Time Machine preparing for an extended period?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I use Firewire 800, and my external has 80GB free on it. Both it and my iMac's drives are 320GB. What's with the extended period of preparation, going on 15 minutes now, maybe longer. Backup still didn't begin, this never used to happen me before. I only backed up 2 days ago?



Also, why when I click the Time Machine menubar item to open Time Machine prefs does the DVD (iLife '09) in my optical drive make a noise as if it's being accessed? It spins up a little too. Seems very odd, and it's not a coincidence, it happens exactly when I try to open Time Machine prefs from its menubar item. I could do it 5 times in succession and the optical drive would make the same accessing noise each time, on cue.



UPDATE: I JUST EJECTED THE ILIFE '09 DVD AND SHORTLY AFTER MY BACKUP BEGAN, WEIRD.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    meelashmeelash Posts: 1,045member
    I've had similar problems with TimeMachine both over USB and networked. Usually checking in Console can give a good idea of what is wrong. Also, when it's preparing is spotlight also indexing?



    I went through a lot of threads on the Apple discussion boards, about repairing permissions, restarting Spotlight indexing, etc. What finally fixed it for me was to add the TimeMachine Volume to the Spotlight Privacy list. As soon as I did that, Spotlight which had been stuck "indexing" for hours and hours was suddenly about 50% done and finished the rest in a few minutes. After that I removed it from the Privacy list and everything was working fast again.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    bbwibbwi Posts: 812member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    I use Firewire 800, and my external has 80GB free on it. Both it and my iMac's drives are 320GB. What's with the extended period of preparation, going on 15 minutes now, maybe longer. Backup still didn't begin, this never used to happen me before. I only backed up 2 days ago?



    Also, why when I click the Time Machine menubar item to open Time Machine prefs does the DVD (iLife '09) in my optical drive make a noise as if it's being accessed? It spins up a little too. Seems very odd, and it's not a coincidence, it happens exactly when I try to open Time Machine prefs from its menubar item. I could do it 5 times in succession and the optical drive would make the same accessing noise each time, on cue.



    UPDATE: I JUST EJECTED THE ILIFE '09 DVD AND SHORTLY AFTER MY BACKUP BEGAN, WEIRD.



    This can also happen if you don't leave your firewire drive plugged in and accessible at all times
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