Mysterious Time machine icon

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Mysterious Time machine icon

I recently upgraded to Big Sur and have had some confusing things go on with desktop separate hard disks renaming themselves as Mackintosh HD. I finally sorted that out I think but now I have a duplicate icon that looks just like the hard disk but is called Time Machine. The info underneath matches that of the hard disk 1 TB, 547 GB free. When I click on it it's empty. Time machine on the computer itself just shows a set of lists. I also notice the the Back up disk BBU is showing the same number which may be accurate but it still curious. The other oddity is that I don't have a TM disk connected. Anybody know what's going on?

Thanks

Here's a screen shot.

Posted on Nov 2, 2024 10:49 AM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

210,533 points

Nov 2, 2024 11:52 AM in response to Merluza

That's normal. The newer systems configure the drive into two containers, one Macintosh HD and the other (not mounted) Macintosh. The not mounted one is a read only container with the system. It's protected from any and all malware.

Your user data is on the Macintosh HD container and is read and write for your account.

Here's a schematic of how the drive is now setup:

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,533 points

Nov 2, 2024 2:07 PM in response to Merluza

We've been talking about two different things. My mistake. I was referring to the Macintosh HD drive and you the Time Machine drive.

If it's empty enter it via the Time Machine menu in the menu bar and see what you get.

Have you used the TM drive with other Macs?

If you have try holding down the Option key before accessing the TM menu and select "Browse Other Backup Disks…" and see if you get anything.

It's called Time Machine because when setup it will backup your user data each hour. Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Merluza Author

Level 1

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Nov 2, 2024 4:07 PM in response to Old Toad

Since posting here I've connected what was the original TM drive, used with a previous OS, and reformatted it. It displays as you describe, green with the circular arrow, and I'm presently backing up to it and it seems to be responding. Pressing the option key only shows this disk, the other one still sits there as a phantom Hard Drive with the wrong name. It tells me that it's used 1.4Mb but that's all.

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