Startup trouble - looking for startup disk

I've been experiencing occasional start up trouble for a few weeks, where my iMac takes a long time on the startup phase (getting stuck on a blank gray screen), and on 3 occasions it has just come up with a folder with blinking question mark (can't find startup disk) icon. When this happens, I hold my breath and manually restart, and so far it's then started right up (knock on wood). But obviously this is worrisome.
I did recently swap out some RAM (trading out one card from 1GB to 2GB), and since the Apple store no longer carries the appropriate RAM for my iMac (fall 2006), I can to buy it elsewhere, but that seemed to go fine... could it have affected my startup?
Another, probably unrelated issue, is that when I do start up successfully, or even come up from sleep, the computer now makes a big POP sound. I have a JBL "creature" amp with little speakers plugged into the computer, but it doesn't seem to be that - it's definitely an in-computer sound. Could the sound card be going bad, or somehow affected by the start up problem or the new RAM? I'm guessing it's an unrelated thing, but wanted to include as much info as possible.

Hi Jessamyn
Many times a connected External HD, iPod or other storage device can cause the startup manager to have a problem finding your startup volume, first disconnect all other storage devices to see if that helps. Second go to *System Preferences > Startup Disk* and select the *Mac OS X, 10.4 on Macintosh HD* click the lock and restart.
If you are still having a startup issue then use the following link for testing and repairing your startup disk: > http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1018.html
Dennis

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Time Capsule "looking for backup disk" problems, running Lion on 24" iMac

Hi,
I'm having problems with my Time Capsule. I can't get the backups to run for about a week. The backup just says "looking for backup disk" for ever. This is a first gen Time Capsule, and it's still working fine for two MacBooks in the house. I have all the Apple updates installed, and I'm running 10.7.2. In Preferences, Time Capsule, I can see the available/of space and there is plenty left. It's not showing any Oldest and Latest date info for backups.
If I go to "select disk" and choose the Time Capsule, I'm prompted for the password. When I press "Connect", the message changes to "Stopping Backup" and this will run for ever. I have plenty of disk space available, have repaired permissions, have booted in safe mode, reset pram and nvram and probably a few other options to no avail. I can enter the Time Machine and see all of my backups without problem.
As a side note, I have also noticed instability whereby various programs have been 'not responding' of late, and need to be force quit. Once that happens, the iMac won't properly shut down and restart; I usually need to how down the power button.
Thanks in advance for your help.

I'm having the same problem. Anyone have a fix?
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Time Machine looking for backup disk/not finding

Time Machine backed up the HD on my 2009 20" iMac up till Feb. 4 when I downloaded Since then there have been no new backups of my HD and there have been problems wihen I have Time Machine "on" with other applications (TextEdit, Pages, Adobe Bridge CS4) opening or not responding after being open and with Finder not responding. I have also had grey screen freezes multiple times so that I have to use the power button to shut the computer down. When I take TM off of the Automatic backups, most of the problems with applications quitting and the grey screen freezes stop happening. (Although I believe I've had at least one or two grey screen freezes even then.)
Today I've run Verify Time Machine Backups. It completed that. Then I turned on Automatic Backups again. But then it showed "Looking for Backup Disk". So I selected the Backup Disk. Then I checked back in a while and it still showed Looking for Backup Disk. I removed the selected backup disk, shut down and rebooted, and reselected the backup disk. It is still showing Looking for Backup Disk.
The Time Machine is a 1 Terabyte size. My iMac is using 203.6 Gigabytes of its 319.21 G space.
In looking at what my Finder is showing as the name of my Backup Disk, I see that it is showing my Backup Disk as Virginia's Computer (3). It should be showing my Backup Disk as Virginia's Computer. If this is the source of the problem, how do I get my Backup Disk named back to Virginia's Computer? Is it possible to get it changed back?
My TM is used as a router for two iMacs and up through Feb. 4 I was sharing files between both computers. When the problems started, I turned off File Sharing in the other computer (Jim's iMac). I had noticed that frequently my computer's name as shown on the other computer would be changed to Virginia's Computer (2) or Virginia's Computer (3) and I would change it back when I noticed. Perhaps this is how the problem started.

I finally contacted Apple Support. Three support people and seven and a half hours later Time Machine began working correctly. Multiple things were tried. The Time Capsule ended up getting erased. Many files and folders were deleted from several places on my hard drive. It seemed that the final ones that made a difference after the Time Capsule was erased were files that were in my Keychain.
I have to thank Apple's Support people for persistence, especially Jim who is the one who got things back to normal as far as the Time Capsule & Time Machine goes. I have to keep watch to see if anything acts up now on my hard drive and then the solution will go further. But the issue with the Time Capsule and Time Machine appears to be resolved!
Thank you, Apple Support!!!

Stuck in "Looking for Backup Disk" in Time Machine with Time Capsule

I too am having a "Looking for Backup Disk" message going on forever . . . .
I have the following showing in my log (which is for a backup that started almost 6 hours ago . . .)
Starting automatic backup
Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Toni%20Way;AUTH=[email protected]/Data
Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/Data using URL: afp://Toni%20Way;AUTH=[email protected]/Data
Disk image /Volumes/Data/Toni’s iMac.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
I am not getting successful backups. I first thought it was a problem with the WD hard drive I had so I invested in a Time Capsule thinking maybe it would work better with the Mac (i.e. Apple to Apple). I got a few successful backups when I got the Time Machine on June 12th but none since. I only just noticed that I wasn't having successful backups as there was no notification. I have tried a Full Reset as per these instructions with no success:
http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html
Help!

I've successfully changed the name of the Time Capsule to "Toni TC" but still no success. It is still sticking at Looking for Backup Disk.
Still have a space in the name.. No spaces. No non-alphanumeric.
Not that I think that is your problem.
From the log the actual unit is mounted and you have everything working but not actually able to copy packets across the network.
I have an ethernet cable running from my cable provider's router to the Time Capsule and then an ethernet cable running from the Time Capsule to the iMac.
This is good... also turn off wireless in the computer to force connection by ethernet only.
But when I go into Disk Utility, it isn't listed in the left hand side.
Only the sparsebundle will list and only when it is mounted.. TC is a network drive not a local drive. It will not show up in disk utility.
Let me suggest you erase the TC and start over.. sometimes it is the only way to get things going again.
A4 reset of TM. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
And do a verify of the local disk.. A5.
I would also like you to test copying a single large file to the TC.. create a new directory in the TC from finder.. and copy a single large file.. 1GB sort of size and get actual speed measurement from Activity Monitor.

Time Machine stuck at "Looking for backup disk" after installing Windows 8 via Boot Camp

I've been backing up via Time Machine to an external USB drive and it's been working fine. I recenty installed Windows 8 via Boot Camp and now TM gets stuck forever at "Looking for backup disk...".
I've tried the following, to no avail:
Using "Select Disk" in TM preferences to re-select the disk
Deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Running system maintenance via Onyx
Resetting PRAM
Formatting the drive and setting it up for TM backups again
The Boot Camp partition is on the same drive as OS X (on a 180GB Intel 330 series SSD). During the Windows installation I re-formatted the partition as NTFS.
If I start OS X in Safe Boot mode, TM backups work. In Safe Boot mode, the NTFS partition isn't loaded so I suspect it has something to do with this. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I installed Paragon NTFS for Mac and it started working all of a sudden.

HT201250 I had turned off the time machine auto back up and now when I try to turn it back on it keeps looking for a disk even though the time capsule is shown, do I have to set it up again as an initial?

I have been using the time capsule to back up both my iMac and recently added MacAir, it has been working fine but recentlky I had turned the time machine off on the Macair and now when I try to turn it back on it keeps looking for a disk even if I select the time capsule. Do I have to start the backup for the Macair as a new backup?

That happened to my brother earlier. He went into Facebooand then into another app and the same thing happened. he ended up having to restore it. Mine stayed with the Apple logo for a bit but its back to normal after pressing the buttons a million times. I hope you get your problem sorted. Goodluck!

Internal Time Machine "looking for backup disk" (not time capsule)

Hello,
I have the infamous "looking for backup disk" issue. My Time Machine drive is an internal drive, NOT a time capsule. It is mounted and visible, and the backups show up on it in the Finder. When I select to enter the Time Machine "starfield" UI, all my previous backups are browsable. But when it comes time to actually back up... it just says "looking for backup disk" forever. I've tried leaving it like that for something like 40 minutes, no joy. This is not a huge disk, there are about 700 GB of backups on it. The HDD activity light on my computer is NOT showing any activity when I am idling but it is "looking for backup disk," so I don't think it's scanning the drive or anything.
I have tried turning TM off and on, removing the drive and re-selecting it, unmounting it and remounting it, deleting the TM preference plist file from the library, rebooting, and all manner of combinations thereof. Nothing seems to work.
Anyone have any advice? This is on OS X 10.8.2 by the way. The TM backup worked fine through 10.8.1 and 10.8.2 with no problems until now. I don't recall doing anything specific to mess up TM or the disks in any way, although I may have turned TM during a reboot cycle prior to this happening (don't recall if this is actually the case, but in any case it shouldn't have caused such an error, no?).
Thanks in advance,
—Gabriel

[Just a note, TM only works on OS X Journaled drives (i.e. HFS+ drives). TM does not back up your FAT drive.]
Isaac:
If you unloaded the NTFS and FAT kexts, your TM backups might (might!) work again, but of course in that case you would not be able to see your FAT or NTFS drives in OS X, and if you removed the FAT kext then a lot of USB keys would be unreadable in OS X - not a good solution.
The kexts are specific to OS X, so removing them should not affect Windows... but may affect boot camp, I don't know how boot camp is programmed (which would be a problem). Luckily if your Windows drive became inaccessable from boot camp with removed kexts, it should be easy enough to simply boot back into OS X, restore the kexts, and then Windows should work again.
I would recommend not mixing partition types on drives with shared OSX/Win functions, it seems to "tempt fate" as it were with possible errors. I don't know what has precipitated this error in your case, if it was the MSE or disk error or something else, and unfortunately I don't have a real fix to offer beyond trying things with the kexts removed and seeing if they work.
NOTE THAT THIS IS AT YOUR OWN RISK, messing with kexts is not a very recommendable practice since these files enable core functionality in the OS. Make a backup before if you can, and consider your options carefully. In OS X, navigate to /System/Library/Extensions and you'll find a bunch kext files. The two you need are msdosfs.kext and ntfs.kext. Copy ntfs.kext into a backup folder (e.g., on your desktop). Delete the original ntfs.kext from the S/L/E folder. Reboot and see if you can still access windows. If so, reboot into OS X and see if Time Machine works again. If you're good on both those points, then consider going without ntfs.kext on a permanent basis – it is rare that you need to read an NTFS drive while in OS X. On the other hand, if this does not fix your problem, you may try restoring ntfs.kext, and backing up / deleting msdosfs.kext to see if THAT is the culprit. Unfortunately, if msdosfs.kext is causing the TM error, you're kind of out of luck, since going without FAT access will be pretty annoying any time you need to use a drive to swap files between Windows and Mac (using a USB key).
Ultimately I don't have a solution, as I have noted, so much as I've narrowed down where the error is occuring in some peoples' cases (like my own). Good luck!

Time Machine "Looking for Backup Disk...." to Synology NAS

My time machine used to work well connected from my Macbook Pro (10.8.3) connected to my Synology NAS then suddenly stopped working a while ago.
I have finally got around to looking at it but cannot seem to get it to rework
I folloed all instructions on the http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html full reset option but without success.
I can view all the previous backups on the NAS by entering Time Machine but when trying to backup again now continually get "Looking for Backup Disk...."
Any ideas?

This happens when you backup to a non-apple device.. actually a TC in particular is the only apple supported network device for TM.
Did you try a reboot of the whole network.. and you can verify the backups .. see A5 in pondiini.
The same thing happens even on a USB drive plugged into an Airport Extreme. It can work fine for ages and then just suddenly refuses to connect.
See http://pondini.org/TM/Airport.html
Did this happen when you updated to 10.8.3.. does the date of the last backup correspond to the update? It would not surprise me if they did some little tweak that took out your non-authorised backup method.
Now I have not tried it but lots of these issues started with Lion when the security level in AFP was changed. Security for a file protocol is irrelevant on your local network so really only relevant to using BTMM and iCloud.. which was also introduced with Lion.. that is when everything went to pot.
I would look at the Synology as running better at the older level of security and making the adjustments required on your computer.
See http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4700
I have a NAS and I have the same issue happen a couple of times. I am still using Snow Leopard though so the above suggestion is not a cure all.. I think you just have to accept that Apple builds a walled garden.. if you try and step out of the garden.. anything over the wall.. can be expected to behave badly on occasions. Set up another folder on the synology and start a new TM backup. Or use CCC or superduper etc..

Time Machine stuck at "Looking for backup disk"

I've been backing up via Time Machine to an external USB drive and it's been working fine. I recenty installed Windows 8 via Boot Camp and now TM gets stuck forever at "Looking for backup disk...".
I've tried the following, to no avail:
Using "Select Disk" in TM preferences to re-select the disk
Deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Running system maintenance via Onyx
Resetting PRAM
Formatting the drive and setting it up for TM backups again
The Boot Camp partition is on the same drive as OS X (on a 180GB Intel 330 series SSD). During the Windows installation I re-formatted the partition as NTFS.
If I start OS X in Safe Boot mode, TM backups work. In Safe Boot mode, the NTFS partition isn't loaded so I suspect it has something to do with this. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I'm going to assume during the install setup of Windows, you deleted the partition made by Apple and created your own and formatted in NTFS. This is probably the cause as to what happened.
Try this:
1. backup anything you did in Windows 8.
2. In Boot Camp, remove the Windows Partition. Reboot when prompted.
3. Try and see if Time Machine works again.
If its working, create a bootcamp partition and re-install Windows. Do not delete the partitions that Boot Camp created. See if TM works again after that.

Startup hang looking for missing file

DVD SP 4.2
Hangs looking for a file it can't find.
'stop" won't stop it.
reinstalled and it does the same.
i guess its a file from a previous job that's been deleted.
how to fix?

Are you clicking on a prior project to open DVD SP (it sounds like it)
If so, just try launching the application directly.
If that does not help, delete DVD SP preferences and/or repair permissions and try again. (Though you mentioned you reinstalled the app coulkd be something else then - did you get all updates?)
repairing permissions -> go to Utilities folder open up disk utilty and then the first Tab is first aid. Highlight the disk then select repair disk permissions.
As to preferences delete the file User->Library-Preferences->com.apple.dvdstudiopro.plist and also com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist if needed
As an aside on prior projects you should be able to skip past the missing files, though if you have many files or bought in reference movies from Final Cut, it can take a long time

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I am currently looking for tools or APIs designed for disk management. I explain : I would like to defrag or format a microSD card with Java code.
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Oliwood

These are system level, platform dependent actions and not the sort of thing Java is made for. If you search hard enough (read Google) you may find these types of tools using JNI for specific platforms, but I wouldn't count on it.

Looking for "Startup Disk" Control Panel for OS 7.1

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User unknown in virtual alias table

Looking for starup disk - with a twist!

Here's a new version of the "startup question mark in a folder" issue: I only have the problem when restarting (selecting restart from the menu or after installing new software). On restart, the question mark in the small folder appears, telling me OSX can't find the startup disk.
This does not happen on a cold start. If I force a power down afer a restart, it boots up fine, with no search for the startup disk. My start up disk is set to the internal disk, OS X, via the startup preferences.
Additional info, possibly relevant: this began after upgrading form 10.2.8 to 10.3.5 via a disk from my local mac dealer. (They advised against Tiger on this computer, given its age & general G3-ness) It was a cranky install, mostly because the CD wouldn't autoeject on restart (I reinstalled the drivers for the superdrive - I think that may have been the problem). Also, I'm fairly sure (I'm not in front of the computer now) that I moved Classic off the internal drive to an external firewire drive, as I never use OS9 and would just as soon have the room on the internal drive.
Thoughts? Anyone? Beuller? Thanks in advance.

Hello from Barcelona, Kai-bcn.
Problems arising right after installing a system update are usually the result of some filesystem corruption that should have been fixed first, or not having installed the update properly (e.g. applications running while installing it), or having ignored Apple’s “Important: Please read before installing” warnings, etc.
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
After having fixed all filesystem issues, if any, reinstall the update using the combo installer:
About the Mac OS X 10.4.9 Combo Update
Mac OS X 10.4.9 Combo Update for PowerPC
Mac OS X 10.4.9 Combo Update for Intel
After installing the Combo Update, the computer may restart twice and the first restart may take several minutes. This is normal.
Take a look at the following articles for guidelines on how to properly install system updates:
Troubleshooting installation and software updates
Installing software updates
That said, the problem in this case could be some kind of cache corruption. Read the following article for general troubleshooting and cache-cleaning procedures:
Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption
In addition to the utilities mentioned there for cache cleaning, you may also consider OnyX or Cache Out X, which are free.

Looking for Recovery disk for my Satellite A355D-S6921

Hey there,
I can't start win7 anymore on my Satellite A355D-S6921, it reboots automatically before login screen. I tried to press the "0"(zero) Key, but no recovery options, nothing happens. I also tried to restore the drive to an earlier point using F8 options, but an error message comes up before finalization. I've pretty much tried anything I could find on forums, but it stills restart. I believe my solution is to use a recovery CD, but I don't have one, and I can't run windows to create one.
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Here are the steps to create a recovery Disk:
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Hi buddy,
I agree with the previous user. If HDD recovery doesnt work you have to use the Toshiba recovery disk. Now its too late for creating this disk and you it would be better posting this in US forum. I think in US forum are more people with US notebooks.
If you dont want to wait for somebodys help get in contact with an authorized service provider in your country. The guys can help you to order such a disk.

Another "Looking for Backup Disk" problem

Running 10.8.4 to a firewire connected external disk which had been working OK since February 2012. Recently, backups have failed with the above error. The icon is on the desktop and I can navigate through the folders so the Mac can see the disk, it's just Time Machine which can't.
I've tried:
Verifying the disk (all OK)
Repairing the disk (all OK)
After this, it worked when I clicked "Backup Now" but failed next time.
I tried deleting the plist file as suggested in Pondini's list, reselected the backup drive and again it worked first time but not subsequently.
I next erased the drive (I have a clone too) and started again. The full backup worked, as did two "Backup Now" tries at roughly ten minute intervals but as soon as the machine has been asleep for an hour or so, the backup fails. One thing that may be of relevance is that even after I get the message that the disk cannot be found and dismiss it, I cannot eject the drive as it says it's in use.

I tried everything else I could find without rebooting, including Pondini's "full reset." I *had* plugged in a FAT data crystal since the last successful backup, so I think it's quite plausible that this was the root of my problem.
(Mid-2007 iMac, Mountain Lion, up-to-date s/w, local FireWire WD backup disk.)

Startup trouble - looking for startup disk

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