Time machine - possible to recover deleted backup files that have yet to be overwritten?

I recently had to wipe my hard drive and reinstall my OS after my MacBook Pro failed to start. I managed to restore all my files from a Time Machine backup on an external HD after installing OS Yosemite.
After my computer is up and running again, I switched on Time Machine again, which started deleting my older backup files to make room for a new backup. Before I know it, it has deleted all my backup files except for the latest one, the one which I used to restore my computer.
Then Time Machine discovered that it still would not have enough room for the new backup and stopped. So I don't think anything new has been written to my external HD yet. Given that Time Machine may not have overwritten the old backup images (fingers-crossed), is there any possibility that I could recover those? If so, how do I do it?
The old data backup is extremely important for me. Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

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Question: is it possible to recover an InDesign file that will not open. the problem came by copying a pictogram vector illustrator to indesign. My file indesign does not want to open it now. Thank you

You can try the script mentioned in #1 here: Re: InDesign 6 is crashing when attempting to open a particular document. All others are opening OK.
Here's how to install a script: http://indesignsecrets.com/how-to-install-a-script-in-indesign-that-you-found-in-a-forum-o r-blog-post.php

Time Machine SparseDisk Fails to Delete Old Files

I'm running Time Machine on the new 7.3.1 patch and have finally filled the drive. At first everything was going smoothly until I realized that Time Machine is not deleting old files to make room for new ones.
I found this out when I realized Time Machine stop backing up to it because the drive is full. Why is the sparsedisk not getting smaller or making room for newer backups?
Is it because this feature is unsupported?

ringoiphone wrote:
Thanks. Although the reset did nothing, by deleting enough old backups (a VERY slow process) I could get it to free enough space for another backup. It's not clear to me why it cannot do this automatically.
Time Machine will delete old backups, if it can. So something must be wrong. See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If nothing there helps, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to display the backup messages from your logs. Locate the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages here.

How to - delete physical files that have been removed from library

Hello,
I have recently purged my iTunes library from unwanted music tracks. However, most of those tracks were located in various folders on my harddisk, thus not managed by iTunes (not being on the "My Music\Itunes" folder).
I would now like to somehow delete those files that are still on my harddisk. I've searched if there's a script around, but with no luck. What I'd like to do is to have a script that parses my library xml file, and that compares it with the files still present on the harddisk but not listed in iTunes, so that it either generates a list of files to delete, or automatically deletes those files.
Once this will be done, I plan to move all my remaining music to a new HDD, but before doing that I will need to clean the mess.
Thanks in advance for your hints!
Max
P.S. : I thought of making a new iTunes lib, to import all, and then to somehow run a diff program to remove duplicate items. Does that makes sense ?

Don't know of any script to do this.
If the songs are not in iTunes (you deleted them) and they are not in the iTunes music folder, you will need to search & delete them yourself.
You could do a Windows search the HD for all music and sort by location (In Folder), then delete everything not in the iTunes music folder.
Or move everything not in the iTunes folder to a folder on the desktop, then sort it out from there.

Time Machine 1.1 sometimes deletes backups that should keep

About two years ago I was intrigued about the disparition of several Time Machine backups. After changing to a larger external backup disk, I've been trying to follow the behavior of Time Machine. Overall, it seems to be quite predictable, corresponding to what is explained in its window: mostly keeping hourly backups during 24 hours, then, from these, only keeping the first one in each day during 30 days, and then, from these remaining backups, only keeping one per week as "space" permits. Since the new backup partition is large (240% of the HD disk), it is still far from removing oldest backup(s) in order to free space. However, in my system, Time Machine has removed more backups, which should have been kept, in at least two occassions:
Several weeks ago, one month after having the system down for several days, two or three backups (specifically 2012-07-24-002423 and 2012-07-29-120258) that should be kept as weekly ones were deleted, possibly trying to resyncronize to a new day-of-week for the new series of weekly backups to keep.
Recently, and possibly related with heavy memory load giving 7 GB of swap, TM "got crazy" during two activations, deleting up to eight backups, both daily and weekly ones, which were far from being the oldest backups in the volume.
Has someone else observed this kind of behavior? What can be done to avoid it? If, as it seems, it is a bug in Time Machine, how can I notify Apple?
Since Time Machine seems to have a limit of 5 old backup deletions per activation, and given that occasionally strange (and dangerous) behavior, I think that Time Machine should warn when backups older than one month are deleted, and ask permission when 5 or more backups are going to be deleted (at least giving the user the possibility of configuring it so). We are talking here of data security, so some precautions should be allowed when destroying large quantities of data, which otherwise may not be recoverable.
The essential details follow:
Strings in recent system.log messages containing "deleted backup" (first & last groups are normal, there was no hourly backup to delete between them):
Oct 27 00:30:46 iMac com.apple.backupd[34391]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-09-27-002110: 120.20 GB now available
Oct 27 02:27:42 iMac com.apple.backupd[34677]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-03-22-232115: 132.85 GB now available
Oct 27 02:29:05 iMac com.apple.backupd[34677]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-04-06-000633: 143.17 GB now available
Oct 27 02:30:23 iMac com.apple.backupd[34677]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-09-28-002619: 146.29 GB now available
Oct 27 02:31:32 iMac com.apple.backupd[34677]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-09-30-004344: 149.48 GB now available
Oct 27 02:31:50 iMac com.apple.backupd[34677]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-10-03-000509: 152.58 GB now available
Oct 27 03:27:04 iMac com.apple.backupd[34860]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-10-08-001931: 155.64 GB now available
Oct 27 03:27:40 iMac com.apple.backupd[34860]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-10-14-003758: 159.26 GB now available
Oct 27 03:28:32 iMac com.apple.backupd[34860]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-10-22-002147: 162.48 GB now available
Oct 27 11:37:36 iMac com.apple.backupd[35839]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-10-26-104655: 153.98 GB now available
List of backups dates in the backup volume, and free space, taken from the terminal (after deletions: note that the backups marked in red should normally be kept):
iMac:~ admin$ ls /Volumes/iMac\ HD\ Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/
2011-10-01-061010    2012-05-31-093201          2012-10-20-002816
2011-10-09-005429          2012-06-07-002543          2012-10-21-021504
2011-10-16-001503          2012-06-14-005742          2012-10-23-004109
2011-10-23-002554          2012-06-21-001427          2012-10-24-002334
2011-11-05-001403          2012-06-28-001245          2012-10-25-002414
2011-11-12-004617          2012-07-05-002056          2012-10-26-002613
2011-11-19-000532          2012-07-12-002639          2012-10-26-012840
2011-11-26-000431          2012-07-19-005850          2012-10-27-012731
2011-12-03-000109          2012-08-05-002510          2012-10-27-032628
2011-12-10-003557          2012-08-12-002739          2012-10-27-042813
2011-12-17-002907          2012-08-19-005740          2012-10-27-052837
2011-12-24-001228          2012-09-03-110847          2012-10-27-062824
2011-12-31-002103          2012-09-10-123630          2012-10-27-113711
2012-01-07-005520          2012-09-17-002437          2012-10-27-123817
2012-01-14-000913          2012-09-24-002309          2012-10-27-133739
2012-01-21-005206          2012-09-29-011601          2012-10-27-143746
2012-01-28-000105          2012-10-01-001701          2012-10-27-153817
2012-02-04-022951          2012-10-02-010201          2012-10-27-163745
2012-02-12-210133          2012-10-04-000909          2012-10-27-173738
2012-02-24-002145          2012-10-07-112125          2012-10-27-183838
2012-03-02-002405          2012-10-09-001929          2012-10-27-193814
2012-03-09-003236          2012-10-10-002008          2012-10-27-203751
2012-03-16-002756          2012-10-11-001416          2012-10-27-213752
2012-03-30-014934          2012-10-12-004500          2012-10-27-223747
2012-04-19-004318          2012-10-13-012506          2012-10-27-233844
2012-04-26-012354          2012-10-15-003823          2012-10-28-011809
2012-05-03-003008          2012-10-16-002207          2012-10-28-013726
2012-05-10-004554          2012-10-17-002306          Latest
2012-05-17-011942          2012-10-18-002230
2012-05-24-001808          2012-10-19-002253
iMac:~ admin$ df
Filesystem    512-blocks       Used Available Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   914062528 585638424 327912104    65%    /
devfs                226        226         0   100%    /dev
map -hosts             0          0         0   100%    /net
map auto_home          0          0         0   100%    /home
/dev/disk1s4 2343750000 1980326912 363423088    85%    /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine
/dev/disk1s3   976562504 568072864 408489640    59%    /Volumes/iMac HD SuperDuper!

Time Machine has unexpectedly deleted several more backups, all of them (marked in red) about 2 hours before the 24-hour limit, then returned to expected behavior. Here is the complete list of yesterday's deletions (there was no 9pm backup to delete):
Nov 5 04:04:46 iMac com.apple.backupd[18020]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-035134: 163.92 GB now available
Nov 5 10:07:01 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-114210: 155.69 GB now available
Nov 5 11:06:46 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-103500: 155.68 GB now available
Nov 5 12:06:51 iMac com.apple.backupd[20542]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-134014: 153.54 GB now available
Nov 5 13:06:34 iMac com.apple.backupd[20687]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-124112: 153.56 GB now available
Nov 5 14:06:28 iMac com.apple.backupd[20828]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-154128: 153.55 GB now available
Nov 5 15:06:37 iMac com.apple.backupd[21152]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-144118: 153.54 GB now available
Nov 5 16:06:20 iMac com.apple.backupd[21360]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-174138: 151.67 GB now available
Nov 5 17:06:31 iMac com.apple.backupd[21510]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-164144: 151.66 GB now available
Nov 5 18:07:27 iMac com.apple.backupd[21674]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-194018: 151.59 GB now available
Nov 5 20:48:14 iMac com.apple.backupd[21804]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-184044: 151.57 GB now available
Nov 5 21:33:14 iMac com.apple.backupd[22086]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-230603: 151.54 GB now available
Nov 5 22:33:30 iMac com.apple.backupd[22370]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-220537: 151.49 GB now available
Nov 5 23:32:21 iMac com.apple.backupd[23141]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-05-000610: 151.47 GB now available
And here is the complete log of Time Machine executions around the first unexpected deletion:
Nov 5 09:04:17 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: Starting standard backup
Nov 5 09:04:27 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: Backing up to: /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Nov 5 09:04:41 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 9.08 GB requested (including padding), 159.15 GB available
Nov 5 09:05:35 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: Copied 1075 files (2.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Nov 5 09:05:38 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 6.41 GB requested (including padding), 156.92 GB available
Nov 5 09:05:40 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: Copied 175 files (1.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Nov 5 09:05:43 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: Starting post-backup thinning
Nov 5 09:05:43 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Nov 5 09:05:43 iMac com.apple.backupd[19826]: Backup completed successfully.
Nov 5 10:04:18 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Starting standard backup
Nov 5 10:04:18 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Backing up to: /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Nov 5 10:04:38 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 10.56 GB requested (including padding), 156.92 GB available
Nov 5 10:06:11 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Copied 1314 files (3.5 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Nov 5 10:06:22 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 6.41 GB requested (including padding), 153.45 GB available
Nov 5 10:06:32 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Copied 744 files (1.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Nov 5 10:06:36 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Starting post-backup thinning
Nov 5 10:07:01 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-114210: 155.69 GB now available
Nov 5 10:07:01 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
Nov 5 10:07:01 iMac com.apple.backupd[20110]: Backup completed successfully.
Nov 5 11:04:17 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Starting standard backup
Nov 5 11:04:27 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Backing up to: /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Nov 5 11:04:43 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 9.14 GB requested (including padding), 155.69 GB available
Nov 5 11:05:58 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Copied 1223 files (2.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Nov 5 11:06:08 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 6.41 GB requested (including padding), 153.41 GB available
Nov 5 11:06:17 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Copied 596 files (1.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Nov 5 11:06:21 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Starting post-backup thinning
Nov 5 11:06:46 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Deleted backup /Volumes/iMac HD Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac/2012-11-04-103500: 155.68 GB now available
Nov 5 11:06:46 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
Nov 5 11:06:46 iMac com.apple.backupd[20335]: Backup completed successfully.
It's a bit disappointing this unexpected and opaque behavior.

Time Machine does not recover old backups

Dear All,
I have a Time Machine disk for a long time (from the Leopard days) and have been using it without any trouble even after updating to Snow Leopard (iMac- intel).
However, a few days back I upgraded my system with the latest Snow Leopard release (over software update) to install the Apple Store application.
Now, today, when I put my Time Machine disk in, it correctly shows all the backup dates correctly (on the right hand side Time Machine index pane), but I could recover only files from my Snow Leopard backups. The Leopard backups, though shown correctly do not reveal anything when I click on the date.
I am feeling desperate as some of my important files are in Leopard backups. Any help would be welcome!

Madhurjya wrote:
Now, today, when I put my Time Machine disk in, it correctly shows all the backup dates correctly (on the right hand side Time Machine index pane), but I could recover only files from my Snow Leopard backups. The Leopard backups, though shown correctly do not reveal anything when I click on the date.
What you see in the "Star Wars" display depends on how you get there. If you're starting from a Finder Window, then entering Time Machine, be sure the Finder window shows something that was backed-up on Leopard.
Or, try the procedure in #E3 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If nothing helps, try Repairing your backups, per #A5 there.
I am feeling desperate as some of my important files are in Leopard backups.
Do you mean you've been deleting things from your system, counting on Time Machine to keep the backups indefinitely? If so, that's NOT a good idea. See #20 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time Machine seems to be deleting backups unnecessarily

Data (used / total) volumes are as follows:
Macintosh HD: 80 / 250GB (of the 80GB, 23GB is configured to be ignored by TM)
USB drive 1: 463 / 640GB
USB drive 2: Time Machine (see below) / 640GB
All drives are encrypted with FileVault 2. Some days ago I used TM to back up (afresh) my system disk. Then yesterday I plugged in my USB drive 1 and backed that up. The backup completed fine. Just now, TM informs me that it plans to backup the whole of the USB drive again and I have watched as it has deleted the backup that contained the data from USB drive 1. When i 'Enter Time Machine' I can see only the very latest backup from earlier today. I went into Console and checked the System Log for lines that cnotain 'backup' but cannot see anything that suggests a major error. Below is the output so far for this ongoing backup:
Jan 25 23:32:37 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Starting manual backup
Jan 25 23:32:37 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb
Jan 25 23:32:38 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Forcing deep traversal on source: "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Jan 25 23:32:51 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Apollo reason:must scan subdirs|require scan|
Jan 25 23:32:51 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Finished scan
Jan 25 23:32:53 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Found 14709 files (463.78 GB) needing backup
Jan 25 23:32:53 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: 558.27 GB required (including padding), 126.79 GB available
Jan 25 23:32:55 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-22-023427 containing 356 KB; 126.8 GB now available, 558.27 GB required
Jan 25 23:32:56 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-22-013429 containing 356 KB; 126.8 GB now available, 558.27 GB required
Jan 25 23:32:56 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Removed 2 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 25 23:33:04 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-21-181408 containing 17.2 MB; 126.82 GB now available, 558.27 GB required
Jan 25 23:33:04 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Removed 3 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 25 23:33:30 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-22-003429 containing 202.3 MB; 127.03 GB now available, 558.27 GB required
Jan 25 23:33:30 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Removed 4 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 25 23:33:59 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-24-115959 containing 463.05 GB; 590.08 GB now available, 558.27 GB required
Jan 25 23:33:59 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Deleted 5 backups containing 463.27 GB total; 590.08 GB now available, 558.27 GB required
Jan 25 23:33:59 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Jan 25, 2013
Jan 25 23:35:08 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Copied 17357 files (355.6 MB) from volume Amarantus HD.
Jan 25 23:55:45 Amarantus.local com.apple.backupd[1811]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Volumes/Apollo/Lyre/Music/Bob Dylan/Desire/02 Isis.aif to (null)
I realise that with the extra space needed, the TM drive is well over half full, but for more than a year I have backed up a similar configuration continuously. It only registered a problem with capacity when, for example, I moved 200GB of data around on my USB drive. I have done nothing of the kind since it was last backed up successfully yesterday.
I can see that, having decided to backup the USB drive 1 again, TM needs to delete these existing backups, but I cannot figure out why it wants to back them up a second time anyway. I have not reconfigured the drive, changed encyptiuon parameters, etc. I should appreciate any thoughts re how I might investigate this further. Thank you.

Linc, thank you. Below is the output from the command. I realise that the system has done more backups since the last process you asked me to undertake - if this is a problem, let me know and I can start again (or is there some way of capturing the log for a specific backup?).
2013-01-26-15:29:33 - Starting backup
Previous snapshot:
          /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-26-142939
Date of Previous snapshot: 1359210579952344
Will use FS events for "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
Gathering events since 7162257463778920123.
Will use FS events for "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Gathering events since 7162257463778796241.
=== Starting backup loop #1 ===
Will use IncrementalBackupCopier
Running preflight for "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
          Calculating size of changes
          Should copy 290 items (5.4 MB) representing 1316 blocks of size 4096. 95632672 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
Time elapsed: 1.225 seconds
Running preflight for "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
          Calculating size of changes
          Should copy 296 items (7.6 MB) representing 1860 blocks of size 4096. 95632672 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Time elapsed: 0.003 seconds
Processing preflight info
          Space needed for this backup: 1.5 GB (367277 blocks of size 4096)
          Preserving last snapshot /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-26-142939
Finished processing preflight info
Copying items from "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
Finished copying items for "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
Time elapsed: 23.842 seconds
          Copied 2147 items (5.7 MB)
Gathering events since 7162257463778947082.
Needs new backup due to change in /private/var/db/.dat05d2.001
Copying items from "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Finished copying items for "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Time elapsed: 1.480 seconds
          Copied 2464 items (7.9 MB)
Gathering events since 7162257463778943020.
=== Starting backup loop #2 ===
Will use IncrementalBackupCopier
Running preflight for "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
          Calculating size of changes
          Should copy 30 items (462 KB) representing 112 blocks of size 4096. 95629607 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
Time elapsed: 0.212 seconds
Running preflight for "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
          Calculating size of changes
          Should copy 31 items (462 KB) representing 112 blocks of size 4096. 95629607 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Time elapsed: 0.002 seconds
Processing preflight info
          Space needed for this backup: 1.5 GB (365380 blocks of size 4096)
          Preserving last snapshot /Volumes/Chronos/Backups.backupdb/Amarantus/2013-01-26-152933.inProgress/567482 52-A169-447C-82C5-10428B8A5254
Finished processing preflight info
Copying items from "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
Finished copying items for "Amarantus HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 5F4EC603-A5E6-355C-BCCA-4BFDC398260F eventDBUUID: 57D7A9F0-EFB6-4A1E-96A7-C6A7964DE5DD)
Time elapsed: 5.340 seconds
          Copied 838 items (1.9 MB)
Gathering events since 7162257463778963904.
Needs new backup due to change in /Users/qcgm/.dropbox/photo.dbx-journal
Copying items from "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Finished copying items for "Apollo" (mount: '/Volumes/Apollo' fsUUID: 3E7BB8EC-1E44-3A61-8E9A-BA1EB31B54F4 eventDBUUID: 119D0F0D-E532-41D6-AB2A-65BDA38F9856)
Time elapsed: 0.590 seconds
          Copied 843 items (1.9 MB)
Gathering events since 7162257463778943020.
Some filesystem changes made during the course of the backup may not be accounted for. Still busy after 2 retries.
Backup complete.
Total time elapsed: 42.033 seconds

How to do a fresh restart of Time Machine (after HD swap & deleting backup)

Yesterday I upgraded my macbook's HD. There seemed to be a lot of ways to transfer my system to the new HDD, so I went with inserting the new HD, put the old HD in a USB enclosure, booted from OSX cd and told Disk Utility to restore from the original HD on usb. It took the little guy a few hours but then everything was up and running peachy. So far so good.
Then I turned Time Machine back on, and it wanted to make a complete new back up. I had read about that, so I decided to not waste 100s of GB on a second full back up and went ahead and formatted it... thinking that TM would start from scratch and everything would be fine.
But the backup got stuck on 26 GB for 3 hours. The TM widget (tx 2 Pondini) told me that it was waiting for the index to be ready and I stopped the backup. I went back to TM pref. and redid the setup, but when I clicked my backup drive in "change disk" TM told me that I'd better not because it is the same drive the original data is on!?! (screenshot).
It is listed in the 'do not back up' list as it should. Just to make sure, I formatted the backup volume again (ext. journaled) and verified it: all clear. Though for some reason there is still 200 MB of data on there, not visible in Finder, but if that's not causing the problem I can live with that.
I'm getting confused here... How do I to fix this? Or should I just ignore the message and go ahead?
How should I have set up a new TM from scratch?
Help would be much appreciated!

Beautje wrote:
(I'm not sure whether TM said preparing when I stopped it, but nothing seemed to be happening.)
No, it had finished preparing, and started copying (once it logs how much space is needed, it's ready to copy), and had in fact copied 26.7 GBs.
My display had gone black, and I've set it to go to sleep when the computer has been inactive for 30 min. The whirring sound was still there.
That's fine; display sleep won't interfere. If you move your mouse, it should just display.
Should I be more patient,
No, something is definitely wrong.
would it really take so long do the deep traversal etc.? Does it need to do that at all when there's nothing on the disk? (that is visible in Finder)
It didn't do one at all (there's no message about it). Those are only required when the previous backup failed or was cancelled, or there was a very large volume of changes, like an OSX update. It was doing an initial, full backup.
What we can't tell yet is whether the copy was running terribly slow, or whether it had hung at the 26.7 GB mark.
When you have some time, erase the TM drive and start again. This time, watch the progress bar: note the time when it starts copying (xx GB of yy GB), and see how far it gets in, say, half-hour increments. The first ones will be rather slow (it's copying tens of thousands of mostly very small files, and there's a lot to do for each one).
Overall, it should run at, very roughly, 50-55 GB per hour for the whole backup (but again, considerably less at first; when it gets to your home folder and starts copying, say, large video files, it will speed up greatly).
It may not update the count continuously, but may seem to be going spurts; there's a problem only if it stops for several minutes.

Accidental delete backup file of my iPhone. It includes very important info. Please help me to recover deleted backup file. Very urgent.

I accidently delete my backup file of my iphone in my mac with Lion OS. It includes very important contact info. Please kindly provide me the solution to recover my backup. Very very appreciate.

Well if you manually deleted it from the file system, it might be in the trash? Otherwise, I don't know if there is a way to recover one.

Time Machine does not see original backup file on Time Capsuel after reset.

I recently moved. I have a Time Capsule which is also my airport base station. I have about 7 months worth of back-ups on the drive for an iMac and a MacBook. The local cable company would only hook up the modem directly to my iMac and would not set up through the Time Capsule as it is not one of their routers. No problem. I did it once -- I could do it again. After discovering that it was not as simple as plugging the ethernet cable into the Time Capsule (after doing so, the Time Capsule recognized it had internet feed -- the iMac recognized the Time Capsule/Airport network -- but I could not get onto the net.) I discovered that I needed to do a hard reset. The instructions said the files would not be erased. They were not. I can still see the original back-ups for both computers in finder. But Time Machine does not recognize that either computer was ever backed up. There is no history and when I try a back-up it begins from scratch and creates a brand new back-up file.
How do I get Time Machine to recognize the original back-up files? I tried "choosing disk" in Time Machine preferences but it only lets me choose the actual disk (the Time Capsule) and not an individual back-up file
Thanks in advance to the collective brain trust.
Robert

I saw a post on another discussion about this subject, and one user found this workaround:
2) Start the backup via wireless connection. Stop the backup. Unplug external HD and plug in via USB or FW (you want FW800). Time Machine appears smart enough to continue your backup in a manner that is useable by the AEBS.
This only makes sense for the first backup (or if you have a lot of data for one particular incremental backup), as it removes the whole convenience factor of wireless.
The post got this reply:
Thx for your #2 tip on using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Base Station, then switching to a wired connection. Worked perfectly.
Started the TimeMachine b/up wirelessly, allowed it to run for a couple minutes, then stopped it, unplugged the USB drive from the AEBS, plugged it into the computer directly via FW400, opened TimeMachine and it recognized the Disk. Ran TimeMachine via the wired connection, after it finished I ejected it, plugged it back into the AEBS, initiated the AirDisk in the finder, then opened TimeMachine and presto!!
Awesome tip. Note: this works for first-time TimeMachine wireless backups only. Saved me over 40 hours of wireless waiting!!
http://gizmodo.com/370017/how+to-use-time-machine-with-an-airport-extreme
Can anyone confirm that this will work?

Time Machine Date Incorrect on ALL Backup Files

Time Machine backs-up okay but when I open TM to access previous back-ups, all the dates in the ruler style index along the righthand boarder of the desktop all show January 5, 2009, January 5, 2008 and January 5, 2007. The year changes as it should and the day of the week and time of the day are correct. I ran Disk Utilities on the back-up disk twice. It fixed other errors but not the date problem. I also checked the computer date and it's correct.

Barbara Elbe wrote:
Where is enter?
press the "enter" key in the terminal window after pasting the command I gave you there.
Then log out/in of what?
log out of your account and then log back in. to log out go to the apple menu in the upper left corner and select "log out". this will log you out of your user account and take you to the login window. log back in using your user name and password.

Time Machine doesn't recognize my backups now that I restored from it.

After installing Lion 7.1 from the app store overy my Snow Leopard, my mid-2009 2.8 GHz MBP (15") started acting wonky . . . Would freeze up randomly, need to be hard-reset, would open up windows on boot-up that I DID NOT have open before (even if I unchecked the option to "re-open windows when logging back in"), would not remember certain preferences, etc.
Called Apple tech, all he could suggest was format/reinstall using the fun, new recovery feature in Lion, if the 7.2 update didn't somehow magically fix my problems. It didn't, so I made sure my time machine back-up was complete, booted into recovery, wiped the Macintosh HD, and re-installed Lion from the web. Took forever, but no problems, so I get to the part where I want to recover from Time Machine, and say to restore everything expcept my settings (in case something from settings before was causing the issues). It does all of this, no problem, and I log into my Mac and everything looks the same as before.
NOW, Time Machine wants to back-up, as usual, and I think it will look at the system and say, "Oh, yeah, I've got all this . . . I mean, you just restored from me, so I'll just take a few snapshots or whatever and back up every hour (or whatever I do)." But Time Machine ain't saying that. Time Machine says," Oh, you have a bunch of crap on this hard drive already, but I need more room to back up your computer." And I'm saying, "No buddy, that's not a bunch of crap, that IS the back-up of this computer. Just reference that!"
Except, see, I'm SAYING that to my computer . . . But it can't hear me, obviously. How do I get my computer to understand that I don't need a new back-up from scracth, that the hard-drive I restored from IS the TM backup?
Sorry for not being able to explain this problem more efficiently. Thanks in advance.

Oh yeah, and the other thing is, now I CAN'T go back in time using my Time Machine back-up . . . It says I've never backed up now (I guess because this is a fresh install that's TECHNICALLY correct), but I restored from this Time Machine file . . . Surely I've done something wrong that can be fixed. Help, please?

If I preformed a factory restore, and didn't restore from time machine, how can I access my files that were backed up?

I wiped my Mid 2009 MBP and decided not to restore from time machine backups but now I need access to a few of the files from the pervious backup, how do I access those files? The previous backups are purple and inaccessible from the time machine window.
Details: I use a G Drive to do my Time Machine backups.

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.

Time Machine Fails When Trying to Backup Certain Files

Time Machine is having problems with some files I have copied from a Windows computer. I am a web developer and I moved my client files from a Windows PC to my iMac. Most of the files backup properly but some don't. When Time Machine tries to backup those files, it fails.
I downloaded Time Machine Buddy and it has helped me identify files that can't be backed up. However, the only solution that works is to delete the files. *Since these are client files, that is not an acceptable solution.*
When I look at "Get Info", there are several listings for admin, system, staff, owner, and everyone. Each list shows the permissions to be "Custom." I have changed some to "Read and Write" and I have changed all of them to "Read and Write." Neither of these have fixed the problem. Time Machine still fails on the same files.
I really need some smart Mac person to tell me what I can do to fix this problem. Thanks.

Csound1 wrote:
Correct, at no time did I say that this was for everyone, it is in fact for anyone who wishes to spend his time working rather than restoring.
For most folks, a hard drive failure is not exactly common. If they are to you, something is seriously wrong.
Replacing a drive in a unibody MBP is a 5 minute operation! & they are cheap!
Yes, for those who are mechanically inclined and not afraid to open up a Mac. What percentage of users do you suppose that is?
As to your second point, I suggested specifically using a TM type backup in addition to the clone, I stated that my choice is a realtime service that stores my files (a) as files that I can access from anywhere (b) with versions (including deletions) going back as far as my storage limits allow.
And how would you use that to roll back to a previous version of your entire system?
I don't want to have to deal with TM permissions/user/network/extreme/forgetting to delete till it gets full blahblahblah
Huh? Now you're adding all sorts of other things.
Permissions? A user account is a user account, and Time Machine maintains the permissions.
Network? Your clone is on a network? How do you boot up from that?
Extreme? You use an Airport Extreme for your network clone?
Forgetting to delete until it's full? Yes, that's exactly what you mentioned above: "versions (including deletions) going back as far as my storage limits allow."
PleasePondini, do it your way and I'll do it mine
Obviously.

Time Machine Displays Wrong Date of Backup

My computer shows the correct date of November 9, 2008, but the Time Machine Backup displays September 14. Can this be fixed?

Actually, this does not need to be "Fixed". You are probably seeing the date the backup files were first created. Was that the date of your first backup? That is OK, +DO NOT+ change anything on the backup drive directly. If you need to delete/modify files that have been backed up, do so through the Time Machine "time travel" interface.
If you click the Time Machine Dock icon (round green clock icon), you will enter the Time Machine interface and see all the backups that have taken place since you began.
Cheers!

Time machine - possible to recover deleted backup files that have yet to be overwritten?

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