Can I back up to Time Machine from hard drive of failed Macbook?

My Macbook has just completely failed (I think an issue with power supply).
I had a bulging battery and have a new Macbook Pro on the way, but as I live in a very remote area this is taking a while. So, one day, my Macbook just wouldn't start again.
I hadn't backed up to Time Machine for about a week and would really like to get all the missing data. When the new computer arrives I'm planning to use Migration Assistant to migrate all my data from Time Machine.
So, my question is, is it possible to back up to Time Machine from the hard drive of my dead Macbook? I was thinking either cloning it somehow, or making a disk image and booting it from another Macbook, but this is stretching the limits of my limited IT skills. I don't want to interfere with the other Macbook I'm using or inadvertently wipe the data on the hard drive or Time Machine disk.
Any advice much appreciated!
My Macbook ran Snow Leopard and was up to date with software updates as of two days ago. It was purchased about two years ago, but I think it's manufacture date was about March 2008.

Thanks Noondaywitch and Pondini!
The HD of the failed Macbook turned out to be fine. Just to be safe I did a full functional back-up of my Time Machine disk to another external disk as well as cloning my Macbook hard drive using Carbon Cloner to another partition of the external disk.
I then booted from a friend's Macbook and did an incremental Time Machine backup from the original Macbook HD to the original TM backup (making sure I excluded the host computer's hard drive from the backup!); when I did the backup it asked whether I wanted to "Reuse backup" I clicked yes.
As said, the hard drive was fine, but at setup I needed an ethernet or firewire connection, which I didn't have on the enclosure, so I migrated my data to the new Macbook Pro using the original TM backup. Strangely, the backup said it was transferring only 120GB, whereas the HD had 150GB of used space. Redundant files, etc. perhaps? Anyway, it's just transferring now, so will sit back and read the paper and see what it looks like in an hour and a half!
Thanks very much again!
Now, if anyone's got any suggestions to fix my old Macbook, which I was going to give away to impecunious friends if they bought a new battery……
HD is fine, power seems buggered, the rest, I don't know. Suggestions welcomed (I live 300+kms from the nearest service centre, so it's strictly DIY or go to local computer shop who know nothing about Macs).

Similar Messages

  • How can i backup iphoto in time machine from external drive

    I have recently placed iphoto onto an external drive to save on space.  How can I still ensure that this is backed up on time machine?
    Thanks

    If you're on 10.5 best to take that to a Time Machine forum here
    https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.5_leopard

  • Can't restore system (with Time Machine) after Hard Drive recall

    Hi, so first a bit of history...
    - Purchased my  iMac in 2010
    - Upgraded iMac to Mountain Lion in 2012 (I downloaded it so don’t have install disks)
    - iMac hard drive was recalled 2013 (Seagate 1TB) – before taking the iMac back, I made sure Time Machine was up to date
    I got my iMac back yesterday – I’ve now tried to restore it twice from the Time Machine. On both occasions the progress bar has got close to the end, then just frozen.
    Any ideas? I’m wondering if the Mac store restore these recalled Macs with the original OSX it was purchased with, and since my back-ups have been on a newer OSX that might be it. But even if that is the problem, I have no idea how to fix it.
    It may have been answered already, but I can’t find any same questions on here.

    Hi, sorry I never use TM.
    Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
    http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    Can't imaging something not being covered there.

  • I can't erase my old Time Machine Backup hard drive.

    Hi,
    I have a hard drive that I was using for my Time Machine backup.  It now doesn't show up in Finder, but when I go to disk utilities it shows up but I can't erase it so I can use it again.
    It is a WD hard drive and isn't too old.
    Any help would be appreciated.
    Thanks

    Try repairing disk & repairing permissions on the drive in disk utility.
    Have you tried partitioning it again?
    Otherwise it sounds like it's dead.

  • I got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does someone has a fix???

    i got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does anybody has a fix???

    Does your external hard drive have it's own power supply?  It should.
    Is your external hard drive formatted with the NTFS file system?  It won't work.
    It needs to be formatted either with Mac OS Extended or FAT32.
    (There are drivers available to add NTFS support to OS X but their quality is unknown, especially the "free" ones.)

  • I can't back up with time machine to WD my book live

    I can't back up with time machine to WD My Book Live home network disk. I get this error : The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features.

    This is more a network problem than a disk error..
    Reboot.. the network.. restart in correct order.. modem router /TC.. clients with 2min gap.
    If you have trouble reset TM and redo it.
    See A4.. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • HT201250 Can I back up using Time Machine if I have some files already on the ExHD, or do I need a clean ExHD to use Time Machine?

    Can I back up using Time Machine if I have some files already on the ExHD, or do I need a clean ExHD to use Time Machine?

    If you try to use a new disk with time machine, it will try to reformat your EXHD. so I would save the items on your EXHD before backing up with time machine or partitioning your EXHD in disk utility

  • When I make back-up by time-machine on external drive,my computer do the same on his Hard Drive...

    When I make back-up by time-machine on external drive,my computer do the same on his Hard Drive...So I loose all of the capacity of the HD...I notice that only today but the problem is critical...The backups on the HD take 400 Go on my 500 Go SSD...
    I've got a MBP Retina 15' Octobre 2013_Processor 2,6 GHz Intel Core i7_Memory 16 Go 1600 MHz DDR3

    Click on the  icon on the menu bar and retrieve this display:
    (This is from mine)
    What is listed under 'Backups' are the 'local snapshots'.  In my case I do not have any.
    Run a Time Machine update and the Backups should be reduced.
    Ciao.

  • I used time machine, now my drive has failed and all my files are lost.

    i used time machine, now my drive has failed and all my files are lost. any one know how to get the max osx to see the drive again so i can retrive my files

    kabb30 wrote:
    i used time machine,
    Ok, check
    now my drive has failed
    Which one, the TM drive or the internal boot drive?
    all my files are lost.
    Where? on both drives or just TM or the internal drive?
    any one know how to get the max osx
    yea, if we knew more details of your machine and what you had before and later
    to see the drive again so i can retrive my files
    I don't know what drive failed.
    I'm thinking here your internal drive failed? Was it replaced?
    You have a blank internal drive and a TimeMachine drive and your asking how to reinstall OS X so you can restore from the TimeMachine drive?
    How are you getting here? Another machine or device and what is it?
    We need more details of your situation please.

  • How do i use airport as both time machine and hard drive? currently on Yosemite 10.10.1

    how do i use my 3TB airport time capsule as both time machine and hard drive? currently on Yosemite 10.10.1.....Many Thanks.

    Choose Computer from the Finder's Go menu and double-click it. If needed, use the Connect to Server command to log into it.
    (119763)

  • Time machine external hard drive requires repair every time I turned the computer off or after I ejected the external hard drive?

    Time machine external hard drive requires repair every time I turned the computer off or after I ejected the external hard drive?

    What kind of repair?

  • How can I back up GoDaddy email to a Hard Drive?

    How can I back up GoDaddy email to a Hard Drive?

    I apologize!  I should have added that I've already seen that solution on the GoDaddy Site, and it is completely unhelpfull!!!
    I already know how to do that, but the emails i want to backup contain sensitive Client info, and I DO NOT want it stored on some other server.   The Key words in my question were TO A HARD DRIVE.  Thanks much anyway.  :-)
    Maybe my question would be more acuratly posed as " How can I ARCHIVE my Godaddy email's to a Hard Drive?

  • Can this device be used as an external hard drive with a macbook pro laptop to use files on the airport?

    can this device be used as an external hard drive with a macbook pro laptop and use files on the airport time capsule?

    If you mean an AirPort base station other than the Time Capsule, it doesn't have internal storage.
    If you mean a Time Capsule, its internal drive can be used for regular file storage but shouldn't be; as with all drives, it'll eventually fail. You're better off using a standalone drive and setting Time Machine to back it up as well.
    (112309)

  • HT201250 Can I delete a particular program that was backed up in Time Machine from my Time Machine Back Ups?

    I have a program that was backed up using Time Machine and I was wondering if I could delete the program from my Back Up history with out having to start a band new back up of every thing.

    If the program is a self-contained application that was installed by dragging and dropping it into your Applications folder, then you can go to your applications folder and invoke Time Machine. Then go back in time until you see the first backup of the application, right-click it, and then choose the option to delete all backups of the item.

  • Transferring data from Time Machine external hard drive to band new mac

    My husband bought me a brand new Mac but then powered it up to play with it and bypassed the magic transfer option at the very beginning which would have allowed me to transfer my backed up info from my old mac to this new one.
    Is there a process that I need to go through now to make sure this information transfers correctly or do I just plug in my external hard drive and let it do its thing.
    My worry is that I do something wrong and Time Machine doesn't know that I need to transfer to a new mac, it sincs with the new mac and the old data gets somehow erased.
    Paranoid? Oh yes!
    Thanks for any help....

    Time Machine transfers of backed up info to any Mac are not automatic, nor does any backed up info get erased from the Time Machine backup when you do a transfer. You have two options for copying Time Machine backup files to the new Mac:
    1. Use Migration Assistant (found in Applications/Utilities) to migrate (copy) items to the new Mac. Select "From a Time Machine backup or other disk" as the migration method, then select the Time Machine backup of the old Mac, then select the items you want to transfer. You can select some or all of the user accounts on the old Mac, Applications (all or none), Settings files (Time Zone, Machine, and/or Network), & "Other" files & folders (which are any other root level files & folders not included in the above).
    If you have already set up your network, time zone, etc. settings while playing with the new Mac then there is no particular need to migrate the old ones. If you migrate Applications, Migration Assistant will not replace newer versions with older ones, but it may transfer some old apps that don't work with Snow Leopard. This won't do any harm, but you may want to delete the incompatible apps as you discover them to save space on the new hard drive.
    If you have created a new user account on the new Mac with the same name as some account on the old Mac, you will have to either give the old account a new name for the transfer or replace the new account with the old one, which will erase any user files you have created in the new account. Thus, you should save any such files to a backup if you want to keep them.
    2. Use Time Machine itself to restore selected files or folders from the Time Machine backup of the old Mac to the new one. Open Time Machine from the Dock, choosing "Browse Other Time Machine Disks…" from the popup options. Again, choose the Time Machine backup of the old Mac, & then select whatever dated backup you want to restore items from.
    All this is harder to explain than to do in actual practice -- for the first method you get on-screen guidance for each step & for the second the interface is pretty intuitive.

Maybe you are looking for

  • Issue with webservice data control while invokin bpel process from ADF side

    Hello Experts, we are creating webservice data control to invoke bpel process from ADF side. When I run the application and inovoke the bpel every thing is working fine. But when we are changeing the instances from DEV to SIT the bpel url(hostname an

  • Error Code: 403 Forbidden

    Hi, I'm new to microsoft products, so hopefully I can get my point across meaningfully. I'm trying to connect to a site internally through forefront/tmg and recieve this message: Error Code: 403 Forbidden. The server denied the specified Uniform Reso

  • JSP contining to load in IE5

    Hi,           I'm using clustered WLS 5.1 sp3 with the issue109273 patch and IIS 4.0 as a           proxy server. When accessing any jsps with Internet Explorer 5 the page           continues to load even after all of the document source is received.

  • Currencies Formating and Validations

    hi All, I'm using ADF BC, JDev11g, Window XP, IE7. My use case: I'm having a table which has details in first facet, in the second facet there is a form which displays the contents of selected row in a form. In this form there are few fields like Cur

  • Is the iPhone 5 Test

    Is the new iPhone 5 test & keep for real? Or does it just mess with you?