Do not move, rename, or delete Backup 3 files
Symptoms
Don't move, rename, or delete your existing Backup 3 files, as that may render your backups unable to restore data. If you have moved, renamed, or deleted the files, you will not be able to restore from the Backup unless you put the file back in its original location with its original name.
Products Affected
Backup, MobileMe
Resolution
Sometimes you may choose to remove or delete Backup files because you want the drive space or because they are backups of files you no longer wish to keep. If you do wish to delete Backup files, keep the following in mind:
- When you delete Backup files, the data stored in them is lost forever. If there are files in the Backup that you want to keep, make sure you have a functional version of the file before you delete the backup.
- After you delete any Backup files, make sure you run a full backup for any Backup plans related to the files you deleted. If you want to be on the safe side, you can force a full backup for each of your Backup plans. (See the section below on ".fullbackup" and ".incrementalbackup" to learn about the distinction.)
- For more tips on deleting items from your iDisk Backup folder, click here.
Additional Information
When Backup 3 backs up to iDisk, to CD/DVD, or to a hard drive, it creates a lot of files with the file extension .fullbackup or .incrementalbackup. Read on to learn more about these files.
The first time you back up a set of files, a file is created with the suffix .fullbackup. This file consists of all the files that were selected to be backed up. This .fullbackup file is essential to restore your files as it serves as the foundation for any later backups.
After the first backup, any future backups are incremental—that is, only the files that have changed since the previous backup are backed up. Incremental backups take up less space than full backups. These are the files with the extension .incrementalbackup.
If you do need to use the backed-up data to restore your files, Backup 3 needs to have all .fullbackup AND .incrementalbackup files for the Backup Plan that you wish to restore. In order for this to occur, you need to leave Backup files in the original location they were backed up to and using the same name it was originally given by the Backup application.