broadway al

Q: sleepmode virus

Last two days my iMac won't come out of sleep mode. I wind up with a question marked folder blinking. I install the system disk and restart and things seem to straighten out strangely as I can eject the disk and keep going. I've tried to run disk utility off the disk but it's not compatible with the Snow Leopard I'm using.

All I can conclude is that I managed to get that malware bug from an email someone sent me. Time Machine won't let me restore my system folder.

Posted on Jul 4, 2015 7:32 PM

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Q: sleepmode virus

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  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 12:37 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 12:37 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    If I look at the drive in disk utility I see it as mac os extended journaled. I don't recall partitioning it when I started. If I look at the drive itself I count 9 folders one of which is TM. I have about 650 gigs available free space. Will I have to repartition it or could I just create another system folder?

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 6, 2015 12:42 PM in response to broadway al
    Level 8 (38,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 6, 2015 12:42 PM in response to broadway al

    You can't manually add folders to a TM drive like that. It's not intended to be used that way. There are tons of hidden files and folders in OS X, so you'd somehow have to manage to copy those, and all visible data into the TM drive. With the way TM works, as it needs to make room for newer data when the drive is full, it starts deleting the oldest items. Which would mean that eventually, it would start deleting the System files, your apps, etc. Don't do it, or even consider it.

     

    Since you didn't partition the external when you got it, then it's very likely one big partition. The only way to break it up so you can use it as both a bootable drive and a TM backup is to wipe it out and create two new partitions. Then clone your internal drive to a smaller partition, and when TM asks about the larger partition, say yes, it can use that.

  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 12:57 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 12:57 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Time machine works fine. At least I think it does. I've used it to fix things about 5 times now. The other folders are just separate backups I made for certain things I probably felt were so important I dragged them to that drive. I understand what your saying about partitioning but I thought I'd need to do that to turn the whole drive into a system disk. What you are saying is to partition into two parts; one for the system and the other for time machine? Could you explain how to clone the internal drive?

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 6, 2015 2:37 PM in response to broadway al
    Level 8 (38,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 6, 2015 2:37 PM in response to broadway al

    Ah! Our hosts managed to resurrect the missing posts. I'll drop them back in here. It's going to look a bit odd on the bottom where the rest of our replies to each other are.

     

    The other folders are just separate backups I made for certain things I probably felt were so important I dragged them to that drive.

    Well, you can do that, but as I described above, TM will eventually delete them as the oldest files when it needs to make room for newer backup data. You will eventually lose them.

     

    Before continuing, you absolutely need to copy those important files and folders sitting on the TM drive somewhere else. Otherwise, you will lose them in the following steps. Put them on a flash drive, another external drive, or something. You cannot otherwise continue.

    What you are saying is to partition into two parts; one for the system and the other for time machine? Could you explain how to clone the internal drive?

    Launch Disk Utility. Click on the physical drive name of the external drive at the far left. Note the difference between a physical drive name the names of the logical partitions you see on your desktop:

     

    drives 1.jpg

     

    With the hard drive selected, you'll have a Partition tab at the right. Click that. Where it says Current, change it to 2 Partitions. By default, it will split the drive into equal parts. You can resize them by dragging the dividing line between them or clicking on either graphic display of the partitions and then entering a size at the right. Here, I split a 2 TB drive into a 100 MB partition (more than big enough for OS X and my third party apps), and the rest for the second partition.

     

    Screen Shot.png

     

    You can give them names here instead of Untitled by filling in the Name: field, or do it later at the desktop when the partitioning is done. Make sure each is Mac OS Extended (Journaled), which they will be by default. Click Apply. It only take about 20 - 30 seconds to complete.

     

    Now click on your main startup drive at the left. The name you see on the desktop this time, not the physical drive name. Choose the Restore tab at the right. In this case (below), I had highlighted my boot drive before selecting Restore, so it already filled in the Source drive with that name. Now drag and drop the smaller partition you made on the external drive into the Destination field. Click Restore. Your internal drive will be cloned to the external drive. When it's done (it will take at least 20 minutes), you can exit Disk Utility.

     

    Screen Shot 1.png

     

    You can now startup to the cloned external partition and use the remaining space on it as your new TM drive.

    ________________________________________________________________________________ ____

    excellent Kurt. I just dragged all those folders to a thumb drive with one exception. The TM or "Backups.backupdb" as it's called. Should I drag that to a separate thumb also?

    When I try and copy time machine to a thumb I get:

    The backup can’t be copied because the backup volume doesn’t have ownership enabled.

     

    That file is used by TM. You don't need it on the thumb drive.

     

    When you say "

    That file is used by TM. You don't need it on the thumb drive."

    I don't know what you're referring to. I'm about to partition my time machine hard drive but I haven't back it up anywhere. I think your reply was sent before I responded . in any case I'm getting an error to back up tm

    The backup can’t be copied because the backup volume doesn’t have ownership enabled.

  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 2:39 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 2:39 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    Kurt I'm getting errors like I can't unmount my tm drive when I try to partition it. Also I'm having a hard time getting back to the support thread:

     

    Unauthorized

     

     

     

     
      
    Access to this place or content is restricted. If you think this is a mistake, please contact your administrator or the person who directed you here. 

     

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 6, 2015 2:40 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 8 (38,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 6, 2015 2:40 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    You don't need to copy the file "Backups.backupdb" to the thumb drive. Just the personal files you had manually copied into the TM drive.

  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 2:55 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 2:55 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    Kurt I also noticed under options to guid as an intel based startup. shouldn't I choose that?

    but as important how do I unmount the tm disk without doing a restart? Terminal?

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 6, 2015 3:05 PM in response to broadway al
    Level 8 (38,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 6, 2015 3:05 PM in response to broadway al

    I don't use TM, so I'm a rather weak on that subject. It's rather obvious though the OS has locked the drive to itself.

     

    Open the system Preferences, turn TM off and restart. Can you repartition the drive then?

  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 3:11 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 3:11 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    Kurt I really don't want to restart the iMac. Remember?

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 6, 2015 3:21 PM in response to broadway al
    Level 8 (38,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 6, 2015 3:21 PM in response to broadway al

    Then just try turning off TM to release it and see if you can repartition the drive.

     

    Restarting shouldn't affect the limping drive. It won't spin down on a restart, but it may still be an iffy thing to do.

     

    As another option, you could turn the external drive off, bring it over to a Windows computer and reformat it as FAT32 (don't use NTFS). Then bring it back to the Mac and repartition it for the Mac with Disk Utility.

     

    Or, take the external over to another Mac and reformat it as Mac OS Extended there. If you can do that, you could also do the repartitioning there. Then just plug it back into the Mac we're discussing and clone the drive.

  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 3:48 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 3:48 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    "RESTORE FAILURE Could not validate sizes - Operation not permitted.

  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 4:06 PM in response to broadway al
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 4:06 PM in response to broadway al

    I'm told that in 10 hours my Mac HD will be restored to disk. I wonder what Time Machine will take? My luck I'll get to 9 hours and 54 minutes when an error occurs.

    In any case I increased the mac hd to 163 gigs. I had to because the size of HD was 159. Isn't that awful big compared to you 100 meg file?

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 6, 2015 4:51 PM in response to broadway al
    Level 8 (38,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 6, 2015 4:51 PM in response to broadway al

    The 100 GB was a suggestion. Make the smaller partition on the external drive as big as it needs to be to hold what's on the main drive, plus at least 30 - 40 GB of extra room. It's up to you.

     

    Oh, I see where MBs came from. The screen shot is correct for my 100 GB example, but I then wrote MB instead of GB. 100 MB wouldn't hold much of anything.

     

    I can't say I have any idea what the 10 hours refers to.

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Jul 6, 2015 4:58 PM in response to broadway al
    Level 7 (30,944 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 6, 2015 4:58 PM in response to broadway al

    broadway al wrote:

     

    how do I unmount the tm disk without doing a restart? Terminal?

     

    I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do, but all this talk about partitioning your Time Machine drive is giving me the heebie-jeebies. I'm sure it's probably possible to do that safely, somehow, but I'm not at all sure that you're going about it the right way, especially if you're considering pointing the potentially loaded gun that is the Terminal at the TM disk!

     

    At the moment, you have a disk that is probably on the brink of total failure. If that Time Machine disk is your one-and-only backup, then you should not be touching it in any way! If you screw up your Time Machine backups, and your drive finally goes over the brink, your data will be screwed.

     

    If you feel you need to create a bootable drive, go out and get a different drive and make that bootable. Don't risk compromising an existing backup.

  • by broadway al,

    broadway al broadway al Jul 6, 2015 5:05 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 5:05 PM in response to thomas_r.

    my big concern is that  SoCal Edison doesn't have a blackout during the 5 hour restore time. Time machine is history.

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