Time Machine Failed - Won't Recognize Drives now

I was backing up my Mac Book Pro to an external Firewire drive. I was also backing up some files that are on another external USB drive.
Time Machine just froze up. When I restarted my computer, it wouldn't boot and just sat at the grey screen. The only way to boot was disconnecting both the drives. Now when I connect the drives, Finder won't recognize them. I can see they are attached using system profiler but I can't mount them.
I don't know what to do. I am going to take the drives to work and see if they work with another mac. I very highly doubt that both of them are failing at the same time since one of them is brand new (just opened package).
Please if anyone has some advice I would really appreciate it.

Well, you really only have one option - reformat the TM backup drive and start over. This assumes the backup drive hasn't died.
Drive Preparation
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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Similar Messages

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    Need some help!
    Background.
    Almost 4 year old 24" aluminum iMac; 4 gb ram; 500 gb hard drive; OS 10.6.8.
    About 2 months after Alpple Care expired, the internal hard drive failed (New Year's Eve of all times!). Everything else working great.
    Had a Mac technician I know install a new 750 gb drive for me. I cloned back from SuperDuper, and was ready to go. The SuperDuper external is 1.5 TB, partitioned - one half TM, the other half SuperDuper.
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    I hooked up my existing Time Macinne (probably not a good idea), and the next backup failed.
    Did some research, and since I have plenty of archived backup anyway, decided that the best thing to do would be to erase the TM external, and start fresh.
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    Not right.  :~(
    What I've Done to Toubleshoot.
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    Then reset PRAM and did an SMC reset on the iMac.
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    So next, I repeated that process (other than backing up), and I also deleted from the Root Library/Preferences com.apple.timemachine.plist, and from Home/Library/Preferences deleted com.apple.finder.plist. Then rebboted the iMac. Then I did a Disk Utility verify of the empty external - all was/is fine. Then I ran DiskWarrior on the iMac and all was fine; repaired permissions on the iMac from DiscWarrior as well. Then, I did another TM backup to the external, which took a couple hours since it was backing up to an empty drive.
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    The Request.
    Please if anyone can give me some easy to understand step by step options I might try to get TM working correctly again, it will be most appreciated.
    If I've left out any details that might assist, please also let me know.
    The problem computer is at home and I'm at work, so if any logs are needed, I can post those later today (but in that event, please tell me exactly which log to post and how to isolate it from System Profiler or Console (as there are many logs to choose from and I want to provide the proper info if someone needs to see a log to assist)).
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    Pondini,
    Did every step in D2 (green box) - except did not reinstall Combo Updater which I did late last night.
    After that, did a TM backup - started at 6:15.
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    Upon starting and doing the backup -
    Preparing 250,000 (approx.) items (too quick to get the final number) - Parenthetically, this AM it was over 600,000; probably has to do with turning off Spotlight per your D2 instructions
    Next message -
    Backing Up 6.96 GB
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    Ultimately, at 1.78 GB the  progress bar started moving rapidly (as it should) - so this isn't a cable connection issue - the Backup phase took 22 minutes, but from 1.78 GB to 6.96 GB took only a few seconds; I have seen this precise same sequence repeatedly the past 2 days
    Next - Backing Up (the candy cane blue and white progress bar)  - Preparing 140,000 items - took 12 minutes
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    Next - Backing Up (no count of items shown) - started at 7:05 and went until 7:45 (40 minutes)
    Next - Finishing Backup (blue/white candy cane progress bar; no count of items shown) - started at 7:45 - went until sometime after 8:15 (can't give a precise time because I need to sit down and eat :~)  )
    Backup completed (between bites of chicken) at 8:23.
    Over 2 hours - something isn't right.
    Also, TM Prefs tells me that the Latest Backup was at 7:44 - odd.
    Anyway - to take a step further, here's the TM Buddy widget info you might need:
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    Just as I sent this, a new backup started, and it appears to be going through the same routine, from Preparing  ....
    Gotta eat.
    Please post any further instructions and I'll do what I can tonight.
    Thanks!
    What is the problem? How do I speed this mother up?
    Thanks!

  • Restoring data on new drive, time machine can't find old drive because it backed up my old clone drive instead. now what?

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  • TS1550 Back up to time machine failed.  Error, "Files can't be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read-only". Back up has been working.  drive is not read only.  How do I fix this?

    Back up to time machine failed.  Error, "Files can’t be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read-only". Back up has been working.  drive is not read only.  How do I fix this?

    Hello,
    http://pondini.org/TM/C6.html

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    Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
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    Words, almost, fail me.

  • Time Machine Fails trying to create a backup folder on Lion

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    Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
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    I have another Time Machine backup working fine to a trusty old Lacie Drive so erased the one on my Time Capsule to see if that works. I have renamed the Capsule and the Time Capsule Drive.  But to build another full backup will take at least two days and I shall be away from tomorrow and am reluctant to leave the Capsule and computer up and running for a week. And I’ll bet the sparsbundle will still be nowhere to be found.
    How can Apple screw up so badly when they are to become the richest company in the entire world and – soon – will have more cash in the bank than the entire United States? Can’t they afford someone who really can sort this out? Especially when a Firewire connected hard drive – my trusty and simple LaCie – works fine.
    Words, almost, fail me.

  • Time Machine back up with hard drive connected to D-Link DIR-655

    Recently D-Link updated the share port utility with a mac version. I have heard that Time Machine does not easily recognize network shared hard drives but to my surprise this morning it did. With using the new software and hooking up my hard drive to my router Time machine recognized it! This is great since I dont have to buy a Time Capsule now.

    First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.
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    I've seen plenty of articles about restoring the system disk (restoring the whole system) with Time Machine, but nothing about restoring a secondary disk that has crashed.
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      If i had a direct answer, i'd posted it, but, since I don't use TM, I linked you to the TM bible. You know, the one that Apple failed to provide.
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  • Using Time Machine to restore external hard drive data

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    This web site might answer all of your Time machine questions:
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  • Repeated failure when time machine files moved to bigger drive...

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    Message was edited by: Notary Sojak

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