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zeynep_aydin Author

Level 1

8 points

Backup disk asks to restore even it is a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) device

I made a backup for my MacBook Air to an external disk but then I deleted the backup manually from the disk. Then I removed the disk from backup devices from time machine, meaning the disk is still formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). However, when I try to reconfigure Time Machine, I cannot select the disk I used before for backup and it asks me to erase all the data inside it. Is it because I deleted the backup not from time machine but from manually inside of the disk? If so, how can I fix it?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Nov 28, 2020 2:17 AM

Top-ranking reply

John Galt

Level 10

146,402 points

Posted on Nov 28, 2020 7:43 AM

I understand you deleted the backups from that backup disk, meaning you are expecting it to be empty, correct? There is nothing wrong with that. It seems to me there is nothing to fix. Go ahead and click the Erase button.

Time Machine now reserves backup disks for its exclusive use, so it's possible the disk was not formatted correctly in the past. Clicking Erase will fix that.

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Backup disk asks to restore even it is a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) device

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