Applications :: Time Machine Cannot Find Backup Volume?
Feb 20, 2009
I just got my Mac back from a repair at the Apple Store. I was very excited to have everything back. However, Time Machine cannot back up! The error given is that the backup volume "cannot be found."
I've tried rebooting, remounting the drive and doing checks on it. Everything checks out. I can even write and read to and from the backup volume just fine via Finder. The only issue is that Time Machine can't. What's the problem? How do I fix it?
Attached is a screenshot of my Finder window next to the Time Machine Sys Prefs window.
I am getting the following error from Time Machine when doing my first backup. The startup disk being backed up, and the TM disk are both the same size.
Macintosh HD: 465.44 (total); 393.99 (free); 71.45 (free) Time Machine: 465.44 (total); 465.29 (free)
The Time Machine error is: Quote:
"This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 472.7 GB but only 465.3 GB are available." why would this be? Other disks are excluded from the backup, and Time Machine is telling me that it needs more space than it actually needs. What should I do?
Well TM is acting up. I get an error that reads: "This backup is too large for the backup volume."
Both the internal boot disk and the external baclup drive are 1TB. The internal one has a two partitions, the OSX one that is 900GBs and a 32GB NTFS one for Boot Camp. The external drive is a single OSX Extended part. that is 932GBs.
Both the Time Machine disk, and the Boot Camp disk are excluded from the backup along with a "Crap" folder for temporary large files.
Time Machine says it needs 938GBs to backup only the OSX disk, which has 806GBs in use with the rest free. WTFFF?
This happened after moving a large folder (128GB in total) from the root of the OSX disk over to my Home Folder.
I have reformated the Time Machine drive and have no backups at all of my data and it refuses to backup!!
Why would it need 938GBs of space to backup if the disk has "only" 806 GBs in use??? Is there anyway to reset Time Machine completely???
I have been backing up my computers to an external HD with Time Machine for some time, but I just bought a 1Tb Time Capsule today. Is there a way to move/copy my existing TM backups to the new drive (in the Time Capsule), rather than starting a whole new backup, so that I can preserve my existing TM 'history'? I could just start a new backup, but it would only back up the 'current state', and I would lose all the prior data.
I've spent a good deal of time over three days trying to do something that I think is both doable and shouldn't be all that hard. I have a 750gb external HD attached to a Mini, and I'd like to use that drive to do TM backups for the Mini, as well as three MacBooks.
But I can't seem to get access to the backup drive from the laptops to either get going in the first place, or to remain available for TM. I get "volume can't be mounted" errors, "image can't be mounted errors", etc. I find that I can't ever eject the backup drive from the Mini (always told an application is using it...even if I've just booted up the Mini). And with one of the MacBooks, even a direct FW connection to the drive doesn't result in the drive showing up in Finder.
Isn't this a pretty straightforward thing to do? Is there a step by step somewhere that might help me figure out what I'm doing wrong, or what I need to fix? Should I reformat the drive again and start over (there are no important backups on it yet)? By the way, the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
I'm having trouble backing up with Time Machine. Here's the setup:
1. Three, 1TB external hard drives in a concatenated software RAID. This means that they are treated as one large drive. There is no mirroring, no increased data rate, blah blah blah. It's just three hard drives in the place of one. I am aware that this means my backup is three times as likely to fail with the hardware, but that's OK.
2. These three are connected to a USB hub.
3. This hub is connected to a G5 tower. The G5 tower can back up to the concatenated drives (I'll call them just a RAID from here on), and also all additional external hard drives that I connect to the G5 tower have been backing up to the RAID no problem. This is great.
Here's the problem:
I'm trying to get two more computers to back up to the RAID wirelessly. I read a lot online about how this didn't used to be a supported feature (backing up to an external hard drive over a network with time machine), but that Apple has recently upgraded Time Machine to support this functionality.
The first computer I started with to try to backup over the network was a Macbook Pro, trying to get it to backup to this RAID. It can see the RAID over the network, mount it, copy files to it/read it, but CANNOT time machine backup to it. I select the network RAID as the backup device, hit "back up now," then get this message:
"The external volume cannot be mounted."
This is really bizzare, considering that it is mounted, and that I can copy to it. Just for your information, I have an airport extreme wireless network that has been working beautifully, no Keychain access issues, no 3rd party firewall, nothing. I've run through Applecare on this issue: the MacBook Pro has never done ANY time machine backup on the RAID, not even a partial one, so there's no dangling sparse bundle or backup folder or anything like that. All network permissions check out, etc. I've tried repairing the RAID with disk utility, as well as repairing permissions (although I have not done either of these things to the MacBookPro).
The latest thing I tried was plugging the RAID directly into the Macbook Pro. Here's where I got the first clue (at least I think so)...Plugged DIRECTLY into the MacBook Pro, the RAID will mount, but the MacBook Pro WILL NOT backup to the RAID. It gives me the same message: the selected volume cannot be mounted. Again, this is strange considering that, just like when I am viewing the RAID over the network, plugged directly into the MacBook Pro the RAID will mount, I can read it, copy files to it, etc.
I have considered plugging the RAID into the Airport extreme directly, but first of all this would mean much slower transfer speeds with the G5 tower, which is a big issue considering the files I am backing up every day, and two, since it seems that the RAID won't be recognized by the MacBook Pro even when plugged in directly, I'm thinking that this is a more fundamental issue.
if i am running my new lion OS on drive #1 and i have a Raid1 array on drive #3 and #4 with all my DATA - can i back this up using Time Machine? i would like to place my OS's on a single drive and have my DATA in a raid array but if this means that i lose the ability to retain a Time Machine backup of my data i will simply upgrade to Lion and keep the data on this drive so it can continue to get backed up in time.Â
Well TM is acting up. I get an error that reads: "This backup is too large for the backup volume." Both the internal boot disk and the external baclup drive are 1TB. The internal one has a two partitions, the OSX one that is 900GBs and a 32GB NTFS one for Boot Camp. The external drive is a single OSX Extended part. that is 932GBs. Both the Time Machine disk, and the Boot Camp disk are excluded from the backup along with a "Crap" folder for temporary large files.
Time Machine says it needs 938GBs to backup only the OSX disk, which has 806GBs in use with the rest free. WTFFF? This happened after moving a large folder (128GB in total) from the root of the OSX disk over to my Home Folder. I have reformated the Time Machine drive and have no backups at all of my data and it refuses to backup!! Why would it need 938GBs of space to backup if the disk has "only" 806 GBs in use??? Is there anyway to reset Time Machine completely?
I have looked into this a lot already. It is to much that Time Machine backs up every single hour! It would be nice to set it to something like 3 or 5 hours. I have tried a 3rd party app to do this, but... If my computer was off or asleep when it was supposed to back up, it would get an error. It would not just do the backup when i turned it on or when it came out of sleep like stock Time Machine does. I have also seen a way to change the time incraments in the Terminal.(I am very good with it, not a noob) I have tried this and it screws up time machine completely. Maybe it does not work with the newest OS X. By the way... I have a 2010 MacBook Pro, got it 2 months ago.
Does anyone know a solid 3rd party app, that will work seamlessly. Or has anyone changed the time in Terminal and are currently using something different than 1 hour. There is a lot of examples online, but I would like the codeing that you literally used.
Is there any way to find and delete large "unwanted" files from a Time Machine backup on a Time Capsule? Lets say you have some big ISO-files you want to remove but don't know at what date they were backed up.I tried to mount the Time Machine backup image and locate big files with GrandPerspective but it didn't really work.
mac online did a complete resetting and reinstallation on my iMac.
in this process they lost my mails, fortunatly there is a backup in Time Machine but i can not find the mails that i left on the left column in mail under "in my mac" where do i find them and how can they be restored again?
I need to do a complete restore of my MacBook from a previous time. Now, I back up my wife's MacBook and mine to the same external hard drive using Time Machine on a regular basis and if I open TM on my MacBook I can see all my backups in the 'time travel' view. As well, if I do a Finder search in my external hard drive, all the backup files are there, both my wife's and mine in two separate folders.
The problem comes when I try to restore, using my Install DVD. At the point that it asks me where the backup is stored, I click on my external hard drive and it shows my wife's and my backups as options. All my wife's backups appear when I select hers. But only my original backup appears when I select mine. It doesn't recognise all my subsequent backups. I've tried deleting my wife's backup folder but still only see my original backup.
I need to change my backup volume for Time Machine. But I don't see [Preferences] or [Change Disk] when I click on Time Machine from the System Preferences.
I saw that this issue has been addressed and there seems to be a few solutions for it but I had a hard time understanding some of the steps described in previous posts. I am running OS Leopard 10.5.8 and I am using a FreeAgent 500GB hard drive for Time Machine. Today I tried to back up and all of a sudden I'm getting the "Backup Volume Could Not be found" error. I tried deselecting it and reselecting it, and now its saying it doesn't have enough space to back it up.Â
I really don't want to completely erase the hard drive if that isn't going to fix it. Before now it would just overwrite a few old backups and make enough room for a new one, while leaving 2 old ones on there. I want it to do that.Â
I have looked into this a lot already. It is to much that Time Machine backs up every single hour! It would be nice to set it to something like 3 or 5 hours. I have tried a 3rd party app to do this, but... If my computer was off or asleep when it was supposed to back up, it would get an error. It would not just do the backup when i turned it on or when it came out of sleep like stock Time Machine does. I have also seen a way to change the time incraments in the Terminal. (I am very good with it, not a noob) I have tried this and it screws up time machine completely. Maybe it does not work with the newest OS X. By the way... I have a 2010 MacBook Pro, got it 2 months ago.
Does anyone know a solid 3rd party app, that will work seamlessly. Or has anyone changed the time in Terminal and are currently using something different than 1 hour. There is a lot of examples online, but I would like the codeing that you literally used.
I started my backup over 24 hours ago and after it completed its 130GB backup, it has now continued backing up endlessly incrementing the xxGB of xxGB without end. I stopped the backup and it then began at 140.9MB to backup. Once it reached 149.9MB it continued; displaying 149.9 MB of 149.9 MB. It is currently at 502.4 MB of 502.4 MB. I am using Snow Leopard. Has anyone seen this happen before? Or know how to resolve?
Does anyone know if you can continue the backup in Time Machine with another drive once you old drive is full?
In other words, my current drive is full and I do not want to delete old files from what were backed up but wanted to continue the backup onto a new drive w/o having to backup everything again on the new drive.
Time Machine (external USB/SATA) on my 2-month old iMac had been working perfectly. I installed 10.5.3. Everything still works perfectly EXCEPT I get an occasional error with Time Machine's hourly backup saying it could not do the backup. I can do the backup manually and the subsequent automatic backup goes OK. It's happened twice since my installation of 10.5.3 last night. I did Repair of the external drive and no problems were found.
I am sure this is a fairly common question but I am having a hard time finding out a straight answer to it. So I own a Mid 2009 15" MacBook pro and I love it, performance wise it is great with a 2.8 Core 2 Duo, 4 Gb of DDR3 1066 and the 9400/9600 GT Graphics are plenty to run my 30" monitor at 2560 x 1600 with ease. But of course there is a huge bottleneck in this machine and that is the Slow 5400 RPM 500 Gb Fujitsu Hard Drive. I want to replace this drive with an 80 GB Intel X-18 SSD that I have acquired from an HP laptop that no longer needs it. The drive is a 1.8" micro SATA drive, but I purchased a 1.8 to 2.5 Caddy from NewModeUS for $35 http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?...roducts_id=300
This not only takes care of the interface/power conversion it supports 3.3 Volt drives, which almost all SSDs are, but it also makes the 1.8 drive the exact same dimensions of a typical 2.5 drive. I have already tried it out in my desktop and it benchmarks just as this drive should, super fast! 80 Gb is plenty of storage for me on a laptop, I will keep all my media on the 500 Gb which I am going to put in an external enclosure and carry around in my bag at all times. So for right now I have most of the logistical hardware stuff figured out but where I need a little help is the migration.
Sure I could reload everything from scratch but I would honestly rather not do that and the honestly the thought of doing it makes me put this project off every time just because I need the machine for work and cannot really afford to have it down for a few days, making this a weekend project. I am very particular about how my machines are setup as well and usually do a decent amount of customizations and tweaks to make the OS easier to use for me. In order to avoid a fresh start I was first very excited about the thought of cloning my existing drive onto my SSD using SuperDooper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDup...scription.html
This seemed like the perfect solution, in theory everything would be the same when I installed the SSD and booted up, all my data, installed applications and settings would be untouched! Yay right, well then I started reading on some forums that for whatever reason cloning a mechanical drive onto an SDD in a no no and could cause issues, therefore the best bet to is to start with a fresh install of OSX. Damn! Can anyone prove that theory wrong? Has anyone cloned to an SSD before without any issues that you know of? Because I would love to go this route, but if not my plan B is to use my Time Machine back and restore that to my new install.
Now this brings me to the question in the title of this thread, what exactly will Time Machine restore if I have a full up to date backup of my machine and I do as it runs regularly and backs up to a 32 GB SD card (For now until I outgrow it) that is always in my machine. I don't have a ton of data; in fact my HDD only has 31 Gb used, while my Time Machine backup drive has 26 Gb used. That leads me to believe that most of the data is in that backup, I mean it does take a snapshot of your entire system so I don't see why it would not be able to put that data back just as it backed it up, like a system image. While I know all my data and personal files will be restored what about installed applications? Will I need to reload all of them?
Not the end of the world as I always save the installer but it does take time, esp. with things like the Adobe and Office Suites. How about settings, are certain ones remembered? I am talking about things like monitor configurations, wallpapers, dock shortcuts, color labels, background colors, Safari and Chrome Bookmarks, etc. The list could go on but I really just want to know what to expect if I install OSX fresh and then choose to restore from a Time Machine backup, I am sure it will save me a lot of time but may not be as ideal as using SuperDooper or CarbonCopy Cloner.
I was backing up my drive this evening. I left the Mac alone and realised when I returned that Time Machine deleted my oldest, and most important, Time Machine backup.
It's on an external hard drive.
Is there any way to recover this at all? This is so massively important!
I have a Mac Mini and two mac notebooks that run Snow Leopard. I've been backing these machines up to a 300 GB drive that is now full. Today I brought home a 2TB drive so that I can use Time Machine to backup the desktop Mac Mini. Can I use the same hard drive to use Time Machine for the two notebooks, as well? What about storing other backups on that drive as well? I'm just trying to map the most logical approach to having safe backups.
Is it true that TimeMachine doesn't backup email? A recent thing by Rush Limbaugh says that it doens't. I don't know if Rush knows Macs, but then on the lastest MacBreak Weekly, the Mac pundits talked about this issue as if everyone knows about this weakness.
I have a hard drive that has backed up my desktop computer using time machine. My desktop computer is now on it's way to my new location, and in the meantime I'd like to put all the backed up stuff onto my laptop. How do I load all the time machine stuff onto the laptop? Is there a way of like, important it all, or do I have to go in and just manually copy over whatever I want?
I have a lacie external hd which comes with lacie's own backup software. I'm wondering if I should use that or use time machine to backup my mac. Is one better than the other?
I have to send my MBP in for service and I am about to back up my computer, I was just wondering the best way to go about it so that I dont loose any of my information. I have an external hard drive and was wondering if I use Time Machine will it back up my applications and all information on my computer?
When time machine backup is running, iTunes playback is sometimes choppy. I have a brand new 27in iMac (i5) and not much else running. I'm new to Mac and not sure what I should expect in terms of performance impact when time machine is running. No other problems with the iMac. I've had it over a month and all good. I'm also pretty sure I've played music while time machine is running before without any issues. Also, time machine backup takes a lot longer than I expect (seems like 10-15 minutes but I didn't clock it). If it's running once per hour, the diff each hour should be small. And I'm not doing much besides playing music, doing some email and surfing the web. Is there a way to see what Time Machine thinks has changed and has decided to back up this hour?
I am using Time Machine with my external drive. And since my external hard disk does not have too much capacity, from the time machine options I excluded some folders like movies, music etc. So in time machine preferences it seems it needs 42gb for backup. And it was working like this, backing up 42gb and everyday just backing up changes like 100mb. So in hard drive more or less 50gb was used..70gb free. Until last week.
Suddenly it appeared an error like this "This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 128 GB but only 97 GB are available". I do not have any idea how this can happen since my backup size seems like 42gb still in options. How it can require 128GB suddenly? Also how can I have 97GB available? I had 70GB last week? I tried to include everything in backup options and exclude again but it does not work. Still I see there 42gb needed for backup but when I connect the drive I am still getting the same error!
