Time Machine won't back up to drive. Five days backing up so far

A week ago I got a message saying that Time Machine could not back up to my external hard drive but that I could access my old backups. I pointed Time Machine to another hard drive and it has been backing up there for five days so far - all the time stating Time remaining 5 seconds. It is now in a cleanup mode. I have been reading about various bugs concerning Time Machine and wonder if there is a fix I can carry out so that I can use the original external hard drive again.

Stop the backup. Boot in safe mode and log in. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including Wi-Fi on certain iMacs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Similar Messages

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up?

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up? I have an external drive with data I need to add to my overall back up with what's on my mac. I have a separate drive already active as the Time Machine backup disk. I can see how to EXCLUDE disks, but how do I ADD that new external drive to regular backups?
I have 10.8.5 system on my Mac laptop.

Remove the drive from the list of items set to be excluded. It needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this to be possible.
(110504)

Time Machine won't "un-exclude" external drive

Any help appreciated. I have a Western Digital Passport 120G external hard drive that Time Machine won't backup. It's mounted fine; operates fine; when I go to Preferences>Time Machine>Options it's listed under "Do not back up" but it's grayed out. It won't allow me to "un-exclude" it.
Any suggestions?
Cliff

Well, I checked and it was factory formatted FAT32. I'll move my data to a DVD and reformat. I tried to read up on Apple.com but couldn't find any TM/HFS+ docs; I never would have found this info. Thanks, Barry.

Time Machine won't allow second backup drive?

I want to create a second backup of Time Machine on another external hard drive. However it won't give me an option to backup to both drives. When I insert drive II, it only allows me to use it if I delete backup drive one. I attached photos of the prompt.
Any help appreciated greatly. Thank you :-)

Howdy Kgkgkg12,
It sounds like this drive you are wanting to use with Time Machine is not in the same format that Time Machine needs to operate. According to this article:
Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac
Your Time Machine drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). If you select an NTFS or FAT-formatted drive, Time Machine prompts you to reformat the drive. Important: Reformatting erases any files on the destination drive. If you're not sure if you want to erase the drive you connected, choose a different drive.
You can check the format of the drive with these steps:
OS X Yosemite: View file, folder, and disk information
Get individual item info: Select the item(s), then choose File > Get Info, or press Command (⌘)-I.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Sterling

Time Machine Won't Recognize External Hard Drive

Hi there,
My father has a 2009 iMac running Mac OS X 10.8.3. Recently, Time Machine stopped recognizing his external Maxtor OneTouch backup hard drive.
I've tried the whole litany of ideas and tips listed in this forum and other websites:
Rebooting both the desktop and the external hard drive
Changing USB ports
Checking Disk Utility (won't even display)
Can you offer any solutions? He hasn't had an issue before, so it seems to be an isolated incident. This desktop is for his business, so it's very important for the files to be backed up.
Thanks.
Update: After submitting this, I received a dialogue box that said the computer cannot read the external hard drive.

If the drive has more than one interface (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, eSATA), try one of the other interfaces.
Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
Try a different cable.
If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
Disconnect all other devices on the bus, or as many as possible.
Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
Boot into Recovery and launch Disk Utility. Is the drive recognized?
Start up in Safe Mode and test.
Reset the System Management Controller
If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

Time Machine won't backup my external drive

I have my iTunes library stored on an external drive and I want Time Machine to back it up.
I have a brand new TM drive. I've been using it without problems to backup my 250Gb iMac. As soon as I add the external drive to the TM backup, it fails. I have other data on this drive that I don't need backed up, so I've only included the sub directory iTunes (by excluding all the others).
I followed a couple of similar threads, but the situations don't seem to apply. I did install Time Machine buddy so I could see the error messages.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Node requires deep traversal:/Volumes/Music:DVDs reason:must scan subdirs|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 151.31 GB requested (including padding), 1.56 TB available
Error: (2) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Tori's iMac/2009-11-25-182722.inProgress/3B5DD274-5AB6-44D1-9F1B-561934FB44AD/Music/DV Ds size:37
Stopping backup.
Copied 0 files (0 bytes) from volume Music/DVDs.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
Drives are all formatted OS Extended Journaled
I've run Disk Util on all the drives - no errors.
Any ideas or other things I should try?
If I remove the external drive from the backup, it starts to work again.

The mystery deepens . . .
I tried to replicate the problem. Renamed an empty partition from Misc2 to Misc2/test and copied some docs into it and ran a backup.
Sure enough, the message refers to it as Misc2:test and the deep traversal took almost a minute and a half (one folder, 3 sub-folders, total of about 30 items!), but it ran successfully.
So renamed it again, to Music/DVDs exactly like yours. No deep traversal, and it does call it Music:DVDs in the messages, but it backed-up properly.
Perhaps it was fixed in Snow Leopard? Or just another of TM's many little quirks? Perhaps the phase of the moon?
Edit: Some of your posts say you're on 10.5.3, others 10.6.2. Which is correct?
Message was edited by: Pondini

Time Machine won't mount Firewire 800 drive after restart / Finder crashes

I've been having problems with Finder crashes. I first suspected Spotlight might be the problem because sometimes when I started typing a search, it would display the first 3 characters and then lock up. I could force quit the Finder, but it wouldn't relaunch and required the computer to be shutdown and restarted with the power button. Once restarted, I had no keyboard and no mouse click (the mouse would move across the screen but I could not click on anything). After waiting several minutes (3-5) the mouse and keyboard worked properly.
After some research suggested the Spotlight index might be corrupt, I forced Spotlight to rebuild the index (add the drive to the exclude list under "Privacy" and then remove it from the list) and then repaired disk permissions. After that Spotlight was noticeably snappier and I thought my Finder crashes had been solved until........
Part 2: I have been using Time Machine (connected to a Fantom GreenDrive via Firewire 800) for several months now and ever since the beginning, I have noticed that the drive will NOT mount after a restart. I must turn the drive off and back on again to get it to mount. After that Time Machine picks it up and seems to work fine.....well, that is until this Finder crashing thing started several weeks ago. Anyway, I inadvertently set up an experiment last weekend when I installed some software update and forgot to remount the Time Machine drive after the restart. That was last Sunday night. The computer did not crash all week long. I thought my Spotlight fix had finally solved my problems, but now it seems I was wrong. This morning (Saturday, six days later), I noticed my Time Machine drive was not mounted. I mounted it, told Time Machine to "Back Up Now" and went away for a few hours. When I came back the Finder was locked up.
So guess my question is this: Are there any know problems with using Firewire 800 with Time Machine? and What can I do to fix this? In the meantime I'm trying another experiment - I've disconnect the Firewire 800 connection and replaced it with USB.

shaneeudy wrote:
So guess my question is this: Are there any know problems with using Firewire 800 with Time Machine?
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Not in general. Some drives don't always wake or "spin up" fast enough; often that's seen when the system wakes from sleep, though, not so much after a system Restart. Many Western Digitals do that; I don't recall seeing any posts here about yours, but you might want to search the forums for Fantom
In the meantime I'm trying another experiment - I've disconnect the Firewire 800 connection and replaced it with USB.
Good plan - that may provide a clue.
Also, check with the maker -- there may be a firmware or driver update.
And try verifying your internal HD, and repairing your backups, per #A5 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). Either might cause that.

Slow iMac and Time machine won't recognize iMac hard drive

I have an older iMac (2.16GHz Intel) that is upgraded to OSX10.6.7. Recently it has been running very slow (although it did not seem to correlate with any particular install that I know of). I have looked at the Activity Monitor and cannot find anything that is consuming vast amounts of memory (although I can't say that I really know what I'm looking for exactly, just no high numbers). I did a Safe Boot and it is still really slow there (EXAMPLE of slow is taking several minutes to open a program or taking 27 hours to download my pictures (which only took 13 minutes on my MacBook)). I know my iMac could use more memory (1G), but the slow problem is there even if only running one program. I can't find a particular pattern to it, it just hangs up and then comes back most of the time. It did however start shutting itself down recently. I finally got into disk utility (I've been trying to run disk utility and it usually goes into an eternal spin that I can't even force quit - have to hard boot). So from disk utility I ran verify disk in first aid - it says "the volume Macintosh HD appears to be ok." I"m not sure what else I'm supposed to do in here either. So my first question is Does anyone have any other suggestions for the slowness? Second, in the meantime I'm desperately trying to back up my data on the time machine that I stupidly have never set up as a back up. I can manually put files one at a time over there, but if I try to use it as a time capsule (system preferences, time capsule on) my hard drive does not show up as one of the options???? My external drive and the data that is already on the time capsule show up, but not my iMac hard drive. So my second question is How do I get my time machine to see my hard drive or is there another way to get my files to move over there? I realize I'm in trouble, any help would be greatly appreciated. I've tried to provide as much info as possible. Maybe there is something obvious I'm missing.

My own response, or rather an update: I took the computer up to the Genius Bar - my hard drive is bad. They are going to try to rescue my data. For those of you reading this with a similar problem, make an appointment and go to the Apple Store if you can. Mike, my personal "genius" for this encounter, said that stressing the machine when the hard drive is going bad just risks damaging it more. If you potentially have a hardware issue, take it and let them determine what is wrong. They have tools and diagnostics most of us wouldn't know how to use if we read about them here - and they have ways of retrieving data (I hope) that most of us do not have. Please note that disk utility said my hard drive was ok, but the diagnostics they did showed that in fact my hard drive was much less than ok, but it was still "mounting" hence the disk utility reporting it was ok. It is over an hour drive for me to get to the Apple store, and I only wish I had gone sooner.

Lion: Time Machine won't recognize my book driver?

After upgrading to Lion, TM won't recognize mybook drver. It says "The version of the server you are trying to connect to is not supported. Please contact your system administrator to solve the problem." This Wester Digital drvier is been connected via airport extreme for almost a year, and it worked fine on Snow Leopard, since the upgrade it does not see my backup driver. Any ideas?
Thanks.
M

Same problem here, with Western Digital BlackArmor NAS220.
It seems that Apple changed something with its AFP protocol, used by Time Machine.
In one single word: AMAZING!!!
I guess we have to wait until either Apple or WD releases some patch.

I'm using a WD NAS as my time machine backup drive and since upgrading to Lion the time machine won't operate with the drive. How am I to retrieve my photos and documents from it?

I realise it is the responsibility of WD to maintain the network storage interface for time machine. What is a solution for retrieving files from time machine?
When trying to re-add the drive a message said the version of the system is not supported.

Please follow these instructions:
Lion: Connecting to legacy (pre-Lion) AFP services - and Mac OS X (server):
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3258472

Time machine won't back up after Maverick install

Installed Maverick today on macbook pro, then have been unable to back up to Time Machine to my Western Digital 3TB drive. Last back up was successful just before install earlier today.
Time Machine Error "Files can’t be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read-only.
and a second message
Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “My Book”. Files can’t be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read-only. You may need to repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can’t be repaired, you must use a different disk for backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a different backup disk.
First restarting after Maverick install I received an error message that the disk "my book" could not be repaired.
When I go to get info on the external drive, under sharing and permissions it sayes I can read only, and I cant figure out how to change this everything to try is grey'd out.
Any help in fixing the problem and understanding the issue.

I'm also having this issue. I havn't had it before.
Any help would be appreciated.

Time Machine doesn't backup my esata drive

Hi,
I have a MacBookPro with an esata express card and a HD attached. I have a USB drive that Time Machine uses to backup my HD and (I thought) my esata drive. The esata drive is not excluded in Time Machine. Despite this the esata drive is not backed up by Time Machine.
I have tried setting up Time MAchine "from scratch" but it still won't backup the esata drive.
I'm out of ideas, perhaps someone out there can help?
Regards
Jesper

JsPr wrote:
I have tried setting up Time MAchine "from scratch" but it still won't backup the esata drive.
I'm out of ideas, perhaps someone out there can help?
That's correct; Time Machine will only back-up USB or FireWire externals. See this Apple article: Disks that can be used with Time Machine.

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up. I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.
I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?
When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups. It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.
Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up. Instead, it took 30 minutes. That can't be right. I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that. Please help.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil compare -E
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Time Machine won't recognize back up after I move external drive to Airport

I have a new 640GB exteranl drive that I bought to back up my Mac using TIme Machine. I plugged in the drive via USB (USB powered drive), then set up Time Machine and did the first back up successfully. I then plugged my exteranl drive into Airport Extreme so I could back up wireless in the future. Airport recognies the drive, and I can see the back up folders on the drive. However, Time Machine doesn't recognize those back up folders as my Mac.
I went into Time Machine SEttings, and repointed it to the same disk, and it tries to back up everything again, wirelessly. Any ideas how to get Time Machine to recognize the back up files made while I was "hard wired" to the Mac?

Adam1076 wrote:
I have a new 640GB exteranl drive that I bought to back up my Mac using TIme Machine. I plugged in the drive via USB (USB powered drive), then set up Time Machine and did the first back up successfully. I then plugged my exteranl drive into Airport Extreme so I could back up wireless in the future. Airport recognies the drive, and I can see the back up folders on the drive. However, Time Machine doesn't recognize those back up folders as my Mac.
I went into Time Machine SEttings, and repointed it to the same disk, and it tries to back up everything again, wirelessly. Any ideas how to get Time Machine to recognize the back up files made while I was "hard wired" to the Mac?
that's not possible. remote backups are stored differently. directly attached backups are stored directly in a folder on the drive. remote ones are stored inside a sparse bundle. you'll have to start a new backup sequence if you want to do remote backups.

Time Machine won't back up to drive. Five days backing up so far

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