# Problem getting Western Digital My Passport to work wt Time Machine



## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

I purchased a 1 TB Western Digital My Passport, to provide backup for my Mac OSX 10.6.7. I have partitioned and reformatted the drive, and it will initially back up great to Time Machine for a day or so. Then the drive unmounts in my finder window w/o warning. Somehow it continues backing up to the unmounted drive, and will cease to use time machine. The drive is very small (wallet size), and and I installed smartware, to provide password protection. My problems first occurred after installing smartware, so I uninstalled it. I have contacted Apple, and Western Digital, but to no avail. Does anyone have an idea what the problem is, and how to fix it.









GR33N


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

How did you uninstall smartware? And after doing so, did you reformat the hard drive?


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

I used the smartware uninstall software that I downloaded wt smartware. I can't remember exactly the steps, that this covered, but I do remember that it required a restart. I'm not sure if I reformatted the hard drive. I went into disc utility, erased and repartitioned the drive. Today the drive did not dismount. Instead it just stopped backing up to time machine, when I was out and the computer slept. I tried turning time machine off, and then back on. All of the missing backups, reappeared in Time Machine when I checked it again.


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

This has happened before, since getting the drive last week. It either unmounts or stops the backup to time machine. When it does it is usually in sleep mode, and still backs up to backups.backupdb. I also checked the drive wt Western Digital on the phone. Everything was fine. Could the problem still be the drive, or could time machine be corrupted?


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

How should the drive be partitioned & formatted? The first option was Mac OS Extended (journaled) or just Mac OS extended. I was using the first (journaled) option. This is the partition that a Western Digital forum said to use. I am going to try the second option, and see how that works. I read on another forum to use this.


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

Also how is the My Passport Drive correctly partitioned? The first format option was Mac OS Extended (journaled) and the 2nd is Mac OS extended. I was using the first (journaled) option. This is the format that a Western Digital forum said to use. I am going to try the second option, and see how that works. I read on another forum to use this. What format is the correct one to use?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Either works, Apple recommends you use journaled as there is some data checking in the format. As for the drive unmounting, how long is the Mac set to wait before sleeping? Also, do you have another Mac you can connect the drive to to see if it does the same thing?


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

I now have it set up as journaled. The drive hasn't unmounted for a day, ever since I turned off sleep. I know that, the computer has to sleep, but I am just trying to see what it does. Now although it will save to my external hard disc my passport, it doesn't continuously save to the time machine app. What I mean, is that when I click on the green time machine icon, it will go to the hourly backups, but all of the backups aren't there. As far as I can tell, it stops saving at about 3 hours, after I leave my computer alone. If I then exit time machine, and then reenter, the missing hourly backups magically appear. This happens whether the computer sleeps, or not, except that when it sleeps, the drive will also unmount after a few days. Could my time machine app have been corrupted somehow by smartware, or could the drive be bad? I checked the drive in system utilities, and it checks out okay. Also unfortunately this is the only mac, that I have access to.


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

This is what I discovered from my test of time machine backing up, while the computer did not sleep. My drive did not dismount. It backed up hourly, for the past 26 hours, and will be backing u again in about an hour. I thought it only backed up hourly for a 24 hour period, then daily for the past month, and then weekly. Time machine can not and should not, make hourly backups indefinitely. I am really beginning to think that my time machine application is corrupted. Maybe Smartware did the corrupting, I don't know. What do you think, I should do, and if TM isn't working correctly, is there a way to reinstall it?

Jim


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Nope, TM is working as it should. Once you have over 24hrs of backups, it only keeps 1 per day, or in other words, it begins to delete the older backups that are in between the once a day. It still does it every hour, so that you have the last 24hrs worth of stuff. It makes backups 1 thru 24. Then once it makes #25, it deletes #2 as it's the oldest not falling in once a day. At #26, it deletes #3. When it does #48, you only have #1 and #24 from the 1st day. At #49 it deletes #25, and when making backup #72, you now have #1, #24, and #48 thru #72. So you have the last 24hrs, and once a day beyond that.


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

No what I meant is that it made 26 backups in 26 hours. It never deleted the older backups, and it never started the daily backups. I have had this imac for two years, and time machine never behaved this way. If I had let it continue it would have made 168 backup in a week. 672 a month, & 8064 in a year. Also, as soon as I allow my computer to sleep, backups cease, and do not continue when it awakens. 1 TG is large, but not THAT large. Also I can't disallow my mac from sleeping, just to allow backups. On Friday, I had an apple tech on the phone, and they had me reinstall all of my applications. This made no difference.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Then I don't know what is going on with your system. You may have to wipe it completely out, and start over fresh with a new OS X install. You could also only turn the external drive on once a day to do a backup, then eject it and turn it off. That's what I do, as I don't need hourly backups.


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

My memory is bad, from a car accident, and I would never remember to do a daily backup. Also since the problem still might just be partially do the external hard drive, I am not confident in a complete system wipe. I could lose a whole lot of important documents, that I have been saving, going back to my pc days. I think that I'm going to bring it in for a checkup, since I still have about 9 months left on the warranty.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Being you still have a warranty, then that is the best thing you can do, and they can see what it's doing and figure out how to fix it properly.


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## gr33mind (May 16, 2011)

Hi Sinclair,

thanx for all of your help. I just figured out something. My time machine will back up, and will not fail, if I turn off my scheduled sleep timer in Energy Saver. I mean the Tab that is under Restore Defaults that is schedule. I can then put the slider on any choice, and put the computer to sleep, and it doesn't effect time machine. Is scheduled sleep, a different kind of sleep then say the slider shedule. Before I had both kinds working before. The reason I did, was because if my computer was ever using itunes, or an online software that I knew would take some time, when it slept, it would wake from sleep wt a log in screen. Using the energy saver sleep timer, put every thing to sleep. It still woke up when I would press a key though. Are there two kinds of sleep? Also,do you know if there is a downloadable program, that will shut a program off, like itunes or the web, that might prevent sleep on a continuos scheduled time. I tried iwannasleep & itunes shut of, but unfortunately I have to remember to set them each night. Is there anything out there that could do it automatically for me.

Jim


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Both commands should induce the same sleep. As for other automated sleeping, the OS has everything you need to do what you want. You just need to learn to do some scripting in the *nix core. This thing is above my head, but there may be others that know how to write scripts and set them up.


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