Comments on: Moving Your Mac Leopard Time Machine to a New Drive

By: ahlongxp

ahlongxp — Mon, 24 May 2010 07:57:41 +0000

Could not validate source – Bad file descriptor

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:13:53 +0000

Tried 1.000 times on 10.6 (MacbookPro ). Always with the “bad file description” error.

Found an “old” 10.5 (PPC). Just started the DiskUtility and it looks like it’s doing something. Calculating time …

Will let you know!

By: Walterhisownself

Walterhisownself — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:35:01 +0000

I get the same “Could not validate source – Bad file descriptor” using Snow Leopard 10.6.2. My new external drive is a 1TB LaCie and the old one is a 500GB acomdata.

Don’t know what to do to fix this. I’m just going to burn the last back up to DVD and then start with the new 1TB drive. The old one will be erased.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:41:24 +0000

Doesn’t work for me either. Funny different everyone’s experiences are. Snow Leopard was a big wake-up call for me. I’m seeing, among other things, that the manufacturer of a drive can make a difference with Apple OS/X. Wow. That’s incredible.

Bad File Descriptor problem: Any other ideas? I’m fresh out.

By: Bung

Bung — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:53:43 +0000

Aha – but ejecting both drives and doing it on another machine with 10.5.8 seems to be working.

By: Bung

Bung — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:36:16 +0000

Sorry, Erk. That didn’t work. Still getting “Could not validate source – Bad file descriptor”

By: Erk

Erk — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 06:42:22 +0000

to solve the bad file descriptor error….
make sure you deselect the current time machine drive from the tm preferences (select “none”) before you try to restore.

By: Sid

Sid — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:45:35 +0000

Thanks!!!

I successfully used Disk Utility to move 377 GB of Time Machine backups from a 500 GB Time Capsule (by Ethernet) to a new La Cie 1 TB external hard drive (by USB). Copying took about 5 hours. I am using a MacBook Pro with 10.6.2 installed. BTW I did not need to use the Snow Leopard Install Disk to run Disk Utility.

By: Kayte

Kayte — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:57:40 +0000

The Disk Utility solution worked great for me. Thanks!

By: Mark A

Mark A — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Same issue here. “Could not validate source – Bad file descriptor” but Disk Utility reports no errors on this disk. Also ran Tech Tool Pro 5 and it reported no errors. Anyone found away to get around this?