit is that the permission change seems to stick, so you don't have to delete the file every time you change a drive.
[Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt [enter] the following command:
sudo chmod 644 /volumes/"TM drive name"/.xxxxxxxxxxxx
The name of the file .xxxxxxxxxxxx is based on the MAC address of your computer and will be different for every computer. Put the name of the TM drive in the above and keep the quotes.
You'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see) which is normal.
This was edited by Kappy just for cleanup.
Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

Time Machine Error: backup to large requires 523 MB but only 8.4 GB avail

For about a week now I am getting the following backup error:
This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 523.3 MB but only 8.4 GB are available.
Then the latest backup fails.
This makes no sense to me. My backup volume is 150GB external USB Buffalo drive. It has been working great for months now. Based on some information I read in another post I excluded my application folder that added another 15.2 GB not needed to backup. I also tried unchecking the box that warns when old backups are deleted.
I have read through many post but have not found an answer yet.
Any suggestions?
Below are the details on my external drive as reported
USB2-IDE Bridge:
Capacity: 149.05 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
Version: 1.06
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: BUFFALO INC.
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record)
Product ID: 0x002a
Serial Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Vendor ID: 0x0411
Volumes:
Time Machine Backups:
Capacity: 149.05 GB
Available: 8.18 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk2s1
Mount Point: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Details on my hard drive and partitions
ntel ICH7-M AHCI:
Vendor: Intel
Product: ICH7-M AHCI
Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.10 Supported
Maxtor 6L160M0:
Capacity: 152.67 GB
Model: Maxtor 6L160M0
Revision: BACE1GE0
Serial Number: xxxxxxxx
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 132 GB
Available: 20.07 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
WINDOWS XP:
Capacity: 20.35 GB
Available: 6.52 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: MS-DOS FAT32
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/WINDOWS XP
<Edited by Moderator>

Thanks for the quick and accurate advice. Since I had never done this before it took me a while to figure out how to partition the drive as GUID. I did not understand I had to create a partition and click on options.
On Apple's Support website for OS X 10.5 Time Machine under Mac 101: Using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (see below) it should have information about how important it is to partition a new drive as GUID then how to do it. It just says I won't have to worry about backing up again. For me I had to erase all my backups - this time nothing was really important that was not on my main drive. It would have been good if I could have set it up correctly the first time.
Getting started
The first time you attach an external drive to your Mac OS X Leopard-based Mac, Time Machine asks if you’d like to use that drive as your backup location (you may need to erase the drive first). Choose yes and Time Machine takes care of everything else, automatically, in the background. _You won't have to worry about backing up again._
Message was edited by: John Soles
Message was edited by: John Soles

Time Machine Error - backup too large

I haven't backup my Macbook Pro for more than 10 days. I was out of town for a week and then had to turn it in for repair to replace the faulty nvidia GPU (lost all display - see http://www.macrumors.com/2008/10/10/some-macbook-pros-affected-by-nvidia-gpu-fai lures/).
So I just picked it up from the repair facility and tried to backup and got this message:
"+This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 174.0 GB but only 106.3 GB are available.+
+To select a larger volume, or make the backup smaller by excluding files, open System Preferences and choose Time Machine.+"
My computer's hard drive is 200GB and my Time Machine is 500GB. Why doesn't it just do it's job and delete old backups to make space for the new backups? Does it no longer recognize that I have previously backed up my computer? I don't want to delete the sparsebundle and start all over.
Mark

billsharar wrote:
I also have this problem after selecting the option to restore a new computer from a backup.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Do you mean you got a new Mac and restored the backups from an old one? If so, exactly how did you do that? If not, what do you mean?
I assumed I could continue using the backup with Time Machine on the new computer, but this does not work.
On Snow Leopard, you should get an option to make a new backup or "re-use" the old ones.
It tries to backup to a new name on the same volume.
Did you select the same volume in TM Preferences > Select Disk?
Has anyone successfully resolved this issue?
Yes, probably, but it varies depending on exactly what the situation is, and whether you're now on Leopard (per your profile) or Snow Leopard. So please clarify.
Have no Apple engineers helped?
This is a user-to-user forum. Apple does not monitor it for technical issues.

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.

Time Machine error- backup directory

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