Kian Lam wrote:
Dear Eric and Drew,
Here are the print screen for the preferences of my Time Machine as stated below:
1) Local snapshots as space permits
2) Hourly backups for the past 24 months
3) Daily backups for the past month
4) Weekly backups for all previous months.
That text is describing how Time Machine should work, it has nothing to do with the data in your backups, please ignore it.
You also didn't quote the next line in that text which is the critical point to remember with Time Machine.
The Desktop is backed up by the default settings so it should be saved unless you excluded it. Click the options button to see if the Desktop is in the list of exclusions - if it is then there is nothing we can do.
If it is not excluded you need to work out why the history is so short. Time Machine will delete older backups if disk space is limited, but I can't understand how it would only clear out the Desktop folder, it normally removes all backups for the oldest backup. Do you have any backup of other folders that is before the date you need?
You mention reformatting the laptop - if you do that & continue to use the same Time Machine disk as a backup it is possible for older backup files to be removed when making a new backup of the device - Time Machine will always create space by deleting older files when free space is limited. That is just what Time Machine is designed to do.
If you want to keep files around forever do not use Time Machine to store them. Use another system that will not automatically delete files.
I would also remove one Time Machine disk & check the history (via 'Browse Time Machine' in the menu), then disconnect that disk & look at the history of the other disk - it is easy to get confused between which backup is on which Time Machine disk.
