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jonsey44

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 1, 2009
19
0
London
I am a total novice on the mac and have been reading the forums about time machine, anyways when i click on time machine it says an unexpected error occured (ERROR CODE 43) can anyone tell me what this means? Have i broke my new mac already:confused:.
Thanks
 
I am a total novice on the mac and have been reading the forums about time machine, anyways when i click on time machine it says an unexpected error occured (ERROR CODE 43) can anyone tell me what this means? Have i broke my new mac already:confused:.
Thanks

It can mean many things. The simplest is that it can not find your Time Machine drive. You have set up TM on an external drive, right?
 
I am a total novice on the mac and have been reading the forums about time machine, anyways when i click on time machine it says an unexpected error occured (ERROR CODE 43) can anyone tell me what this means? Have i broke my new mac already:confused:.
Thanks

You need to have a time machine set up it's basically to back up your files. You need to have a Time capsule to do that I believe.
 
You need to have a time machine set up it's basically to back up your files. You need to have a Time capsule to do that I believe.

You do not need a Time Capsule to be able to use Time Machine. you can use any external HD to back up with Time Machine.
 
Yes i did have it on an external drive but that doesnt work with the mac for some reason, its been saying error ever since.
 
What is the drive formatted to? NTFS=no read or write ability from Mac, Fat32= read and write ability from Mac but I believe has a 4gb file transfer cap, or Mac Journaled = best format to use with Mac if only being used with Mac.

Has it ever worked? if so, have you recently changed your computer name?
 
The external drive worked the first time i tried it but then wouldnt work after that, i have only had the mac a week so im really useless at the moment.:eek:
 
The external drive worked the first time i tried it but then wouldnt work after that, i have only had the mac a week so im really useless at the moment.:eek:

Go to System Preferences>Time Machine and make sure the TM is pointing to the drive. Have the drive plugged in first. If it is not pointing to the drive select Change Disk to get it to the drive. If the drive is not showing up then the drive is not formatted properly and you will need to go to Disk Utility and see what the drive is reading as far as format goes. Other than that, not sure what to tell you. Worse case scenario is the drive became damaged somehow.
 
This could also be a factor especially if it appeared to have backed up successfully once and keeps failing afterwards. Also make sure that you're running the latest working version of Leopard before attempting the backup, that would be 10.5.6.
 
Ok i tried that the drive is there but not readable, so i plugged it into my old pc which now wants to format it. Im guessing that i have to erase everything thats on there??
 
Ok i tried that the drive is there but not readable, so i plugged it into my old pc which now wants to format it. Im guessing that i have to erase everything thats on there??

Sounds like it is formated to NTFS the or not at all if the PC wants to re-format it. Plug it back into your Mac, go to disk utility and format it to Mac OS journaled, keep in mind that the PC will not recognize the drive once formated to the Mac OS journaled. Once complete go into Sys Pref>Time Machine and tell it to back up to the external drive.
 
So sorry to be a pain but im not getting an option to format it, i just get the first aid screen and none of that is available. Any advice? :(
 
So sorry to be a pain but im not getting an option to format it, i just get the first aid screen and none of that is available. Any advice? :(

So you are in Disk utility, there should be a list on the left hand side. Locate and highlight the external drive, this should change the pane to the right. There should be an option for Erase (Macs verbiage for format) there should be a drop down menu with an option for Mac OS journaled and a text box below that for you to add a name you would like to format the drive with (you can name it anything, the drive will be called this after format).

Not trying to be redundant, just not there and don't know what you see.
 
Yes ive found it now, just before i do it will it wipe the drive clean? If so i need to prepare myself :( as i have tons of photos on there. Thanx for your patience with me.
 
Yes ive found it now, just before i do it will it wipe the drive clean? If so i need to prepare myself :( as i have tons of photos on there. Thanx for your patience with me.

Yes it will wipe the drive clean. Do you have those photos somewhere else, I hope?
 
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