Accidently trashed my 'backup' folder and can't transfer it out of Trash...

Have you turned off backup?

I don't profess to be an expert but I have had some odd problems similar to yours. Can't really say I've got an answer. Perhaps it is a conflict with the two drives. Try disconnecting the other. Check also to be sure there isn't any pre-allocated space on the drive.

If that doesn't work you could try reconnecting the second drive, drag the folder from trash to it if it has enough space. Once that succeeds you could drag it across to the correct drive.

20thcenturymarc wrote:
I've accidently trashed the 'backup' folder in my Time Machine external drive, and it won't let me transfer it back!

I had 2 external drives connected to my Macbook Pro, both had time machine back ups on...I meant to delete one of these but deleted the wrong one, and dragged it into Trash. On realising my mistake I tried to drag it back out of Trash, as you would normally but after "preparing to copy" for four hours it told me the drive was full... since then all attempts have resulted in 'preparing to copy' for several hours before freezing.

It's a 500gb drive, and the Time Machine backup is the only thing on it, so presumably it's just trying to copy itself when the back up is still present on the drive, albeit in the Trash. Hence

How do I get my back up folder out of the Trash? Help!

you can't, sorry. this is a one way street which is why you should be very careful with TM backups and NEVER modify them from finder in any way. you now have to reformat the TM drive and start backups from scratch.

20thcenturymarc wrote:
I've accidently trashed the 'backup' folder in my Time Machine external drive, and it won't let me transfer it back!

I had 2 external drives connected to my Macbook Pro, both had time machine back ups on...I meant to delete one of these but deleted the wrong one, and dragged it into Trash. On realising my mistake I tried to drag it back out of Trash, as you would normally but after "preparing to copy" for four hours it told me the drive was full... since then all attempts have resulted in 'preparing to copy' for several hours before freezing.

It's a 500gb drive, and the Time Machine backup is the only thing on it, so presumably it's just trying to copy itself when the back up is still present on the drive, albeit in the Trash. Hence

How do I get my back up folder out of the Trash? Help!

You are in a pickle (pardon the technical term). 🙂

First, the backup folder you trashed. As you've now learned, *never use the Finder to change, move, or delete* any TM backups. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks not to do this, other than using special "deny everybody everything" permissions.

Those backups are hopelessly corrupted. About all you can do now is use Disk Utility, in your Applications/Utilities folder, to erase the drive/partition. 😟

I'm not sure just what happened when you tried to do a backup. I'd suggest doing a Restart (if you haven't since then), re-select the correct TM drive (select "none," then the correct drive).

It sounds like you never got a good backup to that drive. If so, erase it, too, and let TM start fresh.
If it already had successful backups that you don't want to lose, use Disk Utility to do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on it.

Then try another backup.

If it doesn't seem to be proceeding normally (there will be a long "preparing" phase, of course), start with the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.

If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.