Bootable Time Machine Restore Disks

My data protection philosophy is one does not need a backup system; one needs a foolproof and tested restore system. So I talk about restore volumes, not backup volumes.
I followed PlotinusVeritas' advice and purchased Carbon Copy Cloner to create a clone of my internal storage as my fourth restore disk. Great advice. I will keep this cloned volume offsite as a medium-term archive. Having used CCC for cloning I now use it for a different purpose. I do not need a bootable clone onsite for my emergency restores.
New procedure: Each Time Machine disk can be bootable if one runs CCC on them to prepare them with a bootable recovery partition upon initialization. This simple innovation avoids the need of keeping around a cloned disk with its recovery partition. My onsite, bootable restore disks will be up-to-date as of the last TM snapshot.
If I used a cloned disk as an emergency quickly-bootable volume, the changes between the clone time and the last TM snapshot would be lost. For me, this loss of data is not worth saving the few hours of TM restore time to get back on my feet after an system volume failure.
How might one easily create a bootable recovery partition without using CCC or other for-fee utilities?
P.S. Creating bootable recovery partitions on freshly reformatted TM restore disks should be a standard TM feature (a la CCC). I will submit feedback to ask for this change.
P.P.S I tested restoring from my bootable TM restore disk. I booted from the TM disk's recovery partition. I selected that disk's TM volume as the source and a freshly formatted external disk as the destination. It erased the target disk and then to my horror said it was erasing my SSD system volume. I powered the Mac off immediately. It apparently did not get very far because my SSD system volume and its recovery partition are intact and Disk Utility verified my system filesystem is OK. Whew! This is a major bug in TM. I will report it as well.

The logic of all of this is sound but for 2 or 3 points.
A: TM is designed to be a "click it and forget it" method of doing a simplex backup for amateur users, ......as such any complexity at all or elaborate nuances in explaining diff. in clones, backups, archives, active and static storage is mostly lost to any amateur who often has a "I dont care, its backed up" attitude.
B: You said---"This simple innovation avoids the need of keeping around a cloned disk with its recovery partition". Neat idea, but far from 'simple'. Nothing is as "frozen" and secure as a clone stashed in a firebox or safe as the prosumers and pros do.
Recovery partition isnt any kind of necessity, in fact the creator of SuperDuper didnt include and as I spoke with him never WILL include it for a clone option. Ive made clones for years without any recovery, and the recovery partition isnt needed 'in general'. If you upgrade a macbook Pro or Mac Mini, and stash the original drive (to use later to restore in case of selling it), you dont need a recovery on the upgraded internal larger HD, nor do you need one on a periodically updated CLONE.
Lastly you said "How might one easily create a bootable recovery partition without using CCC......"
Though Ive used CCC, Superduper for clones turns out more reliable, is more simple......however the entire statement of "how might one easily..........without" implies there IS something "more easy" than CLONE APPS like Superduper or CCC, and there utterly isnt.
You seem to be pointing at a "revolving secure clone" which elminates the "GAP" between a monthly or biweekly clone update/refresh.
Ideally you would erase and create a new clone of your updated system every 2 weeks or month, which would therefore leave a gap in data integrity and OS files and system changes.......
Autonomous constant data hub archiving fills this downside “gap” of HD clones, wherein which the worst that would be lost is a 2 week or one month window of application updates, or system changes irrelevant to your vital data.
I dont (however some do) care if I lose a system APP update, or a few web bookmarks etc over 2 weeks, I only care about important data I got, made, modified etc.
For that reason I update/ archive data to 2 connected non-Time machine HD, and archive those in safe storage every month.

Similar Messages

Restored system from Time Machine backup disk but the system could not start-up

On MacBook Pro early 2008, restored the entire system from Time Machine backup disk to the entire disk.
The previous system on the backup disk had FileVault turned on.
The restore completed successfully and I was prompted to restart the system via the new restored system disk.
I heard the normal start-up sound, then the Apple logo, but it stuck at the logo screen. And the cooling fan run at almost full speed?
I have been waiting for a few hours, guessing it might FileVault the disk.
Finally I have to shutdown the machine as it stuck at the logo screen forever.
Anyone has the same issue? Any ideas?

BTW, I also tried Repair the system disk, Fix permissions via Disk Utility.
I guess I must lose some files either during the backup or the restore.

Is it possible to boot or Time Machine restore from an external Thunderbolt disk drive?

(There are several questions - search for "?".)
I purchased a Seagate Backup Plus for Mac Desktop Drive 3 TByte with default USB 3.0 interface, and also acquired the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Desktop Drives and Thunderbolt cable.
I do a redundant backup to the Seagate Drive using both Carbon Copy Cloner (nightly) and Time Machine (hourly) using its Thunderbolt adapter. BTW: One never knows when Time Machine will choke - see discussion titled, "UPDATED: Serious Time Machine bug on Mountain Lion", which I had; Rest In Peace Pondini (James Lewis Pond).
Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from System Preferences -> Startup Disk:
I select the Time Machine OS X, 10.8.5 Startup Disk (Thunderbolt attached drive), click Restart, confirm my choice, the computer reboots, however, it reboots from the internal Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5, NOT the selected external Thunderbolt drive. The SSD drive was used as the Startup Drive, not the selected external Time Machine volume as indicated by the display free disk space command (df(1)) and seeing that the Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5 volume is mounted as root. That is very deceptive in that both the internal and external drives will appear in the same manner from a GUI point of view! OS X doesn't even inform me that it did not boot off the selected volume. This is the first half of the problem, that is, Is it possible to boot from an external Thunderbolt disk drive? In my case, the answer is deceptively No. Can anybody else boot off a Thuderbolt attached disk drive? Note that if I remove the Thunderbolt adapter, and attach the drive via its USB 3.0 cable, the MBP boots off the external Seagate Backup Plus just fine, as is expected.
Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from boot-time "Option - Select startup disk" method:
When I restart the MBP using the startup Option key to select the startup volume, the externally connected Seagate drive ONLY SHOWS UP if it is attached with the USB 3.0 cable, not when it is attached with via the Thunderbolt interface. Can anyone else boot off a Thunderbolt drive with the startup Option key sequence? At least the MBP doesn't deceive me in this case - I know right away that the external Thunderbolt drive is not an option when connected as such.
Time Machine restore from the external Seagate Backup plus via Thunderbolt interface from the "command-R - Recovery Parition" method:
After booting from the recovery partition, I attempt to perform a Time Machine restore from the Thunderbolt connected Seagate Backup drive. When Time Machine attempts to present me with a viable backup Time Machine volume, the external Thunderbolt drive is never offered as an option. So I switch the Time Machine volume to use its USB 3.0 interface, and then Time Machine displays that drive as an option, and the MBP proceeds with the restoration as expected. The interesting thing to note is that while booted in the recovery partition via the Thuderbolt cable, the MBP Disk Utility may be selected, and the Thunderbolt attached drive may be operated on just fine. Can anybody else restore their MBP using Time Machine and the Recovery Partition via the Thunderbolt interface?
This is also a big problem for me in that I am forced to restore my MBP via Carbon Copy Cloner using the USB 3.0 interface, because I cannot even boot off that volume's Thunderbolt interface. Of course, the option may be that I could use yet another eternal USB 3.0 drive, boot from it, and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore the Macintosh HD via the aforementioned drive connected by a Thunderbolt cable, but that is less than ideal and not elegant, so I'm not going there.
Another side issue is that the commercially available program, TechTool Pro 7's eDrive, which I installed on the Time Machine volume, will not boot off that eDrive as advertised, but I won't got through those steps here, because that would be beyond the scope of this issue, however, I must say, It does not work either when the Time Machine volume is connected via the Thunderbolt interface, but works just fine when connected via the USB 3.0 interface.

If this helps anybody else make a decision about whether to consider Apple because of Apple's superior customer service:
Apple sells this entire line of drives right in their store, from 1TB to 4TB. I spent 1 and 1/2 hours, yesterday, confirming that the 3TB model IS NOT 100% Thunderbolt compliant. A MBP cannot boot, nor can it Time Machine restore from this drive, though EVERYTHING about the drive is normal.
Apple's South Coast Plaza store management had at least two responses to me personally about how to proceed:
1. Buy a different drive from another drive manufacturer, and to attempt to return the drive to COSTCO. A lead genius suggested going with GTech drives, for instance.
2. Wait for Seagate to fix their problem.
I told Apple management in the store that the drive is advertised as Mac Compatible (see picture) and that it is advertised as being a Thunderbolt drive (see picture). I pressed management that my purchasing decsion to get the best possible MBP Retina was based on the availablity of Inexpensive Devises (raID), and that not having this complete compatibility is a show-stopper for my needs, and that I wanted a refund. Their response? They needed to talk with "Merchendising" to see if they are on or off the hook for these kind of 3rd party assertions, and would get back to me.
I am not holding my breath.
Note: I do not hold this against the Geniuses that helped me, nor against the management I've dealt with, nor the upper level engineers that I've corresponded with through Apple Care - their problem solving skills were helpful - although I could have arrived at similar conclusions given enough $$$. (For instance, try a Lacie TB drive and see if that works - we did, and it did not work. Or, we have a different TB cable and a different TB adapter, let's try those - we did, and it did not work.) I blame myself for not doing enough homework before going with Apple's solutions.

FCP X does not recognize projects and events on USB drive after a time machine restore of the MBP macintosh disk

FCP X does not recognize projects and events on USB drive after a time machine restore of the MBP macintosh disk.
I upgraded from an i5 to an i7 15" MBP and restored my files using my time machine backup. All seemed to go ok, except I had to use the migration assistant because on the initial boot the MAC didn't recognize the backup database on the USB device. MAybe this is a hint.
Since when I start FCPX it too cannot finnd the project or event directories.
Before my upgrade, I had a choice of files either on the Macintosh disk or the 2TB USB disk.
Now only files on the Macintosh are accessible to FCPX. The USB drive is visible under events and project but it finds no projects or events.
Please help if you can.
Thanks
Barry

Thanks... alas no one has responded.
I think I have the structure that you are recommending.
I have a root level directory (Final Cut Events) with the files in them.
The puzzling thing is that it used to work before the migration!.
Anyway I'm going to move the contents to the root and see what happens.
On a slightly different note...
I also posted a question about CPU utilization. Can I ask a question or two?
While rendering a short clip, I noticed burst of disk activity when the render started (likely loading the media files into ram since I have about 4Gigs available, then almost no activity while the render is happening, then more disk activity when its done.
However the cpu activity is not as high as I would have expected since rendering requires a lot of cpu.
What is your experience? I know some render is done by the GPU, but in my older i5 the CPU was about 100%, now in my i7 its about 50%.
Please look at the attached utilization for CPU and disk activity.
Thanks for any thoughts... Barry

Changing backup disk after time machine restore

I recently had to get a new harddrive and used my time machine back up to restore all the data i had. Now however when i plug the time machine in to do another back up it starts a new "time machine backup disk" instead of just using the disk that it was using. Is there any way to manually set it to update this older backup disk?

Not at this point. If you had used Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant to restore your data, you would have been given that option. TM will still do a full copy of all your files either way. The main difference is that old snapshots from the previous backup will never be automatically deleted. You'll have to do that yourself, through the TM interface, if necessary.

Disks Locked after Time Machine restore

All my disks appear locked in the finder after having to do a Time Machine restore. I can't write to them.
If I go to "Get Info" there's nothing indicating that it's locked.
I also tried changing "Permissions" to everyone Read & WRite, but it wouldn't let me and repairing permissions.
What's going on here? Some kind of permission problems I assume.

It keeps on asking for the password but won't let me type, or it just gives me a new line:
Last login: Thu Apr 10 11:47:39 on ttys000
new-host-2:~ erland$ ls -aldeO@ /Volumes/"Samples"
drwxrwxr-t 16 erland staff - 612 Oct 29 12:43 /Volumes/Samples
new-host-2:~ erland$ sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/"Samples""
sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/"Samples"
This is what happened with the second command:
Last login: Thu Apr 10 11:47:39 on ttys000
new-host-2:~ erland$ ls -aldeO@ /Volumes/"Samples"
drwxrwxr-t 16 erland staff - 612 Oct 29 12:43 /Volumes/Samples
new-host-2:~ erland$
Message was edited by: bamse5
Message was edited by: bamse5

Update from 10.7.2 to 10.7.3 blown - Time Machine Restore blown

Hello,
summary of events:
Update form 10.7.02 to 10.7.3 went wrong
After Time Machine Restore no more Recovery Partion
Lost about what to do
On Saturday, I startet to update 10.7.2 to 10.7.3 on my MB Pro 15" (2007) Apples Software Update showed the combo update, and so I started download and installation. Just before that, I had run Time Machine on an external USB drive, so I was relaxed.
After about 2 hours, the update was still running with no progress. After another hour, I forced a restart. Not very suprisingly, after the login, the wheel beneath the Apple logo kept on running.
So I restarted from the Recovery Partition, selected my Time Machine-Backup from the external USB drive, selected my internal HD as target and clicked on "go".
While the progress bar showed progress, I waited. Then it seemed to be complete and the MBP restarted. Now I got a folder with a question mark. My heart rate did not yet accelerate, since I had a back up, right?
So I restarted again trying to boot from Recovery Partition - BUT, there was no longer a Recovery Partition. Or at least, nothing I could boot from.
What options do I have? I could get my hands on a DVD that contains an Lion installation from the app store, but that is not the most recent version, as far as I can tell. If I would go that way:
Does the version of the Lion-app matter?
Will it create a Recovery Partition?
If not, how else could I restore a complete Time-Machine backup?
Any help and suggestions are very welcome :-)
Regards
Jimbo
Naturally, I a am mad as **** at Apple. First, that they abandoned physical media for Mac OS distribution, and secondly that some not so bright lad thought it not necessary to secure the availability of the Recovery Partition under any circumstances short of phyical damage. This really *****, guys!

Ok... I'm not sure if the following suggestions will work with Filevault 2 enabled. I guess you can try after you create a backup for safety.
You can recreate the Recovery HD two ways. One is to reinstall Lion using a bootable USB thumb drive of the Recovery HD created with the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. Or from a bootable USB thumb drive with the Lion installer restored to it.
A second way, which I have used many times, is to follow the instuctions at this site using Terminal commands. Step 3 is what you want to follow. The instructions use the RecoveryHDUpdate.dmg file downloaded from Apple to recreate the Recovery HD. It works great!

Can time machine restore in new HDD?

if i backup my mac os in an external hdd with time machine and then ill change my mac hdd, can time machine restore my os in new hdd?(for example by Recovery Disk Assistant)

Naming it the same tends to make things easier. Time Machine can backup your entire OS as long as you haven't excluded anything in System Preferences/Time Machine/Options.
Another option is to make a bootable clone. You should have more than one backup on 2 different drives since hard drives do fail.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested

Time machine Restore Issue

Hi, I recently started having some major operating system problems after installing the latest security update for OS 10.5.8 on my PowerMac G5. Im fairly certain that the download file was corrupted in some way because my substandard-expensive-archaic system that gives itself the undeserved title of "Internet Service" often loses bits of downloads and is generally very unreliable. Needless to say I decided to do a complete time machine restore. Thinking it was going to be as easy as it has been when Ive done it on other macs, I decided this was better than trying to fix the system issues (Which involved a repeated "There is no point for line" error about 45,000 times a day in the console logs, about which i could find no information). Anyway, I booted from my OS X dic and loaded time machine, selected my backup, and selected my destination drive and away we go! After about 2 and a half hours (which is to be expected with over 1,000,000 files totaling over 900GB of data) the restore finished....or so I thought. The screen said Restore Process Complete and the Progress bar cleared out but the restart button at the bottom of the window never showed up like it should. All I got was the spinning beach ball. So, thinking that the data had copied over and it should all be there anyway, I decided to force restart after waiting for about 2 hours for any progress. Upon restart I found that the newly restored drive was not bootable. Using Disk Utility on my OS X DVD I found that all the files were copied. So I tried it again, erasing the drive completely and then restoring from a backup with a slightly different time, and I got the same results. Any help would be awesome and ill be checking back to answer any questions about what info I may not have covered. Thanks!
PS: I looked around for a similar posting but all the ones I found were involving hangs during the restore process (IE: 64%) and I didn't see anything quite like this, so if this issue has already been discussed then sorry for the double post.

It sounds like something in your installation of OSX was corrupted, and got backed-up. So when you restore, you're restoring the problem.
Your best bet is probably to do an +Erase and Install+ of Leopard, then use +Setup Assistant+ when your Mac restarts to transfer all your users, data, apps, and settings from the backups. See #19 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Then download and install the "combo" update, to get back to 10.5.8. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards.

Imac won't restart after time machine restore

I restored my external firewire 800 hard drive from a time machine restore using my snow leopard insall disk. The restore function said the restore was successful. But when the computer restarted I got the folder with the question mark icon. My internal hard drive went bad a year ago.
What to do?

Did you restore the entire contents of your Mac from the Time Machine backup? Was Time Machine backing up everything?
Try booting with an "option" key held down. That will show the internal disk volume if it has a bootable copy of OS X on it.
You might try installing OS X over the top of what's currently on the disk. If that doesn't help, erase the disk, install OS X on it, then use Setup Assistant (unless I'm misremembering and it's actually Migration Assistant) to transfer the TIme Machine contents again.
Incidentally, after things are working again, the first time Time Machine runs it will back up everything again.

Bootable Time Machine with Lion 10.7.2 - Boot Camp issues.

Hey all,
I have done as I was told and updated Lion as the updates have appeared. Now, it seems, I have a bootable Time Machine drive where before, I have not been able to boot from the Time Machine drive (never installed a System folder, etc.).
The problem here is that when I try to use Boot Camp and still have my Time Machine drive installed, (I see the drive when holding the option key to select boot drive), Boot camp gets "stuck" not knowing how to boot unless I disconnect the Time Machine drive. It appears that Windows thinks that it has two boot drives and doesn't know what to do, until the Time Machine drive is pulled.
Anyone else, or is this just me?
And when did Lion install the bootable folder on Time Machine??
Thanks

owngoal wrote:
You say your "backups still turn up corrupted now and then" - how do you know? Is it only when you try to access them that you will know this?
Sometimes a backup will fail, sometimes you can't access them, sometimes you'll get this message:
See #C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for details.
And by this stage is it too late to recover anything?
Sometimes. Sometimes they can be repaired by Disk Utility. Sometimes only a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app like DiskWarrior ($100) can fix them. Sometimes nothing can. Sometimes you can restore some individual items, sometimes not. Sometimes you can do a full system restore from some backups, other times not.
does it help that I am using a Gigabit WIRED connection between iMac - 10/100/1000 switch - Airport Extreme Base Station?
Probably -- you won't have WIFI interference.
But if you have an iMac, why not just connect the external HD directly to your Mac? That's much faster and more reliable (and supported).
You'd need to erase the disk in that case, since Time Machine won't bother with a sparse bundle at all on a direct backup. Just format the disk as GUID, with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and let 'er rip!

Can I Use Time Machine Restore Files to a New Computer?

I use Time Machine to backup my data to an external drive. Let's say that my computer crashes and I buy a new computer with Leopard installed.
Two Questions:
If I plug my Time Machine drive into the new computer, will I be able to recreate the old files and settings? Or does Time Machine only work to restore information on a specific computer?
If Time Machine WILL restore the documents onto a new computer, what happens if the first computer is Power PC and the new one is Intel?
Thanks!
Message was edited by: Dan D\'Errico

Dan D'Errico wrote:
I use Time Machine to backup my data to an external drive. Let's say that my computer crashes and I buy a new computer with Leopard installed.
Two Questions:
If I plug my Time Machine drive into the new computer, will I be able to recreate the old files and settings?
Yes - see my comments below regarding "Migrating User Data From One Mac to Another".
Or does Time Machine only work to restore information on a specific computer?
No
If Time Machine WILL restore the documents onto a new computer, what happens if the first computer is Power PC and the new one is Intel?
Then you should choose to Migrate your personal data over but NOT Applications. They may likely not be compatible with the new system.
*_Migrating User Data From One Mac to Another_*
*Firewire Disk Mode*
If you have a FireWire cable, you can connect one Mac to the other via FireWire Disk Mode. Then use Migration Assistant to transfer all of your files and applications over from the older Mac. It should result in a virtually identical setup as your previous Mac. Follow the instructions in this KB article:
“How to use FireWire target disk mode”
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
*Using Time Machine Before Initial Launch of New Mac*
Before starting the new Mac for the first time, attach the hard disk that contains the Time Machine backups from the old Mac.
Start the new Mac and begin the setup process. At some point it will ask you if you would like to Migrate/Import user data from another computer or a Time Machine backup disk. Follow the prompts and select the date of the backup you would like to restore your user data from. Once the migration is complete use Disk Utility to repair any permissions issues.
*Using Time Machine After Initial Launch of New Mac*
If you have already created a User Account on the new Mac using a DIFFERENT Username and Password from the old Mac, then do the following:
Attach the hard disk containing the previous Macs' Time Machine backups to the new computer.
Go to Applications --> Utilities --> and launch Migration Assistant.
At the welcome dialogue click "Continue." You may be required to enter your Admin password.
For Migration Method chose "From a Time Machine backup or other disk".
Select the hard disk containing the previous Time Machine backups. (Give Migration Assistant some time as it scans the disk for eligible data to migrate.)
Now select which User Accounts you would like to migrate over.
However, if you have already created a User Account on the new Mac using the SAME Username and Password as the old Mac, then you will need to do this:
Create a new User Admin Account on the new Mac with a completely unique name.
Now, delete the first User Account you created on the new Mac - The one that is identical to the old Mac. (Of course, backup any important files that were created using the new User Account before deleting it.)
Finally, use Migration Assistant as described above to move the old User Account data over from the Time Machine backups.
*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)
Let us know if this was helpful.
Cheers!

Can't Boot After New HD + Time Machine Restore

So a couple days ago my 27" iMac running Snow Leopard started making some weird noises and stalling out. Annoyed, I talked for a couple hours with apple tech support which eventually lead me to run an Apple Hardware Test. This test returned the error
"Alert! Apple Hardware Test has detected an error.
4HDD/11/40000000 SATA(0,0)"
I scheduled an appointment at the Genius Bar, and they replaced the hard drive.
After that I got it home and did a System restore from my time machine backup. It finished fine, but when I restarted it got stuck on the grey apple screen with the spinning dial thing.
I called apple back and they had me do a couple things like repair disk, verify disk, and one person had me reboot into this command line mode and type some stuff in. Nothing worked. After that They had me try to reinstall the OS first from archive, and next by erasing the hard drive and doing it. Both times the install fails with a big yellow exclamation point saying that it couldn't install support files and the OS couldn't be installed.
Any ideas how to fix this?
I'm currently trying to restore from my time machine backup again, but I'm not hopeful.

Here's what I got - apologies for any formatting peculiarities.
The problem: 10.6.6 mac won't boot after time machine restore to disk.
Further symptoms: Booting with Command-v shows several errors: usually blued and loginwindow collapse with errors from launchd. Errors will be of the style "dyld: Symbol not found: CSSMOID_APPLE_TP_MACAPPSTORERECEIPT" and other CommerceKit / CommerceCore framework errors.
A solution: Your Framework Security library may be an older version (possible cause with Time Machine below). The easiest way to fix this is to find another, working 10.6.6 Mac, and update the Security library on the broken machine.
Identifying if you're affected:
1) Boot the broken machine into "target" mode - hold "Command-t" during boot until the [Firewire|http://itunesu.utah.edu/terms/images/Firewire_Icon.png] icon appears.
2) Connect the broken machine to the working 10.6.6 machine with a firewire cable.
3) On the working machine, the disk of the broken machine should mount.
4) Open Terminal
5) Run "ls /Volumes" - the name of disk you mounted should be there (in this example, we'll use "Macintosh HD".)
6) Typing in the path of the broken machine, run:
<pre>
nm /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security | grep random_fd | cut -d. -f2
</pre>
(this does a dump of the library, looking for the version value)
If this comes back with the value 22457 (or less?), your Mac is not booting because it does not have the updated version of the Security library, which is required in 10.6.6 since Snow Leopard added the Appstore / Commerce framework.
Fixing if you're affected:
1) First, make sure the working 10.6.6 Mac has a correct version of the framework:
<pre>
nm /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security | grep random_fd | cut -d. -f2
</pre>
For 10.6.6, this should be at least "22458"
2) *Be extremely careful at this point* - Make sure on the mounted disk (not the machine you are working on!) run the following
<pre></pre>
2a) Make a backup of the broken library
<pre>
mkdir /Volumes/Macintosh HD/savedLibrary
cp /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security /Volumes/Macintosh HD/savedLibrary
</pre>
2b) Copy the working version over the non-working version:
<pre>
cp /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security
</pre>
3) Eject the mounted disk from the working Mac, disconnect the firewire cable, and reboot the "broken" Mac. It should come up.
If it doesn't, you have problem(s) that are probably outside the scope of this. I'd also suggest restoring your original security library that you saved off.
Suspected cause:
It appears that Time Machine never recorded the change to the Security library after the update. If the library hadn't changed, the machine should have failed to boot like it did after restore the moment a 10.6.6 update was applied.
Inspecting the contents of my Time Machine backups before and after updating shows that Time Machine never updated the Security Framework library - why is still not 100% determined, but restoring from it is definitely broken. Combing through the backup databases on my Time Machine disk:
(I upgraded to 10.6.6 on January 6)
<pre>
for name in 2010-12-30-093337 2011*
do
echo -n "In backup on ${name}, version of Security library is: "
nm "${name}/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security" | grep random_fd | cut -d. -f2
done
</pre>
In backup on 2010-12-30-093337, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-04-100707, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-05-082402, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-06-092846, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-07-094827, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-10-093559, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-11-110542, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-12-094137, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-13-103238, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-14-113145, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-18-112856, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-20-114953, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-21-103642, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-24-102321, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-002508, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-011931, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-104406, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-114322, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-123928, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-134523, version of Security library is: 22457

Migrating content from an encrypted Time Machine external disk (will not easily work)

I recently purchased an SSHD to upgrade my Mac. I preferred not to completely restore from Time Machine, but rather to install a new copy of Mavericks on the new disk and then migrate my TM content afterwards. At the end of installation, Mavericks proposed the option to migrate data from a TM backup, which I chose.
It turns out that the Migration Assistant did not recognize any disk, perhaps because it was encrypted, nor displayed any way to select the volume and unlock it by entering its password. Despite what Pondini says the Time Machine backups disk was not seen by the Mac: as workaround I had to create a fictitious user, log in, unlock the disk (that was immediately recognized by the system) and then run the Migration Assistant from there (by the way, after 4 hours I finally logged into my migrated account and found out that apps were not imported at all!)
I find all this quite not…applish! I could have preferred to unencrypt the TM disk rather than
Is there anyone facing this same experience? Hope that this, if it's a bug, will be fixed, otherwise I'll have to make a TM backup on a secondary disk (which I don't own so big).

Well a google search would appear that disk utility will show you the disk regardless if it's mounted or unmounted. you're best bet would be to unmount the disk in finder, shut down the computer completely, unplug it from a power source, and then unplug the firewire...
I think this is your safest bet but then again, I'm not that worried about ejecting my disks.
you get no error messages when you right click and eject the disk in in disk utilty? you said you have a my disk, do you mean My Book by western digital? I know that they load software onto the machine for encryption purposes. have you tried ejecting the disk from there? I uninstalled said software so I can't tell you if there is an option for that or not.

HT201250 When getting a replacement Seagate hard drive for my Imac through Apple, will they restore my system to it's current state? Or will I have to do it myself though Time Machine? Will Time machine restore all the programs as well?

Apple has determined that certain Seagate 1TB hard drives used in 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac systems may fail. These systems were sold between October 2009 and July 2011.
Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) will replace affected hard drives free of charge.
Will this replacement program restore my system to its current state after the new drive is installed? If not, will I have to have all my original disks to re-install all the programs on my current computer, or will Time Machine restore them as well?

Most of them will tell you to backup your data.
Time Machine is nice, but unless you are interested in archival backup, Carbon Copy Cloner is a lot easier to recover from:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1992

Bootable Time Machine Restore Disks

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