Recovering virtual disk from backup

I have just had a disaster and would like some help. I have a database of a business register that I have to keep securely. To do this I created a virtual disk using the tools on my iMac protected by a password. This has worked well for a couple of years. However, today I had entered some new data, then sought to close it afterwards, as is my custom, to receive a message that it couldn't be closed because (I can't remember the exact message but it was something like a linked program was using it) I looked about for any such, because I certainly hadn't had anything linking to it and couldn't find anything. The same notice suggested saving the document with another name which I tried without success. At that stage, in retrospect very foolishly, I thought that the original would be safe on my hard disk and force ejected the virtual disk. You can guess what happened next!

I tried to open the link which opens up the virtual disk where I would then have to insert the password to open it up but the link didn't work!

Is it possible that a backup which I would have carried out about a month ago using Time Machine would contain my Register? I'm not sure how to access a file within a backup because it's never been necessary before

As you can imagine this is pretty terrible and I would appreciate any helpful suggestions from anyone. Please don't call me an idiot, I know that already!!

Chris

I've just opened my last backup but when I clicked on Register I received the message

The Alias "Register" can't be opened because the original item can't be found

I tried clicking on the "Fix Alias" button but that opened up a box entitled "Select New Original" and the alias "Register" was greyed out

I tried the exercise on an earlier backup with the same result

Can I really have deleted my virtual disk with all its contents or is it lurking somewhere?

Help please!

I've just opened my last backup but when I clicked on Register I received the message

Click to expand...

Did you restore the file through TM or are you trying to open the file directly on the TM drive? Is the "Register" in the backup the file or an alias to the file? It sounds like it was an alias.

What I would suggest is to open TM, go back to the last date of a good backup, find the file you want (not the alias) and then restore it through TM. Then leave TM and find that file and try opening it.

Thanks for your reply

I opened the last backup from TM by accessing it on the external HD on which the backup was saved. The alias linked to a passworded folder which contained the Register file that I want. So far as I am aware the only way I can get to the passworded folder is via the alias. I thought originally that I had created a .dmg folder, which I have for scanned documents dealing with my business, which still work from the backup, but, for whatever reason when I tried to create another .dmg folder for my register, I ended up with the alias which worked well until today!

Have I misunderstood your suggestion? I can't find the original folder/file

OMG! I've just tried the alias and it's now linked to another .dmg folder! In my efforts to find a solution I must have unwittingly set this when I was checking that the other .dmg folders worked OK (which they do) Is there a Marie Celeste virtual disk floating about somewhere, then?

On my travels I have found that I have my records up to December 2013, so it's only a partial disaster, rather than a full blown one! If I can't recover the up to date one I'll have to manually recreate the records since then which would be possible but a real pain

If you right click (ctrl-click) on the alias, then Get Info, you will see in the resulting window in the top third "Original: xxxxxx" where the "xxxxxx" is the path to the actual file itself. The alias is just a pointer, nothing more. So your statement that

I opened the last backup from TM by accessing it on the external HD on which the backup was saved. The alias linked to a passworded folder which contained the Register file that I want. So far as I am aware the only way I can get to the passworded folder is via the alias.

Click to expand...

is not correct. You can find the original the alias is pointing to and it should act exactly the same way. All the alias does is point to the file, as I said.

So, you can find out where the original is, and then navigate to it in the TM window and restore the file. However, now that you've buggered the alias with the new file it's pointing to, you may have to use TM to restore the alias first from before the problem started, then exit TM, do the Get Info on the restored Alias to find out where the original is/was, and then go back to TM to find the original file and restore it. Then you can navigate to where the original is/was, right click on it and "Make Alias" and then drag the alias to wherever you want it to reside.

Thanks for your reply. I'm very low tech so please be patient

I've followed your steps. After Get Info the Original entry in the last backup in TM was "/Volumes/Register". Where do I restore this to? I haven't done a backup since the problem arose.

I've tried searching for that without success. I feel that I'm going round in circles. I accept that as it was an Alias that the original folder must be somewhere but I have no idea how to find it

Apologies for being obtuse but could I trouble you to set out the steps slowly so that I can follow them without you assuming that I know what I am doing?

Chris

OK, it gets a bit harder. The /Volumes directory is where OS X mounts drives. So the alias points to that mounted volume. But the volume isn't mounted, so the alias fails. So, there are a couple of ways to try to find out why the volume isn't mounted.

First, open Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities/ is where you find it). On the left is a list of the volumes that have recently been mounted. You can look to see if Register.dmg is listed there anywhere and if it is, try selecting it. A new window on the right will appear with the details of that file and its location will show on the bottom of the window. Make a note of that for future reference. Now try clicking on "Open" on the top bar of that window. If Register.dmg is where it was listed to be, it should open. On my machine I show all mounted volumes on the desktop, so if your setup is the same, then Register should appear on the desktop like a drive.

If that operation fails, then Register.dmg (the file that is mounted as Register) has somehow disappeared from where it was. But at least now you know where it should have been (what you noted above). First, I would open Finder and navigate to the location you noted in the above paragraph and verify that Register.dmg is not there. If there is a drive in that folder that looks like it could be the missing Register.dmg, but has somehow been misnamed, you can try opening the file and see what happens. You might get lucky and the drive may mount. But if it doesn't and the file is well and truly missing, then you will need to look for the file in your backups. Invoke TM, navigate to that same location in the Finder-like window and restore the file from the most recent backup. Once it is restored, you can then repeat the previous paragraph to Open the drive and it should mount.

If that second operation fails because you can't find Register.dmg in TM then we're going to have to search for where Register.dmg is. I would suggest you get a better searching tool like EasyFind and search your hard drive for Register.dmg. If it doesn't appear, you can search the TM backup drive for Register.dmg then use Finder to go to that backup copy and copy it to your HD, putting it where Disk Utility said it was the last time it mounted (what you noted in the second paragraph). Once it's on the main HD, all you need to do is double-click it and it should mount.

Finally, if it's not in TM and not on your HD, then it is, I am afraid, gone. You can try a generalized search of your HD for ".dmg" and get all the names of all the disk images to see if somehow it got put somewhere strange, but if EasyFind didn't find it on your internal HD or in TM, then it doesn't exist anymore.

EDIT: Corrected where to find the file path to the Disk image.

Thank you so much for your trouble. I followed all your suggestions and have come to the gloomy conclusion that the .dmg folder has gone.

I then found the latest previous version pre Alias Register.dmg file in TM which was in February, and restored it to my Mac, thinking that since I'd been off work for 3 months since then it wouldn't take me long to enter the jobs since then. To my horror the password that I entered wasn't recognised!!! Expletives were not deleted! I've tried every one that I can think of and the search continues! What a b****y mess!

I know that there is nothing that you can do about that but I have really appreciated your help. Thanks very much again

Chris

Well, the somewhat good news is that you found the .dmg. Now you just have to recycle those brain cells to come up with the password back in February to get to the data in the file.

Yee hah! After entering a password I'm sure I had tried before the register opened. What a relief! I only have to recreate my records since February

If ever I'm in your neck of the woods I owe you a (several) beer(s)!

Chris

Yay! Glad you got it sorted. Force quitting drives is never a good idea, but doing so for a .dmg volume is particularly bad news, as you found out. You'd be better off letting it "rest" when you try to eject it and get that kind of message. Or you can just do a proper shut down (Apple icon, shut down) and that should stop all processes, including the one that may have been holding up the eject last time, and then unmount that volume gracefully. You will have to remount that volume each time you want it, but now you know how to do that!

Now that you have the file, you can recreate the alias if you need to but if it mounted at /Volumes/Register like it had before, you may be able to use the old one. But that alias should not actually mount the drive, so you'll still need to do that manually. You could create an alias for the Register.dmg and put that someplace handy and when you double-click the alias it will mount (asking for password). That may be more handy than an alias that points to the volume after it's mounted.