Time machine can't find the disk

Hi,
Time Machine on my computer has suddenly stopped being able to find my backup disk. The exact message is "Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is unavailable." I use a "passport" to backup, it's just a little external box with a lot of memory. I have tried to go to select disk but it is not even there. Every so often I also get a message saying the disk I inserted is unreadable, but it's just that I know that it is readable because this is the same thing I've always used to backup my computer and I've never had any problems until today. I tried to do a search but I didn't see any problems that were quite close enough to be helpful. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

It sounds like your Passport has died if you can't "see" it at all. If a hard drive won't mount (appear on the desktop) it's usually because it has failed. Hard drives fail without warning all the time. May be time to buy a new one.

If you connect the drive, can you see it in Disk Utility ?

Cheers ... McBie

Yes I can see it in disk utility, but the buttons like repair disk or verify disk are not available.

Have you selected the volume label of the external disk or the 1st line, which will indicate the manufacturer and size of the physical disk.
You need to be be on the volume name of the disk ( the 2nd line )
Whatever you do in Disk Utility, make sure you select the right disk so you don't destroy your Internal disk with the OS on it .

Cheers ... McBie

In your applications find the WD Smartware app and Mount it, this seems to be an issue with WD and time machine, I have the same issue, and need to do this regularly. Your backups will be intact,