Time Machine FAQ

[Animalk]

Problem:
External HD is formatted FAT32 with a bunch of useless stuff on it. It showed up in Time Machine and i select it. It asks me if i want to erase it and i say yes. It starts to erase. Drive disappears and is never heard from again. I unplug and plug and nothing comes up. I plug it into windows machine and it comes up as a drive with 0 bytes space total and 0 bytes free space.

What is going on here?

 

[balamw]

EDIT: The remote machine is a G3 running Tiger, is this an issue?

You can designate just about any HFS+ formatted FireWire or USB drive connected to a Mac as a Time Machine backup drive. Time Machine can also back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, Leopard Server, or Xsan storage devices.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html

B

 

[ILOVEMYMBP2.2g]

Just got Leopard, Time Machine Format?

when i connected my external hard drive tonight with leopard, it wanted to format my hard drive, i have all my itunes music on my hard drive and i dont want to erase that, any ideas? Thanks

 

[ecks618]

Backup Failed???

I keep getting a "Backup failed" message every time time machine backs my system up.

Is anyone else having this problem or know how to fix it?

 

[Animalk]

Problem:
External HD is formatted FAT32 with a bunch of useless stuff on it. It showed up in Time Machine and i select it. It asks me if i want to erase it and i say yes. It starts to erase. Drive disappears and is never heard from again. I unplug and plug and nothing comes up. I plug it into windows machine and it comes up as a drive with 0 bytes space total and 0 bytes free space.

What is going on here?

Quoting my previous post for reference...

So i tried formatting the drive through my vista machine which only does NTFS. Well it showed up finally in OS X but not in Time Machien and the permissions were locked to even the administrator through the GUI. So I opened the Terminal window and formatted the drive HFS+ through diskutil. took 5 seconds. Vista took 1 hour and solved nothing. I don't know what Vista was doing with the formatting but it doesn't look kosher.

 

[martymcr]

Anyone know if you can tell Time Machine to back up your iTunes music but not your iTunes videos? This would save me 60 GB of external hard drive space!

I've ripped all my favorite movies off onto my hard drive and I obviously still own the physical DVDs so I'm not particularly worried about the video files.

You can tell TM which folders/drives to ignore from the Options button in System Preferences -> Time Machine.

 

[DaveF]

Anyone use Time Machine over a wireless network, with an external hard drive connected to another Mac on the LAN? I'm looking for a reasonable way to use it with my MacBook Pro on my home network.

 

[un1ty]

Can anybody clarify something for me? Is there a way to use more than one hard drive as a TM hard drive?

My G5 has an internal 500GB and 250GB. I have an external FW 500GB and a FW 250GB. Time Machine treats my 2 internal harddrives as one entity so it tries to back them up both to my 500GB external. I can't seem to find a way to make my external 250GB also be used for TM.

My current work-around is to exclude my internal 250GB from TM, and then just use an alternative app to backup to my external 250GB. Sounds to me like this is the only solution unless I get a massive hard drive (1TB) to back up both my internals.

 

[Tclare]

So is it possible to back up to a machine which is connected to another machine on the network?

Please respond ASAP

Tclare

 

[MyMac8MyPC]

Someone proposed in another thread (Leopard preview, I think) that the external drive that TM uses could be used solely by TM and nothing else. Any truth in this?

No. Just partition your backup drive and use one of those partitions for TM and it will work just fine. What you don't want to do is to use an app like SuperDuper at the same time that TM is working on the same drive.

 

[jehrler]

FileVault and Time Machine...Oh My!

OK, I've been experimenting and here is what I have found.

You can use FileVault (FV) with Time Machine (TM) with the following pluses and minuses.

First, if you have a Tiger FV you need to decrypt and recrypt under Leopard.

Second, TM will run, even when you are logged into your FV account, but will only backup everything on your disk OUTSIDE your FVed home folder. Thus, it makes sense to move as much out of your encrypted home folder as possible in order to maximize the ease of backup and the ability to scroll back in time through more files.

Third, after TM has run at least once while in your FV (or tried to run), when you log out of your FV account it will a) offer to compress your sparseimage and b) offer to backup (I assume this only occurs if connected to your TM drive at the time you logout).

Fourth, the first time you do this backup it takes forever (depending on the size of the stuff in your home folder).

Fifth, when done, you end up with a sparseimage on your TM disk that you can mount (by double clicking and entering your password) and then peruse for files, etc.

Sixth, when the next time comes for a TM backup and you are logged in to your FV account, once again, it backs up everything except your FVed home folder.

Seventh, when you then log out of your FV account and have the TM disk attached, you again will be offered the chance to backup.

NOW THE GOOD NEWS.

First, the backup is much faster because, as I hoped, the new FV format allows TM to just backup the changed files!!!!! in your sparseimage!!!! Very fast, much less space!!!!

Second, you end up with TWO sparseimages in separate folders on your TM disk and each copy reflects your home folder at the time it was backed up!!! It is not the pretty starry TM effect, but it does allow you to recover files that were accidentally deleted, just like TM.

Third, your backup is secure!! because your FV folder is still in an encrypted sparseimage. No need to backup to an encrypted disk/image (assuming your non FV data is not sensitive)!

Fourth, when you go back in time via TM, you will see the various sparseimages that reflect your home folder AT THAT TIME. Unfortunately, within TM I can not see how to remount them but, at least, you can restore them to a drive and then mount them from the finder and find your files. (I tried mounting a sparseimage and then going into TM to see if I could browse it that way but it didn't work)

Fifth, it certainly seems that the basic functionality is present to do the fancy time machine info for individual files they just need to work out how to mount the sparse images from within TM. So there may be hope.

 

[Inconsequential]

Does Time Machine support Multiple Sources?

I have:

Mac HD 1 + Mac HD 2 = 360Gb going into Mac HD 3 = 500Gb... 😱

 

[rayguy75]

About that usb/firewire BUD.....

I plan to use Time machine via a macbook to wireless network to mac mini to firewire BUD. The mini and BUD are in a separate part of the house. For simplicity I plan to just let my external drive run....any thoughts on the stablility of a mac mini left on all the time and an external drive left on all the time?

Will Time machine work if the BUD host computer is in sleep mode?

I come from Windows world where XP can spin down the disc when not in use.

Thanks

R

 

[Loudwater]

Problem:
External HD is formatted FAT32 with a bunch of useless stuff on it. It showed up in Time Machine and i select it. It asks me if i want to erase it and i say yes. It starts to erase. Drive disappears and is never heard from again. I unplug and plug and nothing comes up. I plug it into windows machine and it comes up as a drive with 0 bytes space total and 0 bytes free space.

What is going on here?

I have sorta a similar problem, not that close. lol
I used my WD external HD as the TM Backup drive, it was erased as the first time TM requested. It back up my Mac files OK. But I can no longer use it with Windows. USB shows it's connected, but I can't find it on My Computer, as where it showed before. Is this because of formatting??

 

[Virgil-TB2]

copying a TM volume

... Copying a TM backup volume to another larger Volume may or may not work. Only time will tell. Using the Finder to drag and drop could run into issues for very large data copies. Usiing something like SuperDuper! tpo clone one TM backup volume to another may or may not work. Using some Terminal.app commands such as 'ditto -rsrcFork /Volumes/TM-vol-1 /Volumes/TM-Vol-2' may or may not work. Currently Apple simply says to select a new Volume and mentions nothing about copying.

I don't think this will work. I had a TM backup drive and my main hard drive failed.

I replaced the hard drive and re-installed using the TM as the source. Even though the system was restored, on a hard drive of the same name, same partition, Mount Point, etc., ... at the end of it all, the link to the TM backup was broken.

It could have been a bug, but I think TM may identify the hard drives it's using on a very low level.

 

[iPostpone]

Time Machine - Where is it?

I'm a Mac newbie, and this is my first post here, so please be gentle. I just bought a new iMac from the Apple Store running OS X 10.5. I bought a 500GB NewerTech MiniStack v3 external hard drive to use with Time Machine. Hooked it up to the iMac via Firewire 800 and powered it on. The drive mounts on the iMac and I can browse the contents, but Time Machine did not appear on the scene. So, I start looking for Time Machine in Finder, Spotlight, and Mac Help, and I can't find a single reference to Time Machine anywhere.

I'm at work now, and don't have access to the Mac, but I'm beginning to wonder if they really installed Leopard on my iMac like they promised. Apple shipped my Mac on November 1st - I thought all Mac's bought after 10/26 were supposed to come with Leopard. I did get a couple of OS X Leopard discs with my iMac. Do I have to install it myself? That would suck. 😕

 

[GoodWatch]

I'm a Mac newbie, and this is my first post here, so please be gentle. I just bought a new iMac from the Apple Store running OS X 10.5. I bought a 500GB NewerTech MiniStack v3 external hard drive to use with Time Machine. Hooked it up to the iMac via Firewire 800 and powered it on. The drive mounts on the iMac and I can browse the contents, but Time Machine did not appear on the scene. So, I start looking for Time Machine in Finder, Spotlight, and Mac Help, and I can't find a single reference to Time Machine anywhere.

I'm at work now, and don't have access to the Mac, but I'm beginning to wonder if they really installed Leopard on my iMac like they promised. Apple shipped my Mac on November 1st - I thought all Mac's bought after 10/26 were supposed to come with Leopard. I did get a couple of OS X Leopard discs with my iMac. Do I have to install it myself? That would suck. 😕

Click on the Apple in the top left corner and after that on About this Mac (I guess it should read like this, I'm on Dutch OS X). What version number do you see in the box that apears mid-screen? 10.4.xx? If yes, you'll have to install Leopard. It seems you have a drop-in upgrade, which is normal.

 

[EagerDragon]

Hi, I could not find comments about this...

How does TM work with multiple users on my iMac... do I need to set up each user separately? Will it then copy all apps in addition to each home folder/prefs for each user? Will that change the space requirements.... I have a few separate users! Thanks.

It does copies the entire system unless you told it not to backup something. This includes all your user accounts, documents, etc. It will also try to backup your virtual Windows drive so those should be excluded by you.

I'm a Mac newbie, and this is my first post here, so please be gentle. I just bought a new iMac from the Apple Store running OS X 10.5. I bought a 500GB NewerTech MiniStack v3 external hard drive to use with Time Machine. Hooked it up to the iMac via Firewire 800 and powered it on. The drive mounts on the iMac and I can browse the contents, but Time Machine did not appear on the scene. So, I start looking for Time Machine in Finder, Spotlight, and Mac Help, and I can't find a single reference to Time Machine anywhere.

I'm at work now, and don't have access to the Mac, but I'm beginning to wonder if they really installed Leopard on my iMac like they promised. Apple shipped my Mac on November 1st - I thought all Mac's bought after 10/26 were supposed to come with Leopard. I did get a couple of OS X Leopard discs with my iMac. Do I have to install it myself? That would suck. 😕

The problem maybe that the drive is not formated as HFS+ the native file system for Macs.

Go into the system applications, there you should see the time machine icon. Also you should have one on your dock. But for now, ignore it, instead look for a utilities folder in the application folder. Inside the utility folders you will see a program named disk utility. Start it, it should see the drive, now click on the external drive on the left pane. The select the partition tab on the right (make sure you have the correct drive). select 1 partition, make sure the format selected is set to HFS+ case sensitive, there is also an option button, select GUID since your machine is Intel. Create the partition. After that TM should see it every time you connect it.

 

[Cooknn]

Time Machine came in very handy for me last weekend. I was getting frustrated with Mail.app and moved to Thunderbird only to get even more frustrated with that. Decided to move *back* to Mail after trashing everything in ~/Library/Mail. From within Mail I opened up Time Machine and it restored all of my messages. One thing I found out though, at least on my box - if you get impatient when it's doing its time travel and click again (on another day for example) it will crash. And there's no way I've discovered to get Finder back without rebooting 😱

 

[robotica]

i wish there was compression

 

[weenerdog]

Hi do you know if from my laptop I can back up my data to my desktop computer via the wireless airport express

thanks😀

 

[rendezvouscp]

I don't think this will work. I had a TM backup drive and my main hard drive failed.

I replaced the hard drive and re-installed using the TM as the source. Even though the system was restored, on a hard drive of the same name, same partition, Mount Point, etc., ... at the end of it all, the link to the TM backup was broken.

It could have been a bug, but I think TM may identify the hard drives it's using on a very low level.

I've run into this as well. Did you end up just letting Time Machine make a completely new backup, or did you ever find a way to link up Time Machine to the old backup?
-Chasen

 

[iPhil]

I'm thinking of using a single hard drive backup w/TM then i'm planning on a Drobo machine..

Is it easy enough to transfer the backup image from single drive to the new backup machine?



Or do i need to re-do the backup process with the new machine?

 

[iPhil]

I'm thinking of using a single hard drive backup w/TM then i'm planning on a Drobo machine..

Is it easy enough to transfer the backup image from single drive to the new backup machine?



Or do i need to re-do the backup process with the new machine?

I think i found a solution to my Q as to my previous post.. Solution ??

 

[JaimesBeam]

Time Machine Backup for Multiple Computers

My experiences with TM have been ... interesting...

I first started out wanting to backup/copy a 250 GB drive to move it to a different machine. I had another 250 GB drive, so I told TM to use that for a backup.

TM does the preparation, and then tells me there's not enough room, so I exclude System and Applications. TM does it's thing, and surprisingly there is still 100 GB space left. So I un-exclude Applications and let TM run again. Hmmm still lots of space left! So I un-exclude System and run TM. Still space left, so I add a couple of iPhoto libraries from another drive, which finally fill up the TM disk.

Now the original HD was full, but it had a lot of duplicates. I presume that TM is only keeping one copy of each file, even there are multiple copies.

Which brings me to my next question: What's the best way to backup multiple computers? Obviously it's better to use one combined backup so that you only keep one copy of files that are on every computer; hopefully saving lots of space.

The best way seems to attach the client computers via firewire target mode for the initial backup. External drives can also be brought to the backup host and connected via FW, USB or eSATA. For the incremental backups, the client computers/drives can just be mounted over the network on the backup host. This has the advantage that the clients don't need to be running Leopard.

Anything wrong with this picture? I know this is not really how TM is supposed to be run, but I'm hoping it's flexible enough to bend to my wishes.
Actually I'm most interested in using TM to make a space conserving archive of a number of computers, rather then a running backup. So I'll probably keep TM turned off most of the time, except when I want to update the backups.

Thanks, Jim.