Hello community,
I finally got the dreaded "Read-only" Time Machine disk mode, and no common trick would get it back to read-write state. Volume has errors that can't be repaired due to that state. The only solution would be to reformat it, but I don't have a backup of the backup, nor any HDD large enough to accommodate the TM data. It's reported as 1.4TB used on 1.5TB, surely a miscalculation due to logical errors since a moment before the bug occurred, it had 700GB free and couldn't possibly backup 600GB in minutes over a FireWire 400 connection. It may be a hardware failure as well, but I have reserves on that hypothesis since the drive isn't on most of the time and almost never moved from its spot below my desk. In doubt, I prefer to keep the drive off until I can backup its content.
Then I remembered OS X had an option to assemble multiple volumes (these would be the firewire drives I managed to free space on) into one virtual disk, akin to RAID. I don't have identical disks to be assembled, so I guess JBOD mode is the only one I could use to present a virtual volume large enough to hold all TM data.
The only problem is that Disk Utility seems to only accept one volume from a physical HDD at a time, doesn't support disk images, and only takes two logical volumes at a time. There is a large free space on the MacBook Pro's internal HDD I wanted to use, but need to add at least two other HDDs to get to the required space.
I was told this is a high-risk manipulation given there's no backup for the last month, but I currently, financially can't afford to buy another large enough drive to directly swap data, even less a drobo-style enclosure as the Apple Genius suggested. A friend offered to lend me a 3TB drive, but doesn't expect to buy one until Boxing Day.
As a reminder, the final goal is to present a virtual volume to the Mac that would be at least 1.5TB so I can use rsync to transfer data from the damaged TM drive to the backup, reformat and test (SMART, sectors) the TM volume, and if fine, transfer the data back to the TM drive, or get an RMA from Seagate if drive is failed.
Given these restrictions, am I going the wrong path, or are there other utilities able to assemble more than two volumes in JBOD mode?
I finally got the dreaded "Read-only" Time Machine disk mode, and no common trick would get it back to read-write state. Volume has errors that can't be repaired due to that state. The only solution would be to reformat it, but I don't have a backup of the backup, nor any HDD large enough to accommodate the TM data. It's reported as 1.4TB used on 1.5TB, surely a miscalculation due to logical errors since a moment before the bug occurred, it had 700GB free and couldn't possibly backup 600GB in minutes over a FireWire 400 connection. It may be a hardware failure as well, but I have reserves on that hypothesis since the drive isn't on most of the time and almost never moved from its spot below my desk. In doubt, I prefer to keep the drive off until I can backup its content.
Then I remembered OS X had an option to assemble multiple volumes (these would be the firewire drives I managed to free space on) into one virtual disk, akin to RAID. I don't have identical disks to be assembled, so I guess JBOD mode is the only one I could use to present a virtual volume large enough to hold all TM data.
The only problem is that Disk Utility seems to only accept one volume from a physical HDD at a time, doesn't support disk images, and only takes two logical volumes at a time. There is a large free space on the MacBook Pro's internal HDD I wanted to use, but need to add at least two other HDDs to get to the required space.
I was told this is a high-risk manipulation given there's no backup for the last month, but I currently, financially can't afford to buy another large enough drive to directly swap data, even less a drobo-style enclosure as the Apple Genius suggested. A friend offered to lend me a 3TB drive, but doesn't expect to buy one until Boxing Day.
As a reminder, the final goal is to present a virtual volume to the Mac that would be at least 1.5TB so I can use rsync to transfer data from the damaged TM drive to the backup, reformat and test (SMART, sectors) the TM volume, and if fine, transfer the data back to the TM drive, or get an RMA from Seagate if drive is failed.
Given these restrictions, am I going the wrong path, or are there other utilities able to assemble more than two volumes in JBOD mode?