Time Machine now has lost 60 + gigs of data

I had continual problems with getting Time Machine to work over the weekend. I finally turned off Spotlight indexing of the volume that I used for Time Machine and it has worked great for two days.
Today, now my drive says that I have 170 gigs available on the hard drive. It's only shows that 19 gigs have been backed up. Up until this point my backups had been over 79 gigs.
Where oh where did my data go. Where did my data go. It's also now in a continual "finishing back up" message.
Time Machine is not very good. Apple has really stunk this up. But I am sure they are glad to have sold 2 million copies over the weekend.

It is an iMac G5 2.0ghz. 1gig Ram. Yes I have looked at all of that and the stuff is just gone.
I then deleted the back up. Went restart time machine. I get and I/O problem now which other people are getting. This drive worked completely fine while connected to Tiger. It had all my back up from Tiger.
The only way I got Time Machine to work correctly in the first place was to turn of Spotlight on the external drive. For some reason today Spotlight was reset and it started indexing the drive. This is where the problem started. Now I am back to square one with it working perfectly fine for 2 1/2 days.

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I used time machine, now my drive has failed and all my files are lost.

i used time machine, now my drive has failed and all my files are lost. any one know how to get the max osx to see the drive again so i can retrive my files

kabb30 wrote:
i used time machine,
Ok, check
now my drive has failed
Which one, the TM drive or the internal boot drive?
all my files are lost.
Where? on both drives or just TM or the internal drive?
any one know how to get the max osx
yea, if we knew more details of your machine and what you had before and later
to see the drive again so i can retrive my files
I don't know what drive failed.
I'm thinking here your internal drive failed? Was it replaced?
You have a blank internal drive and a TimeMachine drive and your asking how to reinstall OS X so you can restore from the TimeMachine drive?
How are you getting here? Another machine or device and what is it?
We need more details of your situation please.

I used the Migration Assistant to move data from my Time Machine to my new Mac.   Most data has been moved successfully but none of my iPhoto pictures have been moved.   Looking at my Time Machine now I find that the earliest back-up is dated after the Mi

I used the Migration Assistant to move data from my Time Machine to my new Mac.   Most data seems to have been transferred successfully but none of my iPhoto pictures have been transferred.
My Time Machine now shows the earliest available Back-up to be after the Migration Date.   My iPhoto pictures seem to have either been lost in the migration process or are locked in my Time Machine prior to the earliest back-up date now accessible.
Any advice on recovering my old iPhoto pictures would be greatly appreciated.

First go to iPhoto Preferences, look in both General and Advanced tabs to make sure that things are set to import from camera into iPhoto.
Then if that doesn't help, connect the camera and open Image Capture in your Applications > Utilities folder and see if you can use Image Capture to reset the import path from the camera to iPhoto.
Image Capture: Free import tool on Mac OS X - Macgasm
Message was edited by: den.thed
Sorry John, I didn't see your post when I clicked the reply button. Dennis

How do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full

how do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full.. HELP!

When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.

I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?

I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?

If the external drive can be seen at all in Disk Utility, follow the instructions for repair here.

Restored my iMac from Time Machine now Hard Drive has doubled! Need Space!

I Restored my new (refurbished) iMac 2010 (Snow Leopard 10.6.4) from Time Machine now the Hard Drive has doubled 450GB to 900GB. I want to recover the space on my hard drive, What do I do?
Side Note: My previous iMac (2007) died so I went and bought a refurbished model here. My old iMac had 10.6.8 installed versus my "new" iMac has 10.6.4 installed. I can't restore from my Time Machine since it was from another model.

Since it's a new (refurb), boot with the install disc, wipe the HD, and reinstall the OS. On first boot, don't migrate, but create an admin account using the same username/password combo as on the TM backup. When finished, run Software Update, and bring it up to 10.6.8. Then, mount the TM HD and try restoring. Life would be so much easier if you had a bootable backup/clone. Instantly able to migrate.
For more on TM, see Pondini's TM FAQs.

HT3275 I backed up by computer to an external HD and lost all my data from TC. I backed it back up FROM the external HD, but I lost the dateline on Time Machine. Can I restore the dates and timess of my backups?

I backed up by computer to an external HD and lost all my data from TC. I backed it back up FROM the external HD, but I lost the dateline on Time Machine. Can I restore the dates and timess of my backups?

Another one that Apple doesn't make obvious.
See #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Last time i used FFsync it didnt ask me about any key! there was a phrse only which it didnt work now so i generate a new code as ur guide shows me and now i lost all my data! i need them alot, i adopted on your servies :( i need my data so badly plz help

Last time i used FFsync it didnt ask me about any key! there was a phrse only which it didnt work now so i generate a new code as ur guide shows me and now i lost all my data! i need them alot, i adopted on your servies :( i need my data so badly plz help

Lord K. Thank you. Yes I am within the 90 time period, however I travel Intertionally and I can not receive not make a call to Apple. I was just at the Genius Bar in Chicago and they said, don't worry about it. It just floats out there, however, I can not recover my messages on a flash drive. I need to go back to my old computer which I don't have with me. My messages were in folders for a lawsuit. It is going to take an incredible amount of work for me to, you have no Idea. We are talking thousands of pages! I the defendent will have them during discovery so I am not so worried. However, I can not bring them to him on a Flashdrive when I meet with him without an extraordinary amount of presssure on my part. THis is not just some little email issue. This is suing EXPEDIA and Tripadviosr.com

Why is Time Machine suddenly backing up GBs of data every hour?

A year ago, I had issues with Time Machine backing up GBs of data even if nothing had happened within the previous hour. With the help of Apple my 13" Retina MacBook Pro was stripped down to nothing and a completly reloaded one application at a time. Now, almost exactly a year later, yesterday it started backing up 5 or 6 GB to my Time Capsule even though the computer was sitting unsued overnight. Niether Safari or Mail were running. I do run VMware Fusion but that has not been an issue for the past year and I have not yet updated to it's latest version.
I've tried powering the computer down and back on but to no avail.
Is it possible that the Time Machine software has become corrupted and, if so, how can I reload it?

Virtualization software such as VMware, Parallels, or VirtualBox creates a large virtual-disk container that is constantly changing, so it has to be backed up every time Time Machine runs. That will quickly fill up any backup destination.
You should exclude the virtual-disk file(s) from your Time Machine backups. To do that, click the Options button in the Time Machine preference pane. You may also be able to do it in the virtualization app's settings. Back up the files on the virtual disk from within the guest system, using a native backup application.
A compromise solution is to create a "snapshot" of the virtual machine in the virtualization software (not a Time Machine snapshot.) That will give you a single large file that never changes and only has to be backed up once. All the subsequent changes will be stored in a new file that's initially much smaller, but will grow over time. You should still exclude that file from TM backup. If you ever need to restore the VM from Time Machine, you'll have a working setup, which will make it easy for you to restore the rest of the data from within the guest system.
Another common cause of large TM snapshots is native OS X disk images. If you store a lot of data on one or more writable disk images, they should be in "sparsebundle" format, which will be backed up much more efficiently than any other format. A sparsebundle might be copied in an inconsistent state if it's backed up while the image is mounted and in the process of being written to. Make sure you unmount the image often so it can be backed up safely. Consider eliminating large read/write disk images from your workflow, if possible.

HT201250 Can I partition my external hard drive and use one partion for time machine and the other one for data that i may want to use in different computers?

I have this doubt. I've just bought an external drive, especifically a Seagate GoFlex Desk 3 tb.
I want to know if it is recomendable to make a partion exclusively for time machine and let another one so I can put there music, photos, videos, etc that I should need to use or copy to another computer.
May half and half, 1.5 tb for time machine and 1.5 tb for data.
I have an internal hard drive of 500 GB (499.25 GB) in my macbook pro.
Any recommendation?

As I said, yes. Be sure your Time Machine partition has at least 1 TB for backups.
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two (2). Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what?

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what? I need to know what to highligh, what to click on.

hirogliffix,
take a look at this Apple page — in particular, the “Restoring data from Time Machine backups” section and its “Restoring your entire system from a backup” subsection.

HT3275 Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

My Mac mini time capsule is showing an error Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

I had a similar problem and I solved it as follows -
In Time Machine - > I deselected time capsule Data Disk as a destination.
Then I pulled the power plug on the Time Capsule, twiddled my thumbs for 15 secs, plugged the power back in.
Went back t Time Machine -> Re-Added the Time Capsule Data Disk as destination. And then tested by selecting Backup Now.
All went well and the backup picked up from before the problem.
BTW - I also have a USB drive connected to Time Capsule that is an alternate disk for Time Machine to backup.
In Mountain Lion the GUI lets you add more than one Time Machine backup destinations very easily so I think it a good idea to have redundancy.
Hope this helps.

Time machine: now that I've upgraded to Lion, do I keep the backups or trash them?

Hi,
I wanted to get a sense on what to do with Time Machine now that I've upgrated to Lion. I just opened Time Machine and while the bar on the right seems to know there is data older from the date the back ups started with Lion, it doesn't seem to be able to open them. Is there a reason to keep the old back ups? Are you all deleing them or keeping the Time Machine backups from Snow Leopard and Leopard?
Thanks,

you would want to keep them because if something happens where you need to install snow leopard back onto your computer all your files backed up in lion will not be savageable so i would keep it unless you desperately need the space, although hard drives are dirt cheap nowadays, you can find a tb for around 60-80 bucks.

Hi, I have a macbook pro with a new hard drive installed. My WD external drive backup on time machine now wont let me access the files. I get a prompt saying 'you do not have permission to access the files'

hi, I have a macbook pro with a new hard drive installed and restored. My WD external drive backup on time machine now wont let me access the files. I get a prompt saying 'you do not have permission to access the files' After my new drive was installed I plugged in time machine and it started backing up. I paused it when I realised that it was running for more than a few minutes. I now realise that it probably started backing up the new hard drive all over again. Which makes me think that the original back up must be on the WD back I cant seem to access it. Any ideas would be helpful.

See E-10 in the first link.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

OS is Mountain Lion, upgraded no problems, used an external Hard drive for my time machine, now my iPhoto will not show any of my photo's or ay new ones I import! Help please!!

OS is Mountain Lion, upgraded no problems, used an external Hard drive for my time machine, now my iPhoto will not show any of my photo's or ay new ones I import! Help please!!

Do you get this window when you hold down the Command+Option keys and launch iPhoto?
If not then you're not holding down both keys long enough.
OT

Time Machine now has lost 60 + gigs of data

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