So I copied off all the stuff I needed, and tested it to see that it was OK. But the completely genius bit is that DW lets you copy recovered directories and files from the Preview! Indeed, it recommends that you do this for important data. This allows you to see whether some of the data is still damaged, and decide that you need to try some other method of getting it back before DW makes that difficult or impossible by writing the faulty versions back on to your drive.
It seemed to take forever - but then the Time Capsule is a massive 2Tb, and it was almost full of Time Machine data.Īt last, after what felt like an eternity (but was probably only about 10 minutes), DiskWarrior reported it had successfully rebuilt the directories and recovered all the files! At this point, DW does not write anything back on to the drive: rather, it shows you a 'Preview' of the directories and files it will restore. I waited with mounting anxiety for DW to 'rebuild' the damaged sparsebundle. (Note to self: in future, only ever use USB drives, formated as MacOS Extended (Journalled) for Time Machine backups!) Now, remember that DW is really designed for fixing damaged directories on directly connected (i.e internal or USB/firewire/etc external) drives that are formatted as MacOS Extended (Journalled), so my chances seemed slim for fixing a sparsebundle on an AFP-formatted network drive (which is what Time Capsules are).
None too confident, I installed and ran the software on an iMac, and pointed it at the damaged Time Machine sparsebundle. I gulped at the price but having no option, I bought a copy.
I made the mistake of running Time Machine backups on a network drive (not really a good idea), and the network drive was a Time Capsule (REALLY BAD IDEA!) so when a failed upgrade to MacOS Sierra bricked my Macbook Air, I found to my horror that the Time Machine backup was empty, even though the Time Capsule reported that it contained a large amount of data.Ī knowledgeable friend recommended DW as the best chance of recovering the important data. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier.
If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.