Are files in "Latest" folder in Time Machine backup full versions

I need to transfer several gigabytes of files from a Time Machine Backup of an older iMac to a new Mac Mini. Can I just connect the external drive with the Time Machine backup on it to the Mac Mini, open the Backups.backupdb folder and copy all of the files in the "Latest" backup? Will these be full versions of the files? I spoke with a couple of Apple Support techs and one said that all of the backups were "threaded" together, thus my concern about getting full versions when I just drag and drop from the Backups.backupdb folder rather than going through Time Machine or Migration Assistant. The other tech said yes, the files in the "Latest" folder in the Backups.backupdb would be full versions, but I'm still not convinced.
Would prefer not to go the Migration Assistant or "restoring" through Time Machine. In some of my tests I wasn't comfortable with the way it worked.
Has anybody done this before - copying files directly from the Backups.backupdb folder rather than "restoring" through Time Machine?
--Newsads

I need to transfer several gigabytes of files from a Time Machine Backup of an older iMac to a new Mac Mini. Can I just connect the external drive with the Time Machine backup on it to the Mac Mini, open the Backups.backupdb folder and copy all of the files in the "Latest" backup? Will these be full versions of the files? I spoke with a couple of Apple Support techs and one said that all of the backups were "threaded" together, thus my concern about getting full versions when I just drag and drop from the Backups.backupdb folder rather than going through Time Machine or Migration Assistant. The other tech said yes, the files in the "Latest" folder in the Backups.backupdb would be full versions, but I'm still not convinced.
Would prefer not to go the Migration Assistant or "restoring" through Time Machine. In some of my tests I wasn't comfortable with the way it worked.
Has anybody done this before - copying files directly from the Backups.backupdb folder rather than "restoring" through Time Machine?
--Newsads

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  • Can't access library folder on Time Machine Backup

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  • "No such file or directory" errors on Time Machine backup volume

    I remotely mounted the Time Machine backup volume onto another Mac and was looking around it in a Terminal window and discovered what appeared to be a funny problem. If I "cd" into some folders (but not all) and do a "ls -la" command, I get a lot of "No such file or directory" errors for all the subfolders, but all the files look fine. Yet if I go log onto the Mac that has the backup volume mounted as a local volume, these errors never appear for the exact same location. Even more weird is that if I do "ls -a" everything appears normal on both systems (no error messages anyway).
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    282780 drwxr-xr-x 12 me staff 442 Jan 17 14:03 ..
    286678 -rw-r--r--@ 1 me staff 21508 Jan 19 10:43 .DS_Store
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    729750 drwx------ 104 me staff 7378 Jan 15 14:17 D2
    728506 drwx------ 19 me staff 850 Jan 14 09:19 D3
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    file ID = 728505
    flags = 0000000000100010
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    280678 drwxr-xr-x 5 me staff 204 Jan 20 01:23 ..
    144 -rw-------@ 1 me staff 39940 Jan 15 14:27 .DS_Store
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    282780 drwxr-xr-x 13 me staff 398 Jan 17 14:03 ..
    286678 -rw-r--r--@ 1 me staff 21508 Jan 19 10:43 .DS_Store
    728505 drwxrwxrwx 116 me staff 3900 Jan 7 02:53 Documents
    729750 drwx------ 217 me staff 7334 Jan 15 14:17 D2
    728506 drwx------ 25 me staff 806 Jan 14 09:19 D3
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    .localized
    .parallels-vm-directory
    .promptCache
    ACPI
    ActivityMonitor2010-12-1710p32.txt
    ActivityMonitor2010-12-179pxx.txt
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    728505 drwxrwxrwx 116 me staff 3900 Jan 7 02:53 .
    280678 drwxr-xr-x 6 me staff 264 Jan 20 01:23 ..
    144 -rw-------@ 1 me staff 39940 Jan 15 14:27 .DS_Store
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    The problem is Mac to Mac - the volume that I'm having the issue with is not related in any way to Time Machine or to TimeCapsule. The reference to TIme Machine is just to illustrate the problem exists outside of my own personal work with hard links to folders on HFS Extended volumes (case-sensitive in this particular case in case that matters).
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    Hence the behavior that is seen - the local mounted case is happy and shows what would be expected and the remote mounted case shows only files contained in the problem folder but not lower-level folders or their contents.
    From my little knowledge of how these inode entries really work, I think that they are some sort of linked list chain of values, so that you have to follow the entire chain to get at what you're looking for. If the chain is broken somewhere along the line or not followed correctly, things like this can happen. I think this is a case of things not being followed correctly, as if it were a broken chain problem then the local mounted case would have problems also.
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  • No mail folder in time machine backup

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  • ~/Library folder in Time Machine backups

    Dear readers,
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    Ok. I have 2 hard drives and one of them died apparently so..not knowing what to do, I did chose reinstall Lion after command r open start-up. The whole thing is a mess but my computer is back up and running with the second hard drive. I had a time machine backup which I've been dragging stuff out of. i had to re enter serial numbers and do all sorts of initial set up stuff. 1) How do I get all of my icons (like my HD icon and external drives icons) to appear on my desktop again? I can only find them through a finder window. 2) i now have to type a password to get into my computer (user) - I 'm the only user and don't want to have to do that.

  • Leopard Server - Time Machine Backup - Full

    IHi, I have Leopard Server (10.5.2) running on a Mac Pro. Its is setup with 1 Boot Drive and a pair Mirrored Data Drives. It also has a large External Drive that the Data from the Mirrored Drives is backed up onto via Time Machine. The Boot Drive is excluded from the Time Machine Backup. After a couple of weeks Time Machine reported that the External Drive was full and Time Machine stopped working. I was under the impression Time Machine would delete older files and replace them with new files. To get around this I have replaced the External with an even larger drive, but guess this will report the same problem soon. Has anyone got any ideas why Time Machine isn't doing what its meant to? Cheers.

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  • Can't copy some files from FileVault Sparsebundle in Time Machine backup

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    feinberj wrote:
    I've got filevault turned on for my mac Mac Mini (10.6.2). I'm using Time Machine to back up to a firewire drive. There's plenty of space - my Mini hd has 250 Gb of 500 used, and I'm backing up to a 750Gb partition on the external drive. The initial backup went OK, and when I logged out it backed up my filevault-protected home directory. When I logged back in, I was able to browse the Backups.backupdb on the external drive, go to the users directory, and open the sparsebundle that was my filevault-protected home directory (after entering the password). I can browse through this backup of my home directory. However, when I try copying files from the backup of the home directory, I get an error:
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    I don't think you understand. I need to get my music from Time machine where it is backed up. How do i find it in time machine and how do i transfer it to a seperate HD?

  • What files can I exclude from Time Machine backups?

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    *http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
    *https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile

  • Is it possible to reassemble a Time Machine backup from recovered files?

    I have kind of a sad story that I'm sure some of you can relate to. My Macbook was briefly stolen but by the time I got it back, the partitions had been erased. I had an external backup... but the backup disk failed catastrophically a couple days before it was stolen. The external backup doesn't even mount anymore and makes grinding noises if it's plugged in...
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    dir_2243632          dir_2255442          dir_2283574          dir_2383992
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    Folder 1919459          Folder 236881          Folder 346820          Folder 640530          Folder 999005
    Folder 1919462          Folder 2368812          Folder 346824          Folder 640534          Folder 999016
    Folder 1919465          Folder 2368813          Folder 346826          Folder 640591          Folder 999021
    Folder 1919468          Folder 2368817          Folder 34683          Folder 640595          Folder 999024
    Folder 1919471          Folder 2368820          Folder 346879          Folder 640599          Folder 999027
    Folder 1919474          Folder 2368823          Folder 3468793          Folder 640603          Folder 999030
    Folder 1919477          Folder 2368826          Folder 347019          Folder 640607          Folder 999035
    Folder 19196          Folder 2368829          Folder 347083          Folder 640611          Folder 999044
    Each of these directories seems to contain a few files that I'd want to keep, and Stellar Phoenix tells me that it recovered a couple million files total. A bit of "light reading" into the HFS+ file system suggests that HFS+ uses these integer file descriptors instead of file names, and that the file names are stored elsewhere?
    I've looked around on the web for anybody who's had a similar problem and have yet to find anything. It'd be really neat if all you had to do was create a new .sparsebundle and throw all the files into it, but I somehow doubt that'd work...
    I'm really concerned that I can't put humpty dumpty back together again at all.
    If I can't, what would be the next best thing? I've considered copying the files back to the drive and letting Spotlight chew on them. Eventually, I would probably be able to find the most important files on the drive. But I would prefer something more user friendly than that.
    Oh, and feel free to suggest your favorite online backup solution.
    Thanks for reading,
    Bill

    Are you trying to bring all the stuff over? Use Migration Assistant in Applications / Utilities.

  • Pulling Files From Time Machine Backup?

    I want to do clean install of Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro because it's becoming overly cluttered with files that have been over the years first put on my Powerbook then my Macbook and then this computer. Currently everything is backed up to a hard drive with Time Machine. Would it be possible to do a clean install and then just pull the files I want from the Time Machine backup without just restoring the entire thing?

    capnamazing wrote:
    When I went to the Apple store they told me to run a fresh install and rather than use Migration Assistant (I'm assuming that is the same thing as Setup Assistant, correct?)
    No. They have similar screens and "works" but are different. +Setup Assistant+ runs when a new Mac first starts up (or after installing OSX on an empty volume), and can transfer everything from another Mac or its backups "as is." It's used mostly to set up a new Mac exactly like an old one.
    +Migration Assistant+ is an app in your Applications/Utilities folder, and runs only after at least one user account has been set up. It's used mostly to add a user account from one Mac to a different one that already has one or more. Depending on the circumstances, accounts transferred this way can lose their permissions to files on other volumes, such as backups.
    Unfortunately, may folks, including some Apple folks, don't distinguish between the two, causing problems.
    I went home to do this, plugged in my time machine backup to my MacBook Pro which has a fresh Snow Leopard OS X installed, and tried to drag and drop files from the time machine backup to my hard drive. It kept asking for my password when transferring, which is no big deal. But now when I move some of these files around or edit them on my hard drive, it keeps asking for the password again. Is there a way around that so I can just put the files and applications that I want onto my Mac without it requiring a password every time?
    That's because the account you set up on the fresh install of OSX wasn't recognized as being the same one as on your backups. One user, even an Admin user, doesn't normally have access to a different user's files, and that's also enforced on backups.
    If you really want to do it that way, you'll have to change the permissions on those files, via +Get Info.+ But be careful; do not use the +Apply to enclosed items+ to your entire home folder or the default folders (Desktop, Documents, etc.) inside it.

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