Time Machine Suddenly Cannot Back Up - Permissions Issue?

Question

Time Machine Suddenly Cannot Back Up - Permissions Issue?

Have used the same 4TB external hard drive for the past several years for Time Machine backups with no problems.

Today, when I booted up my computer, I got an error message saying that 'MacOS could not repair disk' (or something like that) and it was referring to my external TM hard drive.

It next said TM could not back up. I rebooted, but still got same messages.

When I check the Info on the external HD, it says under Sharing & Permissions: "you can only read"

Unlocking the padlock and entering my admin password opens the lock but does not free up any options.

What the heck could be going on?

Mac Pro, macOS 10.12

Posted on Apr 8, 2021 10:17 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

KatieOConnell Author

Level 1

39 points

Apr 11, 2021 2:45 PM in response to KatieOConnell

SOLUTION!

Using Disk Warrior, I rebuilt the director on the external hard drive that holds my backup files.

It took over 4 hours, but after the directory was rebuilt, I am now able to SUCCESSFULLY continuing backing up my primary hard drive!

In the process, the permissions were fixed so that I had "read and write" privileges. Am documenting all of this so that anyone else who might run into the issue may find this solution useful.

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Answer 2

Gena_D

Community Specialist

Apr 10, 2021 5:02 AM in response to KatieOConnell

Hi there, Katie! Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

After reviewing your post, it sounds like you are running into some unexpected behavior with your external hard drive. We definitely understand that can be a concern and we'd love to help. Let’s start by reviewing this article, which has several troubleshooting steps that may help to resolve this error message: If you can't back up or restore your Mac using Time Machine.

Please let us know if you have follow-up questions about this issue, or if the issue remains unresolved. Have a great day!

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Answer 3

Apr 11, 2021 10:49 AM in response to Gena_D

I think that the backup drive is full or near full and that is causing the issue. This happened, I vaguely recall, some years ago when I had a 3Terabyte external HD for backups.

That's when I invested in a 6TB G-Drive for backups. It arrived partitioned with something called "G-Utilities" as one partition. I found the contents not useful and deleted them. I then reformatted the until thinking it would create ONE partition.

It didn't. For some reason, the "G-Utilities" partition remained, saying it was 2T.

I shouldn't have ignored it, but I did.

Here are screen shots of info for each of the 2 partitions on my backup hard drive:

As you can see the permissions on 6TB Backup Disk show that I can 'read only.'

The G-Utilities "partition" says it is 4TB, which is impossible, since the entire thing is only 6TB.

I'm guessing this is where the mess-up is with my OS not being able to write anything else to this backup drive.

Thoughts?

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Answer 4

Apr 15, 2021 6:56 AM in response to KatieOConnell

Thank you so much for getting. back with us about this, Katie, and we apologize about our delayed response. We're very happy to hear that you were able to get this issue resolved. Updating your success here is awesome, as that may help other users who face the same situation.

We hope you have a fabulous day and thanks for participating in the Apple Support Communities!

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Answer 5

a brody

Level 10

84,077 points

Apr 9, 2021 1:16 PM in response to KatieOConnell

That's not good. If there is a repair failing the drive is almost toast.

Use http://www.bombich.com/ Carbon Copy Cloner to rescue the information to a new drive if it isn't backed up elsewhere.

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Answer 6

Apr 9, 2021 1:26 PM in response to a brody

That is shocking ... this drive is not even 3 years old! And it has shown no signs whatsoever of 'going bad.' Just worked one day and didn't the next.

So, the permissions thing is not the problem?

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Time Machine Suddenly Cannot Back Up - Permissions Issue?

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