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User profile for user: ohhiimadam
ohhiimadam Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

How can I reset Time Machine?

Hey All!


I am a long time Apple user and am running into an issue that has me stumped - looking for some help!


- I have been using Time Machine for over a year but have recently run out of space on my backup drive and Time Machine is not overwriting the files.

- Instead of troubleshooting that issue, I simply wanted to clear my external hard drive of all backups and start fresh with a new backup of the system as it is now.

- I deleted the files off of the old hard drive, turned Time Machine off, and stopped using my external hard drive as the backup disk.

- I turned TM back on and reselected my external drive as the backup disk.

- Time Machine is acting as if it has always been backing up to this particular drive and wants to backup 547GB of material despite my internal drive being 500GB.


It seems like TM is seeing 547GB worth of changes because it recognizes the external drive as being a long time backup drive. I am wondering if there are some plist files that I need to dump in order for Time Machine to act as if it has never been used before.


Any help?


Hope everyone is doing well!

Thanks!

adam

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Jun 26, 2011 1:21 PM

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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,849 points

Posted on Jun 26, 2011 1:25 PM

I'm not sure what you did, so here's my suggestion:


Drive Preparation


1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.


2. After DU loads select your TM backup drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.


3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.


Open TM preferences, select the newly erased backup drive as the TM backup drive, turn on TM.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,849 points

Jun 26, 2011 1:25 PM in response to ohhiimadam

I'm not sure what you did, so here's my suggestion:


Drive Preparation


1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.


2. After DU loads select your TM backup drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.


3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.


Open TM preferences, select the newly erased backup drive as the TM backup drive, turn on TM.

Reply

How can I reset Time Machine?

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