Time machine could not be concluded - no backup disk selected

Hello, everyone
Hopefuly someone can help. On OS 10.6 and now on Lion also, ever since my external drive crashed, Time Machine is annoying me with a pop up error from time to time informing that time machine could not conclude the backup. It says no backup disk was selected and offers me dialog to choose 1 in preferences. But I have none.
Interesting that a colleague also has same error. Whatever we try nothing solved.
Ive tried this:
http://www.tipstrs.com/tip/2617/Disable-Time-Machine-asking-Use-This-Disk
Ive also scanned this post:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1686713?start=15&tstart=0
Ive also tried to set backup to a USB keychain I have, then disable it... No good.
My colleague has even tried to delete timemachine completely (I havent tried that) and even that doesnt solve, the annoying warning keeps on popping up.
Strange is that backups are disabled... There must be some solution which doesnt force me to have an external drive and setup TM...
Thanks.

Nobody?
Someone, please help?

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"Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not availab

I have a Seagate 750 MB external disk connected to the USB port of my Airport Extreme Base Station. It worked fine with Time Machine under Leopard but it's not working the way it was under OS X 10.6.2. I'm hopeful someone can help me solve the problem.
Let's say the name of my Airport Extreme Base Station is "Airport." If I remember correctly, under Leopard time machine would start a wireless backup not long after I turned on the Seagate drive. That no longer happens.
I've erased and re-formatted the Seagate drive with 2 GUID partitions, one for my 24" iMac and one for my 17" MacBook Pro. Both computers are about 3 years old. In order to do the re-partitioning, I had to unplug the Seagate drive from the base station and plug it into one of the iMac's USB ports. If I didn't do this, nothing other than the iMac's drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility, although the name of my base station, i.e, "Airport" does appear in the Finder and PathFinder (a replacement for Finder that I use).
In fact, Time Machine works under 10.6.2. as long as the Seagate drive is plugged into the iMac's USB port. As soon as I plug the Seagate drive into the USB port of the base station, Time Machine no longer works. The backup is "delayed." When I click on "Back Up Now" a few seconds go by and I get the following dialog box: "Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not available."
In my Airport Extreme Base Station setup (Airport Utility version 5.4.2), the "Disks" pane sees both partitions on the Seagate drive. File sharing is enabled on the "File sharing" pane and "Secure Shared Disks:" is set to "With a disk password." "Airport Disks Guest Access:" is not allowed, nor is "Share disks over WAN."
When the Seagate drive is plugged into the base station and I click on "Airport" in the Finder or PathFinder, I'm prompted for the password I mentioned above because the shared disks are secured with a password. Once the password is typed, both partitions on the Seagate drive appear in Finder and PathFinder. When I try a Time Machine backup at this point, I get the same error I described above, i.e., "Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not available."
One last thing, I did an "Archive and Install" when I upgraded to Snow Leopard since I thought the changes were relatively minor as compared with past OS X upgrades. Normally, I do a clean install but didn't feel like it this time. I also tried deleting the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist to no avail and restarted my iMac to no avail.
At this point I'm completely stumped. As I said, Time Machine works as long as the Seagate drive is plugged directly into one of the iMac's USB ports as opposed to the base station's USB port. But doesn't this defeat the purpose of having wireless backup? Once again, the wireless backup worked fine under 10.5.8.
I hope my message is clear and a solution would be most welcome.
Thank you,
Richard

I'm having the same problem. If my TimeMachine drive is not connected, I'll get the "Time machine could not complete the backup" "The backup disk is not available" warning a couple times a day. This is extremely problematic if I'm giving a presentation. I have tried changing my TimeMachine drive, removing that drive, repairing permissions, and have not been able to solve the problem.
Please help!

HT3275 I get the following message - "Time Machine could not complete the backup." "Unable to complete backup." "An error occurred while creating the backup folder.""

I get the following message - "Time Machine could not complete the backup." "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.""
This MAC is partioned with Windows 7 with only 50 gig devoted to Windows so my son can play Flight Simulator X on the machine.
I have a WD Passport External Hard Drive for the Back Up
I have spoken with WD Tech Support and they have been fantastic but I still keep getting this message. Any thought?
Maxx

Reboot the TC.. it sometimes gets lost on the network.. are you still actually using 10.6.8 as the problem is more prevalent on Lion and ML it seems is no better.
You might find reset of the TC is needed. change the names to short, no spaces pure alphanumeric.
Reset the TM to the new name.. use the A4 in Pondini's great KB.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

HT3275 For the past several days, I have been getting this message during backups: Time Machine could not complete the back up. The backup disk image "Volumes/Data/iMac.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error-1).

For the past several days, I have been getting this message during backups:
Time Machine could not complete the back up. The backup disk image "Volumes/Data/bhoppy2's iMac.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error-1). When I click on the 'help' icon on the message, it reverts to a blank page, and I cannot find anything online regarding the term 'sparsebundle.' In addition, I cannot access previous backups any longer.
Help?

See C17 in Time Machine Troubleshooting by Time Machine guru Pondini:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop: Time machine could not complete the backup. The backup disc image "/Volumes/Data/Lou Ann Buesing's Mac Book Pro. sparse bundle is already in use. Anyone know how to fix it?

I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop:
' Time machine could not complete the backup. The backup disc image "/Volumes/Data/Lou Ann Buesing's Mac Book Pro. sparse bundle' is already in use. "
Anyone know how to fix it?

Reboot the TC.. Sometimes you need to reboot the whole network.
This is what comes of Lion and then made worse in Mountain Lion of Apple not spending enough time to fix the bugs.
Read C12 in pondini.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
C17 can be related I think.

HT1218 ?My time machine could not complete back up. Says backup disk image"/volumes/data/name's iMac.sparsebundle" could not be accessed error 1??

Time Machine could not complete the backup.
The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Name's iMacsparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1 )

I checked the pondini fixes and ended up doing the following - in case this could help someone else with OSX Lion and Time Capsule... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
First, I downloaded and used Airport Utility 5.6 instead of 6.1 - BTW, I had to attempt download and installation THREE times before the program actually installed. Be persistant.
Pondini #5: It's possible some names (of all things!) may be a problem. See item C9. I had to re-name my Mac, Time Capsule, network, etc... to remove all apostrophes and spaces.
Pondini #7: If you have WD SmartWare installed on Lion, it's not compatible, per RoaringApps, and there are reports it can cause this problem as well. Use Western Digital's uninstaller, or delete the app from /Applications and the files com.wdc.WDDMservice.plist and com.wdc.WDSmartWareServer.plist from /Library/LaunchDaemons. There may also be a file in Library/Application Support.
I then had to shut down computer, unplug Time Capsule, unplug modem; plug everything in again, then reboot computer; then had to go to Apple- System Preferences- Network- and reselect my Time Capsule to connect to WiFi again.
Then opened Time Machine preferences again and attempted back up - it worked!

My Macbook pro Early 2008 is randomly slow at starting up and when I am backing up to my time capsule I am receiving the following message 'Time machine could not complete the backup. '' ''The backup disk image ''/Volumes/name time capsule/ my name MacBoo

My Macbook pro Early 2008 is randomly slow at starting up and when I am backing up to my time capsule I am receiving the following message 'Time machine could not complete the backup. '' ''The backup disk image ''/Volumes/name time capsule/ my name MacBook Pro (4).sparsebundle'' could not be accessed (error-1).
Problem started after deleting parrell desktop and window7 ?
Please help?

Look at the more like this column on the right.. this is the most frequently asked question in this discussion area.
Reboot the TC.. restart the whole network if the simple reboot did not work.. start in order. modem.. router/TC.. clients. 2min gap.
Read C12 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Time Machine Backup Error. Time machine could not delete the backup disk image .sparsebundle

Time Machine is giving an error message. Time Machine couldnt complete the backup. I am using the Seagate GoFlex Home. Error message states Time Machine could not delete the backup disk image "/volumes/Go Flex Home Backup/iMAc.sparsebundle". Does anybody have any ideas?

I have deleted all files in the Time Machine backup via Windows, Finder, and GoFlex UI.
I think this is your problem.. you need to follow the exact setup from seagate to get TM running again.. please read the manual... I do not have one but I do have another brand of NAS and setting up TM involves a fairly complex set of instructions.. because it is not a native Apple device.. your computer does not recognise it as TM capable.. you need to use the work around the manual will explain.

HT201250 My Time Machine is not backing up and gives me this error report, 'The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Valarie'siMac.sparsbundle" is already in use. Time machine could not complete backup. Can anyone help me?

My Time Machine is not backing up and gives me this error report:
The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Valarie'siMac.sparsbundle" is already in use
Time Machine could not complete backup
Can anyone help me?

Look at the discussion on the following forum:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3882138?start=0&tstart=0
The responses given there may help.

"TIme Machine could not complete the backup"

My Time Machine has started giving this message. It says it needs 69 GB and only 60 GB are available -- but it is a 500GB drive. I thought it was supposed to delete old backups when it did not have space? That is what it has always done before. What do I need to do?
Thanks
Bob

I kept getting that error message, too. And it was with Leopard 10.5, since my Superdrive failed to mount the SL DVD that was under warranty. Apple repair facility sent me a defective disk, so that didn´t help, either.
Finally after foregoing backups for 3 months, I got the Superdrive replaced by a 3rd-party rapir facility and then installed SL. As I also had a new hard drive installed and the Apple repair facility threw away the old hard drive, I WAS REQUIRED TO USE MY 3-MONTH OLD BACKUP.
This worked, so I now have a 640GB WD drive on my 2.6GHz MBP with SL 10.6. I Formatted a Western Digital MyBook in HFS+ and the GUID or whatever, according to Apple instructions for an external backupdrive.
THis drive was working perfectly as a backup drive when connected via USB directly to my MBP.
When connected via USB to my Airport Extreme 500GB Time Capsule, it also worked fine... ONLY THE FIRST TWO DAYS!
Suddenly and for no apparent reason, I am suddenly getting the following error message when Time Machine ties to do a backup to the WD drive connected to the TC:
Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk image "/Volumes/drive/baackupname.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 22).
I have tried connecting both wirelessly and via ethernet from my MBP, but neither of these mattered. I access the internet just fine, and I can see the Time Capsule disk just fine. I also see other network share. Why does Apple seem to be so difficult once you peel the shiny facade away?

WEIRD "Time Machine could not complete Backup" error

So this started back in Leopard 10.5.
I used Time machine once and didn't like it so I turned it off and unhooked the external drive.
Ever since that time, I get a Time Machine could not complete Backup error window that pops up every 2 hours or so it seems.
I updated to Snow Leopard and still got this problem all the way up to 10.6.8.
I have now updated to Lion and I STILL get this stupid annoying error.
My TM is OFF and there are no drives selected anywhere.
What should I do ?

Very true, I didn't even tink about that... but.....
I did have TimeMachineEditor but it was already set to OFF.
I also had another program (Time Machine Scheduler) that was also set to off.
****, I would have loved it to be that !!!

Time Machine could not complete the backup (error 45)

Time Machine could not complete the backup
The backup disk image "/Volumes/192.168.100.3/litao's iMac.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 45)
192.168.100.3 is windows 7 server
I login to the SMB server as windows 7 user.At first I see the backup file through windows 7 is being established, but in 5 minutes after the backup stops, display the above information.

TM backups to windows servers are not supported.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
there are hacks out there that might let you make it work but you use them at your own risk and with absolutely no guarantees or support.

I keep getting this error message "Time Machine could not complete the backup. 'The backup disk image "/Volumes/FreeAgent Drive/MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use." What should I do to remedy this?

I keep getting this error message: Time Machine could not complete the backup. 'The backup disk image "/Volumes/FreeAgent Drive/xxx MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use.
How do I remedy this so it starts backing up again?

Maybe this http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/C12.html can help you.
Stefan

HT3275 I recently bought a new Time Capsule and the following message is shown:- "Time Machine could not complete the back up. The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data-1/Brian's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use." Can anyone help?

I recently bought a new Time Capsule and the following message has started to show:-
"Time Machine could not complete the back up. The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data-1/Brian’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use."
Can anyone help?

Pondini is the resident Time Machine expert on the forums, and he has all the answers.
Check is excellent Time Machine - Troubleshooting support document
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
See # C17 in particular

HT3275 time machine could not complete backup because it says a (filename).sparsebundle is already in use. Anyone know what that is?? and who could be already using my file?

Do you understand this error message? Time machine could not complete backup because it says a (filename).sparesbundle is already is in use.
What is the sparsebundle extension?

See here...
The Backup disk image ... sparsebundle ... is already in use.
From Pondini’s excellent Information Here...
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.htm

Time machine could not be concluded - no backup disk selected

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