Delete backups for dead machine?

jsshapiro wrote:

I needed to physically replace a machine due to a coffee incident. I have recovered, but the hardware ID changed, so I now have a lot of backups from the deceased machine that are no longer useful. Can I simply cross-mount the directory from the backup device and delete the sparsebundle for the old machine?

You can simply delete the sparse bundle via the Finder. That will take quite a while, of course. See the tan box in #Q5 of Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule. Or, if there's nothing else on the TC's disk you need, just erase it per the green box there. That will only take a few moments.

But is that really what you want to do? If you set the new Mac up from the old Mac's backups, via Setup Assistant (much preferred) or Migration Assistant, on your first backup of the new Mac, Time Machine should

ask if you want the new Mac to "inherit" the backups of the old one. See #B5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Also: is there any way to change the name of the sparsebundle that my machine is using? I've currently got "MachineName" and "MachineName 1", where "MachineName 1" is the new machine. Once I delete the old data, it would be nice to rename that. Any way to do that?

Ah, so you've already started backing up the new one separately?

If so, just change the Computer Name via System Preferences > Sharing. Time Machine should change the sparse bundle name accordingly on the next backup.

jsshapiro wrote:

Regarding backup inheritance: either it didn't ask me, or I didn't notice the question and failed to answer it correctly. If it matters, I didn't install the new machine from the old backup; I had already installed accounts on the new machine, and then ran migration assistant after the fact.

It should have asked, but sometimes it doesn't. A full restore, Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant are supposed to leave a "trail" (in the SystemMigration.log, I think) for TM to follow, but it doesn't always work. On backups made to a directly-connected external HD, you can do it manually, per #B6 inTime Machine - Troubleshooting, but that doesn't work over a network for some reason.

Most expensive cup of coffee I have ever had.😠 On the other hand, I've gone 30 years drinking coffee and soda near keyboards without any spills, so I was probably overdue.

Yup. 😉 My sympathies.