Time Machine attempts entire new backup profile after switching to wireless backups

[MmmPancakes]

I have an external drive hooked up to a Mac Mini. That external drive is where I've been keeping my Time Machine Backups, not just for the Mini, but also for my MacBook Pro (OSX Lion).

A friend recently showed me that I can wirelessly connect the MBP to the Mini, and even access the external drive remotely.

This is great, as it appears that I can do my MacBook Pro Time Machine backup wirelessly, rather than plugging it in, which is what I've been doing.

However, when I start the Time Machine Backup, it's attempting to create an entirely new Time Machine Backup (230+ GB), rather than just freshening up from the existing profiles.

This just started when I attempted the wireless backups.

Any ideas on how to have it recognize its existing backups/?

 

[gr8tfly]

The new backup is in the form of a sparsebundle (a type of virtual drive, like DMG). If you copy the contents of your backups.backupdb folder into the sparsebundle, it should work. Just verify the contents of each have the same folder name.

Example:
The sparsebundle should be named <machine_name><numbers>.sparsebundle. Mount and open the sparsebundle. The first folder in it should be "Backups.backupdb"

If you open the hard-wired backup which is in Backups.backupdb, it should have the same named folder within.

The next deepest folder, in both, should be <machine_name>, but if they are different (I don't have both forms of TM accessible at the moment), then leave the folder name as it is in the sparsebundle. The important folders are the dates ones within (they will look the same in both backups, except the shared network drive would have more recent timestamp names).

I used this procedure when moving a MBA TM backup from a USB drive to a drive shared on an Airport Express.

Once you have the networked Time Machine backup working (the sparsebundle one), you can delete the original backups.backupdb folder.

Note: Be prepared for much slower backups over the network - even over "n".

 

[MmmPancakes]

The new backup is in the form of a sparsebundle (a type of virtual drive, like DMG). If you copy the contents of your backups.backupdb folder into the sparsebundle, it should work. Just verify the contents of each have the same folder name.

Example:
The sparsebundle should be named <machine_name><numbers>.sparsebundle. Mount and open the sparsebundle. The first folder in it should be "Backups.backupdb"

If you open the hard-wired backup which is in Backups.backupdb, it should have the same named folder within.

The next deepest folder, in both, should be <machine_name>, but if they are different (I don't have both forms of TM accessible at the moment), then leave the folder name as it is in the sparsebundle. The important folders are the dates ones within (they will look the same in both backups, except the shared network drive would have more recent timestamp names).

I used this procedure when moving a MBA TM backup from a USB drive to a drive shared on an Airport Express.

Once you have the networked Time Machine backup working (the sparsebundle one), you can delete the original backups.backupdb folder.

Note: Be prepared for much slower backups over the network - even over "n".

That sounds a bit tricky. Is it possible to let it do a full backup, and then just use it from here forward? I'm assuming the profile it created tonight will be the new ongoing profile.

 

[gr8tfly]

That sounds a bit tricky. Is it possible to let it do a full backup, and then just use it from here forward? I'm assuming the profile it created tonight will be the new ongoing profile.

Sure. It will make a new, full backup, then do the normal incremental backups after.

If you need to browse the old backup, just connect the drive directly.

The downside is having the space of a full backup taken up by the old one. (That can happen anyway, though, if you change hardware - such as a new HD, or logic board repair.)

 

[MmmPancakes]

You're awesome. Thanks for the great feedback.

 

[klausiB]

Operation Can't be Completed Because Backup Items Can't be Modified

If you copy the contents of your backups.backupdb folder into the sparsebundle, it should work.

Sorry for bringing up this old thread again. But I have encountered a similar problem and seem to have found the solution in gr8tfly's above post.

BUT: When I try to copy files from the backups.backupdb into the mounted sparse bundle, I get an error message:

"Operation Can't be Completed Because Backup Items Can't be Modified".

I turned Time Machine off and rebooted, still the same.

(Backups.backupdb and sparsebundle are on the same drive here. Does that change anything? In fact, I try to copy the folders in order to make TM recognize the existing pre-Lion backups again which it doesn't until now.)

Thanks for any help!!

Klaus