Why won't Time Machine back up onto this external hard drive?

I re-formatted a SimpleTech 320gb hard drive so it would erase the music and videos on it and format it for use with Time Machine. I thought it all went smoothly but then the initial back up which is about 91gb stops after it backs up about 22gb and says an error occured. No matter how many times I restart everything and try to back up more, it doesn't work. I've even tried using disk utility to erase it and that didn't work either. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

First, deselect the drive as your TM backup drive, then turn off TM. Now try this:
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 drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) 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 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.
Be sure to re-select the drive for the TM backup drive.

Similar Messages

HT201250 I have thousands of pictures on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac I don't want them lost. I do time machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough for making sure my pictures don't ever get lost?

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.

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

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.

HT201250 Time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme

How can I setup a time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme? Even better for time managment purposes I want to use the Eithernet Thunderbolt connection for the first back up and then through the wifi there after for daily routine Time Machine back ups.

You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?

Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?
I have a iMac with 10.7.4

I want to back up the data on the external Hard Drive that is attached to the Time Capsule to the Tim Capsule using Time Machine.
Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately, that will not work. You will need to connect the drive directly to your Mac if you want Time Machine to backup the drive to the Time Capsule.

Time machine backing up a second external hard drive

I currently have time machine backing up my imac to an external hard drive.I now want to back up a second external hard drive which contains all of my photographs to create some space on my imac.
Can this be done and if it can how is this done?
Thanks
Peter

First, be sure your TM drive is big enough for all your data (see item #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.)
Second, make sure the new external is set up with the GUID (preferred for Intel Macs) or +Apple Partition Map+ (preferred for PPC Macs) *Partition Map Scheme* and the +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ Format.
Then all you have to do is, go to TM Preferences > Options, select the drive in the +Do not back up+ box and click the minus sign at the bottom. That will change the +Estimated size of full backup+ under the box.
Once the new drive with the moved photos has been backed-up, and the old ones on your internal HD deleted, you can, if you want, delete all the backups of the old ones to gain some space on your TM drive. See item #12 of the FAQ Tip.

Time Machine backing up on two external hard drives.

Hi guys!
My question is if I can use two external HDs at the same time with Time Machine, backing up different content on each one?!
Let's say:
My Movies folder and My Music folder to external HD 1;
My Documents folder and My Pictures folder to external HD 2.
Is there a way of doing it? because my iMac has 250GB and my external HDs have 100GB and 80GB each one.
Thanks!

You might have a better chance of getting a solid answer to this question over in the Time Machine forum. In general since TM does incremental backups anything smaller than your current system drive is usually too small. However you can designate TM to only backup certain files and folders. I do not know if you can set it to back up to multiple drives/partitions as there is no user setting to do this.
George

Time Machine Back ups on an external hard drive

I have a western digital My Book Essentials 2Tbit external hard drive which is partitioned 1/2 formated for Mac 1/2 for PC. When the hard drive is directly connected to the Mac time machine and the backup work just fine. But once I connect the hard drive to my wireless hub (Netgear N600) Time Machine does not seem to want to use it for back ups.
I can find the drive and folders with the mac. In fact time machine can tell there is a back up on but it still seems to not want to use it for the backup.
Anyone know how to fix this?

Time Machine will no longer use NAS drives for backup (apart from AEBS) they must be connected directly.
You can 'hack' things to make them visible but at your own risk ... run Terminal and use the command
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

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.

Creating Encrypted Time Machine Back Ups to a Network Hard Drive

Hello all, I can't seem to create an encrypted Time Machine back up on a network hard drive. Can this be done? And if not, why not? It seems that Macs have all the necessary functionality already available in Mac OS. Time Machine can create encrypted backups with multiple computers so what's the difference if it is to a network backup drive, honestly? Any suggestions?
My Set up: Three Macs, Airport Extreme Base Station, Seagate 3 TB HD (with separate partitions for each computer's backups). 2 of the Macs use ethernet to connect to the network and one uses wireless regularly. Basically, I'm trying to encrypt my family's backup drive and I don't know how or why I can't.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Appleguy514

First, you need to know that backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.
Second, no, you cannot encrypt a network backup on Lion or earlier. Only Mountain Lion.

I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine

I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine
and if it yes i want to know if i have 1TB hard disk to use the 500gb for time machine and the other 500gb for normal use

thank you very much because i am considering to buy the porsche design hard disk 1TB and i want to have it for normal use and for time machine is a pitty to give 1TB for back up only again thanks and i know seperate the back and the working jobs are better but the i have to have 2 hardisks and i want only 1

HT201250 Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button. No drive is found. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past. I'm on the latest version of Snow Leopard. Thank you!

Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button. No drive is listed. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past. Any suggestions

Does the disk appear in Disk Utility?

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive?

How to Delete a Time Machine Backup - YouTube
If you want to remove an entire Time Machine backup on a backup drive, then the easiest way to do that is to erase the backup drive using Disk Utility. However, this will delete everything on the disk:
Drive Erase Snow Leopard and Earlier
1. 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 Utilities menu.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select the volume you wish to format from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

Do i have to select what i back up onto my external hard drive, or does it back up everything automatically?

do i have to select what i back up onto my external hard drive, or does it back up everything automatically?

It depends on the app you want to use to make backups.
If you are going to use Time Machine (recommended because it's the easiest), you just have to set it up and it will back up the whole OS X partition on the external drive, so don't worry. However, you can exclude items if you want. Read > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 Also, have a look at Pondini's site > http://pondini.org
Another option are the cloning apps, like Carbon Copy Cloner. These apps also clone the whole hard drive, but you can manually select the things you want to back up. The advantage of the clones is that you can start up your computer from them

Time Machine says both of my external hard drives require reformatting to case insensitive. What do I do?

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!!!!

Why won't Time Machine back up onto this external hard drive?

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