Time Machine IS killing or corrupting disks

I plugged a WDC WD2500 into a USB enclosure and partitioned it.

Works wonderfully & no problems at all. Time Machine works like a dream.

I did start off with 10.5.1 though.

So grateful that everything works so smoothly and so well.

I bought a brand new LaCie 500 GB. Formated to HFS+ and Time Machine ran backups to it for at least a couple of months. I want to add that I've also stored some other files along with the OS X back ups --since I purchased the hard drive before Leopard was released. I left my iMac downloading a small Widget update and 8 hours later I was surprised to see it was still not complete, but it was not my Internet connection. I noticed that my computer has having some kind of seizure. Opened the finder and found that my Porsche could not read any of it's contents; it had that cycling arrows icon like it does every time Time Machine is saving a back up, but the daemon was not active. I could not unmount the disk. After a few forced quits. Now my external USB hard drive and years of backed up files is just a dead paper weight in my desk.

Round#1 with Disk Warrior 4 could not save my Porsche.
Disk Utility could not even erase the disk.

+Round#1 with Disk Warrior 4 could not save my Porsche.+
+Disk Utility could not even erase the disk.+

Try FileSalvage or Data rescue to see if you can save your data. Sometimes booting from the Leopard install DVD will allow you to format a disk that can't be formatted when booted from your HD. Some people have also reported that they can format a disk from a PC when Disk Utility refuses to do so.

Major problems with my Western Digital 500 Gig. Used to work no worries but since 10.5 and Time Machine not working at all. Keep reformatting and it keeps stuffing up after a week. With or without TM. Bummer.

This really needs to be reported to Apple at http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

No problems here with G-DRIVE FW800. Checked with Disk Utility "Verify."

I'm wondering if there is any relationship with the "disappearing backups" issue related to computer names containing non-alphanumeric characters.

My backup drive info:
FireWire Bus:

Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

OXFORD IDE Device 1:

Manufacturer: G-TECH G-DRIVE
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0x1C0D02002A0457
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
OXFORD IDE Device 1 Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x102
Product Revision Level: V56O
Sub-units:
OXFORD IDE Device 1 SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 465.76 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
G-DRIVE:
Capacity: 465.64 GB
Available: 386.81 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk2s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/G-DRIVE

Mine just bit the dust because of Time Machine. Wow. It's all messed up (ran some utilities on it) and it won't mount. Luckily I only have TM backing up the OS and some other non essential files but I can't imagine ever using this again for anything if it's just going to kill the hard drive. How infuriating is that? I feel bad for anyone here who has had the same problem and may have lost valuable data relying on Time Machine for backup.

Does anyone know if the new OS Release will fix this?

BTW I was using a Lacie 250gig External HD which was formated/wiped first to HFS+

Message was edited by: xmrmoox

I have used a LaCie Rugged 160GB drive via FW800 on a Powerbook Pro 2.33GHz without a problem. Therefore, I bought my daughter for xmas a 120GB USB Western Digital WD1200XMS so she had a backup for her white Macbook G4 (60GB drive). It regularly corrupted, if not on the first backup then always on the second. Usual symptoms were sibling links.

Both backup disks had been reformatted on receipt to a GUID partition map, extended journalled. Disk Utility always showed the source drive to be uncorrupted but the target to be a mess.

I moved her WD to my computer (necessarily USB on that disk) and it backed up flawlessly, and still is. I moved my LaCie to her machine, using FW400 rather than USB, and it backed up flawlessly, and still is. Owing to lack of time before she flew home, I was unable to test whether the LaCie would fail when using its USB interface (it is a triple-interface disk) on her machine.

So far, I would say there is an incompatibility or fault in the USB connection between the Macbook and the WD, probably in the Mac. I do not think there is evidence that TM itself is at fault.

I need my LaCie back for its greater space, faster interface and ruggedisation, so I plan to buy her a LaCie P2 with FW400 in the expectation it will work so long as we avoid USB on her computer. Anyone else used that model of disk, or used a MacBook G4 with TM?

I resile from my comments above. I believe now that the problem I faced was related to failure of the formatting of the WD to "take" as a GUID partition map. The Intel machine appears more tolerant of that problem than is the PPC G4. I will test further but my previous analysis may be wrong.

Add me to the list. Haven't had the TM problem yet, but data partition of my internal hard drive crashed. Loaded Leopard about 3 weeks ago - ran a software update about a week ago (Quick Time update) and lost my internal hard drive on restart.

Have been pulling some data off with recovery program (latest version of Tech Tool Pro). Apple had little advice - never mentioned that others are having similar problems.

So far have been able to run TM on my primary G5 HD and MacBook using 500 GB WD My Book Premium. Am planning to turn off TM for now until we see some answers.

Since I have to erase the corrupted HD on G5, am thinking of cleaning both partitions and running as single. I don't use OS 9. Any value to keeping the current 50/50 split on internal HD?

Also wondering if I stand a better chance to pull data off corrupted drive with Disk Warrior? Most of the lost files were backup copies as far as I recall.

Have owned Macs since the beginning in the 80's - have never had this happen with their systems before...

Me too.

I have a Western Digital (Elements) hard drive, which worked with Time machine for about a week, then fell down in style. The HD heads sounded like they were going crazy, finder crashed, and I had to restart without ejecting to make os x operable again. From then on the disk wouldn't mount; until I booted from the os x install disk, and waited about 3 minutes for it to click in. I then had to erase.

After reading this thread I'm terrified about the integrity of my data, both on my internal and external disks. I run a small business from my macbook and have countless other personal memories. Now it seems there 'may' be an underlying fault in os x which could potentially erase all of my data on all of my disks! My only option now is to spend several hours backing up to DVDs, just in case all of my 4 disk drives fail on me.

I cannot explain why exactly, but this and other recent experiences with leave a incredibly sour taste in my mouth.... I am so angry right now. I can handle faults with my iPhone and apps like calendar and address book crashing on a daily basis, but here we are talking data integrity, livelihoods, memories.

ARRGH!!

Time Machine just killed my WD 80GB hard drive. For the last few weeks, every so often I would get an error that it could not backup, which usually did not repeat the next time. Then just the other day I got a message from Time Machine that it had not backed anything up in the last 10 days. I checked the drive, and it appeared empty in Finder, although the space was still in use as if there was data there. But Time Machine would not recognize it. I unmounted the drive, unplugged and replugged the USB cable, and now the drive won't even mount anymore. It's completely dead. The drive was not that old, either, maybe 2 years old at most. And I have another WD 80 GB drive that was bought at about the same time as the one that failed, and it still works fine.

Exactly same here.

I've been using a Seagate portable 40gb hard drive and it's been working great ever since Leopard came out. However, after 10.5.2, I tried backing up, and it gave me an error. I opened up the drive, and found that I had 8.8 gigs of free space left, but there are no files whatsoever on the drive. I have used Disk Utility, and when I clicked to verify it, it says that "Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.".
When I try repairing it, it says: "The disk “Time Machine Drive” could not be unmounted"

However, I unplugged it, and plugged it in again, forced a backup, and now its working perfectly. Keepin' my fingers crossed hoping it won't die completely.

+It is highly unlikely that all of us are having hard drive problems that are only showing up when time machine is running.+

+If this was a coincidence- and the hard drives are at fault, we would have similar reports for any program that writes a lot to the disk. For example, we'd have a bunch of reports in here saying "installing Leopard corrupted my disk"+

Gthing, I agree with your prudent "no random accident" assessment. I believe that folks here, in several very similar threads, have indicated a pb.

As for me, I had installed 10.5.2 a few days before the TM / ** Drive incidents started to occur, namely:
- Unfinished backups - drive write error of some such thing
- Weird behavior, at the same time, of the computer altogether: beach ball appearing, difficulty to access the ** drive (a G-Drive 500gb), difficulty to, say, exit the process via Force Quit.
- Remaining of a "Backup in progress" file in the ** Drive TM backup directory of folders,
- And even, once, thrashing of the ** drive following an incomplete backup (machine left sort of spinning purposelessly) - or at least the MAC partition (I also keep a Win FAT32 partition on the same ** drive, for data from my BootCamp Win installation, with no problem so far!).
Disk Utility at that point, run on the ** Drive MAC partition, showed indeed that the drive was no longe accessible properly. In fact, right prior to my deciding to run Disk Utility Verify (and eventually Erase), the drive was producing some mechanical clicking at regular intervals!!)

*Thanks, gthing at al here for the info and possible remedies.*
All I have done so far - besides first reformatting the ** Drive, was to remove the "Incomplete backup file: from the ** Drive directory of back up files. Then, things went OK... For now!
I have also heard about Sleep mode affecting TM?

- rt

Try quitting the Finder -- you have to enable the quit to do this and have some other app running. Then start a TM backup manually.

Instruments/dtrace shows that Finder is hanging on a semaphore wait, I think in the file system event queue. It looks like a deadlock. There have been suggestions that this is related to the update listener for the list or column view window in the Finder.

I was having lockup problems left and right until I started doing this.