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General discussion

Ejecting ?Time Machine Backup" does not operate

by erik.byczkowski Feb 1, 2011 2:55PM PST

The icon ?Time Machine Backup" (further on: ?TMB") on the desktop of my iMac (Mac OS 10.6.6) cannot be ejected. A window tells me:
?The medium ?TMB" is used at the moment by one or more programs an cannot be ejected."
Further: ?To eject the medium immediately, ?click at once."

Having done this the following window tells:
?Do you really want to eject the medium? This can lead to problems with the medium or the information within the medium."

Having pressed the button ?eject immediately" the follwing window shows:
?The medium ?TMB" has been ejected."

And so it happened till the next time I start ?TMB".

It is interesting: having loaded ?TMB" and done nothing, ejecting the medium is properly performed.

What is the reason for this behavior, though no programs are open?
How can this fault be fixed?

Discussion is locked

6 Posts
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What do the question marks represent?
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 1, 2011 8:55PM PST

I am also running 10.6.6 and do not have a Time Machine Backup icon on the desktop.

I do have a Time Machine icon in the dock though.

Is TMB the name you have given to the Hard Drive that you use as for Time Machine Backups? If so, why would you be ejecting it?

Unless you are planning on moving it to another machine, it should just sit there and do its thing


P

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And TIme Machine is always running,
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 1, 2011 8:56PM PST

which may be why you are getting the "in use" dialog


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Ejecting Time Machine Backup does not operate
by erik.byczkowski Feb 1, 2011 10:56PM PST

First: the question marks should represent quotation marks; before I visited Mac OS forum I drafted my problem in Mac "Pages" and then copied it into the message body of Mac OS forum. By doing this, the quotation mark on the left of TMB turned into a question mark and I even didn't notice it Wink)

Sorry, I forgot to post that I have an external hard drive called TMB.
I only start this ext. HD, when I want to make a backup (then the icon appears on my desktop). When the backup has finished, I eject the icon & then happens what I've written. In addition I must say that the ext. HD also includes other files beside the file "Backups.backupdb".

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Time Machine Utility
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 2, 2011 8:47AM PST

is a piece of software that is always running. As I said, this may be where you get the error message from.

Of course, you could always try turning Time Machine off from its preferences. You can access them from the icon in the dock.
Right click or Control Click the icon and choose Open Preferences.
From there you can turn it off. Do so and then eject the disk.
Let us know what happens

Alternatively,
Why not just leave the thing running and let it do its own thing. You will not notice it and the backups only take a couple of minutes.

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Ejecting Time Machine Backup does not operate
by erik.byczkowski Feb 2, 2011 2:11PM PST

Thanks for the proposal: the icon can be ejected, having TM turned off its preferences.

But as suggested, I will leave the ext. HD running, so there will never return my described problem.

Thank you for your support.

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(NT) You're welcome
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 2, 2011 8:52PM PST
Back to Mac OS forum

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