You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Timemachine: Waiting to complete first back up

Hi all


I have tried two different hard drives now (formatted each time) to Time Machine preferences and each time it fails to complete the first back-up. It just says 'waiting to complete first back up'.


Any solutions/suggestions greatly appreciated in advance.


Thanks

Shane


Posted on Jul 27, 2019 12:06 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 27, 2019 1:11 PM

Be patient, a first TimeMachine backup can take a very, very long time

But maybe this links interest you:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204412

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202784

You can't use a NTFS-formatted disk


Similar questions

5 replies

Jul 27, 2019 2:04 PM in response to mulberry58

Thanks for your message and the links. Indeed, I have checked those sites and everything seems ok. But its the same problem now for many weeks. I reformatted the old Time Machine disk and even started again. And then the same problem, so I moved to a new HDD. Same problem. Its gets to about 50GB of the back-up and then gets stuck on 'waiting for the first back-up'. Again and again!!



Hope someone else had a similar problem and found a solution...im struggling :(


Thanks


Timemachine: Waiting to complete first back up

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.