After many hours of trying different things, I think I finally got TimeMachine to work with my MacBook. Here's what I did:
Step #1: From within my MacBook, I went onto the LinkStation Live drive and deleted the"sparsebundle" file that was created from within the web application "NASNavigator2".
Step #2: For the back-up folder I had created for my MacBook back-up, I de-activated the "Recycle Bin" functionality, from within "NASNavigator2".
Step #3: I renamed my MacBook so that the name had no spaces or special characters; it is now simply a string of lowercase characters.
Step #4: From within my MacBook, I manually created a new "sparsebundle" file, from instructions provided by Buffalo technical support. Instructions were:
Before we get started you will need:
* [Mac_computer_name] = Mac computer name (located by clicking on the Apple in the upper left of the screen->About this Mac->Advanced and it should be in the title bar of the window that comes up)
* [Mac_ethernet_MAC_address] = Mac ethernet MAC address (no this is not the IP of your Mac go to System Preferences->Network->Built-in Ethernet->Advanced->Ethernet)
* [Size_in_GB] = How much space do you wish to take up for Time Machine (in Gigabytes)
1. Open up the Terminal (Open up Finder->Applications->Utilities)
2. In the command line type in the following:
hdiutil create -fs HFS+J -size [Size_in_GB]g -volname "Backup of [Mac_computer_name]" [Mac_computer_name]_[Mac_Ethernet_MAC_address].sparsebundle
3. Press enter after that long command and you should have a sparsebundle file created on your desktop or User folder
4. Move the sparsebundle file to a folder on the NAS (say Time Machine for
example) and voila you can now use their NAS for other things than archiving your system setup.
I used my MacBook's ethernet port MAC address for this file, not its Airport MAC address. Using the above steps, I was able to create a workable sparsebundle that has an advantage of the one that NASNavigator2 creates: I can now limit how much of the storage space TimeMachine will take up. (If you use the sparsebundle file created by NASNavigator2, TimeMachine will eventually take up the entire storage; this would be bad for me because I'm using the same drive to back up two computers, the other one being a PC. Incidentally, this new sparsebundle file gets saved on the MacBook's hard drive, not on the desktop. I think it is in the Users folder.
Step #5: I connected my MacBook to my home network via an ethernet cable, not wi-fi.
Step #6: I launched TimeMachine, selected the LinkStation Live drive / back-up folder that I had created, chose "guest" as the log-in, and clicked OK.
The timer counted down, and after two minutes, TimeMachine started backing up my MacBook! It's still in process, and it looks like it may take a few hours for this initial back-up. Still, I was so excited that I got this far, that I had to share with the rest of you.
Two unanswered questions:
a) Will this initial back-up complete successfully?
b) Will the normal update back-us work via wi-fi? (That is how I'd like them to work. I don't want to be tethered to an ethernet cable all day.)
If any of you have any other suggestions or success stories, please share!