Cannot Complete a Time Machine backup

Here's a question for all the pros. I am fairly new to macs and I have a MacBook Pro that is running on Snow Leopard. I have not been able to complete a TM since the beginning of November. It always keeps on coming up with an error message about the backup disk right when there are about 10G left in the backup. I thought it might be the disk so I went and shelled out the money for a Time Capsule but to no avail I still cannot do a TM. I am so frustrated. I have called Apple Support and spent almost a whole day with them and I still have not gotten it to work. I can always call them back but it is so time consuming. I have had problems with a couple of different applications so I wanted to do a TM so I could just erase my HD and start from scratch. Has anyone heard of this problem? Can any of you guys think of anything that might be helpful? I just wanted to check and see before I spend another whole day on the phone again. Thanks

Still did not work
I don't even see the files that I created. I named them TEST1-5 so is it the actual files that are listed below and how do I fix them?
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Angel9096@Carey's%20Time%20Capsule.afpovertcp.tcp.local/Data
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Angel9096@Carey's%20Time%20Capsule.afpovertcp.tcp.local/Data
Creating disk image /Volumes/Data-1/Carey MacBook Pro.sparsebundle
Disk image /Volumes/Data-1/Carey MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Backup content size: 88.5 GB excluded items size: 4.8 GB for volume Carey Hard Drive
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.43 GB requested (including padding), 928.68 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Library/Documentation/Help/AppleTVHelp.help/Contents/Resources/zh_CN.lproj/App leTVHelp.html to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/11d2ad9e8a88ce6eb8e8e4c2a3fa6ffaada3015b/872e43a92443 a1b86ea417c0337995af263739d2.mddata to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Library/Mail/[email protected]/INBOX.mbox/ Messages/156.emlx to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library (Damaged) to (null)
Copied 22.3 GB of 83.7 GB, 185259 of 750653 items
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Data.noindex/2009/Nov 15, 2009/IMG_1760.jpg to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Data.noindex/2009/Nov 15, 2009/IMG_1816.jpg to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2009/Dec 10, 2009/IMG_3430.jpg to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/Brenden's 2nd Birthday!!/IMG_3285.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/Brenden's 2nd Birthday!!/IMG_3288.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/Brenden's 2nd Birthday!!/IMG_3291.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/Brenden's 2nd Birthday!!/MVI_3286.AVI to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/Brenden's 2nd Birthday!!/MVI_3295.AVI to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/Dec 10, 2009/IMG_3426.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Angel9096/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/

Similar Messages

Cannot browse other time machine backups

I cannot browse other time machine backups on my time capsule. I hold down the option key and select "browse other time machine backups in the menu bar icon and I see no backups. Then I mount the time machine backup disk and I only see the the backup for the machine that I am using to do this. However, there are backups for two machines on that disk. One is called "outis" and the other "phaedrus". On the phaedrus machine, outis is not browseable and on the outis machine, phaedrus is not visible.
I set up a test account and the test account could only browse the backup for that machine and not the other.
How can I see all of the backups?

kathigitis wrote:
Am I mistaken or should all of this not happen and be available as soon as the TM disk is mounted?
I just checked and it works the same way for me so I guess not. you need to mount the other sparse bundle first before you can browse it.
That is to say, both backups are visible.
Should I now revert to disk password in the AP utility?
you can try and see what happens. the above method should work then too.
Message was edited by: kathigitis

Cannot access old time machine backups

Hi,
I recently had some issues regarding my MacBook Pro and decided the best course of action would be to ensure it was completely backed up; reinstall OS X Yosemite and pick the old backup for useful files.
Unfortunately, when it came to resetting up Time Machine, it asked me if I wanted to use the existing backup. I imagined the safe answer would've been "Yes" and that it would've been smart enough to create a clean backup at the date of restore.
It seems that this is not the case...
Any backup, despite being listed on the Time Machine interface, prior to the date of restore was "greyed out" and could not be accessible. Unfortunately, the "Browse other Backup Disks" option didn't work (are there issues with this option for NAS backups?), and unfortunately, a repair disk doesn't seem to either.
I have only managed to get the .sparsebundle (encrypted) drive to mount once by using a repair disk; every other time I attempt to remount using repair disk, the button is greyed out. :/
The time I did get into the "Time Machine Backups" volume; only once backup was listed for ".inProgress" – a 70GB file (the sparsebundle is ~500GB+).
Any ideas on steps I can try to find these phantom files?
At present, Disk Utility doesn't have the "Repair Disk" option available and DiskWarrior 4.4 is throwing up error 2154; low memory; on a 16GB RAM rMBP.
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
Jamie

I am having a similar problem and do not understand the solution. I have a new Macbook and transferred my data from my Powerbook G4. However, I cannot access anything! There is a no entry sign on the folders and if I click them I get this message: 'The folder “Pictures” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.'
Help - but please, in simple language
Thanks

Cannot restore a Time Machine backup

Yesterday I replaced my startup drive in my Mac Pro. I formatted the drive and then ran Software Update. Now I have a nice, clean, working system drive!
The problem is, I can't restore from my Time Machine backup. When I used "Restore from Time Machine backup" within Disk Utility, it took several hours to (supposedly) restore, only to completely crash the drive. After that 7 hour process, all I got was a grey screen with the message "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button..." etc. So, I reformatted and updated the drive again, and then tried Migration Assistant. Well, M.A. reads my backup as 0.0kb, and therefore does not restore anything. So now I am at a loss as to how in the world I can restore all my data to my new drive.
Do I use Disk Utility, Migration Assitant, Setup Assistant, or ??
For what it's worth, my backup drive is very flaky as far as appearing on the desktop. It is rarely there when I reboot so I have to unplug and re-plug the USB cable to get it back. However, the backup IS there, and "Get Info" shows it to be 1.4TB. I just can't get it to restore no matter what I try. Help!!
Thanks,
Ben

Please disregard my question... I am an idiot.
No, don't beat yourself up. You're far from the first to do that.
Did you erase the backuop you'd restored? If not, just install a fresh version of OSX.
If you did, just restore again, using your Snow Leopard disc.
See #E8 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Cannot Restore from Time Machine Backup

Hi everyone,
I recently formatted my hard drive due to some issues with boot camp. I had planned on using my external hard drive that I used with Time Machine to restore all of my stuff. However I have been having some major issues restoring from my backup. I select Restore System from Backup and than my external disk with my time machine backup on it. Everything seems to be working correctly until i hit 21.5% and then the restore stops and the screen goes gray. I get a log of what went wrong and it says i hit an error when restoring four songs from my itunes library. If anyone can help me figure out what I can do to fix my problem I would be immensely grateful. Thanks

dougcleary wrote:
I get a log of what went wrong and it says i hit an error when restoring four songs from my itunes library.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
What does the error message say? Does it name the songs (files)? If so, are they some you loaded very recently?
If so, try selecting a backup prior to when you loaded them.
If not, or you don't know, try repairing your backup disk. Instead of selecting +Restore system from backups,+ select +Disk Utility,+ then select your TM drive and do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on it. If it finds and fixes anything, you may be able to do the full restore.
If not, your best bet may be to install OSX, then when your Mac boots up, and +Setup Assistant+ asks if you want to "transfer" data from a different Mac or it's backups, do that. See #19 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Select everything except the folder your iTunes library is in (Music, unless you've moved it). That will get everything else so you can boot up and run normally.
Then use Time Machine's "Star Wars" display to restore as much of your music as you can, per #15 in the FAQ. You may have to try several times to get what you can, and avoid what you can't.

Cannot access older time machine backups

I recently installed a new SSD in my MacBook and after reinstalling OSX Mountain Lion I chose to restore from a time machine backup. Everything went smoothly and all my files were restored. However, I tried to access a backup from before my restore but it's not showing it as being available even though the Time Machine preferences confirm that my oldest backup is from June 2011 and I can still access the folders that far back via finder. But I've never had this happen. Why it because its a new hard drive? Was it because of the recent 10.8.3 software update? Was it because of the "restore from time machine backup"? Every time I had done a clean install I just copied over the critical folders such as documents and itunes from my drive, never used the restore feature. My files clearly aren't gone, but I'm curious as to why this happened. Please help. Thanks in advance.

Have you done a new backup yet? If not, yes, Time Machine is looking for the backups on a different disk. As mende1 says, the procedure in #E3 should let you see them.
Once you start a new backup, Time Machine should automatically "associate" the new drive with the old backups, only do an "incremental" backup of the changes, and treat the old backups as if they'd been made from the new drive.
If not (ie, if it starts doing a full backup), you may be able to cancel the backup and do the "associatedisk" yourself, per #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting, especially the pink box there.

Cannot Restore From Time Machine Backup - Account Exists Error

I used Time Machine to perform a full backup of my machine, then performed a Delete and Install of Leopard. I am trying to use Migration Assistant to restore from my Time Machine backup, however it tells me my account name already exists. It will not allow me past this screen no matter what I try to rename the account I am transferring. It will not allow me to choose to replace the existing account name either.
I tried to create a new Admin account to use for Migration Assistant as other posts suggested, but it still will not allow me to migrate the files from the Time Machine back. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Create another account. Login to this account and delete the account that in conflict and then try Migration Assistant again to restore from TM backups.

Cannot migrate from time machine backup

Yesterday my internal hard disk crashed and after repairing disk in recovery mode I could reinstall MtLion.
Using migration assistent I wanted to recover my old accounts, but the assistant could not find my time machine backup.
Information
Backup-System: External USB Harddisk connected directly to iMac
Spare-Bundle located in root folder of external hard disk
Backup only for my account folders and some special folders but not the entire system
I can open the TM backup with "DiscUtility" and with Time Machine (pressing <option> key while opening TM-menu)
Currently I try to repair the SpareBundle because this has been mentioned in many discussions and support pages.
I would like to use the Migration assistent because I am afraid, that my "secret"files like key-chain would not be accessible any longer in case I recover it manually.
What can I do so that the assistent works again?
KR
Michael

atsuem wrote:
Using migration assistent I wanted to recover my old accounts, but the assistant could not find my time machine backup.
Be sure you're selecting the From Another Disk option in Migration Assistant.
The sparse bundle should appear on the Select Your System window there, but note that it will show the name of the disk and Computer name that was backed-up, not the name of the disk the backups are on.
Or, you may first see the name of the drive the backups are on; if you select that, after a few moments, you'll see the actual backups, with the name of the disk and Computer that were backed-up.
If it doesn't appear, try manually mounting the sparse bundle before starting Migration Assistant.
We have a few reports that occasionally a disk won't appear, but the Continue button will be enabled; if so, click it - the Select items to Migrate window may appear and you can proceed.
Backup-System: External USB Harddisk connected directly to iMac
Spare-Bundle located in root folder of external hard disk
That's a bit strange. Normally, for backups made to a directly-connected HD, the Backups.backupdb folder
is placed at the top level of the drive, not inside a sparse bundle. A sparse bundle is used only when backups are made over a network. It doesn't much matter now, but is there a reason that was done?
• Backup only for my account folders and some special folders but not the entire system
That prevents you from doing a full system restore, which often works when Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant don't.
And you'll likely have trouble with any "complex" 3rd-party apps (typically the ones that come with their own installers). They'll probably have to be reinstalled from the original discs.
Currently I try to repair the SpareBundle because this has been mentioned in many discussions and support pages.
Yes, that's the place to start. In this case, you need to repair both the disk or partition containing the sparse bundle and the sparse bundle itself (it's kind of a disk-within-a-disk).
If you're not sure how to do that, use the procedure in #A5 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting for a USB drive connected to a Time Capsule.
If Disk Utility can't repair it, see the pink box at the bottom of that page -- it's possible a heavy-duty, 3rd-party disk repair app can.
I would like to use the Migration assistent because I am afraid, that my "secret"files like key-chain would not be accessible any longer in case I recover it manually.
If you can't repair the sparse bundle, or if Migration Assistant still doesn't recognize the backups, that will be your only other option.
Unfortunately, there do seem to be some cases where Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant on Mountain Lion don't recognize perfectly good backups. Hopefully Apple is working on a fix, but that's not going to help now.
As far as I understood, then I can re-use my "old" TM-Backup and connect it to Time Machine without deleting my old backup
Maybe, but you'll need a different procedure.
You'll need the new account to have not only the same name, but the same UID (User ID number) as the old one. Those are assigned automatically when you create a user account, and are mostly invisible.
If you never had more than one account, the one on the backups should be #501. And the one you created after installing OSX should also have #501, so if you can get the backups to appear at all, the new user account should have access to them. And if they have the exact same short user name (home folder name), when you do the next backup, Time Machine should recognize the home folder as the same one as on the backups, as if nothing had changed.
We may need to explore that further once you get your system rebuilt.
And you'll have to manually "associate" the new disk with the backups, per #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting before starting new backups.

10.5.8 mac pro cannot restore from time machine backup

Hey there,
I've had a mac volume die on me so I ordered the 10.5.8 cds from Apple. I installed the OS on a new hard drive and trying to migrate from time machine backup and the backup failed to move both my user and application settings. I've tried using the migration assistant, this also fails and doesnt show me the correct volumes in TM. Please help!

What have you done to repair and rebuild the directory of your old drives?
One word of caution is that Alsoft Disk Warrior is/was not (not sure latest version) to deal with the huge size of some TimeMachine backup volumes which as Ricks said, are complex and prone to failures.
I wanted to see how it would work to have one TM drive for dailys, another for just run once a week, and system clone before any updates. Plus a small handy emergency only boot drive volume (40GB).
So you are stuck with 10.5.8 due to cost of software applilcation upgrades? and with Lion there is no support for old PowerPC, no Rosetta to run and support those. And then ML coming soon which seems to drop support for pre-2008s.
Metadata is trash as in temp cache and in a smart backup - like CCC and such - would never be backed up or shouldn't be - they should be deleted and is one case and use for things like CCleaner to be run (until Safari and Chrome do job limited age and size of disk caches).
Caches and temp files and logs can be source of problems.
SyncServices - 10.5.x started using that and that would get messed up at least when I looked at it 10.5.2+ era.
I'd dual boot SL and 10.5.8
10.5.x came out 4.5 yrs ago. In that time I upgraded boot drive couple times, formatted/initialized when it came out and again a year later 10.5.6 and then with 10.6.0 or about once a year to clone, erase, restore.
You used your backup drive for two years.
Originally hoped that it would be easy and possible to clone TM backup drives for safety and so you coudl take a good set with a year of data on it and instead of start over, take it and make a copy for archive your files. A good file history.
There are programs that add to and help manage and allow the user to look at and choose backup sets from different points in time. I take it you can't do that.
I would invest in more backup drives, internal and external, while try to build a new solid footing and foundation - so you can install, clone, do more modifications and installs and updates, so you never have to redo.
With backup clones you would never have to worry about reinstalls or lost files. CCC will with a large enough volume also allow archive of file changes. TM is probably good - for those that didn't and dont' like to backup.
I would hope though have seen enough errors, but you are using the initial TM backup program which has had three more OS versions and 3 yrs since to improve form 10.5.8 (came out June '09).

Cannot see latest Time Machine backup in Recovery, Setup Assistant, Migration Assistant

I was experiencing really slow HD response, and so chose to boot into the Recovery HD and run Disk First Aid. Disk First Aid said there was an issue and recommended a I backup and reformat the drive and reinstall. So I rebooted into my main drive, made sure Time Machine had done a backup of the latest files. Then rebooted into Recovery HD. Reformated the HD in Disk First Aid. Then went to Restore from Time Machine Backup. Under that heading it would only let me restore a system from 6 months ago. I want restore the latest backup that I verified it had run. So then I decided to Reinstall the OS and hope that Setup Assistant would see the latest update. It didn't even see the drive to recover from. So I skipped it and then hoped Migration Assistant would recognize it. Migration Assistant recognized the backup drive (Time Capsule) but then wouldn't recognize the specific backup for this machine. It only saw the backup of a different computer on my network. So what's going on? Why won't my computer restore from the latest backup? Am I going to have to manually restore? Which would suck considering the number of apps I am going to have to reinstall. Any help on this issue would be much appreciated. I am running 10.8.3 on a 2009 13" MacBook Pro w/ 8 GB RAM and a 500GB HD.

Thank you for your response!
Thinking out loud:
Both external LaCie's were were subject to a veriy and repairt process with no errors were found.
They both mount on the iMac desktop with no problems.
TM bu's to the LaCie's appear to operate correctly.
I can easliy and quickely move content to and from them at will.
Evidence seems to suggest that when entering Migration Assistant(MA), the automatic process of closing all applications save MA, seems to break the iMac<> LaCie connection. Could this be a good lead?
PONDINI
"You posted that TM was set to back up only to the LaCies but the sample you posted below shows a sparsebundle on the TC. Please clarify."
LMISES
My error: That is an old MacBook TM backup(bu)
PONDINI
"What were you running before?"
LMISES
10.8.3.
PONDINI
"Are you sure? Many folks see what they think is their internal HD, but it's really their backups. What confuses them is, it shows the Computer and disk name that were backed-up, not the name of the drive the backups are on."
LMISES
Please see the screen shot below of what Migration Assistant(MA) presents:
PONDINI
"Ordinarily, it's done by excluding the System folder via TM Preferences > Options. That puts up a prompt, and if confirmed sets an indicator in the .plist that controls backups. We do have a very few reports of it getting set some other way, mostly on Mountain Lion, but have no idea how."
LMISES
Thank you. In my view this is very significant as this behavior, it now appears for me, leaves MA as the only option. Not to value MA vs Recovery objectivly, rather, there are benefits exclusive to each process. As I sit now however, MA fails to recongnise not only the TM bu's residing on both LaCie's; MA fails to recongnise the LaCie's as hardware.
PONDINI
"What's in the sparse bundle on your Time Capsule (in the "Data" folder)? Double-click the sparsebundle to mount it; then the "Time Machine Backups" disk image should appear in your Finder sidebar. Double-click that to open it. Inside it should be aBackups.backupdb folder just like the ones on your LaCie drives, with similar contents."
LMISES
The following screen shots are of the "Data" folder.

Cannot find old Time Machine backups

Recently, I had to backup my iMac from my latest Carbon Copy Cloner copy. (I have an external HD with two partitions: Time Machine and CCC, both some 750 GB; for various reasons, I choose the CCC backup.)
After that, Time Machine started to backup again. But after a while it stopped, claiming having too little space to complete: it needed 700 Gb but it found only 230 Gb.
The old TM backups had disappeared!
Yet, Disk Utility says the capacity of the TM drive is 750,82 GB, and that 232,89 GB is available.
So, the older backups must still be there… but I cannot approach them. Also, when right-clicking the TM icon in the Dock in order to find another TM disk, it does not find the original backups.
A hint, ayone?

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for starters.

Cannot Access Earlier Time Machine Backups After Upgrade To Mountain lion

I went into Time Machine to recover some past emails. It shows that it had backed up my emails for the last year, however it will not let me recover anything before my upgrade to mountain lion. Does anyone know of a workaround for this problem. Thank you.

Christopher Sant wrote:
Once it does finally recognize (after a good while) it simply says "Error, time machine could not complete the backup"
There should be more to that message. See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup, what you've done, and the results.

Cannot access old time machine backup

Dear Community,
as you can see in the image below, Time Machine preferences shows that my oldest backup is from August 25, 2012.
However, if I access the Time Machine, the oldes backup I can access is only 2 days old. All the remaining backups cannot be accessed from the GUI! They can be accessed if I manually mount the time machine, though.
Any idea why this is happening?
Thank you for your suggestions.

Thanks for the suggestion. I didn't know about the option+clik.
Unfortunately the option is grayed out and I cannot select it.
However, if I select "Broswe other backup disks" I am presented with a list in which all items (about 10) except the first one and the last one are like this:
i.e. the drive name is empty. The first option is the name of an old backup (not used anymore), and the last one is the name of the current backup. I tried selecting any of them but the result does not change.
The time machines are correctly mounted, but I still cannot access the data from the TM interface.

My MBP is not recognising the audio device and won't complete a time machine backup, what might it be?

I have a MBP thats about 18months old. First indicator was the audio device intermittantly being recognised ( the speaker icon on the status bar goes grey, nothing with sound works, then it comes good again). Thought little of it, till I noticed the backlighting of my keyboard also failed at the same time as the Speaker icon was grey.
Then lately, it wont do a complete time machine back up, either via airport or usb.
Its starting to sound like i have a "serious" issue, any one with clues where to start?

reset your PRAM http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
let us know how it goes.

Unable to use a Time Machine backup

I am getting very frustrated, as I cannot use a Time Machine backup the way I want to.
Short story, my Macbook Pro Retina (running Yosemite) is, and have for a while been, a litte buggy and slow, so I wsh to to a clean install of OSX, and use migration assistant to recover files and settings. I have tried to to a complete restore, but this hasn´t helped.
The problem is, the migration assistant can´t find the backups. When I restart with Cmd+R and prompt a restore from TimeMachine backup, it CAN find both mine, and other backups stored on the disk. But after I do a clean install, and get to the assistant, it CAN´T find any of the backups.
The backups are on a WD 2TB disk, connected via my Mac Mini.
I have tried creating another account on the fresh install, and verify disk and permissions. One time, that actually made the assistant find the backups, but I have never been able to recreate this. I did not try to copy the files on that occation, somehow.
I don´t understand how the two backup modes works differently. Complete restore cand find the files, assistant cannot.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The backups are created via a Mac Mini sharing the Time Machine disk. My backup is created as a disk file on Timemachine/Mybackup, and the Mac Mini backup is another level down on Timemachine/backups/Macmini. I don´t know if this has anythong to do with it.
On trying to recover, I have plugged the external drive directly into the MBP.
I have had to go back and to a complete restore every time, but I am not satisfied with this result.
I have tried to explain as good as I can, and will be very grateful for hints and tips.

A possible reason for backups not to be available in Migration Assistant is that the computer doesn't have a name, or the name is corrupt. Open the Sharing preference pane and check the name. If you can't do that, reset the PRAM. Credit to ASC member Csnote for this observation.
Otherwise, starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of the home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of the home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You may have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch. That would be the only point of doing a clean installation.
You'll have another problem because you erased the startup volume. The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of the backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set the backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of the computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Cannot Complete a Time Machine backup

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for