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Time Machine - Troubleshooting

D5. Backups seem to run ok, but nothing gets backed-up

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  1. Check the exclusions box in Time Machine Preferences > Options. Be sure nothing there is preventing proper backups.

  2. If an entire drive or partition isn't being backed-up, make sure its name is not any of the following:   Home  Dev  Net    Those are (hidden) folders on an OSX drive, and excluded automatically.

  3. On Snow Leopard prior to 10.6.8, doing a Verify Disk (not permissions) on your startup volume, or altering the size of other partitions on your startup drive, via Disk Utility while running from the startup volume can be the culprit.  Either nothing gets backed-up, or nothing in any home folder does.  If that's a possibility, just Restart your Mac;  the next backup should "catch up" and save all previous changes.  If it does, upgrade to 10.6.8.

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  1. Try a "full reset" per section #A4.

  2. If that doesn't help, repair your backups, per item #A5.

  3. If still no help, create (or duplicate) some "test" files in various places in your home folder, another user's home folder (if you only have one, make another temporarily via System Preferences > Accounts), and one in your Applications folder and/or at the top level of your internal HD.  Then run a Back Up Now from the Time Machine icon in your Menubar, or by control-clicking (right-clicking) the Time Machine icon in your Dock.  If some get saved, but not others, something is likely corrupted.  Post a new thread in the appropriate Apple Discussions forum with full details, including which files were and were not backed-up, and someone will help you fix it.


OSX Mountain Lion 10.8

Mac OS X v 10.7 Lion

Mac OS X v.10.6 Snow Leopard

Mac OSX v.10.5 Leopard