Time Machine Error - please help!

Question

My dad has been having trouble with his Time Machine backups. I'm trying to trouble shoot, but can't seem to solve the issue. Whenever we run a backup we get the message: "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume" It happens fairly quick after we run a TM backup. Here's what we've done:
1. Repaired permissions on the internal drive (several times)
2. Started a brand new TM set-up and back up.
3. Erased and reformatted the external TM drive
4. Tried an entirely different external drive as the TM drive
5. Trashed the/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist file and restarted
6. Downloaded the Time Machine Buddy widget to see if that reveals anything. Here's the error message:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: 500GB
Backup content size: 122.8 GB excluded items size: 160 KB for volume 500GB
No pre-backup thinning needed: 147.39 GB requested (including padding), 465.31 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (-911 < 0)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Address Book.app/Contents/MacOS/Address Book to /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb/Orest Wesely’s iMac G5/2010-05-10-100535.inProgress/8B51B8C1-1E6D-4692-9AF3-D2BF169FDC29/500GB/Appl ications/Address Book.app/Contents/MacOS
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Address Book.app/Contents/MacOS/Address Book to /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb/Orest Wesely’s iMac G5/2010-05-10-100535.inProgress/8B51B8C1-1E6D-4692-9AF3-D2BF169FDC29/500GB/Appl ications/Address Book.app/Contents/MacOS
Copied 0 files (1.2 MB) from volume 500GB.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
I then tried to exclude the entire Applications folder from the Time Machine options - but still got the same error message with this report:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/BACKUP2/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: 500GB
Backup content size: 120.2 GB excluded items size: 4.8 GB for volume 500GB
No pre-backup thinning needed: 138.47 GB requested (including padding), 372.21 GB available
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /bin/bash to /Volumes/BACKUP2/Backups.backupdb/Orest Wesely’s iMac G5/2010-05-10-111244.inProgress/DB7DB1B6-5B21-4349-B048-A91C190684F1/500GB/bin
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /bin/bash to /Volumes/BACKUP2/Backups.backupdb/Orest Wesely’s iMac G5/2010-05-10-111244.inProgress/DB7DB1B6-5B21-4349-B048-A91C190684F1/500GB/bin
Copied 0 files (1.2 MB) from volume 500GB.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
NOT SURE WHAT TO DO?
Please help......!!

Answer 1

Hi Pondini -
thanks for the reply. Your troubleshooting User Tips was what I was referring to all along. I've seemed to have resolve the issue, however, by means of a far simpler solution. I noticed just recently that although the external TM hard drive seemed to have no apparent issues when verified and repaired with Disk Utility, it did hang up and produce some Error messages when simply trying to copy large files manually over with the Finder (not using TM). This caused me to think that maybe it was not TM, but rather something wrong with the data being copied (corrupt files) or the actual drive enclosure. It wasn't the actual hard drive inside, as I had earlier swapped the original drive in the enclosure with a drive that I knew was OK and the problem still occurred. I then noticed that the drive enclosure was connected to the computer via a Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 adapter cable (the enclosure has only FW800 port and the older imac has only FW400 ports - my dad had purchased that specialty cable). When I had earlier swapped drives to check the actual drive, I kept the same cable connection. I now tried reconnecting the drive with a simple USB cable - and wallah! - all my Finder copying worked and Time Machine copying seems to be going fine. SO it seems that the actual FW cable connection was causing issues???? TM is still chugging away at the moment (first copy - large amount of data), but seems to be doing fine. Is there anyway I could have gotten a clue that the problem was something so simple as a bad cable. Is FW more buggy than USB. Maybe those that adapter cables are buggy. I've always preferred FW as I thought it was the faster more reliable method of external HD connection - but maybe USB is a better choice. Obviously here it is. Thanks for the help.