Trouble with time machine

I am having trouble with Time Machine. I keep getting several messages:  1.  Mac OS X can't repair the disk "Mona's I MAC"   2.  You haven't selected a location for Time Machine Backups.    
When I try to select a location there is nothing there to select and the time machine will not stay on.  I have an external back up "my passport" by WD.  Could this be full? 
Need help.

I was running backup instead of time machine until I saw snow leopard had time machine improvements. I'm very happy with the performance so far w/ snow leopard (OS X 10.6) time machine performance.

Similar Messages

  • Trouble with Time Machine (runs constantly). Erase and install?

    Trouble with Time Machine (runs constantly). Tried re-installation (equivalent of archive install) of Snow Leopard. Time Machine still unable to complete a back-up. Erase and install recommended at Genius Bar. Have backed up data to external HD using Super Duper. Should be a bootable backup. Last successful backup through Time Machine was 6/1/11. Not sure if I can access this back-up if I erase and re-install.
    Computer shipped with Tiger (7/2007). Have original disks. Now running Snow Leopard. So: erase HD, install Tiger, then update to Snow Leopard? Start-up from Tiger disks does not appear to work (starting up holding "C" key). Suggestions? Want very much to transfer data to new iMac, but do not want to carry bugs forward. Very nervous about erasing HD. And have the questions above about reinstalling system software.
    Advice desired! Thanks.

    Well if you can hold option and boot off the Superdupes clone and it works fine then you should be set to do what you need to do to the original boot drive.
    Disconnect all drives and c boot off the Snow Leopard install disk, use Disk Utility to Erase > format HFS+ journaled your internal boot drive.
    Quit and reinstall OS X Snow Leopard, setup (do not use Setup/Migration Assitant!) and update to 10.6.8
    When you setup the new install, use the same hard drive name and user name as you did before.
    Now the free iLife that came on the Tiger disks you won't get naturally, but you can pick them off the disk with the shareware program called Pacifist.
    install your programs from fresh sources, this way you don't get the "crap" from the older setup.
    Once your machine is up and going. Hook up the clone and transfer your user folders over manually. With iTunes just replace the whole folder. Because you kept the same user and boot drive name as before, the playlists should be fine.
    Once your all peachy, take the opportunity to clone this new setup to a external drive, label and disconnect.
    Make another clone for day to day, or week to week clone updates and your just a hold option boot away for recovery.
    You know Superdupes and Carbon Copy Cloner both have auto-scedualing/updating ability, so you can leave them plugged in and it will perform a update so your clone stays fresh and recent.
    But you should keep a clone timed back about a couple of weeks back just in case you install something bad and don't learn about it right away.

  • Trouble with Time Machine/Time Capsule try Backup instead

    Trouble with Time Machine preparing to download taking hogging your system followed by errors that don't make any sense even if you look at the console logs to try to figure out. Try Backup instead.
    Find the software here:
    http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/backup312.html
    It allows you to configure when to do back ups and specific data you want, and includes templates for configurations to make it easy. The only catch is you loose the Time Machine benefits of restoring an individual file easily. For me it gets around the issues w/ Time Machine hogging my system resources (Finder at 98% CPU cycles both cores) while "preparing backup", followed by strange failures that can't figure out, followed by more "preparing backup".

    I was running backup instead of time machine until I saw snow leopard had time machine improvements. I'm very happy with the performance so far w/ snow leopard (OS X 10.6) time machine performance.

  • Anyone having trouble with Time Machine?

    Mine will NOT finish any backup so it's constantly running the HD. THe onscreen panel will say
    "Backing up 132,386 items" and "492.2 MB of 492.2 MB" and it just keeps thrashing the drive.
    For hours, I mean.
    I told it to "Stop Backing Up" (on right click popup menu) and then I went into "Time Machine Preferences" and turned it off with the switch and clicked the padlock to lock it in the OFF position, and it's STILL RUNNING.
    The only way I can stop it is reboot, cold.

    Restart your machine if need be and turn it off. If you don't have any data on the TM disk other than TM, then reformat it (with case sensitivity OFF). If you have data on there, then just trash teh TM backup folder. DOnt' forget to empty trash. Turn TM back on and let it do it's thing. Don't browse the drive to see what it's doing; don't start modifying file sto test it out - just leave it be till it's done.

  • Having trouble with Time Machine

    I recently had to reinstall my system software. Now I am trying to restore things like my iPhoto Library, Address Book, Safari Bookmarks and settings etc
    But my Time Machine Back up won't seem to let me go any further back than yesterday ! What have I done wrong and how can I get to my old back ups ?
    HELP !
    Tom

    Restart your machine if need be and turn it off. If you don't have any data on the TM disk other than TM, then reformat it (with case sensitivity OFF). If you have data on there, then just trash teh TM backup folder. DOnt' forget to empty trash. Turn TM back on and let it do it's thing. Don't browse the drive to see what it's doing; don't start modifying file sto test it out - just leave it be till it's done.

  • Trouble with time machine Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5

    help me please, im going nuts.
    I have successfully manually backed up my macbook pro several times to a G-drive 750.  Usually once every 2-4 weeks.
    Now when I plug in the G-drive nothing happens (previously, a time machine user page would open, say something like do you want to use this G-drive as back up, and i proceed to a manual backup.  BUT NOW when i plug in the Gdrive nothing happens, so I open time machine and I want it to give me the page to selcet Gdrive and back up now, BUT when I open time machine (Gdrive still plugged in), it goes into time machine  shows me new screen with desktop and multi layers of desktop behind it with options at bottom buttons to Cancel, Today (now), Restore.  Im almost certain this page is for retrieving old back ups as the right margin has dates of prior backups.
    How do I get Time machine to recognize G-drive and allow me to backup (Ive done this before, many times,) but now I cant find the proper window/page that gives me options to selct Grdive and backup?
    Thanls for helping
    Danny

    Mac Basics: Time Machine

  • Missing backups/lack of space with Time Machine

    Hello,
    I am having trouble with Time Machine since I updated to Mavericks.  Time Machine tells me that I have insufficient space on my external hardrive (1TB) even though in Time Machine it only has one full backup.  If I Get Info on the drive it says Capacity 999.72GB, Available 71.37GB and Used 928,35GB. 
    In Finder I used to be able to delete older backups if needed but generally Time Machine did what it was supposed to - it overwrote old backups.  I can no longer find the files to delete and TM only says I have one full backup.
    How can I uncover these, what appear to be, hidden files? Something must be there as I have no space left!
    The external hard drive is 2TBp partioned, I also seem to have lost all of the data from the non-TM partition, which is not great either.
    Please let me know if you need any other information.
    Thanks in advance for any help.

    Do you use virtualization software, such as VMware, Parallels, or VirtualBox?
    The virtualization software creates a large virtual-disk container that is constantly changing, so it has to be backed up every time Time Machine runs. That will quickly fill up any backup destination.
    You should exclude the virtual-disk file(s) from your Time Machine backups. To do that, click the Options button in the Time Machine preference pane. Back up the files on the virtual disk from within the guest system, using a native backup application.
    A compromise solution is to create a "snapshot" of the virtual machine in the virtualization software (not a Time Machine snapshot.) That will give you a single large file that never changes and only has to be backed up once. All the subsequent changes will be stored in a new file that's initially much smaller, but will grow over time. You should still exclude that file from TM backup. If you ever need to restore the VM from Time Machine, you'll have a working setup, which will make it easy for you to restore the rest of the data from within the guest system.
    Another common cause of large TM snapshots is native OS X disk images. If you store a lot of data on one or more writable disk images, they should be in "sparsebundle" format, which will be backed up much more efficiently than any other format. Also be aware that disk image files are not backed up at all while the image is mounted. Make sure you unmount the image often so it can be backed up. If you ever restore, you will, of course, lose all changes made since the last backup. Consider eliminating large read/write disk images from your workflow, if possible.

  • Trying to undo an inadvisable system config with Time Machine...

    Basically, I'm trying to restore my entire Leopard system back to the way it was at 10am this morning.
    Today, I made a lot of unconventional configurations to my apache2 that I'm not comfortable with - now, I want it gone but I'm having trouble with Time Machine.
    After clicking Time Machine, I scrolled back to 10am this morning (before I did all the stupid stuff) and selected the entire "Macintosh HD" from the finder window and then clicked "Restore" - but strangely, it is asking me what folder I would like to dump my restore into...I don't want to dump it into a folder, I would like it restored.
    Is there something I misunderstand about Time Machine?
    Will it not restore my entire system like that?
    Thanks

    RogerMac wrote:
    Will it not restore my entire system like that?
    No, you can't restore the volume you're running from.
    To restore your entire system, see #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

  • Trouble backing up external drive with time machine

    I have a small USB stick that I use to store important documents but documents that I don't access very often.  I have an additional 500 GB hard drive that I use for backing up with Time Machine.  I want Time Machine to backup both my internal hard drive (Macbook Air 2011 Lion) as well as the small USB stick. I've searched the forum and discovered that I needed to reformat the USB stick, which I did (it is now Mac OS Extended).  The USB now appears in the list of excluded drives in Time Machine preferences, which I removed.  Thinking that Time Machine would be backing up my USB stick now, I backed up and then turned the computer off.  The next day, I looked at the external drive, and it didn't seem to have a backup of the USB.  I entered Time Machine and the USB is "greyed out" which means it wasn't backed up. I've retried backing up several times by including the USB in Time Machien preferences, but it seems that when I click "save" it doesn't actually save because when I open Preferences up again, the USB stick is in the list of excluded items again.  Have I done something wrong?  Any imput would be greatly appreciated.

    I don't use Time Machine but my view is that it is too dangerous for sticks which may be removed - I understand that it may delete previous backups if it discovers that the stick no longer exists.
    You could:
    manually copy the stick to your main drive from time to time
    use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup the stick
    use a utility to mirror the stick to your main drive

  • Back-up with Time machine is soooo slow.

    First back-up with Time Machine. I have a lot of pictures but not much else - but bout 80 GB. Not using encryption.
    The back-up has now run for 24 hours - and has only managed to back-up 8 GB - reminaing time estimated to 8 days !
    Back-up by wire to external hard disc (USB 3.0 for HD and 2.0 for Mac)
    Is this normal?
    Anything I could do to speed it up?

    You want Lion and MacBook Pro forums.
    Yes TM is slow but it depends on the drive interface and disk drive and whether they have trouble with Mac or Lion (or ML)
    I prefer to clone and use one partition for that, say 200GB out of your (1.5TB?) drive and use the rest for TM.
    How to clone your system:
    http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html
    http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html
    TimeMachine 101
    https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
    http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
    http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/
    Time Machine stops backing up to external disk
    Mac 101: Time Machine  Get to know the ins and outs of Time Machine.
    Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues

  • Using network drive with time machine.  IS IT POSSIBLE?

    There are lots of discussion on using network drives with time machine. I have not been able to make them work. Could somebody tell me if this is possible

    Time Machine does not back up to network drives, except Time Capsules or USB drives connected to an Airport Extreme, or a drive on a Mac running Leopard.
    Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733
    You may find some "hacks" that might make it work, in some cases, to a degree. But use them at your own risk.
    First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.
    Second, you're risking a future update preventing it from working, and perhaps rendering your backups useless.
    If you still think this is a good idea, do yourself a favor before you bet your backups on it: be sure it really works, at least for now:
    1. Get a copy of CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! or the like, and make a full bootable clone of your internal HD, on an external disk. Test it by booting from it. Then reboot from your internal HD.
    2. Let TM do it's first, full, initial backup.
    3. Attempt a full system restore (like you'll need when, not if, your internal HD fails), via the instructions in item 14 of the of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
    Again, even if it works today, tomorrow is another day . . .

  • I can't back up with time machine to WD my book live

    I can't back up with time machine to WD My Book Live home network disk. I get this error : The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features.

    This is more a network problem than a disk error..
    Reboot.. the network.. restart in correct order.. modem router /TC.. clients with 2min gap.
    If you have trouble reset TM and redo it.
    See A4.. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • Can't back up with Time Machine.

    Hi, Im having troble with time machine. When I tried to back up today this error occured.
    The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.
    Repaired back up with both Disk Utility & Drive Genius. Disk seems to be working fine. But, it won't back up.
    Any help will be appreciated.

    This is more a network problem than a disk error..
    Reboot.. the network.. restart in correct order.. modem router /TC.. clients with 2min gap.
    If you have trouble reset TM and redo it.
    See A4.. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • Retrieve iPhoto files from external drive with Time Machine

    I can retrieve all other files with Time Machine (including photos in Pictures) but not my iPhoto pics. Have read a few suggestions but having trouble following.
    Thanks in anticipation, Ernest.

    If you are trying to restore individual photos saved in iPhoto, you cannot do that. Instead, you need to restore the whole iPhoto library.
    To prevent the lose of the most recent photos, go to the folder where you have got your iPhoto library (by default, Pictures) and copy it to another folder. Then, in that folder, open the Time Machine app (in /Applications/Utilities), navigate through your backups and restore the iPhoto library you need

  • Can I do it with time machine?

    I have an older mac with snow leopard and I just bought a new AIR with Lion. Is there a way to transfer everything including programs that are work related on to the new machine? Can I do it with time machine?

    The Macbook Air doesn't have Firewire ports, it has USB only, or wireless ethernet. (You can also use ethernet wired through a USB-ethernet adaptor but I think this is rarely done.)
    I did this Migration when we got a new Macbook Air last year. The Apple Store people told me that they strongly recommended doing this Migration to the new Macbook Air through USB with the Time Machine backup. They said this was the most likely approach to be complication-free. They also told me that when someone brings in an older machine to them to be migrated to a new one (they offer this service for $75), they even create the Time Machine backup right there to use in the transfer because it works so smoothly.
    I did it the way they recommended, USB between old Time Machine backup to USB on new Macbook Air. It took a few hours (200 GB to transfer) and was completely trouble free. I did have to reinstall the printer drivers for a Canon printer/scanner. Otherwise, everything was there and we didn't even have to enter serial numbers for MS-Office or Adobe software like photoshop.
    So that's my recommendation to you for the Macbook Air.  Wireless ethernet is another option but it's more complicated and more prone to issues, and it's much slower.
    One thing you should be awae of -- certain older software runs under "Rosetta" under 10.6, but Rosetta is gone under 10.7, so those programs won't work under 10.7. One example is MS-Office 2004. On the other hand, Office 2011 works fine under 10.7.

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