new hard drive and time machine issues

[LisaPunk]

my time machine stopped working recently. the last successful back up was 10/26.

everyday i repeatedly get that the back up failed (sorry i forget the exact error message)

sometimes if i dig a little deeper it tells me i dont have enough space on my backup drive and gives me some crazy number as what is left for space but i know it's not true. it has like 300 gbs free.

i believe the root of this issue is my husband bought me a new bigger hard drive for my macbook and swapped the old one out. now the hard drive name is different. i cant find a place to reroute the time machine back tothe new hard drive.

also when i try and go into time machine and change certain things it asks me for my password but it says my regular password for everything else on my mac (like software updates) is wrong but gives me no "forgot password" option. ive tried every password ive ever used.

something crazy is going on and i dont know what!
please help!

thank you!

 

[garycurtis]

First you'll have to resolve that password problem. Are there more than one user on the machine? Each would have a separate password.

In the Systems Preferences control panel (under the Apple pulldown menu), select Time Machine. It is simple. It allows you to choose the drive for Backups, the drive to be backed up, exclusion of folders or drives — to save space — and a schedule for automatic backups.

On the first time out, there will might be a massive amount of data to record, so be patient. Especially if you choose to backup your System.

 

[LisaPunk]

thank you for the reply. im the only user for the computer.
i tried logging on as guest too and i believe that is when it tells me that i need 100 gb to back it up and there are only 60 gb left.

i was wrong about the size of the back up on my previous post. my husband said its a 1TB drive and there should be something like AT LEAST 900 gbs of space on it current that are available.

i honestly dont know what to do about the password thing. something screwy is going on. it should be the same password i use whenever that little window pops up like when you do a software update and i made sure the other day when i was updating itunes to remember EXACTLY what password it was and EXACTLY what my user name was and it still didnt work.

i will try your other suggestion when i get home tonight and see if that helps!! thank you!

 

[garycurtis]

This might help:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Also look under FAQ's on this same website.

 

[garycurtis]

A thought on your password. Your Apple machine is case-sensitive to passwords. Have you by chance inserted or omitted a capital leader when typing in your password?

My wife's password (the name of our Cat) has a P at the beginning, rather than a 'p'. It makes a difference.

 

[LisaPunk]

recovering a password

ive been trying to fix some issues with my time machine since my husband took out my old hard drive and put in a new one.
everytime i go into time machine preferences and try and change anything it asks for a password. i have one password for software updates and other system things on my mac. this password is not working. ive tried every password i can think of and none of them work.

is there any way i can recover this password or change it so i can finally fix my time machine issues?

 

[ezramoore]

Has your username changed since your HDD was replaced. It is possible you are entering the password for your new user with the old username in place.

I assume you are referring to the elevate privileges/unlock Time Machine prefs dialogue box, is that correct?

 

[minifridge1138]

When your husband replaced the old hard drive with the new drive, how did he get the new drive up and running?

Did he clone the old drive to the new one?
Did he do a fresh install of the OS into the new one?

 

[LisaPunk]

the user name should not have changed.

i believe my husband cloned the old harddrive and put the files onto the new one.