James King-Holmes

Q: Time machine drive replaced

I run OSX 10.8.5 on my main Mac Book Pro, backed up by a 1Tb Time Machine hard drive, which should be enough as most of my working files are on other drives, with only about 100Gb need ing to be backed up on t/m. I also use another MBP running OSX 10.9.5  for odd tasks which is not backed up at all - beyond system files there's nothing much on it.

 

When I started getting problems with the t/m drive, so as not to tie up my 'working' computer used my secondary machine in root mode to format another drive and copy the backup to a new drive.

 

Now, on connecting the new drive to my main computer, and altering the t/m pane in System Preferences the new drive wants to copy all my files on my main machine to t/m but, to the best of my understanding, it should only be copying altered files. The result is that the drive has run out of space.

 

How do I get it to recognise the new drive as a continuation of the old one?

Posted on May 15, 2016 7:47 AM

Close

Q: Time machine drive replaced

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root May 15, 2016 8:33 AM in response to James King-Holmes
    Level 9 (69,920 points)
    iTunes
    May 15, 2016 8:33 AM in response to James King-Holmes
  • by James King-Holmes,

    James King-Holmes James King-Holmes May 16, 2016 2:48 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 16, 2016 2:48 AM in response to Eric Root

    Eric - thank you for that helpful link. Although i'm a bit wary of Terminal I think I understand the procedures outlined.

     

    However, a further complication has arisen which needs addressing before I work on the first problem and I wonder whether you have any solutions for this. In the process of copying the Backups.backupdb file from one drive to another, the past 3 weeks backups have become separated from the main file and are listed separately as is the 'Latest' backup. I have tried dragging them back to the db file but the error message tells me that the Backups.backupdb file cannot be modified. It looks as though I'm going to have to abandon all my backups and start again unless you have any other suggestions. The original b/u disk has been erased in an attempt to get it to mount, which it wasn't doing.

  • by Eric Root,Solvedanswer

    Eric Root Eric Root May 16, 2016 7:59 AM in response to James King-Holmes
    Level 9 (69,920 points)
    iTunes
    May 16, 2016 7:59 AM in response to James King-Holmes

    If the original backup disk was erased (as you posted), I think you are better off starting over. Messing with the Time Machine file structure normally results in an unusable backup.