So, I started up my computer a couple days ago, and OS X reported that my Time Machine Drive had some damage and that I could view files, but not copy anything to the drive. After verifying with disk utility, I learned that the drive has an Invalid Node structure, meaning I have to reformat the drive. But here's where the problem comes in: Before I can reformat, I need to backup all the information on the drive. Time Machine uses symbolic links, so I can't just copy with the finder. I can't use Disk Utility's restore feature to copy everything on the drive to another drive, since that will also copy the damage (I know, I tried it…). I tried using the cp -R command in terminal, which I think will not copy the hard links properly, but it started giving me permission errors.
So, does anybody have any suggestions on how to transfer my Time Machine Backups to another drive? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Best Answer
I would suggest using
rsync, which will sync all files and folders from a particular directory to another and skip over files it can't transfer because of damage. Use the following command to copy the entire root directory of your currentTime Machinedrive to a new drive:sudo rsync -avxr --progress /Volumes/BadDrive/ /Volumes/GoodDriveDue to the damage, you probably won't be able to continue using the new drive as a backup drive. It's likely that
rsyncwill skip over some damaged files, causingOS Xnot to recognize it.Another option would be to attempt to use Drive Genius to repair the existing drive. However, this probably won't work with an invalid node structure.
You could also use SuperDuper! to copy the existing files over to the new drive. However, you may run into the same problem as
rsyncin that it may not preserve theTime Machinefile structure.Good luck.