Restoring data from Time Machine to a replacement secondary drive

geedubya wrote:

Library 2 HD not excluded from Spotlight.

Very odd. 😟

Repair Disk (you did mean Repair Disk and not Repair Permissions?)

Yup.

showed a message saying 'Incorrect permissions for private directory' after 'Checking multi-linked directories'. It then went through the volume again and said 'Repair complete'.

Good. I hadn't really expected a problem, but we need to rule that out.

Library 1 HD still showed under 'Latest'. I am doing another backup to see if that changes anything.

It shouldn't matter, but don't necessarily look at Latest. Try the actual date-stamped backup folders.

geedubya wrote:

Library 1 HD still gets backed up - it appears in the last 3 backups.

Bizarre. We must be missing something, but I can't imagine what.

I have another new drive at my disposal, so is it worth trying again to restore Library HD using a different approach? I could do the restore from my second TM drive which I have not backed up since the drive failure, if that's a good idea.

You have recovered all the data, right? I don't think the results will be any different, but it might be worth a try. Before you do that, though, see if the "phantom" Library HD 1 is on those backups.

If/when you try it, check whether "Owners Enabled" is yes or no via Disk Utility. (No is the default when you format a drive, and might let the restore work properly.)

I have repaired permissions on Mac HD recently though - not sure if that would affect anything.

No, that only handles permissions on files & folders installed by OSX, or by the OSX installer; not files you've created in your home folder or on external HDs. See About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature.

Also, should I update to Lion and would it possibly help to do so at this point?

That likely won't help with the restore problem. 😟

There are many differences between Snow Leopard and Lion, but being able to "associate" the new drive with the old backups is the only one that should affect anything we've been discussing. Apple's "what's new" announcement and sales-pitch-type article has been deleted, but you might want to review Changes in Lion from Snow Leopard.

Launch the Terminal app in /Utilities, copy & paste in this command into the window that pops up, hit the return key, and post the results:

df -H

geedubya wrote:

Library 1 HD still gets backed up - it appears in the last 3 backups.

This is really bizarro, especially since it doesn't appear with the command Baltwo recommended (btw, thanks for staying tuned, Baltwo).

A clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to display the backup messages from your logs. Locate the most recent backup where Library HD 1 appears to have been backed-up, then copy and post all the messages here.

Message was edited by: Pondini

geedubya wrote:

OK - latest backup below. Seems to have it twice or am I misreading it?

That's correct -- it made one "pass," then found changes since it started, so it made a second pass. That makes sense on a large, long-running backup (so the backup timestamp is accurate); not so much on little ones.

(And the screwy messages showing the exact same amount of data from two different disks -- that's a known problem Apple hasn't fixed.)

But no mention of copying anything from Library HD 1.

So it just seems to be some weird display anomaly, not something actually wrong.

I don't know why it appears on the backup per the Finder. That's why I suggested running Repair Disk on the backup disk.

I'll experiment with a couple of things . . .

Aack! I owe you an apology. 😊

I'd forgotten how Time Machine handles a disconnected/unavailable drive -- it will continue to appear in the backups, and on the TM browser ("Star Wars" display), until the last backup of it is deleted, just as you're seeing.

That's different from the way I usually test multiple drives -- since I actually use multiple partitions on the same drive, I include it on one backup, then exclude it via the TM prefs panel. In that scenario, it won't appear on subsequent backups.

How and why the name changed, I can't answer. It looks like you did that, but I can't swear that TM (or OSX) didn't do it, if at some point it thought it had two drives with the same name. You can have two drives with the same name connected to your Mac, and OSX won't get confused, because it keeps track of them by UUID (Universally Unique IDentification), but TM won't let you back up two with the same name -- it puts up a message asking you to rename one of them.

Bottom line -- nothing's wrong. 🙂

Sorry for the confusion -- this is a quite unusual situation.

geedubya wrote:

OK, so TM/OSX has kept the orginal backup but renamed it so it's not the same as the name I used for the new drive (which is the same as the original). It definitely wasn't me that used that name. But presumably that means TM now has a duplicate backup, as it were, so is storing around 650GB of data that's not required. Are you saying I have to leave it until it 'falls off the end'?

No. You may delete all backups of it, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12, as I posted earlier.

But you may want to wait a while, to be sure you don't need any of the old backups. Be very careful to select the old backups (navigate in the TM display to one of the old backups, then select the old drive, click the "gear" icon, and select the Delete All Backups of ... option). When it's done, immediately check to be sure you still have the backups of the new drive . . . just in case.

If I can get some time, I'll do some more experimenting, and try to duplicate your scenario.

I may give restoring to the other new drive a go when I have a spare moment and see what happens. I'll start by giving it a unique name and make sure to 'Ignore Ownership'. I'll keep you posted if you would like to know what happens?

Yup. Keep us posted.

geedubya wrote:

OK, so TM/OSX has kept the orginal backup but renamed it so it's not the same as the name I used for the new drive (which is the same as the original).

Confirmed. That's exactly what it did.

I backed-up a volume named M.Misc, containing a folder named MAN pages at 6:26 pm:

Then ejected that partition, renamed another one to M. Misc, copied both the original folder and one named Time Machine to it, and ran a backup at 6:28 pm:

Just as you saw, the original backups still appear, but the name had a "1" appended.

And you can view the contents from the most recent backup, even though the parition wasn't actually backed-up that time.

Now I gotta revise the page on my website . . .

I learn something every day! 🙂