Q: Can't access old files on time capsule

Is it possible to recover my photos?

It depends but I am really afraid the answer is no.

Are you opening the one and only sparsebundle on the TC??

I need to know what you did.

Prior to this, I backed up everything on my TC using Time machine.

That was the worst kind of backup you could have done.. a disk utility image or a bootable drive image is what you should have done.. for next time and other people reading.. TM backups are difficult to extract data from.. an image is direct one to one file..

I decided to erase everything and start over.

So you clean installed Yosemite??

Did you change the computer name?? If so your backups will be in a different sparsebundle.. as the UUID should have changed.

If you did some other sort of install.. or kept the same computer name.. and then continued to do Time Machine backups over the existing ones.. very bad things could happen.

I can only go back to a september date, (but nothing prior to the sept 18th even if I backuped up all summer long), where there are no signs of my old iphoto librairies.

My hope here is .. you changed computer names.. you are looking in the wrong sparsebundle.

I tried to use stellarinfo phoenix recover data but I don't know how to directly mount my TC so the software can't find it. I really care about my librairies since they are mainly my sons childhood...

Stop doing backups or anything to this TC right now.

But if you messed up the sparsebundle.. you waited far too long..

You should have migrated the user files immediately..

TM deletes files that do not exist on the Mac. Not immediately but after several months it will delete them because clearly you no longer want them. You are treating Time Machine as an archive program.. it isn't.. it is a backup.. that retains some history.

Recovery software is almost useless for recovery of TM backups. Only if you deleted a prior sparsebundle are you going to have any success and it is extremely unlikely.

There is no way to mount the TC disk locally.. you have to pull it out of the TC. Get a USB holder and plug it into the computer.. the recover data utility can then check for deleted files that still exist. HOWEVER inside a sparsebundle is a whole different story.

Even sending it to a data recovery centre.. I am not sure they will have any success.. if you copied the pictures to the TC and accidently deleted they can be recovered.. but not if you have deleted them (however that happened) inside a sparsebundle.

Mount the TC disk in finder again and check if you have a second sparsebundle..

Thank you for your fast answer.

I'm opening my own sparsebundle. There is one for my girlfriend's macbook also.

I didn't know I was doing the worst thing possible as the Apple guy sold me this TC as a backup device...

Yes I formatted my Macbook HD and reinstalled everything. I didn't change my computer's name. Same old one. So I guess TM erase everything and started a new sparsebundle since it has the same name but can't find the same datas on my newly formatted computer?

There is nothing wrong with using a TC and TM for a backup..

Unfortunately it is how you did it. Giving the computer the identical name and continuing to use the same TM backup. Even then I do not understand how it managed to delete your earlier files unless it was corrupt or you didn't test the backup before you wiped the computer.

The situation you are in now is that TM appears to not contain your iphoto library. That no date prior to your wipe and reinstall of OS exists in TM backup.

You can pay and get an expert to double check. They can attempt recovery but after months of operation, I just don't see how it can change anything.

Very sorry..

Hi! I hope you figured this out... I just wiped my mac last night for the same reason, and I also wanted to choose what to copy over.  I couldn't access Time Machine.  After two hours of searching, I finally found it.  I plugged in my Airport via ethernet, and opened Disk Utility.  There it was! I then right clicked on "Time Machine" and selected "Show in Finder..." and tah dah!  Click all the way through the folders - mine were: Backups.backupdb > [my MacBook's name] > scrolled down to date of the back up I wanted > Macintosh HD > Users > [my name] > Pictures > Photos Library.photoslibrary.  I then right clicked on "Photos Library.photoslibrary" and copied and then pasted into my Pictures folder (not sure if this will overwrite your current library, so maybe save it to an external hard drive until you know!!!)  I hope this helps you or someone!!