Previous TM backups...how to migrate to Time Capsule?

[617660]

Asked the same question in the peripheral forum, didn't get much of a response, maybe because I posted in the right forum...

Well, maybe I will have a better luck here.

The title pretty much asks the question. I used to do TM backup on an external HD but now I have TC, how do I integrate the copies on the external HD into TC?

Someone must have run into the same problem, right?

 

[Weaselboy]

I don't believe you can. The Time Capsule is backed up over the network and for that reason uses a sparse bundle file format which is different than a USB drive you plug directly in to the Mac.

Why are you worried about this anyway? Just do a complete, new backup to the Time Capsule.

 

[obdave]

Why are you worried about this anyway? Just do a complete, new backup to the Time Capsule.

The main reason for wanting to do this is to preserve your whole Time Machine history. Wouldn't it be nice to spin back to last February and get the old version of that important file you need? Isn't that the whole *point* of Time Machine?

I have no idea why Apple doesn't make it easier to migrate Time Machine backups. The good news is, it can be done. I recently succeeded in migrating my TM archive from an attached USB drive to a new drive attached to my Airport Extreme. There is a trick involved, however, and I don't know if the trick will work with a Time Capsule. The trick involves directly accessing the sparsebundle that Time Machine creates, and copying your old archive into the sparsebundle.

For details, go to the last post on the last page of this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1449878?start=30&tstart=0