I never really kept back ups but once I started storing music, tax information and photos, I have always kept multiple backups. I have never needed to use multiple backups or a backup at all. I have been building, configuring and using computers since 1990. I started on an IBM Model 5150 using the Intel 8088 chip. It had two 5 1/4 floppy drives. I then added a 10 Meg hard drive hooked it up to 300 baud modem and thought, I could never fill this thing up. Then found a pallet full of used parts from a friend's friend. I built 3 286 machines sold 2 of them and kept the third. Then I stepped things up a bit and bought a 486 and used that until 2000 when I bought my first apple. This is when I started to really keep backups, one at a time though.
Not until I ripped my music and scanned all my family photos did I start to keep multiple backups. Speed up to yesterday when I started an automator program I made to backup files to a flash drive. I have used this program lots of times before, but for some reason unknown to me it did not work. I changed a setting in the work flow and started it back up again. After watching the gear spin for a while I noticed my desktop files disappear. I must have not set the source and target folders properly. Thinking that was weird, I stopped the backup and started looking around. All my backups are now empty, my flash drive also empty. I started to get that sinking feeling that all the pictures, Documents, music and most of my hard drive was gone. I was right, it even reached across the network and deleted a SuperDuper backup and a backup of just pertinent files. I had backed up over the network a SuperDuper, time machine and a copy of my Documents, music and picture folders all on different drives. All were gone, including the flash drive except the time machine that is on the OS X server in the other room. I thought good thing all I have to do is restart and restore from time machine in recovery mode.
This is where my several hours of frustration started. I tried to restore using time machine and it would not connect to the drive on the server. I tried every user name and password from both computers, no luck. It kept telling me to check the server name and IP address. I kind of figured that if time machine could see the backup that it knew the proper name and address. Step two, I found an old hard drive from a laptop put it into an enclosure copied the time machine backup to it and plugged it into my MacBook air. No luck would not see the backup. I did a check disk, repaired the drive and made sure disk utility could see the drive and that it was formatted properly, still no luck. I plugged the drive into the airport extreme and right away time machine saw the drive, took the password but would not access the backup. By the way airport extremes are not supported by Apple to be used as a time machine backup by plugging a USB drive into them and I proved it. I started a fresh install and then laid down for the night, it was now 2:30 am and I was tired of fighting the computer. If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then by now I was completely insane. My mind kept mulling over the info that I had learned over the past several hours and I realized that when time machine backs up to a drive in or connected to the computer it backs up to the root of the drive. But when it backs up over a network it backs up to a set of folders. i.e. ~shared items/backups/backupname. In the morning I copied the time machine backup to the root of the drive and started recovery mode, started time machine and low and behold there was my backup. Saying a little prayer, then clicking on the backup I watched the LED light on the drive start to blink. Two hours later I had the laptop restored, rebooted and started using it again. I may just add another backup just in case. I still have yet to plug in my iPhone wish me luck.
Not until I ripped my music and scanned all my family photos did I start to keep multiple backups. Speed up to yesterday when I started an automator program I made to backup files to a flash drive. I have used this program lots of times before, but for some reason unknown to me it did not work. I changed a setting in the work flow and started it back up again. After watching the gear spin for a while I noticed my desktop files disappear. I must have not set the source and target folders properly. Thinking that was weird, I stopped the backup and started looking around. All my backups are now empty, my flash drive also empty. I started to get that sinking feeling that all the pictures, Documents, music and most of my hard drive was gone. I was right, it even reached across the network and deleted a SuperDuper backup and a backup of just pertinent files. I had backed up over the network a SuperDuper, time machine and a copy of my Documents, music and picture folders all on different drives. All were gone, including the flash drive except the time machine that is on the OS X server in the other room. I thought good thing all I have to do is restart and restore from time machine in recovery mode.
This is where my several hours of frustration started. I tried to restore using time machine and it would not connect to the drive on the server. I tried every user name and password from both computers, no luck. It kept telling me to check the server name and IP address. I kind of figured that if time machine could see the backup that it knew the proper name and address. Step two, I found an old hard drive from a laptop put it into an enclosure copied the time machine backup to it and plugged it into my MacBook air. No luck would not see the backup. I did a check disk, repaired the drive and made sure disk utility could see the drive and that it was formatted properly, still no luck. I plugged the drive into the airport extreme and right away time machine saw the drive, took the password but would not access the backup. By the way airport extremes are not supported by Apple to be used as a time machine backup by plugging a USB drive into them and I proved it. I started a fresh install and then laid down for the night, it was now 2:30 am and I was tired of fighting the computer. If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then by now I was completely insane. My mind kept mulling over the info that I had learned over the past several hours and I realized that when time machine backs up to a drive in or connected to the computer it backs up to the root of the drive. But when it backs up over a network it backs up to a set of folders. i.e. ~shared items/backups/backupname. In the morning I copied the time machine backup to the root of the drive and started recovery mode, started time machine and low and behold there was my backup. Saying a little prayer, then clicking on the backup I watched the LED light on the drive start to blink. Two hours later I had the laptop restored, rebooted and started using it again. I may just add another backup just in case. I still have yet to plug in my iPhone wish me luck.
