What should I see when I look at a Time Machine backup?

As far as I can tell, Time Machine seems to be working. When I click on the Time Machine icon in the dock, the display comes up and shows me a number of windows. There appears to be one for each of the previous backups. However, the windows are completely empty. The are no contents in any of the windows. Is this what I should expect? I discovered that clicking on the icons at the bottom of the window display will bring up the contents but it doesn't seem like I should have to do this. I'm trying to determine if this is normal behavior or if there is a problem with my installation.
Thanks!
Roger

try mapping the IP address of the computer you want to share files and folders at home -- click on Start > Rum > type \\IP_ADDRESS_OF_THE_COMPUTER_AT_HOME > click Ok -- all files and folders that are shared on that computer should appear
ex. \\192.168.1.50
| isolate! isolate! isolate! |

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Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? Only one Sparse Bundle, same name.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? There is only one sparse bundle but when I enter time machine I don't see my historic backups. I use a synology DS212 for my time machine. Started a new backup which is 218gb but it says 618 gb is occupied therefore it looks like 2 or 3 backups are still on the disk. Before my NAS issues the last backup was in 2014. As you can see there is a second sparse bundle from 2012. Not sure what that is.

This is an old message now, but what happened to me similarly was:
I had a major computer crash and through complicated pathways ended up reinstalling (Mavericks) as a new user (long story).
At least I had good Time Machine backups on an NAS drive (Synology DS212j), or so I thought - when I started Time Machine up again, the old backup file was gone, replaced by a new one using my "new computer" name. The old file was gone both by directly mounting the NAS drive and by clicking "Enter Time Machine".
It's like I had {OldShareName}.sparsebundle and then it was replaced by {NewShareName}.sparsebundle, all of the old info vanished.
(I have spent a week finding old files elsewhere and have completed a satisfactory self-restore. It pays to "archive" [my own variation of] as well as "back-up".)
My belief is that if this were a wired-netword-drive, e.g. plugged right into my iMac with a USB cable, then the old file would have remained.
But this is an NAS drive, connected directly to my Airport wireless router, and I don't know the significance of the fact that it stores its Time Machine backups as "sparsebundle" files rather than simply as plain(er) files.
As usual when things get complicated with computers (not just Apple computers) there was never a warning message. Something like "YOU'RE ABOUT TO DELETE A TIME MACHINE BACK-UP FILE!!!" would have made my life a lot simpler.
BTW, I did try a "restore from Time Machine" option the first thing I had my "new computer" (old hardware, 2009 iMac) up and running, using Migration Assistant, and it ran for many hours and then failed in the wee hours - what that has to do with anything I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that I have a question about this other than "why do these things happen to me?", but it's a warning. Apart from that I've been very happy with the stability and reliability (but not the cost or set-up complexity) of NAS vs. directly-cabled external drives.
Charles

What does it mean when a box says my Time Machine back-up disk can't be found?

I clicked on my Time Machine icon on the Dock and a box popped up that says my Time Machine back=up disk can't be found. What does this mean? What should I do about it?

Have you been using Time Machine up until now?
If yes, then check that your Time Machine backup disk is properly connected and mounted. It should appear on the desktop. If it is indeed there, then open Time Machine Preferences and make sure that the disk is designated as the backup disk.
If you haven't been using Time Machine until now, check that a disk that is ~ 3 or 4 times larger than what you plan to back up is connected and mounted, and go into Time Machine prefences and designate it as your backup disk.

HT201250 How do I find out what portable drive was the drive I used for Time Machine Backup?

Hi, I have 10.7.4 and need to figure out what drive I was using for Time Machine Backup. I have three drives and I have connected each of them to my macbook pro, but I get an error, "Time Machine Error, The backup disk is not available" when I hit the time machine icon on the top of the screen and the "backup delayed" prompt. If I try Back up Now I get message, "Time Machine could not complete the backup. Back up disk is not available." I am trying to figure out what the time machine back up would actually look like as a file on the drives but I don't see a folder/file name Time Machine. If I enter Time Machine I can see in the far right column, in purple, the last back up date (Sept. 12, 2012), but when I hit it nothing happens. In the Time Machine preference box the select disk has, in red and to the right, "Delayed" with an "i" within a circle, and the option indicates, "Next backup: when disk is connected."
I know I have a years worth of backups on one of the three drives, but I can't figure out how the heck to find them or how to determine what was the last drive I used for the backups within Time Machine. Help please.

Hi, I have 10.7.4 and need to figure out what drive I was using for Time Machine Backup. I have three drives and I have connected each of them to my macbook pro, but I get an error, "Time Machine Error, The backup disk is not available" when I hit the time machine icon on the top of the screen and the "backup delayed" prompt. If I try Back up Now I get message, "Time Machine could not complete the backup. Back up disk is not available." I am trying to figure out what the time machine back up would actually look like as a file on the drives but I don't see a folder/file name Time Machine. If I enter Time Machine I can see in the far right column, in purple, the last back up date (Sept. 12, 2012), but when I hit it nothing happens. In the Time Machine preference box the select disk has, in red and to the right, "Delayed" with an "i" within a circle, and the option indicates, "Next backup: when disk is connected."
I know I have a years worth of backups on one of the three drives, but I can't figure out how the heck to find them or how to determine what was the last drive I used for the backups within Time Machine. Help please.

What is the difference between an archive and a time machine backup?

I would like to save a lot of video to an external hard drive and have the drive fill up until it is full and then I'll use another drive to continue to save video. I do not want to backup my entire hd on my mac, just the video. Then when I want to access the video I want to be able to fetch it off the external drive and view/edit it in imovie.
How do I do that?

If you want the videos directly available to iMovie, do the move within iMovie.
Open the Event Library if it is not already, then click on the Hard Drive icon (highlighted in blue on the screen shot).
Then drag your events from the iMovie Events that are under your Macintosh HD onto your external hard drive in the Event Library list. There is some more information in the iMovie Help, under Lesson 7, for organizing your event library.
When you import video from a camera, you can choose to store it on the external hard drive instead of the internal.
Be careful not to select the external hard drive when you are looking for clips. Nothing bad will happen, but iMovie will load all of the video on the drive into the clip window. That takes a bit of time if the drive is full.
Now, you should back up that external in some way since you don't want to lose all your video if the drive crashes. I have been considering a RAID setup with mirrored drives, but I haven't looked that deeply into the idea. Right now, I just copied from one drive to the another as a stopgap solution until I implement a better, incremental backup system.

Migration Assistant not seeing OS X Server time machine backups

Hello,
I use my OS X Server box as a time machine server, to which my other computers back up, just like you would to a time capsule. However, I now want to use one of those backups to restore to a new computer. When I try to use migration assistant to do this, it sees my server machine, but it says there are no backups on it. I noticed on the hard drive the server uses to back up the clients, the sparse bundles are saved under a "Shared Items" folder, unlike what happens if you do time machine backups connected directly to an external disc with USB, where the backups directory is at the top level directory.
Any ideas what could be going on here? As it is it looks like no time machine backups managed by my server machine are usable by migration assistant.

In the sidebar of a Finder window on the client, select the icon representing the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) At the top level of the volume are folders with these names, among others:
Applications
Library
System
Enter Time Machine and select the most recent snapshot, which is behind the frontmost window. Are those folders present in the snapshot?

Mavericks Migration assistant does not see time machine backup of older Lion Mac

Used to have a Macbook Pro. It was stolen (circa July 2014). Luckily I had up to date Time Machine Backups. The Macbook Pro was completely up to date running the latest OSX Lion (circa July 2014) when stolen.
Bought a new Macbook Air just now (Mar 2015).
Plugged in the old Mac's Time Machine Backup Disk, Migration Assistant doesn't see the old Mac's Backups.
So I setup the new Macbook Air without restoring.
Plugged in old backup drive, am able to navigate to old Mac's Time Machine Backups.
Tried running Migration Assistant many time , but still it does not see the the old Mac's Time Machine Backups. (although they continue to show in the drive if I navigate to it)
Pls help so I can migrate the old Mac to the new Mac!!!!

Thanks Turbostar.
Well, I think there should be solution to use TIME CAPSULE restore as it should I mean I bought Time Capsule because it is easy to use and I really do not want to solve any issues or make any workarounds.
I think APPLE should resolve this ASAP. Meantime maybe anybody knows any trick about this issue?

What Files are Saved during a Time Machine Backup??

Hi,
When I carry out a time machine backup, what files are saved?
I have just plugged in my external hard drive to carry out a back up and its 56GB!, my last TM backup was only 2 weeks ago and I haven't downloaded that much data!
Many Thanks
Chris

Sorry, that wasn't typed very well!!
The TM backup is 56GB
;o)

What should I do when I see this error message: iPhone cannot be synced required disk cannot be found?

What should I do when I try to sync my iPhone 4s with a MacBook and get the error message: "iPhone cannot be synced...required disk cannot be found?"

Close "iPhoto" if it is open. Open the "Pictures" folder and right-click on "iPhoto Library." Select "Show Package Contents." Right-click the "iPod Photo Cache" folder, select "Move to Trash" and sync your iPhone. The error message should no longer appear.
if that doesn't work,
uninstall itunes and download the lastest version

I just installed a larger hard drive, and used my Time Machine Backup to transfer my info back to the new hard drive. When I open Iphoto, my thumnails are there, but they aren't linked back to the actual photos.I see the photos in my HD. What should I do

I just installed a larger hard drive, and used my Time Machine Backup to transfer my files back to the new hard drive. When I open Iphoto, my thumbnails are there, but they aren't linked back to the actual photos. I see the original photo files in my HD. Is there a way to link the Iphoto thumbnails back to the original files?

Use the Firewire cable and t boot the old Mac's hard drive to the new Mac's desktop and transfer your entire iPhoto folder.
Use Disk Utiliy to erase'format HFS+ Journaled your TimeMachine drive and use the free Carbon Copy Cloner and clone your new boot drive to the external, it's hold option bootable.

What Should I See Entering Time Machine?

I am using a Lacie 500 gig external drive to retain Time Machine backups. Everything appears to work properly. On entering Time Machine, I see only the contents of my 'Desktop' (except the Mac HD and Lacie HD) and nothing else.
Is this as it should be, or should I be able to access files/data not on my desktop?
In Time Machine settings, I have excluded backup of the Lacie drive itself, otherwise I have confirmed everything is actually backed up by examining the Lacie HD backup itself.
What if anything am I missing here?

With no open Finder windows and all other apps hidden, what I see when I click the TM icon in the dock is a column-view Finder window with Desktop selected in the sidebar, and receding windows backward in time. Is that what you see?
The if I click another sidebar item, such as my home (user) folder, or Documents, I see the contents of those directories, also with receding windows.
If you click the backward arrow in the Time Machine view TM will take you back to the last time there was a change in the selected directory, one change at a time, per click.

HT201210 what should i do when message say the ipad could not be restored. an unknown error occured (2003)

what should i do when message say the ipad could not be restored. an unknown error occured (2003)

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3694#error3194
Unable to contact the iOS software update server gs.apple.com
Error 1004, 1013, 1638, 3014, 3194: These errors may be the result of the connection to gs.apple.com being redirected or blocked. Follow these steps to resolve these errors:
Install the latest version of iTunes.
Check security software. Ensure that communication to gs.apple.com is allowed. Follow this article for assistance with security software. iTunes for Windows: Troubleshooting security software issues.
Check the hosts file. The restore will fail if there is an active entry to redirect gs.apple.com. Follow iTunes: Advanced iTunes Store troubleshooting to edit the hosts file or revert to a default hosts file. See section "Blocked by configuration: (Mac OS X/Windows) > Rebuild network information".
Try to restore from another known-good computer and network.
If the errors persist on another computer, the device may need service.

What should i do when i forget my reset password

What should i do when i forget my reset password??

With 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option Key until the Install Disk shows up) until the apple shows up. That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window. Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Reset Password. After resetting the password use Startup Disk from the same menu to choose your hard drive for startup and restart.
With 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 if you don’t have an install disk check this article. http://www.macyourself.com/2009/08/03/how-to-reset-your-mac-os-x-password-withou t-an-installer-disc/
If you're running 10.7 Lion check this article
http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/24/reset-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-password/
With 10.8 or 10.9 restart holding the Command and R keys, then from the drop down
of actions, choose Terminal. When Terminal opens type:
resetpassword
and press enter.
You will get a reset password window from which you can select the user you want to reset, the admin account in your case. Type a new password twice, do not do anything with the hint box. Click Save, then confirm you want to do this reset. Then click apply to the user's home directory, and click the apple in the left corner, and choose Restart.

HT201413 what should i do when the iPhone blocked ?

what should i do when the iPhone blocked ?

Blocked how? What are you seeing that informs you of this condition?
GB

I install windows 7 on my mac pro. and participate in windows 7 to 50gb 2 disk. but now i cannot enter my mac. only windows is appearing what should i do. when try enter my mac want me to format rest of disk. how can i reinstall my mac

i install windows 7 on my mac pro. and participate in windows 7 to 50gb 2 disk. but now i cannot enter my mac. only windows is appearing what should i do. when try enter my mac want me to format rest of the disk. how can i reinstall my mac?

If you use Windows program to partition the Hard Drive, the Apple partition gets destroyed.
Windows does not understand it is a guest on your Mac, and throws garabge wherever it pleases.

What should I see when I look at a Time Machine backup?

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