27 hours to restore my Time Machine?? Really??

I am upgrading my mid 2009 macbook pro. I have used Time Machine all,these years ro backup my laptop.
I am at a point of restoring the old hard drive via the Time Machine backup. Can this be right..27 hours for about 230 GB data set???? Wouldn't it be faster and better ro just re install the OSx and then grab what I need from another clone HD copy I made..just in case something like this happened!!
27 hours??? Apple? I see many others having the same comment...Apple...why aren't you listening ???? Oh right, now I remember ...your too cool to deal with plebs :-(

I would recommend a couple of things to help you. First is complete your profile we have no idea what machine you have or the OS X version you're using. Because we don't know that no one can accurately give you any information. Next I'd recommend going to the Time Machine FAQ that is located in the version of OS X you are using. If you are on Leopard, go to that forum, if your are on Snow Leopard go to that forum. TM is part of OS X so it's logical the forums are part of the OS X section.
My last recommendation is to read the TM FAQ where you will learn more about how it works.
Roger

Similar Messages

89 hours for Restore from Time Machine backup!! Is this typical?

Trying to restore my iMac after a hang up in the boot process....grey screen----->apple----->progrees bar to 1/10 full----->shutdown.
Troubleshooting steps thus far,
-Booted from Lion install USB.
-Ran Disk Utility and all tests show that the startup drive is in good order.
-Went to Restore from a Time Machine backup and chose Iomega USB 2.0 backup drive.......internal HD would not show up in destination list.
-Went back to Disk Utility and erased internal HD and formatted for HFS+ (Journaled)
-Tried to restore from Time Machine again, was able to select internal HD as destination this time.
-Estimated time.......89 HOURS!!!
24" iMac (Mid 2007)
2.8 Ghz Core 2 Extreme
4 GB Ram (667 Mhz)
500 GB HDD (ATA)
2 TB Iomega USB 2.0 backup drive.
I understand this machine is no spring chicken, however, this amount of downtime seems excessive. Why so slow? Any ideas to speed it up?
Thanks.

Sounds like your internal HD may be failing.
If it's working slowly, having to do numerous retries, etc., everything will be very slow.
Note that Disk Utility won't necessarily find that sort of problem with a HD; it only checks the file system on the drive for consistency -- all the various directories, catalogs, etc.
Less likely, but possible, are problems with RAM, the USB drive, the USB port on your Mac, or even the USB cable.
Unless you're well into the restore, you might want to try running this: Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test. Run the Extended tests (that may take an hour or more, depending on how much RAM you have). Write down any error code(s) it shows.

50 plus hours to restore from time machine backkup. ..

Ok, I'm restoring the entire system from a time machine volume from yesterday. There was about 150 to 160 GB of data on the drive. The restore has been going on for more than 3 hours and it's only at 4% restored with more than 50 hours estimated for completion.
What's going on. There is no reason whatsoever that a restore should take anywhere near this long.
I'm half tempted to just dump out, rebuild the system from scratch, re-install all my software, then drag the data back to the computer from the archive.
BTW, Time Machine always has worked just fine. I've gone back and retreived several large files and they restored very quickly. When time machine first ran on this system the backup was completed in about a half hour.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

NuGuy wrote:
Figured this out. I had a wireless usb keyboard and mouse from logitech plugged in as well as a compact flash card reader. I canceled out of the restore process, unplugged the flash card reader, unplugged the wireless usb keyboard and plugged in the standard mac keyboard and ran the restore again. This time it completed in about 3.6 hours. Still appallingly slow, but much better than the 50 hours I was looking at.
Interesting. I restored our Mini and it took 40+ hrs, but there was a USB hooked up to it (the TM drive was directly plugged into the Mini, though)
After you restore, check your permissions on the root of the drive....mine came up as..
system - read/write
wheel - read/write
everyone - read only
...whereas it should be...
system - read/write
admin - read/write
everyone - read only

Does Time Machine really restore all files of app?

Hi mac people,
I have done a clean install, then i don't want use migration assistant to move back things, but when i move back garageband 6.0.5, i open it, then i realise that only app is been restore but all the loops and audio is not, then i search online found that i have to move those things by my own,
So this problem make me wondering does time machine really fully restore?
I also wondering how about other apps or files do they really all been restore even they SEEN like no problems?
Thanks for helping !!!!!

then i realise that only app is been restore but all the loops and audio is not, then i search online found that i have to move those things by my own,
If you want everything restored from Time Machine, don't use Migration Assistant but use Setup Assistant - migrate al files when you are first prompted to restore from Time Machine or another Mac, after a clean install.
you can select what to restore - the settings, the libraries, the user data.
Since you do not want to use the assistants - to restore Garageband 6.0.5 manually, you transfer all files and folders in the system library:
/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/
and the loops from
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/
Your plug-ins from
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/
and the corresponding folders in your user library ~/Library/

TS3423 Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not s

Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not start?

sonjadg,
you can purchase a replacement pair of grey installation DVDs for your MacBook Pro from either Apple or iFixit. If Startup Manager is only showing an OS X Installer volume, then it sounds like the Mavericks installer had a problem midway through its installation process. To fix this, you’re going to need to erase your internal disk and reïnstall your original version of OS X from the grey Mac OS X Install DVD, use Software Update to get it back to 10.6.8 (presuming that your MacBook Pro originally came with Snow Leopard), and then restore from Time Machine.

Can't fully restore my Time Machine/Time Capsule Backup to my newly-wiped SSD/HDD

On receiving my leased, Bootcamp-enabled MacBook Pro, I saw that there were no installation discs for Windows or OSX, and that there were 2 partitions (or so I thought) for Mac and Windows: 375GB each. As I produce music using software in both OSs, I wanted to create a 185GB FAT-32 partition to store my sound samples, projects etc. I attempted to create this partition by resizing (halving) my Bootcamp partition in OSX Disc Utility. The first time I attempted it, resizing was possible, but after the new partition was created, I had problems booting and so had to edit my GPT in order to boot again. Once ‘fixed,’ (by deleting the new partition) I couldn’t resize the Bootcamp partition to fill the 185GB gap, and that 185GB was ‘lost.’ The Bootcamp partition was 375GB but its used space + free space added up to 190GB
So the other day, I tried to follow what I thought was a more logical approach, which I was *sure* would work. My plan was to:
Use Windows Backup (and/or Clonezilla, or Disk Utility) to store an image of my Windows partition.
Uninstall/wipe the Windows partition using BootCamp Assistant, creating 1 big OSX partition
Use BootCamp Assistant to re-partition the HDD for Windows, OSX and ‘shared,’ and then re-install Windows, leaving 175GB for shared music production files
Restore the image/backups (approx 70GB) and carry on as before.
During the process, I deemed that this wasn't possible on my system for a variety of reasons: My laptop already had 4 partitions (Windows Recovery, Bootcamp/Windows, Mac Recovery HD, and Mac) and my understanding is that the MBR of my SSD only supports 4 partitions in its Bootcamp + OSX-compatible state. I have never got this '5 partition' strategy working.
I was unable to restore my Windows partition after re-installing Windows via Bootcamp. As a solution, I then decided to wipe the OSX partition (at that point the only 'visible' partition on the disk) and in-place re-install Mac OS X, with a view to installing Windows after OSX.
Once I wiped my hard drive, however, restoring my files and settings, didn't work as expected. Time Machine backups etc were inaccessible after a normal re-install. Re-installing with file transfer at setup froze at the 10% mark, with an estimated 200 hrs to go. The option to try a full-system restore via Time Machine is greyed-out. Even the Migration Assistant failed at a similar point. On the occasions where it claimed to complete successful (most recent situation) it seemed to neglect files, etc., and I'm now stuck at this stage.
I can view files/backups in Time Machine but I can't completely restore my computer to the state it was on 18th May...and 11 days without a fully-functioning laptop is really annoying. I wasn't able to ‘clean’ *or* ‘in-place’ re-install OSX using my existing settings and so I'm frustrated that Time Machine isn't a flawless backup & restore process. Migration Assistant didn’t transfer everything. Can I get things back to the way they were?
Things that haven’t restored correctly:
None of my icon customisations at the top of the screen were there (DropBox, Evernote, Google Drive, Kuvva, the way battery icon was displayed
Safari: Top Sites, History, Plugins
Logic Pro: Downloaded sounds, presets (10+GB), recent items, plugin settings/AU manager
Mail: Settings (and I’m assuming, the downloaded/cached mail: 7GB)
Trash can: Empty
All recent item lists apart from cloud-based services like Evernote, Notes, contacts
iTunes library
Dock view and settings
Settings for most programs
And I'm sure there are more!

Thanks Pondini; I'd hoped you'd reply. I'm still getting used to this tech, no can't even quote here.
Pondini wrote:
AkaraE wrote:
Time Machine backups etc were inaccessible after a normal re-install.
If you mean you installed OSX and created a user account, then couldn't find the backups, that's because they're treated as being from a different disk, until you either transfer your data or do a manual "associatedisk". See the blue box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #19 for details.
Yet to try the associatedisk...didn't realise this was possible until reading your guides. The explanation makes sense now. On installing OSX it said transfers were possible after installation, so I put off transferring as the first 'restore' had frozen on 10%, thinking I'd do it afterwards.
Re-installing with file transfer at setup froze at the 10% mark, with an estimated 200 hrs to go
That sounds like damaged/corrupted backups. Try to Repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Yet to try...didn't realise this was possible until reading your guides
The option to try a full-system restore via Time Machine is greyed-out.
You mean, on the Mac OS X Utilities menu on the Recovery HD? I've never heard of that. That should always be selectable, so you can specify where the backups you want are located. Nothing happens when you click it? Can you click the other options there?
Even the Migration Assistant failed at a similar point. On the occasions where it claimed to complete successful (most recent situation) it seemed to neglect files, etc., and I'm now stuck at this stage.
Also sounds like directory or file problems on the backups.
This is just when I go into Time Machine/Star Wars. I can't just go to the latest backup and click "Restore" (which I assume would just restore my whole computer/HDD, although I have no experience in this). I can only select files and restore them individually.
Time Machine isn't a flawless backup & restore process.
There has never been any such thing.
I bought into the Time Machine 'hype' and thought it was an easy and reliable tool, but was a lot more difficult to do a full restore than I thought.
Trash can: Empty
Correct. Time Machine (like most backup apps) don't back up trash.
All the rest should have been backed-up and restored. Do you see them in the backups? What, if anything, was excluded from being backed-up?
As a non-native Mac user, I'm not sure where all these things are stored...perhaps in Library? I think that not having the full hard-drive just restore annoyed me...I felt that backing up my whole hard drive every hour should've allowed me to restore everything to as it was without a hitch, and when it didn't work I just tried a few things before posting on here.
If repairing the backups finds and fixes things, you might want to try again.
Gonna try now
If not, and if you can see the missing items via the Time Machine browser (the "Star Wars" display), you should be able to restore them selectively.

IPhoto 09 - some recent events lost after restoring from Time Machine

recently my early-2009 iMac hanged during boot up on the white screen. so i a restore from Time Machine and it works. this freezing occurred twice of the last one week, which i did 2 restore to last backup. then i notice there's an issue with iPhoto 09. i notice some latest events which supposedly been backup during the restore point, appears 'blank'. when i enter Time Machine, i see all previous events but the recent day or two, it just turn out to be black squares, and when i enter the events there weren't any photos but just files with names.
i tested again but loading in a couple of new photos into iPhoto yesterday night, back it up and double check in Time Machine, it is (the new photos) there. about 6-hours later i make a check again (on Time Machine), the photos event became the black square again. this is really a pain for me as i have lost enough photos
i desperately need help on this. anyone?
here a couple of the screenshot from my Time Machine:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t272/mujiland/Screenshot2010-05-29at104554PM. png
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t272/mujiland/Screenshot2010-05-29at104602PM. png

Hello mook,
So if I understand:
1.) The goal is to restore the iPhoto Library from a point before the issues started happening
2.) When you try to go backwards in Time Machine while inside the iPhoto window you get a blank Library when you get to the date range you want.
What to do:
- As you cannot seem to access the iPhoto contents using the iPhoto window I would suggest the following:
1.) Navigate using the Finder to ~/Pictures (or whatever folder you are currently housing your iPhoto Library in)
2.) Rename the current iPhoto Library to something else (Like iPhoto Library Old etc)
3.) While looking at this Pictures window, activate Time Machine and go back in time to a date when YOU ARE SURE iPhoto was working fine and had the images you want
4.) Click on the iPhoto Library in the Time Machine window and click on Restore
-- This will restore the Library from the date in question
-- You will have 2 libraries once the restore is complete. The freshly restored library and the old library. Keep the old library just for safe keeping until such time as you determine you have all the pictures you want. Then you can do whatever you want with it (trash it, etc)
Hope that helps.

I'm having a problem with logging into a FileVault-protected user account after restoring from Time Machine backup.

Hi all,
My computer had been running really slowly for a while, so I decided to erase the whole hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and then I was going to restore the files I cared about from Time Machine. The main account, which had all my documents and photos, was FileVault-protected. The last thing I did before erasing the hard drive was to run one last Time Machine backup. As far as I remember, I always ran Time Machine backups with the FileVaulted user logged in.
I don't remember whether I was using FileVault 1 or 2. I had been using FileVault 1, but I installed Lion as soon as it came out and I thought I had migrated to FileVault 2 at that point.
Once I erased the hard drive and reinstalled the operating system, I browsed the Time Machine disk and, within the Users folder, there was no folder for the main user account. When I tried to reinstall everything by restoring from Time Machine backup, I'd get the option for all the user accounts, but when I tried to log in with the main one I'd get the dreaded "You are unable to log in to the FileVault user account "User" at this time. Log in failed because an error occurred." Finally, when attempting to restore from the Time Machine backup again, I noticed something strange: After the computer got to about 10% done restoring, it declared itself completed successfully and rebooted.
I've tried a number of tips that came up from questions about similar issues on the Apple support forum, but had no luck. Is there any way to get these files back? Did they ever even get backed up?
Thanks.

Hroodbwai wrote:
I can't find it! not sure what's going on but the only folder shown is the " Shared" folder.
Did you have only the one user account? If there were others, they should also be in the "Users" folder. You probably won't have access to the files inside them, but they should be there.
From what can make out, it looks like it's not backed up any of the files for the filevault account. Can't see user folder when looking through previous backups in Time Machine galaxy view.
Are you doing that from a Finder window set to your internal HD, or your computer name? It should look something like this (with the Finder in List view):
|
|
I'd been logging out and backing up manually on a regular basis.
Scheduled backups should run normally; but they won't back up the File Vault sparse bundle, nor will any run manually.
The only time it's backed-up is when you actually log out.
You should have seen this window on logout:
|
|
followed by this one:
|
|
If you didn't see the second one, or cancelled it, the account wasn't backed-up.

Restoring from Time Machine doesn't work

I am attempting to restore from Time Machine on my 13" Late 2008 MacBook, but the restore stops about halfway through.
Some background information: A few weeks ago my computer started exhibiting some weird behaviour. It would turn the disk off or log me out after a few hours (I typically sleep with it on and use at as my alarm clock). Then, apps would crash and quit unexpectedly. It would kick in the HDD when I was not using anything that required it, and the fan would turn on for no reason. Then the worst thing happened: Some days I would get the dreaded "You need to restart your computer" screen multiple times. It almost seems like a virus. The problems persist after multiple PRAM and SMC resets. Sure enough, I tried turning on my computer yesterday and it just won't even start. It would give me the Apple logo, a spinny loading indicator, and then it would give me a very slow progress bar. As soon as the progress bar gets to about one tenth of the way, the computer turns off.
I have everything backed up to a very recent Time Machine. I opened the computer in Recovery Mode and verified the disk. It needed repair. So I repaired it, and it said the repair was unsuccessful and needed to be restored. So I tried restoring it. I ended up having to erase Macintosh HD and reinstalling Lion (which thankfully I could do over the Internet). After reinstalling that, I tried "Restore from Time Machine." It got to about 30% of the restoration and then took me back to the Utilities page spontaneously. It didn't give me an alert or an error of any kind. It has done this multiple times. I may try Migration Assistant and see how that works. I know that a 4-year old MacBook is a bit of a dinosaur anyway, but the machine has been very useful and powerful for the whole time I've had it, and this is not how I'd like to see it die.
I also have a lot of important data on the Time Machine and fear that whatever afflicted my MacBook may afflict the MacBook Pro I intend to get soon, which I will load my TM onto.
Any and all help is deeply appreciated.
-Sam Taylor

I have always had problems restoring from my backups. I just replaced my hard drive and did a restore and now there are no icons in the dock (all ?'s) and I cannot click on my Applications folder in any finder window. (Oh, and the fans run constantly at top speed after being on for about 3 minutes.)
This is probably the 10th restore I've done in the past couple of years and I don't think one has worked for me.

How to restore from Time Machine WITHOUT install discs using a second Mac

It's a question that is asked repeatedly all over the web by Mac users like me that bought in to Time Machine (TM) on the assumption that if their computer died one day it would be a piece of cake to restore from it, only for that day to come and then to be told "ahh, okay the first thing is to get your computers install discs..." (loud crashing sound of world falling around ears).
I've never been able to afford a new Mac and both of my machines were bought second-hand. Neither came with Leopard (both have Tiger and have been upgraded to Leopard via the net). This was never supposed to be a problem as I've been backing up with TM. However it appears that Tiger discs are as much use as an inflatable dart board when it comes to using TM. So I've been faced with the possibility of having to spend £130 (about two hundred Pres Sheets, Yankees) on the Leopard install discs just so that I can have the option of restoring from TM. Bonkers.
However after much nashing of teeth, a very long weekend learning all sorts of things about 'Target Mode', 'Single User Mode', 'Verbose Mode', 'Open Source 9' etc the following solution has worked without the need to go out and buy those over-priced discs...
What you will need:
1 broken Mac requiring restoration
1 second donor Mac running Leopard (or Snow Leopard so long as the broken Mac can run it)
1 firewire cable with the correct fitting at either end to attach both Macs together
1 Time Machine backup
Note: The following is for when you have given up trying to boot from your hard drive. In my case I couldn't boot in to Safe Mode etc. so was forced to format my drive and re-import everything. If you've read this far I'm assuming your at the same point as well and have tried everything else that's out there first.
Also - both my Macs are Power PC's so can't run Snow Leopard, so I can't say 100% this will work with SL (Intel) machines. From what I've read Snow Leopard will work with this procedure too, but if you've found differently please feel free to add your experiences below...
STEP ONE: Format the corrupt Hard Drive or replace with a fresh HDD
*Link the two computers with a firewire.
*If you're replacing your HDD, remove your corrupted hard drive from the 'broken' machine and insert a new one.
*Power up the broken Mac whilst holding down the 'T' key. This will start it up in Target Mode and you'll get a nice firewire symbol floating around that machine's screen.
*Power up the second 'healthy' Mac. This will be our 'donor' machine. When it starts up after a few seconds you will see the hard drive of the broken Mac appear on the donor Mac's desktop.
*Using your donor Mac's 'Disc Utility', format the broken Mac's hard drive (now's the time to partition it etc. if you want to).
STEP TWO: Clone your donor Mac
Your broken Mac is no longer broken and now needs a new OS. But you don't have the discs, right? Well get this... you can clone your donor mac on to your machine, even if they are totally different i.e. a laptop on to a tower.
*Again using Disc Utility, click on your donor Mac's hard drive. The restore tab appears as an option.
*Click on restore and drag the donor Mac's hard drive that contains the operating system in to the Source box.
*Drag the newly formatted hard drive on the broken Mac in to the Destination box.
*Click restore. Your donor Mac's hard drive will now be 'cloned' on to your no-longer-broken Mac. Once this is done, eject the first Mac's hard drive from your donor Mac's desktop. You no longer need the donor Mac.
Ta daa! Your machine now starts up happy and smily again. Time to restore all that stuff that's been sat on your Time Machine drive...
STEP 3: Restore from Time Machine using Migration Assistant
This is the really clever part that prompted me to write this piece in the first place. Time Machine IS accessible without those Leopard install discs you don't have. You need to use something called 'Migration Assistant'.
*Start up your machine as normal and you'll see it is an exact clone of the donor machine. Weird huh?
*Attach your Time Machine hard drive. It will show up as an icon on the desktop and because of it's size, you'll be asked if you want to use it as a Time Machine backup. Err, NO YOU DON'T! Click 'cancel'.
*Open Migration Assistant (if you can't find it just type it in to Finder and click). There are three options, the middle one being to restore from TM or another disc. Yup, you want that one.
*Migration Assistant will now ask you what you want to restore in stages, firstly User Accounts, then folders, Apps etc. It will even import internet settings
And that's you done. Let Migration Assistant do it's thang... altogether I had about 140gb to restore, so it wasn't exactly speedy. This wasn't helped by the fact that my TM hard drive is connected via USB (yes, I know). Just leave it alone and it'll whirr happily away...
Before I go - you don't have an option of when to restore from, and will restore from the last Time Machine save. At least then you should be able to access TM and go 'backwards' if you need to.
Also - for a Mac expert, the above will be up there with 'Spot Goes To The Farm' in terms of complexity. However, for the rest of us the above is only available in fragments all over the net. By far the most common response to 'how do I restore from Time Machine without install discs' is 'you can't'. If I'd found the above information in one place I could have saved a lot of hair pulling and swearing over the last couple of days, so forgive me for sharing this workaround with the rest of the world. Meanwhile your expertise will come in very handy for the inevitable questions that will get posted below, so please feel free to help those people that won't be sure if this solution is the right one for them. I'm no expert, I just want to help people that were stuck in the same situation (and looking at the web, there's a LOT of them).
Hope this is of use to someone, thanks and *good luck*!

Most maintenance and repair, restore and install procedures require the use
of the correct OS X install DVD; be it an original machine-specific restore/install
disc set or a later retail non-specific general install disc set.
By having an unsupported system, perhaps installed via an illegal download or
other file-sharing scheme, where no retail official discs are involved and the
initial upgrade was done by other means outside of the License Agreements,
you are asking us to discuss a matter of illegal installation and use of a product.
There are no legal complete OS X system download upgrades online; only bits
that are update segments to a retail or as-shipped machine's original OS X install.
+{Or an installation where a previous owner had correct retail upgrade discs, &+
+chose to not include them with the re-sale of the computer it was installed in.}+
However, to answer the initial question. To get and use an externally enclosed
hard drive in suitable boot-capable housing, and get a free-running Clone
Utility (download online; often a donation-ware product, runs free) you can
make a bootable backup of everything in your computer to an external HDD.
This is the way to make a complete backup to restore all functions to the computer.
The Time Machine has some limits, in that it can restore only that which it saves.
It does not make a bootable clone of your entire computer system with apps and
your files, to an external drive device. A clone can. And some of the clone utility's
settings can also backup changes to an external drive's system; if that other drive
is attached to the computer correctly.
Carbon Copy Cloner, from Bombich Software; and also SuperDuper, another of
the most known software names you can download and use to clone boot-capable
system backups of your computer's hard disk drive contents, are often cited.
However you resolve the matter of the running OS X system in your computer,
derived from what appears to be questionable means, is part of the initial issue.
Since you do need to be able to fix an existing installation by unmounting the
computer's hard disk drive and run the computer from the other (install disc or
system clone) while it is Unmounted; and use the correct Disk Utility version to
help diagnose and perhaps be able to fix it. You can't use a Tiger version Disk
Utility to fix a Leopard installation, and so on.
So, the situation and replies as far as they can go (since the matter does
constitute an illegal system, if it was arrived at without correct discs) is a
limited one. And file sharing of copied Mac OS X (and other) software is
also considered illegal.
And, one way to get odd malware and unusual stuff, is to get an unauthorized
system upgrade from an illegal source online. You never know what's inside it.
The other reply was not a personal attack; the matter is of legal status and as
you have a product with a questionable system, the answer is to correct it.
And if you want to save everything in your computer, make a clone to a suitable
externally enclosed self-powered boot capable hard disk drive. With older PPC
Macs, that would best be to one with FireWire and the Oxford-type control chips.
However that works out...
Good luck & happy computing!

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.

Issues with restoring a Time Machine backup onto new Macbook Pro Retina

I recently got a new Macbook Pro Retina and I've been trying to restore a Time Machine backup made today from my old Macbook Pro laptop. I didn't restore from the first start up (foolishly, seemingly) simply because of the trivial reason of wanting to see the system all clean and new.
I've tried the Migration Assistant but it gets stuck on "looking for source..", despite having the ex.HD plugged in and double checking the existance of the backup itself on the ex.HD.
I've also tried booting the laptop up in the 'restore' mode (cmd R) and restoring from there but it sends me in a constant loop of 'this backup was from a previous model of laptop' or something to that affect. It also doesn't display the recent backups at all, only displaying those from the beginning of this year for some reason. All backups are in the same place on the ex.HD so its not an issue with locating the backups.
Really stuck on this one! Would really appreciate some help!
Thanks a lot, and merry Christmas

Yes, you can restore to another machine if needs be.

After restoring from Time Machine to new Hard drive, system will not boot

I replaced my hard drive on my Macbook (2008 model) with a larger drive. I then put in my Snow Leopard disk, and followed the steps to restore from Time Machine backup. a few hours later it said it was restored, but when trying to boot up, I just get a blue screen with an occasional flicker to the Leopard screen. I tried an earlier back up as well but with the same results. Any suggestions??

Same exact problem here just yesterday, folks.
Got a bigger hard drive on my MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo) and installed it. Followed the restore procedures from Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/333319/the-secret-of-the-time-machine+assisted-hard-drive-swa p). Then got the blue screen immediately after the chimes.
I only managed to transfer my old disk content by using CarbonCopyCloner.
Having said that, your solution looks uselful, Portland Mac! :
Portland Mac wrote:
... But when I decided to try and just do a fresh install and work my way back through all my software, I started by installing Snow Leopard and suddenly it boots and everything from my Time Machine backup is there...
But I would not say the following:
Portland Mac wrote:
... On a new drive apparently you have to install Snow Leopard before you do a time machine restore.
Am I mistaken, or did you do a fresh install after restoring your TimeMachine backup?
In any case, I found an interesting Apple article that might confirm that there is a problem: [Mac OS X v10.6: Issues after restoring a Mac from a Time Machine backup made with a different Mac ("Restore System From Backup…")|http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3243]. Or is it a completely different thing?
And another discussion that might give some good advice: [http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12578529#12578529]. Personally, I will now do as the man says: two backups, on two different external hard drives, using different apps, the other one being CarbonCopyCloner...
For info, and I don't know whether that matters, my backup disk had been full and some past content had been erased automatically by Time Machine. But I don't think this should have mattered...

3 days to restore from time machine?

Has anyone done a complete restore from time machine? Hw long did it take?
I started a restore from tme machine which said it was 465gB. When it started it said 72 hours. Does that's hound right? 3 days to do a restore?
I read where time machine will check memory and hard drive before it restores, which may add more time, but as I think back to the pre-time machine days, it would be 8 to 12 hours for a secto check of my HD, then maybe, if memory serves me, another 8 to 12 hours to use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to transfer all the data back. A few months after I went to Time Machine I stopped the CCC or SD backups, only using them for new system upgrade. Now I have been relying completely onTM. It has saved me well in finding things from times past, but this is my first time doing a restor from Mountain nLion Restore.
My computer is connected directly to my time machine drive via Ethernet.
If this 3 day restore is normal for 465GB HD then fine, I will wait, but if others have had it finish quicker, then I am doing something wrong or there may be other problems with my machine.
Thanks in advance for sharing your insight.

Email isn't restored from a backup like contacts and Camera roll photos. To be sure iCloud still has your email, log into your account using a computer's browser (icloud.com) and then look at the Mail page. Are any emails there? If not, then you or someone with access to your iCloud account has deleted them. Let us know what you find out.

Restoring with Time Machine help!!!

I have searched for many hours for an answer to my problem to no avail. I have seen multiple discussions on here about this issue, but none seem quiet the same.
I use an Intel iMac, 500GB, Snow leopard, and all the most current updates.
While trying to cmd+q Safari from the ESPN fantasy page I received the spinning rainbow ball. I gave it about ten minutes to quit and nothing. I tried to key a force quit and nothing. So I then did a hard reset pressing the power button. Once it restarted the screen froze on the grey startup and seconds later gave me the Folder with a question mark icon flashing. I found the Snow Leopard install disc and put it in to restart. I restarted and held "c" while doing so.
Mac OS X Installer appears and I follow it to a point where I can select >utilities and select disk utility or restart from back up.
I first tried to use my Time Machine backups that are stored on a Lacie 1TB external, but I receive a message that "this disk does have enough space." I tried selecting all the way back a year ago when I started using it to restore. No luck.
Next I tried going to the >utilities >disk utility selection and it only shows the install cd and a hard disk labeled "Media" but in the Total cpacity: it reads 0 Bytes. I don't know where to go from there.
Now I am am deleting the back ups from August 1, 2010 and before to try and free up space and attempt a restore with Time Machine.
Does anyone have any ideas or solutions or anything. I have 120GB of music, CS5, Logic Pro 9, Office, and many other programs all at risk. Yes, I paid for all of them. I just don't have time to spend installing it all again, especially when some of my work depends on them.
Tragic, huh!
Thank you
Chuck

CSmith615 wrote:
Okay, so I have mentioned this twice, in both post that I have written, the hard drive is not showing in the disk utilities,
Yes, I understand you can't see the +*internal HD.+* I advised you to do a +*repair disk+* on your backups.
Tell me that there is nothing I could have done, that it was on the verge of crashing since it was probably under a lot of stress.
Correct; other than dropping your Mac or having it zapped by a power surge, you didn't break the internal HD.
I have already erased some of the backups from August 1 2010 and before. I still have from this past sunday, 21st until August 2nd. Please elaborate how it will corrupt the backups. I plugged the external into my macbook pro and trashed those backups mentioned before.
The message you were getting was that there wasn't enough space on the internal (since it showed zero), not the backups.
If you did that via the Finder or Terminal, they may be corrupted.
Unfortunately, Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks not to do that.
You shouldn't have to delete things there, since Time Machine will do it automatically when the disk gets full. But if you want or need to, you can do it via Time Machine without harm. See #12 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).
So, repair them per #A5 in [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). If they're ok, or can be repaired, your best bet when you get your Mac back is to do a full system restore, per #14 in the FAQ.

27 hours to restore my Time Machine?? Really??

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