TC wants to create a new, second backup

Hi David507, welcome to the discussions!

Time Capsule thinks you have a new computer because your old computer must have had major repairs like a drive replacement or circuit board replacements.

I do not think that you will be able to continue incremental backups, so you best option would be to delete the .sparsebundle file for the old backups and do a new backup. You should be able to find the .sparsbundle file when you open your hard drive and look for your Time Capsule icon under SHARED. Double click the Time Capsule folder and you will see a .sparsebundle file for each of your computers. Be sure to delete the correct file, of course.

Now you can run an initial backup of your "new" computer. Allow plenty of time for this. Overnight is a good time for the initial backup and use ethernet if you can over wireless. Post back if you have questions.

Yes, it would be a good move to delete the old backup.

Open your hard drive and look on the left side of the next window for a SHARED listing. Your Time Capsule icon should be there.

(If it's not, do the following:
Click on an open area in the desktop so the Finder menus appear at the top of the screen. Click on Finder, then on Preferences. Select the General tab.
There is a heading that reads "Show these items on the desktop"
Make sure there is a check mark next to "Connected Servers")

Click on the Time Capsule icon and another window will open with a Time Capsule folder. Double click this folder. It may take a minute or so for the Time Capsule to start up and reveal the contents of the folder.

The next window should show a xxxxxxx.sparsebundle file for each computer that has been backing up to the Time Capsule. Click to highlight the xxxxxxx.sparsebundle file for the computer backup that you want to delete.

Now click the gear icon at the top of the pane and select Move to Trash. It may take a moment or two for the file to disappear.

Now you are ready to do an initial backup of your computer. Use an ethernet cable for this if you possibly can so the process will go faster and safer. Connect the ethernet cable from one of the LAN <-> ports on the TC directly to your computer. Allow plenty of time for the backup. It will go very slowly at first, then pick up speed. You might set up the backup this evening so it will run overnight. You can do subsequent hourly backups by wireless if you prefer.

That should get everything back to normal for you.

Dear Bob:
Is this for real? There's no way of recovering files from the older backup??? When I hold Option on the Time Machine menu and choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" I still only sees the new backup, both are on the same TC drive. There sure must be some way to access the older backup! That's what backups are for, aren't they?
Thanks
Chris

Hi Chris,

"There sure must be some way to access the older backup! That's what backups are for, aren't they?"

Unless something has changed very recently in the new firmware updates, this condition remains. Hopefully, some other users may have figured out a work around on this, but I can't find anything on the boards about this. Two local "genius" types in the DFW area unfortunately don't have answers either.

On another issue, they said it couldn't be done, but I did figure out a way to access backups from another computer when sharing was already enabled and setup on the network. See this recent post:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9750502&#9750502

Hope this might help.

Hi Bob:
Thanks so much for your prompt answer.
I actually found some MacWorld/MacHints post by "dethbunny" that suggests that Time Machine identifies the computer by the MAC address. As I got a new MLB I have a new MAC address. The workaround is to change all occurrences of the old MAC to the new MAC on the TC using Terminal.
However, I'm not getting it done. I suspect by the error messages that I have an unsupported character - an apostrophe (') - in the TC's volume name. Now I fear renaming the TC at this point will create a total mess?
Thanks,
Chris

Ouch! Don't try this at home. Unless your UNIX grammar is excellent.
Anyway, I did rename the TC and it did create a mess so the MAC trick doesn't work anymore. However, and because, renaming created a new volume on the TC. At least, now I can choose the old backup when holding Option while in the TM menu. Not at all elegant, but solves my problem.
And now for a new full backup. Duh!

Has anyone tried double clicking on the sparsebundle? I just tried this with a backup that was for a different machine than the one I was using to open it and I was able to browse the contents. It wasn't as pretty as Time Machine's presentation, but much easier than trying to mess around with terminal just to get a file back, hoping that a typing error will not make the file un-recoverable.

Your sparsefile must have been from the same machine, i.e. same MAC address. As I wasn't lucky by simply trying to open it.

Nope. Mine was from a different computer. I specifically tested this by choosing a sparsebundle that was not from the machine I used to access it. I just tested this again and yes, it worked. I am not using Filevault, so that may be the difference.

The way I opened the sparsebundle was to click on it directly, like you would open an application.