vyvafc
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Q: HDD too full - can restore from Time Machine?

I have been very, very foolish indeed, and I have allowed the HDD on my mid-2011 iMac to become utterly crammed full, to the extent that it now won't boot. (The only things I can claim in mitigation is that my external storage drive failed recently and I have only just recovered the data and bought a new one - so continued to add new data to my HDD in the meantime <slaps forehead>; also, a warning message would have been useful but didn't appear). Do I really have to tell you how bad it is? 2.98GB/500Gb left.

 

I have tried everything recommended for these situations: it won't boot under Safe Mode (just goes to white screen with Apple logo, no progress bar, no nothing for ages so I turned off); I ran Disk Repair and the disk is good, no problems; Permissions repaired; won't boot in Single User mode.

 

I wondered whether I could delete folders from Terminal (through Recovery Mode), but the Terminal prompts were alien to me ('Bash-32 ..') and I'm not that confident with command lines as it is so gave up on that.

 

Now, I have a friend who has offered to help by the Target Mode via Firewire, if I take my iMac to his place. My understanding is I can then delete/move data from my HDD and free up enough space for it to boot. However, this will of course be time-consuming and inconvenient for both of us (I live in a rural area - he's not nearby).

 

So my question is this: Would it be worth trying to restore the HDD from a Time Machine back-up? I run Time Machine to a Time Capsule and, as far as I know, my back-ups are up to date. If I restored to this morning's back-up - when the computer booted ok - would that work? Further, if I was to try this should I connect the Time Capsule to my computer via Ethernet? I ask because I tried looking for back-ups through the Recovery Mode options but none were found.

 

Of course, any other ideas very welcome. Running Mavericks.

 

Yours, in shame ...

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011)

Posted on Nov 19, 2015 2:27 AM

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vyvafc

Q: HDD too full - can restore from Time Machine?

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  • by Linc Davis,Helpful

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Nov 19, 2015 4:34 PM in response to vyvafc
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    Nov 19, 2015 4:34 PM in response to vyvafc

    Step 1   

    The first step in dealing with a startup failure is to secure the data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since the last backup, you can skip this step.

    There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to start. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.

    a. Start up from the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later. 

    b. If Step 1a fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.

    c. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

    d. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

    Step 2

    You might be able to start up in safe mode even though you can't start up normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use the technique in Step 1b, 1c, or 1d to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation—not the mythical 10%, 15%, or any other percentage. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.