external hard drive issue

Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I recently added a LaCie Mini Rugged external hard drive to my iMac (Snow Leopard) for regular backups. About two weeks later I get a Time Machine Error that the backup disk is not available and backups are not occurring. I click on Select Disk and it comes up None. Then I get a window saying no AirPort wireless device can be found. I hit <Rescan> in response to this and just get the same window. I thought you only need to plug in the LaCie and open the app. What do I need to do?
 

Rod


Joined
Jun 12, 2011
Messages
9,627
Reaction score
1,833
Points
113
Location
Melbourne, Australia and Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
Your Mac's Specs
2021 M1 MacBook Pro 14" macOS 14.4.1, Mid 2010MacBook 13" iPhone 13 Pro max, iPad 6, Apple Watch SE.
Did you format the LaCie for use as a Time Machine backup disk before you started using it?
It needs to be erased and formatted using Disk Utility as Mac Extended (Journaled). In OS Mavericks when you first do this it asks if you wish to use the HD as a Time Machine backup and it is automatically selected in Time Machine preferences.
 
OP
W
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
My memory is pretty bad on this but I'm almost positive I did format the LaCie for use as a Time Machine backup disk before using it. Since posting my thread, I think I restarted my computer because that error window is no longer there. And since it was about two weeks after hooking up the LaCie that I got that error window, I really don't know now if it's backing up or not. Is there a way to check?
 
Joined
Jul 26, 2012
Messages
116
Reaction score
4
Points
18
Location
Honolulu, HI, USA
Your Mac's Specs
MBA i7, 8GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, High Sierra; iPad 3rd Gen, 32 GB, iOS 9; iPhone 5E, 64 GB, iOS 11
Is there a way to check?
Hopefully you can find the disk in the Finder. Go to the disk and drill down the directories in there. You should see the Backups.backupdb directory. Then look for a directory that has what looks like your computer name. In there, you should see directories that have a name that looks like a date and if you look closely a time. Is there or are there dates leading up to the "fail"? If so, your backup is to that date and time.

If you don't have anything there, you have no backups. Get important files off of that disk and then reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended (Jornaled) and then go into TIme Machine preferences and enable the disk (or partition) as one of the Time Machine volumes. Don't put any other files on that disk (or partition). I haven't seen anyone mention this before, but only Time Machine disks with no other files work fine. I've had a couple of ones that did fail, and each time I had other files on the disk/partition. I stopped doing that and everything works fine. Maybe TimeMachine gets confused and the DB gets messed up.
 
OP
W
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
It looks like all my files are there and up to date. Thanks very much!
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top