Can I start new hard drive set up again?/time machine info missing!

Hi, hoping for some guidance as I think I've made a mistake with my new hard drive set up, and now my time machine hasn't transferred everything over as I've folders missing!
My hard drive packed up & a new 10.6 was installed on my Macbook Pro. Previously running on 10.5.8 which was backed up to time machine 3 week ago. I switched on and went through the 'set up assistant' but when asked 'Would you like to inherit (or reuse) the backup?' I think I chose 'Don't backup now' because I thought I could do my time machine later! I now know I have chosen the hard route!!
Then I tried the 'migrate assistant' - it took 1.5hrs - desktop has screen shots etc as before but I couldn't access thing like 'my pictures' in bridge etc. The dock has LR, PS, Bridge etc as before too. Then I deleted the new admin set up (so I had only my old admin.) I restarted - no change. I then tried 'migration assistant' again but transfered only 'Other files and folders' because when all ticked there wasn't enough room (-81gb)
Now I can go into LR catalog it only has 2 folders (instead of more than 20), and in Bridge I have files & folders, but on accessing them I get 'Items could not be found. It may of been moved or renamed.'
I've looked into erase & install - but I don't have the disc. Maybe I should go back to the shop who installed 10.6? Can I start again so I can transfer from time machine in the set up?
Any advise on how I can get my info back would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks, Heather

I have the same problem, but it is happening with various USB drives including an iphone. If I have any of these connected via a USB hub to the MacBook Pro, they mount and operate fine until I attempt to copy large files to them. Randomly, during large file transfer, the drive will suddenly disappear and I'll get the same error as if I had yanked out the USB cable without unmounting it.
This is happening with:
* A standard (Lacie) powered 500GB USB drive mounted normally.
* A standard (Lacie) powered 500GB USB drive being used as a Time Machine disk (it errors/unmounts during Time Machine backups).
* An iphone 8GB during itunes syncs, only when copying large files (like videos).
I have tried two USB hubs, one powered and one not, and both cause the same problems. If I connect any of these drives/iphone directly to the Mac then they work absolutely fine.
I first thought the (unpowered) USB hub was to blame, but when I started using the powered USB hub and saw the same problems I'm starting to wonder if OS X has a bug with regards to heavy I/O to USB devices connected through hubs...?
Davros: my tip would be to connect the drive directly to the computer (not via USB hub) and see if the problem goes away.

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Can I restore a new hard drive from a previous time machine back-up?

Hi there,
My MacBook Pro 13 inch is 4 years old.
The computer began to freeze/stop working, so I took it to an Apple care centre and they informed that my hard drive has crashed and has to be replaced.
Luckily, I backed up my old hard drive a few days before with an external hard drive using Time Machine. My question is: can I restore this new hard drive with my old time machine backup that is on my external hard drive? If so, how do I do this?
Thanks

Of course! If you couldn't, Time Machine would be rather worthless, now wouldn't it?
For instructions, see:
How do I restore my entire system?

Do I need startup discs to upgrade hardware on MacBook Pro or can I restore the hard drive from from a Time Machine backup?

do I need startup discs to upgrade hardware on MacBook Pro or can I restore the hard drive from from a Time Machine backup?

Ok, well go and grab a small 2.5" hard drive enclosure so you can put the new drive in & temporarily use it like an external hard drive.
Download Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper and make a bootable clone of your current HDD on the new HDD.
Once that's done you can test the clone by booting from it. To do this hold Optioni while booting to select the external (new) drive. If everything looks ok, you can go ahead and swap over the HDD's.
So much easier.

New Hard Drive- Should I use Time Machine for "fresh" install?

I have a first generation Early 2008 MacbookPro. Warranty just ended and I want to replace the hard drive w/ the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid. I'm getting a bunch of spin wheel action and things are just running slowly/sluggish. I'm questioning whether or not I should just do a real "fresh" install and load my applications onto the new drive or use TimeMachine. If I use TM am I not adding all the stuff/files that are not needed? Am I adding bloat that I've collected over the past couple of years? Is it better to start w/ a new clean operating system? I do have CS5 and some photo programs that I think I can reinstall. Anyway I wanted to get people's perspective.
Message was edited by: mikked

It's usually best to clean your system up, and deal with any problems before doing major surgery.
With any other scenario, if something goes wrong, how will you know what it was, much less how to fix it?
I'd start with this: [Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509].
Then Verify your internal HD, and repair your Time Machine drive, per #A5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Then run a +*Repair Permissions+* on your internal HD, via Disk Utility.
Then replace the drive, do a full system restore and run for a while to be sure the new drive and everything else is ok. See #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.
Then start deleting the apps and files you don't need.
Note that, unlike Windoze, leftover files and apps may take up a bit of space, but don't cause any performace problems, unless they're actually running.
The main problems with trying to transfer things selectively are:
Permissions. If you install OSX and set up a user account, that account, even if it has the same name, may not have permission to restore the files on your backups or other drives.
Applications. Simple apps can be transferred individually, such as by restoring from Time Machine. Complex ones usually can't, as their installers put other files in other places. If you don't know what and where they all are, and restore them, too, the app won't work properly, if at all. But if you have all the original discs (and serial numbers/purchase keys), you can just reinstall them.

Restoring computer with new hard drive & Logic Board using Time Machine

My MBPro totally crashed and just got it back from Apple with a new hard drive, logic board, optical super drive, one new 1GB ram chip, and a new video display panel. My questions are two fold, first, have I had so much replaced on this machine that I need to use Migration Assistant instead of Time Machine to restore it?
Second, If I am suppose to be using Time Machine, I'm having no success! My TM backups were done on a network drive via Airport Extreme with a HD attached to it. Through the Snow Leopard disk utility, I can access the partition with the backup on it, but then it hangs on "opening TM backup". After about a half hour, I had to do a hard shut down (no other option). I did this several times, same result. So the question is;
Can I plug the HD directly into my MBPro and restore it that way? I'm not sure if I can do this as I know the backups are different for hard wired and networked drives.
Or can I use an ethernet cable and plug Airport Extreme with the external drive attached into my laptop?
Thanks for any help!

Arlee wrote:
My MBPro totally crashed and just got it back from Apple with a new hard drive, logic board, optical super drive, one new 1GB ram chip, and a new video display panel. My questions are two fold, first, have I had so much replaced on this machine that I need to use Migration Assistant instead of Time Machine to restore it?
no. you can do a full system restore from TM using the restore utility on the snow leopard DVD.
Second, If I am suppose to be using Time Machine, I'm having no success! My TM backups were done on a network drive via Airport Extreme with a HD attached to it. Through the Snow Leopard disk utility,
snow leopard disk utility?? what exactly are you doing? disk utility is not involved in restoring from TM in any way.
I can access the partition with the backup on it, but then it hangs on "opening TM backup". After about a half hour, I had to do a hard shut down (no other option). I did this several times, same result. So the question is;
Can I plug the HD directly into my MBPro and restore it that way? I'm not sure if I can do this as I know the backups are different for hard wired and networked drives.
no, this is not how you should do it. connect the AEBS by ethernet. then boot from the snow leopard dvd and use "restore system from backup" from the Utilities menu. it will let you find the backup on the network and do a full system restore from it.
Or can I use an ethernet cable and plug Airport Extreme with the external drive attached into my laptop?
Thanks for any help!

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I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.
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When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups. It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.
Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up. Instead, it took 30 minutes. That can't be right. I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that. Please help.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil compare -E
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

HT201250 I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them?

I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them? No, they were not part of previous Time Machine backups, and I have checked both the hard drive the documents were lost on and the new one that I now use for backups. Any suggestions would be helpful, as the lost files are old pictures that are gone forever. :[ Thanks!

1. Yes, if both drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
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Hello, eco1.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
This sounds like you are wanting to move your iTunes media folder to an external drive and have iTunes this folder from this location. If this is the case then I would recommend taking a look at the article below.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
Cheers,
Jason H.

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I just installed a larger hard drive, and used my Time Machine Backup to transfer my files back to the new hard drive. When I open Iphoto, my thumbnails are there, but they aren't linked back to the actual photos. I see the original photo files in my HD. Is there a way to link the Iphoto thumbnails back to the original files?

Use the Firewire cable and t boot the old Mac's hard drive to the new Mac's desktop and transfer your entire iPhoto folder.
Use Disk Utiliy to erase'format HFS+ Journaled your TimeMachine drive and use the free Carbon Copy Cloner and clone your new boot drive to the external, it's hold option bootable.

Use Time Capsule as a Hard Drive via Ethernet for Time Machine

Hi Folks
To summarise a very very long story here goes;
- About 12 months ago my father in law buys a Time Capsule without really knowing what it is for and how it works (I know don't ask!!!!!)
- I set it up for him connected to his wireless router so he uses his router to access the internet and uses the Time Capsule to back up his iMac via wireless with Time Machine. (from what I can see he could have saved himself some cash and just bought an external Hard Drive and connect it via USB to the iMac for Time Machine, but never mind. He has 1 iMac and no other Mac's in the household. His printer is connected to his iMac via USB in the same room and he uses a wireless router to access the internet, since the phone point is in another room)
- All is well until Monday when he tells me he cannot access the internet. After much much trial and error I have eventually managed to get his internet back up and running, but he has somehow managed to erase his Time Capsule.
- I set his Time Capsule back up as it was previously and it starts performing the initial backup again. However at the rate its taking I think it will take well in excess of 24hrs to do that initial
backup. Also so far It has failed 3 times during this initial backup and I get an error message stating it's failed. The setup guide makes reference to performing the initial backup via ethernet as it's quicker.
I'm thinking the best way forward would be to just plug the Time Capsule into the iMac via ethernet and use it purely as a Hard Drive for use with Time Machine. I've tried just plugging in the ethernet cable from the Time Capsule to the iMac, but it doesn't recognise it. Bear in mind that it currently works via wireless, do I need to perform some sort of factory reset or how do I go about telling the the iMac to no longer use the Time Capsule wireless, but just connect via ethernet instead.
Of course I could just forget about the Time Capsule all together and tell him to get a 500gb USB External Hard Drive, plug that in and set up Time Machine with that instead.
Am I missing the point here and can the Time Capsule do a lot more for him, given his current setup.
Thanks

That is true but if you mix your files with the Time Machine backups, Time Machine will have trouble contril disk space when it gets low.
If you are going to do that it is recommended that you partition the drive. Since Time Capsule is not able to partition the drive that means you will have to remove it in order to partition it.
A simple solution IMO is to get another external drive and hang it on the USB bus in the Time Capasule.
Allan

Hard Drive Showing up with Time Machine Icon

I have two hard drives in my Mac Pro. I use one as the time machine backup drive. When I set that one up it changed the icon to the Time Machine icon. Today when I logged into my computer my normal drive changed from the regular hard drive icon to the time machine icon. Any ideas?

FYI...
The problem was that before I started using Time Machine, I had used the FW portable drive to back up my laptop using Carbon Copy Cloner (which makes a bootable copy of your HD). I didn't erase the drive before using it as my Time Machine backup disk so both the FW drive and the HD had the same disk ID associated with them so the time machine icon ended up being associated with both of them.
I erased the portable HD completely (yes, I lost my TM backups but that's a reasonable loss) and then reviewed the Startup Disk under System Preferences. Only the boot drive was listed there correctly (before the erasure, both drives showed up there).
I did a complete backup using TM overnight and then rebooted the system this morning....all is well now. The boot disk now has it's correct icon associated with it.
Regards,
Vicki

Perfect Hard Drive To Use With Time Machine?

Hi,
Has anyone found out what's the perfect External Hard Drive to use with Time Machine?
I have experience with a few of WD's My Book models (Essential, Pro and Studio). The problem with all of them is that they automatically keep switching themselves off (spin down) and on (spin up) throughout the day, in an effort to save power. But it's actually quite annoying. The My Book drive will automatically turn itself off, and then turn back on again within the space of one minute. Also, going to use Spotlight (even if you've excluded Time Machine Backups from being indexed) will automatically prompt the My Book drive to turn back on, which introduces a small delay to using Spotlight.
Does anyone make an External Hard Drive, with a Firewire 400 or 800 connection, that stays on ALL the time and doesn't automatically make decisions about when it should spin down or spin up?

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Btw, it does not implements the energy saver Auto turn off/on feature which I don't need cause the time it could mostly be really useful is by night. As it stops when I disconnect the USB and start again when I connect it back.. this is perfect to me.
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Primary Hard Drive Recognized as a Time Machine Backup Drive

Hi,
I am having some trouble installing the latest OSX Mavericks due to the installation application erroneously recognizing my primary hard drive being used for Time Machine backups. I have removed my backup drive from Time Machine, removed the backup drive from my laptop altogether, turned off Time Machine in system preferences and restarted numerous times in an attempt to get the OSX Mavericks installer to recognize my primary hard drive.
Is anyone else having this problem? Is there something I am missing?
Thanks!

As Time Machine deletes files when the drive gets too full (deletes the oldest backup to make room for a new backup), it would depend on which backup your movies are and when they'd get deleted. Once you delete them on your hard drive, they won't be in the newest TM backups either. I'd suggest you copy them to another hard drive or a flash drive/USB stick - of course they'd need to be large enough.

What brand external hard drive is best with time machine

what brand of external hard drive works best with time machine?

Contrary to the other two replies, I will relate what I've read here: WD drives are fine, but their (cheap?) enclosures are subject to failure. Some buy a bare WD drive and install it in an Oxford Chip external enclosure (OWC / macsales.com would be one source). And, I have two LaCie Quadras and one OWC Mercury Pro - both are generally recommended here. If you want it bootable, most WD drives do not support it:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1787/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvd GltZS8xMzUxNTIzMzIwL3NpZC9ueUFYc1g5bA%3D%3D
Please note: it's good to have an external hard drive which has its own power supply and, as mentioned, FW 800 or USB 3). You also do not need any software that comes on the external - you will most likely need to format it anyway because most come formatted for Windows, but that is easy using Disk Utility.

How do I find my photos on my external hard drive backed up using Time Machine?

How do I find my photos on my external hard drive backed up using Time Machine?
My hard drive died so this is my only storage. The hard drive was from an early 2008 Macbook Pro.
I had recently installed Snow Leopard.

If they’re in an iPhoto library, look in the Pictures folder of your home folder first. Otherwise, they’ll be in the location corresponding to the one you saved them to.
(111765)

Can I start new hard drive set up again?/time machine info missing!

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