Time Machine Issue with Western Digital Hard Drive

I'm running snow leopard with a 300 GB WD External HD using TIme Machine. About every 4 months or so Time Machine gives me an error and says to repair the disk to fix the problem. I go to Disc Utility and try to repair it but it says "Disc cannot be mounted" I try reformatting the drive but it gives me the same error. I have even taken it over to a PC and tried reformatting it there but same issue. Is the HD dead? Time to move on?

I am having similar issues with Wd drive. I found out is the housing of drive but not drive. How is the external drive connected to your mac? I found out after I bought my My Book and My Book Studio is at fault. Many people in discussion have reported failures. If you are using either one, get another drive. But do not buy another WD My Book or WD My Book Studio. Try an different brand. Like G-Drive is good brand for time machine.
Lastly and oddly, I do own WD passport hd and it works like charm, no problems with it.

Similar Messages

  • Will Time Machine work with an external hard drive connected (via usb) to Airport Extreme?

    Will Time Machine work with an external hard drive connected (via usb) to Airport Extreme?

    Sorry, but this article is about 4 years old, and was printed based on preliminary information at the time.
    The bottom line here is that Apple does not officially support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme.
    If it works for you, great.
    You might want to review the Apple Support documents below, which are far more recent than the article you reference:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
    It is supported.....
    This is NOT correct. Please do not post false information on the forums.

  • Lion breaks Time Machine backups with Western Digital Drives.

    How can I find out what's being done about this from an Apple and a Western Digital angle?  WD has nothing on their site.  Apparently there is an 'AFP' protocol change.  Help, I have upgraded all machines to Lion and now no upgrades are possible.

    Time Machine was never supported on 3rd party remote drives other than Apple's own Time Capsule and MacOS X Server. Event the Airport Express with an external drive didn't support Time Machine. If any 3rd party products want to support Time Machine, it is their responsibility to stay up to date. Lion has been available to developers for months.
    If you want to hack up your Lion to use the older protocol that Apple now feels is insecure - here you go.

  • Will Time Machine work with my networked hard drive?

    I asked this question this question a couple years ago https://discussions.apple.com/message/9961900#9961900 and was wondering if there was an update as to whether Time Machine will work with a networked drive?
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    I'm using Chronosync now, and it's good, but every once in a while it'll hickup.
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    Nothing has changed, other than the fact that we are seeing a lot more posts from users having probems who have tried this unsupported method of backups.
    Apple is prety clear on this in their support documentation. They say that you cannot do this.
    Results vary with users who try this anyway. Some have difficulties immediately with corruption issues, others have successful backups for a few weeks to even a few months before they have difficuties. Count me as  one who thought they had somehow beat the system, but after 4 weeks, things collapsed.
    Forum expert Pondini has an appropriate saying about this issue, which I am sure I am not quoting exactly:
    There are two types of users who attempt Time Machine backups to a drive attached to the USB port on the AirPort Extreme....those who have problems, and those who will have problems.

  • Does time machine work with ANY portable hard drive or backup drive?

    I am just wondering. Please help.

    Time Machine Compatible External Hard Drive
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  • Macbook with retina display + 500GB western digital hard drive

    I have just bought my macbook pro with retina display and I have a Western Digital hard drive that doesnt show up when I plug it in. How can I make this work?

    Just an update:
    I tried to boot by MacBook into safe mode with the external plugged into the USB port and could never get past the Apple Logo boot screen. I then detached and tried to boot up my MacBook regularly and still nothing.
    So today i took my MacBook and WD External Hard Drive into the genius bar (they were super cool), turned out that my MacBook hard drive had dismounted itself so I had to wipe and reinstall (not a big deal, I had everything backed up).
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    Didn't get a chance to try Paragon's NTFS driver and at this point I'm a little gun shy. The external is still under warranty so I'm going to see if WD will just swap it out for me. Anyways, thanks for the input.

  • Is there an issue with the hitachi hard drives in the MacBook Pro's ?  Got a 15 inch and a 13 inch at the same time and both drives have failed in under two years. I have heard from a few other people with same issue.

    Is there an issue with the hitachi hard drives in the MacBook Pro's ?  Got a 15 inch and a 13 inch at the same time and both drives have failed in under two years. I have heard from a few other people with same issue. Other drive I have had have lasted at least 5 or more years.

    there is a dylib you can put in the springboard if jailbroken but if not you have to find an apple store

  • I have a power pc (g5) computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

    I have a Power PC G5 computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 Mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

    Hi, likely the easiest is to just poll the drive & get something like this...
    Get MacScan...
    http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/macscan.html
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/
    But if you have a good external drive already, just clone it.
    Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
    http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
    Or SuperDuper...
    http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

  • Re Time Machine I have an external  hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory. I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.   will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous bac

    Re Time Machine
    I have an external  hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory.
    I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
    will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
    can I split it the drive in two partitions?
    Also
    as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
    OSX 10.68
    the other is
    OSX 10.75
    can I back them up separately?
    or even synch and merge files and folders etc? between the two?

    You CAN use a drive with files already on it to store Time Machine backups. But long term, that is not recommended. You do not need to reformat or re-partition the drive to do this. Once Time Machine Backups are established, you could remove the old files.
    But do not delete Time Machines files with the Finder -- that can cause it to lose its place and lose everything.
    With the cost of backup drives under US$100, it might be a better idea in the long run to get another drive. Best results from Time Machine is a drive about 3 times larger than the drive(s) you are backing up.

  • I am running my first backup on Time Machine using a Seagate external hard drive with a thunderbolt adapter and cable.  I have a MacBook Pro 2011. It is backing up 11GB, and is telling me it will take approx two days. Is this normal?

    I am running my first backup on Time Machine using a Seagate external hard drive with a thunderbolt adapter and cable.  I have a MacBook Pro 2011. It is backing up 11GB, and is telling me it will take approx two days. Is this normal?

    Download the supplemental fix to 10.7.5 
    http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1599

  • Is there any way to create a time machine backup to an external hard drive with content already on it?  I have a hard drive that i have used for pictures but when i try to run a backup it says i need to start from a blank drive. Can i get around it?

    Is there any way to create a time machine backup to an external hard drive with content already on it?  I have a hard drive that i have used for pictures but when i try to run a backup it says i need to start from a blank drive. Can i get around it?

    It would be much better if you had separate drives for the pictures and Time Machine backups.....but, if you want to use the same drive for both purposes, temporarily move the folder with the pictures to another location for safe storage.
    Run the Time Machine backup on the hard drive and verify that everything is working correctly. Time Machine will format the disk for you in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as part of the backup process.
    Then move the folder with the pictures back to the hard drive with the Time Machine backups.
    When you have tested to make sure that everything is working again, then and only then should you delete the folder with pictures from the temporary storage area.
    Again....it would be much better to keep Time Machine backups on a drive just for that purpose, and other data on another drive for that purpose. This is clearly one of those times when the fact that you can do something does not mean to imply that you should do it.

  • With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac

    With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac. The record contained files windows. How to recover?
    Serious mistake: to connect a Mac to an external drive with data (important!) Windows, the warning appears: "You want to use the disk for Time Machine?" Wrong button, so in 2-3 seconds, the disk is formatted. Now Mac "sees" the disc but empty, Windows does not see it under "My Computer" but in "Disk Management" is reported as "hard core", "healthy", "GPT protective partition" Is there a way to retrieve the files? Sorry for my English Thanks

    I'm having a difficult time following, I understand English isn't your native language. You may have good luck with Google Translate.
    Also please read Pondini's Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting.

  • Western digital hard drive worked fine on my pc. I connected it to my macbook and it began time capsule, but now I cannot see any of my files on either my mac or pc?

    My Western digital hard drive worked fine on my pc. I connected it to my macbook and it began time capsule, but now I cannot see any of my files on either my mac or pc? Please help

    Hi there,
    Thanks for the reply.
    I plugged my usb hard drive in and what looked like time capsule started automatically on my mac. The same hard drive worked perfectly on my laptop pc before, now it connects but isn't visible in my computer.
    My second hard drive works perfectly well on both my pc and mac, so I am not sure what has happened to the one in question.
    Regards,
    Stephen

  • Western Digital Hard Drive Firewire Issue

    Hi all,
    I just bought a Western Digital Hard Drive (My Book Home Edition) 1 TB. Thing is it works for USB 2.0 but my Imac won't recognize the drive when I plug it in a 400fw. I called western digital and tried the disk utility tricks, and still nothing. The 400 input on my computer is fine, so is the cable. In fact the computer worked fine with a 500 gb Lacie a few days ago.
    Any thoughts,
    Thanks>

    First thing is try the steps in this article by Apple:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317
    Let us know what happens.
    Regards,
    Roger

  • Time machine doesn't see external hard drive on network

    I have a pair of external hard drives connected to my iMac, which is connected to my 2WIRE modem/router via Ethernet. I'm using one of them as a Time Machine drive. For the past couple years, I've been backing up the laptops in the house to that Time Machine drive without fail.
    Now none of the laptops (a MacBook and an iBook) won't see either external drive connected to the iMac, even though the iMac has file sharing turned on (as it always has) and both laptops are connected to the iMac via the Finder. Both laptops can see the iMac and the external drives connected to it via the Finder, but in Time Machine, when I try to select my Time Machine drive, nothing appears in the window.
    I was having a problem with the Time Machine drive and had to wipe and reformat it, but I don't understand why Time Machine won't see the other external drive either, even if there is a problem with the TM drive. I recall Time Machine picking up all available hard drives as possible backup destinations, as long as they're also seen in the Finder.
    The iMac has been having some OS X issues. The Finder will crash sometimes, and I have no choice but to hold down the power button to shut it down and then start it up. When it starts, it takes longer than it normally does, I assume because it's checking and/or fixing some things.  However, those issues have been going on for a long time (I think I need to reinstall OS X in it, since Disk Utility finds nothing wrong; also, the hard drive in the iMac crashed about 2 months ago and I put a new one in; I then restored the TM backup to it, and the OS X issues have persisted, which tells me it's software-related, not the drive).
    Also, the iMac backs up to the Time Machine drive just fine. Of course, the TM drive is connected to it locally, whereas the laptops have to get to that drive via wireless file sharing.
    I did try plugging one of the external hard drives on the iMac into my MacBook, and Time Machine saw it immediately, so my guess is the issue must lie with my router and/or the iMac, but I don't know what to check next.  I've restarted the iMac, I've restarted the laptops, I've turned TM on and off on the laptops, and I've turned file sharing on and off on the iMac; none of those things reestablished the connection.
    I suppose I could just go with external hard drives for the laptops, but my wife moves her iBook all over the house, so I know hers won't get backed up regularly. That was the nice thing about the system I had in place, which I realize wasn't as elegant as a Time Capsule.
    Any advice is appreciated.  Thanks.

    That should say "Now none of the laptops (a MacBook and an iBook) will see either external drive..."  I hate typos.
    Anyway, after rereading my post, I'm starting to think I just need to reinstall OS X on the iMac, given the other issues it's experiencing.  Any advice for doing that would be appreciated, if that's indeed the solution. Thanks.

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