HT201250 Time Machine does not recognize external drive at start up

I have an external WD 2TB drive which I use as my Time Machine back up drive. When I restart the iMac desktop the Time Machine drive does not start automatically and I must open Time Machine each time and remember to identify the external drive that contains my Time Machine back up data. Is there some way to make this drive the default Time Machine back up device when the system starts? It is annoying to have to remember to do this each time my machine restarts. I have a drive icon that displays as "My Book" on restart where the Time Machine icon is located but this icon is yellow and my Time Machine drive icon is blueish green. Once I set the correct drive it will go into the mode to refresh the backup (usually in 118 seconds) and then once the backup is updated then the icon become blueish green and all works normally. Please help! Thx Tom

I called Apple tech support and went through the recommended actions with doing the disk check with the Utilities and all checked out okay. They had to ask the senior support advisor and was told that it does not automatically start the Time Machine drive until the next scheduled back up. There was a misconception that this drive SHOULD be identified as the Time Machine drive on boot up but that is not the case. I waited for the next schedule back up after reboot and it DID recognize the drive and it appears to be working fine.
The Time Machine does start on boot up but does not indicate that the Time Machine is recognized until the back up is done then it is back on cycle and will operate normally until the next reboot where it will then refresh during that cycle and become recognized in green. Until that time the drive will appear as a yellow icon for the disk.
Oh, by the way, the drive has external power on my WD 2 TB drive.

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HT201250 Time machine does not recognize WD external drive

Time machine and back-ups worked fine on my MacBookPro. It stopped working, no I believe it is still working but the MackBookPro does not recognize it and when clicking "Back up" I receive the message that the external drive is not available. Thanks to Bootcamp the computer also has a Windows side which I use mainly to run a soaring flight simulator called Condor. When I turn on the MacBookPro and click on "Choice" the window I receive shows the Mac and Windows operating systems, the Back-up and "My Passport." When I click on "My passport" it actually opens...When I turn the computer off and reboot it again there is no sign of "My Passport."
Now, I have a second WD My Passport which I bought for the Windows side of the computer. When I attach it before turning on the computer, I shows up on Finder, however, when I click "Back up" here it seems like it is starting back-up but only for a few seconds and then I get the message that the drive is a Windows formatted drive and that a back-up cannot be completed.
Why does the Windows formatted drive show up in Finder and also when I run the Windows side, however, the driver for the Mac does not show up on Finder?
I now have only the Mac formatted external drive attached and I just received the following messages: Can't back up. Reformat the disk. Files can still be read but the drive can no longer be used for back-ups. Get a new external drive. Run back-ups as soon as possible.
Can anyone help?
Thank you.

OK, so it sounds like you have a Mac formatted drive that you have used previously for Time Machine, and disconnected it for a few weeks, and you can now see files on it OK from your Mac. However, when the system tries to run a Time Machine backup, you get an error message "Can't backup. Reformat the disk. Files can still be read but the drive can no longer be used for back-ups. Get a new external drive. Run back-ups as soon as possible."
I have not seen this problem before, and would recommend that you look through the Time Machine troubleshooting information at http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
For instance, http://pondini.org/TM/B1.html or http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html could help in your situation. I'm assuming (but probably shouldn't) that you've verified that your hard drive doesn't need repair (another Disk Utility function) and that there is still a Time Machine backup on that drive - look for the directory Backups.backupdb.
I hope that helps. If not, perhaps someone with more Time Machine knowledge will pop along soon to help you further.

Time machine does not recognize external HD over wifi

So I leanred the valubale lesson of not backing up my data frequently enough due ot my failing macbook HD. I am trying to setup my seagate external HD over the wifi and use time machine to ack it up weekly. My setup is using a addonics NAS from my verizon router to my seagate external. Problem is time capsule does not see it, but the computer does. I have tried formatting it in both types (apple OS and the addonics way) both were not recognized. Any ideas?

The only official wireless backup solution is a timecapsul.
That said, there is at least one other way. Use a linux system to emulate, via netatalk, the required protocol for TimeMachine, (it works, that's how I do my backups).
You might be able to find other alternatives, but I don't know them off-hand.
Suffice it to say, though, that simply providng a netword accessible drive is not sufficient for TimeMachine.

Time machine does not recognize any drive for initialization

Dear all any body knows how to make time machines recognize my drives during initial setup of the time machine. It used to see my drives; however, I do not know when this conflict happened...i have installed mac parallel and windows vista, and the system seems to work perfect except time machine.?
regards..
knaji

Welcome to Discussions.
Select your Time Machine drive in the finder and do a Get Info (command-i). The format should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If it isn't you will need to reformat the drive. This will erase it so copy any files you need from the drive first. Directions for formatting your Time Machine drive are in this article. People with PPC Macs should substitute Apple Partition Map for GUID when following the directions.
If Time Machine doesn't automatically ask you to use the drive you can choose it for Time Machine backups by going to System Preferences > Time Machine > Change Disk.

Time Machine does not recognize my iMac backup. Reports: not enough space; can't back up. How do I get it to recognize the backup?

Time Machine does not recognize my 430 GB iMac backup on 1 terabyte Time Capsule. Reports: not enough space; can’t back up. How do I get it to recognize the old backup and continue backups?

Thanks for the Time Machine Troubleshooting link. Apparently things have changed since 10.7.0. Backups.backupdb doesn’t exist. Path now is: Time Capsule/Data/Daru’s iMac.sparsebundle. So I did Terminal (I usually avoid Terminal) using the instruction in B6. It does not appear to be working. It went through looking for backup, preparing backup, and is now stopping backup, and the TMBackup has disappeared from the sidebar.
Well, just now Time Machine progressed to preparing backup again; the Tiime Machine Backups appeared in sidebar, and with it Backups.backupdb/Daru’s iMac/2012-04-21-112939.inProgress. So it does exist... I’ll let it run, see what happens... But that is a strange date. Today is 28.
I’ll let you know the outcome.
Oops. Just ended! Real time report: “Backup too large for disk...“ So it is not recognizing the old backup. I’ll look at those instructions again, see if I can do the Terminal thing with the backup running. I doubt I can damage anything except the existing baackup which I'll lose anywy if I can’t achieve recognition.
Daru

My Time Machine does not recognize Airport Time Capsule 2TB

I just connect my new Airport Time capsule 2TB and the wifi work fine in the whole house.
But Time machine does not recognize my Airport time capsule. It remain stuck on my ex baxkup My Book. If I press select disk or option nothing happen . If I click on remove backup disk nothing happen. I want to use Airport Time capsule as my back up disk.
Thank you for your help.
Guy-Gabriel

Do a full TM reset.. see A4 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
You might also need to manually mount the TC disk..
In finder use Go, Connect to server in the top menu.
AFP://TCname or TCIPaddress (using the actual name or IP of course).

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

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

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

Time Machine does not recognize my password. Can I change or delete?

Time Machine in my MacBook Air does not recognize my password. Can I change or delete?I'm connected to an auxiliary disc via a USB connection and power is present for both devices. No Backup started after disc encryption and now the external disc drive can be used since the password I started with can not be used to unlock it. Am I missing something or am I just out of luck with this external drive?

I had already done this to no avail. I'm wondering if I'm confusing the password to unlock the external device with the password to encrypt the disc used after it was connected to the MacBook. If so, there is no way I can recall a password for a device I bought a decade ago (pre increased security about identity theft, etc.). So maybe the answer is to secure a new device.

Mac mini does not recognize external drive

I have an 80GB external drive full of music files. I disconnected my computer to move to a new house and, with everything re-connected, the mini does not recognize the external drive. I wonder whether it is because the internal drive is nearly full. I have tried restarting the computer, disconnecting and re-connecting the USB cable to the external drive, serching for it with the disk utility, un-pluggin the external drive power cable and re-connecting it, but I'm out of ideas. What might have happened?

DBG413 wrote:
Any suggestions on why my XP laptop cannot view the mac info on the HD.
you'll have to install e.g. MacDrive or HFS+ for Windows on your winsloth machine.

Time machine does not recognize backup disk after Yosemite

I have this issue in both macs I own, a 2010 MBP, and a 2012 Mac mini. After I upgraded to yosemite, Time Machine will not find my backup disk. I have been using the same network attached storage drive for 4 years for time machine backups. I has worked fine with all the macs I've owned until now. I can see the disk in Finder, I can go to disk utility and mount the Time Machine disk, but when I go to Time Machine preferences and try to select the list, the disk is not listed there, even though is mounted.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

A third-party NAS is unsuitable for use with Time Machine, especially if it's your only backup. I know this isn't the answer you want. I know Time Machine accepted the NAS as a backup destination. I know that the manufacturer says the device will work with Time Machine, and I also know that it usually seems to work. Except when you try to restore, and find that you can't.
Apple has published a specification for network devices that work with Time Machine. None of the third-party NAS vendors, as far as I know, meets that specification. They all use the incomplete, obsolete Netatalk implementation of Apple Filing Protocol.
If you want network backup, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external storage device connected to another Mac or to an 802.11ac AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base stations support Time Machine, not any older model.
Otherwise, don't use Time Machine at all. There are other ways to back up, though none of them is anywhere near as efficient or as well integrated with OS X. I don't have a specific recommendation.
If you're determined to keep using the NAS with Time Machine, your only recourse for any problems that result is to the manufacturer (which will blame Apple, or you, or anyone but itself.)

My Time Machine does not recognize my newly-reconnected external hard drive, so I cant set it up

I have unplugged and restarted the external drive and the notebook itself multiple times. And done some troubleshooting. The drive is simply NOT recognized by the notebook (macBook 2007). It was however working fine until last night when I dismantled the whole system (to clear the table top for a party).
Now setting up again my NEW (bought 2 weeks ago) LaCie (2 TB USB-connected external drive) neither the Time Machine NOR the Mac itself recognizes the external drive, so I can't select it when I'm asked to configure the Time Machine.....
What is going on here. The disc is far from full and I've shut down and rebooted everything. Disconnected and reconnected everything (drive from Mac too) Trouble shooting included finding the preferences in Library and deleting the old com.apple plist file which I've copied below (could not attach it here)
Thanks.
bplist00Ÿ
YHostUUIDs_ RequiresACPower_ SkipSystemFiles[BackupAlias_ DestinationUUID_ LocalizedDiskImageVolumeName_ AlwaysShowDeletedBackupsWarning]ExcludeByPathZAutoBackup° _ $00000000-0000-1000-8000-0019E33631FD
O        LaCie≈ ∂ΩH+ LaCie ≈ ∂Ωˇˇˇˇ
LaCie ≈ Ó˝ ≈ Ó˝   LaCie:LaCie   LaCie   LaCie   /Volumes/LaCieˇˇ_ $E896BFA8-4C77-3A14-BC5D-B8530F38011C_ Time Machine Backups
¶      _ (/Users/susan/Library/Mail/Envelope Index_ </Users/susan/Library/Mail/Metadata/BackingStoreUpdateJournal_ -/Users/susan/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache_ O/Users/susan/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.DotMacSync.0019e33631fd.plis t_ 0/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/PlayReady_ 4/Users/susanjmorton/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache   %7IUgÜ®∂¡√ÍÎÏ ˆ   4 5 < g ¶ ÷ ( [ í    ì

Does Disk Utility see the external?
(Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility)

Time machine does not recognize my external drive

I have a perfectly good IOgear externaldrive with four partitions which I have used for years to backup files from variuos macs.
Upon connecting the drive to backup my current imac (os 10.6.8), it informed me that time machine would erase one of the 4 partitions in order to do the backup. Fine .After this happened, the partition simply disappeared from the Time machine menu, so I attempted to re-mount the external drive. The computer then gave me a message- 'the diskyou have mounted is not recognized by this computer.' Not very informative.
I attempted to use disk utility to repair the disk, no luck. Although botht the System disk and my external drive are recognized as in the same format, the external drive is 'not mounted' Tried disk repair, but says it cannot repair the disk.
Very disheartening, since I have used this external drive for years and have collected a massive number of files on it. Moreso since the system one depends upn for security ends up destroying your files My fear is that the information is not retrievable, that the drive will have to be reformatted, if that's possible. Any suggestions would be appreciated..>????

Yep, certainly looks that way. For 5 or 6 years I've been happily culling, backing up, and restoring files from/to my external drive, neatly arranged in 4 partitions.Ten minutes with Time Machine, and all that seems to be lost. I'm sorry I ever set eyes on that ugly little icon on my desktop.I can certainly understand an error occuring while erasing a partition, but rendering the entire drive useless and unretrievable? This should never happen, not in this day and age.
Sorry for the rant, but I'll never use Time Machine again...

Time Machine does not recognize my WD my book world edition network drive

I just updated to mountain lion and now my WD my book world edition network drive is not recognized by time machine. I get a message that says " The network backup does not support the required AFP features. Does anyone have a fix for this.

That device is unsuitable for use with Time Machine.
If you want network backup with Time Machine, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external hard drive connected to another Mac or a mini-tower (802.11ac) AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base station supports Time Machine, not any previous model.

Airport Extreme does not recognize external drive a drive

I have an airport extreme base station with an external drive connected to it. For quite a while the drive correctly displayed as a drive and could be used for time machine backups. All of a sudden the drive is only being displayed as a shared folder. It does not appear in disk utility drive list. If I connect this drive directly to my mini or macbook it is handled as a drive and can be used by time machine. As I said, the drive had been working perfectly for backups until somewhere around july 5. I did try loading an older firmware onto the airport, resetting the airport using the reset button, and I also upgraded the airport to the latest firmware release. All of these steps did not work.
Any feedback would be appreciated
john

this *****, pardon my language. I tried using a usb connection on a netgear router and that didn't work. someone on one of the mac forums told me it would work with an extreme base station. The description of the base station said
>>
Share your hard drive.
You can share an external USB hard drive over your wireless and wired networks by simply connecting it to the USB port on your AirPort Extreme Base Station. Called AirPort Disk, this feature is perfect for sharing files and more.
>>
like I said earlier, it did work for 10 months then just stopped. I did read the link you provided. So as it stands I just have to wait until I can dig up more cash for a new base station which isn't happening anytime soon.
oh well, thanks for the help
john

Time machine does not recognize backups

I need to do a restore because after a logic board replacement my apps are not showing as registered, in other words they are all asking for serial numbers. I would like to see if I can use time machine to restore these apps. I don't want to do a full restore using the OS X install CD because it says it erases the contents of the volume. I'm assuming that means teh system and apps will be restored but I'll lose my files.
I can;t get time machine to recognize backups and I found this...
Symptoms
In the Mac OS X 10.5 Time Machine "time travel" window, past backups may not appear if your computer name includes certain characters.
Products Affected
Resolution
Check your computer name in Sharing preferences. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from following set and is not blank (no matter which Mac OS X language version you are using):
0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
so I changed my computer name accordingly but the backup folder in Backups.backupdb still has the old name with a character not allowed. Nothing I do to change priveleges allows me to rename the folder!
Advice needed! Thanks!

It is not a simple matter of the computer name. A simple rename of the backup doesn't do it. It my be necessary but its not the obstacle.
The MAC address of the old board is in the Extended Attributes (EAs -"invisible" metadata) for the old board backups and the MAC address of the new board is in its EAs. If they MAC address in the EA doesn't match the MAC address of the machine that Time Machine is trying to backup it won't do it and it will start a new backup. That certainly appears to be the situation you face.
You can see this by a simple check in terminal. Below is a sample I have two machines name Juvenal and Pliny. The xattr command with the -l option lists all the extended attributes of a file. For the backups of my systems it returns a value that is, in fact, the MAC address of that machine. If the MAC address of the target and source don't match Time Machine won't do the backup and will start a newbackup'
~ $xattr -l /Volumes/Backup\ of\ Juvenal/Backups.backupdb/Juvenal
com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress:
0000 30 30 3A 31 64 3A 34 66 3A 34 61 3A 66 31 3A 64 00:1d:4f:1a:f4:d6
0010 36 00
~ $xattr -l /Volumes/Backup\ of\ Pliny/Backups.backupdb/Pliny
com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress:
0000 30 30 3A 31 62 3A 36 33 3A 33 66 3A 66 64 3A 37 00:1b:63:3f:fd:76
0010 36 00
The actual path to your backups will depend on your configuration and whether or not the backup is on a locally attached drive or not. Mine - in the example above - are on a TC and the results occur after opening the sparse bundles.
The solution I pointed you do is trying to deal with this and change it so the MAC addresses match.
I agree this is a known problem and warrant an official fix which should not be complicated.

HT201250 Time Machine does not recognize external drive at start up

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