Migration assistant does not allow selection of backup

The HD on my MBP failed.  Under warranty. So made an appointment and took her in to my closest Apple Store.  I had a recent full backup on my Time Capsule and thought I would be bringing the "not quite dead yet" old drive home.  Wrong.  Bringing the old HD home would have cost me $200... and I was shocked that there was no provision for erasing the old drive.  Yikes. 
A couple days later, the new HD is installed and I bring the laptop home and proceed with trying to restore.  The machine hangs on reboot... I let it run over night before doing a powerbutton shutdown followed by using option startup to access Recovery disk and reinstall Mavericks.  Attempt using an older backup.... repeat... three times.  Same outcome.  Somewhere in there, I attempted rebuilding and repairing the restored setup.  Problems were found and I think I did finally get a system that would startup, but it had issues.... issues with the MS Office install, issues with an Apogee plugin... enough to make me keep trying something else.  By now it is several days later and somehow Time Machine has managed to slip in at least one full backup of the disfunctional setup.  Not knowing this, I redo the installation of Mavericks and attempt to use Migration Assistant.  I am presented with exactly one option for which backup to use... the latest one. 
So what to try next?
Somehow delete off all backups after replacement of the HD and try again?
Go back to trying earlier versions of backup using Restore?
I understand now that I should have done a carbon copy cloner backup sometime before the HD got really ill.... whenever that was?
So far this has not been a satisfying experience... a top of the line laptop, with the extended warranty, with regular backups on a time capsule.  Still it was not enough. Fortunately, I am not trying to make a living off of this machine and can take some time getting it back up to where it was.  It is making me understand why it might be good to have a Mac Pro with a RAID setup if I had real work on real deadlines.  Not very portable though.

Continuing to research options for utilizing my Time Machine backups has led to the Pondini pages.  Great stuff.  In there I learned it would be possible to delete individual backups.  This might allow me to get rid of the 3 backups which occured after my HD failed... backups of the new HD that are getting in the way of using Migration Assistant.
Here is my question.
In the listing of backups is a alias called Latest.  It seems to be pointing to one of the backups that I want to delete.  Will I cause a problem by deleting it?  Or better yet, is it possible to edit this alias to point to the backup I want to use in Migration Assistant?
Status of attempts to Restore: Each attempt to restore is taking the better part of a day due to needs like sleeping and goiing to work...
Attempt 1 restore to day before HD failure worked but a strange assortment of error messages showed up indicating that the Drive failure was corrupting things
Attempt 2 restore to earlier same day... same result
Attempt 3 restore to 2 weeks earlier... same result
Attempt 4 restore to 5 months earlier... good result but l would like to get much closer
Is it possible to use Migration Assistant to utilize the "corrupt" backup? 

Similar Messages

  • Migration assistant does not recognize time machine backup

    Hi Guru,
    I made a time machine backup today, 10.8.2, then made full reinstall of system in Apple store, in Berkeley, because my iMac experinced some unstability.
    we installed new Mac OS, and now I face a  problem: migration assistant does not recognize hard disk with buckup.
    Finder sees this disk, it has Backups folder.
    OS: 10.8.2
    BackUp made: Time Machine 10.8.2
    Hard Disk: Lacie 500MB
    any ideas?
    Thank you

    I am conserned about restoring using setup assistant because I need to transfer personal files and applications only.
    You can do that in Setup Assistant.
    Migration Assistant doesn't accept Time Machine backups of the computer it's running on; it only accepts compatible backups of other computers. You can't migrate a system to itself. To restore files from the same computer, enter Time Machine in the usual way, or else boot into Recovery and either restore the whole startup volume or erase, reinstall OS X, and restore in Setup Assistant.

  • Migration Assistant does not see my WD backup drives!

    Apple recalled my Seagate HD and I just had it replaced with a new HD at the Genius Bar. I picked up my iMac today and am now attempting to RESTORE with my backup to my new (internal) HD. However, when I used the Setup Assistant, it did not see either of my external backup drives. I continued through the setup process and thought I'd try the Migration Assistant. Even THAT did not see either of my back up drives. When I use Time Machine to RESTORE, I navigate to the latest folder but the Restore button is greyed out.
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    Thanks sanjampet.
    I called Apple support and the tech had me make a bogus account with a different user account name. I then logged into the bogus account and ran Migration Assistant. MA cannot override while logged into your main account, thus the bogus one is needed.
    Turns out that while in MA, you will *not* see your backup drive in the list when it comes to the "select a drive" screen. It wants you to select a drive to migrate to, not from. Once you select the "Macintosh HD" and Continue, Migration Assistant will locate your latest backup and restore it to your new HD.
    Once the migration is complete (this takes a while of course), log out of the bogus account, then log back into your main account. You can delete the bogus account.
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  • Mavericks Migration assistant does not see time machine backup of older Lion Mac

    Used to have a Macbook Pro. It was stolen (circa July 2014). Luckily I had up to date Time Machine Backups. The Macbook Pro was completely up to date running the latest OSX Lion (circa July 2014) when stolen.
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    Thanks Turbostar.
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    hi
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  • How can I copy programs (iWorks) and files from Time Capsule to my HD manually? The problem is that the migration assistant does not recognize my backup file and the user on the TC. (If I open the TC on finder, it it there though)

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    How can I copy programs (iWorks) and files from Time Capsule to my HD manually? The problem is that the migration assistant does not recognize my backup file and the user on the TC. (If I open the TC on finder, it it there though)

  • Migration Assistant does not find My Passport

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  • Migration Assistant Does Not See Attached External Disk

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  • Boot Camp Assistant does not allow partiton when my disk is the right format

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  • Migration Assistant Does not see my Time Machine Backup disk

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    sorry, i don't know what else it could be then. if you have another external drive you can try doing a full system restore from the TM backups onto that drive and see if MA will recognize that drive and migrate from it. other than this there is always manual migration. slow and tedious but it can be done. see this link for help with that
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    Continuing to research options for utilizing my Time Machine backups has led to the Pondini pages.  Great stuff.  In there I learned it would be possible to delete individual backups.  This might allow me to get rid of the 3 backups which occured after my HD failed... backups of the new HD that are getting in the way of using Migration Assistant.
    Here is my question.
    In the listing of backups is a alias called Latest.  It seems to be pointing to one of the backups that I want to delete.  Will I cause a problem by deleting it?  Or better yet, is it possible to edit this alias to point to the backup I want to use in Migration Assistant?
    Status of attempts to Restore: Each attempt to restore is taking the better part of a day due to needs like sleeping and goiing to work...
    Attempt 1 restore to day before HD failure worked but a strange assortment of error messages showed up indicating that the Drive failure was corrupting things
    Attempt 2 restore to earlier same day... same result
    Attempt 3 restore to 2 weeks earlier... same result
    Attempt 4 restore to 5 months earlier... good result but l would like to get much closer
    Is it possible to use Migration Assistant to utilize the "corrupt" backup? 

  • Migration assistant does not recognize external hard drive

    I just had a new hard drive placed in my computer, and am trying to restore my old data using an external hard drive and migration assistant.  However, after I click on transfer from time machine or disk, the external hard drive is not recognized.  Help.

    Boot into Recovery from the backup drive by holding down the option key at the startup chime. Select Restore from Time Machine. If that doesn't work, install OS X and then follow the prompts to transfer your data from a backup. If that too doesn't work, set up an account and then restore your data in the time-travel interface.

  • Migration Assistant does not work.

    I just purchased a new MB (OS X 10.6.5), and would like to use Migration Assistant to transfer all the files and users, along with preferences from my iMac (OS X 10.4.11) to my new MB.
    Now, it appears that I have option: transfer via FireWire, ethernet, or WiFi. I have tried WiFi and ethernet, and it doesn't work. My new MB does not have any FireWire ports. I will repeat, NO FIREWIRE.
    When I connect the two macs directly with an ethernet cable, I get the same thing.
    Migration Assistant seems to recognize each other on the two different macs, but it prompts me to enter the pin code twice...after the second time, the MB says "Preparing Information..." and the iMac says "Searching for other computers..."
    Then eventually the MB will report "connection failed..."
    I have not come across a forum yet that someone hasn't said that you have to use FireWire. Well, that isn't an option for me!!
    Someone please help!
    I would really like it if I don't have to bring both macs to the Apple store, super inconvenient.
    Thanks,
    Andy

    ajcamm wrote:
    I don't have any backups
    That's quite scary! If you value your data, you really need to start backing-up regularly, so when (not if) something awful happens to your Mac, you won't lose everything.
    Now you have two choices:
    Take both Macs to the Apple Store
    Get a good external USB HD, preferably at least 2-3 times the size of the data on (or expected to be on) your system. Make a "clone" of the old Mac via [CarbonCopyCloner|http://www.bombich.com> (donationware) or [SuperDuper|http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html] (the free version will work for this purpose). Then erase the new Mac's internal HD and reinstall OSX per the green box in [Setting up a new Mac from an old one or its backups|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html], and use +Setup Assistant+ to transfer from the "clone."
    Once the new Mac is set up and running, erase the external HD and start making regular backups. Snow Leopard includes +Time Machine,+ an excellent backup app, integrated into OSX. You might want to review the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    Or use CCC or SD.

  • Miggration assistant does not see time machine backup disk

    I recently had a power surge that fried my hard disk. Erased the disk, reinstalled Mountain Line and when I get tot he dialogue box for Migrating all my setting and files etc from my Time Machine Backup it cannot see the disk. It sees the Bootabel backup I made on a partition on that disk but not all my Time Machine Back-ups. The bootable disk is in Lion not Mountain line and does not contain all the latest settings, applications etc. How can I get to the latest Time Machine Back-ups? Help Please!

    See Pondini's Excellent information here...
    Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC
    Also See the  Second Chance to Use Setup Assistant  here...
    http://Pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html

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