OS X :: Time Machine Restore With Excluded Folders / Will I Lose Them
Jul 28, 2010
I am having issues buring CDs in Finder. Went to the Apple Store this past weekend as I have AppleCare. The genius there couldn't figure out the problem and only recommended I do a "Archive and install" of 10.6. Reluctantly, I did that today. Now I have lost most of my customizations to Finder, getting weird errors with some of my apps that load on login, and the problem still persists.
Instead of wasting hours on end getting the system up-to-date and trying to figure out all the errors Im getting, I decided to restore using Time Machine. I was about to restore a backup from yesterday (most up-to-date), but hesitated as I have never done a "Full" restore from TM before. So I decided to do a bit of research. From what I have been reading, the destination volume will be wiped clean and replaced by the backup. Normally this would be ok, but I remembered I excluded some folders from my Time Machine backup to cut down on space (Applications folder and VMs for example). I'm worried that if I restore using the "Restore from Backup" utility, I will lose the content in those folders.
Can anyone confirm what exactly will happen if I do a "Full Restore"? Will I lose those "excluded" folders? If so, is there any way I can restore only the System Folder for my backup (that's really the only thing I need to restore). I am slightly panicked and ready to go back to the Apple Store and rip that Genius a new one.
(Yes I know he couldn't have know about my specific backup setup, but he said that a "Archive and Install" would fix the problem. He also said that I wouldn't run into any issues afterwards, which was also false. Also, I know I am over-reacting but I have a valid reason to be peeved ATM)
I've been having a lot of trouble with Time Machine lately. I used to have a 300GB partition on a second drive dedicated to backups. Time machine is set up to backup just my user directory and the calculated backup size is 200gb. There are a couple of folders on my desktop that I also exclude. I've had it working this way for months now (before Snow Leopard came out). I started getting problems a few weeks ago. I formatted my Time Machine drive and got it to start a backup again, however, it kept running out of space without being able to complete the backup. I've been ignoring it since then because I knew I'd be getting some extra hard drives this week. After my new hard drive reshuffle, I now have a 500gb drive dedicated to Time Machine backups.
My backup size is still only 200gb but my initial backup would count up to 205gb/205gb or whatever it was and then keep going for hours with both the "done" and the "total amount" numbers gradually going up. It finally completed and I see that my 500gb drive only has about 30gb free or so. A bit of right clicking and get info clicking later and I soon find the root of the problem. The two large folders on my desktop that I've set to exclude have been backed up. I've tried killing the time machine settings file in the library and have rebuilt the exclusion list from scratch. I've also reformatted the backup drive several times. I've zeroed it once. Partitioned it into 16 partitions and wiped it again into one.
I did: "Enter Time Machine Preferences" ---->"Options"----->"Exclude These Items from Backups"----->"Excluded Folder FOO". Today I go into TM, and there is folder FOO, backed up! WTF? Why is TM not respecting my exclusion of FOO from the backups?
Did a fresh install of SL on my iMac. So far, so good.
Go to my Documents folder, enter time machine, choose the files in my Documents folder and click restore. Exits out back to my desktop, enter my password and it starts to copy over the files. But then suddenly stops. And only copies over a small number of files and empty folders. When trying to restore just the files in some of the folders I get an error that says I don't have permission to access these files. Don't have permission? Says who and why?
So I go in via finder to the backup, select all the files in my Documents, and manually drag them over to my Documents folder. Same thing happens.
The files are a couple hundred mb. But can't figure out why they don't all copy over. Weird thing is I didn't have this problem with files from other locations like restoring my iPhoto library.
I am using TM from another machine, (which has died) to restore folders onto a working system, some of the folders I need are in the User Library, but how do I display the User Library in TM?
Info: Mac Pro Dual 2.66 4G RAM MacBook Pro 15 ins 2.6G 4G RAM 80G Video iPod iPhone 3G, Mac OS X (10.6.7), Also running XP via Parallels
I have a 10mth old MBP. I've been using time machine for just as long. However, I recently changed the external HD that I am using for my time machine backups. My MBP uses about 130GB of space. The folders that I am excluding take up about 50GB. This means I should only be backing up 80GB of info onto my external HD using Time Machine. Even under the Time Machine Preferences, the estimated space says ~80GB.
However, when I start the backup, initially it say 0MB of 69GB. And then when it reaches 69GB, the amount just increases. e.g. 72.3GB of 72.3GB. 79.25GB of 79.25GB. And it just keeps going till 80+ 90GB. For some reason, it is ignoring the excluded command. I've tried reformatting my external HD as well as disabling time machine and doing everything from scratch. But it still ignores my Excluded items.
The problem is that full Os backup should be about 155 GB, but it tries to backup whole disk 1 TB. It works fine for first full backup 155 GB (I have exclude list) after that it wants to backup whole disk no matter what. No such problem with 10.6.2 just with 10.6.3. Image so we are clear. I'm new to Mac OS X.
I've just started using time machine and actually surprised how well it works go apple. One question I want my time machine drive bootable just in case. Right now I am excluding the system library and user library cache folders from backup at the moment. Thats ok right? It doesn't affect boot ability or anything else serious right?
I'm having problems with Time Machine. First, I get the message that I need more space even though there is 1TB available on each and only 500GB on the boot disk being backed up. I've started fresh.
Second, both backup disks are shown on the "Exclude" list and are grayed out, so I can't take them off it. Nor can I add a disk I do want to exclude.
Info: Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), (early 2008), 22 GB RAM, 1 TB HD -- 500 GB free
I excluded for one TM backup a sparse bundle disk image that I have been backing up regularly. I then immediately removed the sparse bundle disk image from the TM exclusions list, and now TM wants to back up the entire sparse bundle disk image, which contains an iPhoto Library (80GB). It seems that TM does not "see" the previous disk image backups.
Info: iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), 21.5-inch, Late 2009
How long should I be stuck on the screen "calculating space required to restore data"? I've been on this screen for about 20, 30 minutes. The "hash mark wheel" is spinning, but just not seeing anything new. Is this normal? My backed up data is ~100 GB.
I have a desktop G5 that I'm in the process of selling. I have been using Time Machine for my backups and am picking up a MacBook Pro to replace it as my requirements are now much more mobile.
My question is simply this; can I restore my system, backed up from my G5, to my new MacBook?
i've got a niggling problem that i'd like to get sorted. I've searched the forums, but can't find anything that relates exactly to my problem.
I restored my pro from a time machine machine backup and now it displays the time incorrectly (-1hr). 'Set date & time automatically' is checked in system prefs which makes the problem even weirder. I'm using the Apple Europe sever too.
I've read somewhere about deleting a hidden file to solve the problem, but there isn't enough information to execute.
I would like to make my TM backup a bit slimmer and delete some folders but I'm not sure how TM works. Can I simply delete an entire TM folder of a given date e.g. 2009-08-29-190000 without affecting the others? Or are the backup made "incrementally" in which case the last backup needs all previous backups in order to be restored? I believe that the backups are independent but I just want to be sure.
Perhaps its just me being tired, as it seems there should be simple solutions to both of these problems, but I can't find them.
1) I got a new HD, and had it connected to my MacBook and MacBook Air one at a time to do an initial Time Machine backup. However, now I've connected it to my Time Capsule, and pointed them to the same partitions that they backed up to earlier - and they can't see the older backups. Is it possible to get them to see it and only start an incremental backup?
2) I'm also trying to mirror my iTunes library on the new hard drive, but all the methods I've tried so far (ie a couple of Automator actions and various apps) have either failed, or haven't worked properly (one has added several thousand '..DS_Store' files to the folder which aren't there even when I view hidden files!
When I enter time machine, I see all of my previous back ups, usig the slider at the far right i can scroll to an of my previous back ups, yet at the bottom right the restore button is greyed out...how do i restore if i want to?
Also what is the difference between time machine, and time capsule ?
just signed up for the forum today and plan on stopping by often.... but I have a question.
Recently my 15" MBP has been very sluggish, especially when it comes to browsing the web. I can scroll with my mouse wheel, and wait a few seconds, then I see it actually scroll. Flash video lags and drop frames, etc. Same type of stuff outside of the browser as well, just feeling slow.
So I've got my awesome Drobo (with 2 1TB drives I might add) as my Time Machine backup, and my question is that if I just do an erase and install of OSX, and restore my computer from my previous TM state, won't that just restore all the problems I had?
Would it be worth just starting over for real and install all my software, import my music, etc. manually, or should I trust Time Machine?
So I upgraded my hard drive to 500gb and thought that the easiest way to transfer would be a fresh install and let time machine do it's magic. Well it kind of worked. Everything went smoothly until I tried to load itunes. itl database is from a previous version. Hmm... I thought Time Machine was supposed to back up EVERYTHING so I don't have to go reinstalling s*&^ again. Nevermind, update in Software Update and everything should be grand right? Wrong (arnie voice)
There were loads of updates still in there and 10.5.6 was a biggie. So install that one first. It hangs, I try again, it hangs on install. So approached it from another angle. Use Carbon Copy Cloner. So out with the new drive and in with the old drive. Begin Clone, it failed at 33%. Stuff that. Use something else. Super Duper. It copied superbly, althought it took ages. And then I could even boot use using the clone as the startup disk. So cloned the drive to the new 500gb disk. Took 8 hours...
And eventually.... it loads to the apple logo and then reboots after abotu 60 seconds. Infinite reboot loop.
Backed up the MB on an external using Time Machine. Erased the HD and performed a new, fresh install of Leopard. I'm now attempting to restore all the files I previously backed up, but when I click on a file or folder to restore I'm not actually given the "restore" option in Time Machine.
I think my iMac disk may be a bit defragmented after three years of use including large video files. I did a test by installing a new copy of OS on external drive, and it was noticeably faster.
This makes me want to try reinstalling Snow Leopard as a clean install.
Can I then just use Time Machine to bring back everything *exactly* as it was? Will it do that? Emails and everything will be exactly as before?
ive got a new imac with snow leopard installed and a time machine drive with all my data/applications but its taken from a machine with just leopard installed (my old one )
what process will i have to take get my data onto the new machine ?
cannot use migrate assistant as one machine has only 400 firewire the other 800 only
I got Time Machine backed up on a Seagate external hard drive and now I have clean installed my Mac and tried to locate the Seagate external hard drive that is formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled and GUID mapping, it cannot find it. It keeps searching for the disk in migration assistant.
So I've been on 10.5.8 for the last year, and I have been using Time Machine to back everything up.
My computer won't boot, and I'm going to initialize the drive and install Snow Leopard. My question is, what is the best way to restore all of my applications, data and preferences?
Will I be able to just do a complete system restore using Time Machine from the Snow Leopard disc, after I do a clean install of 10.6?
Like the title says is it possible to back up only a certain folder in time machine? I'm a producer and dj and instead of manually backing my files up every few months I'd like it to happen automatically but I don't care for any of the other programs or anything on my computer.
