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.

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Problems restoring files with Time Machine after hard drive failure

Hello everyone,
I had a Mavericks (10.9.5) installation on my Mac Mini when my hard drive suddenly "died". I therefore replaced the hard drive with a new one and started the recovery mode using the cmd + R keyboard shortcut during booting. I then partitioned and formated the new hard drive and afterwards selectd "Restore from Time Machine Backup" (see the screenshot on the following page: https://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/). To my surprise, the following error message was displayed: "An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk". After some research, I discovered that this problem is probably caused by a Mountain Lion installation bug (http://macdailynews.com/2013/02/28/new-macs-suffering-from-os-x-mountain-lion-in stallation-bug/). This leads to my first question:
1) Why does the recovery mode start the Mountain Lion (10.8.5) installer and not the Mavericks (10.9.5) installer?
Anyway, since this problem left me no alternative, I selected "Reinstall OS X" instead, which downloaded Mountain Lion from the Internet. After the installation was complete, I used Migration Assistant to recover my two accounts, their apps and data. However, after the process was completed, I discovered that some files were missing in a folder that I was using before the hard drive "died". This leads to my second question:
2) Why are some files missing from that folder?
Anyway, I though I could quickly recover these lost files by entering Time Machine. I did that and selected the respective folder. However, having that folder or any other folder selected, Time Machine doesn't display any previous back-ups on its timeline although the latter goes back as far as 26 August 2013.
3) Why doesn't Time Machine display older versions of that folder on its timeline?
I will greatly appreciate any help!

Try E2/4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems
James Pond (Pondini) died last year unfortunately.

Time Machine after hard drive crash

Recently, my MacBook's hard drive crashed. Fortunately, I had most of my data backed up via Time Machine. So, once Apple installed a new hard drive, I "restored all" with Time Machine. Now when I launch Time Machine, my archive only goes back a few days, to when I initially "restored all" -- before, my archives went back to November. Where did all of my backups go? How can I get them to show up in Time Machine?

when TM does the first backup after a full system restore it sometimes does a complete (or nearly complete) backup. This happened to me once. this creates a big space demand to accommodate that backup and if there is not enough space TM will start deleting old backups to create space. To check this open TM drive in finder, go to Backups.backupdb->computer-name folder. all available backups will be listed there chronologically. how far back does it go?

Restoring system with Time machine

Hi,
Tried restoring with Command-R from an external Lacie HD, through TIME MACHINE, after having had my internal HD disk changed (in Apple Care).
The initial 12+ hour process seemed ok, but it has now gone into a "loop" (I think) because the greay screen is up as if wanting to restart, but the time circle is going round and round and round.
My fears are:
1) the system back-up I chose in TM is corrupt (?)
2) if I switch teh system off, I have to restart the whole process
Any help?
thanks.

Hi,
Tried restoring with Command-R from an external Lacie HD, through TIME MACHINE, after having had my internal HD disk changed (in Apple Care).
The initial 12+ hour process seemed ok, but it has now gone into a "loop" (I think) because the greay screen is up as if wanting to restart, but the time circle is going round and round and round.
My fears are:
1) the system back-up I chose in TM is corrupt (?)
2) if I switch teh system off, I have to restart the whole process
Any help?
thanks.

Restore System with Time Machine?

It seems to be this SHOULD be easy - but in three hours I just haven't been able to figure it out.
How do I do a system restore with time machine?
I did a back up a week ago. Yesterday I had some kind of major glitch that messed up an unknown number of my files. I figured "that's okay, I'll just restore everything to last week and that will be fine." Except I can't seem to find out how to do that!
I have no idea how many files are affected, but last week it was all fine. I did a diagnostic and it says my hardware is fine. I did the safe boot start up and everything is supposed to be okay on my drive. But my files and software is still messing up - and I think if I can just put it back to last week, I'm fine.
I do not have a CD that works (I found one, put it in, and the system won't boot from it). I do have my backup drive. What do I do?

See if the instructions here work for you:
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html
You really should get replacement installation disks from Apple Customer Service. They will need the serial number of your MBP and there is a charge.
Ciao.

Can't restore apps with time machine

I can't restore an app (or any file) from the Application folder with time machine. The folder is "grayed out" as soon as I go back in time.
I have checked permission.
Thanks for any hint!
Rolf

Some troubleshooting information:
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Restore from time machine after hard drive install

I just had apple replace my hard drive on my Imac. I backed up everything with my external hard drive My Book. Tried to do a restore with Time Machine and it won't do it. I get a message that come up that says "Time Machine can't be modified or deleted because its required by Mac OS X. What steps am I missing to restore with Time Machine?

Hello, I personally don't use TM, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imagine something not being covered there.

Can't restore folders from Time Machine after Lion

Hello guys,
after upgrading to Lion 10.7.1 I can't seem able to restore some old folders from Time Machine
Here's what happens: I log in TM, I can scroll through my old backups, I can choose the folders I want to restore, I can click on the folder, but when the systems tries to restore it, it stops saying that I don't have the privileges to access file A in the folder (and then all the procedure is stopped).
Oddly (at least for me) if I try to restore just that same file A (and not the whole folder) that I should have no privileges for, from the same old backup, I can do it, but I have to give the system my password: It pops up a window saying something "Finder is willing to make some modification, can you authorize?" (forgive i'm translating the alert from another language) and then I can restore it.
Has anybody else this problem and how can be solved?
Many thanks
Ps: I did a simple upgrade on Lion, no partition, no blank disk, and never changed anything in my user preferences, it's always the same, administrator
Pps: Before Lion I could restore easily exactly the same folders and files I tried to restore with Lion

wrongusername wrote:
But if I transfer everything with the Setup Assistant, won't I once again be experiencing the problems I had?
If the problems were caused by your data. But that's extremely unlikely. It may have been an app, or, much more likely from your description, something corrupted in the Leopard OS. That's one of the problems with upgrading a sick system without knowing what or where the causes are. It's a bit like a brain surgeon operating on himself: if he isn't in tip-top shape to start with, his condition is likely to change, and not for the better.
Most of us would have recommended first simply doing a +*Repair Disk+* on your internal HD; if that didn't help, installing the "combo" Leopard update; if that didn't work, doing an +Archive and Install+ and re-installing the "combo."
After a clean re-install of Snow Leopard, my Mac worked fine again (except for the TM trouble). So it probably had something to do with my old files.
Probably not. Much more likely OSX was somehow damaged. And you got a whole new one.
How come I could read the files on my external HD and yet not be able to copy the files?
Time Machine uses special "deny everybody everything" permissions on it's backups, among other things, in an attempt to keep us mere mortals from moving, changing, or deleting things and corrupting them.

IPhoto backups won;t appear in Time Machine after hard drive was replaced

Please help me with this question. Not sure I posted it in the right thread to start with:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2135715&stqc=true

Hi Nidan,
Thanks for digging out the support article!
Sadly it didn't help me either.
Indeed, as Murphy may have it, I think several things might have gone wrong at the same time for me.
My Setup:
Mac Mini called "chief" with 10.5.2, two WD MyBook 1TB drives connected via FW and mirrored with RAID-1.
Mac Book Pro called "tiff" with 10.5.2, connects to mini via ethernet and AFP for Time Machine.
Both machines have been backing up since November and I have been successfully recovering files on both machines as needed.
Until now.
What has happened:
First, one of the MyBooks died, was sent in for repairs and I received a replacement yesterday. The RAID rebuild is still running (takes about 30 hours for 1TB). Even so, the file system is visible, can be mounted etc.
Today I installed Leopard on a third firewire disk, connected to the mac book pro (for testing). I called this system "leopard-test" and told it to back up also, assuming I would get a "leopard-test" sparse bundle. Sadly this attempt crashed so I turned off time machine on the test system.
Now I'm using the original Mac Book Pro system (tiff) and the time machine preferences still point to the Mac Mini disk, still report the oldest backup as being in November 2007 but when I try to recover a file, no history is shown at all.
Indeed, time machine isn't even mounting the backup image any more.
I can manually mount the image and all of the archives back to November seem to be there... it's just that time machine doesn't seem to recognise the image any more.
Any help greatly appreciated! (I REALLY don't want to lose the stuff I've been doing lately! Since I can get at the files manually, I'm thinking of renaming the original archive and starting a new one - at least then I know the old data won't be corrupted (further?))
Any help greatly appreciated!!!

HT3275 Unable to backup using Time Machine after hard drive was replaced

I recently had my hard drive fail and I had the hard drive replaced. I restored everything from my Time Capsule without a problem. Now when I go to backup with the Time Machine, it stalls. It states it is "backing up: 12.2MB of 227GB" for the past four hours. I have attempted to restart the backup and have had the same thing happen. Any suggestions? Thanks!

If you have restored the backup, did you correctly inherit the old backup when you setup TM again??
See Pondini on inheriting backups. B5 and B6
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Install the widget.. A1
Do a full reset of TM.. A4
Do a verify of the disk and the backup.. A5.
I strongly recommend you simply start over.. this happens with TM sometimes.
Archive off the old backups if you still want to keep them.. no bad idea in case there is something still to transfer.
In the airport utility erase the hard disk of the TC.. and then start again.
Make sure you do at least the first backup by ethernet as it is many times faster than wireless.

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).

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.

How to restore all system with Time Machine ?

How to restore all system from Time Machine ?
The backup disk for Time Machine is a Usb disk, and the Os is Mountain Lion 10.8.2.
Thanks in advance !

Restore the system with Time Machine and from the external backup Usb HD, by pressing CMD + R at the power on.
It worked without problem.
Thankyou once more !

Questions about "Restore System From Time Machine"

Looking to fix an apparent system corruption problem on my work machine, I discovered the "Utilities > Restore System From Time Machine" option of the Leopard installation disc. I have some questions that are not answered in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1177:
1. Does this option erase the hard drive and install a fresh system from DVD, or do I need to do that in a separate step?
2. What about software updates - when are they applied?
3. Will third-party system extensions be reinstalled OK?
4. I tried launching the process on my home machine, just to see how it works. At work I have a dedicated disk for Time Machine, but at home I have a Time Capsule, serving two Macs via Ethernet. I've also configured the TC to give us a shared volume; so in normal operation I have two network volumes, <Username>, containing Time Machine's sparsebundle file for that user's Mac, and "Shared". When I boot from the installation DVD and run "Utilities > Restore System From Time Machine", the backup volume list only shows the "Shared" volume. If I select it, I'm prompted for my TC username and password; I enter it, TC spins up, and then nothing. I cannot continue the restoration process, and reselecting the "Shared" volume does nothing. ???
Thanks in advance for your help.
-- Phil

For the record, here's what I've found out so far:
1. The "Restore System From Time Machine" option seems to want to restore everything, including the system, from the Time Machine backup. I wanted a clean system install, so I did an "Erase & install" followed by a "Restore from Time Machine" in the Migration Assistant. That got me most, but not all, of my settings back; exceptions include the printer configurations, the desktop picture, and the Dock settings.
2. Software updates can be applied after the new system is rebooted.
3. Most 3rd party extensions seem to have been restored OK, but some (like MacFuse) were not.
4. I'd still be grateful for any hints concerning how to get "Restore from Time Machine" to work with a Time Capsule.
-- Phil

How to restore files from Time Machine after Clean Install of Mavericks

How to restore files from Time Machine after Clean Install of Mavericks. I know the data is there but seems unaccessable because I may have changed the Computer or Owner name. Is there any way to fix that now?

Hi Linc,
my back-up data is managed by Time Machine; the actual data is on a second internal Hard Drive with a capacity of 1TB - not partitioned. I am using Time Machine and have access to all data backed up since Mavericks Clean Install but not the data prior to this date.
When I open the 1TB drive in Finder I can see a folder "Backups.backupdb/Sigi's Mac Pro/ followed by many folders of backup dates going back to 2010-09-20-103441 and up to 2014-02-07-142414 all followed with folder Macintosh HD. February 7th 2014 was the date of the clean install.
These Backups are followed by backup date folder 2014-02-08-075554 with a subfolder of MacPro-320GB (this is the name I assigned to my Boot Drive during formatting; I suspect I should have assigned the same name as before ie. Macintosh HD) and 2014-02-11 with a subfolder Macintosh HD, these are the ones I get access to by way of Time Machine > Restore.
Weird thing is on Febr 11 when I relised my possible mistake and renamed the Bootdrive back to what it was initially ie. Macintosh HD despite this I have access to all backup data since the Clean Install in both folders MacPro-320GB as well as Macintosh HD but not to any data prior to the Clean Install.
Is there something that Time Machine knows and prevents access or is it simply a matter of renaming the subfolder 2014-02-08-07554/MacPro-320GB to ........./Macintosh HD?
I like to restore selectively and not everything - It was hard work reinstalling apps that were supposed to be the troublemakers (ref my discussion on Maverick problems) but I now need to get onto data specific to some of these apps as well as other data I may have missed. Long story? Yes and sorry.
Sigi

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

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