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    Problem with time machine. Not sure how to fix.

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Lieto, Mar 29, 2012.

  1. Lieto

    Lieto Notebook Deity

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    Greetings

    I am a bit stuck with TM right now.
    My Mac os disk is 500gb (300 used 200 free), my TM disk is 500gb as well.

    So today i wanted to back up and it failed saying
    [​IMG]

    What should i do?
    I know that my TM disk is small but i assume it must keep at least current version of whats going on but apparently it cant. Thats kinda silly. How can a 500gb fail to fit a 300gb of current back up data?

    hlep
     
    Lieto, Mar 29, 2012
    #1
  2. kornchild2002

    kornchild2002 Notebook Deity

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    It looks like Time Machine didn't recognize your previous backups. I suggest reformatting your Time Machine backup HDD (or at least reformatting the partition) and then Time Machine again. I ran into similar issues before and deleting the previous Time Machine backups solved the problem. Unfortunately I couldn't actually delete them but reformatting worked.

    I didn't like the idea of not having a backup for the 40-70 minutes it took Time Machine to start all over again but it was the only solution I could come up with. Of course, if you are really paranoid and don't want to go through that, you can always just use a different external HDD for Time Machine. That way your old backups would still be in tact in case you wanted those for whatever reason.
     
    kornchild2002, Mar 29, 2012
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  3. Lieto

    Lieto Notebook Deity

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    I dont like the idea of loosing my previous back ups (i can back up important stuff to local server anyway). But i guess its the only way.
     
    Lieto, Mar 29, 2012
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  4. kornchild2002

    kornchild2002 Notebook Deity

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    There might be other ways, I was simply telling you what I did to solve the problem.
     
    kornchild2002, Mar 29, 2012
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  5. blue68f100

    blue68f100 Notebook Virtuoso

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    TM backs up all the cache files which fills ones disk up pretty quick. Add ~/Library/Caches and /System/Library/Caches to the exclude list will keep it from filling with useless info.
     
    blue68f100, Mar 30, 2012
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  6. Lieto

    Lieto Notebook Deity

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    Didnt work ... It seemed like it backed up once but when it tried again in 1 hour (or whatever the interval is) it couldnt create another back up. Thats super weird.

    Also i am getting strange disk behavior. Every 2nd time i restart there is a progress bar on grey screen before apple shows up and system starts loading. Takes few minutes to fill up the bar, sometimes like 1 minute

    On a second thought — is there something else i can possibly exclude?
     
    Lieto, Apr 2, 2012
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  7. kornchild2002

    kornchild2002 Notebook Deity

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    Have you tried using the disk utility to scan your HDD/partition to see if there is anything wrong with it?
     
    kornchild2002, Apr 2, 2012
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  8. Lieto

    Lieto Notebook Deity

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    Ok, i did check just now and it said that disk needs to be "repaired".
    I tried loading from time machine HDD (i think it worked like that) but holding "option" didnt bring me any options, so i guess i need to find system dvd.

    Or is there a fast way to create something bootable to be able to disk repair?
    Apparently it cant disk repair directly from mac os.
     
    Lieto, Apr 2, 2012
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  9. blue68f100

    blue68f100 Notebook Virtuoso

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    Open Disk Utility from the Application/Utility .

    Use disk utility to repair the disk.
     
    blue68f100, Apr 2, 2012
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  10. kornchild2002

    kornchild2002 Notebook Deity

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    Right, you can directly repair a disk using the Disk Utility in OS X. You don't have to boot out of OS X or anything like that.
     
    kornchild2002, Apr 2, 2012
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  11. Lieto

    Lieto Notebook Deity

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    Sorry if that sounds too noobish but what do i do if "repair disk" is grayed out?

    [​IMG]
     
    Lieto, Apr 3, 2012
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  12. ClearSkies

    ClearSkies Well no, I'm still here..

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    As I recall, you can't repair the system disk from Disk Utility while you're already running from it; there's some technical explanation as to why, that I can't remember right now.

    You need to start Lion Recovery on bootup, then access Disk Utility from there, and the Repair option for the system disk should now be an option.
     
    ClearSkies, Apr 3, 2012
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  13. kornchild2002

    kornchild2002 Notebook Deity

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    Wait... Is this the primary Mac HDD that OS X is on or is this an external HDD? If it is an external HDD, you just need to verify the disk and then repair it with the Disk Utility in OS X. Now, if it is the primary HDD that OS X boots off of, you have to boot from the Lion recovery partition (I forget the keyboard combination, I have only used it one or two times) and access Disk Utility that way.

    Furthermore, if it is the primary HDD that came with your Mac and it is still under the one year warranty, you should take it back to Apple and they will replace it as the odds of successfully repairing the primary HDD are slim.
     
    kornchild2002, Apr 3, 2012
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  14. Lieto

    Lieto Notebook Deity

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    Yes its primary hdd and if i am understanding the problem correctly its not related with physical disk damage but rather with some softwarish error caused by occasionally turning off macbook via holding power button while being to impatient.
    As to taking it back to apple — 1 year has passed alrdy.
     
    Lieto, Apr 4, 2012
    #14