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Really? Is Time Machine really this mean?

P

punchingsandwic

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 23, 2010
8
0
Hi there, so I've just got an external hard drive for backup and file transfer purposes. ('1tb Western Digital Mybook for mac'-if anyone cares).

I've spent the past two days backing up all my files from my Mac Pro and my MacBook Pro using Time Machine.

I then wanted to copy a few files from the backup of the Mac Pro onto the Macbook Pro's hard drive only to find that every time I tried I got the message:

'The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access "insertfilenamehere".'

I have been into the main directory and hit 'cmd+i', unlocked, changed 'admin'-'user'-'everyone' privileges to 'read & write' with no change in the result.

What do I do guys?
 
punchingsandwic said:
Hi there, so I've just got an external hard drive for backup and file transfer purposes. ('1tb Western Digital Mybook for mac'-if anyone cares).

I've spent the past two days backing up all my files from my Mac Pro and my MacBook Pro using Time Machine.

I then wanted to copy a few files from the backup of the Mac Pro onto the Macbook Pro's hard drive only to find that every time I tried I got the message:

'The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access "insertfilenamehere".'

I have been into the main directory and hit 'cmd+i', unlocked, changed 'admin'-'user'-'everyone' privileges to 'read & write' with no change in the result.

What do I do guys?
Click to expand...

There's an ACL set on the files in the Time Machine backup - see this article for details.
 
Wow, seems like apple messed up here!

I'm pretty new to this whole terminal thing.

So as the article says do I just type 'find . -type d -exec chmod -a# 0 {} \;' into terminal? Or do I have to type something in first?

Also as the article says I should change 'type d' with 'type f' do I type 'type f -exec chmod -a# 0 {} \;' instead?

This article says it works on leopard? I forgot to mention I'm on snow leopard, does this make a difference?
 
punchingsandwic said:
I then wanted to copy a few files from the backup of the Mac Pro onto the Macbook Pro's hard drive only to find that every time I tried I got the message: 'The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access "insertfilenamehere".'

I have been into the main directory and hit 'cmd+i', unlocked, changed 'admin'-'user'-'everyone' privileges to 'read & write' with no change in the result.

What do I do guys?
Click to expand...
First try doing it the way it was designed to work. I.e., forget "Finder" (and forget trying to tweak permissions inside the Backups.backupd folder). Instead, open the 'Computer' window [command-shift-C in Finder] and enter Time Machine's spacey GUI. When comfortably seated inside its star field, navigate to the place and time from which these files are to copied... select those items... and then use the "Action" menu (the gear icon) to select one of the restore options there.

Should work (assuming the relevant user accounts don't have different uid numbers).
 
Hal Itosis said:
First try doing it the way it was designed to work. I.e., forget "Finder" (and forget trying to tweak permissions inside the Backups.backupd folder). Instead, open the 'Computer' window [command-shift-C in Finder] and enter Time Machine's spacey GUI. When comfortably seated inside its star field, navigate to the place and time from which these files are to copied... select those items... and then use the "Action" menu (the gear icon) to select one of the restore options there.

Should work (assuming the relevant user accounts don't have different uid numbers).
Click to expand...

I don't know if I understand what you mean. I'm trying to copy some files to this computer from a time machine backup from a different computer. I also can't find this 'gear icon' in the spacey gui.
 
punchingsandwic said:
I'm trying to copy some files to this computer from a time machine backup from a different computer.
Click to expand...
Then hold down the option key when clicking either the TM icon in the dock or the menubar (in Finder) and select "Browse Other Time Machine Disks".

punchingsandwic said:
I also can't find this 'gear icon' in the spacey gui.
Click to expand...
Then make sure the window (in Finder) that's active has its toolbar showing (before entering Time Machine), and also be sure that the Action menu is already on that toolbar (View menu --> "Customize Toolbar...").
 
Hal Itosis said:
Then hold down the option key when clicking either the TM icon in the dock or the menubar (in Finder) and select "Browse Other Time Machine Disks".


Then make sure the window (in Finder) that's active has its toolbar showing (before entering Time Machine), and also be sure that the Action menu is already on that toolbar (View menu --> "Customize Toolbar...").
Click to expand...

Ok, so I've done as you said
- gone into the browse other time machine disks
- found the file on the backup hard drive
- clicked 'restore to...' in the action menu
- located the folder to move the file to

then I just get 'The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access "filenamehere" again.

Am I doing this wrong?
 
Hmm. Did Time Machine ask you for a password at any point? Are you logged in as an admin user? Does "filenamehere" refer to the item you're trying to copy... or the location to which you're attempting to restore it? Something is amiss there (it should work normally). Perhaps if we had a clearer picture: are you trying to copy something from one user's ~/Documents folder to your ~/Desktop... or what to what exactly? (give relative pathnames if possible)
 
Strange, had to join this.
I just got this EXACT same hard drive myself, and am very happy with it, after I removed the VCD.

I have not had this problem at all. But I think Time Machine takes extreeeemely long to back up the computer.

Turbo driver didnt seem to help at all.
 
@Hal Itosis - It never asked me for a password.

Yes I am admin.

"filenamehere" does refer to the item I am trying to copy.

I am trying to copy something from one computers desktop to another computers documents.

Does that help at all?

@Ramius - I don't think it's the hard drives fault and yes it does back up slooowly, I assumed this was due to USB2.0 technology. Turbo Driver is well known for doing bugger all on OSX.
 
punchingsandwic said:
@Hal Itosis - It never asked me for a password.

Yes I am admin.

"filenamehere" does refer to the item I am trying to copy.

I am trying to copy something from one computers desktop to another computers documents.

Does that help at all?
Click to expand...

Well then, something is fundamentally out of sync. Have you tried running Disk Utility to verify/repair all disks involved, as well as repairing permissions on the boot volume? Have you restarted since this situation began?
 
Hal Itosis said:
Well then, something is fundamentally out of sync. Have you tried running Disk Utility to verify/repair all disks involved, as well as repairing permissions on the boot volume? Have you restarted since this situation began?
Click to expand...

You mean verify/repair disk permissions on both computers and the external HD?

I have restarted, yes.


Time Machine also seems to be stuck in an eternal loop now aswell, it reached it's goal of 36.4GB out of 36.4GB - but keeps going up eg. 36.5 out of 36.5 - 36.6 out of 36.6 etc. etc.
I trust this isn't normal either?
 
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