2nd External Drive - how to restore from Time Machine backup?
I have had Time Machine configured to back up my photos and videos on an external drive. My Time Machine backup is a separate drive attached to my MacBook by FireWire. I have Leopard OS. I have in the past successfully retrieved deleted photos from the Time Machine backups using iPhoto.
Now, unfortunately, the external drive with the photos and videos has developed a problem (possibly power-related) so that my MacBook no longer recognizes that drive. Obviously, this means that iPhoto can't find/open that photo library. Which means that iPhoto can't access the backup via Time Machine. Help! The photos must surely be on the Time Machine backup but I can't figure out any way to retrieve them.
callipygia600,
This one's easy. Purchase a new drive to replace the one that went "belly up." Format (erase) it using Mac OS Extended, and give the volume that will be created the exact same name as the bad drive. Navigate into the new (empty) volume in the Finder, then open Time Machine from the Dock.
You should be able to navigate "back in time" and see the backed up contents. Select everything you see, and click "Restore." It will all be restored to your new external drive. The key is to use the same name for the new drive.
In the meantime, your backup can be accessed in the Finder if necessary. Using the Finder, navigate into the "Backups.backupdb" folder on the backup drive, then into the latest backup. You will see one folder named for your startup disk, and another named for your secondary/external volume. Within that second folder you will find the items that were stored on the bad drive. You can safely copy these to another volume using the Finder, but do not attempt to move or modify them otherwise (do what you like with the copies).
Scott
Similar Messages
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Does it really back up the whole new drive or does it only back up what's been added? It seemed like it was doing the whole thing when I tried it. I stopped it. Don't want to use up all the space on my external. Is there something else I need to do or did I mess up by not doing the migrating thing? thanks!
If you installed a new hard drive, it has nothing on it and yes TimeMachine is going to take forever to restore everything back.
I guess you'll have to erase and start over again now.
Too bad, you should have made bootable clones in addition to TimeMachine, they can restore in a hour or two depending upon content, they are also option key bootable.
TimeMachine has to go through and calculate all the files it needs to bring forward, the files are strewn all over the drive. The read heads are moving all over the platters all the time from fast sectors to slow ones, not matching what's occuring on the internal drive.
With a clone the files are defragmented and optimized, the drive reads one file, moves the heads a tiny bit and reads the next all the while transferring exactly to the internal drive, they are more in step with one another, thus it's much faster restoring from a clone than TM.
Most commonly used backup methods -
How to restore from Time Machine Backup?
I've used CleanMyMac to remove Aperture from MBP today. I think, that this almost destroyed my Mac. It seems that some fonts are missing, since some of the alert messages seems very strange. Further the dock is not appearing and generally it works very slow.
I need to restore my Mac from the lastest backup. Unfortunately, I do not have a Snow Leopard disc and cannot use the "Restore System from Backup" utility: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15638.html
Will I need to get a Snow Leopard disc or are there other ways to do this?Good call.
Very strange event here. I was replying to an alleged current post on Bootcamp or MacBook pro sections of these forums.
Might something from "The Twilight Zone" and it isn't even close to Halloween yet.
More likely an iCloud "brain ****" event which we will have to become familiar with. -
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. -
Can't restore from Time Machine backup error message
My hard drive on my Macbook failed a few days ago. Just makes a clanking noise and won't boot up etc... I installed a new drive, formatted it, and selected restore from Time Machine backup from the installer screen. It started restoring from my backup I had on an external drive and everything was fine untill it got about 6% done then get a message that says "An error occured when restoring from the backup" It is pretty non descriptive. It also says please restart your system and try again or something to that effect. I tried again, same problem. When I try to copy files over manually I eventually gets some error that says there is a problem with a file and it will quit. Any ideas on how to get my data? I can see all my files on there, but can't get them. My backup disc is just used for backup on this one machine nothing else, so it shouldn't have a problem. Help!
Good to hear MA is doing something!
>I have never had much luck with Time Machine...
Same here, not one good backup or restore, can't tell which.
You can set any of these to Clone/Update as often as you wish...
Carbon copy cloner...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/products/tribackup.html -
Duplicate Admin accounts on restoring from Time Machine backup
I need help to remove duplicate accounts, created after restore from Time Machine Backup.
Here is the situation:
1. I was running SL on a Mac Pro with Time Machine backup. I had 5 User Accounts on the Login Window: Shared (Admin account), Dear Wife (DW, also Admin), Kid1 (managed), Kid2 (managed) and Guest (standard), and two 750 GB hard drives, HD1 and HD2.
2. Mac Pro would not boot past the Apple logo with spinning icon.
3. After talking to with Apple Support, it turned out that HD1 had crashed. I took it in to the Genius Bar, where they checked and confirmed HD1 crash and took it in for repair.
4. Apple replaced HD1 and reinstalled SL.
5. I picked up the Mac Pro. At home I reconnected TM and restarted.
6. Upon restart, I clicked on restore from TM backup and there was only 1 TM backup visible to select. After several hours of Transferring Information, about 700 GB was restored
7. Upon finishing restore, I saw the same Login Window as before crash, with the same 5 accounts - Shared, DW, Kid1, Kid2, Guest.
8. Issue: From the Login Window, logging into Shared and clicking on HD1>Users, I now see: Home Icon with Shared1, and four additional folders: Shared, DW, Kid1, Kid2
It seems I now have duplicate Shared accounts in the User folder - Shared1 with the Home icon, and a separate folder with name Shared.
I cannot "Move to Trash" Shared, since I get the message: “Shared” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X.
When I go into System Prefs>Accounts: I see My Account: Shared, and Other Accounts: DW, Kid1, Kid2, Guest. After unlocking the accounts, and right clicking on Shared for Advanced Options, I see:
User: "Shared"
-- Account Name: shared
-- Home Directory:/Users/shared1
Question: How do I consolidate or get rid of the duplicate Shared/Shared1 account? I have 350 GB of video/pictures/music in each of these accounts, which is unnecessarily eating up the new HD1.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!I solved the duplicate account problem.
I had used Setup Assistant to restore from TM Backup and that gave me the duplicate accounts, i.e., method used was:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/19.html
After carefully reading Pondini's FAQs, I instead used the Restore and install Method, i.e.,
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/14.html
No duplicate accounts anymore, problem solved. -
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:
|
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If you didn't see the second one, or cancelled it, the account wasn't backed-up. -
i cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac with time machine no option appears if i reinstall from Mac OSX error comes and cannot able to recover from disk utility please help how can i reinstall mac OSX
Guitar21,
your MacBook Pro has booted into its Recovery mode. From the OS X Utilities menu, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Does it get to the login screen now? -
Disk Repair reported that it could not repair the HD Disk. I am to reformat the disk and restore backed up files. OSX Utilities give me a choice of restoring from time machine backup (which I have on MyPassport) but no information on reformatting the disk, which I assume I have to do first. How do I reformat the HD ...or does the restore from Time Machine do both things?
Boot OS X Recovery and use Disk Utility.
If Disk Utility reported the disk cannot be repaired though, you should replace it with a new one. -
How to restore a Time machine backup and get a recovery partition?
Hi,
I'm quite confused!
I restored from a Time Machine backup and then setup boot camp (and removed that partition a while back) and now I don't have a recovery partition. (Can't enable File Vault and
bash-3.2# diskutil list /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 87.4 GB disk0s2
My new MacBook Pro didn't come with any CDs.
Apparently I need the recovery partition to reinstall Lion from the internet.
"Recovery HD offers on-disk recovery tools, allows you to restore from Time Machine backups, reinstall OS X Lion over the Internet..."
The recommended solution from Apple seems to be reinstall with your OSX 10.6 CD (which I don't have) and then upgrade to Lion (which seems like a PITA).
Info from : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4649
What process should I follow to restore my recovery partition and apply the current state of the machine from a backup?
(the process should not involve anything I don't have, like USB memory sticks, Lion CDs, etc....)
Supplementary questions which are only relevant if the answer is "you can't" (which would seem to be a major bug!) :
Or is there a clever method to install a recovery partition onto an existing disk (which clearly has space for it)? I have searched for it but all the results I found have either not mentioned that it works without reinstalling but look like it's needed, or do say "reinstall".
If I install Lion to an external disk, can I boot from that and use the recovery disk assistant tool to restore the partition to my internal disk? (Which I assume I'll need to do to get FileVault to work) ?
Thanks,
MaxMaxs-MacBook-Pro:Applications max$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 87.4 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *136.2 MB disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI 2.0 KB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS Recovery Disk Assistant 136.2 MB disk2s3 -
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.
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My MacBook Pro recently shut down on me all of a sudden. When I restarted it, it popped up with a gray box with 'OS X Utilities,' then listed various options such as 1. restore from time machine backup, 2. reinstall OS X, 3. get help online and 4. disk utility. what do I do now? I have not backed up to Time Machine in a few days, so I'm not sure I should restore from time machine backup, is there something else I can do? Help!
Guitar21,
your MacBook Pro has booted into its Recovery mode. From the OS X Utilities menu, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Does it get to the login screen now? -
I had to restart by resetting the NVRAM/PRAM. Now I have a window showing OS X Utilities. My options are restore from Time Machine Backup (which I could do), Disk Utility to repair or erase, get help online or reinstall OS X. What should I do? The problem began when I tried to restart my computer and the only thing I saw was the grey screen, Apple logo, and the timer; the computer wouldn't restart from there.
I searched through trouble shooting options on the Apple Support page and was able to make it this far.
-
How to restore from Time Machine onto an external drive
Hi all,
I am a backup freak, and I don't feel entirely safe with Time Machine taking care of backing up my system unless I can test every now and then that I would be able to do a full restore. I've had problems in the past with .Mac/MobileMe's Backup.app, which would not be able to restore from an otherwise apparently successful backup, for one reason or another.
So, is there a way to test a full restore from Time Machine onto an external hard drive?
Thanks for your adviceAllamistakeo wrote:
Hi all,
I am a backup freak, and I don't feel entirely safe with Time Machine taking care of backing up my system unless I can test every now and then that I would be able to do a full restore. I've had problems in the past with .Mac/MobileMe's Backup.app, which would not be able to restore from an otherwise apparently successful backup, for one reason or another.
So, is there a way to test a full restore from Time Machine onto an external hard drive?
of course. connect an external, boot from the snow leopard DVD and choose "restore system from backup" from the utilities menu. follow the instructions and choose the external drive as the restore destination. make sure it's properly formatted. it should be formatted mac os extended with GUID partition scheme.
also, you might want to consider doing secondary backups in addition to TM by making a bootable clone on another external drive. use CCCloner or Superduper for such backups.
Thanks for your advice -
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!
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