Backup Failure

[Simol]

I have been using the WD My Passport for Mac backup disc. It has decided to stop working. I get the error message, 'Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup file.' I am using a 2018 Macbook Pro running V11.5.2 Big Sur. Help please.

 

[IWT]

The first thought must be that the External Hard Drive (EHD) has failed.

But not necessarily, so:

Can you see the EHD using Disk Utility (DU)? If yes, try running First Aid on it. If No:

Have you tried ejecting the EHD - in fact does it register when you right click on the Drive and choose Eject?

If it Ejects:

Disconnect it. Then reboot your Mac. Now reconnect the EHD to your Mac - DIRECTLY is better than via a Hub.

Can you see it now in DU? Yes. Run First aid. If still No. Then it is probably died on you.

Post back results, please.

Ian

 

[Simol]

The first thought must be that the External Hard Drive (EHD) has failed.

But not necessarily, so:

Can you see the EHD using Disk Utility (DU)? If yes, try running First Aid on it. If No:

Have you tried ejecting the EHD - in fact does it register when you right click on the Drive and choose Eject?

If it Ejects:

Disconnect it. Then reboot your Mac. Now reconnect the EHD to your Mac - DIRECTLY is better than via a Hub.

Can you see it now in DU? Yes. Run First aid. If still No. Then it is probably died on you.

Post back results, please.

Ian

Thanks for this Ian. The EHD registers on the desktop. I can eject it and install it. I have run First Aid on it and got his message, 'First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume. Click Done to continue.'

 

[Simol]

Thanks for this Ian. The EHD registers on the desktop. I can eject it and install it. I have run First Aid on it and got this message, 'First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume. Click Done to continue.'

 

[MacInWin]

What are you using to make the backup? Time Machine? Carbon Copy Cloner? SuperDuper? What?

 

[Simol]

What are you using to make the backup? Time Machine? Carbon Copy Cloner? SuperDuper? What?

 

[IWT]

Thanks for this Ian. The EHD registers on the desktop. I can eject it and install it. I have run First Aid on it and got this message, 'First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume. Click Done to continue.'

As far as I can see, that Drive has failed or as close to as makes little difference.

Jake's questions are highly relevant because how we/you deal with this failure depends on:

How critical the data is?
Is it a Time Machine backup?
Some other form of specialised BU such as a Cloned BU as mentioned by Jake?
Or a BU of data manually created by you?

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Ian, I have seen TM backups get corrupted to the point where the drive throws an error and DU can't fix it. At that point you can reformat the drive and it passes First Aid again, but the backup is gone. Happened to me just once, but the drive on which it happened is still in service, going strong.

But I think I agree that it's looking like the drive is failing.

 

[IWT]

Yes, Jake. I agree. Thing is, if it was a Time Machine BU or anything else critical, I wouldn't trust that EHD again.

You are perfectly correct in saying that after a reformat, the Drive often appears to work okay, and maybe for a long time; but can one be sure it won't let us down today, tomorrow ....?

Anyway, point taken. Let's await the reply from Simol.

Ian

 

[Rod]

+1 to all the proceeding posts. Of course as the message says, "If possible back up the data on this volume." Some times you can still open the disk and move the contents or some of them back onto the internal drive.

That would be entirely dependent on what format they were in. A clone should be fine, manually copied backups should be also but a Time Machine backup presents more of a challenge.
I too have a EHD that was saved by reformatting which continues to function years later as a backup for movies but I wouldn't trust it with personal data.

 

[ferrarr]

I was using 2 EHD as TM backup disks. Lately, one of them has been having issues (the original HDD from my 2014 mini). Previously, when TM would tell me it couldn't backup to that drive, I would go into TM in System Preferences, and select the drive as a backup disk. It worked for about 6 months or so. I could still use DU to run First Aid on the drive and it gave no issues.

DriveDx did show 79.1% health for about a year.

After the latest update to macOS, DU keeps giving me the failure, so I removed the drive and stopped using it. So now I only have the one TM drive.

 

[Rod]

Is that the only backup you have?