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.

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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...

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.

Time machine does not find my external hard disk.

is this because it is formatted ms-dos. it has been this way since i've had it and have used it to manually back up photos and other things, which worked fine. i see back up folders on there but time machine does not recognize it as its back up. can anyone enlighten me.

Your external HDD needs to be formatted HFS+ (Mac OS Extended - Journaled) for Time Machine to use it as a backup destination. You can move your current data off the drive and format it via Disk Utility.
You mentioned there are TM backup folders. Curious that you cannot access them. How are you trying to access them? Are you using the TM interface or viewing it via Finder?

Time Machine does not start after external hard drive is connected

Time Machine does not start after external hard drive is connected

These are the iCloud storage options: http://www.apple.com/icloud/includes/lightbox-storage.html
Also bear in mind that:
1. restoring data over icloud takes time
2. iCloud is not designed as a replacement to Time Machine.

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?

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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.
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Do a full TM reset.. see A4 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
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I would like to setup TM but it does not see my external HD, but I can see it on desktop in and finder. I can browse it. But time machine does not see it and forces me to use airport time capsule but I don't have it. Help please.

What format is the external drive in?
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The disk needs to be formatted as Mac OS X Extended using either the APM or GPT partition tables.
Life is complicated somewhat by the fact that the OS, in general, can read MBR/FAT drives, but they're not suitable for Time Machine (limitations in the disk formats prevent some of Time Machine's features from working).
You can check the current partition map/disk format in Disk Utility.app - just select the disk on the left and the information will be displayed below. If the disk is using MBR and/or FAT then you'd need to reformat the drive in order to use it with Time Machine.

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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.
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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)

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Time Machine (TM) seem not recognize previous back ups made in Time Capsule (TC) and begins a new copy of the back up every time, taking a lot of time.
The Time Capsule has an initial backup copy that I made several weeks ago. Subsequent backups seem to have disappear and the initial back up process is started over every time I make a backup, lasting several hours.
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I resolved the problem of getting the computer to recognize that I had the authorization to change file names by myself. For anyone with a similar issue (insufficient authorization), the following are the steps I took to resolve the issue.
First, click on the external HD icon used for TM and chose "get info". In the info window goto the "Sharing & Permission" section where the +, - , action menu and lock are. Unlock the lock if it is locked. Verify that the Name used for the computer, user or administrator has "read & write" permission. Then go to the Action menu (the icon or design that looks like a sprocket) and choose "apply to enclosed items". In my case the HD went on noisily for a few hours before I decided to Force Quit. I then went back to the file name and changed it back to the way it was prior to my ill fated attempt to back up my other computer on the same HD.
I hope this will help anyone who has come across a similar issue.

HT201250 Time machine does not recognize WD external drive

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