Cannot restore some files/folders from Time Machine Backup

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Level 1

9 points

Cannot restore some files/folders from Time Machine Backup

When I try and restore files or folders from my Pictures folder, which is a sub folder of my user I get the message "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access xxxx". As far as I can tell this has only just started to happen because I've recovered stuff from the folder since I bought the machine in July. Yesterday I deleted an old Time Machine backup folder from the Time Machine disc. This caused empty trash to go berserk - the "files to delete" count went negative and I had to stop/restart the empty trash command about 20 times before it sorted itself out. Maybe this has screwed some permissions somewhere? I have run disc utility and repaied permissions on my hard drive and verified the TM drive. Still no joy. The permissions for Pictures look OK. Anyone any ideas?

Posted on Sep 25, 2011 9:47 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Sep 25, 2011 12:34 PM in response to Keith Lander

Yesterday I deleted an old Time Machine backup folder from the Time Machine disc. This caused empty trash to go berserk - the "files to delete" count went negative

Probably you corrupted your Time Machine Backup by manually deleting older backups- that is dangerous.

See Pondni's advice on how to fix it - Time Machine trouble Shooting

I hope that helps

Léonie

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Answer 2

Keith Lander Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 26, 2011 5:40 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for your suggestions. My posting was probably unclear - it wasn't a folder in an existing backup sparse bundle that I deleted, but a complete sparsebundle for an old computer that wasn't being used by TM, not the active one. I tried your suggestions, but they didn't change anything, so I have now erased the TM disc and started again. It looks as though I shouldn't have deleted the sparse bundle, but if that was a bad idea why did the OS let me do it!

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