Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

puma1552

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
5,559
1,948
I have a folder of important graduate school documents (essays). TC has been backing up stuff no problem, including those essays for some time.

somewhere along the line a file became corrupt and i could no longer transfer files to/from my usb drive, so i went through each essay, copy/pasted everything in each document into new word documents, saved and named each new file, and saved them to the desktop. basically i copied all my documents without actually copying them, but rather by copy/pasting and creating new documents.

fixing the corrupt file was verified by my ability to copy the new folder of identical grad school materials to and from my usb stick again, so i went to backup knowing all my stuff was intact again.

all of the backing up ive done shows as being successful, no errors, etc.

however--when i go into time machine to verify the backup of that grad school folder, that new folder of essays is nowhere to be found, i.e. its not backing up.

ideas??
 
The most obvious thing to check is if the folder in question, or a folder higher up, is excluded from TM. To check this, open System Preferences then Time Machine. Click Exclusions.
 
This is a Time Machine thing, but speaking of Time Capsule: I'm supportive of Apple products that deserve credit but IMO it's inexcusable that the Time Capsule does not have fw/usb (for full backups). It can take several days + many failures to successfully perform a full backup wirelessly.
 
Alright I fixed the problem--I had to boot into safe mode, which got time machine to do a deep traversal of my whole system checking every file.

I rebooted normally and then it worked, and my folder is backed up.

The question is, why did this happen and how do I know it won't happen again?
 
>I'm supportive of Apple products that deserve credit but IMO it's inexcusable that the Time Capsule does not have fw/usb (for full backups)

Its called a Ethernet cable...
Even Apple states when your doing your first backup with Time Capsule,to use a Ethernet cable.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.