Time machine won’t back up to my ex drive anymore. Help?

[zowenso]

Good morning. I have a 2020 iMac. I hadn’t gone on it for a day and when I did last night it said it couldn’t do the time machine back up and that there was an error. I have a WD external hard drive that I formatted for the iMac. I updated Big Sur and Safari last night as it showed me I needed to. Could that be the reason the external hard drive is no longer doing the time machine backup? Here are some pics of what I’m getting when I try and do the time machine back up. Any help would be awesome. I’m not sure tech savvy, but would like to get this working again. Thank you!

So you can see I have the ex drive labeled “time machine” and you can see the pop up I get when I try to do a back up. You can also see my updates are up to date.

 

[chscag]

What format is your WD external drive using? (It must be formatted to APFS in order for it to do the backups from Big Sur.)

 

[zowenso]

What format is your WD external drive using? (It must be formatted to APFS in order for it to do the backups from Big Sur.)

Hello, thanks for the reply. Hmm, not sure how to find out the format it’s using, but up until yesterday it’s been working fine every day since I bought the iMac new in 2020. I’ve done other Big Sur updates and never had an issue, if this is in fact tied to the update. Could you tell me how to check what it’s formatted too? Thanks.

 

[zowenso]

What format is your WD external drive using? (It must be formatted to APFS in order for it to do the backups from Big Sur.)

I found it….

 

[chscag]

Okay, the drive is formatted correctly for Big Sur. Do a First Aid check on the drive using Disk Utility to see if it comes up with any errors. If it doesn't, it may just have been a one time glitch.

 

[zowenso]

Okay, the drive is formatted correctly for Big Sur. Do a First Aid check on the drive using Disk Utility to see if it comes up with any errors. If it doesn't, it may just have been a one time glitch.

So I did the first aid check and this is what I got…and you can see what it says when I click show details.

 

[Apple_Robert]

More than likely, you will need to erase your external drive and start over. TM has a history (for many here) of producing corrupt backups and or other backup related problems. You should consider moving to Carbon Copy Cloner or Arq Backup for a much more seamless experience, not to mention much faster and offering the ability to backup when you want.

 

[zowenso]

More than likely, you will need to erase your external drive and start over. TM has a history (for many here) of producing corrupt backups and or other backup related problems. You should consider moving to Carbon Copy Cloner or Arq Backup for a much more seamless experience, not to mention much faster and offering the ability to backup when you want.

Can you easily explain how to erase the external hard drive? I appreciate your help.

 

[chscag]

Use Disk Utility to erase the drive. After erasing the drive, do another First Aid check on it. If it shows errors like before, get rid of it and use a new drive instead for your Time Machine backups.

Take note if you upgrade your 2020 iMac to Monterey, you will not be able to use CCC or SuperDuper to make a bootable cloned backup. Neither app will work with Monterey because of increased security implemented by Apple.

I have no knowledge how Arq backup works. Sorry.

 

[wonderings]

Before doing anything drastic with the external drive I would eject it, let it sit for 20 seconds then plug back in. You can get this error now and then and like a computer, restarting solves the issue most of the time.

I would recommend also looking at a cloud backup solution on top of the time machine. Hard drives can and do fail, being completely dependant on Time Machine could leave you stranded at some point. As an example you just did a big update, if something went wrong with the update and you needed to restore you would not be able to if the Time Machine backup is not working correctly.

 

[zowenso]

I’ll try these things tonight and report back. Thanks a lot.

 

[zowenso]

So, I ejected and waited a while and re connected the ex drive. I did the first aid test and this is what came up. Should I just erase the ex drive? Is it possible it’s broken in some way? If I erase it and get a new ex drive for time machine back up, do you think it’s safe to use this one for photos or anything? Or should I not risk it because of this issue? Thanks.

 

[chscag]

I would not trust that drive for anything. If the drive is still under warranty you can always contact WD and ask for a RMA. It's best to get a new drive (SSD if possible) and use it for your Time Machine backups.

Nothing is worse than having to use your backup to recover and finding out the backup is broken. Buy a new drive.

 

[zowenso]

I would not trust that drive for anything. If the drive is still under warranty you can always contact WD and ask for a RMA. It's best to get a new drive (SSD if possible) and use it for your Time Machine backups.

Nothing is worse than having to use your backup to recover and finding out the backup is broken. Buy a new drive.

Can you or anyone post a link to something in the 2tb range and under $150 that comes Mac compatible? There are so many. I don’t do a ton on my Mac, but would like to have a TM back up running. Thanks so much.

 

[chscag]

Most every drive sold is Mac compatible. You may have to reformat it first before using it as most new drives come pre-formatted for Windows. (NTFS)

Take a look on Amazon.com or Best Buy.com and you should be able to find something that will fit your $150 budget.

 

[zowenso]

Most every drive sold is Mac compatible. You may have to reformat it first before using it as most new drives come pre-formatted for Windows. (NTFS)

Take a look on Amazon.com or Best Buy.com and you should be able to find something that will fit your $150 budget.

Thanks for everything.

 

[Fishrrman]

Agree with AppleRobert above.

I'd erase the drive and start over.

BUT... you ought to try both CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper.
Both of these are FREE to download and use for 30 days.

 

[zowenso]

Agree with AppleRobert above.

I'd erase the drive and start over.

BUT... you ought to try both CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper.
Both of these are FREE to download and use for 30 days.

I tried to erase and it wouldn’t let me. I kept getting an error. I tried several time. I also had a hard time ejecting it. Again, errors. After several attempts I had to force eject it. Thanks for the response.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Retire the WD NAS and roll your own enterprise class NAS with https://www.truenas.com

 

[brilliantthings]

I had exactly the same problem on Monterey 12.0.1. It's looking like 12.1 has fixed it.

Edit: I only just noticed your drive failed Disk Utility. I got the same error, but my drive had passed Disk Utility checks.

 

[zowenso]

I had exactly the same problem on Monterey 12.0.1. It's looking like 12.1 has fixed it.

Edit: I only just noticed your drive failed Disk Utility. I got the same error, but my drive had passed Disk Utility checks.

Good to know, thank you. Yeah, I’m still on Big Sur with the current update.

But yeah, i kept getting errors after doing the first aid check in disk utility.

 

[wonderings]

If you need the extra space you could use the bad drive, but I would never trust it and would set your new Time Machine to backup that external as well. As I mentioned in my post I would recommend a cloud storage solution as well. I use www.backblaze.com I don't work for them, just a happy user of their service. No size limits and runs in the background simply. This will allow you to backup external drives as well (won't back up a time machine external). This cloud solution is to backup your files only though, it does not give you a bootable restore option.