Time Machine Error " Volume Read Only "

Every once in a while I get an error message saying Time Machine Volume is " Read Only " and am not allowed to do backups.

I can make it go away by restarting the computer.

Any ideas on what the problem is?

I'm wondering if the HDD Time Machine resides on is the issue.

MyMac8MyPC said:

We get the same 'read only' error with Time Machine. Thank God we have SuperDuper

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Well I am happy to say whatever the issue *was*, it no longer is an issue.

Still using the same hardware, but no more 'read only' errors.

My guess is along the way a software update resolved the issue.

MyMac8MyPC said:

If that were true then no one else would be getting it. Check the Apple forum, it's one of the most common TM errors

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Interesting because I have not gotten in, well since about a week after I made the initial post.

Oh wait .... I did make one hardware change.

As I recall the errors occured while using a 500 Gig external drive.

I did upgrade the drive to 1 Terabyte, so there you have it.

We have other machines using TM with no errors at all. They also got 1 Terabyte drives at the same time.

I've even gone so far as to test the TM backups ... 'accidently' deleted folders and used TM to restore them

MyMac8MyPC said:

Well that's spooky... we have a 500 gig drive

However I don't see how logically the size of the drive would matter. Still I'll keep it in mind when trying to resolve this issue

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No I do not beleive the issue was the drives size.


It was either the physical drive itself, or perhaps the way it was formatted.

We are happy now though - we have 4 systems all backing up using TM and have had no issues to report other then the initial post.

Once we got to a point where there was no issue with the one system we moved others on board one at a time.

Caribbean Mac said:

We have experienced 2 major disasters with TM and its incompatiblities and bugged backup software

The most incredible and not reported TM shortcoming is that it doesnt support incremental backups after doing the first complete backup and it wastes band width doing these complete backups again and again

APPLE YOU REALLY SCREWED UP THIS ONE! FIX IT FAST

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And these are " major disasters " ?

In my mind a " major disaster " with a backup is, well, you have no backup and your hard drive fails ... or you have a backup and both fail.

As far as it not dong incremental backups, are you saying it takes the same amount of time to do a backup every time it runs?

Like if it takes 45 minutes to do an initial backup, it takes the same amount of time for each subsequent backup??? If so I am not seeing that.


ONE THING is for certain, because of Time Machine more people are now backing up more computers than ever before. I don't see this as a bad thing.

Caribbean Mac said:

Please dont oversimply this TM bugs and lack of features! it is not if people are doing or not backup now or before...

It is a major mess this TM slowness and its incompatibility with MS Office 2008 12.1.1 (or viceversa) as well as there arent any TM incremental back up tools available anywhere in TM or are there?

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Some Questions come to mind?

Maybe you could try an experiment.

1) Try starting with a fresh disk - wiped clean.
2) Point TM to that disk and do a backup - since the disk is clean it will do a Full Backup. ( Time the backup and record how long it takes. )
3) Now create/modify a single document. Command TM do do a backup now. ( Time this backup and record how long it takes. )
4) Now compare the two times - if as you say there is no incremental backup then the times should be equivalent.

I have TM backing up 2 drives on this machine.

One drive contains 200 GB of data, the other contains 515 Gig of Data. The Time Machine drive for this system is 1TB. Now if TM was only doing Full Backups as you claim, my TM drive would be full in less than 2 backups.

However when I enter TM I can see 54 Backup Points dating back to April 20, 2008

There is no way that I can have 54 Full Backups off 715 Gig of data on a 1 TB drive.

Maybe you are trying to say something else?

Commanded Incremental Backup -> [Click] on Time Machine Icon -Select [Backup Now ] - that will save everything you have done since the last back - unless you deleted something since the last backup, but even this should be in a previous backup

Clearly there are incremental backups being done.

Are you claiming no incremental because on the TM drive you see only a single 'file' ????


I am in now way trying to 'soften' up anything. Heck I am the OP that started this complaint back when TM was fairly new and got no responses.

I will say that ever since I swapped the drive I have had NO ISSUES. Of course I am not using MS Office 08.

Also as to compatibility with Office 08, maybe Microsoft needs to make it compatible with the OS ???

I am a former Windows User and an MCSE, as well as Novell Certified. Microsoft was horrendously famous for compatibility issues with its own software on its own OS's.


Additionally - I just commanded TM to perform a backup, in fact 4 of them one after the other ... and it took a matter of seconds to complete as there was minimal change.


From TIME MACHINE Preferences .......

Time Machine keeps

*Hourly Backups for the past 24 hours
*Daily Backups for the past month
*Weekly backups until disk is full

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The above backups are done on schedule after the initial Full Backup.