Mountain Lion and Time Machine

Hi everyone. I own a Late 2008 Aluminum Macbook. I has Lion installed and up to date on it, and it runs like crap (slow boot ups, frequently long loads, random hangs). I feel it does because I upgraded Leopard to Snow Leopard, and then upgraded to Lion. So I figured, I would do a clean install of ML to get myself a fresh start. MY questions are as follows.
1. Should I in fact go to ML or would a fresh install of Lion be better for performance?
2. Since I have 4 years of stuff on this computer, id like to keep my apps and settings, If I do a Lion Time Machine backup, can I then load my apps and settings to ML after I do a clean install?
3. How will this process affect my Boot Camp install of Windows 7?
4. Could I upgrade, then do a Time Machine Backup, dro a fresh install, and then import the backup?
Thanks for the help everyone! I'm pretty new to this fresh install business but I think im hoping to make this thing work better.

1. I would not upgrade until you resolve whatever problems exist with your Lion installation.
2. Upgrading OS X generally always retains settings, does not affect third-party applications, and does not affect your data and files.
3. If there are no problems with your hard drive and you have a Recovery HD partition in place then your Boot Camp partition should be unaffected.
4. You can always use a Time Machine backup to migrate your files to a newly installed OS X system. This is usually done via the Setup Assistant or the Migration Assistant.
My suggestion is:
How to Install Lion/Mountain Lion Successfully - You must have Snow Leopard 10.6.6-10.6.8 or Lion instaalled
A. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions:
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.3.) if DW cannot fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall Snow Leopard.
B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the backup volume. Source means the internal startup volume.
C. Important: Please read before installing:
If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is complete and you've restarted.
You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)
The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update. While the installation is in progress do not use the computer.
D. To upgrade to Lion/Mountain Lion:
Purchase the Lion/Mountain Lion Installer from the Mac App Store. The download should start quickly. Lion is nearly 4 GBs so a fast internet connection is essential. Download time could run upwards of 4 hours depending upon network conditions and server demands at the time.
The installer will run automatically after the download is completed. Click on the Install button to begin the upgrade.
Follow instructions for installation.
I suggest that after the Mountain Lion installer downloads and launches that you Quit the installer. Make a copy of the Mountain Lion installer and put it in the Downloads folder for safe keeping. Then do this:
Make Your Own Mountain/Lion Installer
1. After downloading Mountain/Lion you must first save the Install Mac OS X Mountain/Lion application. After Mountain/Lion downloads DO NOT click on the Install button. Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the Mountain/Lion installer. Move the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes installing.
2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your flash 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.
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.
Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to an hour depending upon the flash drive size.
3. Locate the saved Mountain/Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.
4. Plug in your freshly prepared USB flash drive. You are going to clone the content of the InstallESD.dmg disc image to the flash drive as follows:
Double-click on the InstallESD.dmg file to mount it on your Desktop.
Open Disk Utility.
Select the USB flash drive from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Select the USB flash drive volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Drag the mounted disc icon from the Desktop into the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
When the clone is completed you have a fully bootable installer that you can use without having to re-download Mountain/Lion.
Note: The term Mountain/Lion used above means Lion or Mountain Lion.
Alternatively, download Lion DiskMaker and follow the instructions for making a bootable Mountain Lion flash drive installer.

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I have downloaded Mountain Lion and Time Machine says that my Free Agent Goflex (Seagate) external 2gb drive cannot be used as it is read only. I tried disc utility to repair permissions but that block is greyed out. The disc verifies as being OKI

Since installing Mountain Lion, Time Machine says says that my Free Agent Goflex (Seagate) external 2gb drive cannot be used as it is read only. I tried disc utility to repair permissions but that block is greyed out. The disc verifies as being OKI What next?

Ok, I solved this problem! I ejected the drive and then disconnected it both from the power supply and the USB connector. I then reconnected everything and powered it up again and Then went into TM preferences and chose the drive as the backup. TM did a new backup (well over an hour) and now works as advertised.

Mountain Lion and Time Machine does not work

After Mountain Lion upgrade I was able to backup once using Time Machine. Now TM suggest that I need 42 TB for my backup?!? I have 1TB hard disk on my Mac which has about 600GB of data on it. Time machine prepares the backup for around 10 minutes and then gives an error that my backup disk is too small (1.5TB) because the size of the backup would be 42TB. :-o I have booted my Mac, repaired permissions and searched for internet for tips. However, no luck until now. Any suggestions what could work?

Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup), launch Disk Utility, select the startup volume, and run Repair Disk (not Repair Permissions.) If any problems are found, repeat. Then reboot as usual.

Recover OSX Mountain Lion using Time Machine Backup

Hi,
Can anyone help me to recover OSX Mountain Lion using TIme Machine backup as i accidently corrupted the recovery HD and the Macintosh Drive?
Regards,
Sanil

As Linc stated, you can boot from your Time Machine backup of OS X Mountain Lion.
Restart your machine and hold down the Option key. Select the Time Machine backup drive to boot from. When it boots into the TM drive you will get the same OS X Utilities screen like in the recovery HD. You can use Disk Utilities to erase your Macintosh HD then restore your Mac OS X from Time Machine.

Mountain Lion creates Time Machine problem

Hello,
Since upgrading to Mountain Lion whenever Time Machine attempts to backup to my Time Capsule I get this error message:
"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/(user)'s Mac Book Pro 2.sparsebundle” is already in use."
The Time Capsule firmware was updated a couple of weeks ago to supposedly make it ML compatible.
Anyone KNOW how to fix this or is it a bug?
James

You will not lose any of your backups. You just need to disconnect the drive and reconnect it.
Open time Machine preferences and click on Select Disk. Select the disk that you use as it should be listed at the top of the window. Click Remove Disk. this will remove the disk that you are currently set to use for backups, but leave all the data on the drive. You can then click on select disk again and select the volume that you want to send your backups to and it should then run correctly.

After installing Mountain Lion, my Time Machine won't back up ... says the sparsebundle is in use

After installing Mountain Lion, my Time Machine won't back up ... says the sparsebundle is in use

Standard problem in ML.. apple do not seem to want to recognise.
Reboot the TC .. if that fails restart the whole network in correct order.. modem.. router/TC... clients.. with 2min gap.
There are other suggestions like changing the password.. all they do is the same as reboot.
Read C12.. most quoted Q in pondini website history. This is asked 10 times a day.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Here is another way to get a useful utility in ML.. rather than toyland version.
How to load 5.6 into ML.
1. Download 5.6 for Lion.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Click to open the dmg but do not attempt to install the pkg.. it won't work anyway.
2. Download and install unpkg.
http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/
Run unpkg on the desktop.. it is very simple.. drag the AirPortUtility56.pkg file over to unpkg.. and it will create a new directory of the same name on the desktop.. drill down.. applications utilities .. there lo and behold is Airport utility 5.6 .. drag it to your main utilities directory or just run it from current location.
You cannot uninstall 6.1 so don't try.. and you cannot or should not run them both at the same time.. so just ignore the toyland version.. the plastic hammer.. and start using 5.6.. a real tool.

How can I downgrade my Os x Maverick to Os x mountain lion without time machine

downgrade os x maverick to os x mountain lion without time machine back up and disc

To downgrade you have to have a copy of the Mountain Lion installer, download from the Mac App Store but be sure to go to System Preferences > App Store first and uncheck boxes that will automatically install the download.
You will have to erase the hard drive and then install from a saved copy of the installer, saved to a flash drive for instance.
This is going to be a time consuming exercise, so is there a specific reason for wanting to downgrade?

HT4927 How to restore photos in mountain lion from time machine ?

How to restore photos in mountain lion from time machine?

I have tried doing this but it dosen't work.
I opened time machine. I picked the file from the date needed.
I restored it (I told it to keep both).
Then when I double click on the file it opens a treminal window.
I have also tried opening iphoto while holding down the option key.
This file is not slectable.....
Any thought or ideas?

After Mountain Lion install Time Machine states no existing backup

I upgraded to Mountain Lion and can use "Enter Time Machine" to see previous back ups. However, the other time machine related windows (e.g. the control panel) state there is no existing back up and, accordingly, no last back up time. I am concerned that if I perform a back up it will wipe the existing record as it does not seem to recognise the existing back up even though it will eventually enter it when I click "Enter time machine". I would appreciate any advice from those who understand time machine better than I do. Thank you!

No, not a problem.
Is the disk shown as the destination for your backups? Have you disconnected it since the last backup? If so, the info on the TM window just hasn't been updated. See #B3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Back to lion after mountain lion using time machine backup

I have installed mountain lion 10.8.2 form the app store and i am not happy. many of my apps seem to have dissapeared, and some games, such as the sims 3 refuse to run. I also cannot find many of the files to uninstall and reinstall it properly, such as the files in the library folder, appear not to be there at all, even after a reinstallation.
I'm properly annoyed with mountain lion, and i would like to go back to lion. I backed up my lion system using time machine to a usb drive. My question is, is it possible to reinstall lion using this backup? I have been reading a lot of conflicting information online about whether or not it changes the recovery partition back to lion or not, or even if it works at all.
Lion worked fine for me, Mountain lion doesn't, and I want it back!

Thanks again,
It only shows one sparsebundle file (for my computer, my GFs also backsup to the same TC) and there is only one folder shown inside.
I did have some problems copying files in Finder from the mounted sparsebundle to my Documents folder because it was giving me "volume has wrong case sensitivity for backup". However I searched for that error and found that you referred to one of your unix guys and said that I should use:
ditto --noacl /path/to/source /path/to/target
This is working to copy the files that are there. I know that because its in a .inProgress file something seems to have been messed up on the Time Capsule and some files maybe missing, even though i ran the backup a few times this weekend and it always said completed successfully
However the important files seem to be there and time stamps indicate yesterday's files are there and it seems everything from the last three months, so i hope i'm good
As for why it happened, i don't think i ever saw that error message before, but i have a feeling that its because i've manually stopped time machine from backing up quite a few times as i've been traveling almost three months straight and was tired of Time Machine complaining it hadn't been 'home' for a long time.
I'm really looking forward to Lion's local snapshots for the times when i'm 6-9 weeks on the road. Of course i will follow your advise about also carrying an external hard drive since having the only two copies of files on the same hard drive is pretty scary.
Thanks again for your help!

Mountain Lion? Time Machine, Time Capsule, Quicken 16.1.2

I recently upgraded to Lion and had trouble for 2 weeks with Quicken 2007, as well as my Time Capsule and Time Machine. I finally got everything working again, so now am afraid to try Mountain Lion! Anyone try it yet with success?

uddhav wrote:
Turning off the spotlight on the external hard disk helped improve the speed dramatically.
That may indicate a damaged index. Keep an eye on subsequent backups -- if they take a long time, and/or show "indexing backup" on the Time Machine preferences panel for very long, you may need to delete it, so OSX can recreate it. See the pink box in #D2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting for instructions.
It will say this is a time machine disk so except the time machine folder everything else will be added to the exception list.
Is there anything else on the drive (in the same partition)? If so, that's usually not a good idea. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #3 for an explanation.
Now says 19hrs still a lot according to me but much better than 2 days.
Yes, that's quite slow, especially if your Mac supports USB 3.
If it doesn't, it should be running at USB 2 speeds, which for a full backup should be, very roughly, 40-50 GB/hour.
See the rest of #D2 in the Troubleshooting link for other causes of slow backups.

Bit by Mountain Lion's Time Machine bug - how to proceed best in the simpler cases?

My MacBook Air mid-2012 had never been updated to Mavericks. I had backed it up just a week before a big coffee spill that killed it (June 2014).
I finally got a replacement never-before-used 2012 Macbook Air running Mountain Lion (great to make the Time Machine restore seamless).
That's when I tried "Restore from Time Machine" and it showed the "last full backup" as being from June 2013!!! Then in Migration Assistant, couldn't locate my disk. I've been bitten by the "Exclusion" bug and my Library/ Applications / System folders have not been backed up since a year ago. I'm one of the ones that "found out after it was too late."
So I'll try the workaround. Thanks to Pondini for his great website:
http://pondini.org/TM/D10.html
http://pondini.org/TM/D10r.html
My plan is to restore from Time Machine to my 2013 full system.
Then swap out the Users folder to bring it up to date to the June 2014 version that I have backed up.
Luckily I have only one user account so this can't get TOO complicated.
After that, I'll reset Time Machine and check it periodically via the Command-R trick to make sure it's backing everything up fully.
Still, I'm left with a few questions/concerns that I'm hoping Pondini or others can help to allay before I proceed....
-What will I have lost in a year from those folders that did not back up? I know I may have lost non-Mac applications that I downloaded and also any software updates to said applications. What problems might I encounter in the way of error messages, etc.? I feel like i don't understand the contents of these folders well enough to realize how in trouble I'm in (or not) regarding these folders being out-of-date by a whole year.
-Is it really as simple as swapping out the Users folder on the new system with my most recent backup from June 2014? Any hiccups I should expect from this process? Will all of my photos go back into iPhoto? Will all of my mail files go back into the Mail app? Or in these cases, is there something I need to initiate to smooth out this process? Photos and Mails are the two big concerns; as for the other stuff, I have yet to find out if it's relevant until a problem occurs.
-Once I have restored Apps/Systems/Library to the 2013 backup and Users to the 2014 backup, then what? I'll reset Time Machine but then should I assign it to the new computer? Should I tell it to inherit the new computer? Should I wipe it clean and start fresh? How to proceed after so that I don't have more and more problems down the line, and hopefully don't lose any of the data that I at least have managed to save/restore up to now...
Thanks in advance for any help and sorry if I'm not more clear; I'm not so technologically literate so I'm not sure how best to phrase these things to get my point across.
And special shout out to Pondini who made the discovery of this bug a lot easier to stomach thanks to your helpful website.

A clone is an option.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Can I revert to Lion from Mountain Lion from Time Machine?

I rushed and downloaded/installed Mountain Lion yesterday, but it's quite buggy for me. This is the first time that I upgrade and am having issues - for instance, the MacBook Pro crashes every time I close the MacBook to put it to sleep - when I open the lid, the system is crashed and needs to reboot. I don't like this at all. This, combined with a bunch of things that I used quite often (like sorting the Documents folder by date - not available anymore, the time left on battery indicator, Office for Mac is now buggy and I am having issues when I type in Outlook, etc), convinced me to try to revert to Lion.
Before upgrading I backed up to Time Machine, and haven't backed up since - which means that the newest backup on Time Machine was done on Lion. I want to restore from Time Machine to go back to Lion. Will I be able to do this, or will I run in any issues? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - thank you!
Corina

I rushed and downloaded/installed Mountain Lion yesterday, but it's quite buggy for me. This is the first time that I upgrade and am having issues - for instance, the MacBook Pro crashes every time I close the MacBook to put it to sleep - when I open the lid, the system is crashed and needs to reboot. I don't like this at all. This, combined with a bunch of things that I used quite often (like sorting the Documents folder by date - not available anymore, the time left on battery indicator, Office for Mac is now buggy and I am having issues when I type in Outlook, etc), convinced me to try to revert to Lion.
Before upgrading I backed up to Time Machine, and haven't backed up since - which means that the newest backup on Time Machine was done on Lion. I want to restore from Time Machine to go back to Lion. Will I be able to do this, or will I run in any issues? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - thank you!
Corina

Loaded Mountain Lion and time capsule no longer works, airport utility can't be configured, back ups have stopped, sparse bundle in use errors occur, what a mess!!!!

Should Airport Utility now be defunct for my time capsule because I have upgraded OS to Mountain Lion? I have tried every fix I can think of but AU will not set up. I'm also getting repeated time machine back up failures and now I have a new "sparsebundleinuse" error which is totally useless to me, I have no idea what a sparse bundle is, I have no idea what it's suddenly being used by and there's no information to say what to do about it. Apple is killing me here!!!

I've tried to but on the install for Airport Utility 6, after the download I get through the introduction then the license then I get "airport utility can't be installed on this disk. The version of Mac OS X on this volume is not supported" and that's it, no more options!?

Restore mountain lion from Time Machine after HD replacement?

Which key sequence do I use to completely restore a time machine backup to my iMac after HD went bad and was replaced at Apple store?
Tried holding down shift while powering on but comes up with galaxy desktop. I am afraid that I may overwrite my TM restore with ALL my data on it. thx

Be sure the Time Machine backup drive is connected. Restart the computer and immediately upon hearing the chime press and hold down the OPTION button until the boot manager screen appears. Hopefully, you will see a Recovery HD volume appear. Select it then click on the upward pointing arrow button below the icon. This should boot the invisible Recovery HD volume stored on your Time Machine backup.
Drive Preparation for Lion/Mountain Lion
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, 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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is done quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restore from Time Machine Backup and click on the Continue button.

Mountain Lion and Time Machine

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