My Time Machine partition on an external HD won't mount in OSX, but loads and reads fine in Bootcamp

I've been using windows 7 a lot recently for school, and when i do, i can have my external HD mounted to access files (read only) if needed. Last night, after restarting to OSX 10.7, my data partition(not time machine) loads fine, but the other partition of the same HD that i use for time machine refuses to mount.
It shows up in Disk Utility as a greyed out name 'disk1s3' but i origionally named the partition 'Story Time Machine'. The greyed out partition shows up as 500gb, which is correct, but it says its formatted as FAT32. In windows, it says its formatted HFS.
I've tried running Disk Repair both in OSX and in recovery mode. I ran a checksum on the drive and it came back fine.
Any suggestions?

It could be a problem with enclosure, but it also could be a problem with the drive itself or the drive is possibly corrupted. I would start by contacting WD tech support.
It may be possible to recover files from the drive using file recovery software:
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as MAC Data Recovery, Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro.  Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.  Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk.  Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads. Recovery software usually provide trial versions that enable you to determine if the software would help before actually paying for it. Beyond this or if the drive has completely failed, then you would need to send the drive to a recovery service which is very expensive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
Otherwise, unless the drive fixes itself like before you should try repartitioning and reformatting to determine if the drive has failed or is now working properly.

Similar Messages

  • Time Machine Partition Corrupted on External Hard drive

    I have a external hard drive partitioned into 2 sections, one for storage and the other for time machine back up of my macbook original hard drive. One day the time machine partition stopped being recognized so I tried verifying and it told me it needed to be repaired. Now it says the disk cannot be repaired and to reformat my disk. I do not want to do this because I don't want to lose whats on the other partition and I have no where else to put the data. It won't allow me to just remove the time machine partition, when I try it comes back with "disk cannot be opened". I'm lost here, is there anything that I can do without reformating the whole external hard drive?
    Oh and I'm fine with losing whatevers on my time machine back up

    Erasing one partition should not affect another one; however, the drive has had at least one major malfunction already, and should be expected to have more. You should immediately back up all data to another drive, including the data on the non-backup partition of the problem drive. Then, and only then, you can try fixing the unmountable partition. If the drive ever malfunctions again, replace it.

  • Finder not recognizing "Time Machine" partition of my external HD.

    My Seagate 2TB External HD (the one that says it works especially for Mac Time Machine!) is partitioned in 2 - half for my music and other half for Time Machine. Finder is now only recognizing the "music" partition and will not run Time Machine. I noticed this evening it hasn't run TM in a week. I barely even use my computer, though it is basicallly on all the time. I have a 2012 MacBook Air running OSX 10.9.2. Help!!

    Or do I just need to get a 2nd external HD with less memory and dedicate it to Time Machine?
    Well, OP is considering this option, and it one way to go TM-dedicated TM external. Really their options depend on how much free space is present on their Mac internal and current external. Disk Utility erase/ partition options will reformat, quite obviously, but even if they have just one external available it is usually possible to backup video and other stored files to say DVD media while they reorganize/ reformat their backup drive.
    Another choice is to turn TM off.
    Due to the magic of shareware there are now third-party utilities that allow you to alter the frequency of Time Machine Back up.
    http://www.klieme.com/TimeMachineScheduler.html

  • External disc won't mount in Leopard, but will in Snow Leopard

    I have a 5-yr-old G5 networked to a new iMac. I have had a 1-TB external HD attached via Firewire 400 to the G5 for about a year. Yesterday it didn't show up on the G5 desktop. I went to this forum, searched under "disc won't mount", got some ideas, ran DiskWarrior and Disk Utility...but nothing worked. They all said the disc was fine, directories rebuilt, etc., but it wouldn't mount. This AM it occurred to me that I had the correct cable, so I tried plugging it into the iMac instead. It worked. The data is safe, the disc shows up, everything seems to be OK, but it won't mount to the G5. Why would that happen, and how can I mount it to the G5? And how likely is the disc to remain accessible?

    May I hop onto your thread as I have a similar problem.
    I have a 5 year old G5 PMac with 10.5 onto which I have daisy chained two UltraMax 1TB firewire 800 drives. For the last 5 years I have been able, even with out sharing enabled, to connect to the G5 from a G4 Graphite with 10.4, a G4 Powerbook with 10.5 and now a MbP with 10.6.
    After completing the login dialogue in the past from any other mac it would give me a list of the G5, it's Hard disk, user directories and the two Firewire Drives. On selecting them the drive would mount onto the desktop as a network drive. This went well until monday when it became temperamental in the morning and after a few restarts and one successful mount it has not shown up since. If I come to the G5 via the Go > Connect to Server I get a dialogue "Could Not connect to the server because the name or password are incorrect". If I try to connect via the network icon in the side window of the finder window I get a network dialogue log in, I get a list of folders and drives but then when selecting the FH drive get an error message which relates to the alias to the G5 Server requiring deleting or fixing.
    Originally it just connected without any messing but now unless i make the firewire drive a shared drive the process on the other macs cannot see the firewire drive. NOTE - After having made the internal boot HD of the G5 shared, I can now see and mount this drive from the other macs but not the external drive.
    This is causing me to pull my hair out, I have run disk utility, powered down unconnected and reconnected everything .The HD's appear to be working ok from the G5.
    I urgently need to connect the FW drive to my G4 to do some work but it also needs to be connected to the G5, has anyone got a clue why I cant get G4 (or any other mac) to mount G5's external FW drive

  • External HD won't mount on PB

    External HD won't mount on PB but, will on iBook, G5 iMac, MBP, and Mirror Door G4. I have a USB 2 HD that will mount on everything but 15" Aluminum PowerBook. I even tried updating the IOUSBFamily.kext but no luck that just made my camera to start working with my PB. When I plug in my HD the LED just blinks back and forth orange and green instead of Blinking orange and turning a solid green when connected.
    Any sugestions?

    In reply to arnie: Good tips!
    I'll just add - booting holding "AppleOption+OF" boots into open firmware. I've never booted into this mode (on purpose...) but it seems to be (correct me if I'm wrong) a unix interface to OS X. Just make sure to type the commands EXACTLY. Unix is much pickier than OS X.
    I've heard problems like this before - usually with those little bus-powered HDDs and Powerbooks. It's something to do with the amount of power the Powerbook puts out, although it should be the standard 500 mA that the USB 2 specs require. This can happen with firewire, however. If there's a power cord, use it.
    You might try plugging the drive into a self-powered USB 2 Hub - one with a cord that plugs into an AC wall socket, then connect it to the Powerbook. If the Powerbook recognizes the drive, then it probably needs extra power.
    Good luck
    -Dan
    15" 1.67 Powerbook G4 (Jan 2005), 400 mhz AGP Sawtooth G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   4G Clickwheel and 5G Vid iPods
    Message was edited by: Daniel W, stupid grammer!

  • Using the same external hard drive to host a Time Machine partition + a test recovery partition: no longer possible?

    In 10.7, I used to have one external hard drive with two partitions:
    1) a Time Machine partition that I used to back up my internal hard drive;
    2) another partition that I used once a month as a target partition to test the restoration of my Time Machine backup (because having a backup is a good first step, but regularly making sure it could be usable for a full recovery in case of a failure of my internal hard drive is important as well).
    After upgrading to 10.9, my first backup restoration test failed with the error message "An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk." I found the following discussion:
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4370294
    which suggests that I need to make sure my external hard drive is formated using GUID and/or that I need to install 10.7 on the target drive. I checked in the Disk Utility, and indeed my external hard drive is formatted using Apple Partition Map rather than GUID.
    I also found the following KB article:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5911
    which suggests that, to be able to install 10.9 on the external hard drive, I need to configure it to have only one partition.
    Can anyone confirm that it is no longer possible to perform a backup recovery test on the same external hard drive as the one hosting the Time Machine partition? Do I now need a second external hard drive if I want to perform such a restoration test?
    Thanks in advance for your insights.

    Answering my own question: I managed to perform the restoration test on a second external hard drive. The trick was to make sure it was partitioned using GUID. I didn't even have to first install OS 10.9 on the second partition (I had an old restoration of 10.7 on there).

  • External HD Time Machine partition shows in Desktop but not in Finder

    I have a External HardDisk with two partitions, one for Time Machine and other for Data.
    Until now when I power on the disk two icons appear on my MacBook, one Orange with a USB logo for the Data partition and other Green with Time MAchine logo for the Time MAchine partition.
    Suddenly when I power on in FInder I can see only the Data Partition. while in Desktop I can see both, but now the Time Machine Partition is orange with the USB logo (just like the Data partition).
    On the other hand everytinhg seems to be workning, I can acces both partitions and Time Machine apparently works Ok, but don't know if something is happening in the background, and I have all my data in that Disk!!!!!

    David Casillas wrote:
    I can see and use both partitions, but in Finder under DEVICES only DATA partiton shows.
    If a navigate in Finder to MacBook for example I can now see both partitions.
    Excuse me if my explanation of the subject is not clear. Here is a screenshoot of what happens. In the left you can see the Finder window with just Data Partition, on the right Desktop with both.
    If you haven't yet, from a Finder window's menubar, select +Finder > Preferences > Sidebar.+ Un-check the +External Disks+ checkbox, wait a moment, then check it again.
    Try going to TM Preferences, de-selecting the drive (select "none"), waiting a moment, then re-selecting it.
    Try deleting the file <your home folder>/Library/com.apple.Finder.plist and either relaunch the Finder (from the +Force Quit+ menu) or Restart.

  • How to remove a encrypted Time Machine partition from external hard drive?

    I encrypted my Time Machine partition and i want to delete it and make a whole new Time Machine partition that isn't encrypted, please help.

    Launch disk utility
    Click on the name of the disk (not the partition) in the left hand pane
    Click on the partition tab (top center)
    Click on the partition to delete
    Click the - sign under the partition layout pane

  • Re Time Machine I have an external  hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory. I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.   will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous bac

    Re Time Machine
    I have an external  hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory.
    I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
    will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
    can I split it the drive in two partitions?
    Also
    as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
    OSX 10.68
    the other is
    OSX 10.75
    can I back them up separately?
    or even synch and merge files and folders etc? between the two?

    You CAN use a drive with files already on it to store Time Machine backups. But long term, that is not recommended. You do not need to reformat or re-partition the drive to do this. Once Time Machine Backups are established, you could remove the old files.
    But do not delete Time Machines files with the Finder -- that can cause it to lose its place and lose everything.
    With the cost of backup drives under US$100, it might be a better idea in the long run to get another drive. Best results from Time Machine is a drive about 3 times larger than the drive(s) you are backing up.

  • Is it possible to boot or Time Machine restore from an external Thunderbolt disk drive?

    (There are several questions - search for "?".)
    I purchased a Seagate Backup Plus for Mac Desktop Drive 3 TByte with default USB 3.0 interface, and also acquired the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Desktop Drives and Thunderbolt cable.
    I do a redundant backup to the Seagate Drive using both Carbon Copy Cloner (nightly) and Time Machine (hourly) using its Thunderbolt adapter.  BTW:  One never knows when Time Machine will choke - see discussion titled, "UPDATED: Serious Time Machine bug on Mountain Lion", which I had; Rest In Peace Pondini (James Lewis Pond).
    Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from System Preferences -> Startup Disk:
    I select the Time Machine OS X, 10.8.5 Startup Disk (Thunderbolt attached drive), click Restart, confirm my choice, the computer reboots, however, it reboots from the internal Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5, NOT the selected external Thunderbolt drive.  The SSD drive was used as the Startup Drive, not the selected external Time Machine volume as indicated by the display free disk space command (df(1)) and seeing that the Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5 volume is mounted as root.  That is very deceptive in that both the internal and external drives will appear in the same manner from a GUI point of view!  OS X doesn't even inform me that it did not boot off the selected volume.  This is the first half of the problem, that is, Is it possible to boot from an external Thunderbolt disk drive?  In my case, the answer is deceptively No.  Can anybody else boot off a Thuderbolt attached disk drive?  Note that if I remove the Thunderbolt adapter, and attach the drive via its USB 3.0 cable, the MBP boots off the external Seagate Backup Plus just fine, as is expected.
    Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from boot-time "Option - Select startup disk" method:
    When I restart the MBP using the startup Option key to select the startup volume, the externally connected Seagate drive ONLY SHOWS UP if it is attached with the USB 3.0 cable, not when it is attached with via the Thunderbolt interface.  Can anyone else boot off a Thunderbolt drive with the startup Option key sequence?  At least the MBP doesn't deceive me in this case - I know right away that the external Thunderbolt drive is not an option when connected as such.
    Time Machine restore from the external Seagate Backup plus via Thunderbolt interface from the "command-R - Recovery Parition" method:
    After booting from the recovery partition, I attempt to perform a Time Machine restore from the Thunderbolt connected Seagate Backup drive.  When Time Machine attempts to present me with a viable backup Time Machine volume, the external Thunderbolt drive is never offered as an option.  So I switch the Time Machine volume to use its USB 3.0 interface, and then Time Machine displays that drive as an option, and the MBP proceeds with the restoration as expected.  The interesting thing to note is that while booted in the recovery partition via the Thuderbolt cable, the MBP Disk Utility may be selected, and the Thunderbolt attached drive may be operated on just fine.  Can anybody else restore their MBP using Time Machine and the Recovery Partition via the Thunderbolt interface?
    This is also a big problem for me in that I am forced to restore my MBP via Carbon Copy Cloner using the USB 3.0 interface, because I cannot even boot off that volume's Thunderbolt interface.  Of course, the option may be that I could use yet another eternal USB 3.0 drive, boot from it, and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore the Macintosh HD via the aforementioned drive connected by a Thunderbolt cable, but that is less than ideal and not elegant, so I'm not going there.
    Another side issue is that the commercially available program, TechTool Pro 7's eDrive, which I installed on the Time Machine volume, will not boot off that eDrive as advertised, but I won't got through those steps here, because that would be beyond the scope of this issue, however, I must say, It does not work either when the Time Machine volume is connected via the Thunderbolt interface, but works just fine when connected via the USB 3.0 interface.

    If this helps anybody else make a decision about whether to consider Apple because of Apple's superior customer service:
    Apple sells this entire line of drives right in their store, from 1TB to 4TB.  I spent 1 and 1/2 hours, yesterday, confirming that  the 3TB model IS NOT 100% Thunderbolt compliant.  A MBP cannot boot, nor can it Time Machine restore from this drive, though EVERYTHING about the drive is normal.
    Apple's South Coast Plaza store management had at least two responses to me personally about how to proceed:
    1.  Buy a different drive from another drive manufacturer, and to attempt to return the drive to COSTCO.  A lead genius suggested going with GTech drives, for instance.
    2.  Wait for Seagate to fix their problem.
    I told Apple management in the store that the drive is advertised as Mac Compatible (see  picture) and that it is advertised as being a Thunderbolt drive (see picture).  I pressed management that my purchasing decsion to get the best possible MBP Retina was based on the availablity of Inexpensive Devises (raID), and that not having this complete compatibility is a show-stopper for my needs, and that I wanted a refund.  Their response?  They needed to talk with "Merchendising" to see if they are on or off the hook for these kind of 3rd party assertions, and would get back to me.
    I am not holding my breath.
    Note:  I do not hold this against the Geniuses that helped me, nor against the management I've dealt with, nor the upper level engineers that I've corresponded with through Apple Care - their problem solving skills were helpful - although I could have arrived at similar conclusions given enough $$$.  (For instance, try a Lacie TB drive and see if that works - we did, and it did not work.  Or, we have a different TB cable and a different TB adapter, let's try those - we did, and it did not work.)  I blame myself for not doing enough homework before going with Apple's solutions.

  • Cannot transfer Time Machine backups from one external drive to another

    Since I bought my 13 inch MacBook Pro in September 2014 I've been keeping Time Machine backups on an external 1TB Lacie Rugged.  This is partitioned into three and one of the partitions contains my iPhoto library. 
    Last weekend I left my MBP disconnected from the power source but with the external hard drive still plugged in.  Long story short - the battery level fell below the minimum needed to operate so it turned itself off and 'disconnected' the external hard drive.  This resulted in a corrupted iPhoto library which is no longer accessible.
    In order to restore my iPhoto Library from another backup I needed to buy a second external hard drive.  Yesterday I bought a 2TB Lacie Rugged which I've now partitioned into 5. 
    I want to move my Time Machine backups from the 1TB Lacie Rugged to a partition on the 2TB Lacie Rugged (to take advantage of the new Lacie's Thunderbolt connection). 
    I read the Apple article -
    HT202380: Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive
    and followed the instructions precisely.  About 2 hours into the transfer I came back to my MacBook Pro and saw a message saying that it was not possible to complete the transfer because I did not have the correct permissions.  The only option was to click the OK button which stopped the transfer.
    Can anyone advise what I should do next?
    Cheers
    Tricia

    Hi Eric,
    Thank you for your response.  I came across another thread yesterday which suggested the Restore via Disk Utility method.  It worked for me, too.  This was after I had tried following the method suggested in the Apple article above three times but each time the message was the same ....
    The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items.
    I dare say that Apple would like to have us believe that it's a simple matter of 'drag and drop' but it certainly wasn't for me.  From what I've read the permission problem crops up fairly frequently. Before the second and third attempts  I had already amended Permissions on the Time Machine backups so that everyone could read and write, so that mustn't have been the problem.  I'm the only person who uses my computer so that's not a problem.
    The next problem I have is that I decided I would use the Restore route to transfer my SuperDuper clone rather than start from scratch.  Unfortunately, the partition size on my original backup disk where SuperDuper clone is is 350GB and the size of the SuperDuper clone partition on my new backup is 300GB.
    Of course, Apple says you can resize partitions using Disk Utility.  What they don't say is you can downsize partitions but (in my experience and that of many other frustrated users on various forums) you CANNOT upsize using Disk Utility.  I have 100GB spare on my external hard drive (from downsizing two partitions by 50GB each) BUT there is no way Disk Utility will let me increase the size of SuperDuper partition to 350GB :-(((
    Cheers
    Tricia

  • With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac

    With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac. The record contained files windows. How to recover?
    Serious mistake: to connect a Mac to an external drive with data (important!) Windows, the warning appears: "You want to use the disk for Time Machine?" Wrong button, so in 2-3 seconds, the disk is formatted. Now Mac "sees" the disc but empty, Windows does not see it under "My Computer" but in "Disk Management" is reported as "hard core", "healthy", "GPT protective partition" Is there a way to retrieve the files? Sorry for my English Thanks

    I'm having a difficult time following, I understand English isn't your native language. You may have good luck with Google Translate.
    Also please read Pondini's Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting.

  • Mavericks refuses to mount Time Machine partition

    Hi there,
    Two days ago, my MBP crashed, kernel panicked. Since then, it has not been able to mount my external Time Machine partition. Notice that the external drive has two partitions in it, MBP is happy to mount the other partition, but not the TM one.
    I ran Verify Disk and Repair Disk with Disk Utilities First Aid, and everything came back fine "The volume Work Time Machine appears to be OK." But then if I try to mount, I get "The disk "Work Time Machine" could not be mounted.
    What can/should I do to mount/recover this?
    Thanks!

    Launch/Utilities/Terminal and copy & paste this command at the prompt:
    diskutil list
    Press return.
    If it sees the disk, note the number of the disk (far left column) you want to mount.
    Then, enter copy & paste this command:
    mount /dev/(number of disk)
    Put in the number no parenthesis.
    Press Return.
    Also might try
    mount force /dev/(number of disk)
    And see...
    http://pondini.org/TM/C14.html

  • Time Machine doesn't do External HD to External HD Live parallel backups...

    I didn't know where else to post this...
    I have 12GB of external storage devices attached to my MacBook Pro 17. They are a variety of sizes, and I'm trying to figure out how to use some for storage, and the rest for backing up those storage drives. I don't think Time Machine supports this...
    so, I'm looking for a Time Machine styler backup software recommendation that also allows you to have live parallel backups from one external drive to another. I've checked out all the obvious things - SuperDuper, Data Backup, Backup, and others. They only support backups of the INTERNAL hard drive.
    If that doesn't work, I'll have to resort to scheduled incremental back ups, but again, I can't find software that will do external to external backups.
    Does anyone know of a Backup utility like Time Machine but for EXTERNAL Drives.

    SFjoe1966 wrote:
    I didn't know where else to post this...
    I have 12GB of external storage devices attached to my MacBook Pro 17. They are a variety of sizes, and I'm trying to figure out how to use some for storage, and the rest for backing up those storage drives. I don't think Time Machine supports this...
    Time Machine can back up external drives, if they're formatted HFS+, along with your internal, but only to a single volume. So unless you have one of those big enclosures that you can configure as a monster hardware +Concatenated RAID set,+ Time Machine may not be your whole solution.
    so, I'm looking for a Time Machine styler backup software recommendation that also allows you to have live parallel backups from one external drive to another. I've checked out all the obvious things - SuperDuper, Data Backup, Backup, and others. They only support backups of the INTERNAL hard drive.
    I don't use SuperDuper, but I'd be very surprised if it can't back up external HDs. The similar CarbonCopyCloner, which I do use in addition to Time Machine, can. But it only backs-up one volume at a time, so you'd need one "task" for each. Depending on the sizes, it could back up, say, two 500 GB disks to a single 1 TB drive (I don't know offhand if it would have to be partitioned, but that would probably be wise).
    With that much data, your best bet may be a combination: Time Machine for your OSX volume and one or more externals (probably the ones with the most changes), and CCC, SD, or others for the other volumes.
    You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial and perhaps browse Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    Also see Kappy's post on Basic Backup, complete with links to the web sites of each product.

  • Time Machine Partition Randomly Disconnected

    I have an external HDD partitioned in to two disks: Time Machine and My Book.
    After upgrading to Snow Leopard, my Time Machine partition suddenly became screwy and I received a message that I would be unable to write to the drive, but I could still read from it. I went through the normal steps of trying to repair in Disk Utility, as well as repair off the 10.6 DVD, but nothing would repair the drive.
    I did a clean sweep of the drive, re-partitioned and everything seemed to be working fine. After a day though, the Time Machine drive will randomly become unavailable (the dialog says that it was disconnected) but the icon will remain on the desktop. I can unplug the drive and replug it back in and it will work again for a while, but I will eventually get the same error again.
    I have tried multiple USB ports and experienced the same problems on each. My Hard Drive is still within warranty, so I'm wondering if this is a hardware issue, or if other people have had similar experiences since upgrading.
    If it helps, the drive is a 500GB Western Digital My Book Office Edition.

    I tried trashing the Time Machine preference file and restarting and it didn't help. Since my last post, I reformatted again and this time wrote zeros to the whole drive. Once again the initial backup worked fine, and I can directly access the contents of both partitions, but Time Machine will no longer backup files.
    I've run the drive through Disk Utility and when checking for errors it finds an invalid sibling link and is unable to repair the drive, even when booted from the SL install disk. I ran the drive through Disk Utility right after zeroing the drive and it checked out just fine.
    At this point I'm at a loss, but I don't want to send the drive in on a warranty claim and find out that there is nothing physically wrong with the drive.

Maybe you are looking for