Yet another TIme Machine hair-puller

What gives with this software? I've read on these forums that people have plugged in a FW/USB disk directly into their laptops, done an initial backup and then plugged the disk into either an AEBS or another Mac running Leopard and are happily, wirelessly backing up. Not me.
When I do the initial backup of my laptop over the FW, it works fine, creating the backups.backupd folders and everything. But when I plug the LaCie 500GB into my iMac and network it, Time Machine tries to back up to it as if it's never seen it before and writes a sparse image file to the external drive. This isn't what I wanted, is it? I just wanted to do an hourly backup, and it's trying to back up my entire disk of about 100GB of data.
Any ideas? 10.5.1 can't come soon enough at this rate.

Try searching the forum for "sparse image" and/or "backing up two Macs on one external disk" (or something similar. There were a few threads in the last week or so that spoke to this issue - I haven't had the pleasure, so I can't help you...

Similar Messages

Yet another Time Machine issue

I had a failure in time machine several months ago, and did a full reset of time machine as instructed on the discussion boards. Today I noticed that not only had Time machine failed to Back up, but it had no back ups when I 'entered' it.
When I reset Time Machine (on a 4 T external hard drive, so space isn't an issue), it failed with an error message:
The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk.
The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk. WHen that volume is repaired (disk is partitioned) it says volume repair complete, and updating boot support partitions for the volume as required. Then it says Error: Couldn't unmount disk. When the second partition is repaired, it sends the same message.
I assume this is a problem with the Back Up Disk (a Lacie, purchased within the last few months). Or, is it a problem with Time Machine?
Any help out there?
THANKS
I have been running Lion for about a month.

Sounds like a problem with the drive like a corrupted directory or RDB. I would just erase the drive with Disk Utility and start over:
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. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Yet another Time Capsule /Time Machine / Aperture / Vault Question

OK - It is recommended that the Aperture Library be excluded from the Time Machine backups, and to create vaults instead. Fine.
Has anyone tried including the vaults instead of the library in their TM backups? Any issues? Does TM backup only the changes to the vault, or does it see the vault file as one file, and backup the whole thing after the vault has been updated?

I haven't experienced it personally. That's because I have my Aperture library excluded -- I'm using SuperDuper to clone the entire library once a week (Aperture isn't open when this happens), and I also use vaults.
There were numerous threads here about it, though. Or, I should say, they were in this forum, or they were in the Leopard/Time Machine forum. There was a fair bit of complaining about it... so I take it that some people have been affected.
I doubt there's any danger of data loss, given TM won't back up the Aperture library when it's open -- which is when the database is in use and there could be open journal files. But... if you try it, and you notice that TM is taking 2-3 hours of crunching on your drive to back up the whole library, don't come yelling to me. I'll just say "known issue" and point to the Kbase article.
Deal?

[SOLVED] Yet another time issue...

Hi there,
I'm having some crazy, hair pulling, head banging UTC time issues on both my dual boot (Arch & Windows 8) desktop and single boot laptop.
I've been searching and following a mulitude of old threads and the official Wiki guide, however, I simply cannot get UTC time to stay correct between reboots. I've installed Arch a fair few times now, both before and after the switch to systemd and in dual and single boot setups and have never had time related issues like this before...
Here's a run down of the whole sorry story....
Fresh install - set time with hwclock --systohw utc as suggested in the beginners guide.
First boot - time an hour out - huh? cat /etc/adjtime and ls -l /etc/localtime - everything as it should be... UTC and symlink to /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London. Nonetheless I duly follow the Time guide on the wiki, get to know timedatectl a bit, and soon after, time is set to be correct. Great.
Reboot. Time an hour out. Whaaaa??. Start googling, finding a plethora of bbs links to others with similar issues, decide to use NTP. Install, ntpd -qg. All good again. Time right. Phew...
Reboot. Nope. Arrrrgggghhhh. (Bare in mind - at this point I haven't even booted the Windows 8 disc, and I went through the exact same process on my Arch only laptop...)
More googling, thread reading. Find out that hwclock and ntp might be in conflict. Delete /etc/adjtime, reinstall tzdata, re-follow Time article to the letter and reenable NTP to start at boot.
Reboot - time is foward an hour yet again. Bang head repeatedly on desk. Then suddenly - 10 mins or so after boot - NTP kicks in, and time is magically goes back an hour to the correct time! Surely NTP should be doing this early in the boot process, not 10 minutes after? But OK, at least something is happening...
Next I dare to boot into Windows, and yup, time an hour out. Expected, but frustrating nonetheless. Add the registry tweak as suggested in the guide, and turn off the Windows time synchronisation. During which I noticed that Windows 8 time is set to UTC by default, not localtime, which is what the wiki says. Is this a Windows 8 thing?
I can't help thinking, that if this is the case, and the Wiki advise is written under the assumption that Windows time is always localtime, that perhaps this is the route of my problem....
Anyway, Windows time all good now, reboot Arch, time again wrong untill NTP finally kicks in - sigh. Reboot to Windows. Time an hour back. Gaaaahhhh - WTF?!! reset it to be correct. Try again. Same thing. Oops, forgot to mention that on each reboot, I check the BIOS clock, which remains persistently correct during the whole debarkle...
Ok, so I try without the registry hack and turn Windows sync back on. Still fucked. I try various combinations of the two, I try resetting Arch time over and over again. With NTP - late sync. With hwclock only, or both hwclock & NTP - totally fucked! Eventually, I give up on UTC in Arch, set it localtime, delete registry key, turn Windows time sync back on, and thus far all good......
TL;DR - couldn't get hwclock to set UTC time correctly across reboots. NTP worked (sort of), but after each reboot it would take ten minutes for the time to sync and the clock to move back an hour to the correct time. Localtime just works...
My question is - why is the wiki (and the timedatectl status output for that matter) - so adamant that we should use UTC? From what I can gather, as long as I boot Windows around the DST time. or manually move the clock forward or back an hour - all should be well, no? Or are there other issues that I may run into that I've missed? The thing I'm most concerned about is data corruption due to timestamp issues...
Also, why does the wiki repeatedly say that Windows uses localtime, when this doesn't appear to be the case in Eight? Does the wiki need updating or is Windows lying to me? I know which I'd put my money on ;-)
Finally can anyone explain why my time was always an hour forward after a reboot, even when the time was set correctly before, the BIOS showed the correct time, and NTP was in use?
Sorry for the crazy long posting, but this issue has been driving me totally batty!! Any light-shedding greatfully appreciated :-)
Last edited by knowayhack (2013-08-10 15:24:09)

Ok, so I set the clock back an hour in the BIOS, booted Windows - time right - YAY.
Rebooted Arch - time right. OMFG - pure joy!!!
I have to say, I still find it odd that this is how it works, and would like to confirm that things are looking as they should in the output from the following commands....
toby@archy ~ > timedatectl status
Local time: Sat 2013-08-10 15:42:56 BST
Universal time: Sat 2013-08-10 14:42:56 UTC
Timezone: Europe/London (BST, +0100)
NTP enabled: n/a
NTP synchronized: no
RTC in local TZ: no
DST active: yes
Last DST change: DST began at
Sun 2013-03-31 00:59:59 GMT
Sun 2013-03-31 02:00:00 BST
Next DST change: DST ends (the clock jumps one hour backwards) at
Sun 2013-10-27 01:59:59 BST
Sun 2013-10-27 01:00:00 GMT
toby@archy ~ > sudo hwclock --debug
sudo: timestamp too far in the future: Aug 10 16:39:24 2013
We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.
[sudo] password for toby:
hwclock from util-linux 2.23.2
Using /dev interface to clock.
Last drift adjustment done at 1376148264 seconds after 1969
Last calibration done at 1376148264 seconds after 1969
Hardware clock is on UTC time
Assuming hardware clock is kept in UTC time.
Waiting for clock tick...
...got clock tick
Time read from Hardware Clock: 2013/08/10 14:43:20
Hw clock time : 2013/08/10 14:43:20 = 1376145800 seconds since 1969
Sat 10 Aug 2013 15:43:20 BST -0.953640 seconds
Is it OK to now reinstall NTP to keep the clock in sync on Arch, and are the Windows reg tweaks still necessary on Windows 8?
Thank you guys SOOO much for all the unbelievabley speedy help on this issue - you have no idea how much this has been stressing me out!!
Last edited by knowayhack (2013-08-10 14:54:31)

I know, another Time Machine help request

I get the Time Machine back up error. I recently purchased a Seagate GoFlex Desk external drive. Time Machine seemed to recognize it right away. The following morning I found the dreaded "Time Machine could not complete the backup. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder."
I have formatted the external drive per Pondini's step by step; MAC OS Extended (Journaled). No luck. Then I downloaded Time Machine Buddy Widget. I don't know how to copy the error messages in the pop-up. Apparently it is having an issue with a movie that was downloaded from Itunes. I proceeded to exclude it (band-aid). However, I will run Time Machine again and it will have a problem with another file. The error code is consistent; Error (-36)
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/TM Backups/Backups.backupsdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume
No pre-backup thinning needed 135.88 GB requested (including padding), 1.80 TB available
Your help will be greatly appreciated!

kenfromlo wrote:
I get the Time Machine back up error. I recently purchased a Seagate GoFlex Desk external drive. Time Machine seemed to recognize it right away. The following morning I found the dreaded "Time Machine could not complete the backup. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder."
See #C10 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (but see the next item first).
I have formatted the external drive per Pondini's step by step; MAC OS Extended (Journaled).
Did you select the GUID Partition Map Scheme? If not, reformat it that way.
Then I downloaded Time Machine Buddy Widget. I don't know how to copy the error messages in the pop-up.
Click in the message area, select Cmd+A (to select All), then Cmd+C to copy.
(Or, if you mean the TM failure message, a screen print is fine.)
Apparently it is having an issue with a movie that was downloaded from Itunes. I proceeded to exclude it (band-aid). However, I will run Time Machine again and it will have a problem with another file. The error code is consistent; Error (-36)
See the pink box in #C3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Another Time Machine problem after 10.5.3 update

OK, I have another problem, that I haven't seen listed here. Time Machine will no longer back up my MacBook Pro after the 10.5.3 update. The error message I get in the Console log is:
6/1/08 3:44:42 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1395] Volume at path /Volumes/Dave's backup does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
How do I change the cookies for my backup disk?
Thanks in advance.

I believe I have isolated the problem as a permissions issue which I have logged as bug 5990628:
Summary:
Unable to backup over network after upgrading to 10.5.3.
Steps to Reproduce:
Configure Time Machine to back up Leopard machine over AirPort to another Leopard machine (with external drive and .Mac account configured in this case)
Expected Results:
Backups complete as usual.
Actual Results:
Backups are 'Delayed' with errors like this in the console:
6/6/08 4:25:57 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2334] Volume at path /Volumes/Time Machine-1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Regression:
Yes
Notes:
There are many threads on the subject:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1538633
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1543033
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1547134
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1546079
The problem appears to relate to being unable to read the cookie:
6/6/08 4:20:23 AM System Preferences[2315] Failed to create remote cookie file at path: /Volumes/Time Machine/.001b63abcdef
And this appears to be because the cookie was owned by a different user (likely due to it wanting to connect using a .Mac username instead of a local one), per my explanation below:
I only ever used Time Machine after upgrading to 10.5.3 so my first experience with it has been fairly ordinary, as the backups were constantly being 'Delayed' with this error in the Console:
6/6/08 4:25:57 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2334] Volume at path /Volumes/Time Machine-1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
The first thing I discovered from a blog post was that my .Mac 60 day trial was causing it to connect using my .mac username (which appeared in the username field in the UI as a string of hex characters); disconnecting and reconnecting using a local user seemed to work but the issue remained.
I then spotted this in the console:
6/6/08 4:20:23 AM System Preferences[2315] Failed to create remote cookie file at path: /Volumes/Time Machine/.001b63abcdef
The 'random' characters are your MAC address and the binary inside is likely this 'cookie' - a random value used to transparently and reliably link backups to machines. Curiously I couldn't modify this file over the network despite apparently owning it (in Terminal):
$ cd /Volumes/Time\ Machine
$ ls -la .00*
-r-------- 1 samj staff 16 Jun 6 04:33 .001b63abcdef
But when looking at it on the Mac Mini 'server' I saw that the owner was in fact another user:
-r-------- 1 otheruser staff 16 Jun 6 04:33 .001b63abcdef
So I ran these commands:
sudo chown samj .001b63abcdef
sudo chgrp staff .001b63abcdef
And sure enough I was able to configure Time Machine as expected and it is as we speak backing up my MacBook over Airport to a USB drive attached to my Mac Mini.
Cheers,
Sam
Sam Johnston
Australian Online Solutions
http://www.aos.net.au/

How to merge existing itunes library with another time machine volume?

hi all,
i am 2 macs, an iMac and a MacBook - both running Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and both running itunes 9.
is possible to merge the itunes library on the MacBook onto the iMac via my MacBook's Time Machine volume? i do not have my MacBook with me at this moment cos' i have sent it for diagnostic and repair. i have the latest itunes library backups on my MacBook's Time Machine.
hope to hear some valuable pointers. Thank you!

mook73 wrote:
is possible to merge the itunes library on the MacBook onto the iMac via my MacBook's Time Machine volume?
i have never attempted such an operation, so no step-by-step guide !
you will be able to restore the other Mac's library to the iMac. go here and follow the instructions: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/17.html. restore whatever you need to a temporary location, i.e. the desktop.
if you only want the media files, just restore the iTunes music folder. when restored, use +add to library+ from the file menu or just drag the folder you restored to the +automatically add to iTunes+ folder inside the iTunes folder.
if you also want playlists, playcounts, and ratings, you should restore the entire iTunes folder.
take a look @ PowerTunes. this app should enable you to merge the two libraries.
good luck !
JGG

Yet Another Time Sheet Question

Hello, Everyone:
I know there have been other posts on this subject, but none of them have met my needs. I recently began my freelance design career and would like to keep track of my hours in spreadsheet form. I know nothing of spreadsheet applications whether it be Excel or Numbers. I need a basic rundown of how to make my spreadsheet do what I want.
I'd like my sheet to have the following columns:
*Date | Start Time | End Time | Total Time*
Now, I have seen where the application renders the time in decimal form, which is fine, but would it be possible to show the time in hours and minutes, like 1 hr 43 mins? I would like to know how to get both sorts of results, if possible. If not, I'll settle for decimals.
In any case, if someone could show me step-by-step how to meet this task, I would really, really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance!
Message was edited by: Ancient Console
Message was edited by: Ancient Console

AC,
Your use of the time calculations is a simple as can be.
Select column A and format it as Date&Time, and set Time format to None
Select columns B and C and format as Date&Time, and set Date format to None
Select column D and format as Duration, adjust the slider to cover only hours and minutes, set the format as you wish, H:MM would work.
In the first data row of column D, enter the equation: =C-B
With the first equation in D selected, select the rest of the cells to the bottom and Insert > Fill > Fill Down.
Enter some data. The result should appear in column D. Now you may not like looking at zeros in the rows where you haven't yet entered times. So, select column D and in the Cells Inspector click the Conditional Format Show Rules button. Choose the rule: Equal To and type a zero into the field on the right. Then click Edit, followed by a click on the rectangle to the right of the word Text. In the colors panel that pops up, cllick the plain white square next to the upper left corner. Now click Done.
That's all there is to it.
Jerry

Workflow does not start automatically on create item (yet another time)

The topic has been discussed broadly throughout different forums, but I didn't find the solution to my issue yet and hope you can help me out with ideas to sidestep the difficulties created by Microsoft.
I have one list 1 in Site Collection A, and one list 2 in Site Collection B (PWA site collection). I need to copy an item from list 1 to list 2 with some values. I use a "Call http web service" action to accomplish
that as I need to copy informatin cross site collections.
The "Call webservice" is in an App Step, because the user creating an item in list 1 does not have permissions on list 2. Thus, my item is created "by workflow" (not "by System Account") in list 2. Now I need a second
workflow to start on list 2 which will create a project in Project Server.
As I am working across 2 site collections, I can not use a SharePoint 2010 workflow with impersonation step for list 1 as the "Call a webservice" action is not available for SP2010 workflows and "Copy item" only works in the same site.
In Nintex I can impersonate the web service call - is this also somehow possible for SPD2013 workflows? Or is there any other possibility to get over this silly restriction of workflows not starting automatically on System account created items? Someway
perhaps to tweak the App Step in impersonating with another user account?
Any help appreciated!
I really can't understand, that this common requirement is still not solved by Microsoft :-( I found more threads on the topic than I can count, so this seems to happen quite often... at least they should finally offer a proper way of doing some kind
of impersonation with the calls so we have a chance to change the creating user account.

Hi,
As I understand, you would like to use workflow to copy list items cross site collection.
So far it is not supported with OOB workflow option, here is an codeplex workaround:
https://spdactivities.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Copy%20List%20Item%20Extended%20Activity
Please check if it can be help.
Regards,
Rebecca Tu
TechNet Community Support

Yet another 'time out'

I'm not sure whether I can tolerate much more of the useless BTmail. Frustration doesn't describe adequately the feeling I have when once again I'm 'timed out' just as I was about to send an e-mail. It doesn't even save a draft as I'm timed out, the message just disappears into the Bt ether wherever that might be. Can anyone offer a 'reasonable' explanation? Incidentally just as I was about to post this message a pop up message appeared above, 'Autosaved at 3:35PM'

Hi Annegray01
Sorry you didn't get a reply, I've checked our queue and cannot see an email in there. Can you try to send another through the contact the mods link in my profile and we can pick up from there.
Thanks
Stuart
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
We are sorry that we are unable to deal with service/account queries via the private message(PM) function so please don't PM your account info, we need to deal with this via our email account :-)

Yet another time problem

i give up. read all i can read. tried to find other apps to no avail. so i'll just ask it here. everything works in excel but i'm using an ipad at work and only able to use excel at home.
EXCEL (custom format of [hh]:mm)
1 A B C D E F G
2 05:35 06:19 06:31 19:43 13:12 13:05 +0:44
A, B, C, D = inputs
E > F(X)=IF(C2>D2, (D2-C2)+1, (D2-C2))
F > F(X)=CEILING(E2-"0:10","0:05")
G > F(X)=IF(B2>A2, TEXT(ABS(B2-A2),"+h:mm"), IF(B2<A2, TEXT(ABS(B2-A2), "-h:mm"), "ERROR")) ---> delay or gain (+ is delay, - is gain)
NUMBERS (format of time hh:mm)
E > F(X)=IF(TIMEVALUE(D2)−TIMEVALUE(C2)<0,DURATION(0,0,D2−C2+24,0,0,0),D2−C2)
F doesn't work. I can't think of a way. Any substitute? This is really important. Our way of estimating duration of travel (D-C), which is weird because we need E before we can "estimate".
G > F(X)=TIME(24,0,0)−(B2−A2) but is showing 23:16 (24:00-23:16 = 0:44!!!). Remove "TIME", it shows 968904:44.
- what will happen if B < A? will I get a negative time (which i want to see). also, when D < C (eg. D = 2:20, C = 14:40), it says "Duration units were removed."
Thanks.

you can try this:
E1=D1−C1
F1=CEILING(DUR2HOURS(E1), 5÷60)
G1=IF(ABS(B1−A1)≥"0m", "+", "−")&B1−A1

Need recover iPhotos from another Time Machine backup

Hi
My old mac took a nose dive and is no longer, so I want to recovery all that I lost and bring it over to another computer. I am trying to find a way to get all the iPhotos off the backed up iPhoto Library.
First I tried to open the back up file, but that won't let me because I do not have permission to open. So I set the permission to allow so, but it still wont.
What is the best way to get those photos onto my iPhoto Library on my secondary computer?
Thanks in Advance
Teejay

Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.

Time machine won't backup, yet plenty of space & not much used on Mac HD

Well, this is yet another "Time machine won't backup becuase there is not enough space" thread. I have searched Google and threads here but it's still a mystery why this error is occurring and it seems there is no clear solution. I also looked at the Apple Time Machine errors FAQ as well.
Here are my specs and what I have tried so far.
2010 Mac Pro Quad Core with 1 TB hard drive with 12 GB RAM. (137 GB used so far on internal Mac hard drive disk, so about 863 GB free space).
- New external 1 TB hard drive initialized as Time Machine backup disk when inserted for the first time.
The exact error I am getting is this: "This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 1.80 TB but only 999.20 GB are available."
I have tried deleting the Time Machine system preference, reinitializing the external disk, clearing the system caches with Cocktail, restarting and letting Time machine ask me all over again if I wanted to use the external drive for Time Machine. Still the same error.
My question is how on earth can 1.80 TB be required for the backup when I only have 137 GB of used space?

danomatic12 wrote:
My question is how on earth can 1.80 TB be required for the backup when I only have 137 GB of used space?
Two possibilities:
There's another disk (or disks) connected to your Mac. If they're formatted HFS+, Time Machine is trying to back it/them up as well. You can exclude them per #10 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). The 1.8 TB includes 20% for temporary workspace on the TM drive, so TM is estimating the backup at about 1.5 TB.
Something on your internal HD is corrupted, causing an incorrect calculation. Verify your internal HD, per #6 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum).

Time Machine Speed ?

Apologies for starting yet another Time Machine/Time Capsule thread/post.
I am wondering if there is any way of increasing the speed of Time Machine, using Time Capsule.
When I enter Time Machine it seems ok, kinda takes a mo to getting everything into gear, but when I select a date, or use the arrows it kinda locks up and then takes ages to navigate etc... I'm not sure if it's a connection problem, or just the software - wondered if anyone else had the same problem and fixed it ?

I have previously re-installed the Time Capsule, Erased the contents, using Airport Utility then done a Factory Reset (Holding down the reset button) I then got everything going as before, initial back up, Internet settings etc. so that I was at the stage of the Time Capsule being fresh in terms of usage.
I then connected via Ethernet, but not using the WAN port, because my internet connection is in there.
- I then entered Time Machine... but I still get this disappointing lag once I enter Time Machine, I can sometimes hear the hard drive in the TC writing/or performing (basically making a noise) So I presume it's going to work, as in, gets itself into gear but it seems to be a lazy TC - I have to wait a considerable amount of time, (if not forever) between backup points (when in Time Machine)
I thought I would ask for any advice, on using the TC both as a hard drive and internet router, and also if I am using the WAN incorrectly or anything else anyone may know to advise.
Thanks in advance.

Mac air with external hard drive - not being found on Finder, Time Machine, Migration Assistant

I have been using an external drive (Imation Apollo) to access only, old files from previous computer (PC) on a new Mac Air. I had not transferred them across to new computer (didn't want to do that) just accessing them from the HD. It had been working fine until recently. Each time the external drive had been connected Time Machine would come up and ask if i wanted to use this drive for back ups, and I always chose 'Decide later'. So, as yetI hadn't as yet configured Time Machine to do back ups.
Recently I noticed that the extrnal HD was no longer showing up on Finder. Slight panic as i have 5 or 6 yrs of work saved on that HD
Further investigations - it's also not showing up either on on Disk Utility, or on Migration Assistant.
I've done the following:
Tried HD in each of different USB ports - made no difference, HD still not showing up
Tested different Hubs in each port with HD attached - no difference HD not showing up
Tried USB flash drives in the USB ports - These are working fine and show up on finder
Tried the HD on other comptuters (a PC though, don't have access to another mac to do this test)- working fine, the HD is showing up and is accessable
Interrogated the Console logs to try to see if the act of attaching the HD creates a log entry - couldn't find anything
Rebooted computer via shut down, power disconnect - no difference
Reset PRAM - no difference still not showing up
Reset SMC - no differnce still not showing up
So I think I have established that all the USB ports are functioning correctly and able to access other external drive devices, using hubs with external powersource is not the issue, identified that the external hard drive is working OK, and it appears that the Mac itself is functioning normally.
What would be the reason the Mac now does not allow this specific external HD to be identified and accessed. The only possible things I can think of are
if I had in fact pressed 'Do not use' when Time Machine asked 'do you want to use this drive for back ups'. Would that mean that the Mac now totally rejects this HD from being a source of accessible files - I hope not!
I also think that my husband may have disconnected the hard drive from my computer to access some stuff and he just yanked it out rather than use the safe eject method. Could this create an issue? The Hard drive works fine on his PC.
Why is my Mac Air now rejecting this HD and what can I do to access my historical files now.
Any assistance anyone can provide would be very greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Anna

I can't answer why it isn't accessing it, but I have a slightly related issue w my back up drive starting to get noisy.
Realizing that redundancy is safety for critical data. I talked to my brother about my situation the other day & he said he has 3 small Western Digital portable HDs that he rotates for backup. He even keeps 1 in the safe deposit box.
I have read for some time that we should have multiple back ups & also have our critical stuff backed up off site. Amazon HD reviews had a woman telling about how she was very backed up on multiple computers & hard drives, but they were robbed or burgeled & all of them were stolen including her thesis that was on the computers.
Hard drives aren't that expensive. I just bought a new Western Digital 1 TB drive for $89.99. I plan to use it to back up the Seagate that is getting noisy & then maybe alternate them.
Also, when I came back to Mac, I moved practially all of my documents to Mac. I think I just dragged & dropped or something. Photos, Office, & pdfs do fine that way. & then you could back them up to a couple of different external drives & remove from your MacBookAir.
Unfortunately I think most of us do not back up until crisis & then it may be too late.
Also use Time Machine. For the 1st time in my computer life, my computer is well backed up--although now realizing the need for redundancy so will start backing up to at least 2 different HDs alternatly.
So, not sure why it isn't working & hopefully you have come up w a solution by now.
I think what I would do in a situation like this, since you can access it on the Windows machine would be to transfer the data to the Windows machine & then transfer it back to a different back up.
I'm looking into backing up what I still have in Windows using a thumb flash drive. I think it should all fit ok now that they have the larger drives & I don't have very much left in Windows format.

Yet another TIme Machine hair-puller

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