Onkelpazuzu
Level 1
(19 points)
Q: How to retain old backups while starting new one
After upgrading to Lion, my Time Machine has developed a problem - I receive the ominous message that TM has verified my backups, finds that it needs to start a new backup, and that this will delete my old backup history.
My TM backup is located on a Time Capsule that also serves as my WiFi router.
I have noticed that I can actually still enter Time Machine and access my old backups. So whatever the 'corruption' of my backup file, it's not so serious as to render my backups completely inaccessible. It would seem a shame, therefore, to have to throw three years of backups away, at least some of which seem to work OK. Nevertheless, I would like to start making new backups again.
What to do?.. I have thought about several options, but I can't get them to work. One idea I had was to delete my most recent backups through the Time Machine interface, because that's probably where something has gone wrong (I may have interrupted the backup process somehow, I have heard that can cause problems). However, this doesn't work; I get the message that I do not have the permissions to do that.
Another option was to simple copy the whole backup to another location, but that does not seem feasible, given the size of the thing. It might take forever to copy that. Also, it seems I need to format the destnation drive in a specific format, which means I cannot use the drive I already had in mind for that purpose. And then I'm not sure TM will be able to access those copied files later on.
So now I'm thinking that I should leave the existing backup alone, maybe rename it somehow, and start a new backup alongside of it on the same drive. If I ever need to access my old backups, I could rename them back to what they were and then access them through TM. This would eman that I would tell my TM that it can start a new backup history, but without it actually deleting my old backups.
Is this possible? Are there better options?
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 1 TB Time Capsule, Airport Express
Pondini
Level 8
(38,747 points)
Onkelpazuzu wrote:
. . .
In fact, most of my important files are on the TC rather than on my Macbook.
Do you mean you had other files there, not in your backups? If so, that's even more dangerous -- you only have one copy of those files.
If you have important files you don't have room for on your internal HD, put them on an external HD, and let Time Machine back them up along with your internal.
having backups going a couple of years back can be quite useful, not to say important
If you really want to keep things that long, don't depend on either Time Machine or a single cloning app. Make regular archives somewhere else (separate external HD, DVDs, online).
The only thing that would be needed for complete peace of mind is if I knew I could get to those old backups when I need them.
Try moving the sparse bundle to the top level of the drive, manually mounting it, then trying the Browse... option. That's the only way you'll see those backups via the Time Machine interface.
Where it is, you can mount the sparse bundle, open the disk image inside it, and see the files & folders in the various backups. You may be able to copy from them, but may have permissions issues with the copied files. That's why accessing them via the Finder is not recommended, except as a last resort.
