Time Machine has frozen the iMac

I have just opened Time Machine for the first time from the dock and the computer seems to have frozen. It opened Time Machine and now I have a screen which says Cancel - Today (Now) -Restore at the bottom and I can see my inbox going back in time. But nothing responds to the mouse and when I press command alt esc together nothing happens either. I am running Leopard not Snow Leopard.
Please could some one help and tell me how to quit this Time Machine and get back to the normal screen? Apple Phone Help isn't available until tomorrow.
Thanks very much!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You may have to do a force power off of your Mac (hold the power button down until it turns off).
Disconnect your TM drive before starting up again.
Once your Mac is up and running, turn TM off (via TM Preferences), and reconnect the drive.
It sounds like your TM disk is either not set up properly, or something on it is corrupted.
Start by verifying the setup, via #C1 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
If that's all good, do a +*Repair Disk+* on it, per #A5 there.
If it finds no errors, or fixes all that it finds, try another backup.

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Time Machine has lost the link with its old backup files

This has got me a bit puzzled.
I recently obtained a nice new iMac to use in conjunction with my trusty MacBook Pro. Previously the MBP was my main machine and I habitually plugged it into an external HDD for Time Machine to use. No problem there.
Now, since setting up the iMac I have the external HDD connected to that. I access the HDD on the MBP over my ethernet network, which is great: I can swap files, sync files easily and automatically with ChronoSync, and I'm very happy. The only problem is that I can't use the HDD for backing up the MacBook Pro anymore. Time Machine says there isn't enough room, "This backup is too large for the backup volume." Obviously TM doesn't recognise its own files from the days when the HDD was connected directly to the MBP.
I realise I can erase the HDD and tell TM to start backing up from scratch but I'm hesitant to do so. I have months of incremental backups on there already and I'm not keen to lose them. Is there anything I can do to pick up from where TM left off before I changed my cables around? It seems such a pity to throw months of backup out the window.

Have you thought about re-connecting your HDD directly back to your MBP - as you had it before. Provided the MBP's name has not changed, TM should pick-up from where it left off. Bear in mind that TM will only back up one mac at a time, and as I understand it, you would need Time Capsule or other networkable HD to back up both macs to. Considering the reasonable cost of external HD, you might be better off to get another one for your iMac.
The macs can still be connected over the network and you could still use ChronoSync for syncing etc.
Joe

Diagnostics programme has frozen the iMAC ?

In attempting to connect to a vacation wireless network, the Network Diagnostics programme started.
At the screen asking if I use DSL or cable modem ....the curser has turned into a spinning coloured disk , and does not respond.
None of the toolbar icons at the top can be used due to the spinning disk.
I have tried shutting it down , and re-booting , to no avail.
Is there a control / alt / delete??
This is coming from my spouse's Macair , in case you wondered how I am posting.
Any help will be appreciated.
Stewie911

Stewie911 wrote:
Is there a control / alt / delete??
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
If you're still having that problem, hold down the keys command and option, then press the escape key. That should cause to appear a window to "Force Quit Applications". If you see that diagnostic program in the list, select it and click "Force Quit".

Time Machine wakes up sleeping iMac every hour - should this happen?

A previous question on this topic is now marked "answered," even though it isn't:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5687825&#5687825
Here's what happens. I put my iMac to sleep. Then I go to sleep. In the morning, I see that Time Machine has awakened my iMac once an hour to create a backup all night long. I don't believe this is how it should behave, but I see from the previous thread that it's happening on a lot of installs.
Any thoughts on how to prevent Time Machine from waking a sleeping Mac?
Thanks.
Message was edited by: Tim Windsor1

Good point. I was assuming that Time Machine was the trigger. I still think it is, but it's worth looking into.
Given that I can test this only once an hour (at :42, my TM launch time), here's what I'm thinking. Is this the most efficient way to isolate whether it's Time Machine or another process waking the computer.
1. Test One: Turn off Time Machine. Sleep the computer. Wait for :42. If the computer wakes in the next hour, it's definitely not Time Machine. If it does nothing in the next hour, Time Machine could be the culprit.
2. Test Two: Next, turn on Time Machine. Sleep the computer. Wait for :42. If the computer wakes at the appointed time, it's not only possible that it's TM waking the computer, it's likely. If the computer remains asleep, the result is anomalous and tells us nothing.
Anything else I should be testing?

Time machine has deleted all old backups

Hi, I'm desperate! time machine has all the old backups deleted on my time capsule, only today's early still a backup available. It was still 1TB space on the hard disk. What did I do wrong? There was no warning!

Time Machine will not delete your old backups unless it starts to run out of space on the hard drive......or.....your backups have become corrupted and Time Machine cannot repair them.
In the latter case, a message like this will appear on your screen:
Do you recall seeing this message recently?

My Time Machine Strategy for both iMac and MacBook...

1) Get 1TB external drive, format as HFS+ (including the Gizmodo hint about reformatting Fat32 drives properly by setting GUID Partition table)
2) Attach external drive to MacBook directly-run Time Machine overnight for initial full backup
3) Attach external drive to iMac directly-run Time Machine overnight for initial full backup
4) Attach external drive to my Mac Mini (running Leopard)-don't run Time Machine
5) Point the iMac and MacBook to the networked drive for future incremental Time Machine backups, by mounting the external drive permanently attached now to the Mac Mini as a shared drive.
This way, I get the tedious original backup thru direct connection-native Firewire speeds, then rely on the networked wired (iMac) and networked wireless (MacBook) connections for the incremental backups (which, given our usage, isn't that major on an hourly or daily basis)
Anyone tried something like this successfully?

If you have tried the fixes in Pondini's Time Machine Troublshooting, specifically #C12 and nothing helps, then it is time to let one of the genius types at an Apple Store take a look.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
If you cannot take the Time Capsule to an Apple Store, contact Apple Support directly.
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/

Had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I rest

I had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I restarted the computer and tried again to run Photoshop and the same error message appeared. The message was followed by a message that stated that I needed to contact Adobe technical support and mention Error: 150.30. I need Adobe technical support to provide me a solution for my problem so I can continue using my Adobe products installed on my computer.

Unfortunately when Adobe products are restored from backup, especial CS4 and especially Mac, it breaks licensing.
There is a python script included in the license recovery kit that should work if you are familiar with Terminal.
If not, you must reinstall your CS4 suite. You don't need to delete your preferences, so it should be the same as before.
Error "Licensing has stopped working" | Mac OS
Gene

My 27" iMac has just creen issue repaired. I restored from my time machine and now the white screen is back and I am unable to access an recovery option. It looks like its no responding to the USB keyboard

My 27" iMac has just come back from the workshop after having a white screen issue repaired. I restored from my time machine and now the white screen is back and I am unable to access an recovery option. It looks like its no responding to the USB ke

Thanks for your reply! I must apologise for the quality of my post. I inadvertently posted it before it was corrected.
I am very disappointed with this iMac. It is only 18 months old and this will be the third visit to the workshop. I had expected more from Apple and from their repair agents. Luckily I have AppleCare.

Had hard drive renewed due to product recall (iMac) backed up complete system on time machine . Had the drive done got mac back tried to reinstall from time machine .The new drive tells me that the space has been taken up but can't find where the file hav

Had hard drive renewed due to product recall (iMac) backed up complete system on time machine . Had the drive done got mac back tried to reinstall from time machine .The new drive tells me that the space has been taken up but can't find where the file have gone. Need to free up the space that the ghost file take up so I can drag drop from ex drive onto harddrive

Here's the scoop, new friend.....
When you boot into Time Machine you'll get the same OS X Utilities screen as you would if you booted into the Recovery HD. So, from there go into Disk Utilities to erase/format your internal drive. After that's done, back out to the OS X Utilities screen and select the restore option. Just follow the prompts to select the TM back up date you want to restore from and where to restore it to. Pretty straight forward.

TS1550 When backing up my iMac to the time machine I get the following message, 'The backup disk image "volumes/Data/My Name iMac(7).sparsebundle" is already in use". The backup is not completed. Any thoughts on what do to get the backups going again?

The auto backup to my time machine has developed a glitch which prevents the backing up of the iMac. The message is as follows:
'The backup disk image "/volumes/data/Name iMac(7).sparsebundle" is already in use.
Any ideas on how to fix.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Restart the iMac and Time Capsule. In most of the cases, this should solve that problem. If it doesn't work, read > http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down eliminate

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down menu with the gear box symbol to eliminate

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation: What are Local Snapshots? http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library?

If you have a considerable photograph and/or movie collection you may want to consider off loading those to the EHD too. Here are Apple's article showing how handle iTunes & iPhoto libraries.
iTunes: library on EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to EHD
Roger

Time Machine has left me in the past!

I recently had a mac genius re-install my OS due to poor performance and too many glitches to name them all. I was confident in my time machine back-ups since I could see the clock moving everyday on my tool bar. After my OS was re-installed, I connected to my external hard drive and can only see files from November. Nothing else. Am I just ******** or is there something I'm doing wrong? I have only had a few hiccups in my 10+ years using a mac but they have been huge ones. Does anyone out there have a solution to this or has it happened to anyone else? Time machine has left me in the past, November 07 to be exact and I need to be in May 08! Someone please help!!!!

Double-click the drive icon, then double click the "Backups.backupdb" folder. Double-click your old computer's name, and scroll down to the bottom, and look at the most recent date. That most recent date is the most recent TM has.
Good luck!
P.S. Welcome to Discussions!

Time machine: I get the following message: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data-1/Clemens's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use - what to do? Where and how do I find that file and get rid of it?

time machine: I get the following message: The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data-1/Clemens’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use - what to do? Where and how do I find that file and get rid of it?

I'm on Mountain Lion and have version 6.1 of AirPort utility so there is no button to "Disconnect All Users"and the only other option of "removing and re-selecting the drive via Time Machine Prefs" doesn't work either. So this will work.
Launch Airport Utility and select the TC "Edit" button, then select the Disks tab. Deselect "Enable File Sharing" and click "Update". The TC will reboot then follow the same procedure and reselect "Enable File Sharing" and click "Update". After TC reboots again you'll be up and running. Not the neatest way to do it but saves having to unplug the TC which risks disk damage and the whole procedure takes less than a minute.The "Enable File Sharing" button seems to have replaced the "Disconnect All Users" button but with the slight disadvantage that it reboots the TC which takes up additional time.

HT3275 Can some HELP, I keep getting this error with my Time Machine Back up, "The backup disk image "/Volumes/JKPN Safe/JKPN IMAC.sparsebundle" is already in use.

Can some one HELP me , I keep getting this error with my Time Machine Back up, "The backup disk image “/Volumes/JKPN Safe/JKPN IMAC.sparsebundle” is already in use.

See > http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

Time Machine has frozen the iMac

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