Problem with Time Machine backup (Snow Leopard)

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Problem with Time Machine backup (Snow Leopard)

Hello everyone.

So today I was doing a backup and my external hard drive fell off the tabel and disconnected itself mid-back up. Now I am getting this error when I attempt to do the backup again,

"This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 349.79GB but only 319.30GB are available."

This is understandable, except for the fact that my HD on my MPB is only 320BG.

I tried look online and I read that I should try to reset Time machine by deleting the File, com.apple.TimeMachine.plist. I tried to look, but this file does not exist on my computer.

Does anyone have any ideas as how to fix this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Nov 13, 2011 4:22 PM

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Answer 1

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BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Nov 13, 2011 5:29 PM in response to Jonah-Molina

Hello,

There should be two actually...

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist

Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist

Have you used Disk Utility to verify both drives since this happened?

The great Pondini seems to be the resident TM master... I don't use it & consider it the worst Backup outside of no backup at all, but check this out...

http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html

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Answer 2

Jonah-Molina Author

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Nov 13, 2011 5:36 PM in response to BDAqua

Hello,

Thanks for your direction. I was looking in the Users/ for the timemachine.plist not the Harddrive Library.

Anyways, I found a way to fix this problem that I read on someones post from a different website.

He said to exclude the Users folder, and do 1 backup. When That backup is done, then exclude everything else BUT the users folder.

This SHOULD fix the space problem and my timemachine back to normal. I hope it works.

I will post back if it is a success.

Thanks for you help once again BDAqua.

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Answer 3

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Nov 13, 2011 5:53 PM in response to Jonah-Molina

Jonah-Molina wrote:

. . .

He said to exclude the Users folder, and do 1 backup. When That backup is done, then exclude everything else BUT the users folder.

That may work, but it sounds like your Time Machine drive is too small for the amount of data you're backing-up to it. See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

I'd be a bit nervous about trusting my backups to a drive that may have been damaged. 😟 Do you have "secondary" backups? If not, that might be a good idea. See #27 in the same link for some suggestions.

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Answer 4

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Nov 13, 2011 5:53 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

. . .

The great Pondini seems to be the resident TM master... I don't use it & consider it the worst Backup outside of no backup at all, but check this out...

http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html

Hi,

Just for future reference, I've moved my site to http://pondini.org, since Apple is dropping web hosting in June.

Both sites are active now; after a few days, I'll put redirect notices on the old one, then leave it there until it goes "poof."

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Nov 13, 2011 7:29 PM in response to Pondini

Thanks! Duly noted. 🙂

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Answer 6

DFAM

Level 1

4 points

Dec 3, 2013 10:36 AM in response to Jonah-Molina

Although my system is Maverick the problem seems to be the same.

So I am posting this from another thread.

Had a long helpline chat with Apple customer support. After unmounting drives and veryfying disk and veryfying permissions we deleted com.apple.TimeMachine.plist from (/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist) actually put it on my desktop just in case.

Shuting down switching off all power for a minute or two, then gradually repowering and adding disk drives.

It has done one backup without losing my Lacie 3Tb drive. I have now added the Iomega drive and hope it is not a power problem on the USB. Will tell when it does another backup.

So far all seems to be working.

Will find out tomorrow.

Forgot to say then repair permissions.before switching on Time machine and backup.

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