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Suddenly Time Machine says, Oldest Backup: None??

D

DocV

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 2, 2011
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A few weeks back, I installed a new external for Time Machine backups. I've since run numerous back ups, but recently, after restarting my iMac due to it freezing, Time Machine now says Backups: None... As if I've never run a back up. What's more odd, the external is there, but what was once a 1.5TB driver now only shows 300GB available. So there's definitely data there... But how do I reconnect to the previous Time Machine Backups and continue where I left off??
 
Last edited:
So if I'm understanding you correctly, I opened up the TM Prefs, and chose "Don't Back Up". I then clicked on the greyed out icon at the top of my screen and chose "Open TM Prefs" and it asked me to select a disk. I did, and once again, it only offered the 300GB disk with no previous back ups. Now if I chose "Browse Other Back Up Disk" I can view the original disk and the last back up was Sunday, the 28th at 5:42AM.

So what now? Any thoughts?
 
I'm on El Capitan here and I don't see a "Don't Back Up". I was referring to System Preferences>Time Machine>Select Disk, remove the current chosen disk, close the preferences and then go through all that and re-choose the same disk. But what you did may be exactly the same thing...not sure.

If that's the case, your TM disk may need repair with Disk Utility and then you can attempt to "reconnect" the TM backup using the method shown at Pondini.org.

I will say that if you're confident that you aren't going to need to access anything that's in the backups you'd probably be better off reformatting the TM disk and starting over.
 
Hey thanks for the link! ...If I'm understanding correctly, that method only works if you've:
- Got a new Mac
- Logic board was replaced
- Replaced or erased internal HD
- Replaced or erased a data-only volume

But as I mentioned in my original post, the only thing that happened was my machine froze up and I had to force a restart. So that method does not apply... No?

As for formatting, I've got a 4TB external that has 3 partitions, one of which is my TM. Can I reformat just that single partition?
 
The method of inheriting a backup described at the Pondini site can be and has been used in cases like yours. Like I said, be sure to run Disk Utility's "First Aid" on the Time Machine partition first.

For the do-over method you'd just be erasing the Time Machine partition, not formatting, in your case.
 
BrianBaughn said:
The method of inheriting a backup described at the Pondini site can be and has been used in cases like yours. Like I said, be sure to run Disk Utility's "First Aid" on the Time Machine partition first.

For the do-over method you'd just be erasing the Time Machine partition, not formatting, in your case.
Click to expand...

Cool... I try the Pondini method; but if that doesn't work, when you say erasing, just delete the TM file?
 
Thanks for the clarification... And I forgot to mention Disk Utility found nothing wrong.
 
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