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.

Similar Messages

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.

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

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, etc. what do I do now?

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 have a late 2006 iMac that has just started giving me a message to reboot after a black screen comes down slowly from the top top of the screen to the bottom. I reloaded software and restored from Time Machine, it now happens frequently. Any insight?

I have a late 2006 iMac that has just started giving me a message to reboot after a black screen comes down slowly from the top top of the screen to the bottom. I reloaded software and restored from Time Machine, but it keeps happening, now several tomes a day. Any insight as to the issue or a proposed solution?

Unplug any peripherals you have except your keyboard, reboot, and check activity monitor for apps. Keep running apps to a minimum to find the App causing the issue.

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.

Cannot restore from time machine

I installed a new SSD into my late 2012 mac mini along with the current HDD. Turned it on formatted the SSD and everything work fine. Next I wanted to transfer OSX and applications to SSD and use HDD for just storage. I backed up using time machine. I looked into a few different was to transfer OS. DIsk utility was wanting to create a fusion drive from the 2 drive. I went with this option.
It wiped the drives and made a new single storage group. I tried restoring from time machine a couple of times but this would not work saying: 'An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk' I went back into disk utility and checked the disks. Repaired the errors it said and tried again. Did not work.
Next I tried deleting the disk again and installing Mountain Lion from scratch from the internet option in recovery mode. This took I long time and got as far as nearly installing osx but got stuck on 15 mins remaining. I left this all day while I was at work.
Tried doing this a second time and it started downloading from the internet again but something must have gone wrong because when I came back it was back in recovery mode screen.
So not sure what else I can try to get this fixed. There is a suggestion online that this is a known problem with Mountain Lion and 2012 machines, but that doesn't really help me get working agian. The only other thing I can think of trying is un-fusioning the 2 drives and trying to install on just one to see if this works.
Does anyone else have any other steps to try?

Some drive partition configurations can result in the OS X Installer reporting that it cannot create a Recovery System. If this happens, you might want to quit the installation and create an external OS X hard drive with a Recovery System first. You can continue installing OS X on your computer's startup drive after creating an external Recovery System.
Where did yo install the SSD? Lower bay (one nearest the bottom cover) or the uppter bay (normally empty on single drive Mini?
Some users have reported problem with an SSD in the upper bay. Maybe because of the new cable or because of that SATA bus.
Try installing the SSD in the lower bay iff it is not there. Also if yo do not want a Fusion drive, disconnect the HD during the install if the SSD has enough space for the TM backup

So if my restore from time machine is my comp like new again?

so my computer is running very slow, if i erase and re-install the os from the cd and restore from time machine wont my computer run like new again? do i even need to re-install the os from the cd?

If you restore your entire system, it will be as slow as it was the day of the backup.
You should try to find out what's slowing your computer instead of re-installing. You will just probably re-install the source of your problem as well and wasting your time.

Cannot restore from Time Machine since upgrade to 10.7.3

I am using a Mac Mini (Mid 2010) using the 2nd HD for backups of Time Machine.
Yesterday, the Mac could not start up and always stop at the First Aid panel (which contains i) an option for restoring from time machine, ii) reinstall Lion, iii) help online ... Whenever I choose restore from backups, the Mac was frozen at the multiple language choice panel. So, I have to reinstall OS Lion. It's successful. Then I restore from backups in 2nd HD and the strange thing happens. It doesn't matter what version of backup I choose, it appears that the contents in my wiki is updated only to March 2012. When I browse the Time Machine, it's really a surprise that I update 10.7.3 by the end of March 2012. Since then, despite the fact that the backups run regularly and backups versions appear in Time Machine, the contents of my wiki (which is added and modified everyday) are not updated. All backups under 10.7.2 are okay.
Can anyone know about this problem?
Best regards,

Well, I know about the problem but do not know a solution I am afraid. I had the same problem where the wiki, calendar and addressbook were a couple of months old after a restore from time machine two weeks ago. I did not relate this to the upgrade to 10.7.3, but that could easily be the case. I never did time machine restores before.
I was able to restore calendars from client side time machine backups (a lot of work), but the wiki I could not restore to an up-to-date version. My guess is that files were restored correctly, but not the postgresql databases. So I started to make daily backups from postgresql myself now. This post helped me with that:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17008934#17008934
Another thing I started doing was creating a bootable clone on a usb disk with carbon copy cloner, which is incrementally updated twice a day now.
But I hope that Apple will fix this in an upcoming update. I would be nice if you could rely on Time Machine backups.

Complete restore from time machine backup,

My mac was stolen and cleverly recovered. Basically the thief uploaded all there contact's and used my calender which unknown to them updated to my Mobile Me account. Very lucky! this allowed me to track it down!
Now I have it back I want to restore to my last time machine backup
I don't want to (unless I have to) reinstall the OS as there is nothing wrong with it, but I do just want my Mac back how it was the day it go nicked (I have a backup a few hours before it went)
The thief deleted my account's pictures some software lots of thing.
Thanks for your help on this - Very lucky to get it back!
What a stupid theif lol
A good tip for anybody with mobile me!

http://duncandavidson.com/2008/01/restoring-from-time-machine.html

Lost mail rules when upgrading to ML, can't restore from time machine

Hi,
I've installed mountain lion and restored from time machine and mail rules were not there. There's only news from apple.
I tried to restore the rules myself (MessageRules.plist and MessageRules.plist.backup) but when opening mail rules were not there yet. Nevertheless, i can add rules manually, so if there was a way of looking at the past rules I could just copy them (though it's not the best way).

My rules are still there, so perhaps Apple support speak with resource forked tongue.
Comparing an old (pre ML) rules file from 20th June with the ML one, the differences are:
The file name was: MessageRules.plist, the ML one is SynchedRules.plist. Both are in my V2 folder, but the old Rules have been copied (by Mail, not me) into the new SynchedRules file.
In the old file, for each item (Rule) the first line was Active (Key) String (Type) 1 (Value). In the ML file, this line is no longer there, so the first line is AllCriteriaMustBeSatisfied.
You can see these differnces in the "preview" part of Finder Show Info, if you have the two files to compare.
Thus, just copying and renaming the old Rules file probably won't work, because of this difference. Mail probably just makes a new file because the copied file isn't as expected. It should be possible to edit the old plist file to remove the "Active" line, and rename it to SynchedRules.plist (but see below). The top is slightly different, just below <dict>, as this relates to the Active line. There are a couple of lines at the bottom that aren't in the new file.
The "Active" line that has gone is now in a file called RulesActiveState.plist. This file is just a list of RuleIds from the SynchedRules.plist (like this:
AC6F6611-FF61-4AA6-9682-BA100EFAC233)
Doing this does sound rather tedious, but might be quicker than manually re-entering blocked email addresses etc. to replicate old rules. As plist files are in xml format, it should be possible to use a text editor to delete the unwanted "Active" line from the message rules list by Find & Replace All (with nothing). All this could then be copied to the "SynchedRules.plist. You would need to copy the RuleIds into the RulesActiveState.plist as well.
Make a copy of the files first just in case...

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):
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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:
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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.

Quirks and problems after a restore from Time Machine

I had need to restore from Time Machine. It did the job, but it wasn't as easy as restoring from SuperDuper. Apple iTunes Store passwords and iTunes registrations were all lost, requiring me to re-enter passwords for the various users' authorizations to play music (and burning a user on each of those accounts.)
As I used the restored system, there were several things that weren't quite right and had to be fixed as I encountered them. One persistent issue is that Safari cookies aren't working. For all the sites that had cookies to recognize me and log me in, the cookies no longer work. I have to log into the sites on each visit now. It will remember nothing.
Is there a general purpose restore tonic that will fix all these quirks?
I'm thinking of going back to SuperDuper and just set it up back up to a different volume each night for a week to have a full week's worth and skip this Time Machine mess.

In Safari, some of that password stuff is indeed handled by cookies from the various sites, but a lot of it is actually handled by the "autofill" function which fills in form fields (in this case name and password) with whatever you last used there -- independent of any cookies.
While running Safari, go to Safari / Preferences... Go to Security. Be sure that you are allowing cookies to be received in the first place.
Then go to Autofill. See if you have the item checked to allow recording and automatic filling of "User names and passwords". You can edit the list of them to see what's currently in there.
If this doesn't do it for you, you might want to try selecting Safari / Reset Safari... from the menu bar. The panel will allow you to select which data items to reset.

3 days to restore from time machine?

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