Time Machine Not Working - Yosemite

[tachikoma1959]

Disappointed with the latest Mac Mini offerings, I recently purchased a new 2012 Mac Mini core I7 with a 1TB hard drive. I then installed a 500GB Samsung Evo 850 SSB to use as the operating system disk, planning to leave the original 1TB hard drive installed as slower mass storage for MP3's, video files, etc. The installed OS was OSX Mavericks; I successfully used Super Duper to copy the OS to the SSD. I then booted up on the SSD, and once I had determined that everything was working correctly I upgraded the OS to OSX Yosemite 10.10.3.

However, after I apparently successfully set up Time Machine to use with an external hard drive, I discovered that Time Machine is apparently not working correctly. When I access the Time Machine window it opens and shows the desktop, but when I click on anything nothing works. However, when I access the backup files on the hard drive itself in Finder everything appears to be there and is accessible. I can't tell if this is a Time Machine issue with Yosemite (I think I've seen references to this online) or has something to do with my use of a 3rd party SSD. I have an older Mini running Yosemite with only the original hard drive installed and Time Machine appears to work just fine on that machine. Any insight into correcting this problem will be most appreciated.

 

[Laserducky]

Disappointed with the latest Mac Mini offerings, I recently purchased a new 2012 Mac Mini core I7 with a 1TB hard drive. I then installed a 500GB Samsung Evo 850 SSB to use as the operating system disk, planning to leave the original 1TB hard drive installed as slower mass storage for MP3's, video files, etc. The installed OS was OSX Mavericks; I successfully used Super Duper to copy the OS to the SSD. I then booted up on the SSD, and once I had determined that everything was working correctly I upgraded the OS to OSX Yosemite 10.10.3.

However, after I apparently successfully set up Time Machine to use with an external hard drive, I discovered that Time Machine is apparently not working correctly. When I access the Time Machine window it opens and shows the desktop, but when I click on anything nothing works. However, when I access the backup files on the hard drive itself in Finder everything appears to be there and is accessible. I can't tell if this is a Time Machine issue with Yosemite (I think I've seen references to this online) or has something to do with my use of a 3rd party SSD. I have an older Mini running Yosemite with only the original hard drive installed and Time Machine appears to work just fine on that machine. Any insight into correcting this problem will be most appreciated.

I believe you are trying to restore files from the Time Machine Interface ..the Restore button will be greyed out unless the original file it backed up from has been deleted from your Mac by you : in which case you can restore that file from TM interface.

Of course, you can always go back to TM using finder and manually copy back stuff to your Mac.

Cheers !

 

[fhall1]

I believe you are trying to restore files from the Time Machine Interface ..the Restore button will be greyed out unless the original file it backed up from has been deleted from your Mac by you : in which case you can restore that file from TM interface.

Of course, you can always go back to TM using finder and manually copy back stuff to your Mac.

Cheers !

The TM Restore button will be greyed out until you select something (file/folder) in the TM backup window...you don't have to delete the current file/folder first. If the file still exists and you hit Restore it'll ask you if you want to replace the existing version.

 

[Laserducky]

The TM Restore button will be greyed out until you select something (file/folder) in the TM backup window...you don't have to delete the current file/folder first. If the file still exists and you hit Restore it'll ask you if you want to replace the existing version.

Thanks for the clarification

 

[tachikoma1959]

I believe you are trying to restore files from the Time Machine Interface ..the Restore button will be greyed out unless the original file it backed up from has been deleted from your Mac by you : in which case you can restore that file from TM interface.

Of course, you can always go back to TM using finder and manually copy back stuff to your Mac.

Cheers !

The TM Restore button will be greyed out until you select something (file/folder) in the TM backup window...you don't have to delete the current file/folder first. If the file still exists and you hit Restore it'll ask you if you want to replace the existing version.

Laserducky and hall1 - Thanks for your responses. I am in fact having trouble using the UI, it really won't let me select anything, and the background is grey (different from the background shown for the working TM on my other mini) which is why I think something basic is wrong with TM or the setup. I can in fact manually copy the files from the backup location on the TM drive as Laserducky suggested but that will be much more cumbersome than using TM in the normal mode if I ever need to do a full system restore. Any other ideas? Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[fhall1]

Can't help you there.....have you tried this page? It's a couple years old but might get you pointed in the right direction. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html