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Is my Time Capsule in its death throes?

P

puma1552

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Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
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I've got a 500 GB 2nd generation TC. I know a lot of these were prone to failures after about 18 months, but mine comes a little after the affected serial number range.

It's been fine all these years since I bought it in probably early 2009. A month or so ago it stopped backing up, I don't recall the message I would get but just something generic about not being able to back up. TC light was green at this time, wifi worked fine.

The other day I decided to upgrade my MBP with a new SSD (clean install of Mountain Lion (10.8.4) from a USB stick) and more RAM. Now that I've got my computer back up and running how I'd like it to, I figured I'd go ahead and figure out what was wrong with TC, figured I'd just reformat/erase it and start fresh. TC light was still green when I started this.

Went into Airport utility, and it would should up there. Entered my password and it gave me the option to erase it, so I chose that. Nothing happened. Tried again, nothing happened. Shortly thereafter, it went MIA from Airport Utility and Airport Utility has not been able to find it since then. The light is now solid amber, and unplugging it as well as doing a reset with the button on the back do nothing. Additionally, I can hear a rhythmic click from the drive that I have never heard before.

Wifi still works though, so the router part is at least still good I guess.

Is my TC toast? Seems odd that as soon as I started messing with it it went from green light and discoverable (just unable to backup for some reason) to all out no good (amber light and unable to be found in Airport Utility).

The clicking sound has me worried.

Is it dead/dying or is there something else I can try?
 
puma1552 said:
I can hear a rhythmic click from the drive
Click to expand...

Based on that, I'd call it a lost cause. You can check ifixit.com for help replacing the disk, but the money would be better spent toward a newer 5th or 6th gen TC. The wifi performance is much better on those also, so it's a good upgrade to make.
 
If you are not getting wifi from it and airport can't find it, I'd suspect a power supply problem. A busted hard drive is not going to have that symptom unless its shorting out and pulling the TC down with it. You can sometimes hear what sounds like drive clicking when the power supply does not having enough juice to spin up the drive.

If you really are interesting in repair, pull the HD out and put it in an enclosure and test it.

It is only 4 years old and its not that hard to replace the hard drive. When I did mine, I didn't bother putting the rubber base back on and have it sitting on one of those laptop coolers with fans turned on.

On the other hand, a new 2TB TC is only like $300.
 
ColdCase said:
If you are not getting wifi from it and airport can't find it, I'd suspect a power supply problem. A busted hard drive is not going to have that symptom unless its shorting out and pulling the TC down with it. You can sometimes hear what sounds like drive clicking when the power supply does not having enough juice to spin up the drive.

If you really are interesting in repair, pull the HD out and put it in an enclosure and test it.

It is only 4 years old and its not that hard to replace the hard drive. When I did mine, I didn't bother putting the rubber base back on and have it sitting on one of those laptop coolers with fans turned on.

On the other hand, a new 2TB TC is only like $300.
Click to expand...

Wifi still works great so based on that, can I rule out the power supply and hone in on the drive?

I don't really want to buy a new TC until I buy a new MBP in a couple years, since I just breathed life into my current MBP with RAM and an SSD maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend 50 bucks on a drive for the TC and swap it out? Actually, I could probably just format the original drive my MBP had that I just pulled for the SSD and throw that in there for the time being and hope it lasts a couple years, then I'm not out any money at all.

EDIT: I see that TC needs a 3.5" disk, what do you guys think of this one for $50: http://www.microcenter.com/product/...ATA_60Gb-s_35_Internal_Hard_Drive_WD5000CSRTL
 
Last edited:
Instead of an internal, you can plug in a USB drive. I'd suggest at least removing the internal hard drive regardless.
 
Update: Took it in to the Genius Bar today, they couldn't get it to show up in Airport Utility either. They tried to do several kinds of hard resets to no avail, and they said that would wipe my internet settings too but when I brought it home as soon as I plugged it in my wifi was working just fine still, so I guess it can't even be reset?

The guy said he doesn't know if just swapping a drive will bring it back to life, he said it may or it may not, he said if just the drive was bad they should still be able to get it to show up in Airport Utility, so he wasn't sure what the issues was.

What do you think, worth trying a $50 hard drive? I'm pretty sure I can return an opened hard drive to Microcenter if it doesn't fix it (if someone can confirm that would be great, I don't see anything in the return policy saying I can't), but I'm worried about losing my wifi if I mess it up. Worst case I keep it as a router and just keep everything backed up to the HDD I just pulled out of my MBP.
 
I'm a little confused, Are you saying the airport utility can't see the airport at all, or just that the utility can't see the hard drive?
 
I've not seen that before, one could speculate that the drive is throwing so many errors that it is hampering the firmware, not giving it enough time to do disk or control stuff.

Take the TC apart an remove/disconnect the drive. Power the TC up and see if the Airport Utility finds it (mac on the same wifi network as the TC). If not... don't bother trying to fix it, if the utility sees the TC, go out and get yourself a replacement drive.
 
ColdCase said:
I've not seen that before, one could speculate that the drive is throwing so many errors that it is hampering the firmware, not giving it enough time to do disk or control stuff.

Take the TC apart an remove/disconnect the drive. Power the TC up and see if the Airport Utility finds it (mac on the same wifi network as the TC). If not... don't bother trying to fix it, if the utility sees the TC, go out and get yourself a replacement drive.
Click to expand...

Awesome, I did this and plugged it in and boom - airport utility found it, and I was able to update the firmware as well! I'll pick up that WD Green drive this week and throw it in.

What speed is the original hard drive? 7200 RPM? I thought I saw somewhere that it was actually a 10,000 RPM drive.
 
Back in business!

Picked this guy up tonight after work:

http://www.microcenter.com/product/...0Gb-s_35_Internal_Hard_Drive_WD5000AAKX_-_OEM

Which is the successor to the drive that was in there (WD5000AAKS) and as soon as I popped it in, she fired right up and Airport Utility found her...it's good to be back in the land of the green light, and right now it is doing it's first initial backup!

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.
 
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