Mountain Lion Woes - Time Machine Total Failure

[jamesdunlopmusic]

Hey Everyone!

So about 10 days ago I made the plunge from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion.
Overall seems to be a good move. DP8 is faster (though I had to scale down templates like others) but I do have the crippling video window 'stay on top' bug. Luckily I don't need it for the moment.
The biggest issue I noticed yesterday though was I have a total Time Machine failure. I use a WD My Book Studio II on RAID 1 which has had it's firmware updated to the latest ML compatibility. My Mac Pro registers it fine just like it should and so does Time Machine but when you back it up it gets stuck on 'Preparing backup'. The drive's case has a light that flashes signifying what it is doing and shows you that it 'starts up' (registering Time Machine) but within about 2-3 seconds it stops and goes back to standby, while Time Machine just sits there. I've tried it with both Firewire and USB and it does the same. I've come across lots of threads on the Apple forum about Time Machine failures when upgrading to ML so I guess I've been hit by that...
So currently I'm a tad stuck.
I know lots of people rave about Carbon Copy Cloner which I downloaded and started the 30 day trial. I've used that to make a full system backup in empty space on the WD My Book (confirming it does work fine) but I notice with the 'incremental' setting it logs all the small changes to system. Is this doing it like Time Machine (so I can go back 3 months say) or just keeping an up-to-date identical copy of the system?
Should I be trying to get TM back up and running or should I stick to Carbon Copy?

Any input with regards to folks backup systems would be great!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

When I upgraded to ML I put two 2 TB internal drives in my Mac Pro and kept my old Time Mach. backup as an external. Also use CCC to b/u a few drives (SFX, VIs, and other stuff that doesn't change often).

Seems to be working well.

[mikehalloran]

I've come across lots of threads on the Apple forum about Time Machine failures when upgrading to ML so I guess I've been hit by that...

CCC does not do incremental backup and restore like TM. Especially the restore part. Every once in a while, I need to restore one program or file only and, sometimes, need to go back a week or two to do so. TM can do this easily. CCC can only copy over what you find - not the same thing - if you don't know what the support files are, you can't do a complete restore (and what if what you need is even older - it does happen).


Actually, you have no idea what the problem is. Neither do I but I may have some ideas. You may have messed up TM when you updated drivers using anything other than Apple's utility - since you have RAID 1, this is the most likely cause.

If you are planning to try CCC, then you will wipe your old backup off anyway. In that case, just erase and reformat your TM drive using Apple Disk Utility. Write to Zeros - this will force the drive to generate a new partition map. Now try selecting the disk in TM and, if there's no mechanical issue left, it will work.

With ML, there is no reason to use RAID 1 and a good reason not to. Since you have two drives, use them separately as JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives). TM will alternate these every hour in ML - it's easy to set up.

If that doesn't work (and it should) you may have a mechanical problem.

To find out what the problem might be, get the drive out of its housing and install it in the Mac Pro.

Next, fire up Disk Utility and run Repair Disk. If you get the green line saying no problems found, then great. If you get the red line indicating a problem, run it again (and again and again if you have to) until you get the green no problems report.

If you get a SMART error saying the drive is bad, there's your problem and you must replace the drive. SMART status cannot be read while connected via FW or USB.

If you got the green report the first time, your drive is fine and the problem is somewhere else. It could be the power supply in your drive housing.

Disk Warrior will neither diagnose nor repair this problem - if you really have one. Many might say otherwise but they will be wrong. DW will waste a lot of your time and may tell you that a good drive is bad when it isn't.

[jamesdunlopmusic]

Thanks for the replies! I erased everything and and put the format back to Mac OS X Extended, removed and put back in TM and now it works...!
Just gotta wait 6 hours and hope nothing explodes!

Cheers once again. I'll side line CCC as I'm quite used to TM

[Prime Mover]

I haven't done any funky Raid things, and I'm also seeing a lot of TM problems. My laptop is often used away from the TM, but often when I bring it back, it will give me errors. As I mentioned in another thread, I'm fairly certain TM is responsible for some fairly severe DP save times and slowdown. I definitely think ML has some goofy problems with TM, but I'm not sure what's up yet. Recently my TM drive said it was full and needed to delete old backups, but I expected that would happen, and don't need all my old backups, so I'm happy to let it delete whatever it wants, but it seems to be unhappy and wants me to get a bigger drive... but I don't think I should have to!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

As mentioned elsewhere, when I migrated to ML I started a new Time Machine b/u disk and it is working perfectly. I spread it out over two wiped, 2-TB internal disks and set them up in TM to work in tandem (alternating b/ups each hour.). No slow downs on my Mac Pro.

[mikehalloran]

it will give me errors

What kind of errors?

[HCMarkus]

Recently my TM drive said it was full and needed to delete old backups, but I expected that would happen, and don't need all my old backups, so I'm happy to let it delete whatever it wants, but it seems to be unhappy and wants me to get a bigger drive... but I don't think I should have to!

A great time to buy a $119 3TB USB External and throw the old drive in a locked drawer offsite for doomsday scenario restoration.

[jamesdunlopmusic]

Update - TM now works fine again. I've got it set back to RAID 1 and it runs as it should. I think anyone that gets this just has to wipe the backup and start again. Risky and stupid, on Apple's part, I know but it did the job.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

My experience as well. Good on you!