Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Similar Messages

Pondini, I beseech thee....Time Machine won't back up external drive partitions

Pondini (or anyone else that would like to help),
I am running Mac OS X 10.7.5. At my edit bay, we utilize a Facilis Terrablock 24D for storage, which connects to our system via fibre cables. Before upgrading to 10.7.5, Time Machine would back up all of our drive partitions on the Terrablock. Since the upgrade, Time Machine still recognizes the drives, we can add or subtract files from the drives, and it appears to make and save the changes, but when Time Machine backs up, it will only back up the local hard drive. No error messages come up. It just does its thing but only for the local HD.
All of the drive partitions are Mac OS Extended Journaled. All of the permissions seem to be in order.
I have contacted Facilis and their technical support claims that they never tested their products with Time Machine (as they sell their own backup equipment) but in theory that it should work.
I'm not sure what other information you might need but please let me know and I'll do my best. I was wondering if anyone else has come across an issue like this? Thank you for your time.

LALB wrote:
Upon including this partition and all of its contents, it disappears from the exclusion list as it should AND its size is reflected in the Estimated size of full backup. But this is the kicker! Upon clicking "Save" and starting Time Machine's backup, I receive the error "Time Machine could not complete the backup. There are no disks available to be backed up." Upon going back into TM Preferences > Options, I find that the external drive / partition has been put back on the Exclusion list. It's like it is automatically rejecting the partition after I have saved my exclusion list.
That's quite strange.
TM does that if you try to back up a USB Thumb drive (I've filed a bug report), but this is the first I've heard of it under any other circumstances. Then again, I don't recall a post by anyone trying to back up from a drive connected this way.
If a drive isn't formatted for a Mac (ie, FAT32, ExFat, NTFS, etc), Time Machine cannot back it up, and will list it in gray on the exclusion list (same as the backup drive), and won't let you remove it from the list, so it's clear.
This sounds like a "cousin" of the way it treats a thumb drive, so sure seems like a bug. TM will back up USB, FireWire, and Thunderbolt drives without a problem, if they're formatted right.
If you have any Macs under 90 days old, or covered by AppleCare, a call to them is free, and the best way to get a quick answer (you may have to escalate to a "specialist" however, and it still may take a few days for something unusual). Otherwise it's $50 U.S.
An alternative is to file a Bug Report, per the green box in Reporting a Problem to Apple. That most likely won't get a response for quite a while, though.
Sorry, wish I had a fix!
Let us know what, if anything, you find out.

Time Machine - won't back two external drives

At least I cannot get it to do what I want. Our MacBook died. Not sure what's wrong but it does not appear to be the hard drive. Also, that drive has not been backed up in a few months.
The main drive is a 320 GB with 246 GB used.
The Backup USB drive is a 500 GB with 260 GB used. All 260 GB are the backup of the main drive.
I pulled the main drive out and put it into a USB enclosure and connected it to my MacBook Pro via USB.
The Backup is also connected to my MacBook Pro via USB.
I've disconnected the MBP's backup drive and put the MBP's main drive into the "Do Not Backup" list in Time Machine's preferences.
I then set TM's Preferences to backup the external 320 to the external 500. I then get an error message saying there isn't enough room.
I think this means the Time Machine wants to start this as a new backup instead of an incremental backup.
I would like TM to only copy the items that have changed or been added since the last backup. However, it appears TM does not recognize this backup as being from the MacBook's drive.
Can Time Machine do what I want it to do? If not and I must keep two backups on the backup drive, which folders should I trash?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Time Machine isn't backing up external drive

I've been using Time Machine successfully for some time now. Recently I decided to move my iTunes music to an external drive (my internal drive was nearly full.) So I moved 150+ GB of iTunes library to the external drive successfully, but Time Machine seems to completely ignore the external (FireWire) drive. It's formatted as Mac OS Extended (that's HFS+, right?) so I don't understand what the problem might be.
Also, if I can get Time Machine to start backing up both drives correctly, should I erase the backup drive and start over? Otherwise, I assume that I'm going to be wasting a lot of (backup) drive space, since the 150GB iTunes library will be backed up from its original location on my internal drive, as well as from its new location on the external drive… what's the best way to deal with that?
Thanks in advance for the help.

Dave Troup wrote:
If V.K.s suggestion doesn't work, try excluding the drive, quitting System Preferences, then removing the exclusion.
Also, if I can get Time Machine to start backing up both drives correctly, should I erase the backup drive and start over? Otherwise, I assume that I'm going to be wasting a lot of (backup) drive space, since the 150GB iTunes library will be backed up from its original location on my internal drive, as well as from its new location on the external drive… what's the best way to deal with that?
You may not need to. TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything not still on your internal HD. When is just a question of how soon the TM drive/partition gets near full, and TM must start deleting your oldest "weekly" backups. You are supposed to get a message about that, if you have the appropriate box checked in TM's Preferences, but several folks here report they never did, so assume nothing.
Still, if you want, you can delete all the backups of a file or folder. Enter Time Machine, find and select the folder in question (presumably iTunes on your internal HD) in one of the "cascade" of Finder windows, then click the "gear" icon. That will give you an option to +Delete all backups of <folder>.+
You'll then get a confirmation prompt (may take quite a while, considering the size), then the usual place to enter your Administrator's password. The actual deletion will probably take quite a while, also. There was a report the other day that the item was still visible for quite some time after TM seemed to have finished the deletion, but eventually it did disappear.
Then make some change to the folder, or something within it, so TM will consider it changed and back-up the new (smaller) version.

Time Machine won't back up to drive. Five days backing up so far

A week ago I got a message saying that Time Machine could not back up to my external hard drive but that I could access my old backups. I pointed Time Machine to another hard drive and it has been backing up there for five days so far - all the time stating Time remaining 5 seconds. It is now in a cleanup mode. I have been reading about various bugs concerning Time Machine and wonder if there is a fix I can carry out so that I can use the original external hard drive again.

Stop the backup. Boot in safe mode and log in. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including Wi-Fi on certain iMacs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Time Machine won't "un-exclude" external drive

Any help appreciated. I have a Western Digital Passport 120G external hard drive that Time Machine won't backup. It's mounted fine; operates fine; when I go to Preferences>Time Machine>Options it's listed under "Do not back up" but it's grayed out. It won't allow me to "un-exclude" it.
Any suggestions?
Cliff

Well, I checked and it was factory formatted FAT32. I'll move my data to a DVD and reformat. I tried to read up on Apple.com but couldn't find any TM/HFS+ docs; I never would have found this info. Thanks, Barry.

Time machine won't back up external hard drive

Hello,
Due to my internal memory becoming full, I have connected an external hard drive to store my iPhoto Library.
There is no problem with this however, I cannot seem to get Time Machine to back up the external drive.
It is on the "excluded" list, but I am unable to select it to remove from this list.
Thank you in advance

Are you using that same drive as the backup destination? If so, you can't back it up. Otherwise see below.
In the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-C, or select
Go ▹ Computer
from the menu bar. A window will open showing all mounted volumes. Select the one in question and open the Info window. What is shown as the Format in the General section?

Time Machine won't backup my external drive

I have my iTunes library stored on an external drive and I want Time Machine to back it up.
I have a brand new TM drive. I've been using it without problems to backup my 250Gb iMac. As soon as I add the external drive to the TM backup, it fails. I have other data on this drive that I don't need backed up, so I've only included the sub directory iTunes (by excluding all the others).
I followed a couple of similar threads, but the situations don't seem to apply. I did install Time Machine buddy so I could see the error messages.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Node requires deep traversal:/Volumes/Music:DVDs reason:must scan subdirs|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 151.31 GB requested (including padding), 1.56 TB available
Error: (2) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Tori's iMac/2009-11-25-182722.inProgress/3B5DD274-5AB6-44D1-9F1B-561934FB44AD/Music/DV Ds size:37
Stopping backup.
Copied 0 files (0 bytes) from volume Music/DVDs.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
Drives are all formatted OS Extended Journaled
I've run Disk Util on all the drives - no errors.
Any ideas or other things I should try?
If I remove the external drive from the backup, it starts to work again.

The mystery deepens . . .
I tried to replicate the problem. Renamed an empty partition from Misc2 to Misc2/test and copied some docs into it and ran a backup.
Sure enough, the message refers to it as Misc2:test and the deep traversal took almost a minute and a half (one folder, 3 sub-folders, total of about 30 items!), but it ran successfully.
So renamed it again, to Music/DVDs exactly like yours. No deep traversal, and it does call it Music:DVDs in the messages, but it backed-up properly.
Perhaps it was fixed in Snow Leopard? Or just another of TM's many little quirks? Perhaps the phase of the moon?
Edit: Some of your posts say you're on 10.5.3, others 10.6.2. Which is correct?
Message was edited by: Pondini

Time Machine | won't back up same drive under another user

Basically what has happened is my RAID 0 4TB "Media" started to failed (bad sectors) and my only back up was Time Machine. I have two user accounts; Admin and my user account. I logged in under Admin to run time machine for the last time before the drive initially failed (my user account was on the "Media" drive, RAID 0) The backup went successfully and I replaced the drive. Under admin, I restored all files successfully.
Here is the problem: Once I log back in as my user account, Time Machine thinks that the "Media" backup and "Media" current drive are different and says theres no more room to back up. Can I transfer the admin account's Time Machine preferences? I really don't want to format Time Machine again and do another backup. That's a lot of files.
There has to be a way to do this.

Inherit a Backup
Inherit a Backup (2)

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up?

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up? I have an external drive with data I need to add to my overall back up with what's on my mac. I have a separate drive already active as the Time Machine backup disk. I can see how to EXCLUDE disks, but how do I ADD that new external drive to regular backups?
I have 10.8.5 system on my Mac laptop.

Remove the drive from the list of items set to be excluded. It needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this to be possible.
(110504)

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 won't back up due to not enough space, but there is

TIme Machine won't back up. Displays this:
Actual capacity of the external backup drive is 999.68 GB and available is 135 gb .
The imac internal HD capacity is 999.01GB and used space is 636.321 GB.
This problem has occured periodically in the last 12 months or so, so prior to OS version10.8 install in Jul 2012.
I previously called AppleCare, as I have a contract, and tech said I just need to reformat the external drive and start over.
I did that the last time this happened a few months ago, but I don't like that option, as it eliminates all the prior backups,
What if I needed to try to recover something I deleted 3 weeks ago, for example. I couldn't do so as all backups would have been deleted, of course, by me having refomatted the drive and basically starting over. Also, I noted in another post about a person having a problem due to using a partitioned drive. Mine is not partition, as far as I can tell. See this:
Any ideas? Thanks

The solution is essentially "simple." You need a larger hard drive for these backups or you need to use a different backup solution. By this I mean using backup software that does not preserve an archive of old copies of a file, but simply erases old copies in order to replace them with the new copies. By replacing your backup drive can always accommodate the drive it backs up if it is large enough - say the same size. I can suggest:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
All of the above are capable of being scheduled. Synk Pro makes immediate backups of any changed file on the hard drive. You may configure it to archive changes (like Time Machine) or to delete prior copies.

Time Machine won't back up onto Time Capsule

I upgraded to Mountain Lion last week, and Time Machine won't back up to my Time Capsule. When it fails, I get the message:
Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Tom's Time Capsule".
The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 60)
I sometimes get the same message, but with "error 17"
I also get the following error message popup (even though the disk is the one in my Time Capsule):
The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
The popup offers three choices: Initialize, Ignore, Eject.
My local Apple Store Genius concluded that the problem must be with the Time Capsule, so I bought a new one. That didn't fix the problem.
Time Machine Buddy messages:
Starting manual backup
Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Tom%[email protected]/Data
Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/Data using URL: afp://Tom%[email protected]/Data
Creating disk image /Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle
Error 60 creating backup disk image
Failed to create disk image /Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle, status: 60
Backup failed with error: 20
Failed to eject volume /Volumes/Data (FSVolumeRefNum: -108; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
I did Repair Disk Permissions and Verify Disk and everything's OK.
I erased the Time Capsule using AirPort Utility and did a hard reset on the Time Capsule.
I did a re-install of Mountain Lion and that didn't fix anything.
My MacBook Pro is accessing the Time Capsule wirelessly, as it always has.
Help!

Just to be sure, we're talking about a Time Capsule -- not an AirPort Extreme connected to an external hard drive. Right?
If so, proceed as follows.
Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Time Machine won't back-up. Why?

Time Machine won't back-up to LaCie external drive (OS 10.7.4) after I disconnected and reconnected for a road trip.
Why? How can I correct?

What is the error message?

Time Machine won't back up after system restore

I just restored my system after a failure, and now Time Machine won't back up my hard drive. It gets about 40 out of 90 Gigabytes done, and then gives me an error message that just says that there was an error while backing up, and doesn't give any other information. I ran a Verify Disk with Disk Utility, and there is nothing wrong with the backup drive, and there is more than 200 Gigabytes of space left on that drive.
Thank You.

zhoffmanster wrote:
Ok, so here's the thing: I tried backing up again today, and it worked just fine. Before, what would happen is a message would pop saying "an error has occurred during backup" (or something close to that). The point is, the message didn't give any detail.
No, the point is, you seem to have ignored this:
See the Time Machine - Troubleshooting post at the top of this forum.

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for