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.

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Can you restore from Time Machine backup to a smaller drive?

My 2008 Air's original hard-drive just died. I have a recent Time Machine backup. Since the laptop isn't under warranty, I am looking at buying a replacement hard-drive on my own (either SSD or 'standard'). My question is, if I was using ~70Gigs (and had a Time Machine backup to that effect) and place a 64G hard-drive into the laptop and attempt to do a Time Machine restore... what will happen? Will I be able to pick and choose what to leave out? Or will the entire restore fail? Thank you.

As long as there is sufficient space on a drive you can restore to any drive. However, be sure the drive is properly partitioned and formatted. In your case you can not fully restore 70 GBs to a 64 GB SSD, but you can restore the operating system and some of your data. That means you cannot do a full restore but will need to pick and choose after you install OS X.
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Can I restore a time machine backup to a new hard disk

I've just had the HDD replced in my iMac 24 under Applecare Warranty. The data had been backed up on an external HDD using Time Machine.
The only way I can see to restore the data is reinstal the OS and do a migration. This seems unwieldy, to say the least.
Can I restore the backup direct to the iMac somehow?
The backup was done when the iMac ran 10.6. It has come back with 10.5 installed.

Take a look at Pondini's excellent TM articles, particularly this one -
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html
You should be able to restore your system in full if you backed up system folders as well as your data and applications.
Otherwise, Use the retail Snow Leopard DVD to install Snow over Leopard (no erasing required), then use Setup Assistant from the new installation to migrate from TM.

HT1379 I had to restart by resetting the NVRAM/PRAM. Now I have a window showing OS X Utilities. My options are restore from Time Machine Backup (which I could do), Disk Utility to repair or erase, get help online or reinstall OS X. What should I do?

I had to restart by resetting the NVRAM/PRAM. Now I have a window showing OS X Utilities. My options are restore from Time Machine Backup (which I could do), Disk Utility to repair or erase, get help online or reinstall OS X. What should I do? The problem began when I tried to restart my computer and the only thing I saw was the grey screen, Apple logo, and the timer; the computer wouldn't restart from there.

I searched through trouble shooting options on the Apple Support page and was able to make it this far.

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 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

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 you restore a time machine back-up more than once?

Hi,
About a week ago I tried restoring an old time machine backup to check that it worked - and it did. I now want to restore that same backup again. It's still there on the external drive that it was backed up onto, but no longer has a time stamp associated with it, and it no longer allows me o restore it. Any help would be appreciate d.

I was not aware that such a limitation existed. Try this: (disable Time machine temporarily
Click on the Time Macine HDD, and open ''Backups. backupdb' folder. You then might see another folder with you name on it. Open that folder which should show you a series of folders with a series of dates. See EX.
Select the folder with the date where the data that you want to retrieve resides. Open that folder and keep opening folders until you get to the item you wish to restore. Drag the item to your desk top.
Ciao.

Can't Restore from Time Machine Backup???

I was trying to revert my OS to Snow Leopard from Lion, and thus I backed up all my files first just in case something went wrong. I however forgot that you cannot restore a backup from a newer OS to an older one, so I redownloaded Lion to set things right and backup only my files. However, when I redownloaded Lion and I connected my externel hardrive and clicked on time machine, all the backups were in pink and when I clicked on them they were unresponsive. What happened and how do I fix this?

marcus221 wrote:
I redownloaded Lion to set things right and backup only my files. However, when I redownloaded Lion and I connected my externel hardrive and clicked on time machine, all the backups were in pink and when I clicked on them they were unresponsive. What happened and how do I fix this?
If your backups are on a network, it may take a few moments for the display to be "populated" and responsive.
What you see in the "Star Wars" display depends on how you got there. If you start from, say, your Documents folder, then that folder is all you'll see. If it wasn't included in your backups, you can't select them.
Select something else before going into the display, or select something else in the sidebar.
See #15A in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Can I restore from Time Machine backup after replacing hard drive

I'm planning on replacing the 250GB hard drive in my mid 2010 13 inch MBP with a larger one. My MBP comes with Snow Leopard, and I've installed Lion and recently Mountain Lion from App Store. Can I use my Snow Leopard disc to boot up the laptop after replacing the hard drive, and restore Mountain Lion and everything else from the latest backup in Time Machine without having to install Snow Leopard?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Press Command and R keys while your Mac is starting and restore your backup. You shouldn't use 10.6 to restore the Mountain Lion backup

Can you delete older time machine backups

I recently upgraded to a new iMac. I had been using an external drive for backing up my previous computer. I would like to use this same drive to back up my new computer; however, I need to delete some of the older backups in order to have enough space.
My understanding is that Time Machine backs up incrementally; therefore, I am wondering if I go in and arbitrarily start deleting the oldest BUs if I will mess up the integrity of the backups. I am reluctant to delete all of them until I am absolutely certain I don't need anything from them.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thank you.

I would let Time Machine 'do its thing' and delete backups as it is designed to. You probably won't hurt the integrity of the backup, but you could delete something you might want. How big is the drive? You could always buy a new drive and backup both computers to that and keep backing up the older computer to both drives. Having 2 separate backups on 2 separate hard drives is desirable because hard drives do fail.

Time machine backup too big for empty disk??

So I restart my MacBook Pro a few minutes after completing a full Time Machine backup. When it restarts it goes through the grey startup screen, then gets stuck on the blue screen just before the desktop normally appears. This happens whenever I startup. I am still able to hit the power button and get the Restart/Shut Down dialog, so I restart using my Snow Leopard boot disk, run Disk Utility, repair permissions, and repair disk, but the problem still remains. I decide to Restore from Time Machine Backup, so I erase my disk (80 GB, had only 200 MB free), go to the Restore screen and connect my backup disk. Now the weird part -- it says my latest backup is too big for the disk, even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free. All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless. Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.

dgordon412 wrote:
(80 GB, had only 200 MB free)
That's likely corrupted your system. You should have a minimum of 10% - 15% free at all times. That's almost certainly why it wouldn't restart.
even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free.
There must be something else on the drive; if you erase it, it should have just under 80 GB free. Is there another partition?
Did you erase with a Leopard Install disc or a Snow Leopard disc? If you used a Leopard disc, that might explain showing only 74.2 GB free (it counts differently).
If so, use your +Snow Leopard+ install disc to do a complete reformat, and try to restore the backup. A Leopard disc cannot restore a Snow Leopard backup. Even the Snow Leopard disc may not work, as it's just too full and/or your system was damaged by getting too full.
All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless.
Having an OSX drive that full will make your Mac extremely sluggish, cause data corruption and/or loss, apps to crash, etc.
Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.
If you can get your Mac running, you need to make several GBs of space immediately.
If all else fails, reformat the internal HD and install OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc, then use +Setup Assistant+ after the Welcome video to transfer +*most, but not all+* of your stuff from the backup. Omit the contents of one or more large sub-folders in a home folder (such as Photos, Music, or Movies).
See #19 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.

Can I restore a time machine osx lion backup using snow leopard install DVD?

Hi.
I've been using osx lion but my hard drive died. Fortunately I have been making time machine backups. Since I downloaded lion from the app store I only have the snow leopard install disks.
I know there is an option to restore from a time machine backup using the snow leopard disk, but since the time machine backup is of a later operating system (lion) will that time machine restore work?
If it won't, can you recommend how to restore from my time machine backup?
Thanks.

Once the replacement hard drive is installed, boot from your original Snow Leopard Installation Disk. From there format the harddrive and install Snow Leopard and then download and install its Updates. Next, navigate to the Mac App Store and login using the Exact same Apple User ID that you did the first time you downloaded Lion. You will now be able to download and install the Lion OS for Free. Download and install the Lion Updates. Lastly, using Migration Assistant, migrate your Apps and Data from the Time Machine external hard drive to your internal Lion harddrive. This method should give you a very stable version of Lion on your internal harddrive complete with all your previous settings, Apps and Data.
Hope this helps

How many times can you restore from the same backup?

how many times can you restore from the same backup?

As many times as you want till you delete or modify it.
It's YOUR backup, a copy of all your stuff.
Not some copyrighted, access controlled bunch of bytes representing a picture, a song or a movie, with a bunch of lawyers from the entertainment maff1a hellbent on restricting what you can do with it.

Restore can't find the time machine backup

I am trying to restore my system from a time machine backup and the Restore option doesn't recognize my time machine backup. Any ideas on how to force it to see it?
Some background:
I am running Mountain Lion on a 2008 iMac. About 1 week ago, my internal HD failed. I had the hard drive replaced and then hooked up my external HD time machine back-up to restore my system. I started the computer with the command-R option and selected restore from time machine backup. It recognized the hard drive itself, but when I get to the screen to select the backup, it tells me there are no backups on the selected volume. I have run the repair in Disk Utility and the drive checked out ok. I have since installed Mountain Lion again on the internal drive, but didn't bring any files.
Also, while the main computer was down I connected the external drive to another computer and used the show hidden files steps to find some files on the time machine backup and copied them to the other computer.
I don't know if this relates, but I want to share all of the info: Back when the HD originally failed, the computer froze. When my son restarted the computer, it then asked what language he wanted. Then it began a restore process and asked him to select a volume to restore the system to. This is the bad part- He selected a partitioned drive where I had stored some files that didn't fit on the hard drive. It erased that drive and began restoring the system. Of course he didn't tell me about any of this until about 2 hours later, so we lost the contents on that drive. This partitioned drive is the same drive where my time machine backup resides. One partition is the Time Machine backup and the other was external data.
Any ideas? I know I can manually restore the files, but it would be nice to be able to automatically do it. Also, is there a way to read the excluded list? I found the file that this is on...
Thanks,

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

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