Running Time Machine on Mac using networked MyBookLive. Works fine. BUT, if my principal mac goes down, I need a way to access the Time Machine from another machine. The MacOS provides a “Browse Other Time Machine Disks” option, but only if the TM disk is “mounted.”
When the MyBookLive initializer set me up for Time Machine, it divided my drive into two partitions: and -backup. The second of these is used by Time Machine, and the other is available to me as a network drive. I can use the finder to mount , but not -backup. I can see it from the finder, but when I try to mount it I get an immediate connection failure. Since I can’t mount it, I can’t access it from another computer.
I suspect that lots of people are using the MyBookLive for Time Machine and feel safe that they can get at their files if they were lost on their principal machine. And they can, as long as that machine is still running. A catastrophic crash of the principal machine, however, may cause them to find that they can’t get at their Time Machine backups.
What have I missed? Is there some way to mount -backup and not get an immediate connection failure? If not, people need to be wary of using Time Machine on their network drives.
The Time Machine Backup cannot be accessed using Finder. You may use Go > Connect to Server, then type afp://mybooklive (or the name you have assigned to it) /the name of your backup folder, you may then connect as Guest with no password.
The Time Machine Backup cannot be accessed using Finder. You may use Go > Connect to Server, then type afp://mybooklive (or the name you have assigned to it) /the name of your backup folder, you may then connect as Guest with no password.
Vladir, thanks for trying to help, but it didn’t work. I get the same connection failed message as when I try to mount via the Finder. When my MyBookLive arrived, I named it PressOn. When I used the WD setup procedure to make a Time Machine space, I ended up with two pseudo discs on my network:
When I try to mount PressOn, it works fine. When I try to mount PressOn-backup I get Connection Failed. When I press the Connect As button, I get nothing.
I am not exactly sure about Time Machine, so if an expert comes and this is mis-stated please correct.
Time Machine does not use a “Share” to backup. It is using a program called Netatalk which is an open source program. The My Book Live is running the server side of that program.
So, the only way to get the data is by using the Time Machine program.
If you don’t have access to Time Machine you could SSH into the drive and copy the information from the Time Machine folder into the drives Public share and access it.
Enable SSH
Log into drive using a terminal emulator (Or ssh through mac)
Navigate to the Time Machine backup ( I think it is at /DataStore/backups/TimeMachine)
Copy the data to the Public folder (cp /DataStore/backups/TimeMachine /shares/Public… or something along those lines)
You will have to make sure those paths are correct, because I am not at a drive right now I cannot verify them.
Hopefully this helps, or at least lets you know that you data is ultimatly accessable should you ever have to go this route.
Here is what finally worked for me (thanks to WD call in support):
1. Navigate to the MyBook dashboard (via Bonjour) and log in
2. Click Settings / Network and note the IP address, which was 10.0.1.3 in my case
3. Now in the finder, click Go / Connect to Server
4. In the address pane, type afp:// + IP address (afp://10.0.13 in my case)
5. Enter userid and password
6. That should bring up a pane showing shares on your MyBookLive, one of which is the Time Machine share
7. Doulble click that one to mount the volume.
8. Press Option and hold down the time machine menu from the menu bar
9. Select Browse Other Time Machine Disks from the menu
10. That should bring up a pane in which the foreign time machine volume is present
11. Click on it and you should now be able to enter Time Machine and access backups made by the other computer
This worked for me, but wasn’t perfectly consistent. Sometimes when I mounted the disc I still couldn’t get it to come up in the Browse Other Time Machine Disks panel. But even in that case, I was able to access the backup data by opening the Time Machine Volume and navigating downward in it until I came to the sparsebundle. Double clicking that opened up the backups stored by date and I could navigate that in the finder and copy any part of it down to my desktop.
