Time Machine fails to complete its first full backup

Does this mean that I should say Yes, or that since you have rarely seen this message that you do not know what pitfalls may occur if erased?

My clone of my internal was lost in the Western Digital crash and with Time Machine constantly being erased, I have NO backup of this drive for now, other than the original drive that was replaced and has no housing.

Loner T wrote:

...try the Gibson research web site.

Ooops: I purchased SpinRite before I realized it was a Windoze program! I emailed for a refund.

OK, thank you so much for your continuing advice:

I decided in light of my external drive failure that the most prudent step to take was to do a Carbon Copy Clone of my internal Main Lion partition, so that I am back to having at least one reliable backup. I performed this step and the clone is on the LaCie drive back in BIG mode (2T).

I then made another partition on this LaCie drive and I am using that partition to create a Time Machine backup of my other internal drive partitions (Snow Leopard, Yosemite and El Capitan). In the past Time Machine would backup these other partitions just fine. That process will continue overnight.

I will then be able to run diskutil with some confidence and will post the results.

I think, in light of your advice about RAID, that I will pickup a new WD drive and use that for Time Machine for all internal partitions and see if that performs properly. If so, I will then use my LaCie RAID for my video and audio library, once I have obtained the data recovery from that crashed disk.

I will update this thread as appropriate. Thank you again!

After 10 days of trying to saved the data out of the crashed drive using a combination of Disk Warrior, TechTools Pro, Data Recovery 4 and the addition of two WD 4T USB 3.0 drives and a Elgato Thunderbolt Hub, I finally gave up on that project and sent the disk out to a data recovery service!

So I used one of the WD 4T drives at USB 2.0 (I am returning the Elgato Hub; I did not like it) and sure enough the same Time Machine problems came up in Lion.

I then booted into El Capitan and after days and day, it completed the Time Machine backup and made a few supplemental ones, as well.

This may well be the reason for me to upgrade from Lion to Mt. Lion after all these years. I like Lion and have found no reason to upgrade, but now I will make a clone and purchase ML, upgrade and see if the TM works there, too!

I'll let you know...

Here is an interesting side note:

I let TM in El Capitan complete the backup that originated in Lion. During this process, it indicated a smaller number of Gb remaining, but yet the final amount would always grow in number as would the completed amount. Compare these progressive screenshots:

Here is the diskutil repairDisk report you requested, run from Terminal in El Capitan:

Michaels-Mini:~ michael***$ diskutil repairDisk disk0

Repairing the partition map might erase disk0s1, proceed? (y/N) y

Started partition map repair on disk0

Checking prerequisites

Checking the partition list

Adjusting partition map to fit whole disk as required

Checking for an EFI system partition

Checking the EFI system partition's size

Checking the EFI system partition's file system

Checking the EFI system partition's folder content

Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces

Checking booter partitions

Checking booter partition disk0s3

Repairing file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Checking multi-linked files

Checking catalog hierarchy

Checking extended attributes file

Checking volume bitmap

Checking volume information

The volume Recovery HD appears to be OK

File system check exit code is 0

Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required

Checking booter partition disk0s5

Repairing file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Checking multi-linked files

Checking catalog hierarchy

Checking extended attributes file

Checking volume bitmap

Checking volume information

The volume Recovery HD appears to be OK

File system check exit code is 0

Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required

Checking booter partition disk0s8

Repairing file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Checking multi-linked files

Checking catalog hierarchy

Checking extended attributes file

Checking volume bitmap

Checking volume information

The volume Recovery HD appears to be OK

File system check exit code is 0

Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required

Reviewing boot support loaders

Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions

Updating Windows boot.ini files as required

The partition map appears to be OK

Finished partition map repair on disk0

So, the next step will be to upgrade the Lion partition to Mt. Lion (I have ordered it from Apple and awaiting for the download code) and see if when I boot back into the newly upgrade Mt. Lion partition, if Time Machine will function correctly.

There were...

I'll let you know how it goes after I install Mt. Lion, when the download key arrives.

Thank you for your continuing help!

Well the email from Apple came in with the download code for Mt. Lion and I downloaded it while in El Capitan where Time Machine was functioning.

But El Capitan will not let me install Mt. Lion over the Lion partition, so I rebooted into Lion and behold: Time Machine is churning out hourly backups!

So, I will keep the Mt. Lion installer in abeyance until I find another reason to upgrade my Lion partition to Mt. Lion.

Thank you for your continuing help!

OK: So it failed again in Lion finally...

Next to upgrade to Mountain Lion and see what happens!

Well the first TM backup in Mountain Lion went well...

Let's see how it goes with time!

Yep: for now, I'll keep my fingers crossed and chalk the problem off to Lion and be happy with the Mountain Lion upgrade! 🙂