Time Machine backup failures

[Applehead]

I have been using a WD MyBook Studio (750GB) external drive as my TimeMachine backup drive for my iMac. I't's worked fine for over a year, then about two months ago I started getting backup failures. At first I thought it might be related to Snow Leopard so I upgraded my OS to Lion. Still had backup failure. I erased and reformatted the drive, updated to WD Mac Turbo + drivers. Nothing has worked permanently.  I got it going again and then backups started failing again after a few days. At first the drive would just spontaneously dismount from my desktop, but now that seems solved. I get one of several error messages. One is that "the drive is in use and cannot be shut off." The latest is that the TimeMachine progress bar says "preparing backup" but after a 20 minutues I get a failure message. The drive is mounted, has the proper green hard drive icon on the desktop, and light bar on the front of the drive is moving up and down. The latest error message pop up window says: "an error occurred while creating the backup folder." At my wits end. Bottom line, backups will not complete.

[Wizer]

sounds weird...

run test disk.. try a different cable 

I assume you don't have any issues with manual backups ( copy and paste )

[Applehead]

I suspect it may have to do with WD Manager software. As I recall when I first bought the drive there were some difficulties with the WD Manager and the Mac OS. The Mac likes to handle all these duties with its built in drive management software, and the WD software tends to fight with it for control of the drive. I will see if I can locate the WD software on my HD and get rid of it. I also suspect that the Turbo + firmware update may be part of the problem.

[Wizer]

well... I don't see any correlation on the drive manager and your drive since you don't have to use drive manager ( unless you have a dual drive ) 

The turbo drivers should help with the drive performance 

[StellarPhoenixS]

I agree with the earlier responce but sometimes these auto backup give issues.. I am sure I may sound dumb but have you rebooted your machine recently? sometimes if a machine is left running for hours then also simmilar curruptions occurs. 

[Enchantedchild]

A similar thing happend to me, too after I started using  a WD MyBook Studio II (2TB) with Snow Leopard and then upgraded to Lion.  I assumed the cause of the problem is the firmware.  Have you applied the latest firmware? If you haven't updated, do so. It may solve the problem. In my case, I wan't able to apply it becuase it failed while applying. I contacted WD and exchaned a couple of emails but they couldn't solve the problem.