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User profile for user: Eric Breider
Eric Breider Author
User level: Level 1
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Time Machine restore from WD my book live duo

Dear all and especially anyone out there who may be able to help me.


I have a MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion, a WD mybook live duo 3/6tb on the LAN, all wired.


It has been backing up through Time Machine fine until my MacBook crashed earlier this week so I have a fairly

recent snapshot of my MacBook before the crash.


I wanted to restore, after a Hard Disk erase which seemed necessary, from Time Machine but I couldn't make it work

as it kept asking me for user names and passwords of the NAS (which I entered of course) only

to result in error meesages saying the 'share' didn't exist. (Despite the fact that it does immediately

recognise the backup and location on the NAS.)


WD support advised me to first reinstall OSX ML and then use the regular Time Machine

functionality to restore my Mac.


- there is no option to fully restore your Mac through the wonderful TimeMachine time travel

functionality. I tried to restore my Macintosh HD back to a recent time point but that resulted in

nothing much (or nothing at all, I don't know). I don't see my old stuff, I still see a kind of vanilla

OSX ML installation.


- using the restore functionality (CMD-R during startup) and the time machine restore option,

results in the same nagging for names and passwords and error messages that the share

doesn't exist.


WD support couldn't tell me what the share name (and possibly password) would be for where it stores Time Machine backup

files (it doesn't show up in the list of shares when you look in the WD dashboard) and that makes sense to me as when you

tell Time Machine to use the NAS, it doesn't ask you for anything in terms of shares or passwords either.


So here I am: with probably a very good and recent complete backup at my disposal but no way of restoring it to my Mac.

So all I had and trusted to Time Machine is lost.


Is anyone out here who can help me? Anyone with a similar experience and hopefully solution? (That I can understand....I am a Mac user! :-) )


I would be enormously grateful!


Greetings from Amsterdam,


Eric

MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Nov 15, 2012 1:19 AM

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5 replies
User profile for user: Eric Breider
Eric Breider Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Feb 23, 2013 1:23 PM in response to HeyAng

Yes it was... The Dutch helpdesk could not really help me to be frank as they didn't know much about the intricacies of Time Machine. (Despite the fact that it claims to be Time Machine compatible.) They referred it to the US helpdesk after a number of to's and fro's but before they could do something sensible, lo and behold, a firmware update suddenly came along. And even though I don't think (can't remember) it mentioned this problem, it did solve it. I now have it working as it should.


I can now also see the share that it created for Time Machine backups.


It is still an incredibly slow combi quite a lot of the time (not always, which makes it really weird) so I would not recommend to use this otherwise fine NAS for Time Machine but it does work now.


:-)


Erix

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User profile for user: MM007
MM007
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jan 9, 2014 11:59 AM in response to Eric Breider

Hello Eric, not sure if this helps or is exactly what you are looking for as I am unfamiliar with the NAS issue you have. However, I recently restored my computer from Mavericks back to Snow Leopard using my WD mybook. At first I was unable to use the WD mybook for restore, as is was not recognized by the computer after the menu came up from pressing "command R" during start up. I attributed this to the WD software requiring a password to access the drive. This is the same password that you (anyone who owns a WD mybook) have to supply each time you want to use time machine to back up files. There is a simple remedy I found. You need to go to your applcations and select "WD SmartWare," type in your password, then select the "Settings" tab at the upper right hand conner. Then select "Set up drive." On the right side of the window there is the "Set Security Options," sign in using your password in the box displayed under "password," then select "Remove Security." The last step would be to save the security setting, and you are all set to use your WD mybook without a password for full system restoration. So when you restart your computer and hold (or as I found press many times) the "command R" to access the restore window at start up, you can select restore from time machine, and have your WD mybook now appear in the timemachine device window, as the device is not password protected anymore. Once your computer is restored you can follow the same steps outlined above to reinstate your password for your WD mybook. Best of luck,


Marc

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User profile for user: Eric Breider
Eric Breider Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jan 10, 2014 12:54 AM in response to Eric Breider

How cool, Marc, to receive your elaborate info even a year after posting! It sounds like that may have been a useful solution! Thank you!


As you can see in my last posting WD must have changed the software to avoid this problem and since I have been able to restore a good many times... Which was necessary due to a massive bug which renders my MacBook Pro completely unusable when you have TimeMachine backing up to the WD NAS whilst iTunes is running.

So today I have TimeMachine backup on only when iTunes is not running and all is fine.


Anyway thanks for your effort!


Eric

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Time Machine restore from WD my book live duo

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