Time Machine Won't Recognize Old Backup

[flyer05]

I have had a MacBook Pro for over a year now that I have been backing up via Time Machine to a 1TB external drive. I recently bought a Time Capsule to start backing up the computer wirelessly at home. Unfortunately, I also spend long periods of time away from home when i'd like to continue to backup to the external. However, after trying to copy my existing backups from the 1TB to the Time Capsule, I learned that it is going to take a ridiculously long amount of time to complete the transfer from the 1TB to the Time Capsule and back everytime I leave home.

So then I thought maybe I could plug the external drive into the Time Capsule via USB and backup to the same drive, just doing so wirelessly as a shared drive whenever I am home. But when I tried to do so, Time Machine didn't recognize my existing backup and tried to start from scratch. Is there any way to get Time Machine to recognize the old backups on the same drive when shared via the Time Capsule?

Thanks!

 

[timotay89]

I had to do this a while back. You have to transfer using disk utility. For about 300-500GB of stuff (I don't remember the exact size) it took about 8 hours via USB. This isn't the exact source I used, but it sounds the same:

http://njmac.blogspot.com/2008/11/move-time-machine-backups-to-new-volume.html

 

[flyer05]

I tried doing this, and was able to copy all my backups to a new sparse bundle I created using the disk utility restore tool, but now I dant get TM to point to it. Even when I mount my new sparse bundle, TM doesn't list it as an option, and when I just point at the drive where the sparse bundle is located, it doesn't recognize the old backups there. Any other suggestions on how to get TM to see the drive? Do you have to name the sparse bundle something in particular?

 

[basher]

I have had a MacBook Pro for over a year now that I have been backing up via Time Machine to a 1TB external drive. I recently bought a Time Capsule to start backing up the computer wirelessly at home. Unfortunately, I also spend long periods of time away from home when i'd like to continue to backup to the external. However, after trying to copy my existing backups from the 1TB to the Time Capsule, I learned that it is going to take a ridiculously long amount of time to complete the transfer from the 1TB to the Time Capsule and back everytime I leave home.

So then I thought maybe I could plug the external drive into the Time Capsule via USB and backup to the same drive, just doing so wirelessly as a shared drive whenever I am home. But when I tried to do so, Time Machine didn't recognize my existing backup and tried to start from scratch. Is there any way to get Time Machine to recognize the old backups on the same drive when shared via the Time Capsule?

Thanks!

Why not just let Lion perform local snapshots while you're away?

When you get your laptop hooked back up to your network the snapshots get sent to Time Capsule.