Issue with WD My book on apple extreme

[FerraraZ]

I have an external Wester Digital My Book attached via USB to the apple extreme router and I'm trying to back up my macbook to it wirelessly but it wont even show up in Time Machine (the disk that is). When it did show up the first time I tried it it said some could not create disc image or something.

Anyone else having this problem?

 

[TheStu]

have you tried directly connecting it to your macbook, can you write to it then?

Did you reformat it to HFS+?

 

[Injury]

Not that familiar with this situation, but is it mounted before you try to do it?

What filesystem is it using?

 

[FerraraZ]

yes when I directly connect it time machine sees it. Do u think I should do one backup hardwired then it will see it wirelessly?

 

[Injury]

Might as well give it a shot. I doubt it will help but it's worth a shot. Is the wireless connection strong or could it be cutting out or anything?

Does Time Machine support wireless backups?

 

[FerraraZ]

no the wireless is N and the laptop gets good connection. I plugged in the external and backed it up once, and now it seems like it will back up wirelessly. Lets hope this keeps going, I have yet to back it up wirelessly

 

[TheStu]

Have you installed the latest Airport update? And is the Airport extreme up to date as well?

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: FerraraZ
yes when I directly connect it time machine sees it. Do u think I should do one backup hardwired then it will see it wirelessly?

No, Time Machine stores differently with local disks vs. "network" disks.

TheStu is correct that you need the latest AirPort update to use Time Machine with AirPort disk. I think he's also right that the filesystem needs to be HFS+. I don't know if AirPort Utility can reformat but I'd assume so?

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: FerraraZ
yes when I directly connect it time machine sees it. Do u think I should do one backup hardwired then it will see it wirelessly?

No, Time Machine stores differently with local disks vs. "network" disks.

TheStu is correct that you need the latest AirPort update to use Time Machine with AirPort disk. I think he's also right that the filesystem needs to be HFS+. I don't know if AirPort Utility can reformat but I'd assume so?

If the Airport Utility can't (and I wouldn't know, I don't have an APE) then he can simply use disk utility.

 

[umrigar]

from another forum:
http://forums.macnn.com/90/mac...k-formatting-for-os-x/

Reader50 writes:

Drives from the factory are usually formatted FAT32. Later windows versions default to NTFS, which OSX only enables Read access to. At least, as of Tiger. I haven't heard if Leopard enables full Write access, or formatting ability.

Time Machine in Leopard requires the backup drive to be formatted HFS+, and Windows doesn't provide native support for that disk format. If you want an external drive to work with Time Machine, you'll have to go the HFS+ route and pick up one of the 3rd party utilities that lets Windows access HFS+ volumes.

If you want dual access to an external drive, and won't use it for Time Machine, then reformat it to FAT32 using Disk Utility on the Mac. It should recognize and work on both platforms then.

For a drive intended for Mac use, you get the four choices shown in the above post. Ignore the (Case-sensitive) options, enabling case sensitivity is just a nuisance. It can trip up older applications too, I'd imagine.

If you need full compatibility for the drive with Mac OS9, then choose regular HFS+. The same goes if you are using an OSX version in the 10.0 - 10.2 range. Otherwise, chose HFS+ Journaled. The earlier OSs don't know how to maintain the Journal file, which forces the later OSX versions to rebuild the file on a regular basis.

HFS+ Journalled disks start up way faster after a kernel panic or other unexpected shutdown (power failure, etc). The Journal file records recent filesystem changes, after an unexpected shutdown, the journal file is replayed to the last known stable configuration and bootup continues.

With a 500 GB drive, that shortens the next reboot down to a few seconds delay to fix the boot disk up. Without the journal, the entire boot disk has to be checked with fsck before bootup can finish. That could take minutes ... or an hour, depending on how fast your computer is.

Time Machine should work with any of the HFS+ variants listed. The only gotcha that I can think of is if your main Mac disk enabled case sensitivity, I'd think the Time Machine disk would need it too.

note: HFS+ is another name for "Mac OS Extended"

 

[Stiganator]

Leopard doesn't have write access to NTFS, you need a program like MacFUSE.