1 Topic by kimmy2000

  • kimmy2000
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-08-27
  • Posts: 1

Topic: Can not see Timemachine hard drive?

Hi, I hope someone can help me. 

I have a hard drive which was used as a Timemachine backup disk.  For some reason it has stopped being recognised in my Mac.  The drive spins and flashes but it does not show up in Disk Utility.  I plugged the drive into windows and although it cant be seen in my computer, I can see it in Disk Management.  It says I must initialise it but fails to do so, it just shows up as "Unknown - Not Initialised".

I tried gparted, but it does not show up at all.

I then tired another program called AOMEI, it can see it, but is unable to do anything with it. 

https://db.tt/mmNBBf2q

I suspect it can not do anything to the drive because it maybe encrypted by Timemachine?

Can anyone help me please?  I just want to reformat it so I can use it again, I don't need to recover any data from it.

Thanks in advance.

2 Reply by gedakc

  • gedakc
  • Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-11-30
  • Posts: 4,592

Re: Can not see Timemachine hard drive?

If the drive sometimes shows up, and sometimes does not, then that suggests there might be a hardware problem.

Often you can download hard drive testing software from the manufacturer's web site.  You might consider testing your hard drive using this type of software.  Please note that the hard drive testing software will often overwrite existing data so it is best to back up any important data first.