Having hard time backing up with external disk on notebook

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rdjwheels Author

Level 1

8 points

Having hard time backing up with external disk on notebook

Connected the disk for backup. Time Machine says preparing for back up but nothing happens.

Also getting the attached message.

thanks for any help out there.

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Apr 30, 2019 8:57 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

dwb

Level 7

33,100 points

May 2, 2019 9:34 AM in response to rdjwheels

Launch Disk Utility. In the left window pane select the TimeMachine drive. Look over in the right side for the TimeMachine icon and you'll see something like USB External Physical Volume - Mac OS extended (or however it is formatted) You'll also see a bar chart indicating how much space the drive has and how much is in use.

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Answer 2

dwb

Level 7

33,100 points

Apr 30, 2019 10:59 AM in response to rdjwheels

How is the TimeMachine drive formatted? It should be HFS+ (MacOS Extended (journaled)) Is it?

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Answer 3

rdjwheels Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2019 8:47 AM in response to dwb

thanks dwb,

where can I find how it is formatted?

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Answer 4

KiltedTim

Level 10

203,686 points

May 2, 2019 9:39 AM in response to rdjwheels

If you've installed software for the drive from the manufacturer (e.g. Western Digital), remove it. It is not necessary and, as you've discovered, will cause problems.

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Having hard time backing up with external disk on notebook

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