Time machine, time capsule and multiple back up drives
ok--I'm a little dumb, so please bear with me:
Been using Time Machine for months using a WD 320 gig drive. Bought Time Capsule, when they came out and have been wirelessly backing up my Macbook Air ever since.
Had the bright idea today to plug the WD usb drive in and use time machine for the first time since March, as a redundant backup--it worked fine.
When I got home tonight, I switched the hard drive from the WD 320 gig to the Time Capsule drive, and later noticed was doing it's usual thing, backing up automatically with time capsule and time machine. But then I realized that it was doing a complete backup--not just an update.
When I entered time machine, all my backups were gone.
Have I lost all the backups I made since March?
Can you only back up to one hard drive?
Did I delete all my backups without even getting a warning that that would happen?
Really?
My Time Capsule shows that I am using 120 gigs, but I can't account for 80 of those gigs...
I hope this makes sense...
thanks so much either way,
andre
Did I lose months of backups by changing my
...even so, its odd that without your authentication information that the files in the FileVault image would be accessible and actively copied to another location...it appears to defeat the purpose of FileVault
The TM backup of the FileVault protected Home folder does require the password to be restored so it is protected.
Similar Messages
-
Is there a fix or upgrade to deal with the many problems I am experiencing since I installed Lion? I can no longer utilize Time Machine (Does not see the back-up drive); my wireless mouse does not work properly; my iMac has slowed down considerably. I am reminded of having a PC machine again. Bummer!
Either downgrade to Snow Leopard or try reinstalling Lion.
Reinstalling Lion Without the Installer
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alterhatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.
Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files. -
Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button. No drive is listed. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past. Any suggestions
Does the disk appear in Disk Utility?
-
Time machine iMac HD and external USB hard drive backs up to separate locations
I have an iMac 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 with 2TB HD backing up to a 5th gen 2 TB Time Capsule via Time Machine. I also have a 2TB USB external Seagate HD connected to my iMac (which contains lots of iMovies and stuff I don't have room for on my iMac) and a 2nd 2TB USB external Seagate HD connected to the USB port of the Time Capsule. I want Time Machine to alternate backing up my iMac (with the 2TB USB ext HD with iMovies etc excluded) to the Time Capsule and then backing up the USB external HD connected to the iMac (with the iMac HD excluded) to the 2TB ext HD connected to the Time Capsule. I know Time Machine can back up a single HD to 2 different back up drives alternately and it can back up multiple drives to a single back up drive. But I want it to do alternate backups of the iMac and the ext HD to two different locations. Is this possible?
Sorry no.. but there are far superior backup software like Carbon Copy Cloner to do the job..
Superduper is also popular and there are some others. Time Machine is singularly without controls.. a typical apple software really. -
Time machine blincks orange and goes back no further than 10 days
loosing work is always a stressful affair, time machine malfunction on top of it drives me up the wall
I assume you mean Time Capsule (Apple hardware that combines a wireless router and hard drive, often used as a destination for backups made by Apple's Time Machine software)?
If so, that means there's some sort of problem with the Time Capsule. Use Airport Utility to see what the Status is -- if it's not "Normal," there should be an indication of what's wrong.
It may be simply an indication that the TC is near full -- that could be why you only see 10 days of backups. That can be caused if there isn't enough room on the TC's internal HD to back up your Mac. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #1. -
HT3275 Time machine icon yellow and not backing up
Had hard drive repaired and wiped clean computer, now time machine icon is the yellow color not backing up and can't find it in system preferences. I am able to open and access files though. How do I get TM to back up on new system?
The colour of the icon doesn't matter. The best resource for time machine problems is ...
http://pondini.org/TM/
Pondini FAQ -
Time machine on more than one back up drive?
Once you outgrow a hard drive, can you specify Time Machine to continue on a 2nd drive or do you have to buy a bigger drive? This is really confusing to me as i almost filled 500GB and do video work.
I have a slightly different fix on the same question. I have been backing up to two external drives, one at home and one at work. Time machine does not seem to mind - I just open time Machine Preferences and choose the appropriate disk drive depending on where I am at the time. The drive icon goes from orange to blue and the backup starts.
That said, I did fill up one drive and began fresh on a new drive at work I just keep the old drive in a drawer and have never tried to restore from it. Are you saying the content of that old drive is lost?
Walt -
I am a long time Mac user, running my business on an apple platform since 1984. I currently use a 17" MacBook Pro as my primary computer for work. when it is at work it is plugged in via thunderbolt to my monitor and a one tb back up drive. I use time machine to back up the laptop to the one tb drive. When I go home, I take the laptop with me and use another drive at home as a back up. This way I have redundant back ups, in two separate locations. I have been doing this for years, and Time machine has worked flawlessly, automaticity switching from one drive to another.
I recently switched to Maverics, and got a new drive for home. Now whether I am at home or at work, time machine fails to automatically back up. It will alert me every hour that backups cannot be completed, and I must go to the time machine control panel and manually select a drive and click, "back up now". I also see an alert that says "waiting to complete first back up" even though each backup has been completed.
This is quite annoying, and sometimes embarrassing. When giving lectures in large venues, the backup failure alert appears and shuts down my keynote presentation (again, something new since switching to Maverics and the new WD drive.
I have reformatted the WD drive, and also spent time trying to change parameters in the time machine control panel, but so far no luck.
Any advice out there?Time machine requires a GUID partion scheme, as well as a Mac OS X extended, journaled Volume.
It needs these to correctly:
1) copy the files
2) run a modified spotlight index pass on the files
Both are required to complete a abckup, and most new drives do not conme this way from the factory. -
I recently bought a new Time Capsule and the following message has started to show:-
"Time Machine could not complete the back up. The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data-1/Brian’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use."
Can anyone help?Pondini is the resident Time Machine expert on the forums, and he has all the answers.
Check is excellent Time Machine - Troubleshooting support document
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
See # C17 in particular -
after upgrade to mavericks: time machine keeps asking for my back up disk and won't open unless i plug in the disk. any solutions?
before the upgrade, i could open time machine without the need for having the back up disk plugged in.Ok. I got it to work, sort of....
As I mentioned before I tried the "disk password" and the "Time capsule Password" options to see if I can start the back up again or start a new backup. Neither worked. So I tried the firmware down grade, but like you said that did not work. I then decided to try the "Account password" option and I have never used this option before becasue it states that if there is data on the drive it would not be acessable after creating an account. Since I wiped out the disk that was nno problem. When I created the new account and choose the drive it asked for the user name and password. I entered the info for the new account I just created(FYI this has nothing to do with your login username and password), bingo! It worked!
Now I have two partitions on the TC disk. The old one and now the new account. I am guessing this is to be used if I have multiple computers, which I don't.
I any case, I am going to wipe out everything again and try again to do a backup the way I had it before. -
Backing up Mac HD with Time Capsule AND an external hard drive
I am sure that this question has been asked one way or another but I can't seem to find the exact answer.
I would like to back up my Mac HD with the Time Capsule AND another hard drive essentially to create two backups. Should one fail, I still have another copy as a precaution. The Time Capsule will be my primary back up because my external hard drive is usually switched off and will only be turned on from time to time to perform "less frequent" backups.
With Time Capsule AND the external hard drive on, will Time Machine just update the backup on the external hard drive without becoming confused with the other copy on Time Capsule? In other words, can Time Machine distinguish between two different Time Machine Backup files and bring them up to date accordingly?
I understand there is an archive function on the Time Capsule, which would also serve the purpose. However, I am wondering if there is another way.
Thanks.Rheopaipo wrote:
I am sure that this question has been asked one way or another but I can't seem to find the exact answer.
I would like to back up my Mac HD with the Time Capsule AND another hard drive essentially to create two backups. Should one fail, I still have another copy as a precaution. The Time Capsule will be my primary back up because my external hard drive is usually switched off and will only be turned on from time to time to perform "less frequent" backups.
With Time Capsule AND the external hard drive on, will Time Machine just update the backup on the external hard drive without becoming confused with the other copy on Time Capsule? In other words, can Time Machine distinguish between two different Time Machine Backup files and bring them up to date accordingly?
I understand there is an archive function on the Time Capsule, which would also serve the purpose. However, I am wondering if there is another way.
I don't think it's possible to configure Time Machine to back up to two locations without modifying its settings frequently.
You might consider using that external drive to hold a bootable backup. You can create such a thing with either of the utilities SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. If you pay the registration fee for SuperDuper! (~US$28), there's a mode where it will back up only what has changed, which makes the backup operation run quicker. (Carbon Copy Cloner may offer a similar feature.) -
How do I get time machine/time capsule to back up my external hard drive?
I have been trying to find a way to back up my external hard drive (a Hitachi G-Drive from the Apple store) with time machine and my time capsule. I left it plugged in so it was visible on my MacBook Pro when I did the initial backup yesterday, but it's not showing when I enter time machine. Anyone have any ideas?
A few things to check.....
The external drive attached to your Mac must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Check Time Machine Options to make sure that the drive is not excluded from Time Machine backups -
Time Machine stalls when trying to back up to Time Capsule or an external hard drive.
TIme Machine stalls when trying to back up to Time Capsule or an external hard drive. Time Machine shows a message such as "Backing up 4MB of 9.00GB" but nothing happens for hours.
Are you really running 10.6.4 OS?
What model TC and what firmware?
Wireless or wired?
How is the TC setup?
If TM can work to neither a TC or external hard disk it is more likely the computer is faulty hard disk..
Do a verify of the disk.
See A5 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html -
I have Time Machine that I used to back up my old computer. It was running snow leopard. My MacBook died, so I got a new one which is running Lion. how can I restore the data from the time capsule to my new Mac?
In technical support, sometimes you have to make educated guesses. I'm sorry that you were offended.
iTunes does prompt when it is going to erase a device, and the message is clear.
She said in her message that she was able to successfully sync the old ipad. This indicated to me that itunes wiping the data was not an issue, because either it had been setup at the apple store (in which case it doesn't actually wipe the ipad despite saying it will*) (*based on a single case I saw), or because the itunes media folder was migrated.
Furthermore, my solution was to tell her how to backup her ipad (by either doing it manually, or as a last resort, by deleting the corrupt backup -- that she couldn't access anyway.)
I got that last part of the instructions from the "Taking Control of your iphone" book which I found samples of when I did a google search for "corrupted backup itunes".
She marked this as a solution, so it worked for her. -
I am running Snow Leopard and have my old files isolated in a new folder on the laptop, but I want to restore the old settings, programas, etc. from the Time Machine. TM is currently backing up the new HD as if it were a new computer.
Instead of using Time Capsule or Time Machine to access the archived backup, use Migration Assistant to restore the backup from Time Capsule. Worked like a charm.
Maybe you are looking for
-
Macbook can't be found with any internet connection except with wi-fi turned on
Just weard! - I can't find my macbook on find my iphone without wi-fi turned on. Why can and is it normal my macbook only can be found on "find my iphone" when wifi is on while I still have another internet connection activated on my mac without wi-
-
How to record from the video in or S-video Ports on Qosmio G40?
Can anyone tell me how to record from the video in or S-video ports, because i've tried the Ulead DVD factory program and the only capture device it could see was the webcam, and it did capture from it After that i've downloaded the update file that
-
Signed pdf + Reader 9.1 = blank fields (9.0 works fine)
Hi. This is the sequence of events for the problem we are experiencing: 1. We generate a PDF by merging with an FDF using itext. The result PDF is encrypted and signed. 2. We had a problem where the encrypted/signed document was properly formatting t
-
How to Update the Date in PL/SQL using a variable?
Hi, I am setting up a varchar of an update statement and would like to put a date variable for the value. It works when I just put SYSDATE in the statement, yet doesn't when I put the date variable. Gives me an ORA-0904 error. Thanks. DECLARE v_upd V
-
Hi, The following query is showing error An INSERT EXEC statement cannot be nested CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Procedur3] @para1 int AS BEGIN CREATE TABLE #tem select * from detialpar where did=@para1 --this code is quite big and is called from many