After Migration Assistant, Time Machine refuses to use old backups

I've got to say I'm pretty disappointed with Time Machine.
I just dropped $2,000 on my second-ever Mac, a 15" MBP (Core i7 2GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 5200rpm hard drive, the stock low-end 15" config). From what I'd heard about Migration Assistant, I believed it would easily move my stuff over to my new Mac. For the most part it did, but a few things didn't transfer. Other posts on the topic detail them accurately - Desktop icon layouts, some settings, Growl, etc.
I told Migration Assistant to use my Time Machine backups, which have been happening without incident for a long time. My oldest backup is December 2010.
Now that my new MBP is about 99% set up like my old MBP, I am having a problem with Time Machine.
I get the error "Time Machine could not complete the backup. This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 355.61 GB but only 176.44 GB are available."
Looking at the Time Machine drive in Finder, I found that Time Machine is trying to create a new folder for backups and do a full backup. Where there was once one folder, "[My Name]'s MacBook Pro," there is now an additional folder, "[My Name]'s MacBook Pro 2." Time Machine is trying to back up into that second directory.
Now, I get it that this is a different computer. But really, if I use Migration Assistant to restore my Time Machine backup, I think it would be safe for OSX to assume that I want to continue using those backups. What is especially disappointing for me is, there were things that Migration Assistant did not restore properly. I probably haven't found them all. That makes it CRUCIAL that I have my Time Machine backups, but it seems that Apple thinks it's perfectly normal for me to want to FORMAT my Time Machine drive after Migration Assistant did a half-*** job of migrating my data. I need those backups now more than ever.
I do also have an online backup, but I still don't feel very comfortable destroying six months of local backups just to make Time Machine work again. Both MBPs were running the same (latest) version of Snow Leopard, so it stands to reason all that needs to happen is a very small incremental backup.
I have been Googling for hours. All I've found is a procedure for 10.5 that doesn't work in 10.6 where I get down into the Terminal and change a MAC address in a file on the Time Machine volume. But that's it. In fact it seems like there's no answer.
Come on Apple, you do everything else better than the competition. Why do I have to nuke six months of backups or buy a new 2TB external drive to make Time Machine work again? I assure you I want to continue making incremental backups against my old Time Machine backups, and promise to hold you not responsible should I screw something up by grabbing an old system file or something from February.
Would appreciate any help anyone could offer.

Did you use Setup Assistant when your new Mac first started up, or skip that, create a user account, then use the Migration Assistant app in your Applications/Utilties folder?
If you used Setup Assistant, when you started your first backup you should have gotten the message in #B5 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It sounds like you didn't (or chose Start New Backup). And no, the Leopard procedure doesn't work on Snow Leopard. That's what #B5 is for.
Usually, if you use Setup Assistant, Time Machine will still say it's going to do a full backup, and make room for it, but actually do an incremental backup (very, very slowly).
Either way, it usually deletes a lot of old backups. We're hoping that will be fixed in Lion.
Once it's decide to make a new backup, there's no known way to prevent it.

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(1) Once you've migrated, Time Machine itself seems to be a little confused and future backups may fail. You might have to start again by changing to a new Time Machine disk on your new laptop. You may lose your older backups, it's not yet clear to me.
(2) You can't restore from a previous backup during the migration, only the most recent one. (You can restore from an older backup using tools on the install CD if you need to.) I suspect this won't be an issue for you.
(3) Migration Assistant once you've logged in a Migration Assistant while you're starting up a new machine seem to work slightly differently. For example, sometimes the newest copy of the applications in your Applications folder (say, iMovie) is preserved, sometimes it makes an exact restore of the old Applications folder even if it's an older version of the application.
Overall it's been a pretty good experience, and what you want to do does work, but be prepared for the possibility of some issues. I tried this back in 10.5.0 a few months ago and had a lot of problems, things seem better now under 10.5.2.
- Ert

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But what can I cut and paste? the html code or image and text directly?
depend on which template you used.
if you use iweb photos page template then you need to search for my photos page solutions in this forum.
@ot: cut and paste from the online version
@rw: You can drag an image from the website to the Desktop
have your try your methods in iweb photos page?

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He also has some info on this problem. eg C13.

Time machine has deleted all old backups

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Time Machine will not delete your old backups unless it starts to run out of space on the hard drive......or.....your backups have become corrupted and Time Machine cannot repair them.
In the latter case, a message like this will appear on your screen:
Do you recall seeing this message recently?

Time Machine won't use existing backup folder

Time machine gave me the can't find back up drive error. I did what the support site says, went into the preferences, and reselected the appropriate drive, but now it won't use the existing backup folder. It keeps making a new one called 'user's MacBook Pro 2'. How do I force it to use the old folder, so that I can access my old back-ups?

gilesrulz,
First, you need to determine WHY it's not choosing to continue using the previous backups.
Has your computer changed in some way? Logic board replaced by Apple?
You reinstalled the Mac OS X system software?
*_Time Machine Always Performs a Full Backup After a Full Restore_*
Actually, this is normal. Anytime your hardware has changed, or you have reinstalled the operating system again, Time Machine will perform a new full backup. Consider the following according to the KB article below:
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338]
So even on unchanged hardware, if you reinstall your system software and restore your user data, Time Machine starts anew, and you will not be able to resume backing up with the same history as the previous backups.
While there may be ways to fool/hack Time Machine into recognizing previous backups without performing another full backup, they are likely rather elaborate.
Ultimately, though, in a couple of months, all the effort to preserve old backups may seem pointless. After all, Time Machine will eventually purge away that data anyways as it replaces it with new files.
It may simply be easier to begin a fresh series of backups while saving the previous backups until your satisfied that you have enough history built up. Then delete the old backups.
Hope this clarifies some things.
Cheers!

Time machine restores a really old backup!

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Hello again:
That would be the only way to see if a corrupt preference file causes your problem.
FWIW, I have not seen any other post with a problem like the one you describe. Something in your system is causing the issue - what, I do not know.
There are other things that could be attempted, but they would take quite a bit of your time.
Barry

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Permission issues after Snow Leopard clean install, Migration Assistant+Time Machine restore.

Hello, here's the situation.
I've done a clean install, for various reasons, I've got backups including one done just before the clean install. Following directions somewhere else I set up a user account called "test" just for the purposes of reimporting PART of my old system, since one of the reasons I did the clean install was to clean up my system (get rid of all those little ghosts of old programs, the old programs themselves, files and settings I not longer want etc.) so I didn't want to just import the whole thing. So I imported just the user account and a few folders such as music and photos that I knew I wanted back on. Then I restarted so that it would log back into my old user account that's been restored using Migration assistant. So far so good. I enter time machine and start restoring Applicatons, their associated support files, a few preference panes, some other files and folders I want back on, so and and so forth. Then I enter my old home folder and see that many of the subfolders I don't have access to, I check their permissions with Get Info and see that read/write access has been granted to my test account, which is ridiculous since it didn't exist when they were backed up. Some searching reveals that on the first Time Machine back-up after a restore like this it should as at the start whether I want to inherit he old backups, so I tell Time machine to do a backup, figure that it shouldn't take much, seeing as there's nothing new, and I've put it all in the same place as in the backup. It doen't give me any such prompt, instead just starts indexing/preparing hundreds of thousands of files, and tells me that the backup should take about 135 gb of space. I stop the backup, give up on working this out myself, and come here. Help?
Of note
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Migration from iMac to Macbook Pro using Migration Assistant / Time Machine

Dear all:
I have an iMac, Intel Core 2 Duo, with the latest Leopard version running. I have made a complete backup of my data on an external hard drive using Time Machine (only approx. 90 GB). I will be in New York next week and would like to buy a Macbook Pro. On the Apple website I found the following information regarding Time Machine:
"Migration with style.
To make setting up a new Mac even simpler, Time Machine shares its data with other Mac utilities. Use Migration Assistant to copy portions of any Time Machine backup to a new Mac, or select “Restore System from Time Machine” in the Leopard DVD Utilities menu. Choose any date recorded in Time Machine to set up your new Mac exactly as your previous Mac was on that date."
Is it really so easy? I only have to make a Time Machine backup of my iMac to the external HD, buy a Macbook Pro, plugin the external HD the Macbook Pro, start the Migration Assistant, choose the latest Time Machine backup from the external HD and set up the new Macbook Pro with all settings and applications? Really? If yes, that would be awesome!
Has anyone of you guys done this procedure in the past?
Suggestions and comments are welcome!
Regards,
Tobias

I've been working through this procedure this week. It's pretty good, and when it works it appears to work quite well, but there's still some bumps in the road:
(1) Once you've migrated, Time Machine itself seems to be a little confused and future backups may fail. You might have to start again by changing to a new Time Machine disk on your new laptop. You may lose your older backups, it's not yet clear to me.
(2) You can't restore from a previous backup during the migration, only the most recent one. (You can restore from an older backup using tools on the install CD if you need to.) I suspect this won't be an issue for you.
(3) Migration Assistant once you've logged in a Migration Assistant while you're starting up a new machine seem to work slightly differently. For example, sometimes the newest copy of the applications in your Applications folder (say, iMovie) is preserved, sometimes it makes an exact restore of the old Applications folder even if it's an older version of the application.
Overall it's been a pretty good experience, and what you want to do does work, but be prepared for the possibility of some issues. I tried this back in 10.5.0 a few months ago and had a lot of problems, things seem better now under 10.5.2.
- Ert

Problem after migration from time machine

I recently changed the hard disk in my macbook to a bigger one,
and then used migration assistant and my time machine backup to restore the system.
Everything seems to work just fine except aperture.
about 90% of my projects do not show any thumbnails, just outlined gray boxes with a file name
when I click on them I get to see the photo in question but when I click "show master" aperture says "master image offline" (and does not show the photo anymore)
my Library is referenced and the masters are located on the computers hard disk itself (not on an external one) and they are all there !
(i.e. they were perfectly transfered from time machine)
when I first opened aperture after the migration I got a message that the library was corrupted, I clicked repair and this produced a recovered folder
with a recovered project which as far as I can see is empty ?
I tried the 3 trouble shooting tools (repair permissions, repair database and rebuild database) none of which changed anything
I was going to try to restore the library file from time machine but now time machine says that I do not have permission to acces the pictures folder !?
(at least not on any backup older than the last one, which was done after the system was migrated)
I am starting to get stuck here, I found several references online to the same problem but no real solution.
Any ideas?

OK, so I did a clean install of snow leopard from the installation DVD and then used setup assistant to restore from time machine.
Since time machine had already made backups after I migrated for the first time it basically restored the system
to its previous state (with aperture not working properly), it did however restore the admin account which I had already deleted.
This allowed me to access my older time machine backups.
When I tried to restore the aperture library file (after first deleting the current one and emptying the trash)
I got a window saying copying 0kb from 10,68GB that just hung there
after checking my user account I found an aperture library file of about 6GB, I deleted this and did the restore again and let the window saying copying 0kb of 10,68GB run for half an hour, I then found an aperture library file in my account of 11GB. I opened aperture and guess what? exactly the same as before! no thumbnails and no access to masters except for about 10 projects (in fact every time I try this aperture makes previews for exactly 608 photos !?
I might try to copy the libary file from the old hard disk if I find something to mount it, but I am starting tho think that i will just have to reimport the entire library, and forget about the versions and be thankfull that I at least saved the masters :-(

Migration assistant + time machine error

Hi,
I just bought a new iMac 24" and was trying to migrate my data over. Upon starting the iMac, I chose the option of restoring using "time machine" backup. Migration assistant found my backup and I chose that and after a "calculation space" screen it started transferring the data over but it never ends. At the end of the whole process, the "progress" screen (with the progress bar) and the statement saying "Less than 1 minute to completion" (or something to that extant), it just stays there. Nothing happens, it says it is "moving files to link applications". I've done this 3 times, and the last was with a clean install of Leopard using the restore disc. All of them gave the same problem, at first I thought it was a time calculation error but after leaving the 3rd installation alone for 3 hours and it was still stuck on that screen, I think the system hung.
What is wrong?
The backup is on a partitioned 1TB firewire 800 HDD.
Any help would be appreciated.
Desmond

The exact error message when I select the Time Machine backup (which is displayed with yellow triangle on the hard disk) is 'Volume contains an OS X installation which may be damaged.'
The older iMac has the system on the built-in SSD and the applications and files on the internal hard disk whereas the new iMac is a fusion drive. I wonder if this is what the problem is, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that someone in a similar situation was able to use the migration assistant without any problem (can't find it now, though).

Migration assistant; Time Machine; extra external HD

Hello all!!!
I just got a new MacBP and I would like to migrate all my files/settings to my new one from my old one via Time machine back up.
My set up as of now is this: I have a external HD that I include in my TM backup and a HD exclusivly for TM backup (total of 2 external HD's).
Should I connect the exteral HD and the Time machine HD to the new MBP when I use Migration assitant or just my TM backup?
It makes sence not to connect my HD since I'm not messing with my external HD to migrate; all i'm moving is are my settings, apps, and files (all) that are in my TM backup.
Thanks
Eric

Good. In that case you can do the following:
Start up the new computer which will boot to the Setup Assistant.
Connect your Time Machine backup drive to the computer. Use Firewire if possible because it will be faster than USB.
Complete the registration in Setup Assistant.
You will get a screen in which you can opt to restore from a TM backup. Select that option.
Follow instructions for migrating your Home folder, third-party applications and support files, and system preferences.
Upon completion of the migration process you should be logged into your migrated account.
Also, see:
How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac
Migration Assistant tips and tricks
OS X Lion- How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

HT4889 Apple Store changed hard disc - created user account ("User"). I ran migration assistant / time machine. All files migrated but on "User" I can't open them. Help!

I changed my Seagate 1 Tb hard disc under the Apple Exchange Program.I received the iMac and the Apple Store created a new account on my iMac ("User"). I connected the Time Machine and ran the migration assistant. All files etc. have migrated. I can see the Macintosh HD and my old user account but am not allowed to open them. How can I get back to my old settings etc.?

what is the message that you get when you try to open a file?
1. You can try to change the permissions to see if they will allow you to write to the file(s).
2. Naviagte to your Home folder Macintosh HD-->Users-->Username and press command+i to get info and on the bottom of the screen click on the lock and unlock the security check, remove your current username and then re-add it and next to the minus symbol click and select apply to enclosed folders

After Migration Assistant, Time Machine refuses to use old backups

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