Can't restore latest Time Machine backup after drive replacement- only the very first.

My 13" Macbook Pro running 10.8.5 had a bad hard drive which had to be replaced. After the new drive was put in I tried to restore everything to the new drive with Time Machine but could only restore the first backup I ever did after getting the computer, which was over a year ago. I can drag and drop files but I would rather have all my preferences and bookmarks etc. How do I restore the latest backup which was only about a week ago? Thank you.

Not yet; I'm not sure if Migration Assistant is quite right. Since I posted the question I ran across this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYUem-QfYBs
which suggests that I need to start up from a bootable external disc in order to restore a Time Machine backup to the same computer that the backup came from when the drive is replaced. The video actually seems to describe my issue exactly. The only confusing thing is I don't know why I would have been able to restore the very first Time Machine backup if I need to boot from an external disc. More investigation needed.

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Can't restore latest time machine backup

I have just had my the hard drive in my macbook pro replaced and am trying to restore from a time machine backup. I back up regularly (about once a week) to an external hard drive, but the most recent option for backup is October... help!
I can see a backup from yesterday if I navigate the hard drive in finder, but it won't show me this option in the restore from time machine backup prompt.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
It looks like you want to have the whole backup restored. In this case, instead of using the Time Machine app and restoring files individually, you need to use Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities).
If you do not have anything you need on your new MacBook Pro's hard drive, there's even a cleaner way of restoring the backup. Hold Command and R keys while your Mac is starting up to start up into OS X Recover, select the option to restore a Time Machine backup and follow its steps. The backup you select will be restored and your Mac will be the same as before replacing the hard drive

Can I restore from Time Machine backup after replacing hard drive

I'm planning on replacing the 250GB hard drive in my mid 2010 13 inch MBP with a larger one. My MBP comes with Snow Leopard, and I've installed Lion and recently Mountain Lion from App Store. Can I use my Snow Leopard disc to boot up the laptop after replacing the hard drive, and restore Mountain Lion and everything else from the latest backup in Time Machine without having to install Snow Leopard?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Press Command and R keys while your Mac is starting and restore your backup. You shouldn't use 10.6 to restore the Mountain Lion backup

Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement

I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard. It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday. Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set. It failed. I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again. No luck. I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care. Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do. (A quick sideline here: I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't. It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same).
Back to the issue. When I called apple care they pretty much had me try the same thing again with an earlier back up set. To my knowledge, it didn't work. I say this because it looked like it was working and when I came back to the imac later, it had restarted and once again booted to the OSX install. (The boot disc is still in the imac). When I tried to boot from another location, one did not show up to boot from so I assumed that the data didn't transfer and it forced another restart. So, I tried something else. I tried to re-install the snow leopard OSX without using the restore function. That appeared to work and then when the machine restarted it asked if I had another mac and I chose the option to get the files/apps/etc. from my time machine backup. The computer chose what I can only assume is the most recent backup set (It chose what I know to be a subfolder that appears under the dated backup folder - Macintosh HD--which btw is confusing seeing as that's always the name of the HD on the imac). I again stepped away from the computer so it could do its thing for two hours. When I returned, I was back to the MAC OSX screen that asks you to choose a language. There were no more options to choose DISK UTILITY or RESTORE FROM BACKUP, etc. When I clicked on English it took me right back into the screen where you say whether you have another Apple that you want to transfer data from. I realized that the imac must have restarted and I assumed maybe it was because the boot disk was still in - except how do you get the disc to eject? I also initially assumed that the backup had somehow failed again and triggered a restart. I tried to choose the option to just set up the machine without transferring data and when I got to the choose a name for your HOME folder message I tried to enter the same name I had it as before and it wouldn't allow me to do so, saying that that name was already in use. I also tried a different name and that didn't work either - got the same message (I assume if it is not the same name that it won't sync up with the time machine data from the backup set). So, I almost tried the "select time machine backup" option again until I looked at my HD space. Clearly, there is space that has been used. HD space was 997 at the start and now it's 636. My initial thought is to somehow get back into the setup area where I can use disc utility and erase the whole thing and then start over but 1) I don't think it's going to work even if I could get back there 2) I have no idea how to get this thing to reboot into that mode 3) I can't get the boot CD out to even try to restart to see if this thing did what it was supposed to, SO NOW I AM TOTALLY STUCK! I have not called Apple Care back because quite frankly they were useless the first time. I have a call into the repair guy but who knows how much help he will be. In the mean time, I have a million things to do and a computer that isn't working - Whoever said Apples never have issues needs to be seriously censored!
A few other notes: I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly. It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running. Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning.
One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted. Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it.
If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful! I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed. Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it. I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one.

I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive.
This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Non-constructive rants or complaints
But here is my experieince:
Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on.

Can't reconnect to Time Machine backups after upgrade to Yosemite

I did a clean install of Yosemite and restored the user accounts from my time machine backup. I reconnected to the time machine backup on my time capsule and performed a backup. That went fine.
Now I can't access any of the backups made before I upgraded to Yosemite. They all show up in the history bar on the right in time machine but when I click on a backup nothing loads. I've run a verify on the backup and it passes. Looking at the backup file it has 400GB of data, the same as before the upgrade to Yosemite.
Any ideas why I can't access the backups?
Thanks,
Marvin

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.
If you need to restore from a backup of the hidden user Library folder, first select a snapshot, then press shift-command-G. A Go to Folder dialog will open. In it, you'll enter the path to the folder. The dialog will help you by automatically completing the parts of the path when you start to type them.
The path begins with slash character ("/"). Enter that. The rest of the parts will be separated by slashes.
The next part is the date and time of the current snapshot. Enter a "2", and the rest of the date should be filled in automatically. Press the right-arrow key to jump to the end of the path. Enter a slash to start the next part.
Next is the name of the volume (usually "Macintosh HD" unless you gave it a different name.) Start to type that, then jump to the end and enter a slash.
The next part is "Users", followed by a slash.
Next is your (short) user name, which is also the name of your home folder.
Finally, enter "Library", then press return. You should now be in the Library folder. From there you can get around as in the Finder.

Can't restore from Time Machine backup error message

My hard drive on my Macbook failed a few days ago. Just makes a clanking noise and won't boot up etc... I installed a new drive, formatted it, and selected restore from Time Machine backup from the installer screen. It started restoring from my backup I had on an external drive and everything was fine untill it got about 6% done then get a message that says "An error occured when restoring from the backup" It is pretty non descriptive. It also says please restart your system and try again or something to that effect. I tried again, same problem. When I try to copy files over manually I eventually gets some error that says there is a problem with a file and it will quit. Any ideas on how to get my data? I can see all my files on there, but can't get them. My backup disc is just used for backup on this one machine nothing else, so it shouldn't have a problem. Help!

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...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/products/tribackup.html

Can you restore from Time Machine backup to a smaller drive?

My 2008 Air's original hard-drive just died. I have a recent Time Machine backup. Since the laptop isn't under warranty, I am looking at buying a replacement hard-drive on my own (either SSD or 'standard'). My question is, if I was using ~70Gigs (and had a Time Machine backup to that effect) and place a 64G hard-drive into the laptop and attempt to do a Time Machine restore... what will happen? Will I be able to pick and choose what to leave out? Or will the entire restore fail? Thank you.

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
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Can I install a time machine backup after creating a fusiondrive via terminal?

Hi!
I have a Macbook Pro early 2011 with ssd and hdd. I would like to have a Fusiondrive and found a way to create it in the terminal. Do I have to reinstall Lion again or can I use my latest backup which I made from ssd and hdd? there are no further partitions except bootcamp.
Greetings!

You should reinstall OS X and then, restore the Time Machine backup using Setup Assistant. That's because Fusion Drive is created by software, and if you restore the whole Time Machine backup, you will disable Fusion Drive.
Note that you have to reinstall OS X erasing the OS X volume, and then, reinstall it as a clean install. Then, when the installation finishes, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so do it

Can you restore a Time Machine backup to a newly formatted disk.

I am planning on reformatting my MacBook's hard drive, and then restoring my files to it, because of a problem I am having with Boot Camp telling me to reformat my disk and try partitioning again. Can I do this with Time Machine (i.e. wipe everything off my hard drive and then restore it with a Time Machine backup)? Would I just boot up from my Snow Leopard disk and then click on "+Restore Time Machine Backup+"? I am new to Time Machine, and haven't even performed my first backup, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question.
Also, if I can do this, would it leave it exactly as it was before I reformatted or would I have to download all the updates again (e.g. my computer has Mac OS X v.10.6.2 installed. Would it restore to that or would it restore to v.10.6.0, the version that is on my Snow Leopard disk)?
Thank you.
James.

yes, you can do it with TM but it would be safer to do using a bootable clone. to do it with TM boot from the SL install DVD, reformat the internal drive using disk utility in the utilities menu. quit disk utility and select 'restore system from backup" from utilities menu. follow the instructions.
but as I said, it's better to use a bootable clone. make a clone to an external drive using CCCloner or Superduper. then boot from the external, reformat the internal using disk utility and clone the clone back to the internal.
either method will give you your current system back so you won't have to reinstall anything afterward.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Why would it be preferable to reinstall OS X rather than restore from time machine backup after Internet recovery?

Hello,
I have not been able to startup my less than one year old MacBook Air (had flashing question mark folder on grey screen and startup manager only appeared once but froze) and so finally managed to do Internet recovery.
Now get 4 options:
Restore from TM backup
Reinstall OS X
Get help online
Disk utility
I'm really new to mac and am wondering why the kind user here who has answered my previous questions has recommended reinstall over restore option? And why not disk utility which says it could repair a disk...although it also says it could erase a disk which sounds pretty scary to me!
Also, am I right in thinking reinstall would be like the reformatting I did on pc, ie will get me back to a 'new' system?
And if I choose this option can I then get the majority of my stuff back from time machine backup on external hd?
Thank you for your help with this.
E.

I'm really new to mac and am wondering why the kind user here who has answered my previous questions has recommended reinstall over restore option?
Apparently that was dominic23 and hopefully this person will see this post.
Will not startup...help!: Apple Support Communities

Can I reconnect Time Machine backup after drive swap on OS X 10.6?

Hi,
I swapped my MacMini's HD few days ago (previous one was dying, had hardware issues). I used CCC and replaced with a hybrid drive. So far, so good. However, when I plugged back the external USB drive were I keep my Time Machine backups, it is not being recognized, TM wants to run a new full set.
I did some research and discovered that TM may use the HD or machine's UUID and that's why it's triggering the new FULL.
I also found this article by Pondini (which seems to be a guru on the topic, lol ):
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090213071015789
But attrb is not working, I guess such command it's not available on 10.6.8 ? ...
How can I reconnect Time Machine backups to the new HD? Or ... I simply cannot and I will have to delete and run a FULL set? I would prefer to keep my old backups, if possible, but it seems that with my OSX version that's not possible without workarounds.
Thanks in advance,

** EDIT **
The trick did not work :-(
I entered into TM and while I can see the old backups , I can't select them or do anything with them. Clearly, they have not been identified as previous backups, hence the reason for Today's FULL.
Ohh boy ... I'm about to give up ...

Can I have two Time Machine backup external drives on one Mac?

I have been using Time Machine for over a year and like it very much. The thought occurred to me that I should buy a new external drive that I can backup to and store at a remote location. I plan on making a backup each week, then taking this new drive to my office. That way, if my house ever burns down, I have a backup at my office too that will be a fairly recent backup.
When I unplugged my older external drive and tried to launch a backup using the new one, my Mac said it couldn't find my Time Machine drive. Won't it let me backup to two different drives? Or does it always need to backup to the same one?
Thanks!

polishedstaple wrote:
Won't it let me backup to two different drives?
Yes. All you have to do is tell it you've changed destinations, via +Time Machine Preferences > Select Disk.+ (Use different names for the drives, so you know which one is which.)
Try not to go too long between "swaps," though. After several days, especially if there's been a large volume of changes, Time Machine might do a new, full backup, instead of an incremental one.
However, I've learned over the years (mostly the hard way, of course ), never to trust my backups to a single app or piece of hardware: no app is perfect, and all hardware fails, sooner or later.
Like many here, I keep both full Time Machine backups, plus a "bootable clone" on a separate external HD. I use CarbonCopyCloner, many use the similar SuperDuper. That gives me the best of both types of backups, plus of course a completely separate, independent backup.
CCC is donationware; SD has a free version, but you need the paid one (about $30) to do updates instead of full replacements, or scheduling. Either is easily found via Google.
And/or, see Kappy's post on Basic Backup, complete with links to the web sites of each product.

How can I access old Time Machine backups after restoring from Time Machine?

Just restored my iMac and I can only see "Now" when I enter Time Machine. How can I see all the backups and dates I had before I restored?

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

Can't Restore from Time Machine Backup???

I was trying to revert my OS to Snow Leopard from Lion, and thus I backed up all my files first just in case something went wrong. I however forgot that you cannot restore a backup from a newer OS to an older one, so I redownloaded Lion to set things right and backup only my files. However, when I redownloaded Lion and I connected my externel hardrive and clicked on time machine, all the backups were in pink and when I clicked on them they were unresponsive. What happened and how do I fix this?

marcus221 wrote:
I redownloaded Lion to set things right and backup only my files. However, when I redownloaded Lion and I connected my externel hardrive and clicked on time machine, all the backups were in pink and when I clicked on them they were unresponsive. What happened and how do I fix this?
If your backups are on a network, it may take a few moments for the display to be "populated" and responsive.
What you see in the "Star Wars" display depends on how you got there. If you start from, say, your Documents folder, then that folder is all you'll see. If it wasn't included in your backups, you can't select them.
Select something else before going into the display, or select something else in the sidebar.
See #15A in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Can I restore a time machine backup to a new hard disk

I've just had the HDD replced in my iMac 24 under Applecare Warranty. The data had been backed up on an external HDD using Time Machine.
The only way I can see to restore the data is reinstal the OS and do a migration. This seems unwieldy, to say the least.
Can I restore the backup direct to the iMac somehow?
The backup was done when the iMac ran 10.6. It has come back with 10.5 installed.

Take a look at Pondini's excellent TM articles, particularly this one -
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html
You should be able to restore your system in full if you backed up system folders as well as your data and applications.
Otherwise, Use the retail Snow Leopard DVD to install Snow over Leopard (no erasing required), then use Setup Assistant from the new installation to migrate from TM.

Can't restore latest Time Machine backup after drive replacement- only the very first.

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