Time Machine drive disappears when i reboot

When i reboot my iMac, my USB-connected external Time Machine hard drive does not remount, and it is not visible in the Disk Utility program. The only way i can get it to remount is to power-cycle the external drive. Unplugging and re-plugging the USB connection does not work. This could be a hardware issue (particularly with the USB cable), but i just wanted to check to see if anyone else is experiencing this problem.
Thoughts? Suggestions?

Hello r_dizzle,
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 behaving as expected
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in this article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Similar Messages

Time Machine backup disappears when iMac sleeps

Tried finding this topic but could not find the specifics. I have an Intel iMac running 10.6.7 and I use a Mercury enclosure with a Seagate Barracuda 2TB SATA for Time Machine backup, connected with FireWire. Every time my Mac goes to sleep overnight, the next morning, the Time Machine icon disappears from the desktop. It's been disconnected, because when I run Check Time Machine, the log reads thusly:
<<Thu Apr 21 10:29:30 com.apple.backupd-auto Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.
Thu Apr 21 12:30:05 [0x0-0x2d22d2].backupd-helper Not starting Time Machine backup after wake - failed to resolve alias to backup volume
>>
Occasionally I'll get the error message on the Mac that a device has been "improperly disconnected" but most of the time when it sleeps the TM drive icon just goes away (even tho the backup drive is still on).
Any ideas? Can I fix this or have to live with it? Are there alternatives to TM that may work better?
Thanks for any help/suggestions.
Best,
Mike

I had the same problem as Bru-Hed, but with a Samsung G3 Station 1 TB with USB-connection. After waking up the MAC the message "improperly disconnected" appeared. Was happy with the solution you gave and changed the power save settings accordingly, the drive holds its power, but....... things did not change. Switching off the MAC and restarting gives no problems with the back-up drive, but after waking up I have to reinstall the back-up drive every time by disconnecting and connecting the USB-connector. After choosing the drive again in Time Machine, everything works properly until the next time the MAC goes asleep......
Any other solution to this problem ?

Time Machine drive disappears after Sleep

Hey peeps,
I have been trying to put my computer to SLEEP after 1-hour of inactivity as it's a family machine that is used minimally and I want to save energy. It is an early 2009 mac mini running 10.9.
When I wake the computer up, one of my external USB drives comes back, however the external USB hard drive that has my time machine drive seems to unmount itself or disconnect and I have to physically turn the power on and off to get it to come back.
I have checked DISK UTILITY and it's gone from there too.
anyone seeing this too?

Hello r_dizzle,
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 behaving as expected
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in this article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

External time machine drive no longer being automatically recognized

Recently my RMBP has stopped recognizing my external time machine drive. When ever I connect my 1 TB WD drive to my mac, it shows up on my desktop as usually but will not get recognized by time machine. I used to be able to connect the drive, have it show up on my desk with the orange USB logo, and then it would be auto recognized and the time machine logo would appear on it and it would start backing up. Now, I connect it and it just stays at the orange USB logo. I have to go to the time machine menu bar icon and open time machine's preferences and manually select the drive to get it to back up. This happens both on battery power and while I'm charging. I have already verified the disk in disk utility and have repaired as well. I don't recall when this started happening. I was running the 10.9.4 beta before its public release, but it hadn't been working before I upgraded to that either.

This simple procedure will clear your Time Machine settings, including exclusions. The backups won't be affected. If you have a long exclusion list that can't be recreated easily, you may prefer a more complicated procedure that preserves the exclusion list. In that case, ask for instructions. Otherwise, do as follows.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)
from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a file selected. Copy the file to the Desktop. Then move it (the original, not the copy) to the Trash. You'll be prompted for your administrator password. Restart the computer and recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane. It will show that you have no backups. Don't worry; your backups haven't been touched. Run a backup to test. The backup may take much longer than usual. If TM now performs as expected, delete the file you copied to the Desktop.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combinationcommand-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Lion can't find my external Time Machine Drive

Anyone having a problem with Lion identifying the external Time Machine drive? When I go to Time Machine set up all I get is "Set Up other Time Capsule". Connections seem OK and drive is on and worked fine previous to the upgrade.
Any ideas?

Is the drive a USB or FireWire external HD, or a network drive (NAS)?
If it's a NAS, it needs an update. See #C16 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If it's an external HD, try repairing it, per #A5 in that same link.

My brand new back up drive is connected but now time machine has disappeared after working perfectly for a week. - no icon, not appearing as an option to save to - have rebooted everything a few times.

My brand new back up drive is connected but now time machine has disappeared after working perfectly for a week. - no icon, not appearing as an option to save to - have rebooted everything a few times.

It's not clear whether you were able to do any backups to this drive at all. If not, it's probably not formatted properly. See #5 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for instructions.
If you did get any successful backups, there may be a problem with the drive, or the backups may be corrupted. Try to repair the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

I bought an external hard drive for backups to use with Time Machine, but however when I try to connect it with the other windows laptop it doesn't work ? intact it doesn't work on any other device except my MAC ?

I bought an external hard drive for backups to use with Time Machine, but however when I try to connect it with the other windows laptop it doesn't work ? intact it doesn't work on any other device except my MAC ?

Do not worry about it.
Time Machine needs that your external drive is formatted in HFS+, or better known as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". This filesystem is used by Apple on Macs and Windows cannot read or write drives formatted with this filesystem, being this the reason why all your devices do not read the external drive except your Mac.
You can only use your external drive to make Time Machine drives. If you store anything different, you may damage the Time Machine structure, so it is better not to use it as a drive to store other data. Instead, get another external drive to do it or create a second partition on the external drive formatted in FAT32 by using Disk Utility > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU3.html FAT32 can be read by Windows PCs

Why does Time Machine Hang OSX when a USB drive does not respond?

I use USB drives to store photo data. When I back up the drives using Time Machine to a Time Capsule, If I have added a large amount of data to the USB drive, the backup will consistently fail with the drive hung. I can see the drive in finder, but I cannot see the directory structure. Often OSX hangs too and I cannot even get to finder, just the whirling colored wheel. Sometimes the system has entered sleep mode and it will not wake up. I if I am using the monitor, I can open the MAC Book Pro cover and the screen there shows alternately, a blue screen and the screen wallpaper, flipping back and forth but otherwise unresponsive. If I turn the USB drive off the OS recovers and Time Machine completes, usually indicating a backup failure (but not always). The drive is always very hot under these circumstances, indicating that the system is issuing repetitive operations to the drive. I should emphasize that I am not writing to the USB drives during backup, Time Machine is just reading the drive. So several questions:
1) How in the world can a non system drive hang the Operating System? This is a big no-no for a supposedly multi-tasking Operating System.
2) I use Aperture 2.1 to store data on the USB drives with no problems (at least so far). Why would Time Machine drive the USB drive so hard that it fails? I had the same problem using a USB drive with iTunes. It completely fried the drive by writing to it too intensively during one of the frequent software updates. Is there no throttle mechanism in OSX that limits the disc activity so that the throttle mechanism is not the failure of the drive itself?
3) Does Apple have a list of USB drives that it has validated to be able to work with it's system reliably?

Are the USB drives powered from the computer or do they have their own power supplies.
There is a limit to how much power can be drawn from each USB port and also a total limit. If you exceed this, unexpected things can happen.

What happens when the Time Machine drive is full?

I'm on my second iMac. My first one (G5, 1984) died, and I replaced it early 2010 with an Intel mac. The transition when exceedingly well largely due to Time Machine. I just hooked the Time Machine drive to the new system, and I was soon back up running!
My home folder has 70GB of data. The Macintosh drive has 105GB of data and 395GB free. The Time Machine drive has 220GB used and 30GB free.
1. What happens when the Time Machine drive is full?
2. Do I have control over what backups get deleted?
3. If lightning strikes twice, will I still be able to restore my Intel mac like my G5 mac, even if backups get deleted?
4. Is there anyway to control what backups/backup files get deleted?
5. Any other thoughts?
Thanks.

maxseven wrote:
i have deleted the time machine folders and they are now in my trash. when i try to secure empty my trash it will delete everything but the t/m folders. how do i delete them?
Do you mean all of them? The entire Backups.backupdb folder?
That's a large mess. First, even a normal delete will take a very long time, as there are probably hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of files. Your best bet by far is to simply erase them with Disk Utility -- that will only take a few moments. If your TM drive has a single partition, see #1 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html]. If there are other partition(s) on the drive, see #2 there.
If not, and you only deleted some of the folders, you have a different, worse problem. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks: +*Never move, change, or delete anything in your backups via the Finder or Terminal.+*
You shouldn't have to delete backups at all, since Time Machine will do that automatically when the disk/partition gets full. But you can do it without harm via Time Machine. See #12 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
A normal delete will take a very long time, as there are probably tens or hundreds of thousands of items, each of which must be individually deleted. A secure delete will take much, much longer, as each deleted file must be overwritten with zeros.

When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

I am tring to installe OS X Mavericks. When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

Open up your Finder and click on Go on the top menu bar. Select Computer and then double click Macintosh HD. In here delete the backup folder. Might be called backups.backupdb.

Lost the ability to Spotlight Index my Time Machine drive

I have an external, Firewire Time Machine drive which has been working without problems up to now. This evening I had a backup which hung up in the "preparing" stage (no file transfers begun yet). When I went to look in the console, there was a device error apparently related to trying to detect the powered-on state of my Time Machine drive. Apparently Time Machine did not handle this gracefully. In the course of trying to clear that I got into a state where I had to force shutdown of the system (holding the power button). (I accidentally clicked on the Time Machine icon which got hung up trying to display the histories, and left me with no access to the Desktop....)
Things appeared to check out fine when I brought the machine back up (including Verify Disk of both the main and Time Machine drives and Repair Permissions of the main drive), and I finally did a Back Up Now in Time Machine. Due to the forced shut down, this became a "Deep Traversal" "preparing"stage. We'll I've seen those before, so no worries. However it lasted quite a bit longer than it should, at which point I noticed that Spotlight was indexing the Time Machine drive.
So at this point I dragged the Time Machine into the Spotlight Privacy list. Rather than going away completely as I expected, the indexing of the Time Machine drive apparently went into some sort of clean-up phase that said it was still indexing for another 5 minutes (where it had, just prior, said it was going to be indexing for another 2 hours). The progress bar advanced normally as if it really did do 5 minutes more of indexing of the Time Machine drive. I've not seen this before
When that finished, the backup which had been "preparing" during all of this also finished "preparing", transferred the several MB of files I expected, and finished normally. There were no errors in the console related to any of this.
I rebooted, and once again did a pair of Disk Verifies and a Repair Permissions without problems. Opened up the console to track things, and poked around in the Time Machine. All was normal as far as I can tell. I also explored the Time Machine drive via the Finder. No problems.
So I now went into Spotlight Privacy and removed the Time Machine drive from the privacy list expecting it to do the re-indexing I had stopped above. Spotlight started indexing the drive and a couple seconds later it stopped. I tried again -- into and out of privacy -- same result, a couple seconds of indexing and then it stopped.
At this point I noticed the console was saying I had some bus errors in the I/O system, and that's what was terminating the md worker process and stopping the indexing.
So I shut down, unplugged the Time Machine drive, and went through my maintenance ritual.
I reset the PMU (this is a powerbook), reset PRAM, booted once in Safe Mode, booted normally, and ran Disk Utility again to Verify and Repair Permissions on the main hard drive. All of that went without a hitch. No failures, faults or funnies.
I ran through the list of Applications I use, keeping an eye on the console. Again no problems.
So I shut down, plugged the Time Machine drive back in and booted back up. I put the drive into Spotlight Privacy and turned off Time Machine backups. I then did a Verify Disk on that drive. No problems. I went into the Time Machine history display. No problems. And no problems looking at it in the Finder either. In particular, no bus errors or anything else funny in the console.
I rebooted and did a new Back Up Now. It completed without problems. It was another Deep Traversal backup due to the Safe Mode Boot, but it went without a hitch. I rebooted and did another Back Up Now and got a normal speed incremental backup again without a hitch. The bottom line is that as far as I can see that Time Machine drive is working just fine.
So I went into Spotlight Privacy and removed it from the list. Once again it started to index and stopped in a couple seconds. But this time there were NO Console error messages.
I moved my main hard drive into Spotlight Privacy and removed it and it re-indexed from scratch just fine. Tried again with the Time Machine drive -- indexing stopped in a couple of seconds with no message in the Console. Spotlight searches find all the right stuff in the main drive. Spotlight and finder searches find only the top level Time Machine folders in the Time Machine drive.
I also tried removing the Spotlight plist from my account's Library / Preferences. Spotlight created a new plist as expected but it still won't index that darned Time Machine drive.
Apparently there is something left over from when I originally aborted the Spotlight indexing of that drive which is causing Spotlight to think it has no work to do. I'm not seeing any I/O errors of any sort any more (I think my maintenance pass took care of that) and Time Machine backups and history access continue to work just fine. And again, the Time Machine disk Verifies just fine.
So I've run out of things to try.
Is there a hidden file that I need to remove from that drive so that Spotlight no longer thinks it already has it indexed?
--Bob

Well unfortunately the command
sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/MyDiskName
didn't help.
The command itself echoed the name of the volume and then said "Indexing Enabled", which looked good. But the Spotlight indexing stopped after a couple seconds. The Console reported the Terminal sudo command and nothing else.
I tried moving the Time Machine drive in and out of Spotlight privacy and once again the indexing started and stopped a couple seconds later with no Console messages.
I then tried another trick I've learned to make Spotlight indexing happen which is to do a Finder search for, say, all folders (limited to the one drive) via Command-f and while Including both System Files and files both Visible and Invisible. And indeed Spotlight indexing started but again stopped a few seconds later.
However, this time there were console messages and a crash report.
The Console shows (with personal information x'ed out):
12/31/07 1:30:38 PM mds[28] (/)(Error) IndexCI in openindex_filelazy:open file error: 2, 0.indexGroups
12/31/07 1:30:41 PM ReportCrash[146] Formulating crash report for process mds[28]
12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.metadata.mds[28]) Exited abnormally: Bus error
12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10ba40.mdworker[96]) Exited: Terminated
12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x1004a0.mdworker[108]) Exited: Terminated
12/31/07 1:30:42 PM mds[147] (/Volumes/Xxxxxx Time Machine/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/80F3EC85-D77A-49FE-8BDC-BB7C3B3EC1CF)(E rror) IndexCI in ContentIndexOpenBulk:Unclean shutdown of /Volumes/Xxxxxx Time Machine/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/80F3EC85-D77A-49FE-8BDC-BB7C3B3EC1CF/0. ; needs recovery
12/31/07 1:30:43 PM ReportCrash[146] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mds2007-12-31-133038Xxxxxx-Xxxxxx-Computer.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
The Crash Report reads as follows (again with personal information x'ed out):
Process: mds [28]
Path: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Support/mds
Identifier: mds
Version: ??? (???)
Code Type: PPC (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [1]
Date/Time: 2007-12-31 13:30:38.746 -0500
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.1 (9B18)
Report Version: 6
Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE at 0x0000000000000030
Crashed Thread: 15
Thread 0:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0000cfa0 0x1000 + 49056
5 mds 0x00005580 0x1000 + 17792
Thread 1:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 2:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 3:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 4:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 5:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 6:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda3ec _semwaitsignal + 12
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f16fa0 pthread_condwait + 1580
2 mds 0x00009648 0x1000 + 34376
3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 7:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ee0ea0 read$UNIX2003 + 12
1 mds 0x000091b4 0x1000 + 33204
Thread 8:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15438 kevent + 12
1 mds 0x0007e584 0x1000 + 513412
Thread 9:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 10:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 11:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 12:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 13:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00207f0c _handleExceptions + 208
3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 14:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 15 Crashed:
0 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x002046cc ContentIndexContainsContentByDocId + 204
1 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00164358 QueryFunctionCallbackContext::findContent(db_obj*, __CFString const*, char*, int) + 244
2 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001634d0 qpContentIndexMatch(datastoreinfo*, dblazyobj*, query_piece*, void*, int) + 328
3 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0015587c comparefile_againsttree + 828
4 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00155d30 comparefile_againsttree + 2032
5 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00155d5c comparefile_againsttree + 2076
6 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001e307c -[SISearchCtx isObjectInQuery:withQuery:shortcut:] + 144
7 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001fa268 -[SISearchCtx_FSWalk performSearch:] + 996
8 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001e2cbc -[SISearchCtx executeSearchContextCracked_2:jobNum:] + 136
9 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00177e80 siwork_queueprocess + 752
10 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0017811c sischeduleronce + 356
11 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0017816c sischeduleronce + 436
12 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001784f8 sischeduler_run_waitingtimeout + 640
13 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0016529c runLoop + 72
14 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00165308 query_runLoop + 32
15 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
Thread 15 crashed with PPC Thread State 32:
srr0: 0x002046cc srr1: 0x0200f030 dar: 0x00000030 dsisr: 0x40000000
r0: 0x002046a4 r1: 0xf09a4380 r2: 0x00000000 r3: 0x00000000
r4: 0xf09a43c0 r5: 0x00000000 r6: 0x000074d1 r7: 0x00000000
r8: 0x003fc080 r9: 0x00000000 r10: 0x00000000 r11: 0x44000444
r12: 0x92ede094 r13: 0x00000000 r14: 0x00000000 r15: 0x00373410
r16: 0x00000000 r17: 0x00239e98 r18: 0x00000001 r19: 0x00227b9c
r20: 0x00000000 r21: 0x00245554 r22: 0x00000001 r23: 0x00000001
r24: 0x00000000 r25: 0x00000005 r26: 0x00000000 r27: 0x00000000
r28: 0x00000000 r29: 0x00000005 r30: 0xf09a43c0 r31: 0x00204610
cr: 0x24000444 xer: 0x20000004 lr: 0x002046a4 ctr: 0x92ede094
vrsave: 0x00000000
Binary Images:
0x1000 - 0xc1ffb mds ??? (???) <af9cc958b4b030835101ff024186c7d3> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Support/mds
0xde000 - 0xe0ffd com.apple.MDSChannel 1.0 (1.0) /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MDSChannel.framework/Versions/A/MDSChannel
0x139000 - 0x23fffb com.apple.spotlight.index 10.5.0 (398.1) <5843125c709dd85f22f9bd42744beea5> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SpotlightIndex.framework/Versions/A/Spotlight Index
0x1ca9000 - 0x1caaffc liblangid.dylib ??? (???) <5f078ac1f623f5ce432ea53fc29338c0> /usr/lib/liblangid.dylib
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0x90123000 - 0x9016effb com.apple.Metadata 10.5.0 (398) <b6bb1fd5a7a9135f546b2d8cbd65eafc> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadat a.framework/Versions/A/Metadata
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0x90683000 - 0x90688ff6 libmathCommon.A.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
0x90757000 - 0x907d2fff com.apple.SearchKit 1.2.0 (1.2.0) <1b448fbae02460eae76ee1c6883f45d6> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/SearchK it.framework/Versions/A/SearchKit
0x9088a000 - 0x9090ffff libsqlite3.0.dylib ??? (???) <7b379cb4220346e99c32c427d4539496> /usr/lib/libsqlite3.0.dylib
0x90aa7000 - 0x90ab5fff libz.1.dylib ??? (???) <1a70dd3594a8c5ad39d785af5da23237> /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib
0x90b50000 - 0x90be2fff com.apple.framework.IOKit 1.5.1 (???) <591b8b0cc4261db98a6e72e38eef5f9a> /System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit
0x91105000 - 0x9116cffb libstdc++.6.dylib ??? (???) <a4e9b10268b3ffac26d0296499b24e8e> /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib
0x9116d000 - 0x912b5ff3 libicucore.A.dylib ??? (???) <250daed2fb2e6bf114480e2e4da0728b> /usr/lib/libicucore.A.dylib
0x91c3c000 - 0x91d32ffc libiconv.2.dylib ??? (???) <05ae1fcc97404173b2f9caef8f8be797> /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
0x91d3a000 - 0x91db4ffd com.apple.CFNetwork 220 (221) <00b882d3d3325526b78ded74880759fe> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CFNetwo rk.framework/Versions/A/CFNetwork
0x9236a000 - 0x92382ffb com.apple.DictionaryServices 1.0.0 (1.0.0) <fe37191e732eeb66189185cd000a210b> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Diction aryServices.framework/Versions/A/DictionaryServices
0x92383000 - 0x9238effb libgcc_s.1.dylib ??? (???) <ea47fd375407f162c76d14d64ba246cd> /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
0x92742000 - 0x92769fff libxslt.1.dylib ??? (???) <3700d04090629deddb436aa2d516c56d> /usr/lib/libxslt.1.dylib
0x92777000 - 0x92860fff libxml2.2.dylib ??? (???) <6f383df1e1e775be0158ba947784ae13> /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib
0x928aa000 - 0x928b9fff com.apple.DSObjCWrappers.Framework 1.2 (1.2) <2411674c821a8907449ac741ce6a40c3> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DSObjCWrappers.framework/Versions/A/DSObjCWra ppers
0x92a17000 - 0x92afafeb libobjc.A.dylib ??? (???) <4a90e315bd1718c3f5ae09ee6c23e36c> /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
0x92afb000 - 0x92bc9ff7 com.apple.CoreServices.OSServices 210.2 (210.2) <bad4943629f870d305f2bc7c6dfffe2d> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Versions/A/OSServices
0x92bde000 - 0x92dbfffb com.apple.security 5.0.1 (32736) <15632bf9bbdb223194b3d79a2e48e02d> /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security
0x92e9a000 - 0x92ec5ff7 libauto.dylib ??? (???) <c1f2bd227817ad7c7bf29ec74729ac7c> /usr/lib/libauto.dylib
0x92ed2000 - 0x9306bfe3 libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???) <8a6cd873dfa7ada786efac188f95ed1b> /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
0x931a7000 - 0x934a7ff3 com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore 783 (783) <fd2acaf23e95472f78b8a077fa039986> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonC ore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore
0x946f2000 - 0x9472afff com.apple.SystemConfiguration 1.9.0 (1.9.0) <d925dde7699e6231c88a41b0254a7591> /System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfi guration
0x94933000 - 0x9494eff3 com.apple.DirectoryService.Framework 3.5 (3.5) <3246a5d1c6a3d678798a90e8c5cd3677> /System/Library/Frameworks/DirectoryService.framework/Versions/A/DirectoryServi ce
0x9494f000 - 0x9494fffa com.apple.CoreServices 32 (32) <42b6dda539f7411606187335d9eae0c5> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices
0x94c68000 - 0x94c9dfff com.apple.AE 402 (402) <a4b92c8ac89cc774b85fb44c48b9d882> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/AE.fram ework/Versions/A/AE
0x96831000 - 0x9683afff com.apple.DiskArbitration 2.2 (2.2) <9c8f8ade43fa25b32109ef9dcc0cb5d5> /System/Library/Frameworks/DiskArbitration.framework/Versions/A/DiskArbitration
0x9683b000 - 0x968d1ff7 com.apple.LaunchServices 286 (286) <a3a0b2af862e9a8945072f8cb523678f> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchS ervices.framework/Versions/A/LaunchServices
0x969bc000 - 0x96c00ffb com.apple.Foundation 6.5.1 (677.1) <4152239382fb0f48abbcbf35bd04afa6> /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation
0xfffec000 - 0xfffeffff libobjc.A.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
0xffff8000 - 0xffff9703 libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
Apparently the mdutil command didn't actually delete the Spotlight index file which is causing the problem, or at least didn't leave the indexing files in a consistent, empty state to start indexing over again. I may have to Erase this Time Machine disk and start over.
I should point out that except for Spotlight indexing this disk is otherwise working just fine. It passes Verify Disk with no errors and both new Time Machine backups and viewing and restoring via Time Machine and Finder work without problem.
Any suggestions before I just Erase the disk and start over with a new backup?
--Bob

Encrypted Time Machine Drive not visible

Hi,
I have a Mac Mini (2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Ram) running OS 10.8.4 and all other OS/application updates have been run. I have a Drobo (2nd Generation, the one with four drive bays & Firewire) with 3.69TB used and 1.72TB free. The Drobo has the most up-to-date firmware 1.4.2 as well as the latest Drobo Dashboard software (2.5.2).
I was using a different NAS to backup my data from the Mini but the housing failed and I'm waiting for Other World Computing to send a new one. In the mean time, I decided to backup the Mini to the Drobo and Encrypt it. I believe it went through one complete backup of the Mini (440GBs) overnight. I also use the Drobo as my main drive for my photos and iTunes library. I have about 2TBs of music/movies and about 1TBs of photos already stored on the Drobo. During the day yesterday, during a regularly scheduled Time Machine backup (I believe it backs up every hour), I was in the process of deleting photos off the Drobo and got the dreaded spinning beach ball. I waited for 1/2 hour but still after no changes, I turned off the Mini and after rebooting the Time Machine drive will not show on the desktop.
The Drobo is visable in the Drobo Dashboard app and of course it says there are no issues.
The Drobo shows up in Disk Utility as a Virtual Whole Disk (in red type) and when running Verify or Repair Disk, it states that "Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk." I can do this till the cows come home but nothing changes. The only other info that shows up in red is "Invalid Disk Label @ 17591825289216: invalid field value. It repeats it four times, I'm assuming once for each drive. The last piece of info is "disk3s2 is not a CoreStorage volume.
I saw on another thread to run a Terminal command "diskutil cs list" and it came up with the below listed info.
Last login: Thu Jul 18 12:51:04 on console
skurkis:~ administrator$ diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 6E1361BB-CAF7-468D-9CD5-5A77ED37C763
    =========================================================
    Name:         -none-
    Status:       Initializing
    Size:         0 B (0 B)
    Free Space:   -none-
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 161162B5-ABCE-4540-BA90-A3EA9E2E956B
        Index:    18446744073709551615
        Disk:     disk3s2
        Status:   Failed
        Size:     -none-
skurkis:~ administrator$
Any help to get my nearly 4TBs of music, movies, photos back would be awesome!
Thanks,
Jeff

Are there any utilities that can help "uncorrupt" the volume so I can rescue my data?
The only thing you can do is destroy the Core Storage logical volume, which will remove all data. If there is anything other than backup data on it, you're in a recovery situation, which is a job for professionals.
You should immediately start a new backup on another storage device. Don't do anything else with the computer until that's done.

Time Machine HD disappeared!

I have two external hard drives connected to my computer: One is a 500 GB My Book (used for time machine backups), connected directly to my computer through firewire 400. The other drive is a 1TB My Book (used for storage of large audio and video files) that is connected through the 500 GB through a firewire 800. This configuration has always worked fine in the past, but then a couple of weeks ago, the time machine volume simply disappeared from my computer. I have tried unplugging, and re-plugging all of my connections, but it simply can't be found. The odd part is that the larger drive that is daisy-chained through the time machine volume is still available, so I know that my computer is at least recognizing the connection through the time machine drive.
My boss had a similar problem around the same time. She only has the one hard drive plugged in (500GB My Book connected through firewire 800), but one day it simply disappeared from her computer and can't be recognized anymore. And now that I'm the one that suggested we go out and spend the money to get every computer in the office an external HD for time machine, and they're starting not to work, I;m getting some serious pressure to figure out a solution.
I'm getting desperate! Any thoughts or suggestions would be MUCH appreciated!!

AmyLou2584 wrote:
Well thanks for trying to help, but nothing has worked. I selected none and turned off time machine, but then when i tried to start it again, the hard drive was still not available. Also, I don't seem to have that preference in my library.
No, not in your home folder's library. TM is a system-wide application -- the file is at the top level of your internal HD. Select it (probably named +Macintosh HD),+ then look for Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
But if Disk Utility doesn't see it, that's not going to help.
I thought maybe i was just overlooking it, so i even tried entering the preference name in the search field and couldn't find anything.
It's a system file, so the only way to find it via a search is to use a Finder Search and include system files.
I tried checking in the disk utility as you suggested, but it was not on that list either. As I said before, I know my connections are solid, because the hard drive that I have daisy-chained through the TM hard drive is completely accessible. I'm starting to fear that my HD has gone kaput.
Sure sounds like it. Does it have an "off" switch/button? If so, turn it off for a few seconds, then back on. Can you connect it to another Mac? If it's still not recognized, it's probably dead. What make is it, and how old?
Note that your boss's problem may not be the same -- use the same procedure there, starting with whether there are any recent backups, etc.

How do we regain control over our Time Machine drive revisited

+I posted this question as two posts over in the+ *Intel-based iMac* +forum but I think I may have put it in the wrong place. Please forgive me if you've already read this over there. If someone tells me how to delete a post I will or perhaps a Moderator can/will do it for me.+
+O M Oz+
Recently our 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo started into a cycle of rebooting itself during the startup sequence. Eventually we decided to Restore the disk from the Time Machine Backup which is kept on an external 1TB La Cie drive.
After the Restore was complete; Time Machine attempted to do a backup run but we got an error message saying the drive could not be accessed to write the backup. Only the very last backup could be seen from the Star Wars screen. The icon had changed to the generic usb drive icon with a padlock.
I attempted a Full Reset of Time Machine by deleting the Preferences as described in the Troubleshooting thread. Since then we have not been able to access the Time Machine drive at all with either Time Machine or Finder.
A check of Sharing and Permissions shows that all users are listed having custom access which seems to mean you cannot read or write the drive. Disk Utility reports the drive as seeming to be okay when run in either Verify or Repair modes.
I have also attempted to run the sudo command from Terminal with no success. I'm running out of ideas. I don't want to do a low level reformat of this drive yet because it IS a backup drive and I'm not clear on the status of the restored drive.
*Next Day after sleeping on it, I posted...*
I've been thinking it over carefully and think I might have done the damage myself.
Before things went pear shaped I needed to back up the 80GB Hard Drive for a laptop but was just a little short of space on the 1TB drive. In Finder I went into the backup.backup folder and deleted the oldest backup under Finder.
From what I NOW know of the data structures of Time Machine I suspect this would have also removed the backups of whatever it is that logs the various permissions. Am I right?
If I am right can I recover from this and still save the the older backups?
Old Mac Oz

I half expected you would be the first to reply, Pondini
Pondini wrote:
Old Mac Oz wrote:
. . . The icon had changed to the generic usb drive icon with a padlock . . .
. . . *we are not able to access* the Time Machine drive at all *with either Time Machine or Finder*. > >. . .From what I NOW know of the data structures of Time Machine I suspect this would have also removed the backups of whatever it is that logs the various permissions. Am I right?
Not exactly, but yes, that can damage your backups.
Try to repair them, per #A5 in the Troubleshooting Tip. If that succeeds, your backups are probably ok. If not, It's possible that +Disk Warrior+ can. It's expensive (about $100), and probably a good investment for the future, but there's no guarantee.
I have already tried that but Disk Utility reports that there is nothing wrong with the disk; clearly that is wrong. I cannot reset the permissions to let me (as the Administrator) even read the disk
If that succeeds, and the 80 GB backup from another Mac is still there, you can delete it via Time Machine. See #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
The 80GB backup was a simple Finder copy from the extracted Hard Disk onto my Time Machine disk, just simply regaining Finder access will allow me to rescue that
Also, everything you restored to your internal HD is considered as new, so it must be backed-up again. That will, of course, take a lot of space. It's possible that Time Machine deleted a large number of your old backups to make room. If it didn't, because it couldn't do the backup, it will when it can.
I understand that is what should happen.
So . . . try the repair. If that works, see if the old backups are still there, and also see how much space is available on your TM drive. If there's not enough room for a new full backup of your internal HD, plus 20% for workspace, TM will have to delete some old backups. If the disk isn't well over twice the size of the data it's backing-up, your best bet may be to erase the drive and let Time Machine start fresh.
I am coming to that conclusion. The drive is plenty big enough, it's a Terabyte backing up a 300GB disk. Activity Monitor and Finder using +Get Info+ both tell me the drive has 931.39GB available with about 907GB used, we just cannot access any of the data this usage represents due to the locked permissions.
Since I last posted I have also tried resetting PRAM and running sudo from Terminal as per #C5 in the Troubleshooting Tip to reset the permissions to no avail.
The Restore has not been a success so I am probably going to have to wipe the whole computer and rebuild the system, something I am understandably unwilling to do.
I asked here because the problem seems to be related to a recent Time Machine run and the drive I used. Am I asking my question in the correct forum?
Thanks for your input so far.
Old Man Oz

How to us iPhone backup file from Time Machine drive to restore iPhone

Stupidly, I deleted my primary account on my iPhone that contained my contacts and calendar. I don't currently subscribe to MobileMe. I took advantage of the free service when I bought my phone, but decided not to subscribe as I synch my iPhone to my computer and back up my computer using a hard drive connected with Time Machine. Unfortunately, when I stopped using MobileMe, a synch to my iTunes wiped out all my contact data in my Address Book on my computer and my calendar. Therefore, all my most current information was on my iPhone.
I went to the Apple store and was told that the iTunes backup file may be used to restore the contacts and calendar information on my iPhone. I synched my iPhone to iTunes and then did the iPhone restore to factory settings. Only then did I realize that the older, correct backup file was not an available option in the dropdown.
So, I'm trying to figure out how to pull an older iPhone backup file and then use it to restore the iPhone. The only thing is that when I go to Time Machine and look at an older Library --> Application Support --> Mobile Sync --> Backup folder, there's a whole bunch of .mdbackup files in there.
How do I select what I need? How do I get the iTunes protocol to run the restore on my iPhone using those files?

Select the folder that contains the .mdbackup files and use Get Info for the folder to check the date the backup was updated. I would forget about trying to extract individual .mdbackup files and transfer the entire folder to the same location on your computer's hard drive - with iTunes quit before doing so.
After doing so, this backup should be available to select when restoring your iPhone from your iPhone's backup.
If this is successful restoring contact info and calendar events on your iPhone, if the Address Book and iCal on your Mac is empty - it does not contain any data, before syncing your iPhone direct with the Address Book and iCal on your Mac, enter one unique contact in the Address Book, and one calendar event in iCal on your Mac. Make these up if needed, which can be deleted later. This will provide a merge prompt when syncing this data, which you want to select.
Does Time Machine include a backup of your Address Book and iCal on your Mac? If so, it will be much easier and faster to restore the Address Book and iCal on your Mac from your Time Machine backup.

Time Machine drive disappears when i reboot

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