Hey Apple, I live about 10 minutes from your headquarters. If I can't figure this out and stop feeling like a complete moron by 11 tonight... you can expect a surprise visit in the morning. - Louis Gray from email

LOL! LG: invest in an external HD! - Mona Nomura

@Mona I second that. - Kyle Lacy

Backups are painful. I should write a Python script for incremental backups. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

FAIL. - Kyle Lacy

That doesn't look good - Mike Doeff

Happens all the time. Nobody notices cause they're all wound up in MobileMe issues. - Michael Markman

@possible, python? a simply on-line (albeit, maybe long) rsync is all anyone needs for backup. - ·[▪_▪]·

Louis, if you do go over there, I want footage! - Justin Korn

I second that - Kyle Lacy

superduper for the mac ,, louis ,, - johnpiercy

also the forums at www.screencastonline.com will always come to your rescue - johnpiercy

Louis I'm having a lot of trouble with Time Machine, too - in line with what Michael said, there are several known issues with TM but they just aren't a priority for Apple at the moment.... the discussion threads at Apple.com are buzzing with two or three consistent, known TM issues but no solves (other than going in and deleting backups and making it restart.) - Anthony Citrano

I've been using Retrospect since the late 80's when it was called DiskFit from Dantz Development. When it is setup properly and when it runs regularly, it will restore your HD perfectly to a new drive after a disk failure. I've seen this happen countless times. Retrospect is an expert tool for expert restoration. It just works. It's not easy to learn. Time Machine is beyond easy -- but let's see how it compares to Retrospect's record of successful restores in the next 20 years. - David Newman

I am having no problem with time machine, neener neener neener - anna sauce

Neener neener yourself, anna. :-) So far, totally worthless. - Louis Gray

Louis, as soon as you can figure it out - set up is the worst part, you'll never have to touch it again. Mine just works like magic now that I have it set up. - Jesse Stay

OMG! You have caused a rip in space-time continuum! - Jemm

I dare you to take your time capsule on your bike and roll up to Infinity Drive. - anna sauce

I've used Time Machine to restore my desktop twice: once using TM's automatic restore, and once manually. Saved my butt both times, though I'm seeing random errors from the drive that suggest I'll be reformatting it soon. Sorry you're having issues, Louis. If more people turned up in Apple's lobby with a box of hardware, maybe they'd pay more attention. ;-) - Chris Baskind

But Jesse the problem is that that's not true. I think that's Louis' point. Time Machine is plagued with issues. Thousands of users have set it up and found that it doesn't "just work like magic" at all. I am one of them, and as a fairly tech-savvy guy cannot get it working smoothly no matter what I do. Go over to Apple.com Discussions and see for yourself. - Anthony Citrano

Is there any chance that the prob is with your primary drive? i.e. the backup is failing because it can't copy corrupt data? Try a disk repair and permissions repair on your primary disk. Apologies if you have done this already. - Tom Raftery

hmm Ubuntu backs up fine :) - Fred Grott

I've been using the Time Capsule for about 6 months now. It's a piece of crap. You will not go one week without some problem occurring with the backups. Some tips: the name of the backup share and time capsule can't be more than like 20 or 30 characters: forget descriptive names. If you have a problem with it mounting, change the backup disk to none, then change it back to the backup share. If you like your sanity, don't bother with Time Capsule - Mark Trapp

@Tom, I'm repairing disk permissions right now. Before I go off on a rant, I'll try and see if this works. Hope so! Right now, Time Machine and Time Capsule are pretty useless. - Louis Gray

i gave up on "in home" backup and went to Mozy...so far so good. I don't care about my OS, as long as my media stay safe... - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

Sounds like maybe you got a dud? Exchange for a new one? - Jesse Stay from twhirl

Louis, repairing permissions may not be enough. If it is bad sectors on your primary drive, say, you will need to do a disk repair. Still, no harm trying the perms first and if that works, so much the better. - Tom Raftery from twhirl

Things like this suck since backup software shouldn't fail. - Daniel Schildt

@nicerobot: Yeah, rsync is pretty good for backup, but I would prefer something with a GUI. Today, I actually found a GUI for rsync backups (http://code.google.com/p...). - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

Chris, it's the combination of both. Time Machine works great with a hard drive connected via Firewire or USB, and Time Capsule as a NAS is hard to screw up, but Time Machine accessing things over the network is an exercise in frustration. Time Machine sucks at reliably auto-mounting AFP shares and preserving permissions on those shares. Given how long it took for Apple to support hard drives attached to regular Airports, it's probably the AFP mounting part that's the root issue, but that more or less invalidates the utility and novelty of the Time Capsule. - Mark Trapp

one word...superduper!...that is all...over. - Bob Blunk

Boom! It just works! Everyone's suggestions sound like you're troubleshooting a PC... :p - Johan

you blame the software but do you ever think that maybe your hardrive is killed? i use time machine all the time no problems - orionstarr

Orion, it's highly possible there's an issue with the drive. I don't know that I made a distinction with the software. Something between Time Capsule and Time Machine is borked. - Louis Gray

It sounds very much like a broken drive. My time capsule was very easy to set up. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

Now starting to work. I erased the disk and restarted the process (again), Fingers crossed - Louis Gray

Did you lose everything? - orionstarr

Remember of the old days of backing up on cd roms, dvds, jazz disk, zips etc... a 250 gig zip disk used to be a monster! - orionstarr