Problem with Time Machine, running Snow Leopard

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Problem with Time Machine, running Snow Leopard

Hi all,

Last week I had a new hard drive fitted into my iMac 8,1, after which Snow Leopard was reloaded (10.6.3 from the disc, updated to 10.6.8), followed by the restoration of data via Time Machine from my external hard drive. Whilst my Mac is now running beautifully, I am having problems backing up with Time Machine.

When I run a backup, it prepares about 100,000 items, then starts to backup, usually about 650mb. It crawls along in kb until it gets to about 1mb, then jumps quickly to the end, but then it adds extra mb on the end. Then it suddenly starts again "preparing x items....." and off it goes again.

I have tried repairing the backup disc, and it appears to be ok. I even erased it and started again. Time Machine did a full backup (139gb) in about 2 hours, then immediately added another 640mb at the end - strange, but I do at least have a full backup from yesterday. But now, everytime I run backup, it looks for the same sort of figure (650-700mb) and then goes round in circles.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Thanks, David

Posted on Jul 13, 2014 12:06 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Jul 13, 2014 8:42 AM in response to littletog14

Try downloading the widget in A1. It gives you some idea of what Time Machine is doing. If anything looks relevant, take a screen shot and post it in a reply using the camera icon.

Time Machine Troubleshooting

Screen shots

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Answer 2

littletog14 Author

Level 1

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Jul 13, 2014 11:17 AM in response to Eric Root

Hi Eric

Thank you for your reply. Here are the screenshots for each change:

Having prepared about 95,000 items, the backup of 612mb begins

14 minutes later a message appears

Another 3 minutes and another message. You will see from this screenshot that the backup figure has changed to 613.1mb

Another 30 seconds and it all begins again....

And finally, 7 more minutes pass, another 96,000 items are prepared, and another 604.8mb backup begins.

I might add, that between posting this morning, and your reply, I also went into disk utility, chose the top leve of the external drive, clicked on the partition tab, charged current to 1 partition, renamed the drive, erased it, and did a full back up of 139GB. After 137GB it started again, looked for 602mb, backed them up and finished the backup, which is why TM states that the last back up was at 18:16 today.

Thanks again

David

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