Mary Sharon Cohen

Q: Time Machine transfer to new disk didn't move all the times

I have a Time Machine backup on an external disk. It has been working fine. However, it was starting to run out of space, so I bought a new, larger HD.

 

I followed all the steps in Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support.

 

I then waited for 12 hours for everything to copy over.

 

Around midnight, I saw the copying was finished. There was a message that iWork hadn't been copied because it needed a different operating system. But I dismissed it. There were no other messages.

 

I switched Time Machine preferences to the new disk. And went to sleep.

 

This morning I entered Time Machine.

 

Only the very first date, from July 2014, was on the new TM disk. Then there were five times after midnight when the new disk had backed up.

 

But there was nothing from any of the years between the first date and the ones after midnight.

 

I know there are hundreds of TM captures on the original disk. And I have used them very well.

 

I have tried to copy over the individual folders from the old TM disk to the new one, but it's not possible to "modify the backups."

 

System 10.10.5

 

What to do?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Mar 7, 2016 4:47 AM

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Q: Time Machine transfer to new disk didn't move all the times

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Eric Root,Solvedanswer

    Eric Root Eric Root Mar 10, 2016 2:10 PM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen
    Level 9 (71,583 points)
    iTunes
    Mar 10, 2016 2:10 PM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen

    While in Time Machine, to see all mounted volumes shift - command - c.    Information learned from Linc Davis.

     

    If that doesn't work, try copying the file again using Disk Utility/Restore to copy the backup to a new location. Please note that this will reformat the destination partition.

  • by Mary Sharon Cohen,

    Mary Sharon Cohen Mary Sharon Cohen Mar 7, 2016 2:10 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 7, 2016 2:10 PM in response to Eric Root

    Tried the drag backup again.

     

    After 8 hours, the following notice appeared.

     

    When I clicked OK, the copying stopped.

     

     

    presentation notice.png

     

    And the new Time Machine HD has only the following:


    New TM results.png


    But the original TM HD has:


    OLd TM HD.png


    There is obviously something wrong with a file called "Presentation" somewhere in the old TM HD.

  • by Mary Sharon Cohen,

    Mary Sharon Cohen Mary Sharon Cohen Mar 7, 2016 2:13 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 7, 2016 2:13 PM in response to Eric Root

    Eric,

     

    I think you can see from the above post, that dragging isn't going to work. There's a file that is causing a problem.

     

    Could you point me to very simple, exceedingly basic step-by-step instructions as to how to use Disk Utility Restore to transfer the TM files to the new HD.

     

    Remember, however, the original TM HD is a partitition of only 1 T. The new TM HD is 3 T.

     

    Will I still be able to use disk utility?

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Mar 8, 2016 11:05 AM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen
    Level 9 (71,583 points)
    iTunes
    Mar 8, 2016 11:05 AM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen

    You should be able to transfer. Open Disk Utility and go to the Restore tab. Select the current backup drive as the source and the new drive as the destination. See number 7 in the attached link.

     

    Disk Utility - Using (2)

  • by Mary Sharon Cohen,

    Mary Sharon Cohen Mary Sharon Cohen Mar 9, 2016 7:11 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 9, 2016 7:11 PM in response to Eric Root

    Nope! Using Restore stalled halfway through.

     

    I also spoke to Apple Phone Support. They said to install the newest version of Keynote. That didn't work.

     

    I ran Disk Utility on the old TM disk and repaired the disk.

     

    Then tried dragging the backups.backups folder again to the new disk. (Reformatted.) Still stopped at the "Presentation" message.

     

    Any other thoughts?

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Mar 10, 2016 11:59 AM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen
    Level 9 (71,583 points)
    iTunes
    Mar 10, 2016 11:59 AM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen

    Try mounting the backup and see if you can find the file Presentations. If you go Finder/View/Show Path Bar, it will show you where it is located.

     

    EasyFind – Spotlight Replacement


     

    Find Any File

  • by Mary Sharon Cohen,

    Mary Sharon Cohen Mary Sharon Cohen Mar 10, 2016 12:33 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 10, 2016 12:33 PM in response to Eric Root

    Eric,

     

    And then what?

     

    Is it safe to remove the "Presentation" file from that backup window?

     

    I wouldn't want TM to blow up.

     

    I couldn't drag the folders in backups.backups to a different disk. "Not allow to modify" those items.

     

    Also, I have Easy Find, but it would have to look through all 1,600,000+ files in the backups.backups folder.

     

    I tried looking for "Presentation" using EasyFind, but it picked up any file that had the word "presentation" in it. And there were hundreds of those for just one window.

     

    Multiply that by daily backups for the past month, and then weekly backups for the next two years, and you'll see that's a lot of individual backup windows to search.

  • by Mary Sharon Cohen,

    Mary Sharon Cohen Mary Sharon Cohen Mar 10, 2016 2:09 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 10, 2016 2:09 PM in response to Eric Root

    Eric!!!!!!!!!!!

     

    I got it working!!!!!!!!!!!!

     

    Ran "Verify Disk" on original TM HD. Errors. So I had to run "Repair Disk" on the original TM HD. (A little scary as I didn't want to risk losing the TM backups on that disk during a repair.)

     

    Repairs made.

     

    Then tried dragging backups.backups from old TM HD to new one. Still came up with the Presentation file problem.

     

    THEN looked at your suggestion (again) to try "Restore." This time the Restore did not stall after 2 hours.

     

    So after 4 hours, I had two identically named external disks on my desktop. But amazingly, the new one was still 3 TB, even though the original was 1 TB.

     

    Then I did a few backups using the new disk. Then entered Time Machine. I could see all 2 years of entries. Went back a few weeks. Restored a file. All is good.

     

    I'm not going to ditch the original TM HD for at least 2 months. But I can unmount and unplug it.

     

    BTW, something was weird. The original TM HD is a 1 TB partition of a 2 TB external. But many times that I went to transfer or copy or inspect that disk, the information on it was listed as 15 TB. But if I did a Get Info on the volume, it only said 1 TB.

     

    Is there some sort of compression applied in the backups.backups folder that makes TM so special?

     

    Anyhow thank you for all your help.

  • by Eric Root,Helpful

    Eric Root Eric Root Mar 10, 2016 2:53 PM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen
    Level 9 (71,583 points)
    iTunes
    Mar 10, 2016 2:53 PM in response to Mary Sharon Cohen

    You are welcome.