Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Time Machine and sleepy HD

B

bananaquit

macrumors member
Original poster
Just installed Leopard yesterday and attached new WD GP 500 in a OWC enclosure. I put my iMac to sleep last night and this morning TM couldn't find my external hard drive. I finally turned the external off, then on, and TM found it again. I'm assuming there are sleep issues between my WD and TM. Suggestions?

Sorry if this is posted elsewhere but I didn't find an answer.
Thanks!
 
I am using two WD 500 firewire drives, and I have not seen this behavior with Time Machine on my MBP. Have you tried putting it to sleep again and seeing if the problem persists?
 
I haven't been able to duplicate that behavior after a couple of tries using sleep mode. Interesting. Anything special I need to know about TM and external HD settings? Sleep doesn't appear to have been the issue.

Thanks for the help!
 
Could have just been a one time anomaly. I find that external drives do odd things every once and a while, like turn read-only or they won't wake up unless you replug its connection to your computer. When this happens I usually just turn the drive off and back on. After that, nothing usually happens for a good month or two.
 
Well, now I have been watching the little TM icon spin (preparing) for over two hours, and when I try and "open time machine preferences" nothing comes up. The icon just keeps spinning. The HD is quiet and now there is a blue box around the icon and I get a spinning beach ball. System preferences and Finder froze and I cannot force quit. TM won't respond. Lovely introduction to Time Machine.

Time to turn off the HD?

Unplugged the external (hope that wasn't a mistake) and everything that was frozen came back to life. Plugged it back in and the computer can't see it. Turned the hard drive off, then back on, and there you go, all is back to normal...until the next time I suppose.
 
Time Machine does take an exceptionally long time to prepare for backups, and an even longer time to perform them, but that is definitely not normal behavior. Perhaps there is something wrong with the drive (or just a wonky enclosure). Or maybe even something wrong with your install.

Was your Leopard install an upgrade or a clean install?
 
bananaquit said:
Well, now I have been watching the little TM icon spin (preparing) for over two hours, and when I try and "open time machine preferences" nothing comes up. The icon just keeps spinning. The HD is quiet and now there is a blue box around the icon and I get a spinning beach ball. System preferences and Finder froze and I cannot force quit. TM won't respond. Lovely introduction to Time Machine.

Time to turn off the HD?

Unplugged the external (hope that wasn't a mistake) and everything that was frozen came back to life. Plugged it back in and the computer can't see it. Turned the hard drive off, then back on, and there you go, all is back to normal...until the next time I suppose.
Click to expand...

I think you made a mistake. That spinning, in the menu bar, means it is working. USB connections do take a while.
 
Sorry, I didn't mention it is a FW400, and this was an upgrade, not a clean install. Just an anecdotal observation: it appeared to be just fine for the first 2-3 back ups, which went quickly, and then it just hung up, if that's the proper characterization. I won't touch it today unless other things start freezing on me. Thanks much for all your help!
 
if its any consolation I am running tiger and every now and again my FW400 WD Mybook Pro 'decides' not to mount when I wake the mac from sleep.... annoying. Have to disconnect drive from power and reconnect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back