Time Machine Possessed

For some reason, my external HD ends up getting ejected when I start a backup with time machine. I get about two minutes into it and I get an ejection error saying its been improperly ejected. If I don't use time machine, the drive stays mounted fine, only when I attempt a backup with it does it give me an error.

Its a firewire enclosure with a brand new western digital 320 gb hd in it, so I know its not the drive.

Any ideas how to exorcise this ghost haunting my time machine?

PS

Also this is on a brand new imac 21 inch with a brand new firewire 400/800 cord as well as a new enclosure. And I have "put hard disks to sleep whenever possible" unchecked in energy settings.

You need to start somewhere.... start eliminating hardware by either swapping things around or substitution. Is it the carrier? Hard drive? Etc?

Because something is new does not necessarily mean that it's OK.

I understand, I also tried the same backup with carbon copy cloner and it got just as far and quit on me as well.

Here's the log from the time machine buddy widget:

Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/ (Backup)/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/
Backup content size: 97.8 GB excluded items size: 13.7 GB for volume 
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.94 GB requested (including padding), 293.13 GB available
Stopping backupd because the backup volume was ejected!
Stopping backup.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/DVD Burning Applications/Toast Titanium.app/Contents/MacOS/Toast Titanium to /Volumes/ (Backup)/Backups.backupdb/Glenn's iMac/2010-11-16-195111.inProgress/958F4DBA-47D0-4DA2-BCD6-6EF048316ADB//Applications/DVD Burning Applications/Toast Titanium.app/Contents/MacOS
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Copied 31 files (1018.6 MB) from volume .
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Copy stage failed with error:11
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Backup failed with error: 27

Just switched to usb connection instead of firewire. And it seems to be moving along just fine. I'll reply with the results.

Odd considering I just used migration assistant with my old mac to my new one with the same firewire cord.

I did notice my enclosure is firewire 400 and my new imac is 800. I was using a 400/800 cord, although perhaps my enclosure is not compatible with it?

Yeah, it looks like you're getting a bunch of I/O errors which normally indicate drive troubles. But since you're using an external carrier, we can't rule that out either. I have had a brand new external carrier fail on me the first time I used it.

What I would suggest is remove the drive from the FW enclosure and look over the connections and mounting hardware. Re-mount it again and give it another shot. I've run into weird problems with external carriers. Drive not mounted into the connectors tight enough or when screwing the case together, something came loose inside.

Let us know.

Here's the enclosure btw. What confused me is that it transferred over FW for a bit then cut out and unmounted the drive, same with CCC.

USB is moving along @ 8/100 GB. Not sure why the FW didn't work. It has both the mini connector and the 6 pin on the back. Also weird that it will stay mounted on FW but only eject on backup.

I think you may have just resolved the problem. Not all FW 800-400 adapters work well and some hardware just won't work right with them.

Continue to use the USB connection until you can get hold of a FW 800 drive. OWC sells the "Mercury on the Go Pro" series of drives which are highly rated by MacWorld. LINK

Just a quick note. I owned a CompUSA external HDD Enclosure that was FW400 and USB 2.0. After 6-8 months the firewire chip went crazy. It would work then stop dead and then unmount. Was fine with USB. Did a search on Google at the time and 1000's with the same HDD case were having the same issue. A new case solved my problem.

Chscag is probably right though and it might be the 400-800 cable.

Thanks for the help guys =) I'll just stick to the USB for now, enclosures can be finicky. I think its the enclosure over the cable since I just went from my powermac fw400 to my imac fw800 with it fine transferring over 100 GBS.