Time machine won't recognize my WD MyBook Live as a backup drive

I am having an issue with Time Machine not recognizing my 1 TB MyBook Live External Hard drive. I recently changed internet providers and have a new modem and router (motorolla modem and medialink router) and since then I can't get Time Machine to consistently recognize the backup portion of this hard drive. Every now and then, not sure why, it will recognize the drive and back it up but won't stay connected all the time. Most of the time it acts as if there is no backup drive. I checked to see when the last backup was made and it said it was made a day ago but it was while I was asleep over night. Not sure why it connected then or how. To get even more odd, it does recognize the drive because I can access all the files on the server portion of the mybook live drive. For example I have all of my iTunes library on there and run it off the drive and that works fine and recognizes everything.
I have a macbook and I'm running Snow Leopard. Any suggestions on how to resolve this issue?

TM apparently identifies the machine's backup by the Computer Name stored in the Sharing preferences. Try opening Sharing preferences and changing the Computer Name to the one you used previously when your TM backup was created.
Also see:
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Here are several articles to help troubleshoot Time Machine Problems as well as assist in properly setting up Time Machine.
Mac 101- Using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Is Time Machine all you need?
Some advice for those using Time Machine
TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X- Time Machine- The Good, the Bad, and the Missing Features
Mac OS X 10.5- Time Machine backups are not visible
OS X 10.5- Time Machine stops backing up to external disk
10.5- Disable the 'use this disk?' Time Machine dialog
Time Machine tips and troubleshooting
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Restoring files backed up with Time Machine
OS X 10.5- Using Time Machine and troubleshooting Time Machine issues

Similar Messages

Time Machine won't recognize new external hard drive

I recently had a problem with My Passport and had to buy a new one. I have plugged it in and reformatted it and now Time Machine won't recognize it even though it shows on my desktop and the disk utility doesn't see any problem. Any ideas?

Disable Time Machine from System Preferences.
Choose Select disk button, remove the old TM backup disk and add the new one.

HT3275 I need to use a Western Digital external drive on both my Mac and a PC. To do this I need to format the drive in FAT 32. However, Time Machine won't recognize this format. Is there a work-around?

I need to use my external drive on my Mac and a PC, so I formatted it in FAT 32. I found that Time Machine doesn't recognize this format and cannot back up to it. So, if I want to use Time Machine I need to go back to a Mac format. Is there any way to get Time Machine to save onto a FAT 32 formatted drive?

It's usually not a good idea to use a Time Machine drive for anything else. It's too easy to make mistakes, or not do regular backups, or run out of space. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions #1 and 3.
But you can create a second partition on the drive, for use with Windoze.
See #5 in the FAQ for formatting instructions. You'll need to select 2 partitions. It's usually best to put the Time Machine partition first, and it should have the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Format. Make the second one MS-DOS (FAT), although you might prefer ExFAT.
Be sure to specify the GUID Partition table.

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 does not recognize my WD my book world edition network drive

I just updated to mountain lion and now my WD my book world edition network drive is not recognized by time machine. I get a message that says " The network backup does not support the required AFP features. Does anyone have a fix for this.

That device is unsuitable for use with Time Machine.
If you want network backup with Time Machine, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external hard drive connected to another Mac or a mini-tower (802.11ac) AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base station supports Time Machine, not any previous model.

Time machine causes error message " Disk not properly ejected" with USB backup drive

I am using iMac OS X Lion and Time Machine causes the error message with a WD 1.5 TB drive in aThermaltake dock, USB. every time I wake up the computer.... Ejection of Time Machine and shut it down and turn opp power to drive causes the error message problem to disappear. What is the solutin?

If it were mine I would replace the drive with another brand. WD drives EHD's tend to have more issues than any other EHD. If you want to continue using it you can try resetting the SMC (may take 2-3 tries) and/or restarting in Safe Mode to reset some caches, it's possible one or more has become corrupt.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

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.

Time machine won't recognize my old backup

I just bought a new MacBook Pro and am attempting to restore my old (stolen) laptop from my Time Machine backup. It recognizes my external hard drive, and I can browse all my files, but when I attempt to do a system restore it tells me that no valid Mac OS X backups are found. (Similarly, in Migration Assistant it just gives me a blank box in the "Select System to Transfer" dialogue.)
Does anyone know why my data is on my drive but not recognized by Mac OS X? I don't know if I set Time Machine to only backup my Applications / Personal Files and not the System, which is why it won't let me back it up. But it has everything else on there, and I really don't want to have to back up every file manually.
Thanks for your help in advance!

TM apparently identifies the machine's backup by the Computer Name stored in the Sharing preferences. Try opening Sharing preferences and changing the Computer Name to the one you used previously when your TM backup was created.
Also see:
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Here are several articles to help troubleshoot Time Machine Problems as well as assist in properly setting up Time Machine.
Mac 101- Using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Is Time Machine all you need?
Some advice for those using Time Machine
TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X- Time Machine- The Good, the Bad, and the Missing Features
Mac OS X 10.5- Time Machine backups are not visible
OS X 10.5- Time Machine stops backing up to external disk
10.5- Disable the 'use this disk?' Time Machine dialog
Time Machine tips and troubleshooting
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Restoring files backed up with Time Machine
OS X 10.5- Using Time Machine and troubleshooting Time Machine issues

Time Machine won't recognize my last backup after a power outage

Good Afternoon Everyone,
I just set up a Western Digital My Book Live on my network. Last week, I set up Time Machine to start a backup on my MacBook Pro (running 10.7.5). It took 2 days to finish, but all went well. For three days, all the backups worked perfectly. However, we had a power outage for an hour during the night and now that I turn on my MacBook Pro, Time Machine recognizes the disk, but doesn't have a record of any backup.
I have gone to the drive manually and seen that the files are still there, but how to I tell Time Maching on my MacBook that the full backup is already on that NAS drive, so that it won't do a full backup?
I would really appreciate the help.
Brett

TM apparently identifies the machine's backup by the Computer Name stored in the Sharing preferences. Try opening Sharing preferences and changing the Computer Name to the one you used previously when your TM backup was created.
Also see:
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Here are several articles to help troubleshoot Time Machine Problems as well as assist in properly setting up Time Machine.
Mac 101- Using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Is Time Machine all you need?
Some advice for those using Time Machine
TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X- Time Machine- The Good, the Bad, and the Missing Features
Mac OS X 10.5- Time Machine backups are not visible
OS X 10.5- Time Machine stops backing up to external disk
10.5- Disable the 'use this disk?' Time Machine dialog
Time Machine tips and troubleshooting
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Restoring files backed up with Time Machine
OS X 10.5- Using Time Machine and troubleshooting Time Machine issues

Had to reset TC, Time Machine won't recognize old backups

Two problems really. Firmware "update" was a disaster, forcing several resets of TC and creation, eventually, of a new name. First problem is that when I start up Time Machine, it won't recognize the backups that were already made of the drive on the TC. Second problem is that it says I only have about 1/2 of the capacity left in the TC drive. It seems that it is treating the old backup files as a large unrecognizable file that it will not delete. Optimum solution would be for TM to continue backing up my hard drive on the backups already created by TM on my newly named TC. If that can't be done, can I at least erase those old backups so that the TC has the maximum capacity to start backing up again from this point forward. Thanks for any help.

To Reformat the TC Hard Disk:
Go to Airport Utility --> Manual Setup --> Disks --> Highlight "Time Capsule Disk" on the left --> Select "Erase" on the right.

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.

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.

I just updated to Mountain Lion and now time machine won't recognize my backups from before the update.

I updated from Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.8 to Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.2 on my MacBook Pro
I used disk utility to restore my external hardrive because I read somewhere that that would fix the problem.
It did fix the problem but only temporarily. I was able to view my backups from Snow Leopard, but as soon as I tried to backup again, time machine was stuck
"preparing to backup" for 5 hours and when I quit the prepare I could no longer access my previous backups.

So what happens if you go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General? Are you able to go there at all? If you are able to go there, can you unlock the preferences using the lock in the lower left and your login name and password?
If you are able to do this, can you change the "Allow applications downloaded from:" to Anywhere?
Best of luck.

Time Machine won't recognize backups

I have two external RAID 5 units. One for content, one for backup of said content. Both are 10TB. Content to be backed up is 5.27TB.
Time machine completes the first backup, but fails to do any subsequent backups, saying there isn't enough space. It says it needs 5.27TB to backup, but it's already completed one backup and should only be adding changes, correct? When I go into Time Machine, it doesn't give me an option to recover from any backups. It looks like there are multiple snapshots, but I cannot scroll through them and the RESTORE option is greyed out.
Checking the drives contents shows it has 5.27TB. If I navigate the backup folder, all my content seems to be there. So is it simply not seeing my previous backup?
The Backup drive (and content drive) do go into sleep mode, does that possibly break Time Machine's link?
Super frustrating.
I've read a few posts here but they are all trying to backup with drives that are too small. I'm using identical drives.
This is my console window from the failed backup event:
2015-01-14 9:21:05.232 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Backing up to /dev/disk1s2: /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb
2015-01-14 9:21:06.123 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:06.123 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:15.609 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:15.609 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:24.580 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:24.579 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:33.579 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:33.579 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:40.497 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Will copy (Zero KB) from PromisePegasus
2015-01-14 9:21:40.497 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Found 351422 files (5.27 TB) needing backup
2015-01-14 9:21:40.499 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: 5.29 TB required (including padding), 4.72 TB available
2015-01-14 9:21:40.500 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Deleted backup /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb/SeanMacPro/2015-01-14-092119.inProgress/A909D1 F1-2818-40E7-A24C-9E9A1A8C9B12 containing 16 KB; 4.72 TB now available, 5.29 TB required
2015-01-14 9:21:40.500 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Removed 1 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
2015-01-14 9:21:40.501 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Deleted 1 backups containing 16 KB total; 4.72 TB now available, 5.29 TB required
2015-01-14 9:21:40.501 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Jan 14, 2015
2015-01-14 9:21:40.505 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Backup failed with error 7: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.

Start with C4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time Machine Won't Recognize Previous BackUps transfered to new iMac

I just bought a new iMac and used the assistant wizard to transfer all the files from my previous Mac (a dual 2GHz G5). No problem. I have several external drives and one main (1TB) drive that I use as the TM backup drive.
When I went to make my first backup as a user of new iMac, TM is telling me there's not enough space to complete the process. What is happening is that TM is trying to backup my ENTIRE set of hard drives, thinking that, because I have a new iMac EVERYTHING is new and needs a top to bottom back up.
All my backups (which are performed hourly using TM) are still on the TM disk, when i went to look the file structure, this a folder named "Zephyr One" and another (the most recent failed backup) folder named "Zephyr One 2"
A few questions: I can't find where I can change the name "zephyr one" this used to the name of my main hard drive, but I changed that back to Macintosh HD, which is also the name of the drive on my iMac.
The biggest question: how do I get TM to recognize that it doesn't have to do a total backup as if this were the very first backup being done.
Thanks

bnmeeks wrote:
I just bought a new iMac and used the assistant wizard to transfer all the files from my previous Mac (a dual 2GHz G5). No problem. I have several external drives and one main (1TB) drive that I use as the TM backup drive.
When I went to make my first backup as a user of new iMac, TM is telling me there's not enough space to complete the process. What is happening is that TM is trying to backup my ENTIRE set of hard drives, thinking that, because I have a new iMac EVERYTHING is new and needs a top to bottom back up.
All my backups (which are performed hourly using TM) are still on the TM disk, when i went to look the file structure, this a folder named "Zephyr One" and another (the most recent failed backup) folder named "Zephyr One 2"
A few questions: I can't find where I can change the name "zephyr one" this used to the name of my main hard drive, but I changed that back to Macintosh HD, which is also the name of the drive on my iMac.
Zephyr One is the computer name not the drive name. That's what TM uses to name those folders. Computer name is changed in system preferences->sharing.
The biggest question: how do I get TM to recognize that it doesn't have to do a total backup as if this were the very first backup being done.
you can't. TM will make a full new backup on a new computer. there is no way around that. if you don't have enough space for that i suggest you either reformat the TM drive and start backups from scratch or use a different external drive for new backups.
Thanks

Time machine won't recognize my WD MyBook Live as a backup drive

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