Q: Applying privileges to "Backups.backupdb"

Hi all,

Please can someone help with advice regarding the long time it's taking to apply privileges to "Backups.backupdb".

I've had a problem with time machine getting most of the way through a backup but failing every time at the same point (approx 500 / 600MB through the process of making the latest backup) and therefore I have decided to check if it's not the external hard drive itself that might be the issue. Since you can't run disk utility to check permissions I've decided to try something else.

What I'm trying to do is copy the 'backups.backupdb' folder and it's entire content (about 400GB) onto a separate drive. Then I intend to wipe the first drive and replace the previously copied folder with all my backups back onto it. The theory being that there may be an issue with the hard drive and I'm going to try reformatting it to exclude that as the possible problem.

In trying to copy the backups.backupdb folder onto a separate external drive, there seemed to be a permissions issue, so I tried Get Info on the backups folder, authenticated myself by clicking the padlock so I could make changes to the sharing & permissions section, then changed the privilege for the entry that says 'myname (Me)' to read and write. I then clicked the settings cog icon and selected 'Apply to enclosed items'.

The presumption was that it would change the permissions to allow me to copy the 'backups.backupdb' folder, so that I can then wipe the hard drive and copy it back, without losing any previous backups.

However.... and sorry the explanation has taken so long to get to this point... but it's taken about 10+ hours so far to process the change in privileges and it just says, Applying privileges to "Backups.backupdb" with no option to stop it and try another solution.

1. Should it take this long?

2. Is there a different solution that allows me to copy the backup to another drive, so that I can wipe the time machine drive and copy the backups back to it?

3. How can I stop this process if there is another solution?

The dialogue box said I couldn't go back once this had started and now I can't even eject the time machine external hard drive or even shut the machine down!

How long will this go on for and is it normal??? 

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you...

Clown Guy