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General discussion

Time Machine - Unbelievable

Jun 12, 2008 10:34AM PDT

So in some free time today, I made plans to go to the Apple Store just to look at some stuff. Now bear in mind that this was one of the first times that I didn't have a real reason to go to the Apple Store, but my iMac saw to that. Today, Time Machine prompted me with a message that said something like this: "Time Machine has not made a backup in 10 days. Please connect your external drive...".
I did just that to keep the iMac "happy", and lo and behold, the iMac indexed the drive and started to hang on the "Preparing backup" phase. A few minutes of waiting and soon enough, the whole system locked up. After I managed to get the iMac back to normal (relaunched the Finder, stopped the backup, etc.), I decided to go ahead and eject my FireWire drive and deal with it later. Big mistake... See, I ejected the drive like I would with any other drive, but the drive failed to eject. The drive, a Western Digital, wasn't doing anything and looked like it was going to shut down, so I disconnected it. But, when I reconnected it a few moments later, the drive failed to mount.

Both Macs could not mount the drive. System Profiler detected the drive through USB, FW400, and FW800, and Disk Utility occasionally picked it up, but I could not manage to mount the drive at all. I did notice that when I connected the power cable to the drive, the drive would start spinning. Since I was going to Apple anyway, I made a Genius Bar appointment and took my portable gear with me. After waiting an hour, I talked with one of the "Genii" and we determined that the drive had not failed completely, but the "connection board" went out. We both agreed that the drive itself worked, and he said that it could be possible to salvage the backup data on it if I cracked it open, but I decided not to as the enclosure would be gone forever (see the link above). Luckily for me, he walked over to their peripheral shelf and handed me a new one with a receipt. The return date was in February, and I had my original receipt to prove it, but he was nice about it and all. So that was all taken care of.

But here's the thing: Time Machine was partly responsible. If Time Machine would actually work half the time I needed it, it could be useful. Now my iMac could be at fault too; it has 768MB of RAM on Leopard, it's somewhat outdated, and it lacks the processing power of the newer Intel Macs. But for it to lock up the system and cause the whole drive to die (so to speak)? Amazing. Honestly, I could care less about this since I got a brand new replacement free of charge, and the Macs themselves are fine. But it is disappointing that I had to go through with this, and all of my backup data was there too... I don't know if Apple is going to open it up and attempt to do something on the drive or not though. I doubt it since it would be a waste of their time, but they still have it all. They'd find my applications and multimedia projects, etc., which doesn't bother me too much, but then there would be my emails and personal documents and records. Sad

Time Machine is nice, but for it to break an external drive, or help cause it, is unacceptable on Apple's part, but Western Digital could work on their hardware quality too. Course before today, the drive had performed quite well, so I blame Time Machine... Then there is the user factor but I didn't do anything out of the ordinary.
And get this. A friend called me just as I got to the store. Apparently, MacFixit just posted an article about FireWire drives not mounting in 10.5.3; good timing I suppose. I asked the Genius about it, but he assured me that it must have been the drive for it to have not shown up on either of my Macs, so who knows. Nevertheless, this is very disappointing.

-BMF

Discussion is locked

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If you visit our storage forum.
Jun 12, 2008 10:47AM PDT

You would be stoned to death by all the people tossing dead drives around.

I can't explain it.

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My intention was
Jun 12, 2008 12:19PM PDT

to address Time Machine. The dead drive was more of a result from its failure to back up, hence my posting in the Mac OS Forum.

Now I know drives will fail after a long period of time, but this drive was only a few months old, it received moderate use just for Time Machine backups, and it worked fine whenever I needed it. Then Time Machine locked up the iMac, and ejecting the drive seemed to have fried the connection circuitry inside the enclosure. Thankfully, this new model on my desk here is surprisingly quieter and backed up to Time Machine perfectly on the MacBook.

-BMF

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I think the iMac had something to do with it
Jun 12, 2008 2:24PM PDT

Since I got a new drive, I plugged it into the MacBook first, and almost immediately, Time Machine started working flawlessly with it once it was configured. When that finished, I connected the drive to the iMac with FW400. Once again, it hung at the "Preparing..." mode, and when I stopped the backup again, I had trouble disconnecting it. It indexed the drive when I plugged it in, and when I ejected it, the drive did eject because I could not open anything on the drive. But it still appeared in the Finder and the drive was still under the impression that it was in use. This time, in hopes of preserving it, I held down the manual power button on the drive, and was greeted with the Device Removal warning and a window saying that it was in use and I had to quit applications to eject it. Why this didn't pop up before is beyond me, and why it was saying this when I had no applications open is odd. But, I plugged it back into the MacBook, powered it on, and it started working perfectly again.

The iMac was the common factor in both of these events, so I went ahead and rebuilt the Spotlight index on the iMac and I'm trying to make sure that the iMac is working properly. Until then, I've disabled Time Machine on it. I will add more RAM to it within this period of time and maybe that will help.
I think that the iMac improperly ejected the drive, which in turn caused the original backup drive to fail. I have no way of knowing I suppose, but that seems like the most likely scenario. How ironic. One of the Apple customers ahead of me in line today brought in his own iMac G4 running Leopard. Apparently his didn't work, as he dropped it off there. He must have loved the G4 Macs because he was using a PowerBook while he was discussing his problem with the Genius. His iMac was also covered in all sorts of smudges... I guess he used it a lot. I try to keep mine spotless. Wink Ah, but I digress...

-BMF

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Hard drives fail
Jun 12, 2008 9:54PM PDT

and it is not always because of old age.

For the iMac to have zapped the connection board, there would have to be something wrong with the firewire bus.
Time Machine can take over an hour just preparing for the first backup and, with a machine that really does not have the legs to carry Leopard, may appear to be totally locked up.

Did you ever try connecting the defective drive via USB or FW400, assuming that these methods are available on that drive case?

I'm not a great fan of WD, they have failed on me too many times, but each to his own.

Good luck

P

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Tried everything
Jun 13, 2008 9:11AM PDT

I tried USB and both types of FireWire connections on it. Nothing is wrong with the FireWire bus on the iMac (iSight camera works fine, the drive connects fine, etc.) that I can see. I know that Time Machine can take several hours as I have witnessed this, but this was kind of odd. For the time being, I will deactivate Time Machine on the iMac and wait awhile.

The drive may have had it coming. I have nothing against WD, as the drive I have works very well for me, but I haven't gone through a lot of drives to really tell.

-BMF