My Book for PC on a Mac? Possible Issues

Greetings and thanks to the community.

I have an IMac desktop and use a My Book 2T as backup running Time Machine. I have been getting fail messages, “Time Machine could not back up to 'Joe’s My Book BU.” There was also a time when I would get a fail message dealing with My Book not being able to create a folder. I have not seen that one for awhile. My Book has backed up data but I no longer trust it as my back up.

I bought the My Book at a big box store some time ago.

I came to the WD site to research my issue and noticed that there are two My Books. The one to be used on a Mac has Mac written on the faceplate. Mine does not.

Is it possible that my My Book was never formatted to the Mac and therefore is not working properly? I am really hesitant to reformat My Book without getting a consult from you folks.

The difference between the units is the file system. New Windows-ready disk drives need to be formatted on a Mac before they can be used properly. Opposite is also true (I use a WD Passport Studio with my Windows 10 computer).

If you have been using your unit until this issue then the unit was already formatted some time ago (Otherwise you would have not been able to use it). Unfortunately, this means the unit could be malfunctioning. Try running a health test using your Mac’s Disk Utility. If it’s a simple file system error then it will be able to repair your unit.

Thanks Trancer.

I ran the First Aid test and it did fail. I then went to the second article you offered but my Mac did not correspond to the article.

I was not able to find how to perform the following:

“Click Verify Disk to check a drive/partition for errors but not repair them.
Click Repair Disk to check a drive/partition for errors and repair any that it finds.
Click Verify Disk Permissions to check the permissions on a drive/partition but not repair any errors.”
Click Repair Disk Permissions to check the permissions on a drive/partition and repair any errors.

Using the WD Drive Utilities I ran three tests. 1) Drive Status Test, 2) Quick Drive Test, and, 3) Complete Drive Test.

All three tests resulted in positive scores.

The Complete Test ran for a number of hours ending during the morning hours. Upon checking my Mac this morning I found the backup failure message Time Machine sends me. Time Machine cannot create the back up folder.

Does this have anything to do with my power down sleep timers? I do not have the My Book drive setting to sleep, but the Mac settles down for a nap when I am not using it.

Time Machine can not proceed with a backup while your computer is in sleep mode. However, Time Machine should prevent your computer from going to sleep if the backup is running at the time sleep mode is triggered.