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Level 1

10 points

Attach sparsebundle fails - hdiutil not working for me

Thanks for reading this post. I've seen so many solutions that involve something like:

"hdiutil attach -readwrite -nomount -noverify -noautofsck /Volumes/Data/mbp.sparsebundle"

but I always get "hdiutil: attach failed - not recognized"

The 1.72 TB file resides on a 2nd generation Time Capsule. My laptop disk died and I believe the errors in the disk must have continued to the Time Machine backup. I have read so many posts across the web which all involve some form of the terminal command line above.

I can't mount the image. I can't open it in disk utilities but I can open the contents of the file and see the "bands". I don't wish to restore, only recover certain files.

Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks,

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 29, 2012 10:00 AM

33 replies

gobes7

Level 1

0 points

Feb 22, 2012 2:48 AM in response to EdinNorway

Amazingly, and somewhat unortunatley - I'm having the exact same problem as you.
Macbook Pro had to get a new harddrive installed, now I cannot reload y backup from a time capsule. However it will show a backup onthe same time capsule from my girlfriends mac.

Would you mind explaining exactly how you managed to fix your sparsebundle? I have a windows 7 PC available to use, conncted via network to the time capsule.

Many thanks!

EdinNorway Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 22, 2012 3:44 PM in response to gobes7

Health warning - I experiment a lot so this may not work for you!

In summary, the problem was that I have a time capsule with 2Tb of space that seemed to work fine. It had a number of flies and folders and two sparse bundles. One of the bundles, refused to mount i.e. double click would not put the image on my desktop and open in finder. I could right click and choose "show package contents" and see the "bands" directory, but it was useless in this form. Because it wouldn't mount, no software data recovery programs would work because they didn't "see" the image. The other bundle would mount and display all the backup folders. Other people here helped in suggesting tips but most felt the drive was bad or that the file was too corrupted. I tried all the things you probably have in trying to get the terminal command hdiutil to work, but it always failed with something like "Unrecognized filesystem".

In desperation, I attached to the TC from a Win7 64bit system and found something curious. You can see from the screen shots above that Windows showed each bundle as a folder with files in it. OS X didn't seem to show these to me before. I opened the files with notepad in Win7 to see what was inside and they seemed to describe the bundle in some way, i.e. included the bundle name and other info. The bad bundle did not have these info or .plist files, showing only a zero byte file and LSOverride which I deduced was some means for telling OS X how to deal with this unknown file. I copied these two band bundle files to another location leaving only the "bands" directory then copied the files from the good bundle over to the bad bundle, excluding the "bands" directory from the good bundle. Basically, I copied the "helper" files from the good bundle to the bad bundle. I don't know how one does this in OS X, so I had to use Win7 to do that. after that, I went to my OS X machine and double clicked on the previously bad bundle only to find it worked just as well as the other bundle. In fact, I found the file from 7 years ago that I was looking for and celebrated with a tall martini afterwards.

I don't know that this will help you, but good luck.

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Feb 22, 2012 3:59 PM in response to EdinNorway

EdinNorway wrote:

. . .

Other people here helped in suggesting tips but most felt . . . the file was too corrupted. I tried all the things you probably have in trying to get the terminal command hdiutil to work, but it always failed with something like "Unrecognized filesystem".

Yes, that's kinda the definition of corrupted. 😉

In desperation, I attached to the TC from a Win7 64bit system and found something curious. You can see from the screen shots above that Windows showed each bundle as a folder with files in it. OS X didn't seem to show these to me before.

It might have, if you'd right-clicked it in the Finder and selected Show Package Contents.

Those files are separate from the data (the actual .dmg is spread across all those zillions of "bands"); I've never seen one where those control files just disappeared, and the rest of the sparse bundle was still (at least somewhat) intact. (I suspect it's still somewhat corrupted.)

But the first thing to try, gobes7, is to repair it, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. That will usually fix whatever's wrong.

EdinNorway Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 22, 2012 6:08 PM in response to Pondini

Protect those points.....

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Feb 22, 2012 6:12 PM in response to EdinNorway

Excuse me?

gobes7

Level 1

0 points

Feb 23, 2012 3:13 AM in response to EdinNorway

Great thanks for the help guys.
I haven't got any further than trying to migrate from the back up and not being able to find it.
Not had time since then to do anything but make a copy of the file.

I'll try that repair guide tonight and see how it goes!

First time I've had to call upon a backup like this so bit lost as to what I need to do as soon as it didn't go smoothly....

gobes7

Level 1

0 points

Feb 23, 2012 2:25 PM in response to Pondini

Thanks i tried to repair as suggested in disk utility, but the sparsebundle simply won't mount so I can't verify or repair.

When I open package contents i see these files:

I also have a working sparsebundle on the same time capsule with the same files available.

Is it these files you replaced?

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Feb 23, 2012 2:53 PM in response to gobes7

Those are the correct file names.

What happens when you drag the sparsebundle into Disk Utility's sidebar? Do you get a message?

Oct 28, 2012 6:57 PM in response to EdinNorway

I'm with grantdoug -- Time Capsule has been a disaster since purchase.

2 of 3 macs are continually having sparsebundle / backup / restore failures of various kinds. Repeated Apple updates haven't fixed the problem.

When I look thru Apple Support, I find all of my problems are very common, with no reliable solution, usually no solution at all.

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Oct 28, 2012 7:00 PM in response to joeblotnick

If you haven't, check out Time Machine - Troubleshooting and Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule.

Oct 28, 2012 7:52 PM in response to Pondini

Thanks Pondini, I've checked your great resource.

The solution I find required AirPort Utility 5.6, which can't be loaded on Mountain Lion 8.2, which features AirPort Utility 6.1, which no longer supports the "Disconnect All Users" feature, which seems to be the fix for my current "Resource Temporarily Unavailable" problem.

Oct 28, 2012 7:54 PM in response to joeblotnick

I see elsewhere that you can Use the Terminal to do a forced disk eject, but I'm afraid to use it, and not sure I'd get command right.

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Oct 28, 2012 8:05 PM in response to joeblotnick

joeblotnick wrote:

. . .

The solution I find required AirPort Utility 5.6, which can't be loaded on Mountain Lion 8.2, which features AirPort Utility 6.1, which no longer supports the "Disconnect All Users" feature, which seems to be the fix for my current "Resource Temporarily Unavailable" problem.

Either use the Pacifist app to extract the app from the Airport 5.6 .dmg, or try shutting down all Macs on your network (or at least disconnecting them from the network), then power the Time Capsule off for a few moments, then back on.

There are some reports that changing the Time Capsule's password will also work, but that probably also requires disconnecting everything.

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Oct 28, 2012 8:11 PM in response to joeblotnick

joeblotnick wrote:

I see elsewhere that you can Use the Terminal to do a forced disk eject, but I'm afraid to use it, and not sure I'd get command right.

And, if any files are left open, it may cause additional damage. 😟

As noted in the MAN page:

"Force will force-unmount the volumes (less kind to any open files . . ." (emphasis added).

Powering-down each Mac (or disconnecting them from the network), then power-cycling the TC is less likely to cause damage.

Oct 29, 2012 3:37 PM in response to Pondini

Problem solved -- I disconnected Time Capsule, and after the reboot of Time Capsule I could again see my backup, and it allowed me to mount the backup file and I reinstalled my backup using Migration in Utility.

Attach sparsebundle fails - hdiutil not working for me