Problem with Time Machine/Finder not finding and (keeping) remote drive

I have a Mac Pro and hooked 2 Western Digital My Book 750GB drives via Firewire onto it to use as my time machine backup for the two MBP's in the house.
The problem I run into may be more network related than Time Machine related. I have the file sharing turned on in Mac OS 10.5.2. I am able to select Mac Pro in Finder on each MBP and then under that select my Time Machine drive. Then within Time Machine I can select the My Book as my Time Machine drive. At this point I have no problem using Time Machine.
Where the problem occurs is if I use Finder to browse other drives such as an Internal Drive I have in my MBP or my Mac Mini's drive it no longer can find the Time Machine drive. It just is like it loses sight of it somehow. All I need to do is once again go to Finder/Mac Pro and then select the specific Time Machine drive and then Time Machine is fine again.
How can I get around this? It seems i have to make some type of permanent logon or so to this drive.

1. try plugging in directly (think you did this already)
2. try a different cable - switch to the one you know works.
3. try a different port on the case.
4. does the faulty one power up at all? can you hear the drive spinning?
5. try switching to the good power adapter if you are not seeing action under #4.
there may also be a reset button on the board or case.
if these are not working, then the bridgeboard has died in the case. there is a board that the drive plugs into that gives you the firewire, usb connections, etc. the drive likely hasn't failed, you just need a new bridgeboard or case, as I doubt maxtor will sell you just that part. the drive can be pulled & put into another case.
check out macsales.com if you need a new case.

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I try to backup my Macbook with Time machine, it goes fine and at the end it says that it could not be completed because "/Volumes/Data-2/ MacBook.sparsebundle is already in use".. What is that?!

I try to backup my Macbook with Time machine, it goes fine and at the end it says that it could not be completed because "/Volumes/Data-2/ MacBook.sparsebundle is already in use".. What is that?!

See #C12 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting

I have a problem with itunes account did not find a solution.

Good morning
I have a problem with itunes account did not find a solution.
The problem: your apple id has been Dasabld
I can not if download applications from the iTunes store
Hoping to help me solve the problem
Note my English is very weak
I want to re-activate the iTunes account
Thank you

To Contact iTunes Customer Service Use this Link...
Apple Support iTunes Store Contact

HT1338 problems with time machine and parallels desktop, mac osx mountain lion 10.8

have a good day, i have been problems with time machine and parallels desktop, dont work in mac osx 10.8, i upgrate two mac´s (macbook air, imac), in the two machines shows problems, could you help me please.
two machines have good ram memory (macbook air 11.1 2010 early , imac 2009 late).
i am waiting for your help.
thanks.
Jesus.

Take a look here:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Specifically, you'll probably want to try item #A5 on that page, but there's a lot of other info there that may be useful.

I am having problems with Time Machine and having enough space to finish my last back up.

I am having problems with Time Machine and having enough space to finish my last back up.

Take a look at this link, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

Another problem with Time Machine

This is the second time I have experienced the following problem with Time Machine. After 2 months of backups it gets to a point where backups fail and I cannot enter time machine. In each instance I have only used 110GB of the 500GB space.
Is there a better solution to fixing this problem than deleting the sparsebundle? That seems to be the only way to get it to back up again.

backup is failing again:
Oct 28 08:39:58 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8307]: Starting standard backup
Oct 28 08:40:02 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8307]: FSMatchAliasBulk returned 0 while resolving alias to backup target
Oct 28 08:40:07 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8307]: Backup failed with error: 19
Oct 28 09:22:57 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Starting standard backup
Oct 28 09:22:58 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Network mountpoint /Volumes/MPTC not owned by backupd... remounting
Oct 28 09:22:59 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Network volume mounted at: /Volumes/MPTC-1
Oct 28 09:22:59 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Backup requested due to disk attach
Oct 28 09:23:28 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Disk image /Volumes/MPTC-1/MBA_001f5bd2c764.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of MBA
Oct 28 09:23:32 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of MBA/Backups.backupdb
Oct 28 09:23:32 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Backup requested due to disk attach
Oct 28 09:25:44 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 242.1 MB requested (including padding), 351.94 GB available
Oct 28 09:41:34 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Copied 990 files (72.4 MB) from volume MacBook Air HD.
Oct 28 09:41:35 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 159.6 MB requested (including padding), 351.94 GB available
Oct 28 09:44:09 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
Oct 28 09:46:13 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Copied 879 files (2.2 MB) from volume MacBook Air HD.
Oct 28 09:47:18 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Starting post-backup thinning
Oct 28 09:49:15 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of MBA/Backups.backupdb/MBA/2008-10-27-090710: 351.94 GB now available
Oct 28 09:50:46 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of MBA/Backups.backupdb/MBA/2008-10-27-061332: 351.94 GB now available
Oct 28 09:52:53 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of MBA/Backups.backupdb/MBA/2008-10-27-050805: 351.94 GB now available
Oct 28 09:52:53 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Post-back up thinning complete: 3 expired backups removed
Oct 28 09:52:53 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Backup completed successfully.
Oct 28 09:53:11 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8464]: Attempt to eject diskimage failed with status: -47, dissenting pid: 0
Oct 28 10:23:16 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Starting standard backup
Oct 28 10:23:19 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Network volume mounted at: /Volumes/MPTC-1
Oct 28 10:23:27 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Disk image /Volumes/MPTC-1/MBA_001f5bd2c764.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of MBA
Oct 28 10:23:27 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of MBA/Backups.backupdb
Oct 28 10:23:28 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Error: (-50) Creating directory 2008-10-28-102328.inProgress
Oct 28 10:23:28 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Failed to make snapshot container.
Oct 28 10:23:33 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Backup failed with error: 2
Oct 28 10:23:33 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8603]: Attempt to eject diskimage failed with status: -47, dissenting pid: 0
Oct 28 11:23:16 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Starting standard backup
Oct 28 11:23:16 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Network volume mounted at: /Volumes/MPTC-1
Oct 28 11:23:20 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Disk image /Volumes/MPTC-1/MBA_001f5bd2c764.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of MBA
Oct 28 11:23:20 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of MBA/Backups.backupdb
Oct 28 11:23:21 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Error: (-50) Creating directory 2008-10-28-112321.inProgress
Oct 28 11:23:21 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Failed to make snapshot container.
Oct 28 11:23:26 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Backup failed with error: 2
Oct 28 11:23:26 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Attempt to eject diskimage failed with status: -47, dissenting pid: 0
Oct 28 11:24:05 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8729]: Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Oct 28 11:24:11 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Backup requested by user
Oct 28 11:24:11 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Starting standard backup
Oct 28 11:24:11 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Network volume mounted at: /Volumes/MPTC-1
Oct 28 11:24:12 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Disk image /Volumes/MPTC-1/MBA_001f5bd2c764.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of MBA
Oct 28 11:24:12 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of MBA/Backups.backupdb
Oct 28 11:24:12 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Error: (-50) Creating directory 2008-10-28-112412.inProgress
Oct 28 11:24:12 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Failed to make snapshot container.
Oct 28 11:24:17 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Backup failed with error: 2
Oct 28 11:24:17 MBA /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[8747]: Attempt to eject diskimage failed with status: -47, dissenting pid: 0

The first time I connected my new My Passport portable hard drive to my Mac, the message asking if I want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine did not appear. What is the next step?

The first time I connected my new My Passport portable hard drive to my MacBook Pro, the message asking if I want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine did not appear. I would like to set it up to do this. What would my next step be?

Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Open Time Machine preferences to select this drive for use as the backup drive. Turn on Time Machine.

Has anyone ever had a problem with their iphone 4 not syncing and/or writing a backup file?

Has anyone ever had a problem with their iphone 4 not syncing and/or writing a backup file? Itunes locks up when i attempt a sync as well as when I transfer my purchases from my phone to Itunes. I'm running Itunes 10.4.1 on iOS 4.3.5. All of this is running on an 8 year old hp pavillian laptop running XP Pro that is fully updated. Could my phone have a bug or a hardware problem. Are there any known problems with iOS 4.3.5? Pretty frustrating problem so I'm hoping that someone has heard of this and can offer some suggestions on a solution. Thanks a bunch.

Did you used to have service and now suddenly you don't?
This happened to me a few years back, and several other iPhone users in my neighborhood, and after a while on the phone with AT&T they figured out that a technician had recently adjusted the receiver/sender on the tower and it was slightly off. They sent them back up and I actually had a better signal after than I did before it went out.
I would call AT&T and explain the issue you are having and see if they can fix it.
If you never had service there then like wjosten said it's probably just a bad zone.
Hope you get it sussed out.
-PM

Since installing Lion, I have not been able to utilize Time Machine (does not recognize the back-up drive); my wireless mouse does not function properly; I have experienced unreasonable delays in the system. Is there a fix or upgrade coming?

Is there a fix or upgrade to deal with the many problems I am experiencing since I installed Lion? I can no longer utilize Time Machine (Does not see the back-up drive); my wireless mouse does not work properly; my iMac has slowed down considerably. I am reminded of having a PC machine again. Bummer!

Either downgrade to Snow Leopard or try reinstalling Lion.
Reinstalling Lion Without the Installer
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alterhatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.
Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.

Time Machine will not back up external photo drive

Time Machine will not back up external photo drive, slightly different format, one case sensitive the other not. How do I resolve. Bought new external drive same format as TM in the hope that I could copy the files from photo drive but that will not copy all files as it is saying file already there. Again the case sensitive issue...
Paranoid about losing 1Tb of photos all cataloged in LR5
Possible solutions I have looked at but not yet tried.
Use the new 2Tb drive to make a new TM backup then reformat the old 4Tb drive the same as Photo drive.
Then do a complete backup of all files and photodrive to TM.
A lot of work, USB 2, so if any one has a simpler answer I would love to hear.
Roger

crash888 wrote:
I reinstalled Snow Leopard on my Mac Mini after having some issues. After reinstallation, Time Machine would no longer backup to my External HD because it will not allow me to change permissions.
What message did you get? You should never change permissions (or anything else) on a Time Machine drive -- TM does that for you.
Start with #C2 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.
If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.

Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more.

Hi all
Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more. I only can back up external disks. Does anyone know how to fix this?
All answers are much appreciated

I don't know the answer but I have the same thing happen. I have two external drives I use for backup. Sometimes it can see one and sometimes another. Then sometimes it can't see either one. I will take one out for a while then plug it back in and then it may see it. Maybe it's a cable issue or something but I will be curious to hear what someone more knowledgeable says.

Time Machine does not start after external hard drive is connected

Time Machine does not start after external hard drive is connected

These are the iCloud storage options: http://www.apple.com/icloud/includes/lightbox-storage.html
Also bear in mind that:
1. restoring data over icloud takes time
2. iCloud is not designed as a replacement to Time Machine.

HT201250 I disconnected My Passport by mistake, and now Time Machine can not find it. Although connected, it does not appear in the My Devices section of Finder. What do I do?

I disconnected My Passport by mistake, and now Time Machine can not recognise it. It no longer appears in the My Devices section of Finder. What do I do?

Hello rjhc49,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your external hard drive. I found an article with steps you can take when an external device is not being recognized.
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in the following article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Problem with Time Machine Backup or Maybe Not Time Machine

The problem manifests after a Time Machine backup.
I have an iMac 24-inch, Early 2008. iMac 8,1
Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM.
Last week I purchased two 4-Terabyte G-technology G-Drives. Each drive is equip with FireWire 800 and USB 3.0/2.0. In general use they seem to work fine on the iMac.
I designated one drive as a Time Machine Volume. This is where the problem happens.
Time Machine will do the initial backup just fine. Then it runs once per hour with no problem. Intermittently however, Time Machine will fail and report :
“Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “hard disk name”.
Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.”
Interestingly enough if I try to open a folder on the Time Machine volume using the Finder I get:
“The operation can’t be completed. An unexpected error occurred (error code -50).
If I try to eject the volume I get the irksome “Cannot eject volume because it’s currently in use by one or more programs.”
To resolve this I’ve tried everything, from the banal verifying permissions, to swapping the two G-Drives around, swapping out all the cables, etc.. When the error occurs I go into the shell and check with lsof and always find no software apparently holding or using that volume.
Very frustrating
I can force eject the volume, then remount the volume and things are back to normal. Same with restarting.
This happened under OS X Mountain Lion and is now happening under a clean install of Mavericks.
I thought that even though I don’t see any MDS related processes using the drive, it might be spotlight, so I told spotlight not to index the volume. Problem still happens.
I’ve found that one person had almost this exact same problem at:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4756742
His solution turned out to be replacing the G-Drive with another brand new G-Drive.
Unfortunately, I cannot return the drives to the Apple store because the boxes were tossed out. I also don’t relish trying to explain that the drives work just fine until some glitch that occurs either just before or just after a Time Machine backup.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

You can also contact G-Drive while the drives are under warranty (one year I believe).
I have the same problem using Time Machine with the 2T G-Drive and my MacBook Pro. G-Tech emailed me a Firmware Update Utility app and, when that didn't solve the error message problem, they sent me a replacement drive and new cables, twice. The problem persisted; I get one or two backups each day and then the error message. I also can't copy anything to the drive and have to force eject it, so G-Tech suggested I see how well it worked with the USB cable.
Time Machine works flawlessly with the USB cable and the G-Drive, so G-Tech suggested it is a problem with my Firewire 800 port. I worked with Apple Care over the phone, doing all the tests suggested in Eric's post - testing with Disk Utility, Time Machines interface with my User Accounts, the Operating System, then resetting Time Machine, etc. and then I took it to the Genius Bar so they could run the tests themselves. All looked like it should be fine (but they were using a 1T G-Drive and all testing was done within 30 minutes)...when I got home, after two good backups, I got the error message again.
Apple Care finally suggested I make a Genius Bar appointment and sit at the store working with my MacBook, the G-Drive and Time Machine running until I got the error message, to prove the only thing left that could possibly be the cause of the problem, is the port. I did this last Wednesday.
It is 9 days later and I got my computer back this afternoon...the logic board was replaced because the Firewire 800 port is attached to it...I got my first Time Machine back up at 5:34pm...and the error message again at 7:34pm.
The only solution, it seems, is to use the USB cable instead of Firewire. USB and Thunderbolt seem to be the direction Apple is taking, which is why so many people have been posting about this problem, here and elsewhere, with no real solutions from Apple. See this article: http://www.infoworld.com/t/mac-laptop/how-cope-the-end-of-firewire-205957
I hope the USB works for you too.

Interesting problem with Time Machine and Spotlight

As I was searching for spotlight problems in time machine, I came across many discussions about the indexing and whether or not to include your external Time Machine back up drive. My drive has always been indexed and one day when I plugged it in, it ran a quick index which hadn't happened before. I put it in the Spotlight Privacy Tab in Preferences not really knowing what I was doing, and after that whenever I opened Time Machine I couldn't search for files on my external HD - it just wouldn't find them even though I could navigate backward without using spotlight and find the specific files myself.
Thinking all I needed to do was take my Time Machine drive out of the privacy tab, I did so but am still encountering the same problem. Although - it seems to be a little bit better. Say I have a file on my desktop labeled "First Draft" - I backup TM, delete the file from my main comp, then back up TM again to simulate a lost file over time. I search in spotlight "First Draft" click the back arrow and am easily taken to my missing file - exactly how TM should work.
However, I have a folder named "First Draft" that I backed up a while ago, deleted, and now replaced with a new folder with the same name but with different files in them, then Time Machine can only seem to find my current folder. I search "First Draft" in spotlight in TM and then click back, but it can't seem to find it - it just goes back to the first backup date with a blank window. I know it's there because when I take off the search words and navigate through a certain day, I can see the files. Does anyone else have this problem? It's such a detailed problem - sorry it took a long time to explain. I hope you understand my problem. Thanks for your time!

Nevermind - what's even stranger is that right after I posted this - it fixed itself. Wow I hate when that happens...

Problem with Time Machine/Finder not finding and (keeping) remote drive

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