Time machine history

For various reasons, I reformatted the hard disk I was using for time machine backups.
When I enter the Time Machine on this now empty hard drive, the following popup appears:
The operation can't be completed.
An unexpected error occurred (error code -6584).
The timeline on the right continues to record the dates of the various archival backups. How do I delete the timeline and get rid of the popup? I assume the data about when backups were made is somewhere on my Mac. Where?
Thanks for any assistance.

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

Similar Messages

  • Inherit Time Machine History on Reformatted External Hard Drive?

    A few days ago the external hard drive I use to store all my data got corrupted. This external drive is also the location of my home folder (I moved it off the primary disk to have more space). The main OS system disk is fine and I was able to login to the guest account, but couldn't log in to my primary account since the drive wasn't working properly.
    From the guest account I ran disk utility on the external drive and it was unable to fix it and it required reformatting. I reformatted the drive and restored the data to it from the my Time Machine backup. I then was able to log back in to my primary account. As far as I can tell all my files are there. However now when I open Time Machine there is no history.
    Based on other info I've found on these forums and others, by reformatting the drive (even with the same name), Time Machine treats this as a new drive and wants to start a new Time Machine history for it. I've learned about the inherit history commands that I can run but before I do that I had a couple questions:
    1. If the history is still available, should I be able to see that when I manually browse the contents of the Time Machine drive? There is a folder with a "full sized" backup but I don't see any subfolders with incremental backups.
    2. If the command fails to link history, is there an alternative to get it back - or should I just format the Time Machine drive and start a new full backup. It seems like everything restored ok, but I'm nervous about reformatting the backup.
    3. Might there be a better configuration for my home folder storage for day to day use and backup purposes? With this issue, it was unsettling being effectively locked out of the machine since the home folder is on the external drive. Also it seemed doing a "system" restore could only restore the system drive and not the "complete system" including the external drive. It would be nice if I could just restore everything from Time Machine in one shot without having to shuffle things around, reformat manually etc.
    I'm running Mavericks on a Mac Mini if that helps. My external drive is 2TB with about 1.25TB of data currently and my Time Machine disk is 1.5TB. System disk is 1TB.
    Thanks!

    Your best option is to start another backup on a new hard drive. You should do that anyway, as one backup is not enough to be safe. Put the old drive aside until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on it, then erase it and start over.

  • I am setting up a new Time Capsule to replace another hard drive.  Is there any way to include the the Time Machine history from the old drive on the new Time Capsule?

    I am setting up a new Time Capsule to replace another hard drive.  Is there any way to include the the Time Machine history from the old drive on the new Time Capsule?

    Check item #18 of Time Machine FAQ, particularly the material in #3 of the "How to" section.
    By the way, you've been misled by poor field labeling on this forum into typing a large part of your message into the field intended for the subject.  In the future just type a short summary of your post into that field and type the whole message into the field below that.

  • Changing Boot Drives and Keep Your Time Machine History

    A problem with Time Machine is that it is specific to the target and backup drives.  Change one or the other and TM will want to do a new full backup. If you don't have enough space, it will delete your old backups. HOWEVER, this is a way to install a new boot (or other) drive that TM is backing up and get it to pick up where it left off doing incremental backups.  This is extremely helpful if you change your boot drive.  In my case, I moved from a HDD to an SSD but wanted to keep my history intact.  TIme Machine "knows" which drive to backup based on the UUID (unique drive identifier) so merely changing the name of the drive in the Finder won't do it.  You need to change the UUID in the latest backup of TM.
    Note: This is not for the faint of heart or technically challenged. It also requires a mild knowledge of unix or at least the ability to follow instructions TO THE LETTER!  You will change the UUID from the Latest Backup in Time Machine from the "old" drive to the "new" drive thus tricking TM into thinking the new drive is the old drive and it will continue to do incremental backups of the new drive.  The technique described below was originally developed under OS 10.5 (and posted on the MAC OS HINTS 10.5 blog but I have just used it under Snow Leopard.  It might work for newer OSs but I haven't tried them.  I actually did 2 things: 1) Installed a larger TM drive and 2) installed a SSD as a boot drive.  I will post under a different title to provide information on installing a larger TM drive since putting that information here may be confusing. 
    You will need 2 Unix commands: xattr and fsaclctl.  xattr is included in OS 10.6 Unix shell but fsaclctl is not.  You will have to get fsaclctl from a version of OS 10.5 using the techniques described in the article posted below.  I had an old 10.5 disc and found it in: /sbin/fsaclctl at the root directory of my 10.5 hard drive.  I also performed the technicque described below logged in as root but this may merely logged in as an administrotor. 
    ** How to change your boot (or any other) drive and get Time Machine to just pick up where it left off doing incremental backups and not do a full backup of the new drive:
    1) Turn OFF Time Machine
    2) Install the new drive
    3) Clone the old drive to the new drive (in my case HDD -> SSD) using SuperDuper, CarbonCopyCloner or even Disk Utility
    4) Make sure you have both xattr and fsaclctl commands installed
    5) Open Terminal
    6) Follow the instructions here: 
    http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090213071015789&query=time+machine +new+disc
    Note: you may need to use the command switch "l" (the letter l) to see the ascii version of the UUID
    sudo xattr -l com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID my_partition
    Note: Unix uses spaces (white space) as delimiters and is always case sensitive so if you have spaces in the name of your drives, you MUST put the drive name in quotation marks:
    if the drive name is: My HDD then to list the contents of the drive in Unix would use the command ls thus:
    > ls "My HDD"
    will list the contents of My HDD
    (the command:  > ls My HDD (without quotation marks) will produce an error - no such file or directory)
    When you've followed the above procedure and turned Time Machine back on, the first time TM may warn you that the disc has been changed and "someone may be trying to trick your computer" into using the new drive.  Answer: do the backup
    I wish I could take credit for this brilliant technique but I just followed it and it worked for me. I also read the entire thread before starting.

    The two drives are handled as separate drives, even if they have the same name.
    In essence, the old backups are from a drive that's no longer connected; see #E3 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

  • Clean Lion install, keeping Time Machine history?

    I have a 2011 unibody MBP, and have been gathering kludge on it for some time, and on previous machines (2007 MBP, 2004 Powerbook) whose data I've migrated over using the Migration Assitant. I'd like to, at some point soon, do a fresh install of Lion, grab my data from backup (or a disk image clone), and reinstall my applications (only the ones I'm currently using, with no detritus from other apps I've installed, used, and since uninstalled).
    However, I use a Time Capsule (1 TB) for backups, and wanted to know two things:
    Is it possible, after doing the install, to have the previous history of my computer (on the Time Capsule) integrated with my current and future Time Machine backups? (I.e., the Time Capsule sees the new, clean machine as the same machine, and allows me to step into my file history and grab stuff, if need be.)
    If the answer to the above question is yes, how would I do this?
    Apologies in advance if this question has been answered elsewhere. A cursory perusal of the discussions here didn't turn up anything; but I know there's the chance I could have missed something.
    Thanks,
    Paul

    Having no answer, I took the decision to experiment.
    I renamed the new external USB HDD with the same name as the older (soon to be replaced) ones and copied via Finder all the files on it (Aperture libraries, videos, documents).
    By using Time Machine while on the new drive (not backing up, but just looking at older backups), I was able to see the previous versions of the external USB HDD files. So I thought that was that easy.
    So I decided to manually trigger a new TM backup. However, it computed something like close to 500 GB to backup. Thus eventhough in terms of history for now I can trick TM to think it is the same HDD, when it comes to create a new backup, it simply wants to rebackup everything.
    Now I'm getting worried because:
    I don't know if the history will be kept after the backup has run;
    Because it will push 500GB of data to the TM storage, it might fill it up and TM will start to remove older backup whereas this would have been unnecessary.
    Note: I don't rely solely on TM for backup, I use Crashplan as well. So if I lose TM, it is "OK" as I could always restore something from Crashplan, but then for the oldest backup (for the last 2 years) I would only have one copy instead of 2... It is not that critical as I do not think I deleted something I would like to restore from that time period. But our of curiosity I would like to still found out how to properly change an external HDD that was backed-up by Time Machine without losing the history.

  • Time Machine history gone!

    I've been using Time Machine to back up my data for over a year now. No real problems. Until now.
    I wanted to go back in time to look for something from last year but my back up history has completely disappeared!. It only shows 'Today'
    I've inspected the sparse bundle file and that seems ok (ie; I could open it and view its contents)
    And the odd thing is that the TM preferences window is reading that my oldest backup is from March 2008.... which is correct.
    After reading another post I decided to try the 'change disk' option but that didn't work.
    Trouble is now I can't get TM to re-recognise my original set up!
    I'm now getting a bit concerned as I had previously deleted many files off my Macs HD believing they were safely backed up in TM.
    Can anyone offer any advice?

    fizzyfizz wrote:
    And the odd thing is that the TM preferences window is reading that my oldest backup is from March 2008.... which is correct.
    For one reason or another, TM sometimes starts a new "sequence" of backups.
    To see the other set, you may need the (badly named) +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option. To use it, either hold down the Option key while selecting the TM icon in your Menubar, or control-click (right-click) the TM icon in your Dock. This option will take you into the TM interface in a way that you should see all backups on the disk you select.
    I'm now getting a bit concerned as I had previously deleted many files off my Macs HD believing they were safely backed up in TM.
    Why would you think that? Did you never look at the panel on the TM Preference pane (the one where you turn TM on or off, and select your disk), that documents how long TM keeps backups?
    If your only copies were on your TM drive, what did you think would happen when (not if) your TM disk failed? Hint: they're no longer *backup copies* -- they're originals.
    The whole point of a backup is to have (at least) two copies of everything important.
    If you don't have room for everything you want to keep on your internal HD, get a larger one; or an addition internal HD; or a separate external drive; or archive the data off to CDs or DVDs.
    And get something off-site as well. As great as external drives are, they may not protect you from fire, flood, theft, or direct lightning strike on your power lines.

  • Replacing external disk but keeping Time Machine history

    Today I have a 500 GB USB3 HDD connected to the Mac and backed-up by Time Machine.
    This HDD has less than 30GB free space and I have a replacement one (a bigger size and faster HDD).
    I have copied the files from the old to the new USB3 HDD (using Finder as this is just pictures, videos, musique, docs, so nothing complicated that would require cloning).
    To keep the history of modifications and deleted files from the old external HDD once I use exclusively the new external HDD, how shall I do that?
    Having the same HDD name is enough?
    Thank you for your help

    Having no answer, I took the decision to experiment.
    I renamed the new external USB HDD with the same name as the older (soon to be replaced) ones and copied via Finder all the files on it (Aperture libraries, videos, documents).
    By using Time Machine while on the new drive (not backing up, but just looking at older backups), I was able to see the previous versions of the external USB HDD files. So I thought that was that easy.
    So I decided to manually trigger a new TM backup. However, it computed something like close to 500 GB to backup. Thus eventhough in terms of history for now I can trick TM to think it is the same HDD, when it comes to create a new backup, it simply wants to rebackup everything.
    Now I'm getting worried because:
    I don't know if the history will be kept after the backup has run;
    Because it will push 500GB of data to the TM storage, it might fill it up and TM will start to remove older backup whereas this would have been unnecessary.
    Note: I don't rely solely on TM for backup, I use Crashplan as well. So if I lose TM, it is "OK" as I could always restore something from Crashplan, but then for the oldest backup (for the last 2 years) I would only have one copy instead of 2... It is not that critical as I do not think I deleted something I would like to restore from that time period. But our of curiosity I would like to still found out how to properly change an external HDD that was backed-up by Time Machine without losing the history.

  • Time Machine history gone after failed run on new Mac

    We moved file serving duties from a G5 PowerMac running 10.5 to a new Mac Mini server with Lion. We moved the G5's four internal drives into external FireWire cases.
    We cloned the TimeMachine volume from an external 1.5TB drive to a 3TB drive using Drive Utility's Restore command.
    When we brought up the Mini the drives all appeared properly with their previous names and I told Time Machine to use the 3TB drive. Before I let it back up I entered Time Machine and was able to browse back to the oldest files (6+ months) and sucessfully restoreed a few samples.
    I kicked off the backup and let it be.
    The next day I saw that it said the backup had failed because there was insufficient room.
    The original TimeMachine drive was 1.5TB and was not full.
    The four drives' data totals 1.1TB.
    Even if TM was ignoring the backup that I had browsed the previous day and making a brand new backup, that is "only" 2.6TB and the formatted drive is 2.75TB.
    When I entered Time Machine the four disks' history now only went back to the previous day. It says there is about 1TB free on the 3TB drive but also says the backup needs 2.2TB - double what's actually on the drives.
    Luckily we still have the previous 1.5TB TM backups so we have not completely lost the history, but I'm concerned about why TM is acting so oddly with the new drive.
    Other than doing another Restore from the previous TM volume using Drive Utility, does anyone know how to recover the TM history? And why did TM show us the history one day and aparently nuked it the next?

    We moved file serving duties from a G5 PowerMac running 10.5 to a new Mac Mini server with Lion. We moved the G5's four internal drives into external FireWire cases.
    We cloned the TimeMachine volume from an external 1.5TB drive to a 3TB drive using Drive Utility's Restore command.
    When we brought up the Mini the drives all appeared properly with their previous names and I told Time Machine to use the 3TB drive. Before I let it back up I entered Time Machine and was able to browse back to the oldest files (6+ months) and sucessfully restoreed a few samples.
    I kicked off the backup and let it be.
    The next day I saw that it said the backup had failed because there was insufficient room.
    The original TimeMachine drive was 1.5TB and was not full.
    The four drives' data totals 1.1TB.
    Even if TM was ignoring the backup that I had browsed the previous day and making a brand new backup, that is "only" 2.6TB and the formatted drive is 2.75TB.
    When I entered Time Machine the four disks' history now only went back to the previous day. It says there is about 1TB free on the 3TB drive but also says the backup needs 2.2TB - double what's actually on the drives.
    Luckily we still have the previous 1.5TB TM backups so we have not completely lost the history, but I'm concerned about why TM is acting so oddly with the new drive.
    Other than doing another Restore from the previous TM volume using Drive Utility, does anyone know how to recover the TM history? And why did TM show us the history one day and aparently nuked it the next?

  • New Time Capsule: How to copy Time Machine history from previous disk?

    Hi everybody,
    Just got a new Time Capsule which is going to serve as my new Time Machine Back-up.
    I've got a year's worth of TM back-up on my old USB disk that I'd like to pour over to the new one.
    When I try to do that, it says the Time Capsule can't be changed.
    If I simply select the new TC as the disc for TM it obviously starts a new "time line".
    How can I either copy the old data over, or merge the two?
    Thanks,
    Rob

    don't try copying via finder. that won't work. directly attached TM backups are stored differently from remote ones. directly attached ones
    are stored directly in a folder an the drive and the remote ones
    are stored in sparse bundles. the following may work. set up the TC to be the new TM drive and start a backup. as soon as it starts stop it using TM menu->stop backup. open the TC drive in finder. there should be a sparse bundle created there. double-click on it to mount it. it should be empty.
    then use the "restore" tab in disk utility to clone your old TM drive to the mounted sparse bundle. make sure to check the box to erase destination. when the cloning is finished eject the mounted sparse bundle and try backing up again.

  • Does a fresh OS X install wipe out Time Machine history?

    I just did a fresh Mac OS X install in a (failed) attempt to correct an elusive WindowServer problem:
    Quit all apps.
    Start a Time Machine backup and wait for it to finish.
    Turn off Time Machine.
    Clone the boot HD ("Hobbes") to another drive using SuperDuper!
    Boot from the Snow Leopard install DVD.
    Use Disk Utility on the DVD to erase the "Hobbes" HD, retaining the name.
    Install Mac OS X.
    During installation wrap-up, migrate everything (all accounts, settings, additional files) from the backup (step 4).
    Run Software Update to get back to 10.6.8.
    Resolve minor details to get everything back to normal.
    Before turning Time Machine back on, I verified it was still set to use the same backup HD and that my exclusion list had been preserved.  As expected, the backup dates were empty.
    With Time Machine's Preferences still open, I did a Backup Now from the TM menu.  The "Preparing" step almost immediately reported 10's of thousands of files.  I thought, "Yikes! This looks like Time Machine is going to start over from scratch!"
    So I quickly pushed the "stop backing up" button.  Time Machine promptly stopped ... and filled in the Oldest and Latest Backup dates.
    When I calmed down, I realized Time Machine was probably using folder update timestamps to find the new & modified files.
    Before I kick off an actual Backup Now, I'd like assurance that Time Machine will simply take a long time to discover the relatively few files that actually need to be backed up, preserving more than a year of incremental backups.
    -- Ward

    After installing and initializing the new Time Machine 3 TB hard drive, I made a couple of attempts with SuperDuper! to clone my 1.5 TB drive (nearly full) onto the new drive.  The progress bar on the first attempt got to about 90% in 24 hours and appeared to stall.  So I restarted (for good measure) and attempted to complete the clone, which ran for many hours and stalled.
    Thinking that the original TM drive might be corrupted, I used Disk Utility to Repair the drive, which ran for many hours and stalled.  When I canceled the Repair, the drive had lost its volume name and would not mount.  Yikes! A repair using TechTool Pro 6 ran for hours and hung.  Fortunately, it did repair the drive sufficiently so that it would again mount.  Whew!
    Disk Utility Restore managed to do a block-level copy onto the new drive, taking about 8 hours.
    When I pointed Time Machine at the new drive, it immediately warned me that something might be amiss.  I clicked the button to proceed with backup set on the new drive.
    Backup Now started TM's "Preparing items..." phase, which took about 30 minutes to prepare nearly 3 million items.  Next came an "Indexing backup..." phase.  That gave me hope Time Machine would eventually "bless" the new drive and pick up where it left off last week.  But my hope faded after 24 hours of indexing.  The only "backupd" messages in the Console log were periodic reports of waiting for indexing to complete.  So I pushed the stop button.
    I'm at a fork in the road:
    1.  Erase the new drive and give Time Machine a fresh start, keeping the old drive around for while in case I need to restore an old file.
    2.  Give Time Machine another chance to "bless" the old backups on the new drive.

  • I used Migration Assistant to copy data to an new MacBook Pro from an old via my Time Capsule. When asked if to inherit time machine history on the new Mac, I mistakenly said no. How do I go back one step to say yes?

    There isn't enough space on the Time Capsule to create a separate backup of the data on the new MacBook. And I am reluctant to delete old backups of the old MacBook to create space to backup the new machine. This occurred about 3 weeks ago so the data on the two machines are now out of sync. If I start over by formatting the new MacBook and rerunning Migration Assistant to pull data from the Time Capsule, how do i preserve the last 3 weeks of data on the new MacBook, considering that I didn't keep track of which files changed in the last 3 weeks?

    All the rest of the stuff is where it should be.  As best I can tell. I have been going through my programs one at a time to see what works.  With the change in the OS (Launchpad? What the heck?) I am finding a significant number of my old programs are not working. Some I have found upgrades.  But without a working mail program, the machine is pretty useless for work.
    The Apple techies had me run through 3 hours of 'stuff' (holding down keys and restarting, etc, etc).  It still does not launch. I think we are waiting for a 'miracle', but I need to know now if they should just come get this piece of junk or if they really are able to find a solution in a timely manner.

  • TIme Machine - disk volume not showing in history

    I have time machine backing up my boot volume, and an external disk that holds my itunes library and iphoto data. The external drive has failed. I have a new drive to restore to, but when I look at the time machine history it no longer shows the old volume attached, it just shows the new one.
    Do I have to name the new disk, the same as the one that died? If so, is there a way to find that name (I don't remember what I called it).

    tbrinker,
    Well, it should be relatively easy to determine the name of the old volume, with a little bit of detective work. COnnect your Time Machine backup drive, and navigate it using the Finder. Inside the backup folder, you will find nested folders going back into the past. Find one that is named with a date that you know would have included the old iTunes/iPhoto volume, and open it.
    You will see at least two folder: One named for your startup volume, another for the iTunes/iPhoto volume. BINGO!
    Now, all you need to do is re-name the volume on your new external drive. For now, let's disconnect the Time Machine drive. Select the Desktop icon for the volume on your new external drive, and press <RETURN>. This should highlight the name for editing. Re-name it using the exact same name as the folder you found in your older backup (the name of your old iTunes/iPhoto volume), then press <RETURN> again to exit the "edit mode."
    With the now re-named volume still mounted, connect you Time Machine drive. When it is available, navigate in the Finder to the root of the new drive (not the Time Machine drive), then click the Time Machine icon in your Dock. You should now be able to go back in time to a point where the window you are seeing is populated with folders (namely, your iTunes and iPhoto libraries). When you find it, select everything, then click "Restore."
    Scott

  • Lost all photos after latest software upgrade and no history in time machine.....

    lost all photos after latest software update and no time machine history available.  What happend and what to do?  Other software programs (Quicken, etc.) are ok and content retained.  Can't figure it out....

    You can browse your time machine drive and copy all the files back manually.

  • Lost the ability to Spotlight Index my Time Machine drive

    I have an external, Firewire Time Machine drive which has been working without problems up to now. This evening I had a backup which hung up in the "preparing" stage (no file transfers begun yet). When I went to look in the console, there was a device error apparently related to trying to detect the powered-on state of my Time Machine drive. Apparently Time Machine did not handle this gracefully. In the course of trying to clear that I got into a state where I had to force shutdown of the system (holding the power button). (I accidentally clicked on the Time Machine icon which got hung up trying to display the histories, and left me with no access to the Desktop....)
    Things appeared to check out fine when I brought the machine back up (including Verify Disk of both the main and Time Machine drives and Repair Permissions of the main drive), and I finally did a Back Up Now in Time Machine. Due to the forced shut down, this became a "Deep Traversal" "preparing"stage. We'll I've seen those before, so no worries. However it lasted quite a bit longer than it should, at which point I noticed that Spotlight was indexing the Time Machine drive.
    So at this point I dragged the Time Machine into the Spotlight Privacy list. Rather than going away completely as I expected, the indexing of the Time Machine drive apparently went into some sort of clean-up phase that said it was still indexing for another 5 minutes (where it had, just prior, said it was going to be indexing for another 2 hours). The progress bar advanced normally as if it really did do 5 minutes more of indexing of the Time Machine drive. I've not seen this before
    When that finished, the backup which had been "preparing" during all of this also finished "preparing", transferred the several MB of files I expected, and finished normally. There were no errors in the console related to any of this.
    I rebooted, and once again did a pair of Disk Verifies and a Repair Permissions without problems. Opened up the console to track things, and poked around in the Time Machine. All was normal as far as I can tell. I also explored the Time Machine drive via the Finder. No problems.
    So I now went into Spotlight Privacy and removed the Time Machine drive from the privacy list expecting it to do the re-indexing I had stopped above. Spotlight started indexing the drive and a couple seconds later it stopped. I tried again -- into and out of privacy -- same result, a couple seconds of indexing and then it stopped.
    At this point I noticed the console was saying I had some bus errors in the I/O system, and that's what was terminating the md worker process and stopping the indexing.
    So I shut down, unplugged the Time Machine drive, and went through my maintenance ritual.
    I reset the PMU (this is a powerbook), reset PRAM, booted once in Safe Mode, booted normally, and ran Disk Utility again to Verify and Repair Permissions on the main hard drive. All of that went without a hitch. No failures, faults or funnies.
    I ran through the list of Applications I use, keeping an eye on the console. Again no problems.
    So I shut down, plugged the Time Machine drive back in and booted back up. I put the drive into Spotlight Privacy and turned off Time Machine backups. I then did a Verify Disk on that drive. No problems. I went into the Time Machine history display. No problems. And no problems looking at it in the Finder either. In particular, no bus errors or anything else funny in the console.
    I rebooted and did a new Back Up Now. It completed without problems. It was another Deep Traversal backup due to the Safe Mode Boot, but it went without a hitch. I rebooted and did another Back Up Now and got a normal speed incremental backup again without a hitch. The bottom line is that as far as I can see that Time Machine drive is working just fine.
    So I went into Spotlight Privacy and removed it from the list. Once again it started to index and stopped in a couple seconds. But this time there were NO Console error messages.
    I moved my main hard drive into Spotlight Privacy and removed it and it re-indexed from scratch just fine. Tried again with the Time Machine drive -- indexing stopped in a couple of seconds with no message in the Console. Spotlight searches find all the right stuff in the main drive. Spotlight and finder searches find only the top level Time Machine folders in the Time Machine drive.
    I also tried removing the Spotlight plist from my account's Library / Preferences. Spotlight created a new plist as expected but it still won't index that darned Time Machine drive.
    Apparently there is something left over from when I originally aborted the Spotlight indexing of that drive which is causing Spotlight to think it has no work to do. I'm not seeing any I/O errors of any sort any more (I think my maintenance pass took care of that) and Time Machine backups and history access continue to work just fine. And again, the Time Machine disk Verifies just fine.
    So I've run out of things to try.
    Is there a hidden file that I need to remove from that drive so that Spotlight no longer thinks it already has it indexed?
    --Bob

    Well unfortunately the command
    sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/MyDiskName
    didn't help.
    The command itself echoed the name of the volume and then said "Indexing Enabled", which looked good. But the Spotlight indexing stopped after a couple seconds. The Console reported the Terminal sudo command and nothing else.
    I tried moving the Time Machine drive in and out of Spotlight privacy and once again the indexing started and stopped a couple seconds later with no Console messages.
    I then tried another trick I've learned to make Spotlight indexing happen which is to do a Finder search for, say, all folders (limited to the one drive) via Command-f and while Including both System Files and files both Visible and Invisible. And indeed Spotlight indexing started but again stopped a few seconds later.
    However, this time there were console messages and a crash report.
    The Console shows (with personal information x'ed out):
    12/31/07 1:30:38 PM mds[28] (/)(Error) IndexCI in openindex_filelazy:open file error: 2, 0.indexGroups
    12/31/07 1:30:41 PM ReportCrash[146] Formulating crash report for process mds[28]
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.metadata.mds[28]) Exited abnormally: Bus error
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10ba40.mdworker[96]) Exited: Terminated
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x1004a0.mdworker[108]) Exited: Terminated
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM mds[147] (/Volumes/Xxxxxx Time Machine/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/80F3EC85-D77A-49FE-8BDC-BB7C3B3EC1CF)(E rror) IndexCI in ContentIndexOpenBulk:Unclean shutdown of /Volumes/Xxxxxx Time Machine/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/80F3EC85-D77A-49FE-8BDC-BB7C3B3EC1CF/0. ; needs recovery
    12/31/07 1:30:43 PM ReportCrash[146] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mds2007-12-31-133038Xxxxxx-Xxxxxx-Computer.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
    The Crash Report reads as follows (again with personal information x'ed out):
    Process: mds [28]
    Path: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Support/mds
    Identifier: mds
    Version: ??? (???)
    Code Type: PPC (Native)
    Parent Process: launchd [1]
    Date/Time: 2007-12-31 13:30:38.746 -0500
    OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.1 (9B18)
    Report Version: 6
    Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGBUS)
    Exception Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE at 0x0000000000000030
    Crashed Thread: 15
    Thread 0:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0000cfa0 0x1000 + 49056
    5 mds 0x00005580 0x1000 + 17792
    Thread 1:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 2:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 3:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 4:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 5:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 6:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda3ec _semwaitsignal + 12
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f16fa0 pthread_condwait + 1580
    2 mds 0x00009648 0x1000 + 34376
    3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 7:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ee0ea0 read$UNIX2003 + 12
    1 mds 0x000091b4 0x1000 + 33204
    Thread 8:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15438 kevent + 12
    1 mds 0x0007e584 0x1000 + 513412
    Thread 9:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 10:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 11:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 12:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 13:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00207f0c _handleExceptions + 208
    3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 14:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 15 Crashed:
    0 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x002046cc ContentIndexContainsContentByDocId + 204
    1 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00164358 QueryFunctionCallbackContext::findContent(db_obj*, __CFString const*, char*, int) + 244
    2 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001634d0 qpContentIndexMatch(datastoreinfo*, dblazyobj*, query_piece*, void*, int) + 328
    3 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0015587c comparefile_againsttree + 828
    4 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00155d30 comparefile_againsttree + 2032
    5 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00155d5c comparefile_againsttree + 2076
    6 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001e307c -[SISearchCtx isObjectInQuery:withQuery:shortcut:] + 144
    7 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001fa268 -[SISearchCtx_FSWalk performSearch:] + 996
    8 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001e2cbc -[SISearchCtx executeSearchContextCracked_2:jobNum:] + 136
    9 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00177e80 siwork_queueprocess + 752
    10 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0017811c sischeduleronce + 356
    11 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0017816c sischeduleronce + 436
    12 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001784f8 sischeduler_run_waitingtimeout + 640
    13 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0016529c runLoop + 72
    14 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00165308 query_runLoop + 32
    15 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 15 crashed with PPC Thread State 32:
    srr0: 0x002046cc srr1: 0x0200f030 dar: 0x00000030 dsisr: 0x40000000
    r0: 0x002046a4 r1: 0xf09a4380 r2: 0x00000000 r3: 0x00000000
    r4: 0xf09a43c0 r5: 0x00000000 r6: 0x000074d1 r7: 0x00000000
    r8: 0x003fc080 r9: 0x00000000 r10: 0x00000000 r11: 0x44000444
    r12: 0x92ede094 r13: 0x00000000 r14: 0x00000000 r15: 0x00373410
    r16: 0x00000000 r17: 0x00239e98 r18: 0x00000001 r19: 0x00227b9c
    r20: 0x00000000 r21: 0x00245554 r22: 0x00000001 r23: 0x00000001
    r24: 0x00000000 r25: 0x00000005 r26: 0x00000000 r27: 0x00000000
    r28: 0x00000000 r29: 0x00000005 r30: 0xf09a43c0 r31: 0x00204610
    cr: 0x24000444 xer: 0x20000004 lr: 0x002046a4 ctr: 0x92ede094
    vrsave: 0x00000000
    Binary Images:
    0x1000 - 0xc1ffb mds ??? (???) <af9cc958b4b030835101ff024186c7d3> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Support/mds
    0xde000 - 0xe0ffd com.apple.MDSChannel 1.0 (1.0) /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MDSChannel.framework/Versions/A/MDSChannel
    0x139000 - 0x23fffb com.apple.spotlight.index 10.5.0 (398.1) <5843125c709dd85f22f9bd42744beea5> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SpotlightIndex.framework/Versions/A/Spotlight Index
    0x1ca9000 - 0x1caaffc liblangid.dylib ??? (???) <5f078ac1f623f5ce432ea53fc29338c0> /usr/lib/liblangid.dylib
    0x2198000 - 0x22bdffb libmecab.1.0.0.dylib ??? (???) <cd875e74974e4ec3a0b13eeeb236fa53> /usr/lib/libmecab.1.0.0.dylib
    0x8fe00000 - 0x8fe309d3 dyld 95.3 (???) <a7be977c203ec5c76b2f25a7aef66554> /usr/lib/dyld
    0x90123000 - 0x9016effb com.apple.Metadata 10.5.0 (398) <b6bb1fd5a7a9135f546b2d8cbd65eafc> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadat a.framework/Versions/A/Metadata
    0x901ab000 - 0x902d0ff3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 6.5 (476) <9073c2bfdf6842562c8b7f0308109c02> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation
    0x9060a000 - 0x90612fff libbsm.dylib ??? (???) <c1fca3cbe3b1c21e9b31bc89b920f34c> /usr/lib/libbsm.dylib
    0x90683000 - 0x90688ff6 libmathCommon.A.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
    0x90757000 - 0x907d2fff com.apple.SearchKit 1.2.0 (1.2.0) <1b448fbae02460eae76ee1c6883f45d6> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/SearchK it.framework/Versions/A/SearchKit
    0x9088a000 - 0x9090ffff libsqlite3.0.dylib ??? (???) <7b379cb4220346e99c32c427d4539496> /usr/lib/libsqlite3.0.dylib
    0x90aa7000 - 0x90ab5fff libz.1.dylib ??? (???) <1a70dd3594a8c5ad39d785af5da23237> /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib
    0x90b50000 - 0x90be2fff com.apple.framework.IOKit 1.5.1 (???) <591b8b0cc4261db98a6e72e38eef5f9a> /System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit
    0x91105000 - 0x9116cffb libstdc++.6.dylib ??? (???) <a4e9b10268b3ffac26d0296499b24e8e> /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib
    0x9116d000 - 0x912b5ff3 libicucore.A.dylib ??? (???) <250daed2fb2e6bf114480e2e4da0728b> /usr/lib/libicucore.A.dylib
    0x91c3c000 - 0x91d32ffc libiconv.2.dylib ??? (???) <05ae1fcc97404173b2f9caef8f8be797> /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
    0x91d3a000 - 0x91db4ffd com.apple.CFNetwork 220 (221) <00b882d3d3325526b78ded74880759fe> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CFNetwo rk.framework/Versions/A/CFNetwork
    0x9236a000 - 0x92382ffb com.apple.DictionaryServices 1.0.0 (1.0.0) <fe37191e732eeb66189185cd000a210b> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Diction aryServices.framework/Versions/A/DictionaryServices
    0x92383000 - 0x9238effb libgcc_s.1.dylib ??? (???) <ea47fd375407f162c76d14d64ba246cd> /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
    0x92742000 - 0x92769fff libxslt.1.dylib ??? (???) <3700d04090629deddb436aa2d516c56d> /usr/lib/libxslt.1.dylib
    0x92777000 - 0x92860fff libxml2.2.dylib ??? (???) <6f383df1e1e775be0158ba947784ae13> /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib
    0x928aa000 - 0x928b9fff com.apple.DSObjCWrappers.Framework 1.2 (1.2) <2411674c821a8907449ac741ce6a40c3> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DSObjCWrappers.framework/Versions/A/DSObjCWra ppers
    0x92a17000 - 0x92afafeb libobjc.A.dylib ??? (???) <4a90e315bd1718c3f5ae09ee6c23e36c> /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
    0x92afb000 - 0x92bc9ff7 com.apple.CoreServices.OSServices 210.2 (210.2) <bad4943629f870d305f2bc7c6dfffe2d> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Versions/A/OSServices
    0x92bde000 - 0x92dbfffb com.apple.security 5.0.1 (32736) <15632bf9bbdb223194b3d79a2e48e02d> /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security
    0x92e9a000 - 0x92ec5ff7 libauto.dylib ??? (???) <c1f2bd227817ad7c7bf29ec74729ac7c> /usr/lib/libauto.dylib
    0x92ed2000 - 0x9306bfe3 libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???) <8a6cd873dfa7ada786efac188f95ed1b> /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
    0x931a7000 - 0x934a7ff3 com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore 783 (783) <fd2acaf23e95472f78b8a077fa039986> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonC ore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore
    0x946f2000 - 0x9472afff com.apple.SystemConfiguration 1.9.0 (1.9.0) <d925dde7699e6231c88a41b0254a7591> /System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfi guration
    0x94933000 - 0x9494eff3 com.apple.DirectoryService.Framework 3.5 (3.5) <3246a5d1c6a3d678798a90e8c5cd3677> /System/Library/Frameworks/DirectoryService.framework/Versions/A/DirectoryServi ce
    0x9494f000 - 0x9494fffa com.apple.CoreServices 32 (32) <42b6dda539f7411606187335d9eae0c5> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices
    0x94c68000 - 0x94c9dfff com.apple.AE 402 (402) <a4b92c8ac89cc774b85fb44c48b9d882> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/AE.fram ework/Versions/A/AE
    0x96831000 - 0x9683afff com.apple.DiskArbitration 2.2 (2.2) <9c8f8ade43fa25b32109ef9dcc0cb5d5> /System/Library/Frameworks/DiskArbitration.framework/Versions/A/DiskArbitration
    0x9683b000 - 0x968d1ff7 com.apple.LaunchServices 286 (286) <a3a0b2af862e9a8945072f8cb523678f> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchS ervices.framework/Versions/A/LaunchServices
    0x969bc000 - 0x96c00ffb com.apple.Foundation 6.5.1 (677.1) <4152239382fb0f48abbcbf35bd04afa6> /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation
    0xfffec000 - 0xfffeffff libobjc.A.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
    0xffff8000 - 0xffff9703 libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
    Apparently the mdutil command didn't actually delete the Spotlight index file which is causing the problem, or at least didn't leave the indexing files in a consistent, empty state to start indexing over again. I may have to Erase this Time Machine disk and start over.
    I should point out that except for Spotlight indexing this disk is otherwise working just fine. It passes Verify Disk with no errors and both new Time Machine backups and viewing and restoring via Time Machine and Finder work without problem.
    Any suggestions before I just Erase the disk and start over with a new backup?
    --Bob

  • How can I make my Time Machine backup copy-able again?

    Because one of my Time Machine hard drives failed catastrophically, I bought a replaceemnt disk and tried to copy the Backups from my second TM hard drive as a starting point for the new drive.
    The copy failed: "A075BE7D-541F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198"cannot be converted. Please install newer version of iWork.
    The 2nd error message was The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8062).
    The 3rd error message was: The operation can't be completed because you don't have permisssion to access some of the items.
    These last two messages were repeated a few times.
    Finally, this error message appeared: The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8003).
    The copy then terminated.
    Some additional points are:
    There is only one user on this computer.
    My copy of iWork is 4.3, which is the latest on the App store (certainly for Pages).
    I am running OS X 10.8.4
    I gave up trying to retain the Time Machine history on my new TM drive and used it as a new empty TM backup. So, at this stage I have one old 1TB backup drive with reasonable history and one brand new 3 TB backup. A week later I purchased another 3TB drive. Knowing that I couldn't copy from the old 1TB drive, I tried from the newer 3TB drive. It failed the same way. So the problem is not one of an old corrupted backup; it's new and repeatable.
    Using terminal, I searched my TM backup for the file named above (using "sudo ls -aR | grep A075BE7D"). Here's my output:
    big-screen:2013-06-11-002736 shenandoah$ sudo ls -aR | grep A075BE7D
    Password:
    A075BE7D-541F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef
    ./Macintosh HD/.DocumentRevisions-V100/PerUID/501/23/com.apple.documentVersions/A075BE7D-54 1F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef:
    ./Macintosh HD/.DocumentRevisions-V100/PerUID/501/23/com.apple.documentVersions/A075BE7D-54 1F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef/Previews:
    ./Macintosh HD/.DocumentRevisions-V100/PerUID/501/23/com.apple.documentVersions/A075BE7D-54 1F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef/index.pages:
    ./Macintosh HD/.DocumentRevisions-V100/PerUID/501/23/com.apple.documentVersions/A075BE7D-54 1F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef/index.pages/Contents:
    ./Macintosh HD/.DocumentRevisions-V100/PerUID/501/23/com.apple.documentVersions/A075BE7D-54 1F-4AA8-80D6-E5E42DD9B198.pages-tef/index.pages/QuickLook:
    big-screen:2013-06-11-002736 shenandoah$
    Some web searching leads me to understand that these files are created under some (or all?) circumstances for Pages documents stored in iCloud. The names of the files above tell me this is part of Mountain Lion's version management system.
    My question is: how can I safely get rid of the files above or in some other way make my TM backup copyable? I am also concerned that if I can't copy the backup, I may not be able to use it as a backup or as a way to migrate to a new machine.
    Any help will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks!

    David Bean wrote:
    So copying from a one-week-old TM volume was failing
    Have you run Repair Disk on it?
    I now realize that the folder in which the problem file(s) are stored on the backup,.DocumentRevisions-V100, is the folder in which OS X stores its versioning data for all users. I am now trying to work out whether I can safely delete these files from the backup
    That does get damaged on occasion.  I haven't seen it in quite a while, so it's pretty rare.
    You can delete it from the backups, via the TM interface, but you must be able to show invisible items). 
    First, open the Terminal app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Be very careful with this app.  It's a direct link into UNIX, the underpinnings of OSX, but without the protections of OSX.
    In Terminal, the prompt looks like this:  <Computer Name>:~ <your name>$
    (where <your name> is your short user name).  It's followed by a non-blinking block cursor.
    Copy, do not type, the following after the prompt:
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1
    and press Return.
    You should just see the prompt again.
    Then see Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12 to delete all the backups of it.
    and from the live system filestore so they don't get copied out to a backup again.
    Yes. You will, of course, lose all previous versions, but since the file is corrupted, you may have lost some, most, or all of them already.
    When done, run the same command to hide the invisible items, but replace the "1" with a zero.

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