Re: Time machine novice
- From: Graham J <graham@invalid>
- Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:58:48 +0100
Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:51:13 +0100, Graham J<graham@invalid> wrote:
[snip]
???
To be honest, I can't follow that at all.
Try this - which is what I meant as "the usual way":
1) Mount the share that will be the Time Machine destination on your
iMac.
2) Go to System Prefs, Time Machine; Select Disk, and pick the share.
3) Watch the TM Prefs panel progress bar to make sure the backup
works.
OK to avoid the possibility that the NAS is causing the problem, I
googled and from:
http://lifehacker.com/5685547/how-to-set-up-time-machine-to-back-up-to-a-networked-windows-or-linux-machine
(and other places) found a command line to create a dummy backup file.
In my case the command is:
hdiutil create -size 125g -fs HFS+J -volname "TM"
iMac_001b639dd112.sparsebundle
This is created in /Users/<username>
Then:
System Prefs, Time Machine; Select Backup Disk,
... Empty window, no backup file or other folders, nothing
How do I get this window to show the file system, so I can navigate to
the correct file?
Slow down. Follow the instructions in order. You're skipping essential
steps.
First thing: Did you try my 1/2/3 above? Or did it not work?
If it didn't work, go ahead and try the lifehacker method, but *do the
whole thing*. The sparsebundle you created needs to be copied to the
TM destination share, next to the Air one that got created. Then you
point TM at the share, not the sparsebundle, not the
opened-and-mounted sparsebundle either.
The reason why I'm going through all this pain, is that your steps 1/2/3 do not work on the iMac, yet they did on the Macbook Air.
The failure is at step 2; there is nothing in the "Select Disk" window.
I think I now understand why:
I think Time Machine isn't intended to allow backup to anywhere in the filesystem on the booted partition. Google suggests that it will backup to another partition (if one exists) on the same hard disk, so why this limitation I don't really understand. I would understand if it was unable to back up to **any** internal hard disk - since a backup should be to an external device.
I had thought that the creation of a correctly named sparsbundle file would allow it to be seen in the "Select Disk" window. But no.
The issue is the need to set the parameter "TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes"
I can only guess that this was already set on the MacBook Air (Time Machine had never been set up before, and there never had been any NAS avaialable before); but on the iMac which I have recently re-installed from scratch the parameter was not set.
Having set this parameter the "Select Disk" window Time Machine can now see the NAS and the folder on it containing the prepared sparsebundle file.
Out of interest: is there a list anywhere of all the systempreferences parameters and their meanings? I found it on Google, but presumably somebody must have found it originally ....?
Also: TM connects to the NAS as Guest and appears to be making its first backup OK. Will it remember this setting across a shudtown and restart? Is there any reason not to connect as Guest?
--
Graham J
.
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- From: Graham J
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- Re: Time machine novice
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- Re: Time machine novice
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- Re: Time machine novice
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