I have set my WD hard drive as my time machine device and it seemed to work fine for a while. But despite the fact that I plug it in often I've noticed in preferences that the last back up was done at the end of August. It's set to do automatic backups and everything seems ok but I have no idea how to make this work. Can someone help me with this please.
MacBook Pro
If you go to System Preferences, and Time Machine, what does it say as the reason why it hasn't completed a backup successfully?
Attach the Time Machine HDD to your MBP.
Go to SYSTEM PREFERENCES>TIME MACHINE>SHOW TIME MACHINE STATUS IN THE MENU BAR and check the box.
Click on the Time machine icon in the menu bar.
A drop down menu will appear.
Select 'Back Up Now'.
What happens?
Ciao.
Hi, thanks for your reply.
I can't see where it will tell me why it hasn't backed up. Sorry!
Time machine appears in the dock at the bottom which I assume is what you mean. When I click this it just takes me to the time machine screen with the different version of the finder and the time scale on the right. There is no drop down menu and I can't see how to do a back up now. Sorry!
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Post the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear.
Post the log text, please, not a screenshot. If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.
Go to SYSTEM PREFERENCES in you Applications (or perhaps in your Dock on the bottom of your desktop). and click on it. It should result in a display such as this:
Then click on the Time Machine icon in the 4th row and it should then look like this:
Then employ the directions I gave in my prior answer.
Ciao.
03/12/2012 11:05:35.060 com.apple.backupd: Error -35 while resolving alias to backup target
03/12/2012 11:05:35.000 kernel: nspace-handler-set-snapshot-time: 1354532737
03/12/2012 11:05:45.163 com.apple.backupd: Backup failed with error: 19
Is this correct?
Yup did that. Was confused by where the time machine icon was in the menu bar but found that now. I have options to enter time machine or open preferences but the time machine not configured is in the light grey which I guess means that it is no longer recognising my HDD.
The backup drive wasn't mounted when that snapshot was scheduled to take place. Is it mounted now?
If you mean was it plugged in then yes it was. Going into time machine now it says that it is switched off. If I try and switch Time Machine on it says 'Set up other time capsule - set up a time capsule that is not listed here'. When I click on this I get the option to 'open airport utility' which is searching for something that it isn't finding.
Does this mean that my HDD is corrupted which is why it isn't recognising it?
It sounds that there may be a problem with Time Capsule (a new wrinkle added to the issue). Did you try what I initially suggested and if so what was the result? (installing the Time Machine Icon in the menu bar and clicking on it.)
Ciao.
This problem has nothing to do with a Time Capsule, nor with the presence or absence of the TM icon in the menu bar. Any suggestions to the contrary are merely confusing the issue.
If the external drive is plugged in and turned on, then it's not working.
Is the drive listed in Disk Utility?
Linc Davis greetings: You said 'If the external drive is plugged in and turned on, then it's not working."
Plugged in where? Time Capsule is not physically connected to the MBP. I'm at a disadvantage here not using Time Capsule. If it is functioning correctly, it still has to appear in SYSTEM PREFERENCES>TIME MACHINE.
I'm prepared to be educated.
Ciao.
Original post said she setup a "WD hard drive as [the] time machine device and it seemed to work fine for a while."
It seems to me that the whole Time Capsule matter was accidentally entered into the conversation. Perhaps the user has a Time Capsule, though is not using it as a Time Machine target? Regardless, the initial post was about a WD drive, is that still the case? Please advise.
Yup I don't have a Time Capsule, only mentioned it above as that was what the possible instruction said. I have a WD My Passport that has been formatted by Time Machine to work on a mac.
Disk Utility (didn't know about that). It does show the drive and when I click 'verify' it is telling me that the disk needs to be repaired so I guess I should press the appropriate button and hopefully that will work. I'll let you know how I get on.
Just to clarify - Time Machine should just take back ups when it is physically plugged into the Mac - I don't need to do anything else to make it happen?
Thanks for your input people. I still find my Mac a complete mystery at times, but I'm learning.
Time machine not working
