Time Machine problem - urgent

My time machine has stopped backing up every hour which it is programmed to do and comes up with the following message'
The backup disk image “/Volumes/Reginald Derek Bradley's T/Reginald Derek Bradley’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use.
Can any one help please.
Thanks
Derek
Mountain Lion

Thanks for your speedy reply. I do not have Airport utility on my system-at least I can't find it. Did download from yor recommended site but Mountain Lion won't install it. So what now and guess what I can't reply on my iMac - something gone wrong. s soon as I started to type a reply spotlight oped on my system - now how crazy is that! I,be even shut down the computer to no avail, so now two problems. sorry to burden you with this.
Derek

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Help, I am about to pull my hair out, can't get into a locked drive and Time Machine problem

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Hello, not sure how this might affect a TM drive, or not, but...
Here is what i needed to do for my drive "320GB HD", the last command is just for clean up
Open Terminal and type these commands carefully with the spaces & change 320GB HD to the name of your drive.
sudo chflags 0 "/volumes/320GB HD"
sudo chown root "/volumes/320GB HD"
sudo chmod 1775 "/volumes/320GB HD"
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sudo chflags 0 "/Volumes/320GB HD"
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My question is this: Is there any way to force Time Machine to make a complete backup of all files, not just the recently changed ones?
My story so far:
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I had this same problem when I first started using my Time Machine on my MBP. I had a portable drive (Western Digital 160 gig passport drive).
I was advised by the tech to do the following before the first use of the drive:
1. Turn off the time machine
1. format the drive with your disk utility.
3. configure the time machine for the drive.
4. Turn on the time machine. Make sure your not backing up anything but your main hard drive. (Your shouldn't back up any other external hard drives). At least not the first time you run Time machine.
5. start the backup.
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Hope this helps.

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I've been using Time machine for nearly a year now and have had no problems until recently. Now it will not complete back up and returns with error could not write file.
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Pondini wrote:
That's not the right message. Start with the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
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If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
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A particular directory was not being copied,
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Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Users/tony/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities/Main Identity/Database to /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Tonys-Mac/2009-11-02-104550.inProgress/F2 6B6F3A-726A-4AFD-8A30-3F341BCC2CA3/Macintosh HD/Users/tony/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities/Main Identity
Stopping backup.
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com.apple.backupd[61578]
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UPDATE
Happen to have a QNAP NAS from work at the house which has Time Machine support and can select and initiate a backup there, no problem!
So, it's something about the Mac Mini or drive? I didn't do anything to the Mac Mini in the process other than removing the USB drive and plugging it back in.
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valoo wrote:
I deleted the newly created sparsebundle. I also realized that the computer name had been changed and I changed it back to the original one. Here's the new problem. The TM says that I only have 127 GB and the amount of space needed to back up the disk is 140GB. I don't understand. It almost seems like it is trying to duplicate the entire backup. And this time around, I don't even see any new sparsebundle. I am stuck here.
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I am running Lion 10.7.5 on a MacBook Pro Late '11
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If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
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Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

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Hi all!
I've bought a new macbook pro 13" 2012 to replace my old macbook pro 2010.
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Hi all,
I am new at this so thanks in advance for any help or direction. I am running Mac OS X version 10.6.8 on an iMac and am having troubles with my Time Machine since having my 1 TB hard drive replaced under the Seagate recall. Specifically, the store somehow cloned my drive during the replacement process but now when Time Machine runs it doesn't recognize its prior backups as belonging to itself, starts to perform a full backup and then realizes it runs out of room as shown above.
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Hi all,
I am a bit disappointed that nobody has offered me any help! Please? Pondini?
Thanks

Time Machine problem - help!

My Time Machine disc is full. I was expecting it from now on to delete old backups automatically, but it just kept failing to back up instead. What should I have done?
What I did though was go into the options and reselect the same disc. This has had totally the wrong effect: now it is trying and failing to start a whole new backup in the tiny amount of space available.
How do I (a) get Time Machine to reconnect with the old series of backups sitting on the disc and (b) delete them as necessary to continue backing up?
TIA
Nic

mrmarbach wrote:
- I stupidly told it to use the same disc it already was using. It seems to have started a new backup. There is only one entry.
That shouldn't have changed anything -- you should have gotten exactly the same message.
So my first step was to try to reconnect with the old backups in order to then delete things as suggested on your website.
That won't help; you don't have a new Mac, new Logic board, or a new or erased internal HD.
There is no sign of the year's worth of backups. Would these have been automatically deleted when I reselected the disc?
It shouldn't have deleted anything at that point.
But, the first time it failed for lack of space, it would have already deleted all but your most recent backup, trying to make room for the new one.
The disc is still claiming to only have c. 10Gb available. Adding up the folders, there is only 1500Gb of data there.
It sounds like something else may have happened, or perhaps there's a problem with the backups. You might try repairing your backups, per #A5 in the Troubleshooting article.
But you can't just add-up the folder sizes; there are hidden and system files you aren't authorized to see, so their sizes won't show up.
Use Get Info on your internal HD and the TM drive; the size of a full backup should be a few GBs less than what's on your internal HD (TM automatically excludes some things, such as system work files, most logs and caches, trash, etc.).
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Time Machine problem - urgent

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