Converting (local) TimeMachine backups to TimeMachine sparsebundle (network)

Dieder-Bylsma - 03:58am Apr 19, 2008 PST

I recently purchased a TimeCapsule 500. It's attached to its resident Macs via GigaBit and 802.11n. Previously I was using an internal drive of the desktop Tower Mac as a TimeMachine backup.

Internal drives/hard drives that are directly connected to a TimeMachine computer are backed up on a file-level basis.

If TimeMachine is backing up to a network volume, it creates a sparsebundle image and fills it up as it goes through the back up process.

Now, how do I go about restoring a TimeMachine file-level backup to a sparsebundle image?

I have tried using DiskUtility to convert the local TimeMachine backup to a sparsebundle, named appropriately and then put it on the network volume. No dice. Can't do it directly (Leopard 10.5.2). Converted it to a sparseimage (single monolithic file) and then converted it to a sparsebundle (set of 8Mb files banded/tied together to look like a single file). Looked ok, but the backup didn't transfer and resume.

So I'm left with two TimeMachine backups. It seems highly odd that there is no way (that I can see) of transferring/cloning/converting a local TimeMachine backup into a network-friendly backup and free up the local drives.

Any suggestions or ideas would be most welcome,

d.