Time Machine WiFi backup fails and loads EFI partition?

[DekuBleep]

Hello,

I have a setup in my house where I use three Airport Extreme's (two of them extend the range of the first one). They are 6th Gen, 5th Gen, and 4th Gen respectively. The 6th Gen is plugged into my Cable Internet. I had a WD 4TB HDD plugged into the USB port of my 5th Gen. And previously it was plugged into my 6th Gen. This is a very convenient setup for me because I have numerous laptops that I want to backup.

Every once in a while the time machine backup fails and the "EFI partition" as well as the "Timemachine Backup" part of my newtworked HDD loads onto my desktop. Once this happens the HDD will not start backing up again on its own no matter what I do. If I plug the HDD into my laptop and run disk utitilty it usually finds some errors which can be fixed. Once these errors are fixed the timemachine backup process starts working again... until the next time it happens...

I have sent three WD HDD's back to WD under warranty and received new ones each time. But still after a period this same exact problem keeps happening. Do I keep getting bad HDD's from WD? Or is there nothing wrong with my HDD and some other problem is going on?

Please help I am very confused and looking for an answer to my time machine backup problems. Oh I am currently running OS 10.9 and all my Airport basestations have the latest firmware but this previously also happened under the older versions of OS X too.

Thanks!

 

[ColdCase]

Did you have the same issue while you were using the 6th gen? Is there anything else besides the drive plugged into the extreme?

 

[g4cube]

Try this: instead of bridging/joining all the Airport devices on your network under one wireless network name, use individual names for each device.

I also have several Airport Extremes, Airport Express, and Time Capsule devices that I joined into one wireless network name, and I had frequent disconnects within the house, even though nothing was moving around. I also had a Windows Home Server and the Windows laptops connected via WiFi would periodically report an interruption in the connection.

Once I went to individual names for each WiFi access point, the interrupts of backups, and the disconnect warning messages disappeared.

Something may be wrong with Apple's bridge mode to create one homogeneous network combining several Apple access points.

And yes, each AP was hard wired back to my router.

 

[DekuBleep]

Did you have the same issue while you were using the 6th gen? Is there anything else besides the drive plugged into the extreme?

Yes the same exact thing happened twice when I was plugging my HDD into my Gen6 AE. Besides the drive, I have several electronic devices that are getting their internet signal through ethernet through my AE on both the Gen6 and the Gen5.

Thanks!

 

[glenthompson]

Backups to airport attached hard drives are not supported by Apple. They usually work for awhile but then the drive gets corrupted. Best to either use a time capsule or connect the drive directly to the Mac and share it over the network.

 

[ColdCase]

I thought I read somewhere that the newest AP Extreme is approved for Time Machine, which is the gen 6 right?. I think apple remove that restriction a couple years ago with the gen 5.

I'm guessing the OP's wireless network has a glitch in it and TM backups over less than a solid network can be temperamental. But I'm just guessing.