Restore from time machine after clean install of Mavericks

I decided to do a clean install of Mavericks to get rid of all the very old files hiding in my system folders. I made a startup disk following online instructions, rebooted from the USB drive and wiped the drive and reinstalled Mavericks. Then I plugged in my Time machine backup drive and tried to recover particular folders from the latest backup. However, I am getting a permission error that prevents me from going into the old user folder from that backup. It has a red circle/line icon on the folder. How do I get around this so I can select what to restore?

You might be able to view in System Preferences > Users & Groups.
Time Machine - Troubleshooting by James Pond is the best source around for Time Machine help.
I'm not seeing your issue listed. It's possible you will need to do a full Time Machine restore to another drive so you can actually boot from the drive then log into the user. If you have enough space on internal you could partition to restore there without polluting your current new install.
Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions 18. How can I copy my TM backups to a different location?
I backup to Time Machine but I also use a clone and use it over Time Machine when I'm trying to restore a User like youare trying to do. Hopefully someone else will have a better suggestion other than doing a full restore.

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How to restore files from Time Machine after Clean Install of Mavericks

How to restore files from Time Machine after Clean Install of Mavericks. I know the data is there but seems unaccessable because I may have changed the Computer or Owner name. Is there any way to fix that now?

Hi Linc,
my back-up data is managed by Time Machine; the actual data is on a second internal Hard Drive with a capacity of 1TB - not partitioned. I am using Time Machine and have access to all data backed up since Mavericks Clean Install but not the data prior to this date.
When I open the 1TB drive in Finder I can see a folder "Backups.backupdb/Sigi's Mac Pro/ followed by many folders of backup dates going back to 2010-09-20-103441 and up to 2014-02-07-142414 all followed with folder Macintosh HD. February 7th 2014 was the date of the clean install.
These Backups are followed by backup date folder 2014-02-08-075554 with a subfolder of MacPro-320GB (this is the name I assigned to my Boot Drive during formatting; I suspect I should have assigned the same name as before ie. Macintosh HD) and 2014-02-11 with a subfolder Macintosh HD, these are the ones I get access to by way of Time Machine > Restore.
Weird thing is on Febr 11 when I relised my possible mistake and renamed the Bootdrive back to what it was initially ie. Macintosh HD despite this I have access to all backup data since the Clean Install in both folders MacPro-320GB as well as Macintosh HD but not to any data prior to the Clean Install.
Is there something that Time Machine knows and prevents access or is it simply a matter of renaming the subfolder 2014-02-08-07554/MacPro-320GB to ........./Macintosh HD?
I like to restore selectively and not everything - It was hard work reinstalling apps that were supposed to be the troublemakers (ref my discussion on Maverick problems) but I now need to get onto data specific to some of these apps as well as other data I may have missed. Long story? Yes and sorry.
Sigi

Cannot restore iPhoto Library from Time Machine after clean install

I was experiencing various problems with my MBP and wiped the hard drive after meticulously backing up everything with Time Machine, or manually. I reinstalled everything. I was relying on Time Machine to restore my photos and events in iPhoto. When I select "Browse Backups" in iPhoto, I can see all of my backups, but can select none of them. Any ideas to save a decade worth of photos?

Hi a:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
I am preaching, but +"wiping/erasing a HD"+ should be reserved for true disasters. That is a Windows process.
Now, trying to help (I treasure my own photos - a lot), go to your home folder (~pictures). If something called iPhoto library is there, highlight it, open Time Machine, and then restore it.
If that does not fix the problem, try posting in the iPhoto forum. There are some real experts with iPhoto problems that may be able to help.
Barry

Restoring from Time Machine after erase & install

Hi, I have an iMac I rebuilt and when I plug in my Time Machine disk, all the UIDs are mixed up.
this is not surprising as I created users on my rebuilt iMac in a different order.
This issue is how can I correct the ownership of each of my user directories in /Users?
I tried to "sudo chown -R" but it won't let me do this on a Time Machine backup disk.
the only workaround I have right now is restore the user folder and perform a chown after it's been restored.
what I really would like to do is to continue making incremental backups to my backup disk if at all possible.

do NOT try to chown stuff on TM backups. if the UIDs don't match change the UIDs of your current users on the main drive so that they do match. go to system preferences->accounts, unlock the lock at the bottom, control-click on an account and select "advanced options". in the popup you'll see the current UID and you can change it there too. after you do that you need to run chown on that user's home directory. do that for every user involved. another thing you'll need to do afterward is chown Temporary directories for all users involved. else it will mess up various cache and temp files. log in as a user and run
sudo chown -R `id -un` $TMPDIR
do that for every user.

Restoring from Time Machine AFTER install

My hard drive crashed, so i had to buy a new one (WD scorpio blue). I replaced it, then reinstalled from the install disk (10.4.10, Tiger). That was mistake one. What I meant to do was to restore from my time machine backups on an external HD. I also have the leapord disk that came with, which i forgot to install from, my second mistake. so my question is -- do i have to erase the hard drive and start back over to install from my TM back up, or can i do it either during the upgrade to Leopard or from Tiger?
Thanks.

Matt Clifton wrote:
Boot from your Leopard disk (with your TM drive connected), and go to Utilities - Restore from Time Machine Backup.
So, using this procedure will restore my MB onto a totally new hard drive with all my programs back intact along with any files?
If so, this looks like a great way to replace/upgrade a hard drive. Re "go to Utilities", is this folder or option from the Leopard disk?

During upgrade to Lion on Macbook Pro the upgrade stops at OS utilites after rebooting asking to restore from time machine backup or install new copy

My Daughter is currently upgrading her MacBook Pro to OS X Lion. During the upgrade the system rebooted and then stops at the OS X Utilites menu. I have installed this same upgrade on My MacBook Pro and the family iMAC without issue. Did the upgrade encounter a problem? The only options are to Restore from Time Machine Backup, Reinstall Mac OS X, Get help, or Disk Utility.
I'm not sure how recient the backup is on the TimeMachine for her system and she is concered that she may loose a lot of updates she has made to iTunes and iPhoto.
Please help.

I have 8 GB of RAM, but would that even matter during install? Performance once installed and running sure, but I questiong whether the installer would demand that much more, or why it would affect mountain lion when restoring from a time machine backup.

Can't restore from time machine after SSD upgrade

Macbook Pro 13" mid-2009, 10.7.5 Lion
I just swapped out my 160GB HDD with a 250GB SSD on my MBP. When I booted up, I pressed Command-R to try to get into recovery mode but all it does was showing a gray folder with a question mark on it.
I had previously backed up my HDD with time machine. My original HDD is no longer available because I tried to upgrade to Mavericks (since the command-R was not working) and upon restarting my MBP was locked with system pin code (that is another nightmare all by itself)
What are my options besides getting a 10.7 Lion CD from the apple store and try to boot it up that way? and then restore from time machine?
Any other way I can get into receovery mode?
Thanks (My MBP is now a brick sitting on my desk)

It's a bare drive so it isn't formatted and it doesn't yet have a Recovery HD installed on it.
Your computer originally came with a version of Leopard installed. You can reinstall it if you still have the original discs that came with the computer. Or, if you have a retail Snow Leopard DVD you can reinstall Snow Leopard from which you can then upgrade to Mavericks (Lion is no longer available for re-download.) It's unlikely your local Apple Store has a Lion USB flash drive or DVD although you can certainly make an appointment and ask for their help.
You should see if you can boot from the Recovery HD invisible image in your Time Machine backup drive. Connect it to the computer and use OPTION boot to get the boot manager. If you see a Recovery HD on your backup drive displayed, then boot from it.

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.

Restore from Time Machine & OS X install not working

Mid 2009 Macbook Pro
Installed new hard drive, reformatted to GUID, hard drive is verified.
Booted from USB Recovery HD
Selected Restore from TIme Machine
Plugged in external, it shows up, click on it, back up from this morning is there, pick new formatted hard drive
Get error "An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk. Restart your computer, and then try restoring again."
Do exactly that 3 times
Then try installing OS X
Get this error "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."
Try that 3 times
Reset PRAM
Tried both again same errors

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
First, are you running Leopard or Snow Leopard? Your settings at the bottom of your post say Snow Leopard, but this is the +Leopard > Time Machine+ forum, so I'm not sure which is right.
Did you do the full system restore, starting by booting from your OSX disc? If not, what exactly did you do?
Exactly what is wrong with Software Update? What happens, or doesn't happen?

Selectively restore from Time Machine after reformatting

I just reformatted my drive and reinstalled Mountain Lion and then upgraded to Mavericks. I backed up to Time Machine just before the reinstall. Time Machine did combine my first new backup with the ones before the reinstall, which I can see when I browse through the Time Capsule.
I would like to restore some things from the Time Machine timeline, however when I enter the timeline, the backups prior to the reinstall are named in purple on the dateline and the Finder windows are black and inaccessible. I suspect this is because after the reinstall the computer has a new account name, so the permissions are different on the previous backups with the old account name.
Does anyone know how to get the older backups to be accessible in the timeline? I would like to just selectively restore a few things as needed, and would like to do the "restore from Time Machine" rather than drag copying files from the mounted backup.

I would like to just selectively restore a few things as needed, and would like to do the "restore from Time Machine" rather than drag copying files from the mounted backup.
For this type of activity, you might want to take a look at Migration Assistant on your Mac, located as follows:
Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Migration Assistant
More info here: OS X: How to migrate data from another Mac using Mavericks

Migrate, restore from Time Machine or fresh install

Folks
Getting an MBP today and migrating from MBA. Should I fresh install, use the migrate tool or restore from Time Machine?

You are going to get several answers here depending on users' opinion and experiences. My own view, having done the Time Machine backup as demo in a class, is that, if you have the time and all the settings written down, the best way is to start from scratch. Indeed, the last two Macs I bought, I even installed the OS myself, despite them being out of the box.
Having written that, I do find Time Machine a useful facility and it is possible to selectively bring the data back, which is really quite useful with a new machine. This would be a great tool in the case of a stolen computer or if a hard disk had crashed and it was necessary to get up and running quickly. As a note, I still found that with the TM restore, certain parts (such as Mailboxes and some other network related security stuff) still needed setting up again.
I did use the migrate tool once and was not over-convinced although I understand it has been updated. Someone else should offer an opinion on that.
If time is of the essence, go for the TM or Migrate tool. If you want a more stable and secure environment (perhaps that backup could bring over a problem), go from scratch with a selective backup.

Restore from time machine after hard drive install

I just had apple replace my hard drive on my Imac. I backed up everything with my external hard drive My Book. Tried to do a restore with Time Machine and it won't do it. I get a message that come up that says "Time Machine can't be modified or deleted because its required by Mac OS X. What steps am I missing to restore with Time Machine?

Hello, I personally don't use TM, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imagine something not being covered there.

Restore from Time Machine or fresh install?

Hey everyone,
I will be purchasing a 27" i7 within the next week or so, and was wondering if anyone had experience when restoring from a Time Machine backup versus reinstalling all of your apps. Is there any performance loss from restoring a backup?
I don't really need to restore from backup -- it would just be quicker to not have to reinstall all of my apps manually. But being that this is a new machine, and I want it to be as quick possible, I have this fear that the image of my old machine will somehow "bog down" this new machine.
Are my fears justified, or just crazy?
Thanks guys/gals!

You should only use the +restore complete startup volume from Time Machine+ method if you are restoring to the same Mac or to a Mac that is the same model.
You can use Migration Assistant and use the Time Machine backup as the data source. There is a screen where you can select what to migrate, and you can migrate applications. However, I recommend you only select Users and NOT select +Applications, Settings, and Other...+ Applications are best re-installed from their original source, making sure you have the latest version and weeding out (not installing) apps you no longer use.
Also, before you migrate in any data, I recommend you use your iMac +as is+ for a while. Setup Assistant will offer to migrate data. Decline doing so at that point. Set it up and run Software Update to install the recent updates from Apple, then run it until you are satisfied that it is 100% perfect. Then, if you want to use Migration Assistant, you can run it from Applications/Utilities/.

How to restore from Time Machine after HD change?

Hi I am having my hard drive replaced due to the issue with the Seagate hard drives. I have a Lacie NAS which is working with Time Machine. I wanted to know, once I have my iMac back with a new hard drive, how do I restore everything from Time Machine?
Thanks

Have a look at this thread I posted in earlier and the various links in Pondini's excellent Time Machine resource I linked to:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20367932#20367932

I cannot retrieve iTunes and iPhoto libraries from Time Machine after re-installing OS X

I havd just re-installed OS X on my Mac, and I cannot retrieve iTunes and iPhoto libraries from Time Machine.

Please confirm that you are running Leopard 10.5.8 on a PPC iMac.

Restore from time machine after clean install of Mavericks

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