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Travisimo

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 22, 2009
991
226
I have an iMac running Lion with a USB external drive attached for my Time Machine. The Time Machine is working great on this Mac. I just bought a Macbook Air and wanted to use the same Time Machine drive via the network, but I can't seem to get it to show up in the "Select Drive" setting in Time Machine on my MBA.

Via many Google searches, the main instructions I found said to do the following:

- Share the Time Machine drive on my iMac. So I went into Settings/Sharing and added my external drive to share and made sure it was set to Read/Write.

- On my Macbook Air, I connected to my iMac using the account listed for Read/Write access. The external drive showed up and I double-clicked on it to mount it. The drive then showed up under "Devices" on my MBA and had the little Eject button next to it, so I know it was mounted.

- Then I opened Time Machine on my MBA but the drive is not showing up.

I'm not sure what I'm missing??? The only thing I read somewhere is that Lion made changes to the way Time Machine works and that it only supports AFP and not SMB? I don't really understand either of those, but the external drive is showing up via SMB, I believe.

Is there any way for me to use this external drive on my iMac as my Time Machine drive on my MBA?

Thanks!
 

CallumCc

macrumors newbie
Jul 24, 2011
26
0
Machester, UK
I have an iMac running Lion with a USB external drive attached for my Time Machine. The Time Machine is working great on this Mac. I just bought a Macbook Air and wanted to use the same Time Machine drive via the network, but I can't seem to get it to show up in the "Select Drive" setting in Time Machine on my MBA.

Via many Google searches, the main instructions I found said to do the following:

- Share the Time Machine drive on my iMac. So I went into Settings/Sharing and added my external drive to share and made sure it was set to Read/Write.

- On my Macbook Air, I connected to my iMac using the account listed for Read/Write access. The external drive showed up and I double-clicked on it to mount it. The drive then showed up under "Devices" on my MBA and had the little Eject button next to it, so I know it was mounted.

- Then I opened Time Machine on my MBA but the drive is not showing up.

I'm not sure what I'm missing??? The only thing I read somewhere is that Lion made changes to the way Time Machine works and that it only supports AFP and not SMB? I don't really understand either of those, but the external drive is showing up via SMB, I believe.

Is there any way for me to use this external drive on my iMac as my Time Machine drive on my MBA?

Thanks!
Hello, follow this guide - http://techpump.co.uk/?p=105 - it should make sense for an external drive as well, if not leave a comment and i'll try and help.
 
Last edited:

randallcreasey

macrumors newbie
Nov 5, 2010
8
0
i am trying this same exact thing but i keep getting this error on my mba: The backup disk is not available.
 
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