TimeMachine interruption during initial backup to external hardrive

Dear All,
I was using TimeMachine for the first time on a QNAP NAS. It was plodding along quite well and I stupidly decided to change the IP address of my NAS with about 5 gigs of 160gig backup left to go. TimeMachine obviously lost the drive so I decided to start the backup again. My TimeMachine found the NAS again and started 'preparing the disk' for backup. After it did this to about 7gigs it only backedup 48megs and the finalized the backup with no issues.
I was just wondering if I had to run the backup again as this was my first backup.
Cheers,
D

Yes, Time Machine will recover from a failed or cancelled backup. But it usually takes a long time; may seem to be progessing very slowly; then may abruptly finish before it seems to have copied everything.

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My Time Machine stalls during initial backup on external hard drive even after several hours.

We have been using Time Machine and an external hard drive to back up our MacBook for almost a year now. Recently, the hard drive (using a USB) was removed without ejecting it properly. After that, the auto backups began stalling. We tried setting up Time Machine all over again but the initial back up stalls at different places (like 6MB of 87GB) even if it's left for several hours overnight. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this? If not, can anyone suggest another inexpensive way of backing up our files from our MacBook?
Thanks!
Shane

It might have created a new user and loaded under that.. new user being the old user. But if you have issues do it again, only this time pick where the backup will go.
http://pondini.org/TM/16.html
The other questions might also be relevant as a new hard disk will make the Mac appear to the TM backup as a new computer.
See 14-18 for restore info.

Time Machine Freezes During Initial Backup

I have a 500gb external Western Digital HDD I am trying to use as my Time Machine backup drive. The computer I'm using is a 24" iMac with about 250gb of data on it. The external drive is partitioned as a GUID / Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
When I try to run the initial backup, it will randomly freeze during the process. Sometimes it gets halfway through the backup and freezes, other times, right away. Sometimes there is an error, other times there isn't.
I have tried re-partitioning the drive many times, manually starting the backup and also letting the backup start on its own. All of my applications are closed when the backup begins, but no matter what I do, I cannot get the initial backup process to complete.
Ironically, I had the same problem on ANOTHER iMac of mine, with the same model Western Digital drive. The backup would freeze randomly during the initial process but I would keep manually re-starting the backup until it magically finished the backup. Now that computer seems to be working fine.
However, I still can't get this other iMac to work. I find it strange that two separate computers with two separate 500gb Western Digital drives would have the same problem with Time Machine, unless the problem is with Time Machine itself.
Any ideas out there how to resolve this?

Bruno321 wrote:
However, I still can't get this other iMac to work. I find it strange that two separate computers with two separate 500gb Western Digital drives would have the same problem with Time Machine, unless the problem is with Time Machine itself.
Why do you assume it's TM, not WD?
There are many possibilities.
Did you completely erase the drive before formatting it? Sometimes the utilities, etc., that come on new drives can interfere with TM.
Is your iMac an Intel? If it's an older PPC, you need the Apple Partition Map, not GUID.
Is this USB or FireWire? USB is often much slower and less reliable.
If it's USB, does it have it's own power, or does it draw from your Mac? Often there's just barely enough to run a drive; if you have another USB peripheral, it can take enough power to interfere with the disk.
Does it have an automatic "spin down" feature? If so, can you disable it?
Does it have the latest updates? I thing I saw a post here recently that a WD update fixed, but I can't find it now.
Are you running any anti-virus scanning? If so, exclude your TM drive from it.
Sometimes excluding it from Spotlight as well, at least during a large initial backup, can prevent conflicts between TM and Spotlight.

Slow initial backup to external HD

I purchased a WD 1TB 'My Book for Mac' and have it connected to my 1.8GHz G5 with a 500GB HD. I have partitioned the My Book into two equal halves; one for a complete Time Machine backup of my G5, and the other for any odds and ends I have lying around on other hard drives. This is the first drive I have used Time Machine to backup as I have never had a drive big enough to do so before.
So I have the drive connected to my G5 via Firewire 800, and copying large documents (1GB) to the other partition go through in a patter of seconds, but the initial backup process of Time Machine is taking FOREVER! It has done 600MB in the last hour, and has 300GB to go; at this pace it's going to be at it for a week.
Can someone tell me what I have to do to speed it up? - Keeping in mind I have not third party Anti-virus software.

bobshled wrote:
Thanks for the response Pondini,
I partitioned it using Disk Utility, and upon checking both partitions just then by going to get info, they are both formatted into Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Good. But is the *Partition Map Scheme* either GUID (Intel Mac) or +Apple Partition Map+ (PPC Mac)? Select the top line for the drive (with the make and size) to check.
I am using Microsoft Entourage, with 2 email address accounts containing probably close to around 10 000 emails total. I have read that large Entourage databases can mix badly with Time Machine, but I thought this was just to do with modifying the entire database file with every new email, resulting in a new database file backup with every Time Machine backup; not with actual backup speed (especially on the first run).
Correct on both counts. There are some ways to minimize the size of the incremental backups of Entourage, if that becomes a problem. With that much email, it likely will take a fair amount of space.
I have removed the other partition from spotlight as requested, and have actually seen a bit of an improvement to speed. It's now chugging along at almost a MB a second.
I assume you mean the TM partition?
As it is taking a long time, will putting the Computer into Sleep during this backup process simply pause and resume it upon waking it up again? I ask because the computer is in my room and the fans spinning can be quite annoying! I wont be able to sleep if its on backing up all night!
You can stop the backup, and TM will leave it as "in.Process" (won't display it via the TM interface), and should pick up there the next time. But if your first, full backup is interrupted, it will probably go through the lengthy "deep traversal" again. That could be an hour or more, and take most of your CPU, depending.

TC freezes during initial backup

I have tried searching this forum for an answer to my problem with no luck. My 1 tb TC freezes during the same spot every time I try an initial backup. When the initial backup hits 690 out of 760 gb the transfer rate crawls to zero.
I have tried both ethernet and wireless connections, downgrading my firmware from 7.3.2 to 7.3.1 to 7.3 as well as resetting the time capsule and starting over. Other than this problem the TC works flawlessly. No problems with the internet, or accessing the drive and mounting the sparse bundle. Once the initial backup freezes at 690 gb I can manually stop the backup.
Does anyone have any suggesitons? Any help would be MUCH appreciated. I have been battling with this thing for quite some time now. I am using OS X 10.5.6 on a PowerMac G5. Thanks a lot

I have had a similar problem. I just bought my Time Capsule and everything was great until I tried to do the initial back up. It shuts down completely every time. Several tries later, and nothing.

Can you automatically backup an external hardrive to Time capsule

Already backup to an external drive from an iMac but also have another external drive that has my archived photos on but would like to backup these automatically possbly with Time Capsule. Is it possible and to save effort can I backup m iMac to it as well.
Ratbag2

I assume that you are asking about Time Machine backups
If you have an external drive connected to your Mac using either the USB or FireWire connector.....
Open System Preferences on your Mac
Open Time Machine
Click the Options button
A list of files and devices that are Excluded from Time Machine backups will be displayed
Click on the name of the hard drive
Click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from the Excluded list and it will now be backed up by Time Machine along with your Mac
If the hard drive is greyed out in the Exclusions list, it is not formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and cannot be backed up using Time Machine

Upgrading iPhone 4 firmware yields error -5000 during initial backup step

I am trying to upgrade my iPhone 4 firmware from v4.3.5 to v5.0.1 as offered by iTunes (v10.5.2.11 running on Windows 7).
When I do so, I first get a notification, that iTunes is first backing up all phone data in order to be able to restore it to the phone after the upgrade. After a few minutes I then get an alert popup, that the backup failed with error -5000 and the warning, that if I choose to continue, I will loose all data from my iPhone. At this point of course I always choose to abort (I repeated the process 3 times now, each time with the same result).
What is this "error -5000" and how can I fix or avoid it? BTW: the computers HD has >75 GB left, so it can't be a space issue...
Michael
PS.: I thought I bought me an apple product to exactly avoid this kind of hassle and cryptic error messages...

I did as instructed (with mixed feeling I may add), but - alas - with the ame result, i.e. also with MSSE real time protection disabled I am getting the same "error -5000". I even rebooted (and then checked the setting again) to make sure it was really disabled before trying again.
Other options or suggestions?
Michael

How can I take backup in External HardDrive and then reinstall new OS and then restore data from External Hard Drive

I have goot some issue with my Macbook i7, I am not able to start my Macboook its keep showing the Grey screen after login.
I have done something where I have successully taken the OS backup on External Hardrive which was saying computer will start automatically. After this I founded a Fresh new computer but may be that was running on External hard drive.
I am **** confuse what should I do next?
Anyhelp wold be great......

Delete the user account, then use the "Erase Free Space" option in the Erase tab of Disk Utility to write zeroes to the drive. Stick with the "Fastest" method (one pass of zeroes) unless you're hiding secrets from the NSA - anything more stringent is a waste of time.
Matt

Backup External Hardrive with Timemachine

Hi,
I have a iMac and an external Hardrive.
I store all my data in the external hardrive - music, movies, documents. No data is stored in iMac harddrive.
Is there a way to backup only that external hardrive with TimeMachine?
If so how?
I am using macFuse in my external harddrive since i read the data from bootcamp xp also
Thanks for your help

I hope you are not getting my Question
Nice comment.
I know you do not want to backup your internal drive, that is why you need to select it as I said. Time Machine will backup the internal HD and external HD's by default. When you go to Time Machine preferences and click the options and choose specific drives look at the dialog it will say *"Exclude these items from backups:"* so if you choose your internal HD it will NOT _I repeat_ NOT be backed up.
If for some reason you cannot do this then make an appointment at your local Apple Store and they will help explain it to you.

HT1178 Time Capsule used as External Hardrive Backup

If I want to use a Time Capsule as an external hardrive backup for my MacBook Pro, how do I do it?
What cords do I need and can I get it to back up wirelessly? I don't want my own wireless from it,
because we already have it in the house - I just want my own storage unit and I have one, but no
cords to go with it. Need to get cords - which ones?

This is out of my area of expertise, but I believe you can set the Time Capsule up so it doesn't generate a network, but is on the existing network.
Then you can back up to it wirelessly.
You should still do the first backup via an Ethernet cable if at all possible, as it will be 2-3 times faster than WIFI, but then backups can be done without having to connect the cable.

Using external hardrive to backup

My external hardrive is set up to automatically backup when I plug it in. I have used it twice, both times
when its arrow at the top of my desktop quit spinning I dropped its icon into the trash and then removed the external drive from my laptop. This time it must have finished quite rapidly. I went in to Time Machine to see if I could tell for sure. I pressed a blue 'up' arrow and its icon on my desktop disappeared. I can not find the icon anywhere and do not want to take any chances of unplugging it from my laptop incorrectly. In Time Machine it says that the latest backup failed and Next Backup will take place 'when Disk is connected'. It also says that the latest backup was delayed.
CAN I REMOVE this external drive without dropping it into the trash. Where did its icon go? I just can't afford to take any chances.

I agree that you should be able to just pull out the hard drive if you don't hear any activity from it writing or see a light on the casing blinking. Make sure the hard drive is formated Mac OS Extended (Journaled) to work properly with Time Machine.

Kernel panic during Time Machine initial backup

Hi all!
I've got the Airport Extreme 2009 and external WD My Passport 320GB attached to it via USB and shared to the LAN. While initial backup with Time Machine via WiFi my MacBook Pro gets kernel panic.
My Passport has been formatted as Extended Journaled Case-sensitive file system.
Did anybody stumble upon such problem?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You need to know that backing-up that way is "iffy" and +*not supported by Apple.+* See Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Kernel panics are usually caused by hardware problems, but can be software.
Disconnect all peripherals, except keyboard and mouse. Reconnect one at a time to see if you can find the culprit.
If that's no help, run the Apple Hardware Test: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
And perhaps a heavy-duty memory test, such as the free Rember: http://www.kelleycomputing.com/
More kernel panic info:
Apple Support - About kernel panic messages
Mac OS X Kernel Panic FAQ
The X Lab - Resolving Kernel Panics
Apple Developer - Technical Note TN2063: Understanding and Debugging Kernel Panics
Tutorial: Avoiding and eliminating Kernel panics
|
If you still want to back up via the Airport, the first backup will be much faster if you connect via Ethernet.

Backup Library using external hardrive?!

I understand that I can use a DVD or CD to backup my Library but is there an easier way to back up my library using an external hardrive other than individually moving all 2000 of my mp3s??

If you go into the My Music folder, there will be an iTunes folder. Inside that folder is all of the information for playlists, all of the songs, etc. You can copy and paste that if you want.
If you're looking to run all of the songs in iTunes off of the external HD, go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced, and change the iTunes music folder to a folder on the external HD. Now, go along the top of iTunes and choose Advanced>Consolidate library. That will copy everything to the external HD, and will make iTunes run off of the external HD. I don't usually recommend this option if you're just wanting to back up your content.

External hardrive to use with Imac - how to format and to what?

i have my external hardrive i use with my pc
how and to what should i format it so i can use ut with leopard and timemachine, also is it possible to make 2 partiton on it so one partition
would still be windows format so i can backup windows on it too?

If you have an Intel Mac do this:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
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 drop down menu to two and resize as desired using the sizing gadget. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the PC volume you just created (this is a sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to MSDOS (FAT32) from the Format drop down menu. Click on the Erase button.
5. Select the OS X volume you just created (this is the other sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. 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.
You should now be able to use the drive on both platforms. One partition for OS X and the other for Windows.

Time machine will not perform initial backup

Hey,
time machine is not performing my initial backup, this is the error it gives
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6425/screenshot20100419at522.png
The error shows up anywhere from the first few megs to the first few gigs during the backup (and the backup is incredablly slow, I don't know why...(not like the apple videos where it goes 0.5gigs/s))
It is the second partition on a 1TB USB drive.
I tried several formats (pretty much everything in disk utilities).
How do I fix this?
Thanks
Message was edited by: Positron1234

Positron1234 wrote:
Shoot, my partition scheme is MBR and not GUID or Apple....
Is there anyway to fix this without wiping the entire harddrive (I don't have enough storage in everything that I have to store stuff to backup this entire harddrive (at least 10 years worth of stuff))
It's risky. iPartition, and perhaps some other 3rd-party apps, claims to be able to change formats and/or the partition map without erasing, but they very prominently recommend backing the drive up first. And it costs about half what a new HD will.
If the things in the other partition aren't backed-up some other way, your best bet might be to get a larger internal HD, so you can keep all your originals on it, and reformat the external and let TM start over.
Or, get a second drive, and let it back up both your internal HD and the current external.

TimeMachine interruption during initial backup to external hardrive

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