Can't access old time machine back ups

I've put out a call for James to come see your thread.

In the meanwhile, review your avaialble backup options.

Diversity and redundancy, in methods and on hardware, is the key to success.

Most commonly used backup methods

derek65 wrote:

I recently reinstalled OSX Lion (10.7.5) on my iMac using OSX Recovery but only used Migration Assistant to transfer apps from Time Capsule to the iMac thinking I could do the rest later. I now want to transfer some music and photo files (about 200G) but can't access backups in Time Machine made prior to reinstalling OSX Lion - they are shown as faded lines in Time Machine.

When you erase a drive, OSX treats it as being a different one for most purposes (even though it has the same name, it gets a new UUID - Universally Unique IDentifier). Migration Assistant and Setup Assistant will override that, and automatically "associate" the "new" disk with the old backups, but only if you transfer Settings.

So your backups appear to have been made from a disk that's no longer available. You should be able to see them via the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

You could try running Migration Assistant again, but un-check everything except Settings.

Or, you can force Time Machine to "associate" the erased disk with the old backups, per #B6 in Troubleshooting. Unfortunately, that requires the use of the rather techie Terminal app.

But you may have another problem, with permission to the files on the backups. See the pink box in Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation. The green box has some possible workarounds.

derek65 wrote:

Thanks for replying. I have tried to view the old backups via the procedure in #E3 but only one folder shows up - Mackintosh HD.

That represents your internal HD, and contains everything on your Mac. If you open it, you'll see Applications and various system folders, plus a Users folder. Inside that is your home folder, with all your files and folders.

Time Machine could not complete the backup.

The backup disk image "/Volumes/Timecap-1/Derek's iMac.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error-1).

Try re-selecting your backups on the Time Machine Preferences window. If that works, but you still get the message above, the backups may be damaged. Try to repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

I have read Problems after Using Migration Assistant but am not sure if it applies - I only have one User account and have only migrated seetings.

If you've always had only one account, you may be ok. The problem comes in when the account you created after reinstalling isn't recognized as being the same as the one on your backups.

I have also read #B6 but as I can only find the backup folder with current backups I have nothing to drag into Terminal. I am assuming that the old backups still exist because Time Machine preferences says that there is only 77G space available but it is only backing up 140G.

Are you looking at the Backups.backupdb folder inside the sparse bundle via the Finder? (See the green box in #B6). Per the sample in the pink box, you should see the older backups. But as noted there, since your backups are on a network, the "associatedisk" may not work.

In Time Machine faded pink lines (with no dates) appear above the darker lines (that have dates and can be accessed).

That means those earlier backups do exist, but as if they were made from a different disk (even if it has the same name). You should be able to see them via the procedure in #E3. Once you get the Macintosh HD folder for such a backup visible, open it and "drill down" to the Users folder, then your home folder, etc.

derek65 wrote:

Still no luck in seeing the old backups.

If I go into the Backups.backupdb folder via Finder it only lists backups made since reinstalling OSX Lion.

But you do see earlier backups, faded-out and inaccessible, via the Time Machine display? If so, we must be missing something -- you should see all the dates via the Finder.

Are the faded-out lines in pink or in white? Perhaps it would help if you posted a screenshot. Shift+Cmd+3 works in the TM browser (but Shift+Cmd+4 does not, for some reason).

If I click on any of the listed backups it shows only one folder - Macintosh HD - unlike your sample per the pink box in #B6 which shows a second folder - M.Misc.

Yes, it should show one folder for each volume (disk or partition) that was backed-up. If you only backed-up Macintosh HD, that's all it should show.

M.Misc in the sample is for folks who have another drive or partition that's being backed-up, in addition to their OSX volume.

If I drill down to Users it only includes files that are currently on the iMac drive. Its the same if I go into Time Machine following the #E3 procedure - there is only a folder for once drive and if I drill down it only has files that are currently on the iMac drive.

So let me confirm that I have this right: you see faded-out backups from before the reinstall on the Time Machine browser, but you don't see those same backups via the Finder?

derek65 wrote:

Here is the screen shot from TM. The last backup I can access is 17 October. There are faded lines above that but no dates.

Ah the faded-out lines don't have dates. That means they're just placeholders, not actual backups.

In this sample, the faded-out items do have dates if you move the cursor over them, so do represent backups that exist, but are for a different disk or don't contain the folder shown in the Finder window:

Unfortunately, it looks like your backups prior to October 17 have been deleted to make room for newer ones.

If the Notify after old backups are deleted box is checked in Time Machine Preferences > Options, you should have seen a notice like this at least once:

If your Time Capsule isn't considerably larger than the amount of data it's backing-up (and/or there are other backups or other files on it), that can happen within a few weeks.

It's impossible to reconstruct at this point, but most likely what's happened is, the old backups took up a lot of space.

When you erased and reinstalled, the drive was treated as a new one, so everything you put on it was backed-up again. That probably caused a lot of old backups to be deleted.

As you added new files, or renamed or moved folders, each of those was backed-up, and another old backup or two were deleted.

Eventually, the last backup of the "old" drive was deleted.