Time machine not detecting external drive after installing OS X Server

Hi,
Recently I installed OS X Server to set up a vpn but while I have been setting it up I have noticed other Mac's with in the network can not back up anymore the the external hard drive that they used to.
I have made sure that the external drive is on shared folders etc. and the other Mac's can detect the hard drive if I use connect to server to connect to my Mac Mini that the hard drive is attached to.
I have tried to connect it to the Airport we have here but it wont come up on any computers under the Airports name, we are using its hard drive at the moment to back everything up to but we need to back up to the external hard drive ASAP.
The hard drive in question is a SmartStor DS4600 6TB using USB 3 to connect to the Mac Mini and all the Mac's are running Mavericks.
This needs to be resolved ASAP so any help would be greatly apreciated.
Thanks,
Bruce

I *think* with OS X Server to use an attached external drive as a TM backup, it has to be setup this way. You're right, a shared folder is setup under a Backups folder. However, each Mac on the LAN will create its back up in the Backups/Shared and those back ups will be visible if they ever need to restore.
I don't understand why you need to have the back ups created at the root of the volume. And I don't know if or how this can be done using OS X Server. I have always used the TM Backup service and have not tried to share an externally attached drive to be used as a back up. You may be able to do this by going into the File Sharing service and define your back up drive there. You'll have to give read/write permissions to each user just like you would do for any other shared folder.

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Restore from Time Machine not recognizing External Drive

Hi all,
I woke up the other day to a black screen and a frozen macbook pro (4 months old). It wouldn't boot up past the gray screen, so I tried to repair the drive with the install disc. It said that there are no errors (liar!), so I wiped it and tried to restore from my latest Time Machine backup (should be the day prior).
However, when trying to restore through the install disks, I only see a backup from April (5 months ago). Even if I try to restore from that one, it says that I don't have enough disk space and won't do anything for me.
Migration assistant in OSX doesn't see my external drive, even though I can access it through finder.
I just want my system back to what it looked like prior to my crash. Shouldnt Time Machine have this capability?
Thank you for any help.

Robin Ryan wrote:
Hi all,
I woke up the other day to a black screen and a frozen macbook pro (4 months old). It wouldn't boot up past the gray screen, so I tried to repair the drive with the install disc. It said that there are no errors (liar!), so I wiped it and tried to restore from my latest Time Machine backup (should be the day prior).
However, when trying to restore through the install disks, I only see a backup from April (5 months ago). Even if I try to restore from that one, it says that I don't have enough disk space and won't do anything for me.
Migration assistant in OSX doesn't see my external drive, even though I can access it through finder.
I just want my system back to what it looked like prior to my crash. Shouldnt Time Machine have this capability?
Thank you for any help.
You should take your question to the Time Machine forum. More experts there on TM than you can ever imagine.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1342

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion. I have a Laice 1 terabyte external drive that worked fine with Snow Leopard and now no show ... tried connecting it to front port and Mac Pro can't see it. Also lost Office,Quicken, and Final Cut Pro says: " You can't open application because Power PC apps are no longer supported" this is Not a good surprise!

Does the drive work when just directly connected? If so, have you prepped the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

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?

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.

Time machine not seeing external hard drive in time line

can anyone help
time machine not seeing external hard drive in time line
before 2013
information say in 2009 is not accessable to view this
i must select external drive from finder
the time machine icon not recognising

thanks for reply
when i open time machine the time line on right side of page
has date ranging from 2014 back to 2010 but only highlight date from 2014 back to 2013
anything before 2013 is greyed out and cannot not be selected
when i touch the pages they only rush towards me a limited amount then stops
also why it shows date as 2014 is strange

Copying Time Machine files to external drive for use with PC

Hello! Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
My MacBook Pro recently died. I have it backed up by Time Machine on an external drive. Now I'd like to copy my files from the backup to another external drive so that I can access them later from a PC computer running Windows (7 or 8). Is that possible? The Time Machine drive, I believe, is formatted specifically for Mac, but the external drive I'm trying to copy to is FAT32. Can I connect both to a friend's Mac, look for the files I need, and then copy them from the backup drive to the other external drive? Will a PC computer be able to read them?
Thanks!

Usually that error indicates a drive malfunction; specifically, the drive is spinning down and not responding to bus signals. Some "Eco" or "green" drives are known for this behavior. The following steps may help:
Select  ▹ System Preferences ▹ Energy Saver ▹ Power Adapter and uncheck the box labeled Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible, if it's checked.
If the drive is connected to a hub, connect it to a built-in port on the computer.
If a firmware update is available for the drive, apply it.
Contact the drive manufacturer to see whether there's a firmware setting you can change.
If you installed vendor software for the drive, uninstall it.
If none of the above steps resolves the issue, try another drive.

My iphoto library disappeared. i am trying to restore my library from time machine -- from an external drive -- but everytime it tries to copy my library it tells me it can't do it because i don't have access to my iphoto library??!!! help!!

My iphoto library inexplicably disappeared! i am panicked but i do back up by time machine to an external drive and also to JustCloud. I am trying to restore my iphoto library from a back up on feb 28, 2014 and it says it's copying but then gives me a message that it can't do it because i "don't have authorization to access iphoto library"?! what does this mean? i really want to get my library back on my mac. Also if anyone knows why this happened or where my photos might be on my computer, i'd appreciate help with that, too.

Thank you Terence for your help. I was able to restore my backup from my time machine ext drive to a new 1tb seagate ext drive. so i felt sort of ok. but yesterday that older ext drive i used for time machine wouldn't open! i called applecare and they trouble shooted with me and said it's probably a goner and data is probably corrupted. it's only a few years old and i'm very careful with it. my husband accidentally dropped my new drive last night -- i know, unbelievable, i was SO upset, poor guy -- but I'm so stressed with all of this. i have 10 years of photos and videos. so now i only have the one newer drive with a backup. i have to buy another one today to backup again so i at least have two backups. i tried to delete a ton of files last night to free up the 30 gb of space i need to get my full library back on my mac. i have 90gb free and deleted 7 years worth of photos i had on picasa that were in my "pictures" folder and also a ton or random photos and videos i had in that same pictures folder and thought that would give me the 30 gb but it hardly freed up any space at all! do you know why that is? all of this stuff is really a pain and really stressful. thank god i did have a backup in the first place but now i am panicked the one i have left will somehow crash. especially after my husband dropped the drive lastnight! it didn't fall far and fell onto a wood floor and seems fine, but after my older ext drive crashed yesterday -- and i lost my entire iphoto library a fewweeks ago off my mac -- i feel cursed. any answers you have would be great. thank you.

How to use Time Machine with an external drive?

Hi…I’m new to this, I hope someone can help me=)
I’m trying to back up my Macbook Pro 10.6.8 using Time Machine with an external drive Seagate Backplus Slim. I’ve tried several solutions that I’ve found through different forums but still wouldn’t work.
Every time I opened Time Machine, it has this appearance:
Then when I click “Select backup Disk”, it goes on like this:
And after I click “Set Up Time Capsule”, it has this:
It keeps saying that it couldn’t find AirPort wireless, even though I have good WIFI connection.
Anyone know what I should do? Please help….Thanks everyone

Ayuphie ~ In your Time Machine Preferences panel, slide the OFF-ON switch to the ON position:

How do I convert a Time Capsule former Time Machine into an external drive?

I want to convert my 2TB Time Capsule (which I formerly used as a Time Machine) into an external drive. I now have a 3TB which I have set up as the Time Machine thus freeing the 2TB to hopefully work as an external drive. The 2TB now sits with the old Time Machine backup data intact but I no longer need that backup. I had it hooked up to my modem but not have hooked the ethernet up to my desktop (is that right?). Please advise how to prep the 2TB Time Capsule to be a normal external drive.

1) How do I turn the wireless on the TC on or off? Where do I go to change the settings.
Spend some time in the airport utility.. the easiest way is simply go through every screen until you are familiar with the controls.
Open airport utility.. click the TC.. click edit.
Click the wireless tab. Click on Network mode.. select Off..
2) I found the Touro 4TB and the price is quite inexpensive compared to other 3 and 4TB units. What's the reason for that? Am I missing something in the specs? They offer a Touro Deskpro and a Touro DX3. I can't tell from the description what the difference is - I can't see beyond 4TB. Is one preferable over the other?
They are competing with better known brands.. ask anybody hard disk brands they know.. and either Western Digital or Seagate come to mind. People easily forget there was hitachi (ex IBM). Although Hitachi sold their disk division but due to anti-trust laws it could not be sold entirely to WD who bought half of it.. Toshiba bought the other half. WD tries to hide the Hitachi drive name to bury it.. they bought to bury. But Toshiba keeps it alive.
I actually buy Hitachi drives (Toshiba now) in preference to the others. But everyone has their favourite. The Touro are just good value for money.. the case is not exactly the work of art.. buy LaCie for that. It is a bit over large and the plastic is plasticiky, if you get my drift. Silver plated plastic to make it look like metal is not my favourite.. but I am hardly concerned with the look..!! It looks like an external hide drive.. hide it if you find it ugly.
The difference between the Touro Pro and the Touro DX3 4TB drives is the speed of the drives, the pro is 7200rpm and the the DX3 should be 5400rpm.
I am not 100% sure of the above.. but it is likely to be different drives.. We have not seen DX3 in our market until recently.. they were all pro.
None with bigger than 4TB at this point..
3) OWC - never heard of this group - are the hard drives dependable in your experience?
Retailers who sell Touro and Toshiba and LaCie and every other brand.. sell online and to overseas.. good prices if not the cheapest.. have their own lines of shells, as well selling all the others.. have their own brand SSD but obviously bought in from elsewhere.. RAM, kits for all sorts of things.. huge catalog and very Apple orientated.
I am amazed if you have been on a Mac for more than 5min.. google ads have not flashed up OWC 20 times.. you must have good resistance to advertising.
Please google OWC.. if I post their actual URL the post will get deleted.
Look up say external drives.. they have one zillion of them.

External Drive with Time Machine, booting from external drive with utilitie

I'm using Time Machine now with
a LaCie 1TB external hard drive.
Everything works fine.
But, I've been wondering:
Can I place a program like TechTool
on the external drive (that Time Machine uses)
and boot from that external drive.
I would like to be able to do that,
because diagnostics and repair programs
only works properly and fully when they run from
external drives. Anything on the internal drive can be repaired
and examine. Impossible to do if Techtool is on the same
drive that's been examined.
Any thoughts as to what I should do?
Thanks
iMac, Leopard, Time Machine, Lacie Quadra 1TB drive.
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?

pitou wrote:
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?
As V.K. says, you can't boot from TM backups.
But you can restore your entire system from any one of them, per the procedure in #14 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
You can also selectively restore from them, while running normally. See #15 in the FAQ Tip.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the rest of the FAQ Tip.

According to the Genius Bar, my HD is dying. I need help with such things as making a boot disk, making sure back up is complete, etc. I have a White early 2008 MacBook running 10.7.3. It is backed up regularly with Time Machine to an external drive.

I am not a real tech type person. MAcBook white early 2008 running 10.7.3. I know I will need a boot disk to restart the computer after I have installed the new drive. I have purchased a Hitachi 500 G, 7200 RPM to install. The computer is backed up regularly using Time Machine to an external hard drive. I nned to know all the steps I need to do before physically changing the hardware.

Do you have your original drive backed up? Is it still working? If so I'd buy an external enclosure and boot from that. Then format your new drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your old drive to the new one.
If you don't have a backup, I'd buy an external drive, use carbon copy cloner to do a backup, then install the new drive and clone back to it.

HT201250 Will using Time Machine on my external drive, reformat or wipe my external drive?

I need to backup my whole computer, and was wondering if I can do this with Time Machine using my external hardrive. The problem is, that I am using this same external hardrive for other things and I don't want to lose that data. Will using Time Machine wipe my external hardrive? Apple did not make it so clear in their guide on using Time Machine, but I have a feeling that it must reformat the hardrive. If my hunch is correct, is their any other way I can backup my computer using an external hardrive without having to wipe it? I was thinking about just dragging Macintosh HD into a folder on my hardrive and letting the file transfer. What are the downsides of doing this?
NOTE: Don't know if this makes a big difference, but I am running OS X 10.8.3

If the drive is not formatted correctly for Time Machine, then it will have to format it. But, it won't do that automatically. It will ask if you want to use that disk for Time Machine when you attach it.
You can have Time Machine on a drive with other data. See Pondini's Time Machine FAQ: http://pondini.org/TM/3.html

Time Machine not recognizing external hard disk

I am trying to set up backups via Time Machine on my external hard drive but as I go through the process the my hard drive is not recognized in the dropdown menu. It the external hard drive is recognized in the Finder but not by Time Machine. What gives?

do you know how the disk is formatted? it may be in a format that time machine does not support, but which the finder can see. just like this guy:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1241053&tstart=0
(solution included in that thread as well).

How to restore from Time Machine onto an external drive

Hi all,
I am a backup freak, and I don't feel entirely safe with Time Machine taking care of backing up my system unless I can test every now and then that I would be able to do a full restore. I've had problems in the past with .Mac/MobileMe's Backup.app, which would not be able to restore from an otherwise apparently successful backup, for one reason or another.
So, is there a way to test a full restore from Time Machine onto an external hard drive?
Thanks for your advice

Allamistakeo wrote:
Hi all,
I am a backup freak, and I don't feel entirely safe with Time Machine taking care of backing up my system unless I can test every now and then that I would be able to do a full restore. I've had problems in the past with .Mac/MobileMe's Backup.app, which would not be able to restore from an otherwise apparently successful backup, for one reason or another.
So, is there a way to test a full restore from Time Machine onto an external hard drive?
of course. connect an external, boot from the snow leopard DVD and choose "restore system from backup" from the utilities menu. follow the instructions and choose the external drive as the restore destination. make sure it's properly formatted. it should be formatted mac os extended with GUID partition scheme.
also, you might want to consider doing secondary backups in addition to TM by making a bootable clone on another external drive. use CCCloner or Superduper for such backups.
Thanks for your advice

Time Machine, iPhoto and External Drives

Hi!
My Mac Info:
Macbook Pro Retina OS X, Version 10.8.5, Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5, Memory 8GB
I have 0KB out of 120.47GB.
Audio - 2.33GB
Movies - 37.12GB
Photos - 28.66GB
Apps - 6.98GB
Backups - 0KB
Other - 45.38GB
Ok...the scenario, let's say...
I backed up in Jan '14 on Time Machine on a G/Drive 1GB. (got it.)
In Feb '14, I ran out of space on my Mac, so I deleted photos to make room and did another backup, photos and everything. (got it.)
In Mar '14, I backed up again.
Question 1.
In the Mar '14, back up, it only backed up the photos from my iPhoto library that were current, it did not back up the deleted photos.
So how do I see a complete photo library? The deleted photos and everything on my G/Drive? This scenario was fictitious, however I'm in a situation where I've been deleting photos in iPhoto and backing up to make space since Dec 2012. I don't know how retrieve a true library that has everything! (The photos that I have deleted, btw, have not been duplicates.)
Oh, the reason, why I want a complete photo library is because I want to externally print a album of our 3 yr old son. But when I go to the back ups, I can't tell which files have still have the photos that I deleted. So, how can I piece together all of the photo libraries for 1 comprehensive library without showing duplicates?
Question 2.
My external drives
G/Drive, S/N 7DGVE8MA - 1TB (I use this for Time Machine).I have used 295GB
WD My Book, WD P/N WD5000h1Q-00 - 500GB, (Backup to my G/Drive).I have used 45GB
Are these good external drives?
Many, many thanks!

Your profile shows 10.6.8 - you might want to update it.
If you are backing up using Time Machine, do you have a backup prior to when you started deleting photos that you could restore?
There seem to be multiple problems with WD drives in the discussions, but whether WD is a bad brand is hard to say.

Time machine not detecting external drive after installing OS X Server

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