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phoenix_jet

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 2, 2019
30
23
So I upgraded to Catalina on my 2009 MacBook pro by the backdoor method and now my external hard drive won't work. Just cycles and never goes into actually backing up. Just continues to say "preparing for backup."

Is this a known issue? I know Apple wouldn't support my upgrade b/c they want to sell me a new machine. Do I need to get a new external drive? And yes, there's plenty of space on this drive.

Thank you.
 

chscag

macrumors 601
Feb 17, 2008
4,622
1,946
Fort Worth, Texas
So I upgraded to Catalina on my 2009 MacBook pro by the backdoor method and now my external hard drive won't work. Just cycles and never goes into actually backing up. Just continues to say "preparing for backup."
Reformat your external drive to APFS and start over with Time Machine.
 

appltech

macrumors 6502a
Apr 23, 2020
688
167
Try creating a new partition for backups using Disk Utility and back up to that instead. Also, as @chscag mentioned, make sure the file system on that volume is APFS (although TIme Machine reformats it for you automatically)
 
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