Mac users, who're currently running macOS Catalina or Mojave, report that they got an issue with Time Machine. Mainly, it's about Time Machine backup failed to back up the scheduled files to the configured backup disks, let it be the Time Capsule drive or third-party drive. Hence, how to repair Time Machine backup becomes the topic we're going to discuss here.
You can read on or jump to the issue & solution you're most concerned about.
| Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
|---|---|
| Issue 1. Can't Backup or Restore | Check Time Machine system requirements > check your Mac..Full steps |
| Issue 2. Backup Corrupted | Create a new backup > restart Time Machine > repair with terminal command..Full steps |
| Issue 3. Backup Missing | Download software to recover missing backups > repair unrecognized..Full steps |
TimeMachineEditor 5.1.7 - Change the one-hour interval of Time Machine backups. Download the latest versions of the best Mac apps at safe and trusted MacUpdate. TimeMachineEditor can be used if your Mac suffers from a huge drop in performance each time the Time Machine starts backing up your files or if you have to perform system backups at custom time intervals. Time machine enhancement Time machine customizer Backup interval Time machine Timemachine Enhancer Customizer.
One phenomenon to get Time Machine backup failed is that you can't back up or access an existing Time Machine backup, or restore from an earlier backup won't work. According to Apple's official instructions (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204157), when you have a problem with Time Machine, check these things if you see an alert that Time Machine is unable to back up your data, or if you can't select your backup disk in Time Machine preferences.
Download Time Machine for Mac to see what day of the week any date in history fell on. Windows File History. Even if you have been a Windows user for a few months, you may have likely.
If you back up to a server, AirPort Time Capsule, or drive connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, make sure that your Mac is connected to the same network as your backup drive. You can select your wireless network from the Wi-Fi status menu.
If you back up to a server, AirPort Time Capsule, or drive connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, make sure that your current Time Machine backup doesn't have any issues that could prevent further backups:
If your drive is already formatted correctly, turn off Time Machine, then check it for problems:
What's a corrupted Time Machine backup? Below are some backup corruption symptoms.
How to repair a corrupted Time Machine backup? According to some experienced users and professional geeks, when Time Machine corrupted, it can be fixed by the following four troubleshooting methods.
If Time Machine keeps asking you to create new backups, click Create new backup to start the new backup then. So that it can work smoothly later.
Restart Time Machine several times may also help. You may need to switch Time Machine to On-Off-On and then reboot the Time Machine again.
Another solution to repair Time Machine is to set up a new external hard drive with Time Machine as a backup drive.
If Time Machine stops responding or even not working on Mac, to repair the corrupted Time Machine becomes tough yet still resolvable with Terminal command.
When you cannot access to Time Machine or Time Machine corrupted, you are highly recommended to get backup data back first. How?
If the Time Machine backup disk can be opened but nothing appears, the best way is to scan and restore all lost Time Machines' Backups.backupdb files. Here we'd like to recommend you try EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac which supports users to restore all lost data from different situations within only 3 steps. Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac and restore Time Machine backups now:
Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the 'Scan' button.
Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.
Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click the 'Recover Now' button to have them back.
What's more, if you lost files on Mac or external storage devices, you can also apply EaseUS Mac data recovery software to easily recover files on Mac without Time Machine backup.
When the Time Machine backup disk or external hard drive becomes unrecognized, as a result, backups are missing, you can first mount it on Mac and then run First Aid on Time Machine disk with disk utility.
Step 1: Connect the Time Machine backup external hard drive to Mac. Launch Disk Utility, check external hard drive at the left panel.
You'll see that the external hard drive is greyed out, marked as untitled. (Untitled means unmounted on Mac computer.)
Step 2: Select the untitled external hard drive and click the 'Mount' button from the Disk Utility bar.
Step 3: Select Time Machine drive at drive level on the left panel of Disk Utility and run First Aid.
Step 4: Select Time Machine drive at volume level and run First Aid.
Wait for the process completes, check if Mac computer can recognize your backup disk and open it in Time Machine again.
Regarding the topic 'Time Machine backup failed' and 'how to repair Time Machine backup', we gathered all feasible solutions to help you resolve the various issues with Time Machine on your Mac. If you have further Time Machine problems, click for more Time Machine guidelines from the following collection.
The other way to restore Time Machine backups on Windows is using any third party tools which can read HFS, HFS+, and HFSX file systems. Luckily there are few such tools available in the market while some of them come with a price tag. Windows and OS X are two different platforms, technically we can only view all the Time Machine backups and its files using these tools, but we can not restore settings or applications. However, you can export all your files from Time Machine backups to Windows manually with the software programs which can read drives formatted in HFS+ files system.
Time Machine For PC backups is a powerful and useful feature every Apple users prefer to secure their personal and professional data. Being a developer, I regularly commit my code to BitBucket for backups and to safeguard personal files and memories; I use Time Machine backup every week. I will connect my 1 TB WD passport external hard drive to Mac, and it creates the latest backup every time. Everything looks good from outside, but the real problem starts when you want to access Time Machine backups on Windows PC or laptop. Recently my MacBook Pro denied to power on even after PRAM, NVRAM, and SMC reset, and I switched to Windows laptop till it gets repaired.
When I tried to connect my external hard drive, Windows failed to detect it since Mac formats the hard drive in HFS+ format while creating the first Time Machine backup. Unfortunately, Windows only supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems, and it can not detect Mac formatted hard disks and disk images. The one way to connect your Time Machine backup drive to Windows is by formatting it in any of the Windows supported file system. But formatting will delete all Time Machine backups permanently, and we don’t want to do this.
HFS Explorer from Cotacombae and HFS+ for Windows by Paragon are two popular softwares for Windows to read HFS, HFS+ and HFSX files systems. The former is a free tool with basic user interface but requires Java whereas the latter is a more advanced HFS+ reader with the rich interface but comes with a price tag. However, HFS+ for Windows offers a 7-day free trial which is quite enough to test and understand the software. Both tools have its pros and cons – you need to pick one of your choices.
If you want to restore Time Machines backups to Windows frequently and don’t want to install Java on your device, then HFS+ for Windows is the best option for you. But paying for something which comes for free doesn’t make sense. So, we’ll go with the free solution using HFS Explorer with the only downside of installing Java.
This solution to view Time Machine backups on Windows works on all popular versions including Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 and even on Windows XP.
To use HFS Explorer, you must first download Java and install it on your device. After installing JAVA, you also need to set the Java path properly to let your Windows know where Java is currently installed. To set the path, you need to open Environment Variables under the Advanced Settings of My Computer and create a path variable under User variables.
To confirm whether you have installed and configured Java correctly, type javac in command prompt, and it prints the output as shown in below image.
The first step to access Time Machine backup files on Windows is connecting your Mac formatted hard drive to your Windows machine using the USB cable. You might need to use adapters in case your hard drives come with a Thunderbolt cable, which is very rear.
As we already know, Windows will fail to recognise the hard drive as it is an HFS+ formatted device. If you don’t know, your Mac can read file systems of Windows (NTFS/FAT32), but your Windows machine cannot read the file systems of OS X (HFS/HFS+HFSX).
After installing and configuring Java successfully, you need to download and install HFS Explorer to view Time Machine backups on Windows. After installing HFS Explorer, you might see a dialog box on your screen asking you to format the connected external hard drive. You should cancel it carefully and never format the device.
Being said that, open HFS Explorer (as Administrator) by double-clicking the shortcut icon on Desktop. After opening it, select File menu and choose “Load file system from drive“. HFS Explorer is smart enough to detect your connected external drive which is in HFS+ format automatically. If it fails to pick the device, you have to manually choose it from the “Detected Devices” drop-down box.
Once you choose the correct drive, click Load and it will list all the file contents of a hard drive containing Time Machine backups.
You need to first understand the file hierarchy of Time Machine backup files to navigate through the desired folder. After listing the files of the hard drive, you will find a folder named “Backups.backupdb” in the root folder.
Inside Backups.backupdb folder, you will see another folder with the name of your MacBook. In my case, it is “Amar’s MacBook Pro”. Open it to see all your recent Time Machine Backups created at different dates. The recent Time Machine backup will be named as “Latest“. However, you can also choose older backups if you wanted to see the older files.
To view your files, open the folder named Latest and navigate to Macintosh HD – Users and open amarilindra (your username) folder. Here is where you can see all your Downloads, Desktop files, Music, Pictures, Documents and more.
To restore entire Time Machine backup to your Windows, navigate to the backup folder and click on the Export button. Choose the destination folder in your Windows device and HFS Explorer will export and copy Time Machine backup to Windows automatically.
If you want to export only a few folders or files from Time Machine backup, navigate to the required folder and choose the file(s) and hit the Export button. You selected files and folders might have symbolic links, and HFS Explorer follows the same. Don’t worry, allow HFS Explorer to follow symbolic links and it will take care of copying Time Machine files to Windows. You might see the duplicate files being copied due to symbolic links and you have to delete them later manually.
This is how you can copy Time Machine backups to Windows PC or laptop without formatting or any data loss. The drawback of this method is, you have to install Java on your device. If for some reasons HFS Explorer didn’t work on your device or if you don’t like installing Java, then HFS+ for Windows by Paragon will be the best choice for you.
Usually, OS X uses the FAT32 file system for regular usage devices like pen drives, memory cards etc. which is supported by Windows but in some individual cases like Time Machine backups it uses HFS+ file system. This is when you need Windows tools which can open HFS+ file systems. Though you can connect, access, view, and export Time Machine backups to Windows using HFS Explorer, you can not still edit and write the files. You have just read-only access.
Counter strike condition zero download for android phone. Another workaround to access Time Machine backup files in Windows is by connecting your hard drive to other MacBook or iMac and copying the data to a portable device with the FAT32 file system which is accessible in Windows. But this is not preferable for everyday tasks as it kills a lot of your time. So the ideal solution to view Time Machine backups on Windows is either using HFS Explorer along with Java runtime or buying HFS+ for Windows by Paragon. If you choose the free solution and install Java on your machine, then you must also consider disabling Java on web browsers for various security benefits.
Learn how to create a backup of the files on your Mac.
You can use Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, to automatically back up all of your files, including apps, music, photos, email, documents, and system files. When you have a backup, you can restore files from your backup if the original files are ever deleted from your Mac, or the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac is erased or replaced.
To create backups with Time Machine, all you need is an external storage device. After you connect the device and select it as your backup disk, Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full.
Connect one of the following external storage devices, sold separately.
When you connect an external drive directly to your Mac, you might be asked if you want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine. Select Encrypt Backup Disk (recommended), then click Use as Backup Disk.
An encrypted backup is accessible only to users with the password. Learn more about keeping your backup disk secure.
If Time Machine doesn’t ask to use your drive, follow these steps to add it manually:
If the disk you selected isn’t formatted as required by Time Machine, you’re prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This erases all information on the backup disk.
After you select a backup disk, Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you. The first backup may take a long time, depending on how many files you have, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster.
To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of a backup or skip a backup in progress.
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However, we tested many times on different platforms and according to our team it is working fine before uploading to the cloud storage system. (Time Machine For PC) is very popular among the users and they are very confident to use of this and still not reported any bug except some patches that been rectified within 24 hours.