Time machine has hidden past backup files

I recently did a restore using Time Machine.
1) Time Machine created a new backup folder.
2) the old backup folders are still on the drive but no longer visible or excessible.
3) the files are still there because the backup hard drive is almost full.
4) is there a way to bring back the backup files Time Machine has hidden or possibly overwritten

Thank you Pondini for jumping in on this one.
I use Time Machine to backup on an external hard for my FCP video files to another external HD. I do not use TM for my iMac. (Snow Leopard).
On Wednesday my FCP hard drive had a failure of some sort and would not allow to be written on, so I formatted the FCP hard drive and then "restored" the latest files from the backup hard drive. But, during the the process of restoring the auto backup kicked in and started to backup the FCP hard drive onto the backup HD at the same time I was restoring the FCP drive.
When all was said and done... the backup drive no longer showed the past three months of FCP files, but instead only shows Wednesday's last folder. The files are still on the backup drive because I am now getting a "failure" due to lack of hard drive space. I believe it's because the three months of files are still on the hard drive but Time Machine is no longer recoginizing the old folders. The current backup folder reads:
Backups.backupdb - with the folder inside: Admin's iMac (2) - with another folder inside: 2012-12-23-193009 - followed by a "Latest" folder that has only 4KB Alias in the Size and Kind columns.
Are you running Snow Leopard? YES
It did that when you ran a new backup after the restore, right? YES but Time Machine created a new backup folder.
Did you do a "full system restore," starting up from your Snow Leopard Install disc? YES, but after 5 hours the backup stopped with the "failure" due to not enough disk space to contine. This is not possible because the backup HD is 4T and reading 1.8T available.
I am trying to find a way to revive the original Time Machine folders that go back to November without having to reformat the entire backup drive.

Similar Messages

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.

Time Machine no longer recognizes backup file

Hi:
My Time Capsule was malfunctioning, and I lost my internet connection. I rebooted the Time Capsule, and had to reset the internet connection via the Time Capsule software that's part of System Preferences. When I got my internet connection back up and running, Time Machine can no longer connect to Time Capsule. When it tries to back up, I get this error message...
"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Aquaria-2/JHitch’s Computer_0017f2ce01da.sparsebundle” is already in use.
It's like Time Machine thinks that my backup file on my Time Capsule belongs to somebody else. How can I get Time Machine to go back to using my old backup file on my Time Machine?

I have had this exact problem occur when I logged off while Mail was in TM restore state. I guess the backup is locked somehow because it was cut off while in use. I wish I could help, but I am in the same boat and I will watch this post for help.

Time Machine has stopped making backups

Time Machine has worked fine for me fore many months, the backup disk being a 1 TB external firewire drive.
But now Time Machine will not make a backup. I keep getting the same error message: "Time Machine Error. This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 88.7 GB but only 58.5 are available."
I thought Time Machine just deleted the oldest files on the drive to make the room it needs for continued backups. So why isn't it doing that now? How do I get it to go back to doing that?
Thanks for any help!
Tom

Tom Baker1 wrote:
My Time Machine backup disk is an external 1 TB firewire drive with only one partition, dedicated entirely to TM, and it backs up the two internal drives in my G5. One of these two internal drives has about 600 GB of data on it and the other about 400, so together they would be enough to fill the external Time Machine backup drive.
Yes, that's too small. Our "rule of thumb" is, TM needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing up. See #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Now I have discovered that there is something wrong with the Time Machine backups as well. I decided to go into TM to see just how far back in time the backups go, but it will only allow me to go back as far as yesterday. It acts as though there are no backups older than yesterday afternoon.
That's probably correct; your TM disk is too small, and there's just not room for more. Here's the situation: A full backup has nearly filled the disk; something fairly large has been added or changed, and there just isn't room for it, in addition to the full backup.
The 88.7 GB it's requesting means it's trying to back up about 74 GB (it adds 20% for workspace, etc., on the TM disk).
This is getting stranger all the time. At this point should I just give up trying to fix the situation, erase the backup drive, and start all over again?
That probably won't help much, if at all. To confirm what's going on, Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to the last backup attempt, then copy and post all the messages for that run here.
You need to do one of the following:
Get a larger drive, at least 2 TB.
Get an additional drive; use one for TM backups of one of your internal HDs, the other for a different app to back-up the other internal HD.
Exclude a lot of stuff from Time Machine (at least 300 GB).
Use a different app, such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, to back up your internals to separate partitions on the 1 TB drive. These will be exact copies only; no previous copies of things you've changed or deleted.

Time Machine has lost all backups

I have a time capsule that was reset on 15th April when I moved the home folder on our iMac to an external disk. It needed to be reset as there was not enough free space to keep the existing backups and continue with the new external. Time machine has been running since and backing up our files.
Today I noticed that Time Machine was working hard doing a backup and when I check the status in the top bar it shows that time machine is backing up all or our data (approx 250Gb). I opened the time machine application and it only shows a backup from today - there is no history.
What could have happened? It looks like the time capsule was wiped and time machine has started from scratch again. One other thing, I updated to the latest AirPort utility this morning, coincidence?
Hope someone can help as I do not want this to happen again.
All the best
Andrew Wright.

Thanks for the link, but the answers there did not really help explain why a full backup was done. None of the reasons in D3 were applicable. I did look at the system log and found the info below. This appears to show a 'normal' backup just before 2pm then the full backup just after 3pm. The question is still 'why would time machine want to backup everything when most files were already backed up'?
Jun 17 13:55:24 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Starting standard backup
Jun 17 13:55:24 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Capsule
Jun 17 13:55:33 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Capsule
Jun 17 13:55:37 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Jun 17 13:55:40 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/MyMac.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Jun 17 13:55:40 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Jun 17 13:56:02 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 841.0 MB requested (including padding), 149.65 GB available
Jun 17 13:57:28 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Copied 1601 files (183.8 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Jun 17 13:57:28 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 592.4 MB requested (including padding), 149.65 GB available
Jun 17 13:57:31 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Copied 7 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Jun 17 13:57:32 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jun 17 13:58:02 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MyMac/2011-05-18-162329: 149.65 GB now available
Jun 17 13:58:02 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
Jun 17 13:58:02 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Backup completed successfully.
Jun 17 13:58:06 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jun 17 13:58:06 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[746]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
Jun 17 15:16:12 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Starting standard backup
Jun 17 15:16:12 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Capsule
Jun 17 15:16:21 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Capsule
Jun 17 15:16:23 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Jun 17 15:16:26 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/MyMac.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Jun 17 15:16:26 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Jun 17 15:16:40 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Node requires deep traversal:/Volumes/Users reason:must scan subdirs|
Jun 17 15:17:17 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Compacting storage: 297.87 GB requested (including padding), 149.65 GB available before compacting
Jun 17 15:17:17 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Stopping backup.
Jun 17 15:17:18 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Backup canceled.
Jun 17 15:17:19 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jun 17 15:17:19 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Compacting backup disk image to recover free space
Jun 17 15:18:11 iMac-2 com.apple.backupd[425]: Completed backup disk image compaction

Time machine has stopped showing backups

Time machine used to show backups back to when the machine was new in November. Now it has suddenly begun to show only today/now.
Regardless of which finder window I have opened, it always goes to 'computer' and shows the external hard drive, 'macintosh HD' and 'network' icons.
If I close time machine and open up the backups on my external hard drive, all the time machine backups are there. What IS going on?!

Does this fix help?
+Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine backups are not visible+
+http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306928+
+Check your computer name in Sharing preferences. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from following set and is not blank (no matter which Mac OS X language version you are using):+
0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
If it doesn't make sure that the connections to your Time Machine disk are solid. You could also try resetting the PRAM.
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

HT201250 After Time Machine has backed up my files, can I delete my originals from my Mac and do something in Time Machine to ensure it will never automatically delete them from the backup in the future?

I'm new to using Time Machine - I'm making my first backup right now - and I have a few concerns.
So let's say my precious photos are taking up most of my Mac's hard drive space. I back them up with Time Machine on an external hard drive. After that, I want to delete my photos from my Mac because I want more space and my photos are now stored in the external hard drive. I have a few questions about that.
First, does Time Machine's backup system follow the same concept as having extra storage (so would this be a reasonable decision to make)?
Second, if it does, then could I access/open these photos from Time Machine's backup anytime I want?
Third, would I need to use the restore backup function of Time Machine every time I want to open my photos are there alternative ways of accessing my photos, like through opening directory paths to the photos?
Lastly, when the external hard drive becomes full and Time Machine wants to delete my oldest backup files, what can I do to ensure that these photos will never get deleted unless I manually do it? Like, is there a way to lock and secure these files? Or, is it like if these photos are the only copies saved in the backup, I can rest assure that Time Machine will never delete them?
Thanks

NeuroBrain wrote:
Since my new external hard drive is have a lot of space, I'm thinking of splitting it for Time Machine and external storage.
This is a common mistake and I highly advise against it.
1: TimeMachine saves states of changes and thus requires more room on the TM drive than the boot drive it's backing up.
2: Something happens to the TM drive, loss, theft, dropped, power surge, etc., you lose both backups.
3: The storage drive might become a portable need, with it being on the TM drive, now your increasing the risk to the TM backup that something could happen to it along with the storage drive, due to increased movement.
Seriously, have a read,
Most commonly used backup methods
it's ASC User Tip that saves us regulars all the trouble of having to repeat ourselves over and over again in the posts, because we tend to forget things too, or not here sometimes etc.
"Plan for the worst and the good will take care of itself" - Donald Trump

What do I fix so time machine will recognize the backup file it created on my external drive?

I use a 1TB Toshiba external HDD (MacOS extended, journaled format) for Time Machine and have had no problems for a year or so. Shortly before my video circuit died and I had to have the logic board replaced, TM stopped backing up with the "backup volume could not be found" error or the "insufficient disc space" error. When I open TM it shows no backup files available. I don't recall making any changes around the time this cropped up, but who knows? Any suggestions on reconecting TM with its old "Backups.backupdb" ?

Thank you for the pointer. I somehow didn't find all the links to begin with, so mea culpa for troubling folks before doing enough homework. For those bumbling around like me with older MBPs that get new logic boards late in life, the problem is nigh insoluble since the new board looks to TM as a new computer, which it is. Best to borrow another disk to copy the old backup if needed and then to start clean with a new TM backup.

Permissions are badly messed up on any disk Time Machine has used to backup

*The Short Version:*
After using an external disk as a Time Machine target, disk permissions are forever and always utterly ignored which causes huge problems when said disk is supposed to share publicly and privately accessible files/folders over the local network.
Said disk is no longer used for Time Machine, but permissions still refuse to work after the "Ignore ownership..." option is disabled, ACL's are cleared, and more.
*The Long Version:*
So, I'm trying to share some folders off of an external disk I temporarily used for a week as a Time Machine backup disk.
Because I have both "public", and private documents on the disk, I need to use disk permissions, to disallow access to some folders. Enabling file sharing works great, except any and every user get full read/write access to everything.
I have another external aswell, which is identical, just it's never been used as a Time Machine target volume, and permissions are obeyed perfectly.
Originally I think the Ignore ownership option was enabled, but the checkbox wasn't showing up on the Get Info panel. After some messing around, I realized it's not displayed if there's a folder called "Backups.backupdb" on the root of the disk.
Now, a few hours later, after renaming "Backups.backupdb" to "Backups.backupdb_OLD", clearing ACL permissions from the disk, unmounting, mounting, restarting file sharing, and lots more, IT STILL IGNORES ANY AND ALL PERMISSIONS?!
Is there some kinda super secret disk flag option or something I'm missing which causes OSX to still ignore permissions no matter what?
I hope someone here knows what's going on, 2 hours of Googling hasn't helped at all.

UPDATE
I seem to have gotten file sharing to obey the permissions, to some degree. It included removing the share from system preferences, using TinkerTool System to change the permissions to anything (didn't seem to work via normal Finder, as I'd already tried that), and then adding the volume back in sharing preferences.
This doesn't really seem very reliable tho, so I'm hoping someone can come with a technical reason/solution for this.

Time machine will not open backup file

Error shows the backup volume (on a WD Backup drive attached to airport extreme, is in use. WIl not open the backup file. Any ideas?

Item C 12:
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Airport Utility 5.6 - Download to Downloads Folder and leave download there.
Run Terminal command:
cd ~/Downloads && pkgutil --expand ./AirPortUtility56.pkg ~/Downloads/AirPortUtility56 && gunzip -c./AirPortUtility56/AirPortUtility56Lion.pkg/Payload | sudo tar -C / -xvf - "./Applications/Utilities/AirPort Utility 5.6.app"
Check Applications/Utilities for Airport 5.6. Then see: Pondini again.

It seems as if my time machine has lost some backups.

I have had my time machine for over six months. I lost a video a couple of months ago and needed it replaced and was able to do so without a problem. For some reason that video is gone again and I went back into the time machine to get it. This time however the time machine only shows a couple of months of backups and I cant go far enough back to find the file I need. It is a 2T time machine and I have pleanty of space so I know it never got full.
Is there a way to restore or access older backups that Im guessing still must be in there somewhere? Thank you for your help

There is a likely chance that shortly after you installed Lion on your computer, that Time Machine sent you a message indicating that it needed to start a new set of backups.
At that time, the previous backups would have been deleted and new backups were started over again.
That would explain the "shorter" history of backups.
If by some chance the "old" backups are still on the Time Capsule, you can try the following:
Right-Click on the Time Machine icon on the dock
Select Browse Other Time Machine Backups
See if there is another "disk" that appears
If yes, click the other disk to highlight it and then click Use Selected Disk to see your "old" backups
Reverse the procedure above to get back to your current set of backups.
Another thought......did you delete the file from your computer at any time, thinking that it would stay on the Time Capsule?

Time Machine has deleted all backups except one..?

(Snow Leopard 10.6.8) Mac Pro.
I've been backing up for at least 2 years using Time Machine on an internal 500Gb drive. Today I get a message saying the drive is full and when I check all backups over the last 8 months (approx) have gone. The only backup surviving is the one it did just before the message popped up. Have tried Repair disk and Disk Warrior, but they're still gone. Is this most likely to be a failing drive issue? And is there any chance I can recover them?

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?

Time Machine will not restore backup files.

trying to restore a backup to a new internal hard drive and time machine sees the external hard drive with the backup but no folders. tried a couple of different external hard drives and even installed new OS on the new internal drive. the original OS and the new are both Maverick and after three days of swaping drives and installing fresh installs of maverick and talking to tech support, i'm convinced the issue is in Maverick. anyone have a suggest without buying a third party package like Carbon Copy?

I got something simular. I restored the whole TM backup and the mail messages from august '08 till 15 jan '09 didn't import. I can see them clearly sitting in Time machine but the restore button won't lit up. And I cannot go back in time cause it only ofers me the today option. What to do?
Sakshin.

How to prevent time machine from deleting certain backup folders?

So, I have problem undrestanding time machine. Time machine has made a backup of my files in Nov 2012 and another backup from Jan 2013. There is some files in Nov 2012 that I want to keep them forever and never be deleted. So, they were backed up by Time machine (I have deleted those files from my computer so they're no lonegr excist in my compuetr). Althought they do excist on my time machine under the Nov 2012 folder, I am not able to modify them at all for example, I'm not allowed to copy them somehwere else. Since, I can not make another copy of them, I am worried if time machine delete my Nov 2012 in future and then they will be gone. Can someone please help me in modifying/ controling my folder so it won't be deleted in future?

You are using Time Machine incorrectly, your files will be deleted from Time Machine after you delete them from your Mac, the only variable is when.
Time Machine is a backup, not a storage system.
Restore them now and copy them to long term storage (another hard drive)

Time Machine not thinning older backups (Hourly= Daily= Weekly)

Ever since upgrading to Snow Leopard, Time machine has kept hourly backups of my computer.
In the past under 10.5, after about 24 hours, TM would delete all but the last hourly backup of the day and keep daily backups for 30 days, then after about 30 days delete the daily backups except for 1 per week and keep weekly backups thereafter.
Now, TM does it's hourly backups like normal, but I have hourly backups from today all they way back to 29 August (about 24 hours prior to when I upgraded to 10.6) and then weekly backups from that date until 30 July (i.e. about 30 days prior to the upgrade).
Called AppleCare and talked to 2 different people. Both questioned whether TM really was even supposed to thin old backups like this (um, it's written in the da^^ preference pane, guys) and one admitted that he doesn't even use a Mac at home and that in the support office they don't have TM on their macs, so he's never used it!
Needless to say, not sure how to a) get TM to start thinning the backups like it should and b) also thin out all the previous backups so I don't have a 2 month glut of frequent backups.
I've looked all over and found nothing. Anyone with some advice? I'd like to avoid killing all my backups and starting over.

Forensic
I suggest you follow the advice posted above by V.K., once installed it will provide a log of what TM is doing.
Once you have that info, post back here and someone far wiser than I will help you to resolve the issue.

Time machine has hidden past backup files

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