time machine

A bug apparently exists in Apple's Time Machine backup routines in Mountain Lion that can prevent recent backups from being used for a full restore.

By default, Time Machine mirrors the entire boot drive of an OS X system, and should update on an hourly basis to keep the backups current with changes to your system. By combining hard links to old backups along with new backup data, it quickly creates a full representation of your system by copying only changed files to the backup.

In this sense, in its default configuration each backup represented in Time Machine should … Read more

Users who have the native Mac backup system in use may want to adjust the preset options. TimeMachineScheduler for Mac does add some functions to the backup system that work well, but few of them are critical to most Mac users.

TimeMachineScheduler for Mac downloaded quickly and its installer did not require user interaction. A readme file clearly explained the installation process, which was a nice feature. The presence of a native uninstaller was also useful. The lack of tutorials was not much of a problem since the application is little more than an additional section of the preferences menu. … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about whether it is possible to install Windows on an external hard drive for use in Boot Camp, how to set up Time Machine to back up home folders stored on secondary drives, and how to disable the yellow tooltip popups that appear over URL links in many OS X applications. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Using Windows 7 … Read more

This Sunday, March 31, is World Backup Day, an independent initiative geared to raise awareness for data security and the importance of backing up computers and other devices that may contain important information. In light of this, you might want to consider taking the time to ensure that all of your systems are set up with a proper backup routine.

Backing up a system used to take a number of steps, and while there are many options and approaches for doing so, these days most devices include some sort of regular backup option that, if used, should be enough to … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about a problem installing software updates from Apple's Software Update service, how to restore a deleted Notes application in OS X, and options for recording movies and video to your Mac. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Unable to install software updates MacFixIt reader Arthur asks:

A new report is out that suggests a fault may exist in Apple's Time Machine service, causing internal drives to be automatically and silently added to Time Machine's exclusion list, resulting in the service not backing up the data on these drives and not notifying the user of the change.

As outlined on Diglloyd's Mac Performance Guide blog, this problem appears to be situational to setups where many internal drives are being managed. To see this happen, be sure one of your internal drives is mounted and available, and then add it to the Time Machine exclusion … Read more

Time Machine is Apple's built-in backup solution for OS X that creates hourly backups of all files on the system. Unlike a clone of the drive, the backups are not directly bootable, but they can be used to restore any instance of your OS installation and file structure to the drive. This makes it convenient for restoring data to a recently repaired system, migrating to a new one, or undoing a recent configuration change that is causing problems.

This backup solution is quite useful to have and is easy to set up, but there may be instances where Time … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week readers wrote in with questions about how to roll back to a previous version of Safari after experiencing compatibility issues with a newer version, how Time Machine manages full backups in multidisk setups, and concerns about both Mail syncing errors and security with e-mail account names being shown. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Rolling back to a previous version of Safari MacFixIt reader Clark … Read more

After installing the latest OS X 10.7.5 update for Lion, a number of users are finding their Time Machine backups are taking forever to complete. In some cases the backups only run at a few kilobytes per hour, with text claiming that the backups will take between days to weeks to complete. People report this issue occurring with a variety of Mac models and backup setups, including backing up to local drives and to Apple's Time Capsule devices.

In addition to Time Machine running slowly, those experiencing this problem have noticed Spotlight also takes forever to update … Read more