Cannot recover time machine backups

I recently took my mbp to the store and they sent it in to replace a super drive. However, they must have reformatted my drive since I no longer have my purchased applications sucgh as Bento, Mac Office, Ilife, etc.
When I fired up the mbp for the first time I followed the migration assistant app that tried to walk me through restoring my backup via time machine and mybooklive but I must have missed something because I can restore some apps but when I go to access them they need product keys (which did not work) or ask to purchase.
I thought about reinstalling Ms office for mac and other apps from disk and tring to recover files from time machine but want assurance that this should work. If it does then what do I do about downloaded apps?
I really apologize for all the verbage but I am going on 3 days tring to figure this out including scanning support and Pondini's website. I would really like to put my mac back to where it was, apps, files and all before repair. please help!

The first thing I realised when I started using a Mac was that it does not read NFTS files straight from the box. I had a Toshiba external drive as well and I had to copy all the files using a windows computer. Installed Tuxera on my Mac, partitioned the Toshiba drive into 2 sections one NFTS and the other Journaled.
When you copy files, do not modify the files as this may render them useless on your Mac.
I use the Journaled partition for Time Machine and the NFTS on both Mac and Windows file storage.
Do not format the Toshiba external drive otherwise you will lose all your data. Install a paid version of Tuxera on your Mac to be able to read the data. Some Toshiba hard drives come with a complete version of Tuxera.

Similar Messages

Can I recover time machine backups from the trash? They are not deleted.

I deleted by mistake time machine backups from an external hard disk and I do not know how to recover htem. The bin has not been emptied. I learnt it would be possible via "Terminal" but I do not know how. Some help would be very much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

That's not possible, the message is: backups cannot be moved (I'm workin in German). After having googled I read somewhere that it would be possible to recover the backups with the software Terminal. I copied the path of that article and adapted it - however nothing happened. So I certainly did something wrong - but what???? Do you have any idea about this? I'm a bit desperate.

Cannot transfer Time Machine backups from one external drive to another

Since I bought my 13 inch MacBook Pro in September 2014 I've been keeping Time Machine backups on an external 1TB Lacie Rugged. This is partitioned into three and one of the partitions contains my iPhoto library.
Last weekend I left my MBP disconnected from the power source but with the external hard drive still plugged in. Long story short - the battery level fell below the minimum needed to operate so it turned itself off and 'disconnected' the external hard drive. This resulted in a corrupted iPhoto library which is no longer accessible.
In order to restore my iPhoto Library from another backup I needed to buy a second external hard drive. Yesterday I bought a 2TB Lacie Rugged which I've now partitioned into 5.
I want to move my Time Machine backups from the 1TB Lacie Rugged to a partition on the 2TB Lacie Rugged (to take advantage of the new Lacie's Thunderbolt connection).
I read the Apple article -
HT202380: Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive
and followed the instructions precisely. About 2 hours into the transfer I came back to my MacBook Pro and saw a message saying that it was not possible to complete the transfer because I did not have the correct permissions. The only option was to click the OK button which stopped the transfer.
Can anyone advise what I should do next?
Cheers
Tricia

Hi Eric,
Thank you for your response. I came across another thread yesterday which suggested the Restore via Disk Utility method. It worked for me, too. This was after I had tried following the method suggested in the Apple article above three times but each time the message was the same ....
The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items.
I dare say that Apple would like to have us believe that it's a simple matter of 'drag and drop' but it certainly wasn't for me. From what I've read the permission problem crops up fairly frequently. Before the second and third attempts I had already amended Permissions on the Time Machine backups so that everyone could read and write, so that mustn't have been the problem. I'm the only person who uses my computer so that's not a problem.
The next problem I have is that I decided I would use the Restore route to transfer my SuperDuper clone rather than start from scratch. Unfortunately, the partition size on my original backup disk where SuperDuper clone is is 350GB and the size of the SuperDuper clone partition on my new backup is 300GB.
Of course, Apple says you can resize partitions using Disk Utility. What they don't say is you can downsize partitions but (in my experience and that of many other frustrated users on various forums) you CANNOT upsize using Disk Utility. I have 100GB spare on my external hard drive (from downsizing two partitions by 50GB each) BUT there is no way Disk Utility will let me increase the size of SuperDuper partition to 350GB :-(((
Cheers
Tricia

Recovered Time Machine backup not recognized..

This is a strange situation/horrible situation to explain. We had one of our iMacs lock up unexpectedly, and on restart it just hung all the time. We booted from the Snow Leopard install disc, ran Disk Utilities verifying/repair option which noted the drive had serious errors. We do use Time Machine on an external drive, but unfortunately the last backup performed was ".inprogress" as it was tagged. To add more problems, the entire TM backup folder (..all of it) was trashed/deleted and we had to recover the entire contents via recovery software (which took forever sadly).
With the contents recovered completely (luckily) we decided to move forward. We formatted the hard drive/installed OSX again on the iMac and went to restore using the Restore from backup function on the installation disc. However, when we pointed Snow Leopard to the external drive it did not recognize the TM backup. We tried the Migration assistant as well, and no luck, simply won't see the TM backup (even though the backup folder and all its elements seem to be all there).
We can see our files buried in some folders in the backup, as well as images, but replacing those manually I'm sure will run into permissions issues. We're open to suggestions at this point as this iMac served as a media server for us.

RavenMac wrote:
To add more problems, the entire TM backup folder (..all of it) was trashed/deleted and we had to recover the entire contents via recovery software (which took forever sadly).
That recovered some files, but they're no longer in a form that's recognized as Time Machine backups, so you won't be able to restore/recover them normally. See the blue box in [Data Recovery|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Recover.html].
We can see our files buried in some folders in the backup, as well as images, but replacing those manually I'm sure will run into permissions issues. We're open to suggestions at this point as this iMac served as a media server for us.
Are the recovered files on a separate HD? If so, right-click it on your Desktop or Finder sidebar, and select +Get Info.+ See if the +Ignore ownership on this volume+ box at the very bottom is checked. If it is, you should be able to copy the recovered files. If not, click the padlock, enter your Admin password, then check the box.
Figuring out what and where they all belong (and which version is the most recent) will not be easy.
Once you get this sorted out as well as you can, consider keeping "secondary" backups. What happened to you is quite unusual, but obviously possible. See #27 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 some suggestions.

Cannot access Time Machine Backups

I used to have a MyBook plugged into my AirPort Extreme and was using it for Time Machine backups wirelessly. Because the needs of my network changed, I had to move some components around and now the MyBook is plugged directly into the iMac. I know that Time Machine stores the backups differently depending on how it's being run (wirelessly vs direct plugged). The problem I'm having is that somehow the drive is now "read only" and cannot be saved to forcing Time Machine to be completely useless. When I open Time Machine, it shows no backups because of the different way it saves them. When I open the drive in the Finder, I can see all the backups there, but I can't move them or copy them because I don't have access and access can only be set by the system.
Is it possible to copy the older backups and move them to the new structure so that they are usable? Or can I somehow copy them to the iMac, reformat the drive, and then put them back on there so again they are usable? It's over a year's worth of backups and it would really suck to lose them all. Thanks!

The drive itself works fine. I can write to and read from it without issue. It's the specific sparsbundle related tied to Time Machine that is read only and cannot be accessed. I can fix the issue by deleting the sparsbundle and starting over, but I'd loose all of my historical backups... which is obviously not ideal. I'm curious if there is a way to change the permissions on the sparsubndle and then copy the backups out and then put them back in the new one. Or should I just give up and start over from today?

How can I recover time machine backup from previous iMac?

How can I recover some datas from a Time machine backup regularly done with my old imac,using now my new i7?
Problem is that when I open timemachine app,it's not giving me any chance to go "back" in the past snapshots of my desktop nor giving me any errors.So I suppose I'm doing something wrong
Any help?
Thanks

It's TimeMachine,
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Home.html
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/29553/back-in-time

Migration assistant cannot see time machine backup

I have used internet backup to reinstall Lion on my early 2011 MBP, having installed a SSD drive.
I now want to recover all of my data, which is stored on a time machine backup on a USB external drive.
I ran migration assistant, but I just get the spinning logo and it does not see any data; the time machine backups drive is mounted and I can open the volume in finder.
What is the best way to get my data back? I want to selectively recover certain folders- I dont need to restore applications or the system (I purposely wanted to perform a clean install).
Thanks
Charles

I have used internet backup to reinstall Lion on my early 2011 MBP, having installed a SSD drive.
I now want to recover all of my data, which is stored on a time machine backup on a USB external drive.
I ran migration assistant, but I just get the spinning logo and it does not see any data; the time machine backups drive is mounted and I can open the volume in finder.
What is the best way to get my data back? I want to selectively recover certain folders- I dont need to restore applications or the system (I purposely wanted to perform a clean install).
Thanks
Charles

Still cannot access time machine backups after Yosemite install

Can anyone tell me what to do to be able to access my time machine backups. When I enter time machine nothing except apps and desktop are accessable. Thus I cannot restore anything that was "backed up" even this morning, much less any other day this year. Yosemite was installed on Oct. 19, took 2 days to download to an 2013 iMac. The first time machine backup took over 24 hours. I have made 1 backup per day since, only problem is that I cannot access any of this data. Please help me.

A bit more information would help figure out the problem. Maybe a screen shot of what you're seeing or not seeing (use Command+shift+4 to save an area of the screen or a window -type space first to capture an entire window- to a file and then attach that file to your posting reply). You might look at the Console app to get more information about what actually happened during your backups - suggest putting "backupd" (without the quotes) in the search field at the top right of window in Console - with the "All Messages" query selected on the left part of the window). Console is located in the /Applications/Utilities folder. After you enter the backupd in the search field only those messages that contain that string will appear which helps a lot since so many messages are normally shown without any search field string.
Depending on how long ago the backups happened, you might need to select previous versions of the system log files - they get archived and compressed to files like system.log.0.bz2 or system.log.1.bz2 (these are in the /var/log query choice if you don't see them in the existing query choices - just click on the triangle to the left of the "/Var/log" entry if needed). Console knows how to show the messages that are in these compressed files, so you don't need to do anything other than click on the query name.
Also if you look in TimeMachine in System Preferences are there any exclusions (click on the Options button in TM System Preferences to show what the existing exclusions are)? A screen shot of those would be helpful also.
Is there only one drive with the single Mac OS partition on it?
Hope this helps a bit...

Cannot access Time Machine backups on new MacBook Pro

Hey, I'm new to the forums, just wanting to throw it out there.
But to the point- Yesterday, I purchased a new MacBook Pro. I upgraded from a regular MacBook. I want to keep my Music, Pictures, and other Documents, so I used Time Machine to make an image of the old machine. I want to copy those specific folders over individually, so I didn't use the option to restore from the Time Machine backup. When I copied my Music folder into the location I wanted it, I tried to open the folder, and received an error message saying:
"The folder "Music" could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges."
I went through Get Info and changed Permissions to Read and Write for Everyone. I don't really know what to do from here... It also does this when I try to access the backups on my external hard drive. Please help me!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You need to Restore the files from the backups, not copy them via the Finder. Time Machine, as you now know, uses special "deny everybody everything" permissions on it's backups to keep us mere mortals from moving, changing, or deleting them, which can hopelessly corrupt them. Restoring one Mac's backups to another one takes a few extra steps.
TM keeps the backups for each Mac separate, and normally only shows the ones for the Mac it's running on, even if there are other Macs' backups on the same disk/partition.
Since you're on a different Mac, you need the (badly named) +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option to see the old backups. Start with a normal Finder window, then hold down the Option key while selecting the TM icon in your Menubar, or by control-clicking (right-clicking) the TM icon in your Dock.
You'll see a selection screen showing all the disks/partitions that have TM backups on them. Select the one you want, and you'll be taken to the normal TM "Star Wars" interface, where you should see all the backups on that disk/partition.
You can then navigate to a backup (presumably the most recent one), in the "cascade" in the center of the display (the first, lowest one, represents "now"). Navigate to the folder you want to restore, select it, click the "gear" icon in the Finder window's toolbar and select the +Restore to ...+ option. Then you'll get a prompt for the destination.

Back up and access problems on MacBook Pro 15 2.2Ghz Yosemite 10.10.2 cannot finish time machine backup on My Passport for Mac, and cannot recognize LaCie quadra H2

New MacBook Retina Pro 15.4 inch with 2.2 Ghz and running Yosemite 10.10.2 will not recognize LaCie Quadra H2 disk. Also will not complete Time Machine Backup onto My Passport for Mac which it does recognize. Plenty of disc space both externals.

If you choose to use garbage such as "Intego VirusBarrier" you are going to need more memory, a lot more. I suggest you uninstall it according to its instructions, and evaluate your Mac's performance without burdening it with completely useless junk. As long as Intego remains active, your Mac will have few resources remaining to do anything else.
Using Intego's "Virus Barrier" and "Net Barrier" products on a brand new Mac containing nothing but one minimally configured user account resulted in performance degradation so severe that it became nearly unusable. No knowledgeable Mac user would consider using it even remotely tolerable.
Intego should only be uninstalled using the uninstaller included with it. Don't use anything else. A successful uninstallation will result in the following:
After that, restart your Mac. Other Intego components will remain but they will be inert and will not affect your Mac's operation.

Cannot see time machine backups with 10.8.1, server

Hello,
I am running 10.8.1 on an iMac 27", recently upgraded to server. I was going to erase my internal drive and restore from the latest time machine backup to defragment, but when I go into the recovery partition, choose 'restore from time machine backup', I do not see any of my server backups. The latest backup shown is prior to the ML upgrade with server. The backups appear to run normally. Could someone provide any guidence on how to actually see the latest backups? I am now concerned that I don't have accessible backups.
Thanks!
Eric

You can only do a full restore from snapshots that include a complete, bootable system. If you excluded system files from backup, the snapshots are not restorable in Recovery.

Cannot browse Time Machine backup from different machine

I've recently got a new macbook, and am transferring stuff selectively from my old machine rather than doing it holus bolus.
As per http://pondini.org/TM/17.html (that site's a great resource!) I can direct Time Machine to the previous machine's backup set (done locally on a USB-connected external HD) by alt-clicking on the Time Machine menu bar icon and choosing 'browse other backup disks'.
The problem from there is that the root of the Time Machine/'Finder' interface's hierarchy is my current machine's name. There's no way of browsing 'above' that to the name of my previous machine, from where I might browse the previously backed-up files. Time Machine can apparently open the alternative backup set, but has no way of showing me what's in there. What it shows me is my current machine's files, with no earlier versions available (because I haven't done any time machine backups of the new machine yet).
(I can of course just browse manually to the most recent backup of the old machine in [time machine drive]/Backups.backupdb/[old machine name], but that doesn't provide an easy means of browsing earlier versions of files.)

Thanks again Joe.
One last question. Once I've transferred my files from the Power Mac's Time Machine disk could I select that disk in MacBook Pro's Preferences as it's Time Machine backup disk?
(Effectively stop using it as the Power Mac's backup disk & continue using it as the MacBook Pro's backup disk).
Backing up new files on the MacBook Pro to the disk, but still be able to 'go back in time' & restore files from the Time Machine disk (backup up over time on the Power Mac).

Cannot verify time machine backup

Hi all, I have just replaced my HDD in my macbook pro to a Samsung 830 SSD. I simply used to disk utility to copy/restore from the original hdd to the ssd. Every thing seems to be running fine however if I try to verify my time machine backup I get the following message:
Time Machine couldn’t verify your backups on “John's Time Capsule” because verification was interrupted. Interruptions are usually caused by network problems. Try again after the network problems are resolved.
I can enter time machine and see all my past files ok however I just cant complete a verify backup. I have tried several time to reboot my macbook pro and also my time capsule, all without success. Im currently running the latest OSX 10.8.2 Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Also forgot to mention that I can still do a time machine backup ok and enter time machine, just not complete a "verify backup"

Still no luck. Still getting the below error
Time Machine couldn’t verify your backups on “John's Time Capsule” because verification was interrupted. Interruptions are usually caused by network problems. Try again after the network problems are resolved.
I have tried to verify and repair the disk and permissions. Everything seems ok however the verify wont work.

Clean install of Mavericks, now cannot access Time Machine backups

I just performed a clean install of Mavericks (10.9.1), but now I cannot access my previous backups under Mountain Lion (10.8.5). The new installation recognizes the TM disk just fine, and I can enter TM, but all of my old backups are blacked out. In Finder, I can easily explore the TM disk and see that all of my old backups are intact there. I've got a few large folders (100+ GB) I'd like to restore, but I can't seem to figure out how to get them back correctly. What am I missing?
Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer...

Things just got worse. After manually copying over some files via Finder, and then performing a full backup of the new system, even the NEW backup is blacked out; e.g., NO backups, past or present, are accessible from within Time Machine.
Help!

External HDD not mounting; cannot use Time Machine backups

I upgraded to the Lion OSX and after that my external HDD wont mount. It shows up in Disc Utility but cannot be repaired as it won't mount (it keeps running and running the repair bar).
I followed some discussion and tried to install MacFuse and likes but it doesn't work. I could not also locate the ufsd.fs in my folder - /System/Library/filesystems/ufsd.fs - as was suggested as a remedy.
I tried this advice :
"Download and install NTFS-3G
now try this
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/usb1 "
but all i got was this message:
what is the best course of action??
thanks

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
It sounds like TM may have started a new "sequence" of backups. Try the +*Browse . . .+* option, per #E2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Cannot recover time machine backups

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