Unable to Transfer Time Machine Backups?

Hi Linc, thank you for all the info. My trouble here is that neither of my Time Capsules show up in disk utility. They both have the solid green lights going in Airport Utility, and are mounted in my Finder. Thoughts? Thank you for the consideration.

Hello Linc!

Would you update this answer for the Disk Utility in Sierra OS, please? No results when searching for 'Duplicate'. I need to expand the size of my Time Machine on a Drobo and my plan is to copy it over to another drive, do the expansion and copy it back. Unable to copy without getting permission error and unable to create disk image nor zip, either. I hate to start all over but I am running out of space and could use some advice.

Thank you!

lisaroser wrote:

Hello Linc!

Would you update this answer for the Disk Utility in Sierra OS, please? No results when searching for 'Duplicate'. I need to expand the size of my Time Machine on a Drobo and my plan is to copy it over to another drive, do the expansion and copy it back. Unable to copy without getting permission error and unable to create disk image nor zip, either. I hate to start all over but I am running out of space and could use some advice.

Thank you!

Linc no longer participates in the forum discussions any longer

Select the old drive in Disk Utility, then Restore, and select your Time Machine Drive in Restore from. Select the new drive as the destination. This will likely reformat the external drive erasing all data.

I've had great success transferring Time Machine backups - always from a smaller capacity HD to a larger capacity - using Carbon Copy Cloner.

It has a 30-day free trial - give it a shot.

Clinton

Simple

select the externals

Secondary click

choose get Info

Add your current User account and give yourself priviledges to read and write. Place your name above the other user levels.

Then click the little gear and choose "Apply to Enclosed Items".

Job Done. Now you should have permissions to do the Transfer.

NOTE I would do this through disk utility to be honest. Using the restore tab.

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.

Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

Information.

Time Machine – Transfer Backup to a New Drive

Time Machine – Transfer Backup to a New Drive (2)

I had precisely the same error chain as J3 LUNT and found that Linc's solution (e.g. use Disk Utility to 'duplicate' using the 'restore' function) worked perfectly.

Excellent insight Linc - thanks!

Hi Linc. I am having the same problem. I don't understand from your short response what to do exactly. I am trying to transfer all the data from my WD 2T My Book to my new WD 4T My Book before using it as my Time Machine backup. I have an iMac from 2012 using the latest version of Yosemite. Can you please tell me step by step how you fixed this problem? I appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks in advance.

This doesn't seem to work if you want to transfer to a timecapsule, unfortunately. My timecapsule doesn't show up in disk utility, so can't 'drag it' to the destination field.

You'd think Apple might have thought of that...

Simon Townley wrote:

This doesn't seem to work if you want to transfer to a timecapsule, unfortunately. My timecapsule doesn't show up in disk utility, so can't 'drag it' to the destination field.

You'd think Apple might have thought of that...

They thought differently. They allow you to specify multiple Time Machine destinations, and alternate backing up to each.

I Tried using the disk utility. It took 5 hours. However, my tm disk,was damaged and the resulting copy was damaged as well.

HHowever, if your disk,is damaged, the new copy will,be damaged as well. 😟