Can I restore with time machine with different OS?

My internal hard drive went kaput, but managed to backup to external with Time Machine.  I was running Mountain Lion.  I replaced the drive today, and rebooted to install Snow Leopard (have the disks), but it won't properly restore.  Do I need to upgrade to Mountain Lion for it to properly restore?  If so, how do I best do that without repurchasing from the App Store.  Many Thanks in advance!-Stan

Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions 19. How do I set up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC? (via Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant)

Similar Messages

  • Renamed multiple files iTunes Match. Can I restore from time machine?

    Hi
    Hopefully someone might be able to assist.
    I downloaded a live album from a bands official store on their website.
    After importing into my itunes library, I tried to rename the two discs so that they appeared as one album, (I've done this lots of times before).
    Stupidly, I was rushing before I had to leave the house, was unaware that is actually selected 50 albums and accidently renamed  a large number of files as one album!!!
    It's made slightly more complicate because I have iTunes Match and they were all stored in the cloud.
    Can I restore from time machine and manually update iTunes Match?
    Amy help would be appreciated
    Thanks

    when i say right clicking, i mean in itunes, right clicking the song and going get info and then changing the properties via the info tab.
    yehh i done the grouping tracks together by holding down the command key.
    but because i have some smart playlists with the same songs in, i changed both the genre and grouping not realising, this was ok for one smart playlist but totally messed the other up, especially because in for example "dance classics" smart playlist, there also in a folder on my hdd, . and thats the playlist i messed up., but if i drag the folder back into itunes, there all over the show on itunes and in the other playlist too, hence why it isnt as easy to easilly sort and rectify.
    so what id like to do is just copy the folder again from my time machine backup, replacing the files but im unsure if this would solve it.
    Message was edited by: Ian-K

  • Had to install a new hard drive early 2008 iMac, now can't restore from Time Machine.

    Had to install a new hard drive in a early 2008 iMac, now can't restore from Time Machine. Backups show in Time Machine but  I can't select them.
    Serial Number  QP*****1LW
    <Edited by Host>

    Here are some notes on Time Machine problems.  
    http://pondini.org/TM/  
    Troubleshooting.html
    I have asked the hosts that your serial number be removed.  Best not to publish it,

  • Can't backup to Time Machine with portable drive plugged into a router

    I am using a the Cisco EA3500 with a USB plug on the back, I am trying to backup with Time Machine to a portable hard drive plugged into the USB on the back of the rputer over the wifi network. I'm wondering if that is possible. I tried it once but "I'm getting the The Network backup disk does not support the required of AFP features" error message. PLEASE HELP!!!! Thank you!

    See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

  • 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...

  • Can't restore from Time Machine

    I have an early 2011 17" MBP, the last model made, I think. I use the pegasus 12 TB thunderbolt setup with time machine to backup my files.
    I've had no problems, all is well.
    My computer has been slowing down since I installed Mountain Lion. It has reached the point of absurdity it is so slow now. I decided to do some looking around and figured I would do the following:
    1) get a 6G SSD 480GB and put it in the main hard drive and keep the former hard drive with all its data as a separate external backup.
    2) put in a new install of Mountain Lion. Reinstall all my programs: Aperuture 3, Photoshop CS6, pages, quicken, and so forth.
    Sounds simple enough. Got my SSD drive this morning from OWC. Install was simple, went into internet recovery mode. It all worked great.
    I did not want to just image back from TM all that I had because it was so slow. Seeing as I'm going to also put a second HD where the optical drive currently is, I wanted to install carefully on the SSD to maximize speed and space.
    The reinstall of 10.8.x went well. Talk about zippy, wow. Got linked back up to iCloud, all the usual email, contacts, etc synced with the computer flawlessly.
    So far, all is going well except for one minor deal. Major deal.
    Time machine is recognized fine by the fresh install. I can open TM and see the Pegasus with all it's information. However, I cannot find but the image for "now." I cannot go back any further for some reason. I did change the name of my new hard drive, could that be an issue?
    I cannot find my disk of Aperture 3. I had purchased Ap2 and kept upgrading with CD's through AP3. The AP3 I have is an upgrade disk and for whatever reason, I cannot seem to find any of my former Aperture disks. Simple enough, I thought, I'll just restore AP3 from Time Machine.
    Same problem is happening: I can see Aperture 3 in TM. I highlight the app. The "restore" button is greyed out and I can only access the "now" image and cannot go further back on images/time.
    Any idea why Time Machine is not working with restore? Why I cannot take all the last year of faithfully saving daily backups to time machine and see them?
    I can't see them, restore them. Only the "now" image is visible and it will not let me restore anything. Anything. I tried various files, a single picture, and nothing is working. I am getting frustrated thinking that maybe this whole time machine as a backup is a joke.
    Help?
    Thanks.

    DocDoc, that worked. I read that page and it meantioned how to exactly click what. I'm not sure why TM is so particular, but nevertheless, I was able to open a finder window pre-TM, click on my new hard drive. Then I opened TM and again, clicked on my hard drive in that finder window. Then navigated to the folder I wanted, which was the applications folder.
    The "now" image wouldn't do anything when right clicked (on aperture.app) except offer to get info or to delete all backups of aperture. I almost gave up, figuring the purpled out timeline (as previous) on TM was bunk. I couldn't go backwards to a previous image before.
    But having navigated that exact way somehow made TM happy. A previous image about 1 month ago was able to be saved to my application folder. 986megs or something like that in a few seconds. When TB works, it zips right along.
    I don't care for how persnickety TM is, but am glad it worked nevertheless. Thanks for your help.

  • Can't restore from time machine after SSD upgrade

    Macbook Pro 13" mid-2009, 10.7.5 Lion
    I just swapped out my 160GB  HDD with a 250GB SSD on my MBP. When I booted up, I pressed Command-R to try to get into recovery mode but all it does was showing a gray folder with a question mark on it.
    I had previously backed up my HDD with time machine. My original HDD is no longer available because I tried to upgrade to Mavericks (since the command-R was not working) and upon restarting my MBP was locked with system pin code (that is another nightmare all by itself)
    What are my options besides getting a 10.7 Lion CD from the apple store and try to boot it up that way? and then restore from time machine?
    Any other way I can get into receovery mode?
    Thanks (My MBP is now a brick sitting on my desk)

    It's a bare drive so it isn't formatted and it doesn't yet have a Recovery HD installed on it.
    Your computer originally came with a version of Leopard installed. You can reinstall it if you still have the original discs that came with the computer. Or, if you have a retail Snow Leopard DVD you can reinstall Snow Leopard from which you can then upgrade to Mavericks (Lion is no longer available for re-download.) It's unlikely your local Apple Store has a Lion USB flash drive or DVD although you can certainly make an appointment and ask for their help.
    You should see if you can boot from the Recovery HD invisible image in your Time Machine backup drive. Connect it to the computer and use OPTION boot to get the boot manager. If you see a Recovery HD on your backup drive displayed, then boot from it.

  • Can you restore a Time Machine backup to a newly formatted disk.

    I am planning on reformatting my MacBook's hard drive, and then restoring my files to it, because of a problem I am having with Boot Camp telling me to reformat my disk and try partitioning again. Can I do this with Time Machine (i.e. wipe everything off my hard drive and then restore it with a Time Machine backup)? Would I just boot up from my Snow Leopard disk and then click on "+Restore Time Machine Backup+"? I am new to Time Machine, and haven't even performed my first backup, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question.
    Also, if I can do this, would it leave it exactly as it was before I reformatted or would I have to download all the updates again (e.g. my computer has Mac OS X v.10.6.2 installed. Would it restore to that or would it restore to v.10.6.0, the version that is on my Snow Leopard disk)?
    Thank you.
    James.

    yes, you can do it with TM but it would be safer to do using a bootable clone. to do it with TM boot from the SL install DVD, reformat the internal drive using disk utility in the utilities menu. quit disk utility and select 'restore system from backup" from utilities menu. follow the instructions.
    but as I said, it's better to use a bootable clone. make a clone to an external drive using CCCloner or Superduper. then boot from the external, reformat the internal using disk utility and clone the clone back to the internal.
    either method will give you your current system back so you won't have to reinstall anything afterward.
    Message was edited by: V.K.

  • Can't restore latest Time Machine backup after drive replacement- only the very first.

    My 13" Macbook Pro running 10.8.5 had a bad hard drive which had to be replaced. After the new drive was put in I tried to restore everything to the new drive with Time Machine but could only restore the first backup I ever did after getting the computer, which was over a year ago.  I can drag and drop files but I would rather have all my preferences and bookmarks etc.  How do I restore the latest backup which was only about a week ago?  Thank you.

    Not yet; I'm not sure if Migration Assistant is quite right. Since I posted the question I ran across this youtube video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYUem-QfYBs
    which suggests that I need to start up from a bootable external disc in order to restore a Time Machine backup to the same computer that the backup came from when the drive is replaced.  The video actually seems to describe my issue exactly.  The only confusing thing is I don't know why I would have been able to restore the very first Time Machine backup if I need to boot from an external disc.  More investigation needed.

  • 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

  • Can't restore from Time Machine "error occurred adding a recovery system"

    Here's the situation:
    MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard was upgraded to Mountain Lion 10.8.2.
    A Time Machine backup exists (on Time Capsule) from the day before the upgrade.
    I am trying to restore the Time Machine backup to a blank hard drive connected to the MacBook via FIrewire, but after rebooting with Command-R and selecting the backup source and HD destination I keep getting this (unhelpful) messages:
    "An error occured while adding a recovery system to the destination disk" and "the recovery system could not be added"
    Is what I am attempting impossible, or is there something else going on? What use is Time Machine if I can't restore?

    Hi FranzKafka
    I know it has been a while since your question, but the issue is possibly dependent on the blank HD, h=was it changed from the GUID partitioning?  If so change back and you will find the Time Machine will restore back... without having to reinstall OSX. As you say, all of the original settings are captuered within TM.

  • Can't restore from Time Machine using recovery partition

    I came up with the idéa to put in an extra disk (SSD) into my mid 2009 13" Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion and create my own fusion drive.
    In order to make sure not to lose all of my data I made sure to back up all my files using Time Machine so that simply could restore my entire system to the new drive.
    Careful as one should be when about to wipe the entire drive on a computer I wanted to check so that I could make a proper restore from my TM backup disk. So I booted into recovery mode and choose to restore from Time Machine and then I selected my external drive, but then nothing. Where the list of my latest backups should be there was nothing.
    I've tried to format the disk several times, changing disk permissions etc.
    Does anyone have a clue what could solve this? Is it possible that it has something to do with the fact that I'm (probably) running 10.8.3 and that my recovery partition is 10.8.2?

    Is the TM backup complete? When you Enter Time Machine, do you have snapshots going back in time?
    See here for info on a problem Pondini has found with Time Machine that may have affected you:
    UPDATED: Serious Time Machine bug on Mountain Lion (Updated)
    You may just have to restart your TM backups to get those folders backed up.
    If you do have that issue, please post at his link. He is trying to get enough background info to pass to Apple to solve the problem.

  • Can't restore latest time machine backup

    I have just had my the hard drive in my macbook pro replaced and am trying to restore from a time machine backup.  I back up regularly (about once a week) to an external hard drive, but the most recent option for backup is October... help!
    I can see a backup from yesterday if I navigate the hard drive in finder, but it won't show me this option in the restore from time machine backup prompt.

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
    It looks like you want to have the whole backup restored. In this case, instead of using the Time Machine app and restoring files individually, you need to use Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities).
    If you do not have anything you need on your new MacBook Pro's hard drive, there's even a cleaner way of restoring the backup. Hold Command and R keys while your Mac is starting up to start up into OS X Recover, select the option to restore a Time Machine backup and follow its steps. The backup you select will be restored and your Mac will be the same as before replacing the hard drive

  • How to restore from time machine with Lion preinstalled?

    Yesterday I got an iMac and OSX.7 Lion was preinstalled.  I set up a time machine disk and performed a full backup, and it will work for file histories, but if my main disk fails how do I restore from this time machine backup?
    I never had to restore in Leopard or Snow Leopard, but I believe the procedure was to insert your optical install and/or rescue disk and from there was an option to restore from a time machine backup.  If I don't have a rescue disc, as no media whatsoever came with the iMac, how do I perform a restore?
    I think if you upgrade to Lion it gives you a recovery partition but I don't think I have that with Lion preinstalled.  At least I can't find it.  Ideas?

    Sorry, I RTFM'd and found this:  "To open the Mac OS X Utilities application: Restart your computer while holding down the Command and R keys".  From there you can restore from a time machine backup.  Sorry for the post.

  • Restoring Leopard after installing SL with Time Machine with only a SL Disk

    I just bought Snow Leopard and I haven't installed it yet. I am currently running Leopard on my MacBook Pro. I have heard of issued with Adobe CS4 and I'm afraid of having such issues, so before I install SL, I want to make sure I can revert to Leopard in case I have problems with Adobe CS4 applications. I use Time Machine, and I know that to restore the entire system from Time Machine, I need a bootable OS X install disk.
    My problem is the following: I do not have my Leopard install DVD at hand, it is in another country and I won't have access to it for a few months. So I was wondering whether I can restore my current system (after installing Snow Leopard) using Time Machine, by booting from the Snow Leopard install disk.
    So basically: If I installed Snow Leopard, and wanted to go back to before I installed it, could I simply insert the Snow Leopard install disk, and restore Leopard, along with my apps and documents, from my Time Machine backup? Or do I need the Leopard disk to do that?
    Thanks!

    Mate Dobray wrote:
    I want to make sure I can revert to Leopard in case I have problems with Adobe CS4 applications.
    You shouldn't have anything but maybe minimal CS4 problems under Sno. But, anything can happen.
    I use Time Machine, and I know that to restore the entire system from Time >Machine, I need a bootable OS X install disk. My problem is the following: I do >not have my Leopard install DVD at hand, it is in another country and I won't >have access to it for a few months. So I was wondering whether I can restore my >current system (after installing Snow Leopard) using Time Machine, by booting >from the Snow Leopard install disk.
    I have never done exactly what you say, but my opinion is that it will work.
    So basically: If I installed Snow Leopard, and wanted to go back to before I installed it, could I simply insert the Snow Leopard install disk, and restore Leopard, along with my apps and documents, from my Time Machine backup? Or do I >need the Leopard disk to do that?
    I think it should work as said above. No guarantees though. It would be better is you bought a firewire external and cloned your existing system to the external to be safe--considering the difficulties that might arise since you don't have your Leopard disk.
    Can you at least back your data up separately on your TM disk? Then, worst case is that you might have to do an erase and install of Sno if your first install doesn't work well and then figure out how to deal with lost apps if TM let's you down.
    Message was edited by: donv (The Ghost)

Maybe you are looking for