03-24-2012, 05:39 AM

Hi

I tried to back up using Time Machine today, however, the back up failed as the external hard drive was full. Previously I've had dozens of back ups stored on this hard drive (320 GB). I opened up Time Machine in Finder and now there is only one back up (the last one I did prior to yesterday). It had been some time since I last backed up so I'm wondering if it deleted all the old back ups to make space for processing?
It still will not back up even though there is only one complete back up on the hard drive, and if I enter this back up via the Finder menu, I can't open any of the files (there is a red no-entry style symbol over each file). Does anyone know what this means? Any suggestions on how I can back up or retrieve any of the old data or old back ups?

03-24-2012, 08:03 AM

Is it possible the drive was abruptly disconnected at some point?

If so, I'd recommend running Disk Utility (Applications => Utilities). From there, highlight the Time Machine drive in the left window pane. Then, click the First Aid tab and choose Verify/Repair Disk and Verify/Repair Permissions.

03-25-2012, 09:08 AM

Hi

Thanks for your suggestions.

I'm not sure if it was abruptly disconnected at some point (I can't recall it, but it may have happened).

I tried verify/repair. It said that the volume appears to be okay. However, I've still got the same issue: It won't back up as it says there's not enough space, and I can't open anything from the 'home' folder in the old backup.

All that I can think of is that I got one of the Mac specialists at work to double the capacity of my hard drive from 160 to 320 GB. This will be the first time I've tried to back up since then. Therefore, I wonder if it's seeing it as a completely different hard drive?... and won't allow me to open any of the documents from the old Time Machine back up?...
Do you think I should just erase the external drive and start over?