Time Machine problem

yeah sometimes if your Time Machine backup is interrupted or you didnt eject you external hard drive properly Time Machine will do a "deep scan" of your backups to find any errors and fix them. just leave your Mac and the external on overnight and it should sought itself out.

 

time machine backup

What is the correct way to disconnect your external hard drive when using time machine? I have a laptop, so it's obviously not convenient to leave the external drive connected all the time. I switched time machine to "off" in the preferences and then ejected the drive, but when i reconnected a couple of days later it appears to be doing the "deep scan" you mention (not very many files have changed in those few days). Will i have to go through this every time I reconnect? What happens when you just want to shut off your computer? Sorry, I'm new to the mac, and i didn't find much detail in Help about how to stop/restart when using the time machine.

 

I use time machine with an external drive for my MacBook Pro. The very first time it took about an hour to do its thing - following that it usually takes 10 minutes or less. After doing the 10.5.2 update the next backup was also long (I guess a lot of changes to the system).

I leave time machine on. It will automatically start backups every time I connect my external drive. On a few occasions I have interrupted it - but it will resume on the next connection without any complaints.

To eject the drive - find your external listed on your finder sidebar (the icon colour should be teal) - select the eject button. then unplug your external's cord.