How to do a fresh restart of Time Machine (after HD swap & deleting backup)

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How to do a fresh restart of Time Machine (after HD swap & deleting backup)

Yesterday I upgraded my macbook's HD. There seemed to be a lot of ways to transfer my system to the new HDD, so I went with inserting the new HD, put the old HD in a USB enclosure, booted from OSX cd and told Disk Utility to restore from the original HD on usb. It took the little guy a few hours but then everything was up and running peachy. So far so good.

Then I turned Time Machine back on, and it wanted to make a complete new back up. I had read about that, so I decided to not waste 100s of GB on a second full back up and went ahead and formatted it... thinking that TM would start from scratch and everything would be fine.

But the backup got stuck on 26 GB for 3 hours. The TM widget (tx 2 Pondini) told me that it was waiting for the index to be ready and I stopped the backup. I went back to TM pref. and redid the setup, but when I clicked my backup drive in "change disk" TM told me that I'd better not because it is the same drive the original data is on!?! (screenshot).

It is listed in the 'do not back up' list as it should. Just to make sure, I formatted the backup volume again (ext. journaled) and verified it: all clear. Though for some reason there is still 200 MB of data on there, not visible in Finder, but if that's not causing the problem I can live with that.

I'm getting confused here... How do I to fix this? Or should I just ignore the message and go ahead?

How should I have set up a new TM from scratch?

Help would be much appreciated!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Dec 6, 2011 3:02 PM

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Answer 1

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BDAqua

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Dec 6, 2011 3:24 PM in response to Beautje

Though for some reason there is still 200 MB of data on there, not visible in Finder...

That part is normal, it's used for directory structure & such.

If this doesn' help...

http://pondini.org/TM/B1.html

In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)

Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.

Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.

If it does contain important data...

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474

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Answer 2

Beautje Author

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Dec 7, 2011 1:26 AM in response to BDAqua

I disconnected the drive, rebooted, reconnected, still the same message.

In /volumes there are no 1s or 2s at the end of any drive names.

I tried renaming (erasing in disk utility) the backup drive, but it still thinks it's the disk with the original data on it...

It's a WD My Book studio, could that have something to do with it? I'm not running the WD software.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

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Dec 7, 2011 1:56 PM in response to Beautje

The My Books have had less than glowing reports, but I can't tell if that has anything to do with it or not.

There are many backup apps far better & more useful than TM if you're interested...

Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Or SuperDuper...

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...

http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html

Dozens of more besides these.

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Answer 4

Pondini

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Dec 7, 2011 4:58 PM in response to Beautje

The preferences file may be corrupted. Try a "full reset" per #A4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Is the old HD still connected? If so, disconnect it (or exclude it via TM Preferences > Options).

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Answer 5

Beautje Author

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Dec 9, 2011 6:01 AM in response to Pondini

Thanks, that worked! The "original data" message has dissapeared.

I'm not out of the woods yet though.. could you pls help out?

I left TM on overnight, but it got stuck on the same 26 GB mark. The widget said it was waiting for the index, and after I stopped the backup it said 15kB had been copied. When I enter TM it looks like everything is there, but there's only 26 GB on the backup drive.

User uploaded file

So today I did one more attempt. Erased the backup, and did the list at #D2; excluded the Media partition on the backup drive, switched off clamxav for good measure, and trashed the pref file. This time it stuck on 1.5 GB for 4 hours, the widget saying 1.5 GB had been copied. No waiting for the index this time.

When I enter TM I get a view of my entire computer, incl the backup volume. strange.

I must have missed something, but I've no idea what.

My original HD is safely locked away until TM is up and working again...

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Answer 6

Pondini

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Dec 9, 2011 7:54 AM in response to Beautje

Beautje wrote:

. .

So today I did one more attempt. Erased the backup, and did the list at #D2; excluded the Media partition on the backup drive, switched off clamxav for good measure, and trashed the pref file. This time it stuck on 1.5 GB for 4 hours, the widget saying 1.5 GB had been copied. No waiting for the index this time.

That sounds like a directory problem on a source drive. Did you do everything there, including verifying your internal HD and any others being backed-up (step 3)?

If so, it's a long shot, but make sure your TM drive is set up properly, per #C1 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. -- the Format is right, per your first post, but check the Partiton Map Scheme.

When I enter TM I get a view of my entire computer, incl the backup volume. strange.

If it says "Today (now)" at the bottom, yes, that's the current contents of your system -- nothing on the backups. Only when you "navigate" to an actual backup (per the timeline on the right) will you see the contents of a backup. See #15A in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

And you'll never see a partial backup there; only backups that completed successfully.

My original HD is safely locked away until TM is up and working again...

Good plan! 🙂

Message was edited by: Pondini

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Answer 7

Beautje Author

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Dec 10, 2011 3:42 AM in response to Pondini

Thanks, you were right about the partition map, it was apple on the ext drive! Yes, all three volumes were verified and ok, and all drives were ext. journaled not case sensitive. I repartitioned (and verified) the backup drive, and when I rebooted TM asked me of its own accord whether I wanted to use that drive for backups 🙂

So I started the backup. The counter was happily going up with 10MB/s so I crossed my fingers and went to bed. This morning the display had gone to sleep around the 30 GB mark. The computer was still making whirring noises though, I think that's the HD spinning? (It sounds similar to when you insert a cd.) With my previous HD the initial backup took only 3 hours.

I'll try excluding the system folders, but I would really like to have a full backup of my system including installed apps. Could the cause be that I restored my HD from the original drive instead of TM?

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Answer 8

Pondini

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Dec 10, 2011 8:36 AM in response to Beautje

Beautje wrote:

. . .

Thanks, you were right about the partition map, it was apple on the ext drive!

APM should be ok (but GUID is preferred). Many drives come with Master Boot Record (MBR) which isn't.

I'll try excluding the system folders,

That's unlikely to help -- if it got to 30 GBs, it's probably already backed them up. Things are copied from your HD in the default order: /Applications, /Library, /private (hidden) /System, then your Users folders.

If you cancel, the next backup will seem quite slow for a while. That's because it has to do a "deep traversal" to figure out where it was (it will show "Preparing" for an unusually long time), then recover the partial backup (when it does start copying, it will seem to be going very slowly).

What messages does the TM Buddy widget show?

Is your TM drive connected via USB, FireWire 400, or FIreWire 800?

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Answer 9

Beautje Author

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Dec 10, 2011 2:38 PM in response to Pondini

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to help me out!

I started another one this afternoon, this is the what the widget said:

I was very careful to take all the steps; I erased the backup volume, verified all volumes, did all the steps under #A4, quit all applications, then started the backup and left the computer alone. The counter was going up steadily and after about 1 hour it stuck on 26.65 (waiting for the index), until I stopped the backup 9 hours later. (I'm not sure whether TM said preparing when I stopped it, but nothing seemed to be happening.) My display had gone black, and I've set it to go to sleep when the computer has been inactive for 30 min. The whirring sound was still there.

Should I be more patient, would it really take so long do the deep traversal etc.? Does it need to do that at all when there's nothing on the disk? (that is visible in Finder)

The backup disk is on firewire 400, no other devices connected.

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Answer 10

Pondini

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Dec 10, 2011 3:04 PM in response to Beautje

Beautje wrote:

. . .

(I'm not sure whether TM said preparing when I stopped it, but nothing seemed to be happening.)

No, it had finished preparing, and started copying (once it logs how much space is needed, it's ready to copy), and had in fact copied 26.7 GBs.

My display had gone black, and I've set it to go to sleep when the computer has been inactive for 30 min. The whirring sound was still there.

That's fine; display sleep won't interfere. If you move your mouse, it should just display.

Should I be more patient,

No, something is definitely wrong. 😟

would it really take so long do the deep traversal etc.? Does it need to do that at all when there's nothing on the disk? (that is visible in Finder)

It didn't do one at all (there's no message about it). Those are only required when the previous backup failed or was cancelled, or there was a very large volume of changes, like an OSX update. It was doing an initial, full backup.

What we can't tell yet is whether the copy was running terribly slow, or whether it had hung at the 26.7 GB mark.

When you have some time, erase the TM drive and start again. This time, watch the progress bar: note the time when it starts copying (xx GB of yy GB), and see how far it gets in, say, half-hour increments. The first ones will be rather slow (it's copying tens of thousands of mostly very small files, and there's a lot to do for each one).

Overall, it should run at, very roughly, 50-55 GB per hour for the whole backup (but again, considerably less at first; when it gets to your home folder and starts copying, say, large video files, it will speed up greatly).

It may not update the count continuously, but may seem to be going spurts; there's a problem only if it stops for several minutes.

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Answer 11

Beautje Author

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Dec 10, 2011 3:15 PM in response to Pondini

righto, I'll do that tomorrow!

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Answer 12

Beautje Author

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Dec 11, 2011 11:06 PM in response to Pondini

The results:

I erased the backup drive

Verified all disks: ok

Took all the steps under D2

Quit all apps and started the backup, checked every 10 minutes.

At first it seemed to be going ok, counter going up steadily to 20 GB after 50 min.

After 60 min the counter slowed and stopped at 25.58 GB, and the computer fan (whirring noise) stopped at the same time.

5 min later fan started again, and the counter at 26.54 GB.

90 min: it went up to 26.55 GB and at 150 min it went up to 26.57 GB.

I left TM on overnight, and this morning I stopped the backup at 26.66 GB (11 hours). Fan was still on.

The widget said waiting for the index throughout. (I refreshed it)

So I guess it is very very slow.

In previous backups it also stuck at about 26 GB.

Finder says there's 28.36 GB on the disk.

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Answer 13

Pondini

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Dec 12, 2011 7:43 AM in response to Beautje

Sounds like there's a problem with one of the disks.

Do you have (or can you borrow) another external, and try backing-up to it?

Or, if the old internal in the enclosure is still available, try backing it up instead of the new internal: connect it; exclude the new internal and remove the old external from the exclusion list via TM Prefs > options; erase the TM drive, and run a backup.

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Answer 14

Beautje Author

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Dec 12, 2011 12:43 PM in response to Pondini

The local admin at work said I could try switching the partition sizes on my ext. disk and backup to the second volume. It stuck at 26.55 GB.

I came across a thread that mentioned the system log: it kept returning this message (with different numbers every time):

Dec 12 19:49:40 BeautjeBook mdworker[721]: (Error) Import: Importer force killed!

Dec 12 19:49:40 BeautjeBook com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10b1c0.mdworker[721]): Exited with exit code: 1

(And during the previous backup it said the same, over and over.)

So I hooked up my original drive, in a usb enclosure, and verified it. I got scary red letters saying that the filesystem needs repair! I started a backup anyway and it stuck after about 30 min at 1,5 GB with the same mdworker messages in the log.

Are both my HD's broken, or is something wrong with my OS, or disk utility or.. ???

I've put the new HD in that same usb enclosure to sort of test it before I inserted it in my mac, it's brand new.

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Answer 15

Pondini

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Dec 12, 2011 12:52 PM in response to Beautje

Beautje wrote:

. . .

So I hooked up my original drive, in a usb enclosure, and verified it. I got scary red letters saying that the filesystem needs repair!

Then repair it before trying to back it up.

Are both my HD's broken, or is something wrong with my OS, or disk utility or.. ???

Hard to tell, yet. See if the (repaired) original drive will back up correctly. If so, the problem is with the new one.

If not, it could be OSX or the TM drive.

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