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Transfer time machine backup-The volume is the wrong format for a backup.

Anyone know how to transfer a Time Machine backup from a FW800 external hard drive to a Time Capsule Airport Drive?


I have been using a Seagate external drive for my Time Machine back up and finally purchased a Time Capsule. I want to transfer my data from the currrent backup drive to my Time Capsule Airport Disk. Unfortunately, the only Apple Support articles covered either "How to transfer Time Machine backups from one Time Capsule to a different one"<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5097> or "How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive"<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096>, not How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a Time Capsule.


I tried dragging the the backup file from my Seagate to my Aiport Disk and got the error message The volume is the wrong format for a backup.

When I tried to drag the backup file from my Seagate to my Time Capsule, the followning error message appeared: The item “Backups.backupdb” can’t be moved because “James's Time Capsule” can’t be modified.


Trying to use the second method (5096 article) I was stopped because there was no "Ignore ownership on this volume" a the bottom of Sharing and Permissions of the AirPort Disk. The Time Capsule information did not include any Sharing or Permissions. I tried adding myself as a user but each time it said that "The name you entered isn’t valid. Please try again." Even tried an Admin name. No go.


I even went so far as to try Carbon Copy Cloner, which only copied the invisible files. Super Duper does not see the networked drive.


My time capsule is down stairs and I am connected to it via an ethernet port - not the internet WAN port. The Seagate is connected via FW800 to the iMac.


Any other sugestions would be welcomed.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 2GB RAM

Posted on Apr 30, 2012 7:40 PM

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Posted on Apr 30, 2012 8:15 PM

That can be done, but will take a long time. Your best bet is probably to just let Time Machine start fresh on your Time Capsule. You can still see and restore from the FW/800 backups via the Browse... option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question#17.


But if you really want to do it, see#18 there. You'll need section 3, to copy local backups to be used on a network. But read the introductory part first.

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Apr 30, 2012 8:15 PM in response to James Mol

That can be done, but will take a long time. Your best bet is probably to just let Time Machine start fresh on your Time Capsule. You can still see and restore from the FW/800 backups via the Browse... option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question#17.


But if you really want to do it, see#18 there. You'll need section 3, to copy local backups to be used on a network. But read the introductory part first.

May 1, 2012 6:01 PM in response to Pondini

So if I read the articles right, there is no way to copy my FW backup onto my Time Capsule since the FW backup is stored in a folder on the drive and the Time Capsule is stored in a folder in a sparse bundle on the drive. You cannot convert local backups to network backups.


Thanks for the link, my question is solved.

May 1, 2012 6:14 PM in response to James Mol

James Mol wrote:


So if I read the articles right, there is no way to copy my FW backup onto my Time Capsule since the FW backup is stored in a folder on the drive and the Time Capsule is stored in a folder in a sparse bundle on the drive. You cannot convert local backups to network backups.

Yes, you can do it (unless you're running 10.5 Leopard). See the second paragraph of my previous post.

Transfer time machine backup-The volume is the wrong format for a backup.

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