Time Machine - Slow Backup Then Fail

Have you accidentally asked for a secure delete?

Also, is it the case that you don't have a partition dedicated to TM, as apart from the other data you have on the disk? It sounds as though you don't, but if you do, you can use Disk Utility to clear out the TM partition, while leaving the partition with your other data alone.

You might consider moving the data you want to keep to another drive temporarily, and then erasing your TM drive. If you do that consider creating a partition for TM alone, so you won't have this problem in future.

There was a thread -- still continues -- here about TM errors. I get them regularly, but the next backup works properly. No one seems to know what causes them...people have offered fixes (one in the last few days, even) but usually the fixes turn out to be temporary ones.

 

There are two main causes for this behaviour: 1. The disk you are backing up is dodgy. 2. The disk you are backing up to is dodgy.

"Repairing permissions" is voodoo. It won't help you. Quite the opposite: The only thing it _could_ do is changing permissions on some files, which just make more work because Time Machine has to back them up. And if your hard drive is starting to get messed up because of some hardware failure, anything that modifies your hard drive can only make things worse.

I would recommend buying a second backup disk, copying the things you want from the first one, then put the first one into a safe place and use the new disk for Time Machine backup. There are two possibilities: If everything works fine (remember the first Time Machine backup always takes ages), then your first backup drive was at fault. If things don't work, then your built-in drive has problems. In that case, hope that you can backup your home directory or that the Time Machine backup on your first drive is still ok.