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

Similar Messages

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 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 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.

Time Machine / Time Capsule Error: Backup disk image could not be mounted

So I'm trying to back up to time machine, which used to be working fine, but I have this problem happening on two computers now (which probably means the error is in my Time Capsule.)
The Time Capsule shows up on my "shared" list in my finder windows.
I can connect to it, and open the folder inside, and SEE my two disk image files in there.
But Time Machine gives me a "The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" error. No other information.
If I double-click on the disk image file directly, I get an error "The Following disk images failed to mount" and then it lists the file and says "Resource temporarily unavailable."
Help, please.

I'm caught in the same loop, with no end in sight. I've only been using Time Machine and Time Capsule for 2 months. This week it stopped working. First error message:
"Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume."
Checking the Time Machine preferences, "Last backup" would read "backup failed"
When I got this error, all the wireless functions went offline, even thought the TC light was still green.
I would shut down, shut down the Time Capsule, shut off my modem reboot everything in order.
Next error message:
"Disk repair. The disk 'Backup of [my computer]' was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must backup your data and reformat the drive."
Then: "Time Machine Error: The backup volume is read only. To select a different volume ... Time Machine preferences ... "
I spoke to someone at Apple, who sent me the Time Machine Troubleshooting page:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275?viewlocale=en_US
I went through:
1. updated my system software
2. updated the TC firmware to 7.4.1
3. dragged the sparsebundle to DiskUtility. It took a while (more than an hour?) but said the disk could not be repaired. When I tried again, the repair function wouldn't run.
4. tried to delete the sparsebundle, but it would choke at almost the end, sometimes it would just crash the finder, sometimes say "Sorry, an unexpected error occurred," sometimes "Operation cannot be completed because the item 'bands' is in use." I even tried to Stuff the bundle with 'delete original' checked, but the stuffing, after about 15 hours, jammed near the end (stuffed 20 gigs of 35 gigs).
5. tried to reselect the TC, and run backup anyways ... now it can't find the volume, back to the error messages and crashing Finder
6. checked password in Keychain, all ok.
Now what??
Do I use Airport Utility to erase it? At least TC is still showing up there. Or press the rest button on the back of the Time Capsule to reset to factory defaults?
I've resigned myself to losing my backups. Now I would just like to get it up and running again.
In hopes,
Linda

Time machine - "the backup disk image could not be mounted"

SInce a few days, I am unable to backup via Time Machine.
I always get the message:
TIME MACHINE ERROR
The backup disk image could not be mounted
I use an Apple Time Capsule and still have more than enough free space on it.
Use OS X 10.5.5
Help.....
Tks

Rosy,
*_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
*Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
*“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.
Close the Airport Utility.
Now try Backing up again.
“I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
*Proper Computer Name* #
Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
(0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
Let us know if any of the suggestions above resolves your issue.
Cheers!

Time machine error: The backup disk image could not be mounted

Time Machine worked OK for several months. Now I get this error every 10 minutes or so.
I unplugged Time Machine capsule and "Change Disk" in Time Machine options.
Nothing helps, I continue to get this error.
I cannot Enter Time Machine either. "Connecting to Server, Connecting to backup" does not work.
Help please because I will probably have to archive and reinstall Leopard. I need the backups,
Christine

Christ1ne,
Before you reformat the disk, consider these causes of this error.
*_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
*Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
*“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.
Close the Airport Utility.
Now try Backing up again.
One poster reported: “I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
*Proper Computer Name* #
Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
(0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
# Try removing the apostrophe from the disk images name (sparsebundle).
*A Stalled .inProgress Files:* #
It may be that the previous backup attempt was ungracefully interrupted leaving remains that Time Machine can’t deal with.
Stop any current backup attempt. Choose “Stop Backing Up” from the Time Machine menu.
Open the Time Machine Preferences and turn “OFF” Time Machine.
Open your Time Machine drive.
Open the folder labeled “Backups,backupdb”.
Now open the folder containing backups of the computer in question.
Are there any “.inProgress” files there. Delete them by dragging the file to the Trash. Or Ctrl-Click the file and select "Move to Trash" from the contextual menu. (Give this time as deleting a large file on an external disk can take a while.)
Turn Time Machine back “ON”. Now try backing up again.
NOTE: If the above procedure becomes impossible to perform, try accessing the disk image from another Mac. Some have discovered that attempting a repair from another computer succeeds where the original computer failed.
Let us know if any of the suggestions above helped to resolve your issue.
Cheers!

My Time Machine / Time capsule gets the error: The backup disk image could not be mounted

My time machine / time capsule gets the error: The backup disk image could not be mounted.

Reboot the TC.
If you normally have multiple computers backing up, under Lion there seems to be some issues.. you need to force other users off the system. You can do that through the Airport utility, manual setup, disks, disconnect all users. Note carefully if you use Lion you probably need to download the real airport utility.. 5.6 to accomplish anything useful.

Time Machine Error Message: "The backup disk image could not be mounted"

I just installed Time Capsule and the initial back up was going smoothly. Now
all I get is a and the Error message "The backup disk image could not be mounted". Can anyone help me troubleshoot this problem? Thanks.

This works, if there is no corruption in the sparse image. But after weeks of backups, my sparse image on a USB disk attached to an Airport Extreme was corrupted.
I am right now repairing it by connecting the USB disk directly and using disk utility. It recovered the file system and is not rebuilding the B-Tree. I hope that works, otherwise it will have to be disk warrior...
On Time Capsule, I have heard folks having success with attaching the image, and then repairing it:
hdiutil attach -nomount -readwrite /path/to/sparse/image
Your mileage may vary, but you do not have a lot to lose in this circumstance...
This functionality should really be in the Airport or Time Capsule, or at least Disk Utility or Airport Utility.

TC Error "The backup disk image could not be mounted."

My new time machine was working fine for a couple of weeks now I am getting this error message constantly. Does anyone have any suggestions what to do?
"The backup disk image could not be mounted."

I posted the same thing a couple of threads down, I deleted the back up then went into the time machine options and choose the time capsule option again and did another full backup and now it seems to be working properly.

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.

The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted

I've successfully installed Time Capsule on my network and it is working correctly. I can access it via wireless and choose it from Time Machine. The initial backups go well, and I can access them if I enter Time Machine. However, at some point, it creates a disk image on my desktop and then returns the error The Backup Disk Could Not Be Mounted. The only way to restore everything to normal is to reboot.
I've already dismounted and remounted the drive, so permissions don't seem to be the problem.
Can anyone tell me what's going on and how to fix this??
Thanks!

I have a similar problem. At first, TM worked with both my machines. Now it works with the mac air but not the ibook. I get the Backup Disk Image Could not be mounted error message.
Here's what conole say:
4/22/08 11:56:33 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Starting standard backup
4/22/08 11:56:34 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Mounting disk image /Volumes/Fran's Time Capsule/Fran's Desktop_000d93460426.sparsebundle
4/22/08 11:56:51 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Failed to attach to disk image, returned: 109
4/22/08 11:56:51 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Failed to mount disk image /Volumes/Fran's Time Capsule/Fran's Desktop_000d93460426.sparsebundle
4/22/08 11:56:51 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[855] Backup failed with error: 21
4/22/08 12:04:54 PM com.apple.launchd[72] ([0x0-0xd00d0].com.apple.systempreferences[815]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 824 PPID 1 check_afp
4/22/08 12:05:05 PM Disk Utility[878] ********
4/22/08 12:05:05 PM Disk Utility[878] Disk Utility started.
4/22/08 12:05:24 PM mdworker[805] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
4/22/08 12:06:37 PM mdworker[805] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
4/22/08 12:08:25 PM Disk Utility[896] ********
4/22/08 12:08:25 PM Disk Utility[896] Disk Utility started.
4/22/08 12:08:40 PM mdworker[805] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
4/22/08 12:09:04 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[899] Mounting disk image /Volumes/Fran's Time Capsule/Fran's Desktop_000d93460426.sparsebundle
4/22/08 12:11:31 PM kernel SetCryptoKey R: len 32, idx 1

"Backup disk image could not be mounted"

I have been using time capsule successfully for about 5 months. But now it has suddenly started returning a time machine error "the backup disk image could not be mounted".
Anyone got any suggestions?

towersfamily,
*_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
*Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
*“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.
Close the Airport Utility.
Now try Backing up again.
One poster reported: “I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
*Proper Computer Name* #
Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
(0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
Let us know if any of the suggestions above helped to resolve your issue.
Cheers!

TC "Backup disk image could not be mounted"

This is the Time Machine error I receive and my TC won't backup my computer at all. Please tell me how to fix this, and to get my TM to start backing up my computer again. The initial backup was interrupted, and now it wont reload. Thanks!

that use to happen to me all the time the only way i could fix it was delete the backup on my TC and let it start over. i recently changed my TC to run wired instead of wireless and it has been flawless.

HELP- what does this mean- time machine error- backup disk image "/Volumes/time Capsule/ cheryl lynott's MacBook.sparsebundle" is already in use?

The last date of my back up was 10/4- keeps saying The backup disk image "/backup disk image "/Volumes/time Capsule/ cheryl lynott's MacBook.sparsebundle" is already in use?

HELP -- what does this mean -- .......
Often, this error can be corrected by pulling the power on the Time Capsule, waiting a few minutes, and powering the Time Capsule back up.
See # C12 for more tips
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Time Machine error - backup disc image could not be mounted

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