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Q: Time Machine  - There was an error preparing the Time Machine backup disk (couldn’t mount disk)

I have a brand new HD but cannot set up encryption with System Preferences. After ten minutes, I get the following error message:

 

"There was an error preparing the Time Machine backup disk (name of disk) - Couldn’t mount disk"

 

Apparently, I have to set up the HD this way:

 

  • If you're using an external drive connected to your Mac, use Disk Utility to make sure that your backup drive is formatted as HFS+ Extended (Journaled) and that the partition type is GUID Partition Table (GPT)

 

There isn't an option for the HFS+ and so I used; OSX EXTENDED (Journaled). GUID is ok.

 

Please can someone let me know what I need to do.

 

Thanks

iMac (24-inch Early 2009), OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), time machine

Posted on Jul 21, 2016 9:51 AM

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