Flashing unmounted partitions on Time Machine drive

Using Lion 10.7.2 and an external 1TB WD My Book (firewire port).
This drive has 5 partitions, 4 of them Super Duper BUs which are not mounted,
and the rest of the drive is for Time Machine (500GB) and it is mounted.
When TM is doing its backup I sometimes see the unmounted volumes flashing
in the Finder under the DEVICES heading.
Why is this?
Curiously if I mount them and then unmount them during the backup they
no longer show up in the finder.
Why is this?
respect....
Peter

Amy,
Find out why that annoying light is flashing.
Open Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
Click on the amber dot for details and suggested actions
If everything seems to be OK otherwise, it might be a notice that an update is available for the Time Capsule.

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I am setting up a time machine backup to a external Hard drive. I want to backup by Mac book Pro running OSX 10.8.5. I would like to Partition the disk and use one partition for Time machine backups and the other for my Lightroom backups. How to do this?

I want to create a two partition disk. One partition for time machine, the other for Lightroom backup. Currently Time Machine is using the entire drive and it is doing the intial encryption and is about 29% complete after two days. I've decided that I want to turn encryption off and partition the disk. So I do I start over?

With the external drive attached, open Finder>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility. Select the external drive from the list in the left side panel of the DU window. In the main window panel, click Partition in the buttons top center of that panel.
Select the number of partitions you want and adjust their sizes.
For the first partition, click to highlight the partition, then select the format, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and then the partition table as GUID [both of those are the defaults]. Click Apply and it will ask to confirm and erase and format that partion...oh, give the partition a name, like Backup.
Then repeat those steps for the second partition..and remember to name it...something like Lightroom.
Close Disk Utilitty and you are ready to send TM to the one partition, and do your backup of Lightroom to the second partition.

HT201250 How do I partition my Time Machine back up drive (G-Drive) to back up both my IMac and my MacBook Air?

How do I partition my Time Machine back up drive (G-Drive) to back up both my IMac and my MacBook Air?

That's not needed, but if you want to do it, use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to create a new partition.
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Partition and rename existing Time machine drive?

I use a 1 TB external hard drive for Time Machine backups and as extra storage for miscellaneous files - a total of 130 gigs is used (100 gigs of Time Machine backups plus 30 gigs other files). I am using Mountain Lion 10.8.5. That external drive is named "Seagate Drive"... I want to partition that drive in two 500 gig volumes and rename the first 500 gig to "Time Machine" for backups, and rename the other volume to "Extra Storage".
I understand that the existing backups should remain intact on the first volume after I partition the drive, but when I rename that first volume to "Time Machine" will the Time Machine app continue backing up to it or will Time Machine become confused because of the name change and no longer auto backup to the drive, thus requiring me to re-start a completely new full backup? ...Also after I rename the Time Machine drive volume will the Time Machine app still recognize the older backups that were recorded when the external drive had its older name?
...will any of this cause me trouble?
Thanks
I don't want to create any headaches for myself.
Thanks!

You can always inherit the backup if you have problems.
Inherit a Backup
Inherit a Backup (2)

Time Machine Drive won't mount, mounts on windows

Hi guys, I have a Seagate GoFlex Desk for Mac, it's a 2TB external Firewire 800 and USB 2.0 drive.
My machine is a 2011 iMac 27" i7 16GB RAM 2TB HD
I use the external drive for my Time Machine Backup, my mac had to be brought in to have the display replaced so i did a backup before i brought it to the service center.
After getting the mac back i noticed my time machine drive was not showing on the desktop so i tried doing a time machine backup but i got an error that there was not TM drive.
I ran Disk utility and it shows the drive with the Time machine partitioned grayed out and at the bottom "Mount Point : Not mounted", i tried mounting it from DU but nothing, i did a verify disk and right away i got a message that the disk needs to be repaired. I ran the repair but DU would get stuck trying to unmount the disk.
I tried restarting my computer, and i changed to other firewire cables i had using the firewire port and using the thunderbolt to firewire adaptor but no luck, also i tried USB.
Then i tried it on my windows partition with USB and it showed on windows, i was able to recover my data but i couldn't delete any from the drive, when i tried deleting anything i got a message that said "the files are too big" or something like that, I also tried formating the drive on windows but no luck with that.
I have no idea what's going on, the drive won't mount and it can't be ejected even though it's recognized (the time machine partition is grayed out)
Any suggestions? i really don't want to throw it away and if do i would at least like to wipe it out.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions

Other than the Disk Repair from the Disk Utility, I would suggest resetting the PRAM: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11243.
Tha's kind of a last ditch effort though. Can you put it in another mac computer with the mac os? Does it show up there?

Time Machine drive is no longer readable

I have just completed a reformat of my MacBook Pro early 2011 with an install of Mavericks. I have a Time Machine backup drive that I have manually been pulling files from. It has been working great with no issues. I decided to plug the Time Machine drive into an iMac i have to download some other files to and the iMac didn't recognize the drive. I plugged the Time Machine drive back into my MacBook Pro and received an message that the disk was unreadable and given the option to Initialize/Ignore/Eject. I restarted the computer and the drive to see if it was a glitch – same result.
Opened Disk Utility and the drive is recognized but only as a drive - no option to verify or repair. It doesn't see a readable partition with files.
Is there an easy fix to correct this issue or am i looking at shelling out a few hundred+ $ to have the disk recovery tech fix this? Any help is appreciated.

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Ejecting an encrypted Time Machine drive always prompts "Eject All"

Whenever I eject my encrypted Time Machine drive, Finder reports that the drive has more than one partition and asks if I want to eject just the Time Machine partition or all. So I have to hit "Eject All" in this dialog every time I want to disconnect my MacBook from my Time Machine drive.
Thing is, there is only one partition. I've even gone so far as reformatting the drive to one partition and restarting my Time Machine backups fresh twice, but I still get the Eject All prompt every time.
Anybody else have this issue and/or know of a solution?

I wouldn't use RAID for TM, but...
http://pondini.org/TM/2.html
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4062015?start=0&tstart=0

Help. My WD Time Machine Drive won't appear anymore on the desktop. It won't appear on my windows OS machine as well. Can anyone help me?

I made the darnest mistake when I tried cleaning up my time machine drive by deleting some of the "back-up" restore points.
Since then, the external drive does not appear anymore on my mac's desktop. Nor does it appear on my windows OS laptop.
I tried using DISK UTILITY on my Mac and the drive appears there. I was able to run Repair Disk, though No Errors appear. I "cannot eject" using the EJECT button at the top of the application as it prompts me with a message
"EJECT FAILED --
The disk “WD Ext HDD 1021 Media” could not be unmounted.
Make sure that all applications and files are closed on this disk."
Same goes when I try using a WINDOWS OS machine. It does not appear on Windows Explorer. Though when it does appear in the "eject list".
I assume that deleting some of the restore points (at random) was the cause of this.
How can I repair it? I have some sentimental and personal files (i.e. family pictures) that are also stored on the drive.
Thanks in advance.

Other than the Disk Repair from the Disk Utility, I would suggest resetting the PRAM: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11243.
Tha's kind of a last ditch effort though. Can you put it in another mac computer with the mac os? Does it show up there?

Can't see time machine drive and can't boot

Last week the internal hd on my Mac mini (mid-2010) began failing. I took it in and AppleCare replaced the drive. The genius told me they loaded 10.7.3 and I should be able to use Time Machine (TM) to bring it all back. So I go home, plug in my TM drive and the Mac can't see the drive the TM is on. And yet I know it recognizes the drive because if I turned it off it would give me the nasty warning about disconnecting before unmounting. So not knowing what to do I went and popped in the installation disc that came with my Mac mini (10.6), and booted with the cd. I told it to restore from TM, and this time it sees my drive and transfers the data. When it restarts I get the gray screen with a null (not permitted) sign. So I can't make heads or tails of it an decide that maybe I have to make a clean install and then upgrade to 10.7.4 and then try time machine (I'm grasping at straws now). Only when I attempt to to restart after installing 10.6 it go from a gray screen to a blue screen (of death) and just sits. I'm baffled and don't know what to do. Could my time machine disk, which was backing up a failing internal HD, have been bad? What do I do?

Hello:
If I were you (and I am not), I would bundle up the repaired computer and your Time Machine drive and take it in and ask the Apple person to bring it back to life. IMHO, that should have been done the first time.
Barry

What happens when the Time Machine drive is full?

I'm on my second iMac. My first one (G5, 1984) died, and I replaced it early 2010 with an Intel mac. The transition when exceedingly well largely due to Time Machine. I just hooked the Time Machine drive to the new system, and I was soon back up running!
My home folder has 70GB of data. The Macintosh drive has 105GB of data and 395GB free. The Time Machine drive has 220GB used and 30GB free.
1. What happens when the Time Machine drive is full?
2. Do I have control over what backups get deleted?
3. If lightning strikes twice, will I still be able to restore my Intel mac like my G5 mac, even if backups get deleted?
4. Is there anyway to control what backups/backup files get deleted?
5. Any other thoughts?
Thanks.

maxseven wrote:
i have deleted the time machine folders and they are now in my trash. when i try to secure empty my trash it will delete everything but the t/m folders. how do i delete them?
Do you mean all of them? The entire Backups.backupdb folder?
That's a large mess. First, even a normal delete will take a very long time, as there are probably hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of files. Your best bet by far is to simply erase them with Disk Utility -- that will only take a few moments. If your TM drive has a single partition, see #1 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html]. If there are other partition(s) on the drive, see #2 there.
If not, and you only deleted some of the folders, you have a different, worse problem. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks: +*Never move, change, or delete anything in your backups via the Finder or Terminal.+*
You shouldn't have to delete backups at all, since Time Machine will do that automatically when the disk/partition gets full. But you can do it without harm via Time Machine. See #12 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
A normal delete will take a very long time, as there are probably tens or hundreds of thousands of items, each of which must be individually deleted. A secure delete will take much, much longer, as each deleted file must be overwritten with zeros.

Time Machine drive disappears after Sleep

Hey peeps,
I have been trying to put my computer to SLEEP after 1-hour of inactivity as it's a family machine that is used minimally and I want to save energy. It is an early 2009 mac mini running 10.9.
When I wake the computer up, one of my external USB drives comes back, however the external USB hard drive that has my time machine drive seems to unmount itself or disconnect and I have to physically turn the power on and off to get it to come back.
I have checked DISK UTILITY and it's gone from there too.
anyone seeing this too?

Hello r_dizzle,
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 behaving as expected
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in this article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

WD World Edition 1TB as a Time Machine drive with Mac and XP?

I plan on buying a WD World Edition 1TB to use as my Time Machine drive over wireless netowrk at home for my 320GB MBP.
My wife has a Windows XP PC so I would like to partition the 1TB into maybe 600MB for me and 400MB for her.
First of all, will this type of partition work with TM and also, what format should the WD Drive be? I have installed MacFuse and NTFS-3G on my MBP.
Any info from someone who does something simalr would be greatly appreciated.
Dave

That sounds fine.
So in theory, the WD comes with no partitions so I could set the whole thing up on the XP machine and set the partition sizes, then go the Mac, connect to the partition I've set aside for myself and select it, at which point the Mac will format it to HFS and start backing up?
You say the Mac is oblivious to partitions so what would stop it formatting the entire drive to HFS?
Ideally I'd like to get the WD software to backup the XP machine to the XP partition and TM to backup the Mac to the HFS partition. Do you know if this is likely to work? Hopefuilly someone with this drive will be able to answer as well.
Thanks for your help so far

Cloned Time Machine Drive Invalid Node Structure

My Hitachi 2TB HD I use for Time Machine started sending out S.M.A.R.T. errors earlier this month, so I sent it in to Hitachi under warranty. Before I sent it out, I was able to clone the drive to another 2TB drive using the Restore feature in Disk Utility. This worked great, I have since been using the clone as a Time Machine drive and doing regular automatic backups - smooth so far!
When I got the new drive back from Hitachi, I tried to send the data back to the new drive using the same Restore function, and it looked like it was a complete success. After the restore process finished, both drives suddenly reporting "Invalid Node Structure" in Disk Utility.
I've since tried Disk Warrior, and it tells me I'm out of RAM (I have 8GB of RAM on a 2 x 2.26 Quad-Core MacPro) and the Disk Utility Repair Disk function is failing. I've since done a complete wipe of the new drive again (I used the Certify function in SoftRAID 4.0), and voila, no errors on the new drive. I then tried simply dragging over the Backups folder from the clone, and Finder tells me "Operation Not Supported." Strangely enough, Time Machine backups still work!?
Any idea how this happened and how I can fix it? I really can't buy Drive Genius only to find out it's not going to work too...do you think it would work? I would really hate to completely lose all this valuable backup data, it's been quite valuable to have around in the past.
Thanks everyone for your help, I'm at a total loss as to what happened.

John Nightingale1 wrote:
I then tried simply dragging over the Backups folder from the clone, and Finder tells me "Operation Not Supported."
Yes, prior to Lion, you can't copy Time Machine backups with the Finder.
Are both drives formatted exactly the same, and with the GUID Partition Map scheme?
I'd be inclined to just let Time Machine start fresh on the new drive. You can always view and restore from the old one via the Browse ... option, per #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

How much should I partition for Time Machine/Backup?

Hi all,
I upgraded my PB G4 HD to a 160GB recently and have just purchased a 1TB External HD. How much should I partition in the external to be used for Time Machine backup purposes of my internal HD? Will the same size suffice, or should I allocate more?
Also, I was thinking of formatting the drive so that it's both Windows and OS X friendly, but that means formatting it to MS-DOS something (I was just reading about it in another thread), will that cause any issues for the partition for Time Machine that I created? Thanks.

Also, I was thinking of formatting the drive so that it's both Windows and OS X friendly, but that means formatting it to MS-DOS something (I was just reading about it in another thread), will that cause any issues for the partition for Time Machine that I created? Thanks.
That's not practical. If you want to use the hard drive on a Windows machin while still being useful for Time Machine you should use MacDrive.
I upgraded my PB G4 HD to a 160GB recently and have just purchased a 1TB External HD. How much should I partition in the external to be used for Time Machine backup purposes of my internal HD? Will the same size suffice, or should I allocate more?
I would make the partition at least twice the size of the internal drive. Preferably, you would want 50 GB for a Leopard install that includes just the base operating system so you can boot off the 50 GB to recover your Time Machine data if your Leopard installer disc ever becomes unusable.
Also since you have a Powerbook, your 1 TB hard drive should be Firewire. USB will not boot Powerbooks. If it is USB only, you can remove the external hard drive case and replace it with one compatible with the drive inside that case from http://www.macsales.com/ that has Firewire.

Time Machine drive constantly being accessed?

After my Mavericks install, I've noticed that my TM drive sounds like it's being accessed (or written to?) constantly. When it goes to sleep (due to settings in Energy Saver), it'll stop, but then it'll wake back up a few minutes later and make sounds again. It's not grinding or anything, and the indicator LED is not flashing. (It only does that when sleeping/waking or when TM is actively backing up.) I looked in Activity Monitor, and could not find anything that would be affecting the drive. It's also excluded from Spotlight. Did I miss something?
The TM drive is a Western Digital MyBook, if that helps.

Well, I didn't actually suspect that it was a corrupt file. If it is a corrupt file, I'm not sure really how to deal with it. Any suggestions on tracking down the culprit?
What I actually suspect is that buildhdindex is an old drive indexing app (been around since 10.3 I believe) that wasn't updated to deal with Time Machine's hard-linking. It also has no options to exclude the Time Machine drive, it wants to index everything. Because TM is basically keeping a huge series of links and not actual copies of files, it's looping endlessly.
Of course, I would expect to have heard more about this issue, so maybe it is something specific to my machine, i.e. a corrupt file.
Possibly related, I get a ton of these messages in the console:
com.apple.RemoteDesktop.agent[1087]: SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x1e424a20, p = 0x1e424a44, pEnd = 0x1e424a4f)
Message was edited by: Anthony Hecht

Flashing unmounted partitions on Time Machine drive

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