Files & photos stored on time capsule can not be found

I have an IMAC and use a time capsulse to back up files using time machine. I thought I had copied (probably 3 years ago) files from other hard drives to the time capsule but can not see them. I see a data file on the time capsule named XXX time capsule but can not view what is in the data files. Any suggestions. There is lots of space still available on the 2 T time capsule drive.

Thank you for any suggestions you have.

Are you saying you copied files onto a backup drive and do not have the original files anymore, AND, you can't find the backups?

I copied files from other hard drives to time capsule but can not see those files. There is 1.7 T space free on time capsule.

@TODAY

A warm welcome to Mac-Forums.

Possibilities that come to mind:

You didn't actually copy the files - you misremembered, as Hillary would say

You did copy them, but they've become corrupted.

You did copy them, but the nature of the data was OS specific and you've upgraded your OS since then.

You did copy them but as part of a Time Machine (TM) Backup rather than separately.

Then there's that XXX Data File on Time Capsule. Does its name bear any resemblance to what you are looking for?

Ian

Yes the OS has been upgraded. I am suppose to upgrade it again. But it should still be there right?

I now can not see the various dates of time machine backup back to 2011. Can it be 5 year old already. LOL

I did copy the files and they should not have been corrupted right as they just sit on the time capsule.

Thank you.

Something is odd. I have data going back several years and a few OS versions sitting on my Time Capsule. I don't remember how much is in Time Machine format but I am pretty sure that goes back a bit too.

Sly, are TM Backups on a TC sparcebundles, like on a networked drive? I don't have a TC, so I don't know but could that be part of the problem? I'm sort of clutching at a straw here.

Yes they are. I didn't think of that as a possible part of the problem.

If you double click the sparsebundle file the Finder treats it almost as it would a hard drive. It shows up in Disk Utility and if you click on verify and repair you can check the integrity of the file. I think you used to be able to double click the file and let it mount as a sort of "phantom" drive then verify that drive. That no longer seems to work in the Sierra beta. You can still verify the integrity of the sparsebundle file.

So the question is how to find the files from other hard drives I had copied a few years ago onto the time capsule.

If I copy at the contents of a drive to the Time Capsule where they end up depends upon how I did the copy. The general behavior seems to be as follows:

1. If I simply select the drive and either choose copy/pate or drag the files to the Time Capsule the drive contents are placed in a folder which should have the name of the drive that I copied.
2. If I double click the drive and open it in a Finder widow first the behavior is different. In that case selecting files/folders and dragging or choosing copy places the individual files /folders on the Time Capsule. How they appear in the order on the Time Capsule depends upon how the window is set to display its contents.