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The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
I get the error code 92 "Backup failed - time machine could not back up to Elements SE"
This initially happened after updating to Catalina on my iMac. I was using a Lacie drive and thought I would need to update my back up disk. So bought an Elements drive to replace it. This however made no difference and the back up continues to fail.
What could be the solution to this problem, to get the Time Machine to work properly?
Thanks
iMac 27", macOS 10.15
Remove and Add the Time Machine Backup Drive.
To do that, go to: Apple > System Preferences > Time Machine > click Add or Remove Backup Disk > highlight the Backup Disk > click Remove Disk > select Stop Using This Disk. Then go back > click Add or Remove Disk > select the Time Machine Disk > click Use Disk to Add the Disk back into the Backup Disk list.
I use the same Lacie backup disk. I had no problem when upgraded to Catalina. Try turning off the disk, unplugging it, and then plugging it back in and turning it on.
I am a +1 on the OWC Mercury Elite Pro solution. I have 6 of them, some that are 10 years old that still work just fine.
I agree with BDAqua on the case sensitive issue. It's not recommended as it can cause larger backups if a file's name is changed to a uppercase (or lower case) like jpeg to JPEG. That would trigger a new backup of that file evening it were not modified except for the case. Photos can do that with file extensions.
This is how a TM drive should be formatted:
I chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
If you can't find the solution to the TM problem except to get a new drive give the OWC Mercury Elite Pros a try. They are very high quality drives and enclosures with excellent customer support and warranty behind them. Also reasonably in priced.
How is the drive formatted?
Thanks for the suggestion. I have tried this a few times already. It did make back ups for two days after first installing the new disk, but then mysteriously failed every time afterwards. I just did it again now (turning off, waiting and turning on) but backup failed again.
The system I'm backing up is a 500GB APFS
My backup disk: 1TB Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) This disk backed up well for about 1 week.
/dev/disk2s2 931Gi 400Gi 531Gi 43% 5087241 4289880038 0% /Volumes/iMac 2014 Backup
I try as suggested Apple > System Preferences > Time Machine but there is no option to add or remove disk.
Whoops found it sorry
Ok succeeded in removing disk and re adding it. Straight away I got the message “time machine couldn’t back up to Elements SE
Hi. I used disk utility when I bought it. Cannot remember the whole process, but it was very quick and easy to do.
Hi. I have used "first aid" in disk utility. This did not bring up any issues.
Why Case Sensitive?
Time Machine error code 92
