How do I erase Time Machine hard disk when its power has failed?

My 3 year old Time Machine's power recently completely failed. Resetting didn't work. I want to get rid of it through recycling, but am concerned about the hard disk back up contents. Is there a way to ensure the disk contents have crashed along with the power? If not, how do I erase the hard disk? Airport Utility no longer recognizes the machine.

You need to remove the TC hard disk from the box.. connect via a usb adapter to your computer and format it.
http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Apple_Time_Capsule
It is not that hard.
You can also repair or replace the power supply.
https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair
You should get your money back when you sell it.

Similar Messages

Erasing Time Machine hard drive after formatting for both PPC and Intel

Ok, I made a mistake. First I formatted a Western Digital 500 gig hard drive for both my wife's PPC G4 laptop and my own Intel MBP laptop, so we could both use Leopard's Time Machine for backing up to the same drive. That wasn't my mistake though, it's been working fine. I formatted my partition using the GUID option and hers using the Apple Partition Map option (I think that's what they are called, I'm going from memory).
Here's my mistake: I needed some extra space to store some files and read that I could Re-Partition the drive without erasing anything using Disk Utility. Sounded great. I first tried to partition my wife's partition, since she had more extra space, but then I realized that was a bad idea since I had formatted her partition with using the Apple Partition Map, so I stopped and then tried to Re-Partition my side. It worked for about an hour: my Time Machine backup drive appeared, my new partition appeared, but then... her partition disappeared! Usually whenever one of us plugs in the hard drive using the firewire cable, both partitions appear, Time Machine Goes to work, and that's that. When we need to disconnect from the drive we have to eject both drives, but no big deal. Now her drive isn't appearing.
So... I tried to repair it, no good. Tried to erase both her partition and mine (to just start over): no good. I can't do anything to either of these partitions now, from either computer. Tried everything I could think of in Disk Utility, from both computers. Won't erase, won't re-partition. Not a hardware issue: it all started when I did this stupid Re-Partition. Help!!!!
I want to erase the drive and start over. Can anyone advise??

Jasonmo,
First, let's talk about the various partition schemes. A partition scheme applies to the entire drive. Specifically, these are different maps written to the drive, within which volumes are created. As such, this is an either/or thing; your drive is partitioned using either the GUID Scheme, or the Apple Scheme, not both.
"Live" partitioning or re-sizing of existing volumes is supported only under the GUID Partition Scheme. If the drive wasn't using this scheme, you would not be able to re-size as you were attempting to do. Even re-sizing under the GUID scheme requires that the drive's maps and directory structures be in very good shape, if it is to work without hitch.
Are you absolutely certain that there isn't some physical problem with the drive, or with its interface (cables and such)? If it is operating normally, you should be able to re-partition it without problems. In DIsk Utility, select the drive (not a named volume that will appear indented underneath), then click the "Partition" tab. If you wish to be able to re-size volumes later, you must choose the GUID scheme from the "Options..." dialogue sheet. Set appropriate sizes for the volumes, then click "Apply." Doing so will destroy all current volumes and data on the drive.
Scott

How to format / erase data on hard disk?

Hi
I have Solaris 9 installed. For some tests I need a HDD without any data on it. (Like a new one, you buy). As I don't have a new hard disk, I'd like to erase the data.
How can I do this?
Thank you in advance

Jay,
You could consider booting from CDROM and using
format -->> analyze -->> write
... however that will take a bit of time (perhaps hours) to overwrite `nonsense` onto the drive.
If you just create a new partition schema, all pointers to data blocks are overwritten. If there's a single partition, split into two. If there are multiple partitions, create a single monolithic one.
Of course, if there are any security concerns, then this latter suggestion isn't appropriate. Data recovery companies could still find information.

Can't access my account after time machine hard disk restore. HELP please.

i was attempting to partition my hard disk with boot camp when an error message appeared saying that it could not be partitioned and to backup my hard disk, reformat and restore using time machine, then run boot camp again. i did this and now i cannot access my account. at the log in page my password is accepted but a message appears saying that i am unable to access my account at this time due to an error (error not specified). any suggestions please.
thanks :-)
triggs.

just been reading through various posts on here and it seems that timemachine does not backup file vault home folders. Thanks for the warning message apple. i have wiped my harddrive lost all my home folder and am now panicking becuase some of the data was for a charity that i help out with and can't exactly go asking for the information again. i presume if my old home folder was there i would see it in the user account on my external drives backups? any help would be appreciated but think i am now losing the will to live.
Cue the massive shouting match when i have to explain this to the charity secretary

How do you erase Time Machine Backups?

I thought I could use a 1TB External drive to back up my 320GB startup disk, and use the rest of the empty 680GB for storage. However, Time Machine started taking up 600GB of spaceon the External drive! I was like "What the heck!?" So I put unwanted Time Machine Backups in the trash and emptied it. Nothing, they're stuck there now.
I'm planning on wiping the disk clean and starting over, but for future reference is there a proper way to delete Time Machine Backups? Surely there must be; (I mean, who would have known Time Machine would take up MORE SPACE than the drive it's backing up in the first place?!?) Thanks!

A Time Machine backup drive needs to be at least twice the capacity of the drive it backs up. This fact is quite well known. It takes up more space because Time Machine saves all changes rather than overwriting them. If you want the latter type of backup then use something other than Time Machine.
Use Disk Utility to erase the drive.

How do you erase a macbook hard disk and reinstall OS X ?

I just upgraded to a MacBook Air. Now I want my wife to be able to use my older MacBook (2009 model). What is the best way to erase it completely and then put her TimeMachine backup from her (even older) MacBook (2006) on it?
She is runnign OS X Snow Leopard. I am running OS X Lion on the 2009 MacBook.
Thanks in advance!
LW

Drive Preparation and Reinstall
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. 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 Partition 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.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, if there's a security concernt, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.
Upon completion quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard. Once Snow Leopard has been installed you will be able to restore from a TM backup via the Setup Assistant.

How to repair corrupted Macbook Pro hard disk when I don't have a startup disc provided by Apple

So my MBP was really making horrible clicking noise and I figured out that my start up Lion OSX disk partition is corrupted.
I have three partitions. One for Lion OS X, another for Documents and another for Movies and Downloads. When I run disk utility and verify other two partitions(documents and movies/downloads), they appear to be okay but when I do the same with Lion OS X then it says:
The volume Lion OS X was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired....then use Disk Utility to repair this disk.
Is my hard drive gonna die soon? Or will it be okay if I just format my 500gb hard drive completely and install the fresh copy of Lion OS X again? I don't have a recovery disc or what so ever provided by Apple anymore. I have a DMG installation file of Lion OS X and a USB flash drive(4 GB approx). How can I repair the disk partition without the recovery start up disc?
Please help me, I am really worried.

Hmmm idk if it's the clicking noise or not but it is making a noise of course. Sounds like hmmm few old desktops that makes weird loud noise for the first 20 seconds they boot up.
I am still unsure if it needs to be changed because the other two volumes appear to be okay. Why only this one? I have already saved all of my data in an external hard drive but it's weird how my 10 year old desktop is running on a same hard drive and my 3 years old 3000$ laptop had it's optical drive replaced, dead pixels, trackpad problem and now hard drive when I take care of my laptops like my baby and more over I don't even travel with it, it is always sitting on my desk like a desktop.

How can I erase the the hard disk as I am returning it to the store?

I have an iMac running OS X Lion and I'm returning it to the store I purchased it from because it's faulty. So I need to erase everything securely.
I used Disk utility to erase the free space securely. But when I click on the HDD it doesn't allow me to erase.
Please help. Many thanks

I run an older Mac and have no hands-on experience with newer systems. Lion and newer use two partitions on a drive. One is a recovery partition which contains basic system utilities. It used to be if your system went bad you inserted a disc (DVD or CD) with basic utilities which let you boot your computer to a base system to give you access to utiltiies and to install a full system. When Apple did away with DVDs for Lion+ it went to keeping a separate partition on the hard drive for storing these things unless your drive is so damaged it can't even read that and it needs to boot from the Internet.
About OSX Recovery - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718 > Internet Recovery - using the Internet to start when recovery disk partition not available.
As far as I know there shouldn't be anything personal in the recovery partition since it stores the base system and utilities that used to be stored on discs (optical disc vs. hard drive disk) but there may be some way to force it to wipe the whole drive through Internet recovery.

Time Machine backup disk changed name to "3-/9=/=87"

I upgraded to Leopard, and attached a LaCie drive, which Time Machine recognized and used as its backup disk. After formatting the drive, the name was changed to Time Machine Backup disk, but now it has changed to 3-/9=/=87. I tested Time Machine to ensure that it is indeed restoring files, and it is. Any ideas on the name change, and if it will affect Time Machine?
Many thanks.

My solution
I found that after trying a few things in the aforementioned thread that in System Preferences > Sharing > Options if I disabled SMB and only enabled AFP on my Mac Pro, which has my Time Machine disk and is accessed over my local network LAN by my Macbook Pro laptop, only then did the Time Machine disk show up in the Time Machine preferences in my remote laptop TM settings.
I suspect my laptop had been connecting to my desktop via SMB instead of AFP and thusly TM would not work.

Time Machine doesn't finish its backup

I have just started noticing that the Time Machine icon on the menu bar keeps spinning indefinitely. The "Backing Up" status bar in the Time Machine preference panel is hung at whatever the size of the backup was, e.g. 21.6 MB of 21.6 MB, and the backup does not finish.
If I cancel the backup by clicking on the small "x" to the right of the status bar, i get the spinning beach ball forever. I have let it sit for hours.
I cannot find the process to kill in the Activity Monitor either.
I ended up just turning off the external hard disk and of course get the warning message telling me I can corrupt the drive, etc.
I've tried looking in the console for backupd entries but I don't see anything that would indicate what the problem could be.
Can anyone give me an idea to identify the cause of this problem? I don't know if it's the internal system hard disk or the external time machine hard disk. i've cloned my system disk onto another external disk so i can format either or both disks and start fresh but i was hoping to avoid that.
thanks

bensenise wrote:
I just checked activity monitor again just to make sure. I have selected All Processes and Backupd was not listed.
Are you sure it's not listed? It's easy to miss when scrolling while it's refreshing. Try sorting the display alphabetically, by +*process name.+*
So it must be ending itself but something else is not ending since the icon is still spinning, the status in the pref panel is still not showing that it has completed, and most of all because something else is accessing the external hard disk. i can hear it and see the activity light flickering.
Exclude the external from any anti-virus scanning (better yet, turn it off entirely).
Also exclude it, at least temporarily, from Spotlight indexing, via +System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy.+
I did a repair permissions AND a verify disk yesterday. there were quite a few permissions errors and disk utility said the disk needed repairing so i booted off the snow leopard install disk and did a disk repair which was reported as successful.
the backups worked for a while, just like they are now. but then after a while, they'll have the same problem of not ending.
Once you get backupd stopped, check both disks again.

HT201250 i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. do i keep my files in the portable hard disk when I connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will era

i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. Am i keeping my files in the portable hard disk when I will connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will erase all?
I would like to know if after I erase all my data, empy hard drive inside the macbook, the time machine will erase all my files that I have saved in my "WD "My passport" external hard drive

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine has to erase the external disk in order to make backups. Before setting Time Machine up, copy the files of your external disk to the hard disk of the Mac in order not to lose them, and then, set up Time Machine. The first backup will start automatically.
If you want more information about Time Machine, read the Pondini's site > http://pondini.org

How do I manually erase my Time Machine backup disk?

I have a 500GB external hard drive with only 43 GB left after years of serving as a Time Machine backup disk for another computer. I wanted to use the same disk for my new computer. The new computer's backup is 130 GB, and when I connected the old external drive, Time Machine said "The backup disk needs to be 130.37 GB for the backup but only 47.24 GB are available. Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files." So I manually deleted the files I found on the external drive onto my computer's trash.
Big mistake. Apparently, there are still only 47.24 GB on the external, but there are no apparent backups or files on it. Furthermore, I can't restore the deleted files to the external hard drive because there isn't enough space on it. Too late, I did some searching and discovered that you can't delete files from a Time Machine external drive manually; you can only go through the gear icon in Finder and remove backups in that way.
So why does my external drive say that it has only 47 GB out of 500 even when there is nothing on it? Is there any other way to manually erase/reformat it?

Try opening Disk Utility and select the highest level drive name on the external drive. Click on the Partitions tab. Remove all the partitions on the drive by selecting each and clicking the "-" sign in the lower left corner of the partition table view. Then choose 1 Partition from the dropdown of partitions to create. Make sure the format shows Mac OS Extended-Journaled. Click Apply.
The above should delete everything on the drive and create a new single formated partition.

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive?

How to Delete a Time Machine Backup - YouTube
If you want to remove an entire Time Machine backup on a backup drive, then the easiest way to do that is to erase the backup drive using Disk Utility. However, this will delete everything on the disk:
Drive Erase Snow Leopard and Earlier
1. Boot from your OS X 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.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select the volume you wish to format from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

I upgraded my imac hard drive to a 2tb drive. how do i use time machine to get my computer back to normal?

i upgraded my imac hard drive to a 2tb drive. how do i use time machine to get my computer back to normal?

Thank you. I followed the faq#14 (using setup wizard from the osx install disk). Everything went just as planned until I woke up this morning and noticed there was no progress on the "transferring documents" meter. It stopped about 1/4 of the way. I can hear the computer working and the bar is somewhat animated like it is advancing but it's not.
Should I cancel and restart or should I wait it out? It already been about 13 hours since I started the process. Do you think it is my time machine or my iMac? Maybe the time machine file is corrupt or something.
Anyway, any help is appreciated. Thanks.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.

Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
          Destinations:
                    Plastic Wrapper [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 999.86 GB
                    Total number of backups: 64
                    Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 999.86 GB < (Disk used 453.81 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
          /sbin excluded from backup!
          /usr excluded from backup!
          /System excluded from backup!
          /bin excluded from backup!
          /private excluded from backup!
          /Library excluded from backup!
          /Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy

How do I erase Time Machine hard disk when its power has failed?

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