Time machine made a mess on external HD
I wanted to use TM to back up on external HD. TM requested to erase existing data first. After several minutes I realised that disk erasing had got stuck (application not responding). I had to stop it. Retried it but to no avail. Then I tried to create a new partition, but every time I get stuck and a red light shows up on HD (instead of usual green). Furthermore, TM gives error 43.
My HD is now unusable. But still it is recognised as an unformatted drive. How can I sort out this problem? Thanks.
stefano
Here's a thought. Just a thought, because sometimes this is often overlooked. There is no shortage of people dealing with endlessly preparing Time Machines and a multitude of other non-addressed issues. At the point that one is required to root through their console, run disk warrior, or wait around in forums for never answered questions, it becomes obvious that this particular item doesn't "just work". I could have chosen to start from scratch, but then after reading about the 9.3 billion people that hasn't worked for, it seems like their should be a better answer - like a product that works. People in those threads also posted very bad results.
My choice, back to SuperDuper and a nice kick in my own *** for not listening to the reviews, and worse, writing one of the reviews still sitting in the "most helpful" section. I shouldn't have given it some more time.
At the point that one needs a "professional" to get out of the box "just working" materials to function, those materials cease to be manufactured well enough for widespread use.
There is no ignoring the failure that TC and Time Machine are amounting to, especially in respect to the normal quality or Apple products.
Similar Messages
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Time Machine made my External Hard Drive Unrecognizable
Hi, Last night I set up Time Machine to only use a section of my backup hard drive. I woke up this morning and it said that it did not have enough space on the drive and there was a preparing box open. Then I got the spinning beach ball for about an hour, then I just said this is enough.
I did a hard reboot because a soft one was just not working, then when I restarted, I got about a series of 8 loops of the opening Apple sound. Very weird, I did another hard reboot but unplugged the External Hard Drive this time and it booted up fine. But now when I plug in my External Hard Drive, it makes some noises as if it is connecting but it never does. It doesn't show up in finder at all. It does show up in Disk Utility though.
My question is, can anyone tell me how I can either fix this problem or recover the data from my hard drive in any way. I read some about using dd, but just became utterly confused. Any help would be greatly appreciated.Unfortunately that did not work, if I start with my External Hard Drive the way it is now, it just gives me a loop of the Apple start up sound for about 4 minutes then finally starts up.
UPDATE: Ok, very weird, I guess your instructions did work. Even though it did not boot properly with the external hard drive powered on, when I booted it after start-up, it showed and now lists all my files. Miraculous!
Now my question is, is there something I should delete that Time Machine left over on my External Hard Drive that would prevent the looping start up sound?
Thank you all very much, your advice was greatly appreciated.
Message was edited by: Steve Lutsky -
Time Machine no longer working with External Hard drive
Hello
I have an iMac 24 and an Iomega 500Gb drive. TimeMachine was working fine when I first set it up over Firewire. I then bought a MacBook and tried to use a the same drive to run separate Time Machine backups. I aborted it when I ran out of time as I was going away.
The iMac and the MacBook no longer recognise the Iomega drive as valid. I get an error about the drive being read only.
How can I resolve or reset this to get the iMac backups working? I'll probably buy a portable drive for the MacBook backups.
Thanksmosey,
Unfortunately, your going to have to reformat the drive. There is no fix for the "Read Only" issue at this time.
*_How Should a Time Machine Hard Disk be Prepared?_*
For Time Machine to work properly, the hard disk must be formatted “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” and its’ Partition Scheme should be either GUID or Apple Partition Map.
Time Machine is incompatible with disks partitioned as Master Boot Record (MBR). Unfortunately, this describes nearly every hard drive you can buy because MBR is a Windows partition scheme. (Naturally, this DOES NOT apply to Apples’ Time Capsule.)
For some, Time Machine begins to perform as expected with a new external hard disk. But then the initial full backup or subsequent incremental backups fail. The user only later discovers the hard disk was still partitioned as Master Boot Record (MBR).
One article on Time Machine made this observation: “Virtually everybody will have to open Disk Utility and repartition the disk as APM or GUID. It doesn't really matter which one because the Time Machine disk will not be bootable anyway. APM allows a disk to boot a PowerPC, GUID allows the disk to boot an Intel processor but both are easily digestible by Time Machine on either kind of processor.” [http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html]
It’s been recommended by many here that your reserve at least double the size of your primary hard disk, that way Time Machine backups have room to grow as the size of your data grows. Additionally, the more space you give Time Machine the more history it can preserve. The less space you reserve for Time Machine the sooner older backups & deleted items will disappear.
Procedure
Connect the hard disk you wish to use for Time Machine backups.
Launch Disk Utility.
It will appear twice in the pane on the left. (Make sure you recognize that it is different from the 2 icons that represent your Macs' internal drive.) The upper entry represent the device as a whole, including the controller inside. The lower entry represents the hard disk contained within the device.
Click on the upper icon of the external hard disk.
Select the "Partition" tab.
For "Volume Scheme" choose "1 partition". (Chose 2 partitions if you intend on storing other data on the disk besides your Time Machine backups.)
Name the disk.
Format should be "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
Click "Options".
Select either GUID or Apple Partition Map. (See above for significance)
Click "OK".
Click "Apply".
Now chose the level of secure erase you desire. (More passes means more time)
Once the external hard disk is repartitioned, select it again in Time Machine preferences and use it for your backups.
Let us know if this was helpful.
Cheers! -
How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?
I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.
ivan wrote:
How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?
I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.
Hi iVain
Fire up *Disk Utility*, click the Restore tab, then drag your old and new TM drives into the Source and Destination fields. Click Restore, and a complete copy of your old TM files will be made on the new drive. Go to TM preferences and select the new drive, and it will continue backing up just as it left off.
Hope this answers your question. See:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2595485&tstart=0 -
Time machine saving to hd and external
My macbook started making backup copies in time machine and on my external drive when I dowloaded lion. Now I can't figure out how to delete all the backups on my HD. They are taking up 180GB and I have the same backups on my external drive (passport) which is designated and leabeled as my time machine backup disk. So confused right now. Can I delete those backups without wiping my HD?
I'm not entirely clear about your question. Are you saying that Time Machine is making its backups to your boot drive? If that is the case turn Time Machine off immediately in System Preferences > Time Machine. It is very important that you not allow your boot drive to become too full as that can result in errors that Disk Utility probably can't fix and your Time Machine backups should not be considered to be reliable.
If I am understanding your question correctly this is behavior I reported to AppleCare in the first month of Lion's introduction. I also specifically requested that the issue be forwarded to engineering so it didn't bite anyone else in the backside.
I had two Snow Leopard clones as well as my Time Machine backup so I fixed the problem by erasing my internal hard drive, restoring it from a clone where I had turned Time Machine off in System Preferences. Then I reinstalled Lion on my internal HD. Time Machine made a full backup afterwards but behaved properly and did not write any more backups to my boot drive.
The safest thing to do before doing anything else is to make at least one bootable clone of your boot drive to another hard drive and exclude the rogue Time Machine backups. Making another bootable clone would be highly desirable. Carbon Copy Cloner (donationware) or SuperDuper (free and paid versions) can do this. I like and use both programs but I think it is much easier to exclude items with Carbon Copy Cloner.
Once your data is safely backed up you can try to delete the rogue Time Machine backups from your boot drive. However, AppleCare told me that this could very well take many hours and that Time Machine may not behave properly afterwards.
After deleting the rogue backups verify your drive in Disk Utility. Choose the indented icon that has your internal drive's name for your drive not the icon with the funny name. Click on Verify in the Repair tab.
If the drive needs repairing boot from your Snow Leopard install disk and use Disk Utility to repair it. Repeat the repair process until Disk Utility gives the drive a clean bill of health. It may take more than one pass.
Then boot from your Lion drive. Go to Time Machine in System Preferences. Click on Select Disk and double-check to make sure that the correct drive is selected. Close that window and turn Time Machine on. When Time Machine starts backing up watch it like a hawk to make sure that it is not backing up to your internal hard drive. -
I am running OS 10.6.8. The external Verbatim drive I use for Time Machine backups got messed-up, so I erased it & chose it as my back-up disc for TM. It does perform its regular back-ups. HOWEVER, when I try to "Enter TM" nothing happens?
I read some hints about this issue from similar queries, including "Restart your computer". That did the trick!
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Using Time Machine to back up an external hard drive dedicated to Adobe Lightroom 5
I recently began to use Adobe Lightroom 5 (I continue to use Aperture, as I have for years). All of the Lightroom image files and catalogs are on one external hard drive, which I use on my iMac, my Macbook Pro, and in the digital labs of a school where I'm taking a course.
Not yet having developed a protocoI for creating a back up of all my Lightroom image files and catalogs that I could use in the event of my Lightroom-dedicated drive's failure, I have just done a drag and drop of the whole drive's contents to another external drive (which, as it happens, I have been using for some time for my Aperture vaults).
I am thinking of removing the dedicated Lightroom drive from the excluded list of my iMac's Time Machine (which uses yet another external drive), so that I can easily and automatically create back ups of changes to the Lightroom external drive without having to do the cumberome and inelegant drag and drop at some yet-to-be-determined frequency. (The Macbook Pro uses a Time Capsule for its Time Machine; I envision using only the iMac's TM external drive for Lightroom backups.)
What is the simplest and most desirable way to actually execute the backup? I envision that it would be this: that every time I want to do a Lightroom back up, I'd mount the Lightroom external drive on the iMac (or keep it mounted if my work session has just been on the iMac) and then ask Time Machine to "Back Up Now." When the backup is finished, I'd dismount the dedicated Lightroom drive.
A related question is what if anything would be the effect on my Lightroom work if a Time Machine back up began while I was working in Lightroom? Or if for some reason an hourly TM back up began and I needed to quickly end a Lightroom session before the backup was completed?Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac
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Time machine won't back up external hard drive
Hello,
Due to my internal memory becoming full, I have connected an external hard drive to store my iPhoto Library.
There is no problem with this however, I cannot seem to get Time Machine to back up the external drive.
It is on the "excluded" list, but I am unable to select it to remove from this list.
Thank you in advanceAre you using that same drive as the backup destination? If so, you can't back it up. Otherwise see below.
In the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-C, or select
Go ▹ Computer
from the menu bar. A window will open showing all mounted volumes. Select the one in question and open the Info window. What is shown as the Format in the General section? -
How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme
How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme? I used to be able to but now time machine will not recognize my hard drive to select as a backup when plugged into my airport extreme. I'm not sure what happened or changed. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.
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Can Superduper and Time machine write to the same external volume.
I just setup a 750 GB external drive single partition using firewire 800. Any problem with superduper and time machine writing to the same volume?
RonCan Superduper and Time machine write to the same external volume.
Yes, they can write to the same partition.
I am doing this, and can report no problems so far. TM still backs up and SuperDuper is bootable. -
I have my Time Machine on an external drive (not connected to Airport Extreme) and I have an external HD attached to airport extreme. Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme. How?
Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme.
Sorry, but no.
Time Machine will backup your Mac, but not the hard drive attached to the AirPort Extreme.
Time Machine will back up a hard drive only if it is attached directly to your Mac via USB or FireWire. -
If i have Time Machine backed up on an external hard drive, do i just plug the drive into another macbook pro and all my stuff is in the new computer? Also, does it matter if the new computer is running Lion when the backed up info came from Snow Leopard 10.6.8?
No and Yes
Don't use TM for this purpose, clone your drive to an external, plug the external into another MBP and reboot from it. Please note that booting a machine that came with Lion may not be possible from a drive with Snow Leopard. -
Can I use Time Machine to archive like an external drive?
I've backed up my computer to Time Machine and everything from my computer is there, but I have a new project which needs me to archive 21 pieces of artowrk that have multiple photo images for aech, and they are large size originals. Can I upload these files to a folder in Time Machine or directly on my external drive, so I don't have to have all of these files taking up space on my main computer?
You can, but it is not recommended.
Apparently you cannot partition an existing Time Capsule volume if that is what you are using.
Excerpt from ASC contributor Pondini's Time Machine FAQ:
3. Can I use my TM disk for other stuff?
Yes. Time Machine will not delete anything you put there.
But it's much, much better to partition an external drive into 2 (or more) parts, also called volumes. Assign one to Time Machine, for its exclusive use for backups; use the other partition(s) however you want.
(Unfortunately, though, you can't partition a Time Capsule's internal disk. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for some alternatives) -
I have been successfuly using Time Machine to back my iMac to an external hard drive (via usb) and everything has been fine for the last year. I have been using TM to back up to a HD called Terra LaCie via usb.
A week ago, my iMac hard drive was full--so I spulrged and bought a 6 TB external hard drive (Western Digital My Book-Thunderbolt). I set up the new Thunderbold HD to use RAID 1 (mirror) and copied most of my iMac hard drive over to the Thunderbolt HD.
I kept my working photographs (most recent) on my iMac and felt good to know my older photographs are on my new Thunderbolt hard drive.
For a few days, Time Machine seemed to work fine (backing up my iMac to Terra LaCie HD. I haven't been concerned with backing up the Thunderbolt drive (as I feel that mirroring is same as backing up).
Yesterday, Time Machine indicated the lastest back-up failed (for the HD called Terra LaCie). Now, when I go into Time Machine, the dialog box indicates the following message:
"Are you sure you want to erase the backup disk “Terra Lacie”? Erasing will destroy all information on the disk and can’t be undone.
The disk must be erased before it can be used for Time Machine backups because a disk you are backing up is case sensitive, but the backup disk is not."
When I open Time Machine to look at my external hard drives (I also have a third usb portable drive); two of the three drives indicate the following:
"reformat required; case insensitive disk".
The small, portable hard drive (that I'm also using) doesn't say it needs to be reformated (but my new Thunderbolt and my old usb HD both indicate the same message (above).
What should I do? I just spent days transferring my photographs from my iMac to my new Thunderbolt. Should I just not use Time Machine any longer and work from my Thunderbolt drive?
Am I to understand that my iMac suddenly become case sensitive? Sorry if this was too much information about my hard-ware set-up.
Any help someone can provide me would be greatly appreciated. I suppose I need to understand Time Machine and perhaps my Thunderbolt better.Hi BDAqua,
Bravo, you helped me solve my problem.
The Case Sensitive Disk was the small portable hard drive that I was using termporarily.
I just disconnected it and I started TM machine and everything seems to be working just fine.
Thank you very much!!!! -
I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
tgs6164 wrote:
I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
Purchase a couple of these when they go on sale.
Start burning all the photos onto DVDs.
At least you'll have all your photos if your computer, time machine or any other backup you use goes bonkers.
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