How to add an external drive for Time Machine to my Mac mini

[dalesladx]

Hi fellows, This appeared easy to do but somehow I managed to screw it up and I ended up with this. Then to make matters worse I clicked on the lower drive and removed it. Now I have one left that doesn't work and is labelled Time Machine and if I look in the Finder I show an external drive labelled Toshiba which also doesn't work. Nothing has been recorded since the 12th Mon.

The red info icon has the following message:
Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine”
The backup disk could not be found. Make sure the backup disk is connected or select a different backup disk.

So now I'm looking for some help on how to proceed.
Thanks

 

[apostolosdt]

The lesson I learned the hard way is that the best action is to reformat the would-be TM ext disk properly and try the entire thing all over again. You cannot go wrong if you start over with a just formatted disk.

There are numerous guidelines on how-to; I usually prefer this site: https://www.lifewire.com/back-up-mac-to-external-hard-drive-with-time-machine-5069853

 

[Fishrrman]

I'll offer a better way:
Try SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner.

Both are free to download and use for 30 days.
SuperDuper is a little easier for someone who's never cloned a drive before...

 

[dalesladx]

The lesson I learned the hard way is that the best action is to reformat the would-be TM ext disk properly and try the entire thing all over again. You cannot go wrong if you start over with a just formatted disk.

There are numerous guidelines on how-to; I usually prefer this site: https://www.lifewire.com/back-up-mac-to-external-hard-drive-with-time-machine-5069853

Thanks that was a great link, it worked like a charm. I found I had the wrong format and changed that. Your advice was appreciated.

 

[dalesladx]

I'll offer a better way:
Try SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner.

Both are free to download and use for 30 days.
SuperDuper is a little easier for someone who's never cloned a drive before...

Hey Fishrrman, I remember your good advice from my last challenge whey I was transferring data from Mac Pro to the Mac mini. Thanks, I am familiar with Super Duper, in fact I use it all of the time to backup my external drives but for prepping a Time Machine drive I prefer to let the system do the auto backups.

 

[gradi]

It is my understanding that when you first use Time Machine that it will automatically format the drive for APFS.