Time Machine says "read-only", "can't repair", & won't backup to external HD.

I really, REALLY do not want to start over a lose all my past backups. I also do not have another external hard drive this big and can't really afford a new one any time soon.
Is there a way to fix this without too much trouble?
It was running fine just a few days ago. I unplug the HD from time to time and don't always start it when I start my computer.
I'm using a Western Digital My Book Studio (I believe) hard drive.
Help?

Nope, nope, nope. I tried all that the first time everything happened. I consider myself fairly computer savvy in that I usually do the general troubleshoots first.
I shut down the computer. Restarted the computer. Nothing after 30 min. So I shut it down and restarted again. Reset PRAM. Disk Utility + Mount. Disk Utility Repair Disk. Various other tricks. Nothing.
It finally showed in the Finder for some reason and in fear I bought a new hard drive and copied my backup files. Just did that today.
I'd love to use the same hard drive, but it won't allow me do anything for some reason saying I don't have permission.
I'm just going to use the new hard drive and reformat the hard drive again from scratch.
Thanks for the reply though.

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Time Machine is Read Only

I keep getting a message that my Time Machine is "Read Only." I have also got a message later that "The disk "Backup Brad's Mac" is not repairable by this computer. You must back up the data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."
I reset Time Capsule, but still get the same messages. What gives?
Message was edited by: Brad Purvis

Brad,
Unfortunately, your going to have to reformat the TCs hard disk. While there are some convoluted procedures to recover from this error, for the average user they simply are not worth it. Just reformat and start over.
*Reformat the TC Hard Disk*
You can reformat the hard disk in the Time Capsule.
Go to Airport Utility --> Manual Setup --> Disks --> Highlight "Time Capsule Disk" on the left --> Click "Erase" on the right.
Rename the disk and select the level secure erasure. You're done and ready to begin backing up again.
I would suggest connecting the TC directly to your Mac via ethernet. Your initial full backup will go much faster and doesn't fail nearly as often as trying to do it wirelessly. “If you have an Ethernet cable, you can perform your first backup to your Time Capsule via Ethernet; this will allow for the fastest initial backup especially with client computers that use 802.11b or 802.11g.” http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1176
Hope this is helpful.
Cheers!

Leopard. Did a full restore from Time Machine. Now I can't access my other internal and external drives. I get the following error: The folder "Capture Video" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents.

Leopard. Did a full restore from Time Machine. Now I can't access my other internal and external drives. I get the following error: The folder “Capture Video” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents. I have repaired permissions pn the main harddrive. When I try too click on a disk I get the previously stated error. I can't even open up information to see what permission/access there is. It simply will not let me see the content. It shows the content of my main hard drive when I have clicked the other harddrive's name.

Solved:
sudo chflags 0 /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"
sudo chown 0:80 /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"
sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"
sudo chmod -N /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"

Time Machine disk read only

Hello everybody,
I've been using Time Machine ever since Leopard came out and I never had a problem. However, things started to get messy recently.
Leopard keeps telling me that my external drive is read only when I mount it. I googled for a solution, but only found people with the same problem, no real solution.
Disk Utility couldn't repair it, so I repartitioned, formatted and started from scratch. 3 times already. But every time I unmount the drive and remount it, I get the same message telling me that the drive is read only and that I should copy my data somewhere else.
Disk Utility tells me this when running "Verify Disk":
Verifying volume “Time Machine”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length
Volume check failed.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
What can be wrong? I doubt my drive is damaged because it works perfectly after a format. It seems to be a bug in Leopard because so many people are having this problem.
I hope to find a solution this time.
Thanks!

cmer wrote:
Hello everybody,
I've been using Time Machine ever since Leopard came out and I never had a problem. However, things started to get messy recently.
Leopard keeps telling me that my external drive is read only when I mount it. I googled for a solution, but only found people with the same problem, no real solution.
Disk Utility couldn't repair it, so I repartitioned, formatted and started from scratch. 3 times already. But every time I unmount the drive and remount it, I get the same message telling me that the drive is read only and that I should copy my data somewhere else.
Disk Utility tells me this when running "Verify Disk":
Verifying volume “Time Machine”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length
Volume check failed.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
What can be wrong? I doubt my drive is damaged because it works perfectly after a format. It seems to be a bug in Leopard because so many people are having this problem.
It is most certainly not a bug. You an verify the drive a million times and you will keep getting the same answer.
Read Kappy's post.
If running DU and repairing does not work, then you might need DiskWarrior. Most likely your drive is not physically damaged but the file structure is bad. It needs to be repaired.
A safe boot will also run an fsck on your filesystem and might repair it.
Message was edited by: Theodore
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Time Machine says it will take months for the first backup.

Time Machine said it would take over a month for the first backup on my new Mac. I figured it would get its act together overnight, but when I got up this morning, it said 160 days.
Here are my specs:
Mac mini 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 (Macmini5,1)
2 GB RAM, 500 GB internal HD
Mac OS X 10.7.2 (current on updates)
1 TB Seagate
Connected through FireWire 800
614.32 GB available
Disk Utility verifies there are no problems
I used the same drive for Time Machine on the Power Mac with no problems. And it's communicating fine with the Mac mini -- I transferred all of my music, photos, applications, and other documents very quickly. Spotlight has finished indexing -- there is no dot in the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the screen. Activity Monitor looks normal. Right now, the CPU is between about 70 and 95% idle, inactive memory is about 225 MB, and page outs are at 148 KB.
I started Time Machine again an hour or so ago, and it said "About 3 days" right at first, but the number is going up quickly. It isn't completely stuck -- the number of items is slowly going down and the MB backed up is slowly going up (not as quickly as the number of days is going up).
Right now, it says, "Backing up 760,527 items" and "81.4 MB of 222.37 GB – About 104 days."

Benjamin McDaniel wrote:
Disk Utility verifies there are no problems
Did you run Repair Disk on your backups, and Verify Disk on your internal HD, and both said " . . . appears to be OK"?
If so, Spotlight may be indexing your backups (Lion re-indexes everything, and that may not show the dot in the Spotlight icon).
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. See if there are repeated "indexing" messages. If so, the index may be damaged. See the pink box in #D2 of the same link.

Time Machine Full and I Can't Navigate Time Machine

This gets presented all the time. So moderator if you can find me a solution please do so.
Here's the problem I'm having.
1) My Time Machine says the disk is full but my partition on my external is 360 GB and my internal hard drive is only 150 GB. I gave it 2x the amount of disk space but I'm still out of space.
2) Time Machine is supposedly programmed to delete old backups. Why are my old backups not being deleted.
3) When I enter time machine I cannot navigate to old backups. I click on the arrows and nothing happens. I click on the lines on the right hand side and nothing happens.
So those are my problems. Anyone have answers or solutions to these?

I have the same problem. I just set time machine up to back up my 1TB drive and 120GB system ssd and its been working fine all week. Made a 1.2TB partition on an external for time machine, which should be enough for the 1.12TB combined capacity of my drives, especially considering time machine is claiming to require only 954.1GB. I rearranged a lot of what was on my 1TB drive, pretty much moving everything to a different location as well as deleting a fair bit, and the next backup following this was still processing well after 42 hours when I finally decided to cancel it. After that it reports that the drive isn't big enough for the backup.
"Time Machine needs work space on the backup disk.."
I guess this is the issue. 80GB isn't enough extra work space? And its not deleting old backups to make room, which I thought it is supposed to do. So how much overhead is really necessary? How large do I need to make the backup partition? Yet, the backup will eventually expand to fill all of the available space.. so ***.I really would like to preserve the backups I have prior to making the changes, one of the key reasons to even use time machine, but it seems I'm going to have to delete the old backups and/or reformat the partition in order to continue using time machine without any more hassles in the future.
Any help is appreciated.

I have downloaded Mountain Lion and Time Machine says that my Free Agent Goflex (Seagate) external 2gb drive cannot be used as it is read only. I tried disc utility to repair permissions but that block is greyed out. The disc verifies as being OKI

Since installing Mountain Lion, Time Machine says says that my Free Agent Goflex (Seagate) external 2gb drive cannot be used as it is read only. I tried disc utility to repair permissions but that block is greyed out. The disc verifies as being OKI What next?

Ok, I solved this problem! I ejected the drive and then disconnected it both from the power supply and the USB connector. I then reconnected everything and powered it up again and Then went into TM preferences and chose the drive as the backup. TM did a new backup (well over an hour) and now works as advertised.

My time capsule says it only has 473.24 gb for my back up of 534gb. the only back up I can access when I enter the time machine was yesterdays so what has happened?

my time capsule says it only has 473.24 gb for my back up of 534gb. the only back up I can access when I enter the time machine was yesterdays so any idea what is happening? I have the latest irmware update.
Marmimag

There is an issue with latest Lion update.. it is killing TM.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19858557#19858557
Otherwise check via the airport utility if there is something else using space on the hard disk.

My external hard drive is 'seen' by my iMac and I can go into the Finder and open files and folders. I am using the hard drive for Time Machine back up. However Time Machine says it can't find the drive. Same thing has happened with Final Cut Express.

My new LaCie external hard drive is 'seen' by my iMac and I can go into the Finder and open files and folders. I am using the hard drive for Time Machine back up. However Time Machine says it can't find the drive.
The same thing happened recently between Final Cut Express and my other LaCie external hard drive used as the Scratch disk. It fixed itself.
I've run out of ideas. Help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

have you done some searches on FCPx and time machine? Is there a known issue with using a TM drive with FCPx? dunno but ...wait...I'll take 60 sec for you cause I'm just that kind of guy.... google...." fcpx time machine problem" Frist page link
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/fcpx-bug-best-practices-for-using-external-hard- drives-and-final-cut-pro-x/
You cannot have time machine backups on your hard drive if you intend to use it in FCPX.
booya!

My Time Machine says there is no backup disk available. I've never had any problems with my time machine. I'm not technologically savvy, so if anyone can help, I'd appreciate it!

My Time Machine says there is no backup disk available. I've never had any problems with my time machine completing backups. I was away from house with my laptop for about 9 days so I'm wondering if there is something I need to do now that I'm home to get it working again. I'm not technologically savvy, so if anyone can help, I'd appreciate it!
Thanks,
Jana

You can lose your ability to backup through TM for any number of reasons, but the most common is what happens after a update. If your drive still works, your best approach is to read this:
http://www.chriscolotti.us/technology/how-to-fix-osx-mountain-lion-time-machine/
The attached link contains helpful graphics, so don't worry if you're not tech savvy.

When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

I am tring to installe OS X Mavericks. When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

Open up your Finder and click on Go on the top menu bar. Select Computer and then double click Macintosh HD. In here delete the backup folder. Might be called backups.backupdb.

What does it mean when a box says my Time Machine back-up disk can't be found?

I clicked on my Time Machine icon on the Dock and a box popped up that says my Time Machine back=up disk can't be found. What does this mean? What should I do about it?

Have you been using Time Machine up until now?
If yes, then check that your Time Machine backup disk is properly connected and mounted. It should appear on the desktop. If it is indeed there, then open Time Machine Preferences and make sure that the disk is designated as the backup disk.
If you haven't been using Time Machine until now, check that a disk that is ~ 3 or 4 times larger than what you plan to back up is connected and mounted, and go into Time Machine prefences and designate it as your backup disk.

HT201250 Can I include external drives to be backed up using Time Machine. Not only do I want to back up my IMac, but I have several extenal drives for one iPhoto, one iTunes and one for other files & documents.

Can I include external drives to be backed up using Time Machine? Not only do I want to back up my IMac, but I have several extenal drives for one iPhoto, one iTunes and one for other files & documents. How do I know if they are included in the backup process?

Yes, if they are not exclude then TM backs them up.
Allan

HT3275 Time Machine says my external hard drive does not have enough

Time Machine says my external hard drive does not have enough space for the current backup. It needs 34 G out of a 250G hard drive. All that is on the drive is earlier backups. I recently added memory, which may confuse Time Machine into thinking it is a new computer. How can I erase old backups and complete this one?

Walter Goodman wrote:
Time Machine says my external hard drive does not have enough space for the current backup. It needs 34 G out of a 250G hard drive. All that is on the drive is earlier backups.
See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If that doesn't clear it up, how much data is on your Mac? If TM is only trying to back-up 34 GB, it should be able to delete old backups to do that (assuming you're running Lion).
It sounds like your backups may be corrupted. Try to repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
I recently added memory, which may confuse Time Machine into thinking it is a new computer.
If that's all you did, no.
How can I erase old backups and complete this one?
Just erase the drive per #1 or #2 of Using Disk Utility.

Time machine corrupted sparsebundle? how to repair? time machine restore not working

On my macbook pro, after starting with Cmd-R, I erased the hard disk, re-installed Mavericks and I want to restore my back up with Time Machine. I select the NAS where the backup is, it sees the backup file but it says: "There is a problem with this backup and it can't be restored". I also copied the backup file (with extension sparsebundle) to another external hard disk and tried to use it from there but I have the same problem. With my iMac (as the laptop is not usable since I started it with cmd-R), when I double click on the backup file (ext sparsebundle), it mounts and I can actually see and access the files that are there. I do not understand why the restore is not working with the Time Machine. It seems the sparsebundle is corrupted. I tried these instructions: http://www.garth.org/archives/2011,08,27,169,fix-time-machine-sparsebundle-nas-b ased-backup-errors.html
But I am stuck at this step: tail -f /var/log/fsck_hfs.log
iMac-6:~ root# tail -f /var/log/fsck_hfs.log
/dev/rdisk3s2: ** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
/dev/rdisk3s2: ** Detected a case-sensitive volume.
/dev/rdisk3s2: The volume name is Time Machine Backups
/dev/rdisk3s2: ** Checking extents overflow file.
/dev/rdisk3s2: ** Checking catalog file.
/dev/rdisk3s2: Invalid key length
/dev/rdisk3s2: (4, 57529)
/dev/rdisk3s2: ** The volume Time Machine Backups could not be verified completely.
Nothing seems to happen even after a few hours (like 3 hours). The sparsebundle bakcup file is about 200 GB big. It does not seem to do anything as I do not notice any disk activity.
Could someone please advise how to do the restore with the Time Machine or how I can repair the backup file?

Well, if Time Machine is the only thing on that hard drive and there is only one partition, sooner or later, Time Machine will fill up the entire thing and you can't use it for anything else.
Now, you can start over, but that will mean that your Time machine backups will be wiped out. If that is what you want, it is a rather easy process easily accomplished in Disk Utility:
With hard drive connected, open Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities). Highlight the Time Machine hard drive (the top entry for it). Click on the Partition tab. In the window, pick 2 partitions under the "volume scheme" and then slide the little thing at the bottom to adjust the size of each partition. Make sure the format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and, under options, click the GUID partition scheme. Name each one (i.e. "Time Machine" and "backups") and click "apply". Disk Utility will first erase the drive and then create 2 partitions (2 totally separate drives so to speak). You're done.....
You can then set up the one for Time Machine and the other to drag over whatever files you want.

Time Machine says "read-only", "can't repair", & won't backup to external HD.

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