Time Machine space background replaced by white screen?

Time Machine works fine for me except one nasty-looking error: The outer space backdrop is now gone, replaced by a white screen. What gives? Can anybody help? I'd rather avoid re-installing Time Machine lest I lose my backup settings and files...
Dane

By the way, I do have 2 ATI Radeon 2600 video cards installed - apparently dual displays is a cause of this bug? Is there anyway to fix this that doesn't involve the absurd step of moving my video cards around into different slots?

Similar Messages

Reinstall from time machine after hdd replacement

Hi all
I have just upgraded my hdd n my mac book pro and just before removing the old hdd I let time machine run
After replacing the hdd I booted up the machine with a lion bootable DVD and then created a new Parton on the new hdd using disk utility
On running the lion installer I was able to choose the option to restore from time machine backup but the most recent backp it could find was one from august last year and not today which is what I expected
I now have the machine Running with the new hdd but I am missing all files etc between the state restored by tm and today
How do I get the machine back to the state it was before I removed the old hdd?
Thanks in advance
Simon

Had you ever erased the disk, or done a full restore previously? If so, the older backups are treated as if they wer on a different drive. Try a full system restore, and see if there are two disks listed in the "pop-up" Restore from menu per step (g) in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14. If so, each should have a different set of dates.

I use Time Machine with an external hard disc which has worked perfectly for some years. Recently Time Machine has aborted backups if the screen saver starts when back-up is in progress. I use a Maxtor OneTouch4 back-up system. Any ideas?

I use Time Machine with an external hard disc which has worked perfectly for some years. Recently Time Machine has aborted backups if the screen saver starts when back-up is in progress. I use a Maxtor OneTouch4 back-up system. Any ideas?
Has Apple recently up-dated my OS (Lion) such that every time the screen saver starts it disables Time Machine. I have to switch-off the computer and re-start in order to undertake a back-up. I have now switched of all screen savers.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

OS 10.5.8 Leopard. Recovering old data from Time Machine after HD replacement.

Okay, I have and iMac dual core Model A1224, EMC 2210, 20" screen, 2.66GHz processor, 2GB RAM, came, when I bought it, with a 500 GB drive circa late 2008. The drive started to fail about 2 weeks ago, random shut downs, wouldn't boot up, couldn't find the OS. Could sometime recover booting up from the original OS disk in the C drive, but eventually even that failed. Had run disk first aid and TechTool Pro6 to no avail, they all passed the drive so it was a mechanical failure,not bad sectors.
REPLACED the drive with a brand new Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive, figured I was all set, Time Machine had backed up the old drive every day since 2009 to an external 1TB drive. I could even see the data there. Now new drive is installed and I need to load the OS to it and retrieve my data from Time Machine. Put in the old disk, Leopard 10.5.1, and walked along and asked it to bring in the data from Time Machine.... except, the data is saved on Time Machine in a new version of Leopard, ver. 10.5.8 and so the 10.5.1 version can't import it, but of course Migration Assistant will allow you to import it later.
So, I continue to load the OS via the disk, then go to software update after creating a new computer name, which I didn't want to do. Updated the software so I am now running OS 10.5.8, open Migration Assistant and attempt to migrate / recover the old data from Time Machine. I can get some stuff, but it insists on my resetting everything up all over again, all new accounts in Quicken and Thunderbird and Microsoft Office, no recovery of data already there and I can't access the accounts that were set up by others, it indicates I don't have sufficient privileges though I was an Administrator on the old computer and on the current system as well.
Frankly, I need that old data, so how do I get it? Do I bite the bullet and upgrade the system to Snow Leopard OS10.6.XX, will that allow me access to old data under OS 10.5.8? Will it be backwards compatible? How about moving up to Lion? Would that be a better way to go and will I be able to recover that old data then?
VERY frustrated here! Thanks for help or direction you all can provide.

HI,
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imagine what he hasn't covered!

Restore mountain lion from Time Machine after HD replacement?

Which key sequence do I use to completely restore a time machine backup to my iMac after HD went bad and was replaced at Apple store?
Tried holding down shift while powering on but comes up with galaxy desktop. I am afraid that I may overwrite my TM restore with ALL my data on it. thx

Be sure the Time Machine backup drive is connected. Restart the computer and immediately upon hearing the chime press and hold down the OPTION button until the boot manager screen appears. Hopefully, you will see a Recovery HD volume appear. Select it then click on the upward pointing arrow button below the icon. This should boot the invisible Recovery HD volume stored on your Time Machine backup.
Drive Preparation for Lion/Mountain Lion
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, 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 one. 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.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is done quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restore from Time Machine Backup and click on the Continue button.

Restore time machine from backup, stuck on Apple screen

A Macbook Pro I've restored from a TM backup is stuck in a spinning marker in the Apple bootup screen. Any suggestions to get it booting? Thanks

champ2153 wrote:
I am having the same issue. When I attempt to restore my information from time machine, the restore seems to go well. But..right around the moment of 70% or so on the progress bar, (with about 20 minutes remaining) the "restore was successful" box pops up and prompts me to restart the machine. Upon restart I can not get past the white apple screen. I've tried just installing OSX
When you do that, has all your data been restored? If so, just download and install the "combo" update to get back to 10.6.6.
and then using migration assistant, but migration assistant does not recognize my time machine external. Any thoughts?
Try repairing your backups, per #A5 in [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).

How do I restore files backed up to time machine to a replacement storage drive? (NOT System disk)

I've seen plenty of articles about restoring the system disk (restoring the whole system) with Time Machine, but nothing about restoring a secondary disk that has crashed.
I've been doing backups of both the primary system disk and a secondary storage disk for 2 years. Yesterday, the secondary storage disk crashed. I have a replacement disk, now I need to restore the backup from Time Machine onto this new disk.
Can I just copy the files from the Time Machine disk to the new one, or do I need to do something more complicated? The instructions for restoring files from Time Machine all include selecting the drive/folder you want to restore, then entering Time Machine. But I can't do that if the original disk no longer exists.
I'm getting the replacement drive today, so I thought I would ask before I installed the drive. Any advice would be appreciated.
-ME
Mac Pro 5,1
OS X 10.6.8

If i had a direct answer, i'd posted it, but, since I don't use TM, I linked you to the TM bible. You know, the one that Apple failed to provide.
BTW, specific steps on what you did to solve the problem will help others.

Restore a user account backed up by time machine to a replacement macbook?

I've searched the forum without finding an answer to this situation, so here's my question:
I setup Time Machine to only backup a teacher's user account on her MacBook because the capacity of the external drive used for her backup was not very large. I excluded all files on the drive, with the exception of her user's home directory. *Her laptop was stolen.*
I just received a replacement laptop, which is the same model, but it is running 10.6.2. The stolen MacBook was running 10.5.8. During initial setup, I attached the drive and attempted to "Restore from TIme Machine backup," but it would not recognize the time machine backup on the attached drive. I also tried renaming the computer to match the name of the stolen MacBook, and tried restoring using the Migration Assistant, which was also unsuccessful.
*Is there anyway that I will be able to restore her user account from the Time Machine backup to her new MacBook?* It doesn't matter if reinstalling 10.5 is the answer, or if I need some 3rd-party software. Is there detailed Time Machine documentation that covers this type of scenario? If there is, I haven't been able to find it.
I also considered allowing the new MacBook to consider the external drive that has the stolen MacBook's backup as its own Time Machine backup (as automatically prompted when plugging the drive into the new MacBook), but I didn't want to futz around and mess things up.
Thank you in advance for helpful replies!

Nova wrote:
I've searched the forum without finding an answer to this situation, so here's my question:
I setup Time Machine to only backup a teacher's user account on her MacBook because the capacity of the external drive used for her backup was not very large. I excluded all files on the drive, with the exception of her user's home directory. *Her laptop was stolen.*
I just received a replacement laptop, which is the same model, but it is running 10.6.2. The stolen MacBook was running 10.5.8. During initial setup, I attached the drive and attempted to "Restore from TIme Machine backup," but it would not recognize the time machine backup on the attached drive. I also tried renaming the computer to match the name of the stolen MacBook, and tried restoring using the Migration Assistant, which was also unsuccessful.
this is because you excluded all the other things from backups. this precludes any kind of automated migration.
*Is there anyway that I will be able to restore her user account from the Time Machine backup to her new MacBook?*
yes, it's possible but you'll have to do it manually. First, make sure that there is no account by the same name already exists on the new mac. this is important.
next, control-click on TM in the dock and select "browse other TM disks". this will let you browse the old TM backups. in the backups select the old home directory in /Users. click on the "gears" action button in the toolbar and select "restore to". choose to restore to the folder /users on your main hard drive. once the restore is complete go to system preferences->accounts and create an account with the same short user name as the name of the home directory you just restored. it will say that a home directory by that name already exists and ask if you want to use it. say "yes".

How Do I Restore the Old Backups.backupdb in Time Machine. It Replaced It With a Reinstalled OS's Backup.backupdb But Time Machine Is Still Filled at 1.9TB of 2TB

Hi. I fresh installed Mavericks but I didn't transfer my files from Time Machine coz' I was going to do it manually with (folders like documents, pictures mainly) when it asked (before it lets you boot to the Finder) but as soon as I chose to let the freshly installed Mavericks use the Time Machine with the old backups, it replaced it with a new Backups.backupdb. The good thing is the old backups seem to still be there because, the freshly installed OS X is only around 11GB but the Time Machine is 2TB yet it's filled with 1.91TB (only 90GB freespace).
Is there a program to somehow see these old backups, so I can backup it manually copy and paste to their respective folders on the newly installed Mavericks? Or a Terminal command to make that possible, let me see the old back ups (I hope it's just hidden, retrievable)? I've switched off Time Machine for now coz' there's not much to back in the newly installed Mavericks.
Thank you in advance.
God bless, Rev. 21:4

Thank you. It's all back to normal (took around 7 hours on the late 2009 iMac). Time Machine's become better now compared to the last time I used it to migrate everything automatically (Snow Leopard days). With Maverick's Time Machine, it's almost like a cloning (except for the password) tool now. But it's always great to name the account and maybe the hardisk the same names so can just replace a newly installed OS.
God bless. Thanks again.

Can I restore from Time Machine backup after replacing hard drive

I'm planning on replacing the 250GB hard drive in my mid 2010 13 inch MBP with a larger one. My MBP comes with Snow Leopard, and I've installed Lion and recently Mountain Lion from App Store. Can I use my Snow Leopard disc to boot up the laptop after replacing the hard drive, and restore Mountain Lion and everything else from the latest backup in Time Machine without having to install Snow Leopard?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Press Command and R keys while your Mac is starting and restore your backup. You shouldn't use 10.6 to restore the Mountain Lion backup

Time Machine Space Problem

When I attempt to backup using Time Machine, I get an error stating that there is not enough space on my external drive...that I should exlude files from the backup. I've never run into this problem before. In the past, when space became limited on my external backup drive, Time Machine would simply delete the oldest files and then proceed with the backup.
I've searched the forums and can't find any similar cases. Is there any adjustments I need to make somewhere? Any suggesstions or help would be appreciated.
I have a MacBook Pro with OS 10.6.8.
Thanks.

Thanks. I read Pondini article and tried various suggestions for my OS. No luck. Still getting message that Time Machine can't back up to my BackUp drive. 'Need to exclude files or select larger backup disc.'

APP download, then time machine RESTORE, froze; results: Grey Apple screen

I have a macbook 13" albumin unibody-(late 09) configured w/ a 45 nm Penryn 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor250 GB Serial ATA (5400 RPM) hard drive.
Yesterday, I decided to finally buy a good external hard drive to backup my macbook. I used time machine and did so. Today I wanted to actually download apps (pretty much the first time) via apple store and others like macUpdate.com. I got did MacKeeper (to get rid of unnecessary files, duplicates) also a few more. Well the next morning after doing a full shut down to let my computer have a break, I started up my mac as regular and after being on it for a little I noticed a few things. One of the main things I noticed was my fanControl app was asking me for my pw twice every time the speeds needed to be adjusted when before it didn't. Another thing I noticed was there were about 5 "fonts" that were in my applications folder by themselves, and when I tried to move them individually back into the font folder in apps it said said something to the effect like there were already ones there and moving them into the folder would cause issues, and that they needed to be put in the trash... Well at this point I had seen enough and was bothered that my computer was not moving as quick as it was before. So I plugged in my external hard drive and went and did a back up, them when that was finished I wanted to do a restore on my utilities, application, and library folders to what they were before. well I did the library first and it worked..but was slow, then I did the other two at once and it moved to about 25% before it froze. I could still move on my trackpad but clicking anything would work. I tried to do force quit, but no luck, after about 45 min-1 hour I gave up and unplugged my external-hard drive, and did a hard shut down. I waited about 10 minutes, and attempted to re boot and all i got was a few beeps and the light grey screen with the apple Logo and time time scroll rainbow thing... and thats all. I let it sit there for a good amount of time too. I tried this three more times. same out come.
Please help
I've never had any issues with my <3 mac before.
-Jessica

I'm sorry I never wrote back responding what was the finial result. Well after taking it to a repair guy, he basically gave a bad diagnosis saying the hard drive was shot, well I then picked up my mac and told him i'd fix it myself, that I couldn't afford him any further. I bought a new hard drive. Well as a final attempt I made an appt. to Apple to see what they'd say ( I avoided that because I was out of warranty, and always read things about how expensive getting repairs were) Well to my surprise, he looked at it, and connected his Macbook Pro to it and fixed it right then and there free of charge, he said my hard drive was perfectly fine and all my data was still there.
Turns out that the "original" OS start up disks were for TIGER!. I could't figure out how I could have not had my real disks, I've had access to my roommates snow leopard original OS disks, but no one had access to mine. Well I got my MacBook as a open box special, and I from what I concluded was that when they did the cheap on the Mac when it was returned and got everything back to "stock" they must of switched my disk with another MacBooks disk.... wow.. all that searing and trouble all because I had the wrong disk due to no fault of mine. Thank you for your help, definitely started my interest in learning about my Macbook!

Limiting Time Machine Space on Time Capsule in Lion

Hello,
I'm about to receive an 11" MacBook Air and 2TB Time Capsule. I want to use Time Machine to backup my data to the Time Capsule, but I want to limit the space Time Machine can use to 768GB. Is there a supported way to do this in Lion?
If not, has anyone tested hacking this with Lion? e.g. http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071108020121567
Thanks,
Will

Did you simply upgrade, or do something like erase and reinstall, or install Lion on a different drive or partition? If so, what, exacty?
Did you eject the drive before turning it off? If not, that may have damaged the backups. In any event, try to Repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Time Machine issues after replacing HD

Hi all,
I recently bought a larger replacement HD for my old MacBook. Last night I cloned the original drive using SuperDuper and then swapped the drives over. However, every time Time Machine now tries to backup, it thinks it's a full backup and starts deleting old backups to make room.
I've seen this tutorial on the web:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090213071015789
I followed it about halfway, then it asked me to type in "my_partition" saying "Replace my_partition with the name of the partition that you'll be swapping the UUIDs on."
At that point I got totally confused. What's the name of the partition, and when it says the partition I'll be swapping the UUIDs on, which partition is it referring to? The Time Capsule partition? I don't want to mess with the whole Time Capsule partition surely, cos that has backups from other machines on it...?
Anyway I wasn't 100% sure and I was worried I might screw something up. So I've switched TM backups off and have come to ask you guys in your wisdom how to do it
Thanks!
:-Joe

xairbusdriver wrote:
Well, you're obviously more informed about the technical aspects of all this. I am just trying to confirm the easiest way to start using an added drive, not sure I want to have the whole, current back up added to the new one, anyway. It's big enough as it is. How long do I really want to trust any data to a mechanical device?
Yes, the easiest way is to just let TM start fresh on a new drive, and keep the old one "on the shelf" until you're sure you don't need anything from it.
Nor do I understand the TM backup to be a 'sparse image.' Not saying it isn't, I'd just not heard it described that way.
Some are, some aren't. If you back up to an internal HD or a directly-connected external HD (Firewire or USB), your backups are in a "normal" folder named Backups.backupdb. If you back up to a network drive, such as a Time Capsule, the Backups.backupdb folder is enclosed in a +sparse bundle disk image,+ a rather odd sort of container.
But I have also seen many threads here about the troubles people have in moving old TM back ups to a new drive.
That depends on a couple of things; it's mostly impossible to continue backing-up to the same set of backups if you change from directly-connected to wireless, or vice-versa.
But you can copy the backups from an old drive to a new one, and continue backing-up in the same way. See #18 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Time machine space questions, not the same as Activity Monitor

Hello
I am new here and kindly ask your thoughts on what I am seeing.
I have a 13" MacBook Pro early 2011 with OS 10.7.5
Earlier this year I tried an upgrade to a new OS and experienced a failure that required me to make a visit to the Apple store.
I believe they reinstalled the OS and if I remember correctly I just did a recovery with the Time Machine backup I had.
While that backup was not very recent, yea OK I get that was stupid, what was odd was that not all my files were backed up.
I lost a significant number of files from April 2013 until the time of the failure in 2014, for reasons I have no clue as to why.
My Time Machine does not have any excluded files as far as I can tell.
So my first question is: Can anyone help me understand what may have happened and how to counter that?
Then yesterday I decided to invest in a new backup external drive.
During the process of setting it up and doing the 1st Time Machine backup on that, I noticed the following:
In Activity Monitor under the "Disk Usage" tab shows the Macintosh HD as using 258 of 319 GB, and then selecting my user name it shows using 578 of 639 GB.
When I did the backup with Time Machine it backed up approximately 250GB.
I thought Time Machine backed up the entire HD.
What is the difference between the Macintosh HD space and the user space in terms of usage and total?
Should I be worried or visiting the Apple store again?

OK, done.
I created a text.txt document containing the words "Version 0". I saved it to the Desktop, closed it and selected "Back Up Now" from the Finder.
Waited for that to complete, opened the test.txt document again, modified it by adding the words "Version 1", saved it, closed it and selected "Back Up Now" again.
Repeated that twice more, so the end result was a Text.txt containing the words "Version 0", "Version 1", "Version 2", and "Version 3".
I expect that I should now have three versions from which to choose to restore, all from different times, plus the latest one still on the Desktop.
Creation and backups now complete, so the next step was restoration:
From the Finder, I used "Enter Time Machine" and verified that I had four different recent times from which to choose. I chose the original text.txt document and elected to "keep both files". It restored the original, which I opened and verified it contained nothing but the text "Version 0".
I repeated this for the subsequent version. I opened that one and confirmed it contained the words "Version 1".
I repeated this for the subsequent version. Now I have three restored text.txt documents, plus the one on the Desktop.
I opened all four text.txt documents and stacked them as shown in the following screenshot:
Conclusion, no surprises that I can determine.
Is this what you had in mind, or was there something I did that was different from what you need?

Time Machine space background replaced by white screen?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for