Time machine suddenly failing regularly

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Level 1

21 points

Time machine suddenly failing regularly

Time Machine is suddenly acting very strangely. I began getting Error 92 messages about a week ago and went through the process of de-selecting the external drive and re-selecting it, etc. Nothing worked. Running Disk Utility on the drive showed that it was a drive problem, so I replaced the drive with a new WD My Passport drive. It worked fine for about 48 hours. Now it's suddenly not working, and none of the suggested fixes work. I keep getting the message that "The backup drive is not in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format" which is ridiculous. (Disk Utility confirms that the drive is fine and formatted correctly.)

Unplugging and re-connecting the drive makes everything work again, once or twice, then the "failed" message happens again. Any thoughts? Or am I simply doomed to manually backing up from now on?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on May 18, 2022 6:21 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 7

32,285 points

May 18, 2022 11:46 AM in response to Tom Hayes1

This sounds to me like a drive connection/cabling issue.

Did you replace the drive and the enclosure both? How about the USB (?) cable?

Disk Utility is fine, but you might also consider giving DriveDX a deeper look at your drive health and performance.

> DriveDx from Binary Fruit

What model and year is your Mac, and what macOS version are you running?

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Answer 2

May 19, 2022 9:49 AM in response to Tom Hayes1

The enclosure is just the plastic case, including the connection port circuit board, in which the physical drive device lives. When the drive inside fails, some enclosure can be opened with a screwdriver, the drive removed and replaced with new.

Many veteran users here suggest avoiding WD brand drives as they don't seem to have the best quality control and stories similar to what you are experiencing abound.

For more info, I recommend you head over to OWC/Macsales. They are a well respected supplier of aftermarket Mac components and accessories. Quality products and good customer service. (I'm unaffiliated, just a satisfied customer.)

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Answer 3

Tom Hayes1 Author

Level 1

21 points

May 19, 2022 6:12 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

All new cables. Replaced them a second time in case the new cables that came with the drive were faulty. No change. Not sure what you mean by the enclosure. It's a brand new passport 4 tb external drive with USB 3.0 and it just plugs in. Have tried both USB 3.0 ports; again, no change.

My iMac is a 21.5-inch 2019 Retina 4K model running Catalina 10.15.7. I religiously update it as soon as things like the security updates become available. I have not upgraded to Monterey yet because of some work-related software issues.

Will consider Drive DX. Normally I use the latest version of DiskWarrior, which gave it a clean bill of health.

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Answer 4

Tom Hayes1 Author

Level 1

21 points

May 18, 2022 6:39 AM in response to Tom Hayes1

Also, after the backup fails and I try to eject the backup drive, I get this. I have to Force Eject, but if I wait 30 seconds and reconnect, Time Machine works. Once or twice.

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Time machine suddenly failing regularly

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