External hard drive time machine backups not mounting

I have used Seagate 500.11 external hard drive as a backup location for the time machine for over two years. I just got a message that it had not updated in over thirty days. It is not listed on FInder, but it is listed on the disc utility. The Time machine backups are grayed out on the disc utility screen and cannot be mounted, even after the repair and verification tests said that their volumes were ok. What should I do?

Time Machine does not create bootable clones. It does not even create a bootable backup. If that's what you prefer then do not use Time Machine.
If you use Time Machine then you must allocate at least twice as much space for the backups than the capacity of the drive you are backing up. A 2 TB backup drive would be suitable for a 1 TB main drive or smaller.
If you plan to create a bootable backup, then partition the backup drive with one partition the size required for the clone. Then use the other partition for you additional storage neeeds.

Similar Messages

External Hard drive/Time Machine backup error message

On a sidenote, I posted a question a week ago about what external hard drive would be compatible with my Macbook, and I so happened to get a WD My Passport Studio hard drive as an unsuspecting gift, so I didn't have to buy one.
Anyways, I started the backup on this hard drive and I had an error message: "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume." I searched this on the Apple Support Communities and found that I wasn't the only one who had this problem. So, I came upon one discussion that suggested downloading Time Machine Buddy (link:http://pondini.org/TM/A1.html) (link that prompted me to download: http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html). I downloaded it and found out that the error was occurring in my Library folder, specifically in the folder entitled "db" in the "Receipts" folder. There's one file in the "db" folder entitled "a.receiptdb" <----can someone please explain what the heck this is??? Lol. Anyways, I decided to exclude the whole "Receipts" folder from being backed up and now my external hard drive is backing up my files fine. My MAIN question is this: What is wrong with my receipts folder that is causing the error?
P.S. here are the error messages in the Time Machine Buddy log:
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to /Volumes/My Passport Studio/Backups.backupdb/Josh Brew’s MacBook/2012-01-29-162450.inProgress/D9F83053-7FE1-4EBE-991A-F400C35D37CC/Macin tosh HD/Library/Receipts/db
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to /Volumes/My Passport Studio/Backups.backupdb/Josh Brew’s MacBook/2012-01-29-162450.inProgress/D9F83053-7FE1-4EBE-991A-F400C35D37CC/Macin tosh HD/Library/Receipts/db
Copied 246 files (277.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
As you can see, iy is located in the "db" folder. I have no idea what's wrong. Thank you for your time! It is MUCH appreciated.

The connection to 10.6.7 may just be a coincidence. I had a similar problem with a disk and was about to throw it out but decided to try a different USB cable. That fixed the problem and the drive is still in use.
Try a new cable if you have not already done so.
Dave

Restore iPhotoLibrary specifically from EXTERNAL Hard drive Time Machine back up?

My laptop Photo Library is corrupted somehow. I tried to restore from a prior in Time Machine on laptop and made the mistake of not saying to keep BOTH copies, but after trying for 3 hours of telling me it was doing it through various windows, a little one popped open saying something about permissions and it opened an old iPhotoLibrary from 2 years ago! ... I do have that one now and am copying it off my laptop as fast as I can to FLICKR
cuz APPLE has become a PHOTO sinkhole... (We are talking 20,000 pics folks with scanned in family pics from 100 yrs ago!)
I think I have a good copy on my External Hard Drive Time Machine back up from about 3 weeks ago. How do I use that to Restore from
or should I just wait for this PHOTOS thing to come out?
NEXT Question is there a convenient way to split it into MULTIPLE ones..eg KEEP old stable photos in one or more.
and use another for all the new ones not editted or sorted yet? I do see there is a new Option under iPHOTO/File menu to just switch
libraries but, of course, you cant even see that if your Library wont open!

For TM help post in the forum for your OS - and see https://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/ and http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html and http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Depends on undisclosed information
With the current OS and iPhoto you switch library using the switch library command - with any version you can switch libraries by holding the option key down while you launch iPhoto which brings up the select library window
And generally it is not a smart idea to have multiple iPhoto libraries - it generally has no advantages and makes things much more difficult and complicated and often leads to user errors that cause major problems
If you want to anyway the most convent way to split libraries is to use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ -
LN

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what?

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what? I need to know what to highligh, what to click on.

hirogliffix,
take a look at this Apple page — in particular, the “Restoring data from Time Machine backups” section and its “Restoring your entire system from a backup” subsection.

Seagate FreeAgent External Hard Drive & Time Machine

I have a 1 TB Seagate FreeAgent Go external hard drive that I use for Time Machine backups. However, I get one or two backups on it and it suddenly becomes "Read only" and won't allow Time Machine to write to it. My user name is listed as having read/write permissions. I go into Disk Utility and Verfy the disk. It comes back saying it needs to be repaird, so I click Repair Disk and then after several minutes of repairing it comes back with an error that the disk can't be repaired and that I should backup the contents and reformat.
I have reformatted it a couple times and each time this happens once I attempt to use it for Time Machine again. At times it won't even mount.
Is this a bad drive and I should contact Seagate for replacement (it is only a couple months old) or is it something I'm doing/not doing? Is it Lion (though it was kind of flaky even when I was running Snow Leopard)?
I have a MBP (early 2011) running Lion with 8 GB RAM, 1 TB internal HD.

Now I have that sinking feeling.
It is plugged directly into the MBP. No power supply as it is a "portable" HD so it's powered from USB.
My sinking feeling is coming from the fact that since day one of owning this MBP (I got it in March 2011) the built in card reader has had problems. When I put a card in, it mouts and reads fine, but if I reach around and move the MBP holding onto the bottom of the case near the card reader slots (the natural place to grab it to pick it up) I get a message that I've ejected the car improperly even though the card is still seated and hasn't move. This leads me to believe that there is some kind of problem with the internal connections to the motherboard. Now with this added symptom of the disk not mounting I'm more concerned about motherboard trouble. Thankfully I have Apple Care.
But, the other thing is, when I connect the EHD and it doesn't mount/is not recognized by Time Machine, it does show up in Disk Utility as being there--indicating it connects fine as far as cabling etc--but it won't mount from Disk Utility, and I can't do disk repair. The only thing I can do is reformat it and then it will work for a while before going back through the whole won't mount, have to format procedure again. So I'm really stumped since there seems to be no clear indication if the problem is related to the card reader symptom or if it is a bad drive.

External Hard Drive/Time Machine 101

I was using a 500 GB external hard drive with my MacBook Pro. I cloned my hard drive to the external hard drive, then used the remaining space to store videos, images, etc. When my aging MacBook Pro finally crashed, I was able to boot up the cloned drive and work with it.
I now have a new MacBook Pro with a bigger hard drive (750 GB, I think). I also bought a 2 terabyte external hard drive (My Book for Mac), planning on doing the same thing - cloning my hard drive, then using the remaining free space to store extra stuff.
However, I discovered that my new external hard drive is much more sophisticated than the last one. It gives me the option of using Time Machine or automatically copying all my files to the external drive. So I'd like to go back to square one, find out what my options are and figure out the best strategy.
First, if I use Time Machine to back up my files, will they effectively create a clone that I can boot up? (I've never used Time Machine before.) If so, then I'm thinking I might not partition my new hard drive. Instead, I would just let Time Machine back up my files. If it creates a 1,200 GB clone, then I could copy videos and images to the remaining 800 GB of hard drive space.
If Time Machine doesn't create a bootable clone, then I'll probably just do what I've been doing - use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my hard drive, then use the remaining space to store graphics. However, I wonder if I could still get by without partitioning my new hard drive. With two terabytes, it seems like it might be more efficient to just leave it unpartitioned and copy things into it as needed.
Any tips?
Thanks.

Time Machine does not create bootable clones. It does not even create a bootable backup. If that's what you prefer then do not use Time Machine.
If you use Time Machine then you must allocate at least twice as much space for the backups than the capacity of the drive you are backing up. A 2 TB backup drive would be suitable for a 1 TB main drive or smaller.
If you plan to create a bootable backup, then partition the backup drive with one partition the size required for the clone. Then use the other partition for you additional storage neeeds.

External Hard Drive/Time Machine Questions

The hard drive on my four-year-old-plus MacBook Pro is apparently failing, and I can't afford a new MacBook Pro yet. So I bought an external hard drive, hoping to clone my hard drive and run my computer off the external hard drive if the main drive crashes.
At the moment I can't afford an Apple external hard drive, so I bought a non-Apple model. So I was surprised when it asked if I wanted to use Time Machine to back up my data while I was setting it up. I chose yes, though I'm not even sure if I've set it up correctly.
OK, let me start from square one...
My external hard drive has 1 TB of storage space, and I initially formatted it in one big block - no partitions. If I want to boot off a cloned hard drive, will I have to partition it, so I'm booting off a particular partition?
If I do have to partition it, I understand I can use Apple's Disc Utilities to do the job. Can anyone tell me if there are any special steps or conventions I need to follow? I'd probably create a partition of about 200 GB for my cloned hard drive. (I'm currently using about 120GB on my internal hard drive.)
In fact, I might make two separate 200-GB partitions, cloning my hard drive to one partition, then cloning it to the second partition a few weeks later, just for security.
My first Time Machine backup is scheduled to begin in just half an hour or so. Will it merely copy all my files to the external hard drive, or will it create an operable clone? Approximately how long do you think this initial backup will take, using firewire?
Also, once I get my hard drive cloned, I'm thinking of booting up with the clone and upgrading to Snow Leopard. If everything works fine, then I'll upgrade my main (internal) hard drive to Snow Leopard as well.
Sorry for all the questions. I think I understand the basics; there are just a surprising number of details to figure out.
When I can afford it, I hope to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro 13" or 15" and an iPad, which I'd like to take to work with me.
Thanks for any tips.

David Blomstrom wrote:
If I want to boot off a cloned hard drive, will I have to partition it, so I'm booting off a particular partition?
yes.
you would need to partition it and use one partition for cloning and the other for TM backups.
i don't recommend such a setup, however. it's like putting all eggs in one basket - if (not when) the external fails, you'd have lost both backups @ the same time !
If I do have to partition it, I understand I can use Apple's Disc Utilities to do the job. Can anyone tell me if there are any special steps or conventions I need to follow?
yes.
you can use the instructions in [this|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] user tip.
I'd probably create a partition of about 200 GB for my cloned hard drive. (I'm currently using about 120GB on my internal hard drive.)
the partition for the clone needs to be just a big as your startup disk (e.g. 120 GB). the partition for TM backups, otoh, would ideally be 2-3 times the size of your startup disk.
more information [here_|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/1.html].
Will it merely copy all my files to the external hard drive
it will back up everything on your startup disk unless you specifically exclude files from backups.
or will it create an operable clone?
no.
use software such as _*Carbon Copy Cloner*_ to clone your system.
Approximately how long do you think this initial backup will take, using firewire?
the initial backup could take overnight - depending on how much data is to be backed up.
Also, once I get my hard drive cloned, I'm thinking of booting up with the clone and upgrading to Snow Leopard. If everything works fine, then I'll upgrade my main (internal) hard drive to Snow Leopard as well.
yes, that will work just fine. in fact, some users recommend this technique even if the internal drive is not about to fail - better muck up a clone than the regular startup disk.
JGG

AirPort Extreme & USB Hard Drive Time Machine Backups

Hi everyone. I'm a brand spanking new MacBook Pro owner and am looking at ways to backup my machine and to save my films, photos and files on a wireless network that is available to everyone in my home.
I'm the first to admit that I'm not the most computer savvy person but I'm okay with the basics. I've read through a lot of forum sites and the community pages on here and most seem to recommend Synology products. They do seem very good but are a good price too once you've bought the hard drives to go with it. I already own an external hard drive so I thought that maybe the AirPort Extreme would be the ideal choice as I know that it can be connected and files can be saved wirelessly. I did read tonight however that you cant backup your macbook using time capsule which is a little bit annoying.
I have two questions really, firstly is it the case that time machine won't backup to an external hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme and secondly, how important is it to back up through time machine? I'm what you could describe as a low level user and will only be using it for simple tasks such as watching/saving films, storing and editing photographs, surfing the web and saving the odd pages and numbers document.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Simon

I have two questions really, firstly is it the case that time machine won't backup to an external hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme and secondly, how important is it to back up through time machine?
The very latest 802.11ac version of the AirPort Extreme DOES support Time Machine backups to attached external USB HDDs. All other 802.11n models are not supported by Apple for these types of backups. A number of folks have been successful doing so, but most typically post here about data corruption issues.
Time Machine is not the only backup strategy, but it is very convienent. I would recommend that your overall backup strategy includes at least two types of backups: 1) Incremental ... like the ones Time Machine supports, and 2) Disk cloning. The latter is very effective for quickly getting you back up and running if your Mac suffers an internal HDD loss.

Erase Hard Drive;Time Machine Backup

I recently discovered that I have some bad directories in my main hard drive which is causing some performance deficits on my computer. I always use an external hard drive exclusively for Time Machine, and it backs up several times a day. If I wipe my hard drive, will I be able to select my Time Machine drive and restore everything I had prior to erasing the disk? In my Time Machine preferences, I have not excluded the backup of any kind of file. Will my computer (all settings, preferences, etc.) be exactly as it was before the disk erase if I back up from my Time Machine drive? I just want to make sure that I don't lose anything? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-P.

Hey there,
Yes, if you backed up everything and restore everything, your computer should seem as exactly as it was. More on restoring from Time Machine can be found in the link below. Hope this helps.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15638.html
B-rock

Hard drive failure! New hard drive/Time machine backup/iPhone questions

Hello,
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro who's hard drive failed (rather acutely too, I do use disk utility to check it's health regularly) and I bought a replacement to install (SSD!). I have a bunch of questions but have only found partial answers in searches. Maybe it's best to list them:
1. I'd like to do a fresh install of the OS X using OS X Recovery because I'm concerned my Time Machine backup is partly corrupted. I hadn't updated to Mavericks, will I be able to install Mountain Lion? If not: will this be a problem with my backup files?
2. Say the OS X Recovery works, how do I use Time Machine to restore things like my iTunes library/iMessages/email/iPhoto library etc? In other words: just the data I can't get any other way (I hope it's not too corrupted). And/or should I use my iCloud backup on a few of these (iMessages/contacts)?
3. Do I need to set up the new OS X install with the same account names/home disk name etc. for the restored backup files to function?
4. Is this going to f'up iCloud or vice versa?
5. Finally, how do I sync my iPhone to the "new" computer without erasing the iPhone (which had an iOS update since my last backup to Time Machine). Or do I have to restore the iPhone too.
6. How come Apple doesn't have a mobile theme for their website yet?
Any help would be much appreciated,
Matt

Do you still have the original System Reinstall DVD set that came with your Mac?
If you created that Lion external drive you have from YOUR Mac, when Lion was installed on it, and it also contains a Recovery HD partition you can use that to boot to the Recovery HD and reinstall Lion on the new drive. And or Clone that external to the new internal drive you installed.
Right since your Mac came with Snow Leopard you can't use the Online Internet Recovery system to reinstall Lion, as your system didn't originally come with Lion, but you should still be able to boot to it to do diagnosic things like using Disk Utility, going to the Net to get help and even Restoring the system from a Time Machine backup. But you will get an error if you select Reinstall Mac OS X. The firmware update is usually applied with system updates.
If you created a New Time Machine Backup when any of the Download Only version of OS X were installed on your internal drive Time Machine, the system, Copies over the files needed to boot the system from that backup drive. If it was a care over backup from when Snow Leopard was installed is might or might not be bootable. Only way to tell is to connect it and at startup hold down the Option key to get the Boot selection screen, IE The Boot Manager screen, and see if it shows up as a Boot Source. If it does thenn it contains the files needed to get to the Mac OS X Utilities, IE the Recovery HD files.
What you should do is Boot the system from either the Time Machine backup, if it is bootable, or your External that has Lion on it, The Recovery HD if that drive contains a Recovery HD, or your Original Snow Leopard reinstall DVD that came with your Mac and then try to Restore from your Time Machine backup drive.
If that fails to restore your system properly then nyou should reinstall Snow Leopard and the iLife Apps from the Original Discs then upgrade to Mt Lion which will be in the Mac App Store under your Purchases area. Then maybe you can restore your files from that Time Machine backup.
scardanelli wrote:
I've had a bunch of issues with my computer (you can look at some of my other questions on these forums) which, to my mind anyway, seemed to be finally given a diagnosis when my HD crashed. It may be paranoia but there have been enough problems that I'd rather do a clean install to be on the safe side.
I have an early 2011, shipped with Snow Leopard.
I was under the impression that Time Machine can't be used as a boot drive and the OS X Recovery is a firmware update (on my computer) or hard wired in (on later computers). I might be wrong. I was planning on using the internet recovery, the HD failed right after I got some password protected files unencrypted and onto an external drive (was that necessary?) but wasn't sure if it's a problem if it installs Mavericks.
So Setup Assistant will configure my accounts the same and I don't need to worry about that? That's a relief.
Thanks for the lengthy response.

I named my external hard drive "Time Machine", and now it no longer appears on my desktop.

I attached an external hard drive to my iMac, renamed it "Time Machine", and then set it up as the backup drive for Time Machine. Now the drive no longer shows up on my desktop, tho the Time Machine backup appears to be working. Is it not supposed to show up on the desk?

Hello:
When you designate an external drive as the one to use for Time Machine backups, that volume will be named "Time Machine" and a blue Time Machine icon will appear on your desktop. In my own case, I have a two partition external disk - one for Time Machine, and one for making bootable clones.
I never name my external HDs - only the volume(s) contained on them. If that is what you did, get rid of (or change) the drive name.
Barry

External hard drive, time machine and games

I have a seagate external I've been using with my g5 iMac as a time machine backup. kids got guitar hero and spore for xmas, and it is playable only on my wife's intel macbook, which simply lacks the hard drive space for them. what I would like to do is take my external and hook it up to the macbook and install those games on the external without wiping, reformatting or otherwise repartitioning that external. Is this possible? am I being silly? is it ok to just hook it up, install and go with it while leaving my time machine backup untouched? or is something going to have to be sacrificed to make it happen?
thanks for the help all

TM will not be affected, other than the space dedicated to t.
As to the applications you want to install, if they allow you to install to anything other than the startup device, then install to the external.

External hard drive & time machine (updating to snow leopard)

I have just bought a non-Apple external hard drive, but haven't used it yet (still packed up!). I am about to update to Snow Leopard and wondered what was best to do with backing up my hard drive (mixture of music, important files etc.).
Is it worth using time machine, or just back up the files myself, or a mixture of both? Also what about partitioning etc?
Guidance would be appreciated to a new Apple user, and moderately literate computer user!

definitely back up the whole system. do not back up piece meal. that's bad for a number of reasons. First, it's VERY easy to miss something important that way. second, if your snow leopard install goes bad or you want to go back to leopard for a while for whatever reason (say, some apps you use are not yet SL compatible), it's very easy to do if you have a full backup and quite unpleasant if you don't have one.
You can use Time Machine or make a bootable clone using CCCloner or Superduper.
Both Time machine and a clone give you an easy way to restore your old system exactly as it was at the backup time.
the external drive should be formatted mac os extended journaled with GUID partition scheme. most new drives are formatted with MBR partition scheme so you'll likely have to completely reformat yours with disk utility.
For more info consult FAQs link at the top of the TM forum page.
Message was edited by: V.K.

I am trying to move my old external hard drive (time machine ) to a new one

I have tried to move my old external drive time machine to a new external drive:
1. have formated the new time external hard drive
2. I have unlocked and ignored the drives ownership
3. I have turn of the new hard drive and them tried dragging the file (backups.backupdp) to my new external hard drive
when I do that a message come up that says "this volume has that wrong case sensitivity for a backup"
What does this mean and how do I fix it?
Thanks
Denise

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. All existing data on the destination volume will be erased. That shouldn't be a problem, because you don't want to mix backup and non-backup data on the same drive anyway. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

How to migrate only some photos from external hard drive/Time Machine to new Mac?

I just bought a new MacBook Air, after my old Macbook died. Luckily I had everything from the old computer backed up on an external hard drive through time machine. However, when I tried to migrate everything to my new computer, I found I do not have enough room for all of the files. I would like to import just some of the photos/albums from my old Iphoto Library but it looks like I can only migrate the entire library, or else nothing at all? Since I don't have enough space on the new computer, it's not allowing me to import any photos. Is there a way around this?

With iPhoto it's all or nothing. Therefore get a second EHD to restore the library to. Then you can duplicate the library, open the duplicated and delete all of the photos you don't want in it. When that library is small enough to fit on your MBA copy it to the Pictures folder.
Then you can use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager to copy new events from your MBA library to the library on the 2nd EHD to keep it up to date with all of your photo. There are portable EHDs that are not much bigger than a mouse (the computer kind ) that would work fine for this.

External hard drive time machine backups not mounting

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