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Time Machine does not recognize external drive at start up

I have an external WD 2TB drive which I use as my Time Machine back up drive. When I restart the iMac desktop the Time Machine drive does not start automatically and I must open Time Machine each time and remember to identify the external drive that contains my Time Machine back up data. Is there some way to make this drive the default Time Machine back up device when the system starts? It is annoying to have to remember to do this each time my machine restarts. I have a drive icon that displays as "My Book" on restart where the Time Machine icon is located but this icon is yellow and my Time Machine drive icon is blueish green. Once I set the correct drive it will go into the mode to refresh the backup (usually in 118 seconds) and then once the backup is updated then the icon become blueish green and all works normally. Please help! Thx Tom

Posted on Apr 27, 2015 12:47 PM

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5 replies

Apr 27, 2015 4:17 PM in response to rkaufmann87

I called Apple tech support and went through the recommended actions with doing the disk check with the Utilities and all checked out okay. They had to ask the senior support advisor and was told that it does not automatically start the Time Machine drive until the next scheduled back up. There was a misconception that this drive SHOULD be identified as the Time Machine drive on boot up but that is not the case. I waited for the next schedule back up after reboot and it DID recognize the drive and it appears to be working fine.


The Time Machine does start on boot up but does not indicate that the Time Machine is recognized until the back up is done then it is back on cycle and will operate normally until the next reboot where it will then refresh during that cycle and become recognized in green. Until that time the drive will appear as a yellow icon for the disk.


Oh, by the way, the drive has external power on my WD 2 TB drive.

Time Machine does not recognize external drive at start up

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