Time Machine Backup Disk Cannot be found

While my iMac was in sleep mode, I disconnected the power to my external, firewire time machine backup disk. The backup is a Western Digital hard drive.
Now I get the error message "Your Time Machine Backup Disk Cannot be Found"
I have rebooted the computer with the disk connected and the disk still doesn't show up on the desktop.
I rebooted the computer with the disk powered up but the firewire disconnected, then connected the firewire. The disk still doesn't appear on the desktop.
I tried Disk Warrior, and Disk Warrior doesn't see the external Time Machine disk.
What to do?

Dan Mackey1 wrote:
While my iMac was in sleep mode, I disconnected the power to my external, firewire time machine backup disk. The backup is a Western Digital hard drive.
That might corrupt your backups, but shouldn't make the disk completely un-usable.
Disconnect it and power it off for several minutes, turn Time Machine OFF, then Restart your Mac again. Let your Mac get powered-up and running before connecting and powering the disk on. Then see if Disk Utility can see it.
Is this a dual-mode disk? If so, try connecting via USB -- it may work that way.
Can you tell if it's running? Is it one with a light, and/or can you hear it run or feel it vibrating?

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Time Capsule Backup Disk Cannot Be Found

Hello,
I have a fairly new iMac (about 3 months old) running Lion OSX 10.7.4. This is my first Mac Computer. I have it setup wirelessly to a time capsule and had time machine backup. All was running fine until today when I noticed my last successful backup was June 18th. Ive spent several hour reading in apple support communities and other websites and I can't figure out what happened. I have kept all my software up to date.
All my other Apple devices are working fine on the same network: 2 Airport Expresses for Airplay, iPad, iPhone, iMac. . . I just can't get time machine to backup.
My error message is "Backup Disk Cannot be Found"
HELP!

Mac with Lion is about vista standard as far as networking goes.. did you turn it off and on again??
Turn off the whole network.. off not sleep.. reboot in the right order.. modem.. router.. TC if different to router.. then clients.. I think the TC should reappear.. if not connect to it by ethernet.. do not use extended wireless.. it is too flakey.
If it still doesn't appear press reset and do the setup again.
For lion make sure you download, install and use the tool utility.. not the toy utilty built into windows lion.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Tell me if the hard disk appears.. if so you know the procedure the next time.. in a few days when it happens again. It will happen again btw.. it is windows.. lion

OS 10.8.2 - time capsule backup disk cannot be found

I updated to OSX 10.8.2 last night and now my Time Capsule cannot be found even though my wireless connection to the Time Capsule is fine and the Time Capsule appears in the Finder.
Anyone havng similar issues?

I've had this problem a few times with two MacBooks on OS X 10.8.2. I had to restart the Time Capsule the first few times to get the backup to execute. Last time it happened, I ejected the time capsule from the finder window. It didn't disappear, but seemed to refresh. I activated the time capsule "back up now" and it worked fine. Might give one of these a try.

TM backup disk cannot be found after Snow Leopard install

Message from elsewhere re-posted here after helpful advice from Apple Discussions Team.
Just installed Snow Leopard (with TM switched off though not unplugged) and got all the software updates available. I re-installed the TM installation disk. Everything went ok until I wanted to restore from my Time Capsule. I switched the big switch on. TM is continuing to make backups but when I want to locate folders to restore TM won't go back further than the day I installed Snow Leopard. Having selected the TM disk and entered the password the dialogue tells me that the TM backup disk cannot be found and offers me the select disk dialogue again. I have gone through the unplug/plug routine.
Through Migration Assistant I tried the contents of my Pictures folder (including all my iPhoto libraries) but it just supplied an empty folder. Since I didn't migrate at the time of the Snow install I wonder whether it was migrating the earliest backup it had made after the Snow install. This would make sense if "the Time Machine backup disk cannot be found", as the dialogue keeps telling me.
Anyone any ideas?

I'm not sure just what you did.
Did you reinstall Snow Leopard? Did you do a full restore?
First, just re-select your Time Capsule in TM Preferences.
If that doesn't help, try a "Full Reset" of TM per #A4 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
If that doesn't help, see #E2 there.
If still no help, use the Finder to see if you have two sparse bundles on your Time Capsule. If so, try mounting one manually by double-clicking it, then using the Browse option per #E2.

HT201250 "Your Time Machine Backup Disk can't be found" ? Disk is attached and running, apparently smoothly.

I am getting this message that my backup disk cannot be found. However, it was working fine just yesterday and there is no indication that the disk itself has crashed. It appears to be running as usual. Any suggestions about how to get my iMac to "find" my lost Time Mache disk will be appreciated.

Have you tried restarting your computer and disk?

Error Dialogue: "Time Machine Backup Disk Can't be Found"

Hello -
I am trying to "Enter Time Machine" (which is on a Time Capsule); but when I try this, I am met by the error message "Your Time Machine Backup Disk Can't be Found" with the option given to "Set up My Time Machine".
Needless to say, my Time Machine has been set up for months. When I look in the preferences, it clearly shows the disk I'm connected to (here's a screenshot of the error dialogue alongside my Time Machine preferences: http://cl.ly/1HGk).
Any idea what the best course of action is here.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: notice from the screenshot that Time Machine thinks the earliest backup is only 1 day prior. This is also strange as I have said I've had Time Machine working on this Time Capsule for months. I called Apple about this and was told that a software update had gone out yesterday that reformatted the drives and started the backups all over again. While completely fishy - I don't remember agreeing to any software update dialogue about erasing my Time Capsule - I took them at their word. Not sure if this is related, but thought I should mention it.
Thanks Crew!

MattLat wrote:
Hello -
I am trying to "Enter Time Machine" (which is on a Time Capsule); but when I try this, I am met by the error message "Your Time Machine Backup Disk Can't be Found" with the option given to "Set up My Time Machine".
Needless to say, my Time Machine has been set up for months. When I look in the preferences, it clearly shows the disk I'm connected to (here's a screenshot of the error dialogue alongside my Time Machine preferences: http://cl.ly/1HGk).
Any idea what the best course of action is here.
The +sparse bundle+ containing your backups may be corrupted. Repair it, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If that doesn't help, try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 there.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: notice from the screenshot that Time Machine thinks the earliest backup is only 1 day prior. This is also strange as I have said I've had Time Machine working on this Time Capsule for months. I called Apple about this and was told that a software update had gone out yesterday that reformatted the drives and started the backups all over again.
That's the first I've heard of that. They may have been referring to the +Time Capsule Backup Update 1.0+ update several weeks ago, that some folks got but others didn't. If it finds a problem, it sends the message in this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4076 The existing sparse bundle is renamed and locked, and a new one made.

HT3275 message: "Your Time Machine backup disk can't be found." Mountain Lion. Western Digital "MY Book" "Home edition"

Intalled Mountain Lion. Now get message: "Time machine backup disk can't be found. Using Western Digital "My Book" "Home Edition"

Wow, I feel really stupid. I spent a couple of days trying to troubleshoot this problem.
1. Open TM prefs.
2. Click "Select Disk..."
3. Select "None" and apply changes.
4. Click "Select Disk..." Select your disk and apply changes.
*5. When the password prompt appears, MAKE SURE THE NAME IS THE NAME OF THE AIRPORT BASESTATION, and not the name of your Mac.
6. Run a backup.

Backup disk cannot be found

I have four Mac Laptops set up to back up to a time capsule.
Three laptops back up fine but my rMBP gives the "the backup disk cannot be found" error when it attempts to backup to the Time Capsule. It backups fine to a mini server and local disk. I can mount the timecapsule disk as well as the rMBP sparse image.
Its a current generation time capsule and my rMBP is OS10.9.5 (so are the other Macs). The disk is near full.
Before I start digging and blow away the TC backup I wanted to check in here. I don't see anything similar in the online guides.
The TC and rMBP have been restarted.

It seems that when waking from sleep TimeMachine is sometimes ready to backup before the wireless is connected (see complaints about wireless problems after latest OS updates). When this happens, TM seems to mark the drive not available and refuses to backup to it. Dunno, just a theory.
As you suggested, I verified the backup sparse bundle, and not an issue was found or repaired. The image was in great shape.
Anyway, I delete the problem drive from the TM preferences window and then added it back in. TM seems to find the sparse bundle just fine and presses on without issue. I hear that deleting the TM preference file also may help, but I did not try that. I think thats what you meant by full TM reset. Perhaps by deleting and adding the drive I dis a partial TM reset, just reset the problem drive.
I've been backing up four laptops to the same internal TC drive for maybe five-six years. It hasn't been a problem. There have been an occasional burp backing up to USB drives attached to a AEBS and the synology NAS has been a disaster. I just stopped doing that

"The storge location for time machine backups can't be found"

I posted this on the TIme capsule forum and got no reply. PLEASE somebody, I need help with this.
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I don't have an answer, but I get this error when I try to mount the sparcebundle to my hd to try to get Time Machine to mount as stated in this article http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1329.
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I have a 500GB external hard drive with only 43 GB left after years of serving as a Time Machine backup disk for another computer. I wanted to use the same disk for my new computer. The new computer's backup is 130 GB, and when I connected the old external drive, Time Machine said "The backup disk needs to be 130.37 GB for the backup but only 47.24 GB are available. Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files." So I manually deleted the files I found on the external drive onto my computer's trash.
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Try opening Disk Utility and select the highest level drive name on the external drive. Click on the Partitions tab. Remove all the partitions on the drive by selecting each and clicking the "-" sign in the lower left corner of the partition table view. Then choose 1 Partition from the dropdown of partitions to create. Make sure the format shows Mac OS Extended-Journaled. Click Apply.
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Miggration assistant does not see time machine backup disk

I recently had a power surge that fried my hard disk. Erased the disk, reinstalled Mountain Line and when I get tot he dialogue box for Migrating all my setting and files etc from my Time Machine Backup it cannot see the disk. It sees the Bootabel backup I made on a partition on that disk but not all my Time Machine Back-ups. The bootable disk is in Lion not Mountain line and does not contain all the latest settings, applications etc. How can I get to the latest Time Machine Back-ups? Help Please!

See Pondini's Excellent information here...
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC
Also See the Second Chance to Use Setup Assistant here...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html

Time Machine "Backup Disk Not Available" over WAN

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In case you're wondering, I forward port 46 to port 548 instead of port 548 to port 548 to minimize hacking attempts. Last time I used a default port, a computer in Taiwan started spamming SSH authentication failures.

I did find this article via Google
<http://www.macgurulounge.com/make-time-machine-remotely-back-up-to-your-time-cap sule/>
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My solution
I found that after trying a few things in the aforementioned thread that in System Preferences > Sharing > Options if I disabled SMB and only enabled AFP on my Mac Pro, which has my Time Machine disk and is accessed over my local network LAN by my Macbook Pro laptop, only then did the Time Machine disk show up in the Time Machine preferences in my remote laptop TM settings.
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Time Machine Backups disk not automatically unmounting after backup completes in Lion

I am using Time Machine over WiFi on a 3rd party USB drive shared as an AirDisk through an Airport Extreme router. Ever since switching to Lion (clean install), I have noticed that the Time Machine backup disk will not automatically unmount after a backup is completed. This creates a problem when my MacBook Pro comes back from sleep. Specifically, the WiFi notification icon in the Finder toolbar indicates that WiFi is connected, even though it's not connected to a network, and I am unable to connect to any networks for what seems like several minutes until the Time Machine backups disk disappears from the desktop and WiFi actually connects.
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For others who might be having this problem - I was able to resolve it by connecting my backup disk to my mac via USB, completely erasing it, and starting over from a new backup. Disk Utility was not reporting any errors when I verified the disk, but I went ahead and repartitioned it and started fresh. The disk now automatically unmounts after backups complete.

HT201250 My MacBook Pro (using OSX 10.7.5) suddenly can't find the Time Machine backup disk, which is on the harddrive of my desktop iMac. What to do?

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