Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

Thanks for the explanation; it was quite helpful.

As far as backing up goes, you should back up to the TC along with one or more external drives, preferably to be kept somewhere off-site like work or a safe deposit box.

Personally, I have my iTunes files duplicated across four different external hard drives as well as a NAS.

As far as backing up goes, you should back up to the TC along with one or more external drives, preferably to be kept somewhere off-site like work or a safe deposit box.

Personally, I have my iTunes files duplicated across four different external hard drives as well as a NAS.

You got bit once .. i am guessing and have now reached the point of understanding that digital files on magnetic media.. are one big failure from total annihilation.. I agree wholeheartedly.. there is not one hard drive that is 100% reliable.. even if there was you can accidentally delete it. Layer after layer of backup is the only way.. but Apple at least did a good thing in making an easy backup .. set and forget.. although lately it is less than 100%... Still more and more stuff which is irreplaceable is in the form of electronic files only.. that is scary.. all those photos of weddings and kids and important events.. all gone with a tiny fault.. 2 capacitors in a power supply.

Just a note that the rubber base is to electrically isolate the TC. due to power regulations.. the TC is mains powered but not earthed.. so it is not allowed to have any metal exposed. I have also ignored that, as the supply is highly unlikely to short to frame of the TC and make it live. It will blow up before that happens. Mostly!!

Overall that is why the design is wrong.. it should be powered just like the airport extreme.. with a 12v external power supply and then have a big heatsink on the frame.

I have a new method of turning the fan on.. it is very simple and I am in the process of writing it up.. basically it takes 10min and two parts .. a green led and a 100ohm thermistor. ( although there is nothing wrong with the 33ohm or 39ohm resistor in the line).

So here is a pic. of the modified fan.

This gives a better view.

+ lead from LED to the bottom.. cut into the 5v wire to the fan.. cut the control wire so the fan will work.

Then I will coat it with silicon putty to hold and insulate everything.

You need a 3mm Green LED.. this one will not self start as I used a 5mm high output green.. the voltage drop is a little too great. And a standard NTC 100ohm thermistor soldered across the LED.. this will reduce resistance as the TC heats up and the fan will speed up.. but you will need to run the fan permanently as the initial start resistance of the fan needs to be overcome. The thermistor is deliberately put into the output stream of the fan and the fan will collect half the air from internal TC space.. this prevents self heating of the thermistor.. otherwise you need a much bigger one.

More details shortly.

I had the same problem as most...TC mysteriously wouldn't get power any more regardless of the outlet I used. I was told Apple would not work on the machine and I could get a replacement for $250 to which I promptly replied that I could get a Belkin for a fifth of that price which would last me three times as long as this TC did. I was really beginning to become an Apple guy after growing up on PCs, but this experience has me seriously reconsidering. It's really something that needs to be dealt with when over 1000 people are having the exact same problem with a product. SMH.

Another Time Capsule Done ~ 3 years & 4 months ago I puchased the 1TB 802.11n Time Capsule which suffered a complete power failure today in the midst of normal use with no warning whatsoever .

My T.C has never acted up or not performed and has givien no warnig sign, So What now ..

My Serial # is 6F9411NT2UP

T.C. 1TB 802.11N ALL FIRMWARE IS UPDATED .

I have 2 computers and over 3 years of data business & personal now unaccessable .

I am a large position $AAPL shareholder & investor relations profesional who is less than just a bit peturbed about this.

Come to find out everty ther sucker who bought one of these tanks got screwed as well.

Any help out there $AAPL ?

Same issue here. Gen 2 TC died quietly in the night. Taking apart the TC was easy; installed the HDD in a external enclosure. Using Windows 8.1, Disk Management sees the external TC HDD, but does not assign a drive letter and all options other than delete are grayed out. I don't think Windows recognizes the file format even though Windows 8.1 recognized the TC as a network drive when the TC was working properly I need to recover the data on the TC HDD. Any suggestions?

I don't think Windows recognizes the file format even though Windows 8.1 recognized the TC as a network drive when the TC was working properly

The TC normally functions as a network drive and a Windows machine "sees" the drive as FAT32 over the network.

Since you have the drive connected directly to your PC, the PC cannot read the HFS+ format of the Time Capsule drive.

There might be a Windows application that you could install that would allow the PC to read and write to the HFS+ formatted drive. We'll need other users to post with details if they know about this.

Find a friend with a Mac so you can actually read the drive..

You can load HFSexplorer into windows.. but I suspect you are not going to have an easy time of it.

Ask a friend with a Mac laptop to come.. plug it into your network and then share the computer over the network and you can pull the files across the network.

Ok, just for the statistics, my 500GB 1st gen Time Capsule have finally broken after 79 mo (that's 6 years and 7 months).

Not sure if it's a broken power supply, since it still holds power for a few seconds then powers off. But there's a chance the power supply is not driving enough power though.

For the record, it's a Flextronics model VP-09500018-000 power supply.

The plastic cover of the electronic board is breaking into pieces in my hand....

The math from the previous post was wrong. this TC actually has beautifully served for 5 years and 7 months.

My time capsule airport just died and it is only 6 months old. All I did was pull the plug out. There is not on/off button so what else can I do. That should not have killed it. Seriously bad design in a very expensive kit and I don't have a clue where to take it for repair, I don't live in a major centre.