Time Machine wants to do a full backup.  How do I point it to my previous backups so it will do an incremental backup?

I lost my wireless connection to my backup drive for a short time.  Now time machine wants to do a full backup.  It doesn't know that I have previous backups.  How do I point it to the previous backups so that time machine continues to do incremental backups rather than doing another full backup.

I did some more reading and I found that Time Machine would find the older backups once a new backup is completed.  The backup ended up being a little larger than previous backups (2.65 GB vs typical incremental backups of several MB's)  but when it completed, time machine updated the last backup time/date and the oldest backup time/date properly.  So I guess, I don't have a problem.

Similar Messages

  • HT1175 Time Machine wants to start with a new, full backup instead of using the existing one

    Hi, my Time Machine wants to start a new, full backup, instead of continuing with the existing one on the time Capsule.
    Looking a the Troubleshooting guide, I've found the following piece of info, which is, as 99% of the times with the troubleshooting guides, totally useless to resolve my problem...
    Message: Time Machine starts a new, full backup instead of a smaller incremental backup
    There are three reasons why this may occur:
    You performed a full restore.
    Your Computer Name (in Sharing preferences) was changed--when this happens, Time Machine will perform a full backup on its next scheduled backup time.
    If you have had a hardware repair recently, contact the Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store that performed your repair. In the meantime, you can still browse and recover previous backups by right-clicking or Control-clicking the Time Machine Dock icon, and choosing "Browse Other Time Machine disks" from the contextual menu.
    It should be noted (hence the uselessness of the guide) that:
    -I haven't performed ANY full restore
    - I havent changed my computer name
    - My computer has not had ANY repair, much less a hardware repair. Neither recently, nor in the 9 months I've owned it.
    Which puts me back to square one, with the marginal improvement that now I have a way of browsing my old backups.
    In the event I decide to start all over again, will there be a way for me to "sew" the two backup files?
    Or will I always have to go the silly way around?
    Anybody has any idea?
    Thank you for your time (machine/capsule, your choice;-)

    Hi John,
    no, that doesn't have anything to do with my problem.
    Just look at the image below.
    Time Machine thinks that the disk I've always used to do my backups has none of them.
    If I open the disk with Finder, obviously they are where they should be.
    It is even possible to navigate them as per the instruction reported above, but even following Pondini's advice #s B5 and B6 (which are more applicable to my problem) didn't solve the problem.
    Actually, not being a coder, I'm always scared of doing more damage than good when I have a Terminal window open.
    My question is: how is it possible that Apple hasn't thought of some kind of user command to tell the idiotic Time Machine software that a hard disk backup is a hard disk backup, no matter what?
    Estremely frustrating and annoying: I'm wasting HOURS in trying to find a solution to a problem that should not have arisen in the first place...
    Have a nice weekend
    Antonio

  • Suddenly there is not enough space on my 1TB Time Machine Backup HDD allthough my MAC HDD ist with 0,5TB only half full! Time Machine wants 2 TB space.

    My Backup HDD for Time Machine has 1TB, same as my MAC-HDD. The Mac HDD is only .5TB full. But suddenly Time Machine wants 2 TB of space for the backup, allthough I have erased all earlier backups and the HDD is empty. I've activated file vault, but some time ago, so I don't think that's the reason.
    I also excluded Windows 7 on Parallels.
    What happened???
    I'd appreciate some help.

    What version of OSX are you on?
    It sounds like you may have a directory problem on your internal HD.  Verify it, per #6 in Using Disk Utility.
    Just to be sure the TM drive is really empty, erase it, per #1 there.

  • I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.  I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore.  How do I do a new full backup?

    I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up. 
    I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore.  How do I do a new full backup?
    When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups.  It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
    Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
    So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure. 
    Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up.  Instead, it took 30 minutes.  That can't be right.  I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that.  Please help.

    Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
    tmutil compare -E
    Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
    Launch the Terminal 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 Terminal in the icon grid.
    Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
    The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
    Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
    Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
    Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
    At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
    Added:
    Removed:
    Changed:
    These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

  • Time machine, did it perform a full backup?

    A bit new to this. Upgraded to a new MBPro retina, mt lion from an older MBP using migration assistant.
    After all was finished and all the files were on my new machine (I did not use Time machine to migrate or backup to the new mac, I used migration assistant), I connected to time machine to perform a completely new backup of the new machine. I have 295GB to copy over. So, it seemed to take forever. I was on day 2, noticed all the threads about the slowness, but then the new machine froze. It said it was around 170GB through it. I could have also had a bit of interuppted internet too in that time. I also could not access the internet on the new machine at all by that point. So, I rebooted and I assume by finding the disc and starting again, it looked like it picked back up at roughly 125GB. that took about 6 hours or so. So, I think that roughly it may have gotten the whole 250 gb but not sure.
    Also, on my select disc option I have two listings for my time capsule now. Not sure if that makes a difference.
    My question really is how can I see what exactly went through? I have entered time machine but can't tell really if everything in those files copied. Can I at least see the size of the backup on time machine? I would even be willing to do a forced full backup again of all 295GB, but can't seem to see how to do that.
    I am a bit new to this part, so sorry if I am asking really obvious questions. I just didn't want to find out at a later time that I only have partial backups. Thanks for any advice.

    Launch the Terminal 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 Terminal in the page that opens.
    Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
    sudo tmutil compare
    You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
    The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
    Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
    Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
    Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
    Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
    At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
    Added:
    Removed:
    Changed:
    These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

  • I recently did a full reinstall from my time machine and now my MacBook pro won't back up to the time machine. It starts a full backup ignoring the original back up, can anyone help?

    I recently did a full reinstall from my time machine and now my MacBook pro won't back up to the time machine. It starts a full backup ignoring the original back up, can anyone help?

    Did you follow the instructions on the page linked below?
    OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system

  • Time Machine wants to do complete backup after restore

    I had to restore my system from a Time Machine backup because of a recurring problem. Now Time machine wants to backup my entire drive as if I'm actually starting over. I've got 300GB left on my backup drive and this complete backup will use 133GB of it. I have had to do this in the past but I don't remember that Time Machine wanted to do a complete backup before. Is there something I can do to prevent it?
    Thanks,
    Frank

    See User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
    Might find something helpful in the above.

  • Time Machine don't make a full backup

    I just started with Time Machine. I made my first backup with a USB cabel of my Mac book Pro (28 gb used) but the Time Machine folder is only about 22 gb - how can that be?
    Time Machine haven't come up with any errors but I think there is something wrong anyway.
    Do one of you have any ideas?
    Thanks in advance
    /Kudsk

    My first backup was with a usb cable but then I went wireless I wanted to use Time Machine but this time it made a new file called "Lars Kudsks computer_001b63b12c5a.sparsebundle" instead of using the "Backups.backupdb" folder. - How can that be?
    And my mac book pro only finds the external drive if I open the Finder window (and in some way show "Time Machine" where to find the external drive - if you understand what I mean).

  • Time Machine wants to back up everything again

    Hi. I use Time Machine and my Time Machine drive currently has almost 300GB free (the drive is 500GB total). Time Machine has been working fine and its last backup session was last night.
    However, today I noticed Time Machine was taking longer than usual (I could hear the external drive). I clicked on the Time Machine icon in my menubar and saw that it was "Cleaning Up Old Backups," which seemed strange to me because, as I said, I have almost 300GB free on my Time Machine drive. Time Machine continued to clean up old backups for over two hours.
    I started writing this message as it was continuing to clean up old backups. But finally, it stopped. However, it then proceeded to start backing up the entire contents of my hard drive to the Time Machine drive — 220GB. I then clicked "Skip this Backup" to make it stop.
    I don't know what happened — Time Machine worked fine last night and backed up incremental changes as usual — but now it wants to back up my entire drive.
    In the Finder, I looked at the contents of the Time Machine drive and the drive appears fine; I see all the previous backups.
    I just clicked on "Back Up Now" in the menubar to see if Time Machine still wants to back up my entire drive and it does.
    I think the only thing I can do is erase my Time Machine drive and then let Time Machine back up my entire drive. If I let it back up my entire drive without erasing the Time Machine drive first then the drive will have very little empty space afterwards.
    But does anyone know why Time Machine got confused and want to back up my entire drive instead of backing up incrementally?
    Thanks!

    The Pondini site is a wealth of information on how Time Machine works.  If you check out the faq page I linked, and also his troubleshooting page, you will see that there are several reasons why Time Machine cleared the space.  He also has instructions on how to do a "full reset" and how to safely delete files from Time Machine.
    Have a nice day.

  • Time machine says my drive is full, but it's not

    time machine says my drive is full, but it's not. it is a 298 gig external drive with 51 gigs available. my internal drive on my lap top (the one I am backing up) is a 148 gigs with 44 gigs available. the backup folder on the external drive is
    152 gigs.
    how can i fix time machine so it can figure out that the external drive isn't full?

    Lisa W wrote:
    Thank you both for your replies. Something is seriously wrong with a backup program that needs that much extra space! So much for incremental back ups.
    It doesn't, necessarily. We still have no information on what's going on with your situation.
    It's a back up for a laptop and I would like to connect it to the backup hard drive once a week or so, but from what I read time machine only works one way... for a computer to have it active all the time.
    No. It works BEST that way, but isn't required.
    That just won't work for me for many reasons. Most importantly, time machine slows up my computer and I have to leave it off to run my applications.
    Then something else is wrong. Again, without any details, we can't help you determine what.
    There is no setting to have it turn on in the middle of the night or once per week.
    Not in TM itself. But there is a free 3rd-party app that will do this, Time Machine Editor: http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/
    It would sure be nice if I could back up when I want. Seems like time machine is just one of those ideas that apple didn't think all the way through.
    You can. And TM works just fine for most people. There is something unusual in your setup, or the way you're doing things, that's causing your difficulties.
    Let's be clear: if you'd like some help with this, please answer my previous questions and download and post the messages from the wIdget.

  • Time Machine wants admin password when restoring in a standard account

    I've just migrated from a PowerMac G5 (running Tiger) to a new iMac. The PowerMac had a single admin account only. On the new iMac this has been migrated over and changed to a standard account and an extra admin account has been added.
    I've set up Time Machine with an external drive and it did the 1st full backup OK from within the standard account. However, every time I try to restore a file using Time Machine it asks for the name and password of an administrator! If I give the admin name and password the restore completes OK, but I can't stop it asking for admin credentials each time.
    I have checked that all files in the standard account are owned by that account (I used chown -R in Terminal to be sure!). So why does Time Machine want an admin password when restoring a file owned by the standard account back into the same standard account?!

    Peruse Best Practices and Setup new Mac; then, consider starting over, reinstalling the OS and using the setup assistant to do the migration, resulting in one admin user account and no conflicts. Then, reinstall any optional software so you're back to the factory condition and a properly migrated state.

  • TS3423 Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not s

    Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not start?

    sonjadg,
    you can purchase a replacement pair of grey installation DVDs for your MacBook Pro from either Apple or iFixit. If Startup Manager is only showing an OS X Installer volume, then it sounds like the Mavericks installer had a problem midway through its installation process. To fix this, you’re going to need to erase your internal disk and reïnstall your original version of OS X from the grey Mac OS X Install DVD, use Software Update  to get it back to 10.6.8 (presuming that your MacBook Pro originally came with Snow Leopard), and then restore from Time Machine.

  • I keep getting this error message and cannot back up my Mac Book Air to MacBook Air to Time Machine; "Air.sparsebundle" is already in use" how do I correct this?

    I keep getting this error message and cannot back up my Mac Book Air to Time Machine; "Air.sparsebundle” is already in use" how do I correct this?

    Restart the Time Capsule. Launch AirPort Utility and check for a firmware update.

  • New Logic Board - Time Machine wants to create a new backup

    This has me stumped. I just got a new hard drive and logic board from Apple. Plugged my external hard drive into my computer, turned time machine off and 'Entered Time Machine' to copy files over back to my computer. All worked as advertised.
    Once I had some of my files copied over, I went to turn time machine on. Time Machine informed me that I didn't have enough space on my hard drive (it wants ~94 gigs free and it has 30 free, but it should have been able to delete the oldest backup, free up some space, and we should have moved on). At no point did it ask me if I wanted to reuse the backup or not.
    I then wondered if it needed to get further along the backup process before prompting me to reuse the volume or not. So, I excluded like 98% of my hard drive and made the backup ~3 gigs. The backup happened, but now in my Backups.backupdb I have a MyComputer which contains all of my old time machine backups, and a MyComputer_2 which contains this last backup.
    I trashed the MyComputer_2 folder and 'Entered Time Machine'. It pulled from the correct place and I saw my backups trailing back into history, but apparently I no longer have permission to view the desktop folder as well as the other 'protected' folders in my backed up home folder. I repaired permissions on the off chance that it would fix it, but it didn't.
    Something is clearly broken, do the masses have any suggestions? I found multiple suggestions for how to deal with this under 10.5, but nothing about 10.6.
    Thank You,
    Zac

    zac850 wrote:
    But what if I want to reuse my backup? How would I go about doing that? I trashed the time machine plist file (the only one i found was "Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist") in the hopes that after a restart I would be prompted to reuse the backup. No luck.
    I don't know why you didn't get the "reuse" prompt, but that wouldn't prevent a new, full backup. You have a new internal HD. Even if it has the same name as the old one, Time Machine knows it's a different disk, so will back up everything on it. You cannot prevent that.
    Your first problem is, you didn't transfer things onto the new drive properly (Apple Stores often give bad or misleading advice on that.)
    And, you may have corrupted your backups by "trashing" the MyComputer_2 folder. Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks: +*never move, change, or delete anything in your backups+* via the Finder.
    Try to repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    If that works, your best bet is probably to do a full system restore, per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    You obviously had a problem with your Mac; depending on what happened and when, it's possible that damaged your installation of OSX and/or some of your data. If your last backup(s) were done after that started, the corruption may have been backed-up.
    If that's a possibility, and you do the restore properly, but it fails, try it again, but select an earlier backup.

  • Time Machine Has Never Performed a Full Backup that Can Be Restored From

    I've been backing up my system via time machine to a time capsule. I'm using the same time capsule for both my mac and my wife's. My wife's mac is backing up fine with numerous full backups that can be restored from. However, when I recently booted into recovery mode, I discovered there were no full backups of my mac that I could restore from. I've been using this time capsule for about a year now so I'm concerned as to why there are no full backups. I can enter time machine and see my docs and files...just no full backups. Thanks for your help.

    There was a bug in Mountain Lion that caused TM to fail to backup system files.
    See D10 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    Honestly if you want a reliable full backup get CCC or other clone type backup and do a disk image to a USB drive that you can then test boot from. Then use TM for incrementals..
    What the change to Maverick will bring I am not sure.. ??
    We went from big cats to card sharps in Westerns..
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maverick_(TV_series)

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