Intel Mac :: Time Machine Failure And Getting Message That The Backup Could Not Be Created?
Feb 20, 2012
I'm running Snow Leopard on an Intel iMac, everything up to date, and Disk Utility finds no error on any of the drives. I have a 1 TB external drive connected to USB (bus powered, with a power USB connection to a powered hub, so it has more than enough power). Time Machine fails with a totally unhelpful message that the backup could not be created because a folder could not be created. The external drive has 318 GB used, 481 GB available, so it's not disk space. Yesterday I repartitioned the external drive using the GUID partition scheme, creating a 750 GB Mac extended journaled partition "Time 1GB Tosh" just for Time Machine. I've been through the Time Machine Troubleshooting FAQs
Error message "The backup disk image could not be created." I have tried everything I have found online in the community from TM full reset to changing my computers name. Anything else I can try? I am using a Seagate external HD with a connection through my router. I spent an hour on the phone with seagate and everything is ok on the HD end. TM sees it and it is mounted but cannot go any further
I'm trying to disconnect the time machine from my airport extreme and reconnect my external hard drive and I'm not having any success. After I installed the Airport Extreme and tried to connect (the once SUCCESSFULLY direct connected hard drive), the hard drive to the Airport - I was getting failure messages that the device was full) How can I re-point my time machine to a directly connected external hard drive? It's got to be simple - but I've exhausted my options I think.
I was a PC user who recently moved to mac. I have a macbook (intel 2.2GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD). When I was using PC, I backed up all my data to a network storage device (Buffalo LinkStation 250 GB connected to a 802.11g netgear router which is supplied by Sky) using a program called SmartSync Pro, which worked very well. Although I can connect to and mount the Share folder on this drive when the macbook is connected to the network, Time Machine will not back up to it. It wouldnt even recognise the disk on the network.
So I went onto the trusty internet, and found that you can get time machine to recognise the Share folder. (This was obtained from: http://blog.imulus.com/george/software/using-leopard-time-machine-to-backup-of-a-network/)See my comment on their page at the bottom, number 66.
It recommended entering the following in to the Terminal: defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Before attempting backup I have to go into "Network" and select the Share folder by double clicking on it. This seems to mount the volume. After this, it can be seen in Time Machine as a potential backup destination.
However, this method does not work for me. Time Machine "prepares" for a while, then gives the following message: Time Machine error. The backup disk image could not be created.
More internet searching took me to macosxhints which suggests creating something called a sparsebundle image on my local system. (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080420211034137) Have not tried this yet as I thought it would be prudent to seek some help first.
Apple have deliberately disabled the ability for Time Machine to back up to network attached storage, (except of course to their proprietory Time Capsule):
Is this because time machine requires a network faster than 802.11g?
Is this because a time machine backup to a network attached storage device is unreliable and the data is corrupted?
I dont want to shell out more cash for a time capsule. I would prefer not to have to hardwire to an external drive (which I will also have to go out and buy). Any thoughts?
iMAC with OSX10.9.4 ; 8GB ram ; two partitions external disk formatted MAC jurnaled ; connected via Fire Wire or USB2 .
During Backup the sistem get stack and display into the "details window"Â Time machine was unable to complete the backup because unable to complete the backup folder.
This problem happens with USB and Fire Wire. The file backups.backupdb is excluded from virus scanning.
Also happens time to time that (without doing things) both the partitions of the external disk disappaire from the desk-top and a message "the disk must be ejected properly" is displayed.
This two problems are independent une to the other. I have change the backup disk but both the problems persist.
Info: iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), 8GB ram ; external backup HD
I have a Time Machine Backup that I created in Lion 10.7 and I need to know if this will allow me to install it from 10.6.My HD is on its way out and I need a replacement. I will first install 10.6 onto the new drive (as this is the disk that came with my Mac) and from there, I want to install my Time Machine backup.
Info: Mac Mini (Early 2009)/MacBook (Late 2008)Mac Mini (2010), Mac OS X (10.6.7), LED Cinema Display
I have a file I alter once about a week, each time I alter it I save it as a new one, with a date included in the name.So I have a series of files something like
xxxxx march 13.numbers xxxxx march 07.numbers xxxxx march 01.numbers etc.
This morning when I updated and saved the march13 file I accidentally saved it as xxxxxx march 13, not xxxxxx march 20 which it should have been. No problem, go into time machine and retrieve the march 13 file I thought.Its not there. Its not there from just before the save to any time it should be there !
Luckily I was able to retrieve it as I also have a once a week online backup so I went into the last one of those and retrieved "xxxxxx march13" which proves it did exist, it has a creation date of march 17 but if I look at TM for march 18 its not there - why isn't it in my time machine backup?
All the other files in that folder are as expected so the only thing that makes any sense to me is that TM hasn't been backing up over the past week or so but TM error logger shows no errors.
What if a Time Machine backup was created on a Mac with a large hard disk, e.g. 500GB iMac - and I buy a new MacBook Air with a small SSD hard disk e.g 128GB. What happens when I need to use the larger Time Machine file to set up the new MacBook Air? What happens to all those files that can't fit on the smaller SSD drive?
My time machine backup failed last night. Tells me that disc cannot be repaired and to backup and reformat. But it wont let me copy anything off the disc it tells me that the operation cannot be completed due to the ownership of the volume not being set. I have tried changing the sharing and permissions but its permanently greyed out.
I've been without use of Time Machine for sometime (months) now. I've been getting the following error:
My backup drive (Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex - 320GB) was a attached to my Airport Extreme, but in desperation I moved it to being directly attached to my MBP. I've also excluded large number of files from the back up (reduced the full backup size to half the size of the backup disk). Also, I've erased and reformatted the back up disk - twice. No errors on it either.Â
What would be really helpful, was if there was some indication as to WHAT the problem actually is. This is a rather ambiguous error message, which does little to help a person to troubleshooot. It seems like the backup is being hung up on a file or files...but I'm just guessing.Â
Has anybody out there run into this? If so, what was your solution?
This morning I turned on TimeMachine (I do a weekly back up) and it showed a back up would occur within the hour. When I went back to look an hour later it was set on off. I turned it back on and within a minute it turned itself off. I have a lot of memory available on my standalone hard drive so what the heck is up with this shutting itself off?
I want to download Lion OS and I will call Apple for help, but I know they will ask if I've backed up everything. I'd like for Time Machine to completely back up my hard drive but I can't seem to find out how to make it do that.
I just did a clean install of Lion on my 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo iMac. Before I did that, I made sure that everything was backed up on an external drive through Time Machine. Now I want to restore everything and when I enter Time Machine, all that is visible for back ups are those that were done after the clean install of Lion.Â
when I open the files on the external back up drive through Finder, I can still see all of the back ups that were completed, including the most recent that I want to use to restore my iMac. I am considering another clean install to start the process again.Â
Info: iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo
I have recently ran the latest update 10.7.4 (11E53) for my iMac OSX Lion and using Safari browser 5.1.7 and since then I am experiencing intermittent problems with my Time Machine not backing up. The light on the front is on and it looks like it is working however it remains static and will not strobe as previously. The Time Machine is a WD MB Studio 1034. When I select the time machine symbol I get a message to say that the Time Machine is not set up and I cannot get to my backed up files. My last back up was done on 11th June 2012. Since then the back up drive has not automatically backed up.
i just bought a 1T lacie external hard drive?i chose to encrypt the the back up not sure why..it just seemed to be the prudent thing to choose it is still encrypting the data after 7 hrs? what's going on?can i change this?also can i change the schedule of backups the time machine does?
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 need to deploy multi iMac for my company with exact same setup.I am able to do this with the Time Machine without problem.But I would like to know is there a way to backup the "Time Machine" USB HDD I have created, just incase my USB HDD is corrupted or I need to distribut the Time Machines to other office for deployment? Can I create a dmg file with my existing Time Machine USB HDD. so that I can make multi copy of USB HDD with the same dmg by restoring the dmg?
Late last night I accidentally ejected Time Machine from the Devices section of the Finder window. I've now spent half a day trying to get the computer to recognise my external hard drive again as attempting to use Time Machine results in the message "Storage Machine for Time Machine backup can't be found." I can find my WD desktop 1TB drive with Disk Utility but not in Finder. If I click on the WD Ext HDD 1021 Media in Disk Utility there is the option to Verify in the top menu, but nothing happens when I click on it. All the options verify, and repair are greyed out. I've checked the computer hard drive and done the verify and repair disk and permissions process.
I've turned off the computer, disconnected the external hard drive, turned off time machine, then turned everything back on but still can't get the external hard drive to be recognized. This is extremely frustrating and I have run out of ideas. I know it all started when I clicked on the eject button for the external hard drive in the devices section of the finder. Such a simple mistake, but I have searched everywhere online and can't find a resolution that I can actually try. I can't verify and repair the WD hard drive if these options aren't available in Disk Utility.
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?
time machine does not backup iphoto library anymore, iphoto library is in previous backups, but since a couple of days it is no longer in the folder picture of my backups.I checked in the exclude and it is not excluded?
I am trying to create a backup of my hard drive with Time Machine, but every time I do it gets stalled. Sometimes it gets stalled during the backup, other times it just gets stuck during preparation. The reason I need this backup is because I want to update to Snow Leopard (so I can buy Mountain Lion when it is available) and I want to be sure I won't lose any data on my computer. I am using [URL] (2 TB). I have tried using Disk Utility to make a backup but that froze too.
When I go to the Time Machine menu and hit option to get the Verify Backup command, "verify backup" is grayed out. How do I verify backups?I'm using a G-Drive Mini ext hard drive with a Mac Lion 10.7.2 machine.
All our itunes songs are no longer on our hard disk thumbnails of photos there - but can't access them on main screen.I backed up a week before info ws lost using time machine backup.How do i retrieve these pics, songs etc?
Ever since receiving my iMac back from the genius bar my external hard used by time machine randomly ejects. Apple Care had no answers for me. They told me I would have to research it then I would be able to fix it?
I just did and automatic update that consisted of about 6 items, now my external hard drive is not even recognized! Long story short, Time Machine can not find my external to do a backup. I have already done all the unplugging and restarting and searching for the disk... Nothing! my external is Lit and seemingly functioning.Â
