Time Machine backups greyed out

I realized that my new account and old account have the same backups. Is that normal ? They are supposed to be different backups. Isn't it ? Also, I tried to access old backups(on external disk) from my old account and it gave permission error. It said that "The following disk images could not be openned. User Name's Permission denied." So, by using Get Info, in Sharing & Permissions section, I saw that my old user name was not there instead it was saying "Fetching" for two unknown accounts. I changed that to my old user name. And the problem was solved. Now, I can access old backups from my old account. Can I also add my new user name to old backup's sharing and permissions section so that I can access old backups from my new user account. Is that possible ?

Also one more thing, I would like to ask. In Finder window, at left below SHARED there is Time Capsule item with Time Capsule logo. Sometimes, below Time Capsule, a PC Screen logo appear with "time-capsule" written next to it. What is this ? I don't use any PC at my home. Sometimes this PC Screen logo disappears by itself. Does that mean a PC is trying to access my Time Capsule ? What can I do ?

tolgao wrote:

I realized that my new account and old account have the same backups.

I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean, they have the same timestamps, that's corect -- TM backs up your entire system, including all user accounts.

I saw that my old user name was not there instead it was saying "Fetching" for two unknown accounts. I changed that to my old user name. And the problem was solved. Now, I can access old backups from my old account.

Was that the sparse bundle? If so, no, that shouldn't have happened.

Can I also add my new user name to old backup's sharing and permissions section so that I can access old backups from my new user account. Is that possible ?

It shouldn't. You shouldn't be able to change the permissions on your backups (that would kinda defeat the whole point of permissions!).

tolgao wrote:

Should I do Reset Permissions on my new account one more time ?

If you're not having a problem, there's no reason to.

Can I also install Mountain Lion when it is released ? Would that be problem installing Mountain Lion ?

Shouldn't be a problem (if your Mac meets the requirements, of course.)

And Mountain Lion was released on July 25. But I'd not be too eager to get it -- there are some bugs, including the Browse Other Backup Disks option does not work. At all.

See Changes in Mountain Lion for some other details.

tolgao wrote:

Also one more thing, I would like to ask. In Finder window, at left below SHARED there is Time Capsule item with Time Capsule logo. Sometimes, below Time Capsule, a PC Screen logo appear with "time-capsule" written next to it. What is this ? I don't use any PC at my home. Sometimes this PC Screen logo disappears by itself. Does that mean a PC is trying to access my Time Capsule ? What can I do ?

Sounds like some sort of confusion about your network. If there aren't any PCs on your network, it's probably nothing to worry about. What happens if you click it?

When I click on it, on the right side of Finder window, a screen comes up, saying that "time-capsule" Connection Failed then a button named "Connect As..." when I click on it my log on name and password comes up, when I click Okey , the screen jiggles and nothing happens.

Must be some sort of network glitch. It's clearly not a real device or connection.

I logged in to my old account in order to restore a file in old backups which is on external USB disk. I used to find old backup sparsebundle file on the disk, and when I double click on it, it used to mount old backup volume on desktop. After that, I used to "Browse Other Time Machine Disks..." and in TimeLine, I find the old file and restore it. But this time, when I double clicked on old sparsebundle file, it did not mount old backup volume on desktop, instead it openned folder named Backups.backupdb in Time Machine Backups folder. And then, when I clicked Backups.backupdb folder, a new folder with the same name Backups.backupdb folder openned. And inside last Backups.backupdb folder, a folder named "Om*** T**** Oz*****n's Macbook Pro came up. When I clicked last folder bunch of folders came with name of old old backup folders like:

Folder: 2012-07-15-161936

Folder: Latest

Folder: 2012-07-14-232457

.

.

.

.

My question: Is there any way to mount old Backup Volume on desktop again ? Instead of opening up bunch of folders when I click on sparsebundle file.

ps. This way my old backups are useless unless I will mount sparsebundle file on desktop ?

Sorry, but that's very hard to follow.

You're seeing the folder structure because you're opening the Time Machine Backups disk image via the Finder.

Please read Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17 carefully, especially the pink and blue boxes. That should show you how to see the backups via the Time Machine browser (the "Star Wars" display).

I did not know that there was a difference between local and network backups. I did old backups with network setup, then I moved the same hardisk to local setup. After I moved back my local external disk to network setup. Now I can mount my old sparsebundle on desktop and with "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" I did even restore a file from old backup to same location. Problem solved. Thanks.

My question:

When I restore a file from old backup in my old account, How can I transfer that file to new account. Is it same as using Shared Folder that we did before ?

tolgao wrote:

. . .

When I restore a file from old backup in my old account, How can I transfer that file to new account. Is it same as using Shared Folder that we did before ?

There are other ways, but that's probably easiest.

I have one old test backup that I want to delete from my external usb disk. Is it okey if I delete(Move to Trash) Backups.backupdb folder from my external disk ? or is there any other way to delete this old backup ?

You can do that, but emptying the trash will take a long time (and hold the Option key when you empty it).

If there's nothing else on the drive, it's much faster and easier to just erase it with Disk Utility.

I am having the same issues as others in the post and have read the replies with great interest. After I migrated to a new iMac from a 2008 iMac, I wanted to continue my TM backups on the same external drive. After turning TM on and off a couple of times and dismounting the disk I got the "would you like this computer to inherit" option and chose it. After completing the backup ( it seems to have done a complete backup of the new computer) my old backups were grayed out. I fixed that with shift command C and can view all my backup history. The only problem (and it is a big one) is that my user folder denies me access because of permission issues. My take on what I have read is that this is quite common and from AppleCare, there is no real solution. All files that you thinkyou may need should be restored from your backup before migration to the new computer. Changing permissions on the TM is a non starter. I now question what the utility of inheriting the old backup is if it is not functional for the most important files in my user folder. I did figure out a way to access these older versions of files by using the "root" user. I am not sure what the limitations of this will be to access the older files t to me it is a acceptable work around.

sruben wrote:

I am having the same issues as others in the post and have read the replies with great interest. After I migrated to a new iMac from a 2008 iMac, I wanted to continue my TM backups on the same external drive. After turning TM on and off a couple of times and dismounting the disk I got the "would you like this computer to inherit" option and chose it. After completing the backup ( it seems to have done a complete backup of the new computer) my old backups were grayed out. I fixed that with shift command C and can view all my backup history. The only problem (and it is a big one) is that my user folder denies me access because of permission issues.

Does it show the red "no entry" badges on the folders, something like this?

If so, the problem is, your user account isn't recognized as being the same as the one on the backups. It's not clear from your description what caused it, but see the pink box in Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation.

My take on what I have read is that this is quite common and from AppleCare, there is no real solution.

It is common if you don't use Setup Assistant when your new Mac first starts up. Unfortunately, that window doesn't make it clear that it's far better to do it then, not later with Migration Assistant.

There are some workarounds, if you haven't run new backups, in the green box of the link above.

All files that you thinkyou may need should be restored from your backup before migration to the new computer

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you mean you've been deleting things from your system, expecting Time Machine to keep the backups indefinitely, no, that's very dangerous. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #20.

Changing permissions on the TM is a non starter.

Correct.

I now question what the utility of inheriting the old backup is if it is not functional for the most important files in my user folder.

If you use Setup Assistant when the new Mac first starts up, or Migration Assistant after one of the workarounds in the green box, that doesn't happen.

If you can't use one of those workarounds, you should be able to access the backups from a different user account. You may have to create a few to get the UID you need.