Time Machine and Time Capsule Questions

[ks-man]

I know I read some issues about this before but I can't now find any of the threads nor a solution.

I wanted to back up my MBA with Time Machine to my TC. I hooked up the MBA via ethernet to try and get it to work. I turned off system sleep so it wouldn't go to sleep during the initial backup (I did leave the screen saver on).

It got to about 13.2 GB of the 48GB drive and then just stopped. After about 2 hours it was at 7GB and then I left for about 12 hours and came back at it was at 13.2GB and wouldn't go any further. It was completely stalled and I had to cancel the backup.

Are there any solutions to the initial backup with TC? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ASFx]

Have you opened the airport utility and made sure your TC has the latest firmware?

 

[ks-man]

Have you opened the airport utility and made sure your TC has the latest firmware?

I'm not sure. I did a bunch of updates two days ago (including 10.5.3) so I'd assume it also updated TC but I don't know for sure.

How do I check the firmware version and what is the latest one so I know if it is up-to-date?

Thanks.

 

[ASFx]

Just open up airport utility (find using spotlight) then click the "airport utility" menu in the upper left, then select "check for updates" and it should tell you if you need a firmware update.

 

[deboni]

Initial TC troubles

Checking firmware versions is a good idea. Airport Utility should be able to help with that, but I can't recall the details of how I did it months ago.

I had some initial backup problems with my Time Capsule, too, but found that keeping at it eventually got me over them. I can't say for sure what I did, other than trying over and over, but I can suggest that you look at your Energy Saver settings, and make sure you have the processor downclocking and the disk spindown disabled. Sleep would definitely have interrupted the process, but Screen Saver should not have caused it any problems.

The initial backup can easily take overnight, but once it's done, the routine backups are easy. I did have to perform some file system repair on it, after a couple months' operation, and that took a while, but it cleaned up fine and when right back to work afterwards.

Good luck!
Tom

 

[dchao]

1) Yep, make sure the firmware is up to date, 7.3.1 is the latest.

2) Turn off TM.

3) Erase all the data on the TC, and then restart the TC.

4) Change TM Disk to TC again. TM will turn on automatically.

5) Let the full backup run again over the wired Ethernet.