Where does the Time machine backup reside on the drive and how do I view it? I don’t mean through “Enter Time Machine.”
For example, I have a time machine backup on a WD My Book, on there I can physically see the time machine folder. However, from the MCH I cannot.
This became an issue after the computer that conducted the time machine back up was disconnected from the drive and upon re-connecting it couldn’t locate the backup.
Prior to disconnect I verified that the backup was indeed there via “Enter Time Machine,” the space was also obviously still allocated as well on the drive. I set it up by selecting the MCH and connecting as “guest.”
From there, I went to delete the time machine backup to start over, except, as it turns out you can’t delete what you can’t see. So basically I was left reformatting the drive and stuck transferring the better part of 1TB back onto it from my other computer as well.
I’m not really a Mac guy so fair warning, but I found this on a third-party site and it seems really clear and easy to follow - hope this helps. Not sure if the location is different on the MCH as I’ve never used one with a Mac, but hopefully someone who has can confirm if this works or not.
Using the Finder to Access FileVault Backups
Open a Finder window on the drive used for Time Machine backups.
Double-click the Backups.backupdb folder.
Double-click the folder with the name of your computer.
Within the folder you just opened, you will see a list of folders with dates and times.
Double-click the folder that corresponds to the backup date for the file you wish to restore.
You will now be presented with another folder named after your computer. Within this folder is a representation of your entire Mac at the time the backup was taken.
Use the Finder to browse to your user account home folder, usually along this path:
ComputerName/User/username/
Within the above folder, you’ll find a file named username.sparsebundle. This is the copy of your FileVault protected user account.
Double-click the username.sparsebundle file.
Supply the user account password to mount and decrypt the image file.
You can now use the browser to navigate the FileVault image as if it were any other folder on your Mac. Locate the files or folders you wish to restore and drag them to the desktop or other desired location.
When you’ve finished copying the files you want, be sure to log out or unmount the username.sparsebundle image.
That is the folder I was referring to not being present. It is clearly visible on the WD My Book that I have, but was nowhere to be found on the My Cloud Home.
I had to reformat because there was no other way to reclaim the space that was allocated to it, it was sort of “lost in space.”
The instructions say to register as “guest” and using any other verified login credential does not work. My assumption is that while it was indeed there, it wasn’t associated with the user that was signed in, it was associated with “guest.” So when the link was broken (disconnected) the computer no longer knew where to look when it was reconnected / logged in to with valid user credentials.
Thanks for the attempt to help, I do appreciate it. But this will require someone from the team with direct knowledge, or a “Mac guy” with specific experience with the device.
The response addresses why I can’t see it, kind of. It wasn’t where the instructions suggest either. Also, why didn’t my Mac see it after disconnecting from the drive and re-connecting. That’s where the issue is. I had access prior to disconnecting.
reading the full article Timothy linked in his post shows that you can access the public share of the my cloud home using Finder. from there you could delete the old time machine backup folder and then reconfigure it.
I also found this article that explains why time machine backup location was not available after the disconnection.
I did read it in full. I checked that location as well prior to reformatting. I haven’t added the time machine back, though, perhaps it just had a rough first go. It’ll be at least tomorrow before I take another shot at it.
As far the the second article goes. While it could have been a corruption issue, I don’t believe it to be the case. The message provided was short and sweet and nothing even remotely similar to or a variation of the one in the article. I don’t remember it verbatim but it was essentially “[it] could not be located.”
if you look at the MCH via finder using the mounted drive WD discovery mounts you will not see the time machine share. The mounted drive via WD discovery is the user storage space not the share where the time machine backup goes. You would need to look under network at the side of finder to see the samba share and you should see the time machine backup folder there.
