Can't restore from Time Machine "error occurred adding a recovery system"

Here's the situation:
MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard was upgraded to Mountain Lion 10.8.2.
A Time Machine backup exists (on Time Capsule) from the day before the upgrade.
I am trying to restore the Time Machine backup to a blank hard drive connected to the MacBook via FIrewire, but after rebooting with Command-R and selecting the backup source and HD destination I keep getting this (unhelpful) messages:
"An error occured while adding a recovery system to the destination disk" and "the recovery system could not be added"
Is what I am attempting impossible, or is there something else going on? What use is Time Machine if I can't restore?

Hi FranzKafka
I know it has been a while since your question, but the issue is possibly dependent on the blank HD, h=was it changed from the GUID partitioning? If so change back and you will find the Time Machine will restore back... without having to reinstall OSX. As you say, all of the original settings are captuered within TM.

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Serial Number QP*****1LW
<Edited by Host>

Here are some notes on Time Machine problems.
http://pondini.org/TM/
Troubleshooting.html
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Good to hear MA is doing something!
>I have never had much luck with Time Machine...
Same here, not one good backup or restore, can't tell which.
You can set any of these to Clone/Update as often as you wish...
Carbon copy cloner...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
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Hi,
I've installed mountain lion and restored from time machine and mail rules were not there. There's only news from apple.
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My rules are still there, so perhaps Apple support speak with resource forked tongue.
Comparing an old (pre ML) rules file from 20th June with the ML one, the differences are:
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I came up with the idéa to put in an extra disk (SSD) into my mid 2009 13" Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion and create my own fusion drive.
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Is the TM backup complete? When you Enter Time Machine, do you have snapshots going back in time?
See here for info on a problem Pondini has found with Time Machine that may have affected you:
UPDATED: Serious Time Machine bug on Mountain Lion (Updated)
You may just have to restart your TM backups to get those folders backed up.
If you do have that issue, please post at his link. He is trying to get enough background info to pass to Apple to solve the problem.

How do I Restore from Time Machine after I have reinstalled my system software (Snow Leopard and then Lion) ?, How do I Restore from Time Machine after I have reinstalled my system software (Snow Leopard and then Lion) ?

I have never done this before, so can someone explain in detail how I reintall my system software and then restore from Time Machine please ?

Your profile indicates that you currently have an older version of Snow Leopard (10.6.2). In order to install Lion, a prerequisite is the latest version of Snow Leopard (10.6.8). Perhaps a few more details would be helpfull in solving your problem. ex. If all you want to do is to upgrade to Lion, a restoration of data is unneccessary. Download the latest version of Snow Leopard and then download (purchase) and install Lion. User data will remain intact.
If I am missing something, please elaborate.
Ciao.

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DocDoc, that worked. I read that page and it meantioned how to exactly click what. I'm not sure why TM is so particular, but nevertheless, I was able to open a finder window pre-TM, click on my new hard drive. Then I opened TM and again, clicked on my hard drive in that finder window. Then navigated to the folder I wanted, which was the applications folder.
The "now" image wouldn't do anything when right clicked (on aperture.app) except offer to get info or to delete all backups of aperture. I almost gave up, figuring the purpled out timeline (as previous) on TM was bunk. I couldn't go backwards to a previous image before.
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Hi Lostin24
I have got exactly the same problem so my Macbook is waiting since I found no solution for this strange issue.
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"Restoring files (104.4%)
Time remaining: 1690214873 hours and 30 mins"
No progress seems to be going on. But if I just click the mouse I can hear my disks go into action and the numbers start changing on the time remaining for a few seconds and then everything stops.
I have repeated this experience twice now, each time using a different Time Machine backup.
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try repairing the TM drive with disk utility on the install DVD, any errors? also, reformat the internal drive using the partition tab in disk utility on the install DVD (don't use the erase tab). then try restoring again. if nothing helps then you'll have to erase the drive again and reinstall SL from scratch. then migrate from the TM backup manually. this is quite tedious but there is nothing else to do if the restore utility is not working.
see this link on what to restore in your home directory.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507
one correction to this link.
ical data is stored in ~/library/calendars.

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Don't know why they disappeared. Did you check all setting for the mailbox behaviors? If any are set to delete from the servers after a certain amount of time, then it will do that. Make sure you check each device carefully where the sent messages are stored (server, going to trash).
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Can you restore from Time Machine backup to a smaller drive?

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As long as there is sufficient space on a drive you can restore to any drive. However, be sure the drive is properly partitioned and formatted. In your case you can not fully restore 70 GBs to a 64 GB SSD, but you can restore the operating system and some of your data. That means you cannot do a full restore but will need to pick and choose after you install OS X.
Drive Preparation
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Can't restore from Time Machine "error occurred adding a recovery system"

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