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Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to ext ernal drive. An error occured while preparing the backup.

Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to my external drive. An error occured while preparing the backup. This happened after I erased the drive.

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 13.3

Posted on May 13, 2023 12:41 PM

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4 replies

May 13, 2023 2:57 PM in response to thomasbkauffman

Try booting into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and try to complete a backup from there. If you're successful in Safe Mode reboot normally and try another backup.


Note:  if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode.  This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will assure a successful boot into Safe Mode.


If you're still unsuccessful you can do what I had to a while back when TM couldn't get beyond preparing: erase the TM drive and start over from scratch. This is a good method if you don't have any files on the TM drive that are not on your boot drive that you need.


Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to ext ernal drive. An error occured while preparing the backup.

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