Why won't my encrypted time machine backup mount?

I'm using Time Machine to back up to an external usb drive. I formatted the drive as guid partition table and checked the encryption box when setting up Time Machine. After the initial backup Time Machine won't perform is backup schedule unless I mount the drive manually. It seems to unmount the drive everytime I log out and it just won't mount again.
Thanks for any suggestions!

Learn Time Machine - it is a total backup system and you have to use the TM program to access backups - see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US for instructions - you do not directly acces sthe TM backup - you use TM to access it
There is a Time Machine forum for TM questions
LN

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Encrypted time machine backup freezes OS X

Been having fairly regular problems with Time Machine backup to a LaCie 5Big 10TB Thunderbolt drive where OS X 10.8.5 will completely freeze during a backup.
I've formatted 2 of the 5 drives as 2TB Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) in order to perform alternate encrypted Time Machine backups. The other 3 are part of a striped 6TB logical drive. I connect the backup drives about once a week for the past few months and have encountered a freeze during backup a few times. I currently have a situation where merely attempting to mount one of the Time Machine volumes causes OS X to freeze. Initially the mouse cursor starts to stutter as it is moved around the screen and then it completely freezes. No mouse cursor, no clock, nothing. Have left for a couple of hours and still nothing so have to reboot. There are absolutely no messages in the console for the time of the hang e.g. time of most recent hang 12:55 PM which is when I attempted to mount the drive. Most recent message before the restart 12:49:16 PM.
The thing is, sometimes the backups work fine for weeks at a time, other times I get these freezes with the same symptoms as above and the only thing that seems to work is reformatting the volume and starting again, although this can take a few attempts to work. I've run a verify disk and currently everything currently seems OK (although can't run for the backup volume as it won't mount, and I've previously had to restore the boot disk due to Disk Verify failing on the boot disk).
Has anyone got suggestions as to what could be causing this? Options are faulty LaCie 5Big, Time Machine encrypted option, OS X bugs or file corruptions.

Unfortunately the 5Big only has Thunderbolt connections and I only have the cable it came with as it is my only Thunderbolt device.
The secure erase single pass of the disk failed with the following error:
Secure Disk Erase failed with the error: Securely erasing data to prevent recovery failed.
In the console logs there was the message: Kernel: disk5s2: data underrun
I ran another erase but without the secure option and immediately got the error:
Disk Erase failed with the error:
Unable to write to the last block of the device
and in console:
Kernel: disk5: data underrun
Going to give it another go as I'm not sure if this is as symptom or a cause as I've recently had similar errors on the boot disk (internal SSD) and "Disk0s2 I/O error" occurring in the console. I had to restore the system from backup to resolve that particular issue.

Do encrypted Time Machine backups work across a network?

I see that Lion offers the option of encrypting TIme Machine backup volumes, which seems like a Good Thing. After reading up a bit on this, it seems clear that it will handle the situation where the backup volume is physically attached to the machine being backed up. However, I've gotten mixed signals about whether this will work with networked clients. I have a server with a TM volume, and a number of machines on my network use that server and its disk for TM backups. Can I encrypt the TM volume in this situation, and will Time Machine be able to back up from those clients to the server? I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work, but, like I said, the overall story isn't completely clear. Thanks for any advice!

There's nothing in the Help or other documentation I can find.
Just that OSX can't do it from the Mac that's doing the backup.
There was a similar post the other day; I asked the poster to let us know whether it worked, but haven't gotten an answer yet. So if you try it, please post back with your results.
I do agree with coocoo, though -- if you want to do this, keep "secondary" backups, not encrypted, just in case. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for some suggestions.

Just bought a Macbook Pro. I want a clean install so won't use a Time Machine backup but how can I install the software I bought from Apple Store? can I just delete it from the old machine that is going to someone else?

Just bought a Macbook Pro. I want a clean install so won't use a Time Machine backup but how can I install the software I bought from Apple Store? can I just delete it from the old machine that is going to someone else?

The ne
The new machine has Mavericks which is fine. And I will leave it as is. I don’t want anything from my old machine other than 2 apps that I will need on the new one. I want to be able to install those apps that I bought from the App Store onto my new computer. I assume Apple doesn’t want me to have the apps installed on 2 machines at the same time so I wonder if just uninstalling them from my old machine will release them for re-install on the new one.

New Hard Drive Won't Recognize My Time Machine Backup

I maxed out the space on my MacBook hard drive, so I bought a new 1TB hard drive to replace it. (I keep a TIme Machine backup of my computer on a external Passport) I installed the new hard drive, loaded up Snow Leopard and then it did the whole "Welcome" thing and asked if I wanted to set up the new hard drive. I went through the process and it asked if I wanted to transfer information to the new hard drive. I selected "transfer information from a Time Machine Backup" but when I hit "continue", it doesn't show my Passport, only "Macintosh HD". It's weird. I tried plugging the Passport into a different computer in the house, and it shows up fine.
I'm dead in the water right now. I have a new hard drive in my laptop with OS loaded on it, but no way to transfer my data from my Time Machine Backup to it! Any ideas why it won't show the Passport Drive?
Thanks - I'm really stuck right now.

Does it boot into Open Firmware with CMDOption+of ?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642
reset-nvram (press Enter)
set-defaults (press Enter)
reset-all (press Enter)
Have you done a PRAM reset...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement

I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard. It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday. Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set. It failed. I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again. No luck. I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care. Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do. (A quick sideline here: I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't. It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same).
Back to the issue. When I called apple care they pretty much had me try the same thing again with an earlier back up set. To my knowledge, it didn't work. I say this because it looked like it was working and when I came back to the imac later, it had restarted and once again booted to the OSX install. (The boot disc is still in the imac). When I tried to boot from another location, one did not show up to boot from so I assumed that the data didn't transfer and it forced another restart. So, I tried something else. I tried to re-install the snow leopard OSX without using the restore function. That appeared to work and then when the machine restarted it asked if I had another mac and I chose the option to get the files/apps/etc. from my time machine backup. The computer chose what I can only assume is the most recent backup set (It chose what I know to be a subfolder that appears under the dated backup folder - Macintosh HD--which btw is confusing seeing as that's always the name of the HD on the imac). I again stepped away from the computer so it could do its thing for two hours. When I returned, I was back to the MAC OSX screen that asks you to choose a language. There were no more options to choose DISK UTILITY or RESTORE FROM BACKUP, etc. When I clicked on English it took me right back into the screen where you say whether you have another Apple that you want to transfer data from. I realized that the imac must have restarted and I assumed maybe it was because the boot disk was still in - except how do you get the disc to eject? I also initially assumed that the backup had somehow failed again and triggered a restart. I tried to choose the option to just set up the machine without transferring data and when I got to the choose a name for your HOME folder message I tried to enter the same name I had it as before and it wouldn't allow me to do so, saying that that name was already in use. I also tried a different name and that didn't work either - got the same message (I assume if it is not the same name that it won't sync up with the time machine data from the backup set). So, I almost tried the "select time machine backup" option again until I looked at my HD space. Clearly, there is space that has been used. HD space was 997 at the start and now it's 636. My initial thought is to somehow get back into the setup area where I can use disc utility and erase the whole thing and then start over but 1) I don't think it's going to work even if I could get back there 2) I have no idea how to get this thing to reboot into that mode 3) I can't get the boot CD out to even try to restart to see if this thing did what it was supposed to, SO NOW I AM TOTALLY STUCK! I have not called Apple Care back because quite frankly they were useless the first time. I have a call into the repair guy but who knows how much help he will be. In the mean time, I have a million things to do and a computer that isn't working - Whoever said Apples never have issues needs to be seriously censored!
A few other notes: I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly. It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running. Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning.
One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted. Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it.
If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful! I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed. Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it. I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one.

I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive.
This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Non-constructive rants or complaints
But here is my experieince:
Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on.

Restore encrypted Time Machine backup: password failure

hi,
I upgraded my mid 09 MBP with an SDD and created a Fusion Drive maintaining my HDD in the optical bay. After rebooting and wanting to restore from a Time Machine Backup, I'm prompted with a password request of the disk image, being the password I used to encrypt the TM when creating it.
No matter how I enter the password, it says it's not correct and I can't proceed.
Finally I created in a fresh setup of Mavericks. Once I'm in my Mac, When going to Time Machine, I see my Time Capsule drive on the network, and entering the encryption password, I can indeed access my Sparse Bundle.
I have to say that my password contains a space at the end of the password (it slipped in by copying the password by accident) and I think it might be the reason it's not accepting it as the valid password when in recovery/setup mode.. Either way, I've tried the password with and without the space so...
In Disk Utility, I've had the disk listed but the change password feature is disabled..
I've looked thru different forums, but no luck so far.
Anyone who has had the same issue or has a clue on how to either change the encryption password or how to install the full backup I have in my sparse bundle, it would be highly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.

Hello:
This thread seems to answer your question:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12949561#12949561
Barry

Encrypted Time Machine Backups on a shared drive

Hello community,
the following situation:
I have an iMac and a MacBook Air, both running Mountain Lion.
Both use FileVault 2 encryption of the whole MacOS partition.
The iMac is connected to an external USB hard drive, which I use as Time Machine volume. I've set up Time Machine to encrypt the backups on the external volume (it took abou 2 days until the whole drive was encrypted).
So far no problems. No let's get to the tricky part.
I want to the MacBook to use the same USB drive for its Time Machine backups. However I don't want to connect the volume directly via USB. Instead I have shared the USB volume on the iMac. And now I want to use this shared drive as my backup drive in the MacBook. (Hint: I want to use the same partition both for the iMac backups as well as for the MacBook backups.)
I can mount and select the drive on the MacBook. However Time Machine on the MacBook asks me, if I want to envrypt the backups. Which of course I want to do. But the USB drive and therefore the entire mounted volume is already encrypted (from the iMac).
Now I'm scared to opt in for encryption on the MacBook because I'm afraid the MacBook will again encypt the whole volume. Will that be the case? If so, what will happen on the iMac afterwards? Or will Time Machine recognize, that the volume is already encrypted (encryption passwords are the same of course)?
Or is it not necessary to activate backup encryption on the MacBook since the drive is already encryted? Or will the MacBook somehow manage to write unencrypted backups on an encrypted volume?
I would really appreciate any help to get the backups up and running. In short: I want both Macs to backup to the same drive. And I want both to encrypt the backups (with the same password).
Regards

meistermilchreis wrote:
(Hint: I want to use the same partition both for the iMac backups as well as for the MacBook backups.)
That's usually not a good idea; for best results, they should be in separate partitions. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #4 for an explanation, and #22 for setup instructions.
I can mount and select the drive on the MacBook. However Time Machine on the MacBook asks me, if I want to envrypt the backups. Which of course I want to do. But the USB drive and therefore the entire mounted volume is already encrypted (from the iMac).
Backups made over a network are placed in a sparse bundle disk image, separate from the backups made directly. The disk image is like a disk-within-a-disk; it has it's own partition map scheme and format. So it will not be encrypted unless you tell TM to do so.
In short: I want both Macs to backup to the same drive. And I want both to encrypt the backups (with the same password).
Since the backups are separate, they must be encrypted separately. You may use the same password for both if you want.

Entering password for an encrypted time machine backup

During a recent hard disk failure. I have had to restore my system from a time machine backup.
I keep this backup on an encrytped external drive.
I booted into recovery mode, erased the drive to fix the hard disk errors (it wasn't repairable).
Then I tried to mount the encrypted drive for recovery.
Everytime I entered the password, a 50 character string with all character types it failed to unlock.
I tried the disk on another mac and it unlocked fine.
Then I noticed that the recovery mode defaults to US Input Source and I have a UK macbook (2007).
So I changed the input source to British.
Still the password doesn't work.
Then I noticed that once you click unlock the password entry box defaults to US again and doesn't let you change it.
Fortunately UK keyboard isn't very different to US and I figured out that the only difference was to use Shift 3 for # rather than option 3 that we normally use on the UK keyboard.
Is there a work around this? Is it a known issue.
Glad I don't have an arabic or russian keyboard :-)

File a bug report with Apple.

Macbook won't boot after time machine backup

I installed a program on my Mac that was causing some problems so I decided to do a time machine restore. I booted into recovery mode, selected restore from time machine backup and let it run. It finished completely but it gets stuck at the startup screen. I get halfway on the loading bar and it does not progress past there. I've waited up to an hour.
I am running Yosemite on a mid 2009 macbook. I am using a SSD and I know with trim enabled it sometimes won't boot up but I disabled it via terminal.
I've also ran disk utility on my HD and on my external HD. I'm getting no errors on both.
Anyone have any ideas?

If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data, then reinstall the OS.* You don't need to erase the startup volume, and you won't need the backup unless something goes wrong. If the system was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you may need the Apple ID and password you used.
If you use FileVault 2, then before running the Installer you must launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the FileVault startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another icon with the same name. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar and enter your login password when prompted. Then quit Disk Utility to be returned to the main Recovery screen.
There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
If you installed the Java runtime distributed by Apple and still need it, you'll have to reinstall it. The same goes for Xcode. All other data will be preserved.
*The linked support article refers to OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite"), but the procedure is the same for OS X 10.7 ("Lion") and later.

Why are excluded folders in Time Machine Backups?

I have my top-level Virtual Machines folder excluded from Time Machine Backups. Yet, they are there, granted, only back to the top of this month, 4 days ago, but, there they are.
Why is this?

No, it has been in the exclusion list since June 2013 when I got the AirPort Time Capsule. (and even before that, when I got VirtualBox)

Migration Assistant won't see my Time machine backup disk

Hi,
I've seen some other discussions but they apply to slightly different situations and turn out to be too complex for me to follow. My situation is this. My Dec 2008 Macbook running Lion just died. Not sure what the problem is but it seems to be the hardrive. It will take me a while to get it fixed and in the meantime I have a farly new mac mini running Lion.
I also have been making Time Machine backups to an external drive. I read that I could migrate content from a time machine backup and I connected the backup to my mac mini and launched Migration Assistan (MA), seleted the option to migrate from a Time Machine backup. MA is stuck trying to find my disk even though it shows up in Finder. This is the screen I'm talking about http://screencast.com/t/AC0OiVzxx
I'm hoping there is the equivalent of a little on/off switch that I'm not seeing and you can direct me too.
How can I get MA to see my Time Machine backup disk? Thanks for your help.

sorry, i don't know what else it could be then. if you have another external drive you can try doing a full system restore from the TM backups onto that drive and see if MA will recognize that drive and migrate from it. other than this there is always manual migration. slow and tedious but it can be done. see this link for help with that
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507

The disk won't eject after Time Machine backup

Each time im doing a time machine backup, the external drive does not eject, the icon becomes pale, but remains on the desktop. But when I did not just make a backup I can eject it normaly.
My disc contains two partitions, one with the backups. When my problem occurs the first partition is ejected but not the Time Machine one.
I tried to reformat the partition but the problem persists.
My hard drive is a GDrive mobile usb 1 TO purchased at the apple store.
Did someone has a solution?
Thank you !
PS; sorry for my bad english

Actually i found a potential solution, in majority of time it solved my problem, but some times (less frequently then before) it doesn't work And the disk still not eject. In the timemachine Settings, did the principal switch button is on "yes" or "no" ?
I was backing up manually, and I had put the switch to NO, and i think that was what cause the problem... When I Switched to YES, my disk ejected correctly for 95 % of time.
Try to turn this switch ON , if she is OFF.
I dont think that the problem is the age of the drive, mine is a 2014 one and i had this problem too.

Encrypted Time Machine Backup on a Network Drive?

Hi
I have a server (Mac Mini) in my LAN that I'd like the various Macs to be able to use it as the backup location, but I'd like the backups to be stored in an encrypted state.
Any way I can do that?
If not with the standard OS X options, perhaps with some clever combination of other tools? (e.g. use encfs to trick OS X into thinking that the TM destination is normal whereas it's actually encrypted)
I tried a few things but no luck so far - would love to hear from someone how actually figured this out and has such a setup actually working.
Thanks!

meistermilchreis wrote:
(Hint: I want to use the same partition both for the iMac backups as well as for the MacBook backups.)
That's usually not a good idea; for best results, they should be in separate partitions. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #4 for an explanation, and #22 for setup instructions.
I can mount and select the drive on the MacBook. However Time Machine on the MacBook asks me, if I want to envrypt the backups. Which of course I want to do. But the USB drive and therefore the entire mounted volume is already encrypted (from the iMac).
Backups made over a network are placed in a sparse bundle disk image, separate from the backups made directly. The disk image is like a disk-within-a-disk; it has it's own partition map scheme and format. So it will not be encrypted unless you tell TM to do so.
In short: I want both Macs to backup to the same drive. And I want both to encrypt the backups (with the same password).
Since the backups are separate, they must be encrypted separately. You may use the same password for both if you want.

Encrypted Time Machine Backup Lost in Mountain Lion Install?

Hi,
Operating 10.7.4, I make use of 'time machine' encrypted backups to an external HD. If I wipe the HD and do a fresh install of 10.8, will I lose the encrypted backup? Of course I know my passwrd and I don't rely on the keyring, but if there is some certificate exchange between OS and TM, there is a possibility that installing a fresh OS, I will lose access to the disk? Is there any official documentation that addresses this concern?
Thanks, cheers.

vance.corkery wrote:
Hi,
Operating 10.7.4, I make use of 'time machine' encrypted backups to an external HD. If I wipe the HD and do a fresh install of 10.8, will I lose the encrypted backup?
No. It's password only. You can even access it on a different Mac (Lion or ML) with the password.

Why won't my encrypted time machine backup mount?

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