Time Machine Volume and Disk Utility

I'm trying to figure out whether or not I can use Disk Utility's Repair Disk command on a Time Machine volume. Time machine is taking a very long time to finalize its backups. I don't know if there are directory issues that need to be addressed or if it's due to the very large size of the directory. I've been using Time Machine on this computer since last January and the Time Machine directory (the disk's catalog of files used by the OS) takes up over 7 GB of disk space! It's so large that DiskWarrior will no longer work on that volume. DiskWarrior, like all 32-bit OS X applications, has a limit of 4 GB. I can't be the only one in this situation. I don't want my Time Machine backup to get hopelessly corrupted and then have to start agin. I'm trying to be proactive about correcting any issues before they become serious.

See my reply to Steve Darden in this Topic.
You should not use Disk Utility in the normal manner. Time Machine uses hard links in a non-standard manner, which will cause normal repair utilities to complain, as Steve is finding.
If you read Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues you will see that it only recommends Disk Utility to "Attempt to repair the backup sparsebundle", not the actual Disk Volume itself.

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Time Machine Error and Disk Utility?

I backup 3 Macs to our TC. Last night, my MacBook started having problems backing up to the TC. Several times it has attempted to backup, but it fails with this message:
"The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."
When I try to use DU to repair as suggested, the drive does not mount, whether or not I connect to it in the Finder or not. Airport Utility reports no problems with the TC and the other two computers are happily backing up hourly to it. There is 500 GB of space left on it.
When I open the TC drive, I see two sparsebundles for ths laptop, only one for each of the other computers. It appears to me that there is something wrong with the sparsebundle/s for this computer only. Can I simply drag those to the trash, connect via firewire to TC, and start fresh? I really don't want to have to erase the whole TC and redo the other computers.
Is there another solution I am missing?
Thanks for any help.
Kathy

Kathy Cardoza2 wrote:
Can I simply drag those to the trash, connect via firewire to TC, and start fresh?
That should work, except for the item about "connect via firewire", as a Time Capsule has no FireWire port. Could you have meant Ethernet? That should speed up the initial backup significantly.

Recover files with no Time Machine Backup and disk 'can't be repaired'

My Macbook Air (Mac OS X 10.7.4) was acting funny for a few days (crashing Safari, crashing Mozilla, crashing other third party software, requiring reboot, etc.). When I tried to reboot it, a loading bar and a rotating wheel came, but got switched off. It happened every time I tried. I got into Recovery mode (by pressing Command + R) to fix the disk. The disk could not be fixed. I tried reinstalling MacOSX, but it is not showing any disk to reinstall the OS in. I do not have Time Machine On.
I have some really important pictures and documents in the Mac. I want to save these files before I erase the whole disk. Any advice?
Thank you!
TL;DR
Mac dies while booting
Disk can not be fixed
Shows no disk to reinstall the MacOSX in
Never switched on the Time Machine
Want to save important files before deleting whole disk

One of the data recovery apps needs to be run on the disk. You have some options, none good:
• Take your Mac to an AppleStore (make a reservation at: http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/), or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (start here to find one: https://locate.apple.com/country). They won't run the recovery, but can tell if the drive is physically damaged. If so, and your Mac is under a year old, or covered by AppleCare, you won't have to pay for the replacement, but be sure to get the old drive back. It can then be put into an enclosure, making it an external HD for use with one of the other options:
• Take your Mac (or the drive) to a recovery service. They'll charge a large fee, and return an external HD with whavever data they can recover. You'd then need to erase the internal HD, install OSX, and try to reassembe your data from the external.
• Do it yourself. Buy an external HD (better, get two: one 3-4 times the size of the data on your Mac) and do it yourself. You'll install OSX on it and run from it to recover whatever data you can to the other external:
Start from the Recovery HD and format them both for a Mac (even if they say Mac Ready). See #1 in Using Disk Utility if you're not sure how to do that.
Then install OSX on one of them. When your Mac restarts, it will start from the external, and you'll set up a user account, etc, just as with a new Mac. When it starts again, you'll be running from a "bare-bones" system on the external HD.
Get one of the data recovery apps, install it on the external, and follow it's instructions to try to recover your stuff to the other external. As noted in the yellow box in the link above, you may get a lot of the orginal folder structure back, so you can just drag things to the proper location on the external you're running from. But you may find some or many files with partial names, perhaps numbers, etc. Some may have extensions you can identify (such as .png or .jpg), some may not. Try to open them and see what they are.
If you don't recover a lot, and are willing to spend yet more $$, you might try a different recovery app -- often one will recover things a different one can't.
When you've gotten everything you can off the internal HD, reformat it, then "clone" the external OSX drive to it and restart from the internal.
Then start making regular backups. If you want to use Time Machine, erase and use the one thats 3-4 times the size of the data it's backing up.
Also make periodic "secondary" backups to the other drive. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question
#27 for an explanation and some suggestions.

Time Machine reports error, Disk Utility says disk is OK!

Hi,
Time Machine has stopped backing up giving an error message as follows:
"The backup was not performed because an error occured while copying files to the backup disk.
The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."
I'm not sure how temporary it means, nor how much later - but this has been happening for the last few days and I have switched off and on, rebooted, closed all apps, changed usb port, changed usb cable, etc. to try and get it working again. Still get the same error.
When I run the backup disk through Disk Utility it says the disk is fine - "The volume Time Machine appears to be OK."
Anyone had this or similar before? Is there a known cause that I can fix to get the backups working again. Don't really want to lose the time machine history by formatting and starting again.
Cheers.

Fixed - looked at the error log in the console, found error messages re files it was not able to back up, excluded that folder from Time Machine. Now works OK.

Lacie 1TB external HDD recently stopped doing Time Machine backups. Disk Utility recommends that the disk needs to be repaired.

I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
It recently stopped doing the backups, so I checked Disk Utility and it recommended that I repair the disk. How long does it take for Disk Utility to repair a 1TB external HDD?
Other things to consider:
- Cant find the disk in the Finder, I used to be able to do that before.
- When I tried to go a Time Machine backup, it said the disk was not available.
Upon using disk utiliy, I successfully verified the disk. Then I initiated the disk repair process.
The current status:
- checking file system
- Volume repair complete
- Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
The progress bar says "Verify and Repair volume "LaCie"" - the progress bar does not indicate how much has been done or how long it will take.
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,476,416 Bytes)
Mount Point: Not Mounted
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
All other status fields blank.
Any one know how long it will take for Disk Utility to repair the external HDD? Any other ideas as to how I can get the Lacie HDD to reconnect with the Macbook and resume normal operations? i.e. Time Machine backups, accessing contents through the Finder.

purduegrad_macguy wrote:
I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
Mine Failed after 3 years and 4 months of using it as a Dedicated TM Backup drive...
When I used Disk Utility for repairs... it went from 7 minutes to 4 hours and after about 10 minutes it was saying 40 hours...
So I just replace it with a New EHD...

Time machine files and disk space warning.

hello, i have ran into some unknown issues with my os x and even though there have been similar topics discussed i would like to address mine and i hoe someone can help me out.
1. I am not sure if I accidentally turned on time machine or not , but at some point when i restarted a computer i noticed different folders and files that i have not created myself on my HD such as
.com.apple.timemachine.supported
.fseventsd
.hotfiles.btree
.Spotlight-V100
.Trash
.vol
var
etc
tmp
I do not know if this folders are safe to delete, since i am not using time machine.
2. Trying to download rather big file 34gb i received numerous warnings that my disk isfull, and it is not. i have 105GB used and 126GB free, also I am using 4gb RAM. so there should not be a problem. I saw a few topics regarding disk space warning, that were suggestinng that the user runs an application which shows where most of HD is used.
I cleaned a few stuff, but still, how can I prevent from this warning to appear.
Thank you for any suggestions

can i hide them?
Update: found terminal command to hide the successfully.
i ran verify disk and verify disk permissions and everything is OK.
following reports were made:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.
Verify permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
Permissions differ on "private/var/log/secure.log", should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r----- .
Permissions differ on "private/var/spool/cups/cache/rss", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are drwxrwxr-x .
Permissions differ on "Library/Preferences", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Library/Application Support", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Developer/Examples/JavaWebObjects/DataBaseSetUp/dbdump.sh", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rwxrwxr-x .
Permissions verification complete
Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
Permissions differ on "private/var/log/secure.log", should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r----- .
Permissions differ on "private/var/spool/cups/cache/rss", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are drwxrwxr-x .
Permissions differ on "Library/Preferences", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Library/Application Support", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxr-- .
Permissions differ on "Developer/Examples/JavaWebObjects/DataBaseSetUp/dbdump.sh", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rwxrwxr-x .
Permissions differ on "Developer/Examples/JavaWebObjects/DatabaseSetup/dbdump.sh", should be -rwxrwxr-x , they are -rw-rw-r-- .
Permissions repair complete
still bugs me why i am getting this warnings, nothing today but you never know when next one will pop...
Message was edited by: g3m1nn1
Message was edited by: g3m1nn1

Transfer Time Machine Backups without Disk Utility

Hi everyone! This is both a question and a warning.
Prologue:
In order to use Lion’s encrypted (Core Storage) external drive feature, I needed to reformat an external 1TB drive with Apple Partition Map, as that works only with GPT. The only partition was HFS+J formatted and was used as Time Machine Backup, which I wanted to preserve.
Act I:
I connected the drive to another iMac running 10.6 which happened to have enough space on the internal HD. I read this article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096 , which describes how to copy the BackupDB just by drag and drop. In hindsight, that was a bad idea, I should have created a disk image like suggested elsewhere, but if Apple itself suggests it, it can’t be so bad right?
So I just dragged the whole BackupDB to random folder on the iMac (after enabling ownership), and apparently it copied correctly the dir-hardlinks, as the resulting folder had the same size.
It seems that the Finder activates a special dir-hardlink aware copying mode when one does this. This is also confirmed by the fact that the Finder will refuse to copy the BackupDB together with other files, you have to drag and drop the BackupDB only.
Act II:
I reformatted the external drive as HFS+J with GPT and activated ownership..
But now, when I try to copy the BackupDB back, it continues to count indefinitely the number of files to copy!
I speculate that the special dir-hardlink aware mode is not activated, but what can I do? How can I trigger it? Is there some hidden command line tool which handles this?
Epilogue:
I think I’m stuck with this situation, so I am hoping for your suggestions.
The lesson I’m drawing from this is: use the method described in the article only if you copy the backupDB from your old to your new drive.
Final question: do you think upgrading the iMac with 10.6 to Lion would help?
Thank you very much!

I have found a solution! Apparently, this special copy mode is only activated when the Backups.backupdb dir is in the root directory of the volume.
I just used mv to move it there, since the Finder would only let me copy it. Then everything went as expected.
As an additional note (if anyone happens to be in the same situation), during this special copy mode, Locum (the process that is known for emptying the Trash) gobbled up over 2GB of RAM and the copying window showed a too large size of the files to be copied (about 410GB instead of about 300GB), but the resulting size on the disk was the expected size.

Time Machine Freezes and Corrupts Disk

Hello,
I have been attempting to set up one of my external hard drives for use in Time Machine, but every time I click "Erase" when Time Machine asks me to, Time Machine freezes, and my Hard Drive gets corrupt. After force quitting Time Machine and mounting my drive again, it says "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." I have had to go back to a PC on numerous occasions and format the disk as FAT32, and then come back and try it again. I have attempted to erase the disk through Disk Utility, but the same error occurs.
I am attempting to do this with a 100GB Store-It drive by Hitatchi. Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions as to how I can solve this issue.
Thanks,
Thomas

I had the same problem with a new 120GB WD external 2.5" HDD. It seems to perform the initial backup then gets frozen at the very end of the first actualization, CPU running at 100%. Doesn't mount any more, DU shows it but declares it as non-repairable because of different issues: index faulty, B-tree header faulty etc. The same on another Mac. Re-formatting leads to the same results.
What to do?
Berndt

HT3275 Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

My Mac mini time capsule is showing an error Time machine error, backup disk image "/volumes/data-1/.sparesbundle " already in use. I don;t know what this means, can someone help?

I had a similar problem and I solved it as follows -
In Time Machine - > I deselected time capsule Data Disk as a destination.
Then I pulled the power plug on the Time Capsule, twiddled my thumbs for 15 secs, plugged the power back in.
Went back t Time Machine -> Re-Added the Time Capsule Data Disk as destination. And then tested by selecting Backup Now.
All went well and the backup picked up from before the problem.
BTW - I also have a USB drive connected to Time Capsule that is an alternate disk for Time Machine to backup.
In Mountain Lion the GUI lets you add more than one Time Machine backup destinations very easily so I think it a good idea to have redundancy.
Hope this helps.

Since upgrade, Time Machine starts and stalls. Waited 24 hours. Formatted disk-no change.

Since upgrade to Mavericks on Mini, Time Machine starts and stalls. Says "292 Mb of 147.68 Gb", wheel spins. Waited 24 hours, no change. Formatted disk-no change. Tried every solution found in threads; no fix. Doing manual backups. Help!

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
from the menu bar.
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 that corresponds to an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showning, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. 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 to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
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.

I am trying to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard. When I insert the disk and install starts, it states "This disk is used for Time Machine backups" and Mac OSX can't be installed. Does anyone know how to correct this (since Tiger doesn't have Time Mach

I am trying to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard. When I insert the disk and install starts, it states "This disk is used for Time Machine backups" and Mac OSX can't be installed. Does anyone know how to correct this (since Tiger doesn't have Time Machine)?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2986

My newish MacBook Air was just lost to a coffee spill, and I need to migrate back to my MacBook Pro using a recent back-up (Time Machine to external disk). Can I do this?

My newish MacBook Air was just lost to a coffee spill, and I need to migrate back to my MacBook Pro using a recent back-up (Time Machine to external disk) for a few weeks. This same disk was used to back-up the Pro earlier, and to migrate from the Pro to the Air. Can I do this "back-migration" from the Air to the Pro? Is it maybe better just to migrate the specific folders (Outlook email, Office docs) I am sure I need?

Do not attempt to copy files/folders from a Time Machine backup. Only use the Time Machine application to restore from the backup.
Click on a Finder window and select Help from the Finder's Help menu. Search for "restore" and select "restore items backed up with time machine" from the hints list. You will find these two articles:
Recover items using Time Machine and Spotlight
If you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, you can use Time Machine with Spotlight to recover lost or deleted items.
Note: You can retrieve earlier versions of TextEdit documents from within TextEdit. For more information, see:
View and restore past versions of documents
Open a Finder window and type a search word or phrase in the search field in the upper-right corner.
Select a location to search in the location bar.
Refine the results by specifying search criteria. Narrow down Spotlight search results
Open the Time Machine menu in the menu bar, then choose Enter Time Machine.
Use the arrows and timeline to browse the Time Machine backups. Your search is performed in every window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, then click Restore.
The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if the item was found in the Documents folder, it’s returned to the Documents folder.
Restore items backed up with Time Machine
If you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, you can easily bring back lost items or recover older versions of files.
You can use Time Machine within many apps. If the iCloud Documents & Data feature is turned on, you can recover older versions of iCloud documents as well as regular documents.
Open a window for the item you want to restore.For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. To recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail. To recover an iCloud document, open the document’s app, choose File > Open, then click iCloud to view the iCloud documents for that app.If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
From the Time Machine menu in the menu bar, choose Enter Time Machine. A message may appear while your Mac connects to the backup disk.
Use the arrows and timeline to browse the snapshots and backups.White tick marks represent snapshots stored on your internal drive (portable computers only). Pink tick marks represent backups stored on your backup disk. If a tick mark appears dimmed or grayed, there’s no backup available or the backup disk is not connected.
For more information about an item, double-click it.The windows in Time Machine behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, then click Restore. You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk.The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if the item was found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder.

I got this error while my mac was backing up to time machine: he backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Sanjeev's iMac.sparsebundle" could not be created (error (null)). Please could someone help

I got this error while my mac was backing up to time machine: he backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Sanjeev’s iMac.sparsebundle” could not be created (error (null)). Please could someone help

Has the backup been working ok??
If that is the case simply reboot the TC.. or if that fails, reboot the whole network, restarting in correct order..
modem.. wait 2min
TC.. wait 2min

I am connected to time capsule via wi-fi but air port says not connected and disk utility does not see it

I am connected to time capsule via wi-fi but air port says not connected and disk utility does not see it. I had it connected via ethernet and it still did not see it. Then i disconncectd it from ethernet and did the Wi-fi connection and am able to post this message but air port still does not see it.

Disk Utility will not "see" the Time Capsule, so no need to waste any more time on that issue.
but air port still does not see it.
Not sure what you mean by "air port" here.

Seagate 1.5 TB external hard drive and Disk Utility

I have a Seagate 1.5 TB external hard drive. Up until recently it was working fine. I noticed that things stored on it were starting to take longer to open up. There was a relatively constant clicking noise on it, not just when Time Machine was backing up my files. I finally ran Disk Utility and it said that the volume needed to be repaired. Ever since that time the hd is not showing up on my desktop or in my finder. I used the startup disk and went into disk utility but it doesn't appear there. When I turn on the computer in regular mode and go to disk utility it is there, though. When I click "Repair Disk", though, nothing happens. Any suggestions? Do I need to just erase the disk and reformat? I was able to use a program called Data Rescue to get the most important files, but I'd rather not start from scratch.

Hi jc
Can't say exactly what's wrong or what happened. But sense you have recovered your important files your best bet is to just reset the Partition Scheme and re-Format the drive instead of trying to repair it.
1. select the drives first icon and then click the Partition tab
2. under Volume Scheme: for current select 2 Partitions +(2 in your case, 1 for TM and 1 for other files)+
3. now adjust the size of partitions by clicking on and holding the little dot between the partitions. +(you will probably want to allocate at least 1GB for time machine and the rest for misc. files)+
4. click the Option button right below that and select GUID Partition Table, then the OK button
5. then under Volume Information Name the Partitions the larger Time Machine, the smaller whatever
6. then for Format: select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Apply button.
Optionally if you have say over 500GB of data on your Internal HD it would be best to set that 1.5GB up with just 1 Partition for Time Machine only and use a second drive for misc. files.
Now that you have the External HD properly Partitioned and Formatted open the Time Machine Preference and set it up to use the Time Machine Partition.
Dennis

Time Machine Volume and Disk Utility

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