How do I access TimeMachine backups for a drive that is no longer connected?

Question

How do I access TimeMachine backups for a drive that is no longer connected?

One of my external SSD drives has failed and Disk Utility can't mount or repair it with an "Object map is invalid" error. Because of this, when I woke my Mac I had a Time Machine error saying the drive could not be backed up because it could not be found. When I try and access the TimeMachine backup of the failed drive I can't see it.

However if I open the Time Machine disk from the Finder I can see folders for all three drives that are being backed up and if I navigate through the missing drive all my files appear to be listed. Can I restore them simply by dragging and dropping to a new location?

For clarity I have 4 drives:

Internal System Drive
Graphics Data Drive
Music Data Drive (this is the one that has failed)
TimeMachine Drive which backs up drives 1-3

Also is the drive worth repairing and if so which 3rd Party Utility is recommended. Or is it likely to fail again and should I just get it replaced under warranty as it's less than 6 months old?

Thanks in advance.

[Re-Titled By Moderator]

Mac Studio

Posted on Mar 13, 2025 01:23 AM

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Answer 1

Owl-53

Level 10

100,297 points

Mar 13, 2025 02:27 AM in response to The Artworker

Get a New Drive and start over

Time Machine Backup Utility marks the drive as Read Only

Only TM Backup can access the drive.

You can not Move the files from this drive to another location or drive

Nor can only Clone the drive to another drive

Can I use CCC to copy a Time Machine backup?

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Answer 2

Mar 13, 2025 02:41 AM in response to Owl-53

I think you've misunderstood my question

The Time Machine Drive is fine.

One of my data drives has failed and when I try and restore the data for the failed drive using Time Machine the failed drive and its data does not show up. However if I access the Time Machine drive from the Finder I can see files for all the data on the failed drive. Can I simply drag and drop these to a new location or do I HAVE to use the Time Machine interface. If I have to use Time Machine how can I make the backups of the drive that has failed visible so I can restore them?

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 3

Mar 13, 2025 03:38 AM in response to Barney-15E

The problem is that within the Time Machine interface the failed data drive no longer shows up. However after having spoken on the phone with someone from Apple Support it appears that I can access my Time Machine backups directly from the Finder by opening a window for the Time Machine drive and navigating to the latest backup folder. So I'm all sorted.

All I need to do now is decide whether to buy a third party utility to try and repair the drive or just replace it.

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Answer 4

Barney-15E

Level 10

121,250 points

Mar 13, 2025 03:54 AM in response to The Artworker

The Artworker wrote:

The problem is that within the Time Machine interface the failed data drive no longer shows up.

An external drive that didn’t get backed up at that particular time will not show up. You must go back in the timeline to a point in time that has backups for the drive.

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Answer 5

Mar 13, 2025 04:21 AM in response to The Artworker

The Artworker wrote:

I think you've misunderstood my question

The Time Machine Drive is fine.

[Edited by Moderator]

Yes, Time Machine is not as good as it's cracked up to be - I've had issues trying to recover the system to an earlier date. What alternatives to TM are there? On my machine the Migration Assistant seems to work better at reinstalling systems.

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

121,250 points

Mar 13, 2025 04:28 AM in response to mechanic1357

On my machine the Migration Assistant seems to work better at reinstalling systems.

Neither Time Machine nor Migration Assistant will reinstall the system. Time Machine only backs up user data and Migration assistant only transfers user accounts and user configured system settings.

SuperDuper! claims they can clone the OS, but Carbon Copy Cloner considers it too unreliable.

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Answer 7

Mar 13, 2025 04:50 AM in response to The Artworker

Within the Time Machine interface the failed external drive doesn't show up at any time.

However if I open the Time Machine drive in The Finder all the folders and files are visible and according the Apple Support can simply be drag and drop copied to a new location. Which is what I am currently doing. I'll report back with the results when the copy is complete.

The fact that the whole drive is missing from the Time Machine interface once it has failed is IMO a bug and will be reported to Apple as such.

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Answer 8

Barney-15E

Level 10

121,250 points

Mar 13, 2025 05:04 AM in response to The Artworker

The fact that the whole drive is missing from the Time Machine interface once it has failed is IMO a bug and will be reported to Apple as such.

Did you? I did years ago when I discovered that confusing interface issue. Perhaps they might fix the issue if more people report it.

At that time, the only way to restore to a missing external drive as a whole was to connect a new external drive with the same name. You don’t appear to get the same results as me, so maybe that won’t work either.

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Answer 9

Barney-15E

Level 10

121,250 points

Mar 13, 2025 03:25 AM in response to The Artworker

Did you go back in time to when the drive was last backed up?

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