time machine question

[brisweeney]

i started backing up with time machine last month, im only using a 120gb external drive,but my mac is new so it only has 60gb used.

my question is, when i enter time machine from the top menu icon, the only "desktop" i see is my current one, and one from the first back up i made, that backed up all 30 or 40 gb that were on the mac HD. it still backs up every hour, but i dont know if these back ups have worked. like say i needed to restore, i could only restore the first back up, from june, which doesnt have all the files on it i have now....

hope ive explained myself!

cheers!

 

[emptyCup]

when i enter time machine from the top menu icon, the only "desktop" i see is my current one, and one from the first back ... from june, which doesnt have all the files on it i have now....

Just to be clear, you are saying that when you enter Time Machine the timeline along the right side of the screen only has two ticks on it: Now and June whatever? When you click the big Back Arrow it jumps to the first backup?

Has anything changed on your desktop since your first backup? When you enter Time Machine you enter in the same place, folder or desktop, as where you currently are. Try going to a folder and selecting a file you know has changed before entering Time Machine. Best wishes.

 

[brisweeney]

Just to be clear, you are saying that when you enter Time Machine the timeline along the right side of the screen only has two ticks on it: Now and June whatever? When you click the big Back Arrow it jumps to the first backup?

Has anything changed on your desktop since your first backup? When you enter Time Machine you enter in the same place, folder or desktop, as where you currently are. Try going to a folder and selecting a file you know has changed before entering Time Machine. Best wishes.

thats exactly right. when im in time machine it has 2 ticks on the timeline. i can use the arrow to go back one one window to my first backup..ive gone into the finder window and looked for files that ive put on since my first back up, pics and such, and they're not there.

should i re format the exteral hd and start over? i think it was originally formatted for windows, would that make a huge difference?

thanks for the reply!

 

[emptyCup]

should i re format the exteral hd and start over? i think it was originally formatted for windows, would that make a huge difference?

If it was still formated for Windows you would not have been able to write to it. I am curious as to where your hourly backups are going. Can you open your TM hard disk (from the side bar under Shared)? There should be a folder there called "Backup of ...". Inside that folder there should be one folder for every backup.

If there are really only 2 folders then you might want to start over. If you are still under warranty, call Applecare and have them help you. They are generally good at this type of thing.

Best wishes.

 

[brisweeney]

If it was still formated for Windows you would not have been able to write to it. I am curious as to where your hourly backups are going. Can you open your TM hard disk (from the side bar under Shared)? There should be a folder there called "Backup of ...". Inside that folder there should be one folder for every backup.

If there are really only 2 folders then you might want to start over. If you are still under warranty, call Applecare and have them help you. They are generally good at this type of thing.

Best wishes.

basically when i open the time machine disk i see this:

when i open "backups.backups" i see this:

does this seem wrong? if it is how do i wipe and re format my external hd on osx?

 

[logana]

Something is wrong - you should have a folder for each day (then week etc).

There must be something wrong in TM preferences - if you click on TM on the menu bar what is the latest backup date ?

Try copying something to the external with the finder and see what happens.

Might be best to start again - try copying your 2008-06-10 folder back to your internal (it might not work) and then go to Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility then select the external and then format tab and format as MacOS Extended and that will erase the external.

Good luck

 

[brisweeney]

ive reformatted my external drive.

will see in a couple of hours how many folders appear!

thanks for all the help!

 

[logana]

don't hold your breath - it will probably be 24 hours !!

Double -check your TM preferences that you are backing up every hour (the default)

 

[Siron]

That screen shot doesn't look like you are in TM. It looks like you just clicked on the TM drive on the desktop. To enter TM you need to click on the TM icon in the menu bar and click on "Enter Time Machine"

 

[brisweeney]

so i reformatted my drive and started backing up again. i now have a nice long line of windows in the time machine!!

thanks for the help people!!

viva le macforums!