Another computer problem, this time on Apple Macintosh operating system. Here is the original initial request quoted verbatim below:
Time Machine. 10.13.5 (17F77). Today.
Here is my initial original response:
Are you having problems with Time Machine backups on your Apple Macintosh computer? Time Machine should already be installed on your computer. You will want to browse to “System Preferences” by clicking the Apple icon in the top menu.
Select the “Time Machine” icon from within “System Preferences”. Click on “Select Backup Disk”. Choose your hard disk that you want to backup data to.
You can enable automatic backups by selecting “Backup Automatically”. Continue on until Time Machine begins backing up data. The first backup may take a considerable longer period of time to complete.
Did disk utility find a problem with your hard disk? If so, you could try erasing your hard disk. If you have any important files, then you will want to move them from your backup disk.
Then you can erase the hard disk and see if Apple Time Machine backup will now work. You could shutdown and power on your Apple Macintosh computer and try to format that backup disk again. Also, you could power off your Apple Macintosh computer system.
Then you can disconnect the backup hard disk. Now you will want to start your Apple Macintosh computer and hook up that backup disk again and see if you can format it this time. I received numerous error messages with this external hard disk.
I was not able to dismount this external hard drive. I received this error message:
“Erase process has failed. Click “Done” to continue.”
Another error message I received was this one:
“The volume can’t be ejected because it’s currently in use.”
I could not erase this external hard drive. I had to use the terminal in Apple Macintosh operating system version 10.13 which is High Sierra. However, I could not dismount this external hard drive with this command:
umount /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
I tried a different command but received the same failure:
diskutil unmount /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
This was one extremely stubborn external hard drive. I used the following commands in order to finally get this external hard drive to dismount:
ls /Volumes/
lsof | grep /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
There was an Apple Macintosh operating system process that locked this external hard drive. The previous command shows all processes specific to that external hard drive. Now you will want to kill all processes that are accessing that external hard drive:
killall mds
You can use the Apple Macintosh “Activity Monitor” in order to end all processes as well. The activity monitor has a graphical user interface. Finally, I was able to dismount this external hard drive with the following command:
diskutil unmount /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
I was able to use “First Aid” in “Disk Utility”. The first aid fixed the external hard drive problem. This allowed the client to keep their existing Time Machine backups and continue with their automated backups.
You can find disk utility in “Applications” with the Finder tool. These instructions were written for an Apple Macintosh computer with Apple Macintosh operating system version 10.13 which is High Sierra installed. However, you might be able to use these instructions and tips, as a basis point, for other Apple Macintosh operating systems.