Wireless backup with Time Machine WITHOUT Time Capsule

Hi All,
I was lucky enough to get a 1Tb external drive for Christmas and was wondering if there was a way of backing up my Macbook Pro wirelessly? I have both an Intel iMac running Snow Leopard and a 2008 Macbook pro, and a Sky wireless router. Is there anyway to either connect the hard drive to the router and backup both computers through this, or connect the hard drive to the iMac and get the laptop to backup through this wirelessly? I've tried searching for answers, with minimal luck, can anyone help?
Thanks!

Requirements to use Time Machine
Time Machine is only available with Leopard (10.5.x)
1. External FireWire or USB 2.0 drive
2. Time Capsule
3. Drive shared by a Mac running 10.5 or later using File Sharing
4. Drive shared by a Mac running 10.5 Server
5. SAN volume managed by Apple's Xsan file system
A TM drive must be partitioned with either APM (PPC) or GUID (Intel) and formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
So the answer is, No you cannot use TM to backup to a drive connected to the router you have. You can connect the drive to one of your computers and use TM to backup to the drive from the other computer. You must have File Sharing enabled on the computer to which the drive is connected. You must connect to that computer from the other computer using Connect to Server from the Finder's Go menu. When you do you have to log into the other file sharing computer as a registered user - use the admin account username and password for the admin account on the file sharing computer. Once connected the remote drive will appear in the TM preferences as a potential backup drive.
Note that even if your router supports 80211n protocols wireless backup is very slow - much slower than even USB. You will also need to leave the file sharing computer running all the time (no sleep because during sleep there is no wireless) and the other computer must stay connected in order to allow the regular hourly TM backups to occur. TM only backs up one computer at a time, but it will backup both computers independently.

Similar Messages

Macbook backs up with time machine to time capsule, imac won't

I'm going nuts, and have spent hours trying to fix this. My family moved from PCs to macs a couple of years ago- we've got three Macs having varying success backing up with time capsule. 1. Our macbook backs up with time machine to time capsule- it even backed up today. 2. Recently attempted to back up the imac for the first time- it starts backing up (maybe 3%) but stops and I end up getting an error message-it has never backed up- 3. The macbook pro has backed up many times but recently has not backed up. It gets the same error message as the imac when time machine is used to back up to time capsule. As an added treat, i attempted to backup the imac with time machine to an external hard drive, it began backing up, stopped and I got the same error message: "time machine error unable to complete backup an error occurred while copying files." Little help!

dilagan wrote:
i attempted to backup the imac with time machine to an external hard drive, it began backing up, stopped and I got the same error message: "time machine error unable to complete backup an error occurred while copying files." Little help!
Yes, that message is not some of Apple's best work.
Most likely, there's a damaged/corrupted file that Time Machine is choking on. See #C3 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If you're getting a different message from the Pro, see #C2.

I am changing to a larger hard drive on my Mac. Can I copy the Aperture library from my backup disk running Time Machine without loosing anything?

I am installing a larger harddrive on my Mac. Can I copy the Aperture library from my backup disk running Time Machine without loosing anything? I am getting help migrating everything else on to the new harddrive, but since copying the 350Gb Aperture library takes a lot of time, I am planning to do that part myself.

I found the following information on Time Machine help about restoring Aperture library from TM
Restoring Your Aperture System
If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
Restoring Your Aperture System
If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
Connect the hard disk drive that contains the most up-to-date vault to your computer and open Aperture.
Choose File > Vault > Restore Library.The Restore Library dialog appears.
Choose the vault you want to use to restore your library from the Source Vault pop-up menu.If the vault doesn’t appear in the Source Vault pop-up menu, choose Select Source Vault from the Source Vault pop-up menu, navigate to the vaults location in the Select Source Vault dialog, then click Select.
Click Restore, then click Restore again.

Time Machine says Time Capsule Disk unavailable

     I have the exclamation point in the menubar icon and Time Machine says Time Capsule Disk unavailable even though I have backed up to it many times before. I tried unpluging/plugging in the TC, but this did not solve the problem. Any ideas?

      However, I did have a problem periodically with computers not recognizing the TC disk before I had unclicked the "Enable file sharing" box, so I might still end up using your advice if this happens in the future.
There is a bug or several of them.. losing the disk is one thing the new 7.6.4 firmware is supposed to fix.. my deeply held suspicion is that Apple are using all of us as beta testers.. as lots of people are having trouble. But who knows it may finally fix this bug.. we are awaiting confirmation. ie people saying it is now fixed.. rather than since loading 7.6.4 my TC is now dead.. or disappeared .. or broken.. or no longer has wireless output.
Lets say maybe they fixed a bug.. and added some more.
     The reason I had unchecked the "Enable file sharing" box is because I have Mountain Lion Server and wanted to use port mapping on the TC to point to my computer as a File Server. To do this I went into Airport Utility and in Network pane tried to add File Sharing to the Port Settings. However, this conflicted with the "Enable file sharing" box from the Disks pane. Do you know of a way to have time machine backups to TC but also run a File Server from a computer networked with the TC using port mapping? Thank you for any guidance.
You only need the ports forwarded to the server to get outside access.. ie remote wan access.. Did you have wan access to the TC checked.. that will cause a conflict with AFP .. since it cannot be forwarded to multiple destinations at once.
If you do not have WAN access checked then you should be able to check "enable file sharing" since that is local lan..
Try it and tell me what happens.. I have never tried the combo you are using.
I would try simply using a different method to access if that doesn't work.. eg BTMM should work fine to the Server without needing ports forwarded in the TC.. as long as the TC is the main router.. and this whole issue is only because the TC is the main router.
You can also do it with vpn.. which is more robust and more business/pro method to access a server remotely than AFP.

How to restore from Time Machine WITHOUT install discs using a second Mac

It's a question that is asked repeatedly all over the web by Mac users like me that bought in to Time Machine (TM) on the assumption that if their computer died one day it would be a piece of cake to restore from it, only for that day to come and then to be told "ahh, okay the first thing is to get your computers install discs..." (loud crashing sound of world falling around ears).
I've never been able to afford a new Mac and both of my machines were bought second-hand. Neither came with Leopard (both have Tiger and have been upgraded to Leopard via the net). This was never supposed to be a problem as I've been backing up with TM. However it appears that Tiger discs are as much use as an inflatable dart board when it comes to using TM. So I've been faced with the possibility of having to spend £130 (about two hundred Pres Sheets, Yankees) on the Leopard install discs just so that I can have the option of restoring from TM. Bonkers.
However after much nashing of teeth, a very long weekend learning all sorts of things about 'Target Mode', 'Single User Mode', 'Verbose Mode', 'Open Source 9' etc the following solution has worked without the need to go out and buy those over-priced discs...
What you will need:
1 broken Mac requiring restoration
1 second donor Mac running Leopard (or Snow Leopard so long as the broken Mac can run it)
1 firewire cable with the correct fitting at either end to attach both Macs together
1 Time Machine backup
Note: The following is for when you have given up trying to boot from your hard drive. In my case I couldn't boot in to Safe Mode etc. so was forced to format my drive and re-import everything. If you've read this far I'm assuming your at the same point as well and have tried everything else that's out there first.
Also - both my Macs are Power PC's so can't run Snow Leopard, so I can't say 100% this will work with SL (Intel) machines. From what I've read Snow Leopard will work with this procedure too, but if you've found differently please feel free to add your experiences below...
STEP ONE: Format the corrupt Hard Drive or replace with a fresh HDD
*Link the two computers with a firewire.
*If you're replacing your HDD, remove your corrupted hard drive from the 'broken' machine and insert a new one.
*Power up the broken Mac whilst holding down the 'T' key. This will start it up in Target Mode and you'll get a nice firewire symbol floating around that machine's screen.
*Power up the second 'healthy' Mac. This will be our 'donor' machine. When it starts up after a few seconds you will see the hard drive of the broken Mac appear on the donor Mac's desktop.
*Using your donor Mac's 'Disc Utility', format the broken Mac's hard drive (now's the time to partition it etc. if you want to).
STEP TWO: Clone your donor Mac
Your broken Mac is no longer broken and now needs a new OS. But you don't have the discs, right? Well get this... you can clone your donor mac on to your machine, even if they are totally different i.e. a laptop on to a tower.
*Again using Disc Utility, click on your donor Mac's hard drive. The restore tab appears as an option.
*Click on restore and drag the donor Mac's hard drive that contains the operating system in to the Source box.
*Drag the newly formatted hard drive on the broken Mac in to the Destination box.
*Click restore. Your donor Mac's hard drive will now be 'cloned' on to your no-longer-broken Mac. Once this is done, eject the first Mac's hard drive from your donor Mac's desktop. You no longer need the donor Mac.
Ta daa! Your machine now starts up happy and smily again. Time to restore all that stuff that's been sat on your Time Machine drive...
STEP 3: Restore from Time Machine using Migration Assistant
This is the really clever part that prompted me to write this piece in the first place. Time Machine IS accessible without those Leopard install discs you don't have. You need to use something called 'Migration Assistant'.
*Start up your machine as normal and you'll see it is an exact clone of the donor machine. Weird huh?
*Attach your Time Machine hard drive. It will show up as an icon on the desktop and because of it's size, you'll be asked if you want to use it as a Time Machine backup. Err, NO YOU DON'T! Click 'cancel'.
*Open Migration Assistant (if you can't find it just type it in to Finder and click). There are three options, the middle one being to restore from TM or another disc. Yup, you want that one.
*Migration Assistant will now ask you what you want to restore in stages, firstly User Accounts, then folders, Apps etc. It will even import internet settings
And that's you done. Let Migration Assistant do it's thang... altogether I had about 140gb to restore, so it wasn't exactly speedy. This wasn't helped by the fact that my TM hard drive is connected via USB (yes, I know). Just leave it alone and it'll whirr happily away...
Before I go - you don't have an option of when to restore from, and will restore from the last Time Machine save. At least then you should be able to access TM and go 'backwards' if you need to.
Also - for a Mac expert, the above will be up there with 'Spot Goes To The Farm' in terms of complexity. However, for the rest of us the above is only available in fragments all over the net. By far the most common response to 'how do I restore from Time Machine without install discs' is 'you can't'. If I'd found the above information in one place I could have saved a lot of hair pulling and swearing over the last couple of days, so forgive me for sharing this workaround with the rest of the world. Meanwhile your expertise will come in very handy for the inevitable questions that will get posted below, so please feel free to help those people that won't be sure if this solution is the right one for them. I'm no expert, I just want to help people that were stuck in the same situation (and looking at the web, there's a LOT of them).
Hope this is of use to someone, thanks and *good luck*!

Most maintenance and repair, restore and install procedures require the use
of the correct OS X install DVD; be it an original machine-specific restore/install
disc set or a later retail non-specific general install disc set.
By having an unsupported system, perhaps installed via an illegal download or
other file-sharing scheme, where no retail official discs are involved and the
initial upgrade was done by other means outside of the License Agreements,
you are asking us to discuss a matter of illegal installation and use of a product.
There are no legal complete OS X system download upgrades online; only bits
that are update segments to a retail or as-shipped machine's original OS X install.
+{Or an installation where a previous owner had correct retail upgrade discs, &+
+chose to not include them with the re-sale of the computer it was installed in.}+
However, to answer the initial question. To get and use an externally enclosed
hard drive in suitable boot-capable housing, and get a free-running Clone
Utility (download online; often a donation-ware product, runs free) you can
make a bootable backup of everything in your computer to an external HDD.
This is the way to make a complete backup to restore all functions to the computer.
The Time Machine has some limits, in that it can restore only that which it saves.
It does not make a bootable clone of your entire computer system with apps and
your files, to an external drive device. A clone can. And some of the clone utility's
settings can also backup changes to an external drive's system; if that other drive
is attached to the computer correctly.
Carbon Copy Cloner, from Bombich Software; and also SuperDuper, another of
the most known software names you can download and use to clone boot-capable
system backups of your computer's hard disk drive contents, are often cited.
However you resolve the matter of the running OS X system in your computer,
derived from what appears to be questionable means, is part of the initial issue.
Since you do need to be able to fix an existing installation by unmounting the
computer's hard disk drive and run the computer from the other (install disc or
system clone) while it is Unmounted; and use the correct Disk Utility version to
help diagnose and perhaps be able to fix it. You can't use a Tiger version Disk
Utility to fix a Leopard installation, and so on.
So, the situation and replies as far as they can go (since the matter does
constitute an illegal system, if it was arrived at without correct discs) is a
limited one. And file sharing of copied Mac OS X (and other) software is
also considered illegal.
And, one way to get odd malware and unusual stuff, is to get an unauthorized
system upgrade from an illegal source online. You never know what's inside it.
The other reply was not a personal attack; the matter is of legal status and as
you have a product with a questionable system, the answer is to correct it.
And if you want to save everything in your computer, make a clone to a suitable
externally enclosed self-powered boot capable hard disk drive. With older PPC
Macs, that would best be to one with FireWire and the Oxford-type control chips.
However that works out...
Good luck & happy computing!

Time Machine and Time Capsule don't seem to work well together?

Reposted.
I get the feeling there are some serious problems with the combination of Time Machine and Time Capsule.
This is extremely disappointing, as the idea of a centralized backup device on the network (instead of disks attached to each and every computer we have running Leopard) seemed like such a good idea and a good way to supplement our tape-based backup that takes place with Retrospect.
In reality, it's a disaster on both Intel and PowerPC systems. All systems and the Time Capsule are fully up to date with software updates from Apple. I have two 1TB Time Capsule units. It goes something like this:
1. I have a few systems (mainly Intel) that work perfectly with the Time Capsule. There are no complaints and no issues at all. These systems just quietly run their backups as they should. They are the definite minority--maybe one or two have worked properly.
2. I have some systems that complain from time to time (mainly PowerPC) but will back up with a little encouragement. These too are the minority.
3. And finally, I have systems that are nothing but pain. These are both Intel and PowerPC systems. They are also the majority of the systems I have. The most common problem is sudden loss of the credentials needed to access the Time Capsule hardware--a user will be going along about their business when the Mac OS asks for the Time Capsule user name and password--after it's already been supplied and backups have been running. This should simply never ever happen.
Another charming behavior I've seen is corruption of the sparse disk image file that each computer creates on the Time Capsule. Time Machine will complain that it can't perform the backup, and examining the disk image file with Disk Utility shows it to be severely damaged. Turning off Time Machine, deleting the corrupted sparse image file, and starting over fixes it. For a while.
Finally, there are the machines (again, both Intel and PowerPC) that just can't seem to actually get through the first backup run. They either go so far and can't continue, or never actually manage to get started. I've checked the disks in these computers and found no problem with the hardware or file system. The installations are fresh and fully up to date.
Meanwhile, I have computers running Leopard with directly attached disks configured for use with Time Machine. One is a QuickSilver that isn't even officially supported by Leopard, with a Firewire attached disk. It doesn't skip a beat. The other is an Intel Mac mini being used with Mac OS X Server 10.5.4 and a USB external hard drive. These machines just do their thing, and I never have to babysit them.
These problems with the Time Capsule have been so severe that I've just given up on most of the computers and shut off Time Machine entirely. We have tape backups that run over the week, so it's not a huge loss. But that's not what really made me throw up my hands and say "enough"...no, that was the speed. Even with just one computer backing up to it, the Time Capsule seemed terribly slow. Watching the progress indicator was just painful.
I put in a word about all of this to my independent Apple dealer, and they say I'm definitely not the first to complain about some or all of these problems. In fact, they told me they were going to set up a test lab in their shop to see if they could duplicate these findings. I have no doubt that they can.
There are a total of seven computers backing up to one Time Capsule. They all store maybe ~40GB worth of data including the OS. There are about six computers on the other. Because of the way the network is laid out, the Time Capsule is connected to a Gigabit switch (and that is the only thing it's connected to). It cannot be used as the router, although I know Apple suggests this. The Airport section is disabled--I have no need or desire to use it. Some computers link up at 100 megabits, others at 1 gigabit. There are no network problems--we have no problems moving large amounts of data across the same network to our tape backup machine.
Is anyone else seeing these kinds of problems? Am I doing something wrong or expecting too much from Time Capsule?

I may be on to something. The Time Capsules I have live in a telephone equipment room that is indoors but not directly air conditioned or heated. It doesn't ever get too hot to be comfortable in there--the highest I've ever seen the temperature was 80 degrees (F). Most of the time the temperature is between 60-78 degrees.
I happened to touch one of them the other day while it was in use, and I noticed that the casing was hot to the touch...not dangerously so I suppose, but much hotter than I would have expected.
So I turned a small fan on both Time Capsules and have left it running. And I've noticed that not only do backups seem to complete more quickly, the reliability is also better. I am going to try some of my most troublesome computers once again just to see what happens.
I know there is a fan pointed at the hard drive in the Time Capsule, but I can't see how it does much in the way of cooling things down. In my opinion, it's just surrounded by too many heat producing devices to do much good...after all, not only is there a 7200 RPM hard disk in there, but also a 500MHz Marvell processor and radio set.

Time machine and time capsule

I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard and installed Time Capsule. I connected a Maxtor external drive to Time Capsule to enable me to access my photography library wirelessly. I have a 2nd external drive that direct connects to my Mac Book Pro. I have found the following problems:
1. Time machine shows backup files for the external drive that connects to my mac, however they are old files no longer on the drive. It does not backup the current drive but does indicate backup was successful. I would also like time machine to backup the external drive connected to time capsule.
2. I tried to delete the folder containing the old files and received a message saying I did not have permission.
3. I am experiencing problems entering Time Machine. It takes a long time to connect (including when I am connected via an ethernet cable) and after a few minutes I receive a message asking if I still want to enter time machine. Once I do have access, I typically only see mail and am not able to access folders.
Help is appreciated! Thank you.

rgoodman wrote:
1. Time machine shows backup files for the external drive that connects to my mac, however they are old files no longer on the drive.
Where does it show the old files, on recent backups in the "Star Wars" display?
It does not backup the current drive but does indicate backup was successful.
Are you sure it's not backing-up the new drive? Try the procedure in item #E3 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip.* It's for a slightly-different situation, but should confirm which disks were backed-up on each backup.
If you're sure the new external is not being backed-up, and is not on the +Do not back up+ list, do a "full reset" of Time Machine per item #B3 of the Troubleshooting Tip.
I would also like time machine to backup the external drive connected to time capsule.
Sorry, it won't. TM will only back-up internal or directly-attached FireWire or USB drives.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip.*

Access the local Mac's Time Machine without its external USB HDD?

Hello.
Is it possible to access the local Mac's Time Machine without its external USB HDD? Or is the external backup HDD required? This is assuming Mac OS X 10.8.5. I am not sure if the newer versions can do it.
Thank you in advance.

Eric Root wrote:
Those are local snapshots. The best thing to due is backup Time Machine and then access it.
Local Snapshots on Portable Macs
How do I access these local (one/1)s without the external HDD connected? I do not get the TM icon option in my top menu bar.

HT3275 Using time machine first time and the estimated time says 25 days. Wow! Am I able to use my Mac when Machine is doing its first backup?

Using time machine first time and the estimated backup time says 25 days. Wow!
Am I able to use my MacBook Pro when Machine is doing its first backup?
I can't be without my computer that long. I would have withdrawal symptoms (very painful).

Something WAS radically wrong, but I don't know what it was. However, using Apple's disk utility, I decided to totally erase the Seagate, which was "pre-formatted" for Mac and PC.
I first saved the Seagate software to my hard drive just in case I needed it later (which I don't),
By the way, the first time I tried Time Machine it stalled after about 3 GB. The second time I got the message saying 25 days backup time. I stopped that backup after receiving your response.
After reformatting (extended - journaled) I made my third attempt. Success!!! It took about 8 hours, but went through without a hitch..
I bought the SeagateI because a momentary power failure messed up my 1 TB LaCie external, which was divided into 2 partitions. The power glitch completely fouled one partiton and it will not reformat no matter what I try. I did not do a full reformat because I did not want to lose the backup on the good partition. Now that I have a good backup I plan to do a full 1 TB reformat (without partitions) on the LaCie.
Thank you for your response, which really did help me.

HT201250 Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive? I'm trying to restore lost photo files and I see them listed in Time Machine (without use of an external drive), but when I try to restore I get a error code 36.

Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive? While I was transferring photos back and forth from a thumb drive something went haywire and my IPhoto was wiped clean! When I click on Time Machine I see all the dated pages (without an external storage drive connected), go back to a date where all my photo files are there, click "restore", and I get the message: "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in file cant be read or written (error code - 36)"

Thanks so much Terence. I tried some of the fixes from that page, but then discovered the suggestion to compress the Time Machine Back up of the original library and transfer it as a zip back to my computer as detailed here:
http://pondini.org/TM/E9.html
That worked like a charm. I really appreciate it.

How to delete a file from time machine without entering time machine mode ?

Is there a terminial hack or a third-party app to delete a backed up file from the finder and at the same time from time machine without having to enter time machine mode, and is there a shortcut to do so ?

Please post your code using code tags (click on CODE above the text area, when posting)
response.setContentType("application/octet-stream");Why octet-stream? Set the correct mime-type.
String disHeader = "Attachment; Filename=\"filename\"";The filename should just be the file's name. Not the complete path to the file! This will tell anyone where the file is located on the server. It's also inconvenient because by default,the browser will suggest it as the name for the download.
Your way of writing to the output stream is just plain wrong. See this snippet (picked from [http://balusc.blogspot.com/2007/07/fileservlet.html])
        BufferedInputStream input = null;
        BufferedOutputStream output = null;
        try {
            // Open streams.
            input = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(file), DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
            output = new BufferedOutputStream(response.getOutputStream(), DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
            // Write file contents to response.
            byte[] buffer = new byte[DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE];
            int length;
            while ((length = input.read(buffer)) > 0) {
                output.write(buffer, 0, length);
            // Finalize task.
            output.flush();
        } finally {
            // Gently close streams.
            close(output);
            close(input);
        }

Can you restore a slideshow in iPhoto using Time Machine without restoring the entire iPhoto library?

Can you restore a slideshow in iPhoto using Time Machine without restoring the entire iPhoto library?

Afraid not.
Regards
TD

When I enter time machine (on Time Capsule) i see the stack of screen shots and the time line. However, when I roll over the mouse pointer, the time line does not activate. The cancel button does not get me out of the app: have to alt cmd esc. Ideas?

When I enter time machine (on Time Capsule) i see the stack of screen shots and the time line. However, when I roll over the mouse pointer, the time line does not activate. The cancel button does not get me out of the app: have to alt+cmd+esc. Ideas?

I have never seen it but then I run SL which is much more reliable than Lion..
See
http://pondini.org/TM/E4.html
Check the master guru of all TM problems.

Wireless Backup with Time Machine using Fritzbox

I have
Modem: Fritzbox 7170
Macbook white
Lacie External HD 500GB
On the back of the Fritzbox is an USB access..I would like to connect my Lacie External HD to the Fritzbox and want to split the HD into
1 part to store my music/photo's on
2nd part to use for Time Machine backups
Currently I have connected the Lacie to my Macbook using the USB cable, but I wonder if I can do it wireless by using the Fritzbox.
Message was edited by: Jaap74

Thanks for your reply. I’m not sure if I understand what a NAS is….My Modem is a Fritzbox 7170 Fon WLAN. It has a USB host for USB printers or USB mass storage media in the network. The manual says it supports FAT and GAT32. So I think I can use it for storage….but not for backups with Time Machine. That would be so convenient…not having to plug in my external HD every time I want to make a backup.

Trying to backup two computers via Time Machine on Time Capsule

Hi, everyone.
I have read about a similar problem that I am having, but the forums were all from 2009, so I don't know if anything has been updated or figured out since then.
I bought a Time Capsule yesterday, and I set-up a network as well as the Time Machine configurations. My iMac running 10.6.8 did just fine backing up; however, my Macbook running 10.5.8 did not.
When I try and run a backup with Time Machine, I get this error:
"The network backup volume could not be mounted because there was a problem with the network username or password."
After that error, I get this error:
"Keychain error -25299 occured while creating a System Keychain entry for the username "XXX" and URL "afp://[email protected]//XX".
I have searched different forums for hours, and so far, based on what I have been reading, I have done this:
1. Deleted anything having to do with the TC in the keychain and trying to restart the backup. This made me have the same errors again.
2. Reset the PRAM.
3. Repaired disk permissions.
4. Repaired keychain permissions.
Finally, I found on a forum that I could set up guest access on the network and backup my Macbook as a guest. This is what I am doing, now. However, I saw that starting with OS X 10.6, there was some kind of update for Time Capsule and Time Machine in regards to using Time Capsule for multiple computers.
My question is, since 2009, has there been a fix for this? I know some people suggested updating firmware, and if this is the fix, what do I need and where do I get it? Also, would it be possible to purchase OS X 10.6.8 for my Macbook and update it to potentially solve the problem? Is updating the Operating System hard? I'm not completely computer illiterate, but I am not great, either. If I update the Operating System, will all of my files and applications remain on my Macbook?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Well, there is a way to reinstall without erasing the drive. But it may not fix the problem. You may need to start from scratch. In any event you should make a backup of your system then you do not risk losing anything but some time.
But the real problem I see is that it is the computer that is the problem not the TC which seems to work fine with your iMac.
Since you are using Leopard you can do the following. In my opinion I would not opt to preserve user accounts and network preferences since your problem may well be in your user account.
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Wireless backup with Time Machine WITHOUT Time Capsule

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for