Time Machine backing up to WD My Passport For Mac

Question

Level 1

5 points

Time Machine backing up to WD My Passport For Mac

Time Machine on my 2021 iMac M1 running Sonoma 14.0 backs up to a 4TB WD My Passport for Mac that I have used since I bought the iMac. Time Machine backups are made and I can restore files from backups, so setup seems fine but there is one big issue:

If the iMac goes to sleep it stops doing regular backups and when I try to manually backup I get the error message:

Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “My Passport for Mac”

The backup disk is not available. Make sure the backup disk is connected or select a different backup disk.

The WD icon is still on the desktop and I can double-click to see all the files but I can't re-establish the connection without restarting the iMac.

Am I the only one experiencing this issue?

Is there a known fix or workaround?

Do I keep restarting my iMac every time I want Time Machine to work?

TIA

Ian Jenkins

Sydney, Australia

iMac 24″, macOS 14.0

Posted on Oct 10, 2023 4:49 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

steve626

Level 6

11,135 points

Jul 4, 2024 2:51 PM in response to Williamfromroswell

Williamfromroswell wrote:

7/4/2024 I have the same problem as Ian so well describes above. I have done the Safe Mode restart and turned the HD to sleep to "OFF". Problem still there. After I force eject it runs two backups then turns the light to the HD off but it is still connected like Ian describes. First Aid does not fine any issues. I have the WD Utilities installed.

I would completely uninstall the WD utilities. They overlap with the built in MacOS functions and hence have potential to cause problems like this. Another user's problem went away when they uninstalled the WD utilities.

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 5, 2024 8:30 AM in response to steve626

Steve, you're correct and it fixed the problem! I removed WD Utilities (took two steps WD Utilities and WD Discovery) and backups have been running for the last 12 hours as I would expect! I did not try that earlier because one comment said it did not fix the problem (and one said it did fix the problem). I am going to follow up with the WD help desk as this seems like a simple fix for them too. WD has spend two weeks coaching me on things to do and they wanted me to send the drive back to them. The drive has 1.6 TB of data so I was trying to figure out where I can put that much data and still do backups! As I reflect on the various posts, I would say that if you have the problem Ian described here is what to do: 1) Delete the WD Utilities completely 2) In Energy Saver Settings: turn "Put HD to Sleep..." OFF and 3) Restart in Safe Mode and again in regular mode. The last two may not be necessary but will not hurt. Thanks for your help!

Reply

Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

143,392 points

Oct 10, 2023 8:54 PM in response to ijenkins99

Turn them all on
Then restart the computer in Safe Mode
Then restart the computer normally and re-test.

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 4, 2024 1:45 PM in response to ijenkins99

7/4/2024 I have the same problem as Ian so well describes above. I have done the Safe Mode restart and turned the HD to sleep to "OFF". Problem still there. After I force eject it runs two backups then turns the light to the HD off but it is still connected like Ian describes. First Aid does not fine any issues. I have the WD Utilities installed.

Reply

Answer 5

ijenkins99 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 10, 2023 7:24 PM in response to rkaufmann87

These are the current Energy Saver settings:

Reply

Answer 6

Oct 11, 2023 11:43 PM in response to ijenkins99

This is my current setup working fine (fwiw)

Reply

Answer 7

rkaufmann87

Level 10

143,392 points

Oct 10, 2023 5:13 PM in response to ijenkins99

Ian,

What are your Energy Saver settings set at in System Settings?

Reply

Answer 8

Oct 10, 2023 10:37 PM in response to rkaufmann87

In my case, I had installed WD utilities. Completely removing that app fixed my problem.

Reply

Answer 9

tbirdvet

Level 6

14,207 points

Oct 11, 2023 7:04 AM in response to ijenkins99

Many have issues with TM when using the sleep function. I recommend not using sleep and only have the display turn off or use a screen saver (or both).

Reply