10.5.2/Time Machine Question - Before Upgrading

In addition to the standard procedure before updating from 10.5.1 to 10.5.2 (5 Intel Macs - so I want to get it right all the way across the board): 2 full data backups, fully bootable external clone, repair permissions, verify disk, unplug all peripherals, all apps off, no automatic updates on, download Combo Updater and so on --
3 questions:
1) Should my Time Machine external be unplugged?
2) Either "Yes" or "No" - should TS be "Off" in System Preferences?
3) Should I do the update in Safe Mode?
All help appreciated, as always!
pcbjr

Hi, three answers.
1) NO
2) NO
3) NO
Ray

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After upgrading my iPhone, I lost all my contacts and they were replaced with my wife's contacts even though she upgraded after I did. I did a time machine backup before I started the upgrade process, how do I get that saved data back to my phone?

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Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
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Where to Post Time Machine Question?

My question title says it all. How do I find the area in which to post a Time Machine question? Or do I just do it here? Thanks.

There is no place to post a question on Time Machine

HT203177 I have not backed up my computer using Time Machine since before I updated to Mavericks. It has been "preparing backup" for a half hour at least and shows no indication of how long this may take. Is something wrong?

I have not backed up my computer using Time Machine since before I updated to Mavericks. It has been "preparing backup" for a half hour at least and shows no indication of how long this may take. Is something wrong?

No. TM has to look through your entire drive contents and copy them all. This will take some time.
Once the first backup is made, then subsequent backup will be much quicker, depending on how much data has changed since the last one.

External Hard Drive and Time Machine questions

Hello, I am new here to the forums and I have looked all over for the answers to two questions that I have regarding external hard drives and the time machine feature.
For some background, I recently had a scare (water spill but luckily I had a keyboard cover on and the entire spill landed on the cover) with my Mid-2012 13" Macbook Pro (2.5Ghz) and due to almost losing all my data I've decided to invest in an external hard drive. However, rather than just purchasing a 500GB HDD to use as an external hard drive, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and upgrade my Macbook Pro as well by investing in the 480GB OCW Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. I'll be using the SSD as my internal drive so the original hard drive that came with my Macbook will serve as my backup external drive. Lastly, I plan to use the external drive solely for the purpose of backing up my MacBook in case something ever happens to my Macbook.
I am using this guide to help me with this whole process: http://circuitremix.com/?q=content/macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-upgrade-guide-a nd-performance-testing.
My two questions are:
1) When following the guide, it never mentions anything about the Partition Map Scheme. After being alerted to this and doing some additional research, is it better to go with the GUID Partition Table rather than the Master Boot Record?
2) After I have cloned everything onto my new SSD and replaced the HDD in my MacBook with it, should I erase everything on my HDD before setting it up with time machine? I was thinking about keeping the original data on the original hard drive (which would now be my external drive) just in case something goes wrong with time machine but I have read that people recommend solely dedicating the entire external hard drive for time machine backups.
Thanks in advance!

Format the new SSD in Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that will solve question No. 1.
After formatting, clone the new SSD using Disk Utility>Restore or Carbon Copy Cloner (down load from the Internet). Test the new SSD and if it performs as expected, do the physical swap.
Question No. 2. Erase the Time Machine HDD using Disk Utility and then install Time Machine. See this excellent website regarding Time Machine.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
If you want an external boot HHD, get another one and use Carbon Copy Cloner. This will give you redundancy in backups as well which is a good strategy. CCC also can update the contents in an incremental manner similar to Time Machine.
Ciao.

A few good time machine questions...

Mac Users,
I had a Macbook Pro that was stolen at the end of June and I am now getting ready to replace it with an iMac. In as much as that is the case, I have some questions about using Time Machine to get my Macbook Pro backup loaded onto the new iMac.
Presumptions
1) The Macbook Pro came with Leopard and was upgraded to Snow Leopard with a "retail Snow Leopard DVD" (10.6.0), which I still have in my posession.
2) The Macbook Pro was backed up with Time Machine using Snow Leopard end of June (whatever current version of Snow Leopard 10.6.3?) that was.
3) The iMac will come with Snow Leopard with all updates as of the end of November (when I receive it)
4) The Time Machine restoration will be done with "setup migration" with all restore options selected.
Questions
1) Someone told me that because the Time Machine backup from the Macbook Pro was done from a machine that was upgraded to Snow Leopard with a "retail upgrade DVD", that I should start out by wiping out the new iMac's preinstalled variant of MacOS, then reinstall MacOS with the "retail upgrade DVD", do the Time Machine restore with "setup migration" and then update the OS to the latest variant of Snow Leopard via the softwareupdater. Why not just do the restore via "setup migration" from the version MacOS that is coming on the iMac stock from the factory pre-installed? Why all this work and concern with switching to the olde "retail upgrade DVD" first?
2) Once the Time Machine backup has been restored to the new iMac, I do not want the new iMac to immediately start a new Time Machine backup that might otherwise begin to wipe out the olde one I just restored from. How can I prevent this from occurring?
3) What will be missing when I do this restore?
a) 3rd party drivers I had before?
b) 3rd party installation keys and configuration parameters?
c) anything else I need to be concerned about?
Thanks,
Stuart

Stuart Blake Tener wrote:
1) Someone told me that because the Time Machine backup from the Macbook Pro was done from a machine that was upgraded to Snow Leopard with a "retail upgrade DVD", that I should start out by wiping out the new iMac's preinstalled variant of MacOS, then reinstall MacOS with the "retail upgrade DVD", do the Time Machine restore with "setup migration" and then update the OS to the latest variant of Snow Leopard via the softwareupdater.
Do not take advice from that person. That's completely wrong
Why not just do the restore via "setup migration" from the version MacOS that is coming on the iMac stock from the factory pre-installed?
That is the best way, by far. See #19 in [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), for details.
2) Once the Time Machine backup has been restored to the new iMac, I do not want the new iMac to immediately start a new Time Machine backup that might otherwise begin to wipe out the olde one I just restored from. How can I prevent this from occurring?
As noted in the yellow box at the end of #19, immediately turn Time Machine OFF.
Even if a backup gets started, the first thing it should do is send this message:
|
|
Just click +Do Not Backup Now.+ See #B5 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.
Some folks claim they never saw that message, so turn Time Machine OFF anyway.
As explained in #B5, it will do a new, full backup, which will take a lot of space, so it may have to delete a lot of old backups, and may still not have enough room. But in no case will it erase your last remaining backup.
3) What will be missing when I do this restore?
Anything you specifically excluded from backups. Otherwise everything should be just as it was on the old Mac.

Creating disk image & time machine question

I have really screwed the pooch here. I run Adobe photoshop CS2 and Acrobat Pro 7.0 on my mac. I lost the install disks in a move last year, BUT I had created a backup disk image for both and had them saved in a folder on my backup drive. Last week, when I had to take my mac in for hardware issues, I needed to do a backup of my data files and didn't have enough space on my backup drive, so I accidentally deleted that folder with all my install files. I have my licensing info for both programs - so that's not the issue - the issue is trying to figure out how I can locate either replacement disks or .dmg install files for the programs. I've searched the Internet, posted in Adobe forums but no luck. I called Adobe and they told me they don't offer disks or files for previous versions and asked me if I wanted to upgrade.
So I have 2 questions:
1. If anyone knows where I can get my hands on disks or disk image files for installing these two programs
2. Is it possible to create a disk image of an install (.app) file? I know how to create a disk image of an install disk, I've done it before. But I was wondering if there's a way to make one of an install file.
I know that I have time machine and have backed up my HD and apps. But I am extra paranoid now that I don't have a backup of the install files...and god forbid if I had to do a reinstall and for some reason my time machine backup fails me. Any help is appreciated. Thanks Jen

Check through the TM backup and see if you've those images. You might get lucky, but since you moved those to the ext HD you might be up the proverbial creek without the paddle.
1. Check ebay and buy replacement disks
2. You can put anything into a disk image. Whether or not that'll allow you to use it to install something is another question.

How to restore from time machine after HDD upgrade on macbook pro?

Hi,
I have recently bought a WD 2.5 inch SATA 750GB 7200RPM 16GB HDD and plan to use it on my macbook pro 13 inch 2.4ghz early 2011. I will leave the pysical installation part to Apple Service. I have my Time Machine backup on an external hard disk. So, once I get the upgraded macbook, what are the steps I should follow for a complete Time Machine restore? (Including the formatting on the new HDD).
One more question; when I transfer my applications to the new HDD will Time Machine "remember" their activation codes and license information ?
Thanks a lot.

http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/14.html
This has all the instructions for a complete restore, including how to format the disk. Pondini's site probably has anything else you want to know too.
Good luck!

Can't access Time Machine files since upgrading to Mavericks

I have searched the community and found that people have experienced issues backing up to Time Machine since upgrading to Mavericks, but my problem appears slightly different from the ones I've found. I can see that my Time Machine is actually backing up since the upgrade as it was before the upgrade. The issue I'm having is that I can't access the backed-up files in any way.
When I try to open time machine it launches the "space view" with all of the historical tabs lined up for me to scroll through, but imediately closes that window and gives the error message: "Can't connect to a current Time Machine backup disc". It's so weird, because it says that there have been backups completed since the upgrade (most recently this morning). If it wasn't writing to the disc, it would have showed me an error of some sort.
What I am, specifically, trying to accomplish is that I need to restore some iTunes playlists that I somehow managed to delete this past weekend. I figured that I would easily be able to access the library file that contains the playlists from Saturday morning, when I KNOW that playlist was still there, and just restore it. Now that I am seeing that I can't access any of my time machine files, I'm realizing that I have an even bigger problem, and that all of my files are, essentially, going without backup at this time (assuming I can't access the files that have already been backing up).
If anyone has some insight as to how I can fix this problem, I would greatly appreciate it.

Hi John, (The above was for your attention) I'm 72 and must've hit the wrong button!!!
I followed your instructions to the letter, but sadly, no success...all my backups are showing on the TM external HD, but I cannot access them after instsalling 'Mavericks'
I spent the entire day on and off the phone with Applecare (they are very nice, and I'm sure they know most of the stuff needed; but not this problem. They are phoning back tomorrow as the senior chap was not available.
I love my apple products, and like you, have been using their gear for well over 25 years...not studying the things, but using them all the way through.
My present Mac, a 24" iMac is nearly 7 years old, bought on December 11th 2007, and this is the first time I have had a significant problem, and never a virus..got bless em!. I bet there are not many Windows users around who can say the same!
However, if I cannot access my backups, I'm a bit lost, as all my accumulated stuff is there!
I guess the worst case scenario is that I revert to OS X 10.7.5, and wait 'til the bugs are ironed out in Mavericks....Ho Hum
Message was edited by: briinoz

Time Machine questions: Handling backups for multiple Macs to one FW drive

I am reviewing the Time Machine thread and seeing a lot of helpful information, but I would like to ask something I haven't quite found yet.
We have 2 Leopard Macs, a MacBook Pro and an intel iMac... with plans to upgrade another MBP from Tiger to Leopard at some point.
In planning for Time Machine, we set up a 1 TB drive, attached it via FW 800 to the iMac, partitioned it GUID for Intel, and made 3 partitions, one for each planned Mac we want to back up to it.
I started Time Machine on the iMac first and the first backup of about 100 gb took maybe 4 hours.
Then we tried to start the Time Machine backup for the MBP over the network (wireless). It was understandably much slower and quit with some error last evening, so I took advantage of the pause to move the notebook to a wired ethernet connection. It got even slower so this morning I directly connected it FW 800, erased what had been backed up, and started over. So far, so good. 6GB out of 100 in 10 minutes or so. The idea being, if we can get the first backup completed faster over wired connection, maybe doing the incrementals over wireless network will be okay. Sounds like some folks are doing that successfully. I am hoping that works out.
Questions: Was it necessary to partition my 1TB drive into a partition for each Mac's Time Machine backup? I did make each partition bigger than the hard drive it is designated for.
To get the MBP to mount the external FW drive on its desktop, I had to disconnect the drive from the iMac. Is there any way I can connect the FW drive to both the MBP and the iMac (the drive has two FW 800 out connections, so it is physically possible)? I'm thinking (from reading posts of others with notebooks) that one strategy is to connect your notebook to your Time Machine drive at night and let it back up, but it'd be great if I could leave the iMac connected while doing so. Is there a way the volumes on the drive can mount on both desktops?
When I try wireless again, I'm seeing mixed posts regarding whether the MBP will need a password to log in to the remote volume each time, or only the first time when the Time Machine backup is established... if I could get clarification on that, it would be helpful.
Thanks!
thanks

What do you see on your notebook when you click on your TimeMachine icon in the Dock?
My notebook is mounting the backup drive on an hourly basis, running a backup, and looking like it is doing something... but when I then look at TimeMachine, I can't see the backups. (On my iMac with the drive directly attached, I see a progression of windows showing all the hourly backups the last 24 hours, etc.) I just called Apple to ask why this is so, and they told me they couldn't help me because wireless Time Machine backups aren't supported.
I know backups to a hard drive attached to an Airport Express Base Station are not supported. But when they say "You can designate just about any HFS+ formatted FireWire or USB drive connected to a Mac as a Time Machine backup drive. +Time Machine can also back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, Leopard Server, or Xsan storage devices+"... well, how can you DO that?

How can I restore my old iTunes Time Machine backup after upgrading to Mavericks?

I previously had Snow Leopard, and am wondering how I can simply restore ONLY my iTunes library from my Time Machine backup, last made only a few days ago when I had Snow Leopard. However, I seem to be unable to access anything backed up before I installed Mavericks. Any help would be great, because I'd hate to have to struggle to locate 160GB of music manually.
Many thanks!

Your choice really. Either way will work. Retaining the older backups gives you a way to restore older files. When I upgrade from 10.8 to 10.9, the backups continued without errors. Depending on what you upgraded from, in 10.8/9 you have the option to backup to 2 separate drives thus giving you some protection in case one drive fails. You can either copy the old backup to a new drive (Disk Utility/Restore seems to work best) or start a new one.

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 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.

Hard drive, SSD, Time machine question

I was using a Macbook Pro mid 2012 13" for this problem.
About a month ago, I upgraded my hard drive to a Crucial Solid State Drive (SSD) 240 gb m500. I used Carbon Copy Cloner and everything went very smoothly and my computer worked great for about two months. Randomly one day, I turned on my computer and got a WHITE SCREEN. I have tried several things to try and correct this SSD but none of them will work. I have come to the conclusion that it is a broken/unusable SSD and am returning it.
My problem comes that my time machine backup is on my old macbook pro hard drive. I want to put back in that hard drive into my MBP with all my files intacted, but of course it is not in the right format to run.
I have access to another MBP, a 500 gb external drive, as well as a internal hard drive enclosure to plug my old hard drive into USB externally.
My question is would it be to risky, if I backed up my friends MBP to the 500gb external hard drive using time machine. Then I put my time machine backup on his computer. Then make a copy from his computer of my time machine backup to my old MBP hard drive. Then put my newly copied hard drive back into my MBP. And then take my friends MBP and time machine his backup back from the external drive back onto his computer.
Let me know if you have any other ideas. Thanks
~Katherine

With the SSD still in the MacBook, hold down the Option key at Startup. This will draw an icon for each potentially-bootable drive.
Now go away from your Mac and leave it powered on doing nothing for 20 to 30 minutes.
Sometimes an SSD gets so clogged with data it needs idle to do a major Garbage collect, but thinks it is still being accessed, so it delays the Garbage Collect. Leaving it alone for 20 minutes or more MAY allow it the time to fix itself.
If this helps, read this article on TRIM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRM
consider installing TRIM Enabler from Groths.

External Hard Drive/Time Machine Questions

The hard drive on my four-year-old-plus MacBook Pro is apparently failing, and I can't afford a new MacBook Pro yet. So I bought an external hard drive, hoping to clone my hard drive and run my computer off the external hard drive if the main drive crashes.
At the moment I can't afford an Apple external hard drive, so I bought a non-Apple model. So I was surprised when it asked if I wanted to use Time Machine to back up my data while I was setting it up. I chose yes, though I'm not even sure if I've set it up correctly.
OK, let me start from square one...
My external hard drive has 1 TB of storage space, and I initially formatted it in one big block - no partitions. If I want to boot off a cloned hard drive, will I have to partition it, so I'm booting off a particular partition?
If I do have to partition it, I understand I can use Apple's Disc Utilities to do the job. Can anyone tell me if there are any special steps or conventions I need to follow? I'd probably create a partition of about 200 GB for my cloned hard drive. (I'm currently using about 120GB on my internal hard drive.)
In fact, I might make two separate 200-GB partitions, cloning my hard drive to one partition, then cloning it to the second partition a few weeks later, just for security.
My first Time Machine backup is scheduled to begin in just half an hour or so. Will it merely copy all my files to the external hard drive, or will it create an operable clone? Approximately how long do you think this initial backup will take, using firewire?
Also, once I get my hard drive cloned, I'm thinking of booting up with the clone and upgrading to Snow Leopard. If everything works fine, then I'll upgrade my main (internal) hard drive to Snow Leopard as well.
Sorry for all the questions. I think I understand the basics; there are just a surprising number of details to figure out.
When I can afford it, I hope to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro 13" or 15" and an iPad, which I'd like to take to work with me.
Thanks for any tips.

David Blomstrom wrote:
If I want to boot off a cloned hard drive, will I have to partition it, so I'm booting off a particular partition?
yes.
you would need to partition it and use one partition for cloning and the other for TM backups.
i don't recommend such a setup, however. it's like putting all eggs in one basket - if (not when) the external fails, you'd have lost both backups @ the same time !
If I do have to partition it, I understand I can use Apple's Disc Utilities to do the job. Can anyone tell me if there are any special steps or conventions I need to follow?
yes.
you can use the instructions in [this|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] user tip.
I'd probably create a partition of about 200 GB for my cloned hard drive. (I'm currently using about 120GB on my internal hard drive.)
the partition for the clone needs to be just a big as your startup disk (e.g. 120 GB). the partition for TM backups, otoh, would ideally be 2-3 times the size of your startup disk.
more information [here_|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/1.html].
Will it merely copy all my files to the external hard drive
it will back up everything on your startup disk unless you specifically exclude files from backups.
or will it create an operable clone?
no.
use software such as _*Carbon Copy Cloner*_ to clone your system.
Approximately how long do you think this initial backup will take, using firewire?
the initial backup could take overnight - depending on how much data is to be backed up.
Also, once I get my hard drive cloned, I'm thinking of booting up with the clone and upgrading to Snow Leopard. If everything works fine, then I'll upgrade my main (internal) hard drive to Snow Leopard as well.
yes, that will work just fine. in fact, some users recommend this technique even if the internal drive is not about to fail - better muck up a clone than the regular startup disk.
JGG

10.5.2/Time Machine Question - Before Upgrading

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