Time Machine - "Can't Mount Device"

Hi, recently my power went out and now my external HDD won't mount back to my Mac Mini! I have everything on here so any help would be great! My HDD was used as my "Time Machine" and did back ups every hour or so and now I tried restarting the computer and it just says "backup volume could not be mounted". Please help!!!! Thank You!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Losing power can interrupt writing to the disk, and/or prevent OSX from "closing it out" properly, corrupting your backups.
Repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Once this is sorted out, consider a U.P.S. system. You can now get one with a USB cable that connects to your Mac for under $70. It will run your Mac (and external HD, modem, etc, but not a printer) for at least a few minutes, and will signal OSX (via the USB cable) when it's switched from utility power to battery, so OSX can do a controlled power-down.
Thus you're protected against both surges and dips in power, and your Mac won't have an abnormal shutdown when they occur.
When you connect the USB cable, you'll get a new set of options in System Preferences > Energy Saver, where you can tell OSX when to do the shutdown -- after a specified number of minutes on battery; and/or when the battery is at a specified percentage; and/or when there's a specified number of minutes left on battery power.

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Time machine can't mount disk ,hard drive,after its been formatted for windows

i want to use time machine but it can't mount disk as it has been used with windows

You will need to repartition and reformat the drive for use with OS X:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. 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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Possible solution: Time Machine can not mount disk

Like many of you, my Time Machine started acting up after working fine for months.
I have an external USB (Western Digital 500GB) drive connected to a Airport Extreme (N-speed) as an AirDisk.
I have an iMac (iSight 160GB) connected via ethernet to the AEX and a MacBook (60GB) connected to the AEX. Both have less than half HD usage.
After a few months, the MacBook would fail to backup properly: “Unable to Mount” message after the TM process was going for a few minutes. I could access the WD drive in R/W mode otherwise from the same machine. I read on these boards that I should erase the sparsebundle on the WD drive associated with the MacBook. I did that, and all was then well.
Fast forward a few months, again the same problem on the same machine. I ran DiskWarrior against the WD drive to ensure permissions were fine. Mind you that the iMac TM backup’s have been working fine all along.
Yesterday I solved my problem by reading various tips on these boards:
- Always mount the AirDisk via “==> Go ==> Connect to Server” within the Finder
o As per Apple KnowledgeBase article
- *Proper Computer Name*
o Ensure that your computer has a proper name in the Sharing Preference pane.
o Go into System Preferences --> Sharing.
o Is the box labeled “Computer Name” empty? If it is blank, you need to put in a name for your computer. Otherwise Time Machine won’t be able to perform backups. Additionally, Time Machine needs to differentiate this computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" vs "Office iMac"). As a result, no two Macs should have the same name. If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a unique name for this Mac.
o Also, Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
o (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
o Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
The combination of these two steps has my MacBook working smoothly once again with Time Machine, Airport Extreme and an AirDisk.
GOOD LUCK

Most likely, the power interruption corrupted the sparse bundle containing your backups.
Try to repair them per #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

HT201250 I disconnected My Passport by mistake, and now Time Machine can not find it. Although connected, it does not appear in the My Devices section of Finder. What do I do?

I disconnected My Passport by mistake, and now Time Machine can not recognise it. It no longer appears in the My Devices section of Finder. What do I do?

Hello rjhc49,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your external hard drive. I found an article with steps you can take when an external device is not being recognized.
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in the following article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Time machine can't find wireless device despite strong Wifi connection

Every time I try to set up time machine, whenever it tries to find a wireless device it says "Airport Utility was unable to find any Airport wireless devices. Make sure the Airport wireless device you want to set up is plugged in and in range of your computer, and then rescan again." I already have a perfectly strong connection to my router so why does it keep saying that it can't find a wireless connection?

Bernard778 wrote:
I have the very same problem. MB recognizes my 2TB Verbatim when connected directly via USB and Time Machine goes to work. When I connect the HDD to my router, my MB sees the HDD in Finder, but Time Machine can't find it ("Airport Utility was unable to find any Airport wireless devices. Make sure the Airport wireless device you want to set up is plugged in and in range of your computer, and then rescan again.").
@Pondini - this is not a time capsule, I have a HDD on my WiFi network.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You have two problems with this setup.
First, Apple doesn't support backing-up that way. See this Apple article: [Disks that can be used with Time Machine|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html].
Second, backups done locally (when the HD is connected to your Mac via USB) are placed in a Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of the drive. When they're done over a network (Ethernet or WIFI), that folder is inside a +sparse bundle,+ and you can't easily switch between the two.

Time Machine can't copy my hard drive

Time Machine can't copy my hard drive, it says that it can't complete the safety copy because an error occured when files were copied to the safety copy. Does anyone recognise this problem? All I could find in System notifications about Time Machine is this: "localhost kernel[0]: Security policy loaded: Safety net for Time Machine (TMSafetyNet)"

John Galt wrote:
... Are you unable to select the external HD as a backup device?
pres92 wrote:
that's the problem -- my hard drive ("startup disk) is not listed, so I can't select it.
The reason is that the startup volume is not a valid selection for its own Time Machine backup.
The only drive listed is the Time Machine external drive. Obviously, I don't want to back up the time machine drive.
By default, a Time Machine backup volume is excluded from being backed up.
The appearance you describe is correct, otherwise I'm completely misunderstanding your problem.

The window that opens when I click on the Time Machine icon is Finder (devices) and when I close this Time Machine also closes.

The window that opens when I click on the Time Machine icon is Finder (devices) and when I close this Time Machine also closes.

You will need to be much more specific about what you problem is. That is how TM works. That is how you find things to restore from TM, by using a Finder window so that you can browse through the Mac's hierarchy of folders and files.
Why are you double posting this?

Time Machine Can Be Made to work with a Network Share

FYI I am just posting this here for the benefit of the community. The source of this info is: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=375047
As I write this, I am doing a Time Machine backup to a ReadyNAS NV+ afp mounted share. Here is a summary of what the thread above says you need to do. It worked for me.
Take any supported USB standalone drive and plug it in to an available USB port.
Use Disk Utility to format the drive (or partition on the drive) and name that partition to whatever you want your network share to be called. In my case, I called it "office-tm".
After you do this, open the Time Machine preference panel and select that new drive (in my case "office-tm") to be the Time Machine backup drive.
After Time Machine sets up the drive, it will start counting down before the next backup. Press the little X on the right side to cancel the backup.
Now open a terminal session and change directories to /Volumes/<drive> where in my case <drive> was office-tm (cd /Volumes/office-tm).
When you do a ls -a -l, you will see two important files. One starts with a period (.) and contains numbers after it. The other one is called .com.apple.timemachine.supported.
What you need to do is copy these two files to your network share. The trick is that you want your network share to have the same name as this drive you just prepared (again, in my case it was called office-tm). I first created a new share on my ReadyNAS+ called office-tm and set the quotas properly.
Then you need to copy the files. There are several ways to do this but the way I did it was that I temporarily mounted the network share at a different mount point in terminal just to get the files over. So for example, I did:
sudo mount -t afp afp://<ip.addr.of.share>/office-tm /Volumes/office-tm2
Then I copied the two files over (substitute your appropriate volume names):
cp /Volumes/office-tm/.00whateveryourfilenameis /Volumes/office-tm2/.
cp /Volumes/office-tm/.com.apple.timemachine.supported /Volumes/office-tm2/.
Turn off Time Machine so you can unmount.
Now you can unmount both the USB drive and the network share and then you remount the network share as the proper name. The same one that the USB drive was named so as far as Time Machine is concerned, the volume is still there. The two files are on the network share so all is fine and Time Machine can find the volume it expects.
Wait for Time Machine to start it's hourly backup and away you go.
PLEASE NOTE THIS DISCLAIMER - There is probably a good reason why Apple disabled this feature so you might want to think carefully before you rely on this hack published in the MacRumors forum to back up your Mac. I am using this for testing purposes only and I am still using traditional backup techniques for my "real" backup of my office machine. If you don't get good Time Machine backups and you have relied upon them for critical data, don't blame anyone but yourself.

Name: RAIDiator
Version: 3.01c1-p6
Date: Tue Dec 12 17:46:22 2006
Size: 46566912 bytes
Reason: Final 6.
We should probably start a new topic in networking on this. I am seeing some strangeness with afp shares as well.
I have most shares set up to allow access by both CIFS/SMB and AFP. If I use Sidebar and try to access the shares by AFP, it says it can't connect to the server. But the same shares via CIFS works fine. (I can click on the "Windows" server icon and connect.) But for any of these shares, I can manually connect with the normal Go > Connect to Server... method, specifying afp://<ip address> and that works fine.
In the case of the Time Machine share that is the subject of this post, I disabled CIFS and am only using AFP because I wanted to make sure I connected to the share only via AFP for Time Machine purposes.
BTW, I do not use USER or DOMAIN security mode in my case and my shares are set up as SHARE security mode.

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion. I have a Laice 1 terabyte external drive that worked fine with Snow Leopard and now no show ... tried connecting it to front port and Mac Pro can't see it. Also lost Office,Quicken, and Final Cut Pro says: " You can't open application because Power PC apps are no longer supported" this is Not a good surprise!

Does the drive work when just directly connected? If so, have you prepped the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
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. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

PPC Time Machine can't see Airdisk

I just got the latest Airport Extreme Base Station and connected a 1TB Seagate HD to it. I cannot get Time Machine on my G4 PowerBook (running 10.5.8) to see the HD over the wireless connection (or with an ethernet connection, for that matter). I can connect to the HD and can read/write to it, but although it is mounted on my PB, Time Machine cannot find it when it generates its list of available backup drives. I've tried the same process with our Intel Macs and their Time Machine has no problem finding the HD. Changing Firewall settings hasn't helped.
Any help would be really appreciated! Thanks

Thanks to both of you... My problem has been solved!! I tried the terminal command, but with no success. Then, I looked at the names of my PB, the AirDisk and the name of my base station. The PB was fine, just continuous letters. The AirDisk had an ampersand and spaces... both of which I changed to continuous standard characters. Finally, I got rid of the spaces and periods in the name of the base station (yes, I know, they shouldn't have been there in the first place... I got carried away with my new gadget and used abbreviations-with periods!:). Result of my changes... problem went away and Time Machine saw the mounted drive.
It's strange that the "non-standard" characters and spaces were ignored by Snow Leopard's Time Machine, but not Leopard's. Anyway, thanks again for your quick help!

Lion's Time Machine - Can't create a backup?

Time Machine can't make a backup... I even went ahead and wiped out the drive and tried to create a new backup.
All it says is that it couldn't complete the backup and to try later as it might only be temporary.
This is critical for me and a not at all light in importance. Had I known this along all the other issues with Lion existed I wouldn't have upgraded. For now I am keeping my MBP safe from Lion...
I guess I just have to suffer the damage on my 27" IMAC..
I would use a BR Disk to do a back up of my files, but NO.... MACs don't support Blu-Ray disk drives, STILL!!
Apple you need to fix this and other issues.

Apple's ingenuity in their advances can be hailed by millions as I myself give them credit where credit is due, such as devices like the iPad and iPhone/iPod. But when a company only bothers to alert you to a couple of apps that Lion can't run and moves them to a folder for the user to delete or update but leaves devices and other industry standard software packages rendered useless with no warning when they have extensively tested their OS against 3rd party manufactured devices and software, whom they are partnered with, then yes they can share in the blame just as Microsoft takes the blame for operating systems that do the same such as VISTA.
I am sure that with enough time all of the 3rd party companies will undoubtedly get on board at some cost that will get pushed down to the end users. They will either update, upgrade or conform.
Apples mentality in the past hurt their stock prices, they used to only use their own Risc based processors and they refused to adapt and incorporate to the needs of their users desires for better faster chipsets and industry software such as Office. They adapted!
Refusing to incorporate the ability to use Blu-Ray technologies when companies such as Pioneer,LG, and Cyberlink are prepared to release the software for the Mac, Apple just has to give the go ahead, then yes, its their fault again. The industry in general isn't blind, they have a reason. Manufacturers want to create things that work with Apples Operating system and do, but they aren't allowed to release it without approval from Apple. They need Apple's support and acceptance for something like Blu-Ray to make it. Otherwise its just another hack and shunned by any cautious person that wants to make sure that their purchase won't cause them more problems than its worth. Blu-Ray is a matter of licensing and a major reason that Microsoft won't incorporate it into their own media player, but they leave it up to 3rd party software companies to absorb that cost and create their own players that can play back Blu-Ray movies within the Windows platform. Apple wants to keep Blu-Ray off of their machines as they can't obtain an exclusive license to the codec for Blu-Ray movies for Quicktime. The same mentality that they had before with their processors. So even the ability to read and write to the medium is out of the question.

Time Machine displays wrong 'Mounted At' Name for TC

I made my Time Capsule the primary router in my home network and imported the config file from the Airport Extreme to speed the setup but now Time Machine shows the 'Mounted At' name as "<NetworkName>AirportExtreme" as opposed "<NetworkName>TC" (see below). I can't seem to change the 'Mounted At' Name displayed in the Time Machine Preferences display. Any suggestions?

The configuration file is xml..
So you can edit the name.. directly .. save the file and import it.. it isn't a great way to do things but I have tricked stuff before like that..
But in this situation it is still a different product.. if it was from one TC to another I would say go ahead.. or one extreme to another .. sure.. but you are using an identical configuration .. for two non-identical products.
syDN ..
That maybe the name which is listed in a local DNS table in the TC.
In mine it has the TC name.
<key>syDN</key>
<string>Tardis4</string>
... Changing it has what effect. I don't know.. you can try.. change it and see what happens.. but that is still working around the idea that a factory reset and redo of the setup maybe faster and will surely be better.

Time Machine can no longer write to drive

I have been using Time Machine to back up my iMac G5 for over a year. About two weeks ago the computer started acting really strange so I actually restored the entire system from my Time Machine backup. Everything was working great until today. The external hard drive that I've been using all this time is suddenly "read only". How do I change it back to "read/write" so Time Machine can access the hard drive properly?

BobMeister wrote:
I have been using Time Machine to back up my iMac G5 for over a year. About two weeks ago the computer started acting really strange so I actually restored the entire system from my Time Machine backup. Everything was working great until today. The external hard drive that I've been using all this time is suddenly "read only".
It's very important to know exactly what you or the computer was doing just before this happened. Usually, things do not happen on their own.
How do I change it back to "read/write" so Time Machine can access the hard drive properly?
Changing it back when it's not clear why it changed in the first place is not always a good thing to do for several obvious reasons.
Right-click on the TM drive icon and select "Get Info"
Under Sharing & Permissions, you should see:
Your name (Me) Read & Write
(unknown) Read & Write
everyone Read only
Post back what you see and we can attempt to proceed.

I have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8 and want to restore my i photos from time machine. can not find iphoto libary in time machine, can"t not find home-pict. iphoto lib. in time machine

i have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8, and want to restore my i photos from time machine. Can not find i-photo libary in time machine, can't not find > home-pict. iphoto lib. in time machine. Please help.

On my HD it does not say ,restore, in yourname -pict. Iphoto lib.,
On the time machine, it , yourname etc, oes not show up at all.
Only right side of TM, your name etc. does not show.

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries to an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the externa

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives. Is this possible? Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

Time Machine - "Can't Mount Device"

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