Time Capsule - "disk is failing"

[applefan289]

A few days ago, my Time Capsule started flashing amber and it said "disk is failing" in Airport Utility.

My Time Capsule is working fine for wireless internet, backups, and restores. In other words, there are no noticeable problems other than the flashing amber light and the message in Airport Utility.

I decided to click "ignore" so that it would go back to normal, and everything is still working fine.

What should I do about this? Should I pretend it never happened and keep using it until it breaks? Or should I exchange it now?

It's still under the 1 year warranty, but I don't want to go through the hassle unless I have to.

If I end up having to take it in, how would I delete everything on my Time Capsule?

 

[Lee Adama]

It's letting you know the disk is going to die soon. Take it back and get a new one before you lose all your backups.

 

[applefan289]

It's letting you know the disk is going to die soon. Take it back and get a new one before you lose all your backups.

OK, will do. How would I wipe the Time Capsule? If I restore it to factory default settings, it says the files on the Airport disks will not be messed with.

edit: never mind, I clicked "erase" under "disks" in airport utility.

 

[JediMeister]

To clear data from the Time Capsule hard drive, open AirPort Utility and click Manual Setup, then select Disks from the top. You can then select the name of the drive, by default called 'Data', then click the Erase tab. Unless the drive has completely failed, this should work. If not, know that Apple will dispose of the data before recycling the drive.

 

[applefan289]

To clear data from the Time Capsule hard drive, open AirPort Utility and click Manual Setup, then select Disks from the top. You can then select the name of the drive, by default called 'Data', then click the Erase tab. Unless the drive has completely failed, this should work. If not, know that Apple will dispose of the data before recycling the drive.

It seems to be taking forever to wipe the drive! It only has less than 30GB backed up, and I chose the "secure" way of erasing the data (where it writes "zeroes" over the data. It's already been about an hour and the bar is frozen...not sure what's going on. I may just give it to Apple, but I don't really trust the employees there to handle the data appropriately.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

It should take a while to erase the data on a working drive - especially if you're performing a write-zeros X# of times. Because it's not writing zeros to just the 30gb you've occupied, but the entire drive. Generally, it takes about the same amount of time for one pass of "zeros" that it would take for a full format. Now multiply that by # of passes, and you get why this is taking so long.

On the other hand, if your drive is dying, that could also prolong the process.