Cannot restore Snow Leopard from time machine from an earlier backup

I've been having a problem keeping my Mac Pro in sleep mode. I have tried disconnecting all USB's including those attached to the monitor. So I have decided to attempt to restore from a time machine backup from about 4 weeks ago to see if that resolves the problem. However at no point in the process am I offered a chance to choose which date to back up from. The restore process just assumes I want to restore from the latest backup.

Inserting the Snow Leopard install disk and launching from Finder. Then selecting 'Restart' which is what the user is told to do in the event of reinstalling from time machine. From that point the Mac restarts and installs SL but uses the latest time machine backup.

Similar Messages

How do I retrieve data from time machine from an old mac (which was running 10.5) on my new iMac running mavericks?

How do I retrieve data from time machine from an old mac (which was running 10.5) on my new iMac running mavericks?

See B 5/6.
Time Machine Troubleshooting

Snow leopard and time machine

Hi, I'm using an iMac 21.5" middle 2010 with Mac OS X snow leopard and Time machine on a Time Capsule with 2 GB.
Since yesterday the control light is permanantly flashing yellow, but nevertheless time machine is working an signed a complete bachup, last 2 hrs before.
I'm not sure, if all is correct. Can anybody help?
Many thanks
scharamer

It may just be telling you about the latest firmware update.
Start AirPort Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
Click Manual Setup
Click directly on the word Status (2nd line) and AirPort Utility will indicate what's wrong.
If your network seems to be working OK, the flashing light might indicate that an update for your AirPort device is now available.

How to downgrade from Mountain Lion back to snow leopard with Time Machine

The final straw was the horrible mouse sideways page wiggle while trying to scroll down and read safari pages. Even after turning the feature off, tech support said it will still wiggle a little. That and the HORRIBLE grey icons everywhere was enough to send me back to my beloved iMac I loved when I bought it. I'll give up the iMessage and the few new items ML gave me. But as many others said, what I got new was far less than what was taken away.
So what tech support had me do was this. Even though the apple engineers said it would not work, apple tech support had me try it and it worked for me so good luck. Engineers said that after you install mountain Lion, it messes with ALL your time machine back ups and won't revert back to snow leopard even if you select a snow leopard date back in time. That didn't happen to me. I have a 2010 27 inch iMac
This worked for me but PROCEED AT YOU OWN RISK
Export individually any email folders or photos or data you will lose between now and the date you are reverting back to.
1. Insert Snow Leopard DVD that came with computer. The install disk not the applications. Make sure time machine external drive IS connected.
2. Restart computer and when you hear The Mac chime, hold down the C key and then it will take several minutes to boot up from the DVD.
3. Select the little blue triangle to continue in English.
4. When it gets to the screen that says "continue" stop. There might be a screen or two before this one I can't remember but either way stop at the word continue.
5. Go up to the top left and find the UTILITIES pull down menu and select disk utility.
6. In the window that opens up, Select the Apple drive which should be the very top one in the window.
7. Select erase.. it should be Mac OS extended journaled
8 select erase and maybe a password. It only takes a few seconds
9 go back up to UTILITIES in upper left and then select restore from time machine or backup or whatever it says. It's the last choice.
10. Select the external time machine drive and navigate to the date you last had Snow Leopard running and that will be the date it restores to. You will lose any data between now and then but you can export your mail, export photos, and other items separately. I only stayed on ML For a few days before hating it enough to go back so I had no loss of data except a few emails.
11. Hit RESTORE. And then it will take several hours. When you restart it, it should come right back to that day you selected as if ML was just a bad thought on someone's drawing board.   If for some reason it still comes up ML, Then they said to erase HD Again (steps 1-8) and then manually drags back USER folder or individual folders with Mail, photos etc.   if this way doesn't work, have another plan printed out so that you are not stuck by this one.
Good luck. Proceed at your own risk..

The ultimate solution:
You need an USB of at least 5 GB and the Snow Leopard Install DVD.
1. make a bootable USB with Disk Utility in it:
     a. download the Mountain Lion Installer from the App Store
     b. quit the installer after download
     c. find the installer in the Applications folder
     d. option+click in it and select "Show Pakage Contents"
     e. go to Contents>SharedSupport to find there the InstallESD.dmg file and mount it by double-clicking it
     f. with the Disk Utility, restore its contents into your USB
2. boot from the USB:
     a. restart the computer and hold-down the option key while booting
     b. select the USB and boot
3. run the Disk Utility and format in ONE partition the HD of your computer
REMEMBER: BACKUP YOUR HARD DISK BEFORE DOING ALL THESE, YOUR DISK WILL BE EREASED AND DATA BECOME UNRECOVERABLE OTHERWISE
4. insert the Snow Leopard DVD and reboot from it
5. follow the on-screen instructions to install OS X 10.6
After this, you can, if you will, upgrade to Lion or stay in Snow... Good Luck!!

Restore from Time Machine from a MacBook running 10.4

Ok,
So long story short. I cannot remember how I upgraded all my computers to 10.5. It was forever ago, but I had a problem with my Macbook and decided to reinstall with the original Macbook Install discs. Problem is, they were 10.4. So now all those perfect Time Machine backups of my old user profile are sitting there useless to me.
So how do I restore to my last time machine config without having 10.5 CD's?
Thanks everybody!

To restore your entire system, you must use a Leopard or Snow Leopard disc. There's no way around it.
If you can borrow a retail (black) Leopard disc, it doesn't matter what version it is, or violate the license, since you don't install OSX from it.
Otherwise, you may have to buy one. I understand AppleCare has them for the original $129; many other places charge much more.
And be very careful buying sight-unseen; if they're the gray discs that came with a different model, they're hardware-specific and probably won't boot your Mac.

HT201250 Time Machine backup then install new SSD HD + Pulling files from Time Machine from 'old' HD

Hi Guys,
I currently have a mid 2009 Macbook pro and I decided to upgrade the current HD in it to an Intel 330 SSD. Which might I add was a *gongshow*.
Anyways before I did the switch I used Time Machine to back up all my information, and to be double redundant I backed up the REALLY important information on a 8gig flashdrive.
The removal and reinstall of the new drive went smooth, and once lion was installed I did all the usual system updates.
Once it came to importing files from Time Machine is when my hassle started.
The last backup I did on Time Machine with the old HD still installed was at 10:00 this morning.
I had the new SSD up and running and a new backup of that created by 1:00 (3 hours later).
When I loaded up Time Machine to grab some files off of my 10:00 backup, it would not let me. The current backups have a Grey/Silver snapshot, and the backups from the OLD HD were blacked out and I could not click on them. What can I do to get these files off my Time Machine from the old HD?
Thanks

Quick followup question,
If I do a migrate with the time machine will the system be updated to the version I had when I made it (10.8.6 I think) or will I have to do the system updates afterwards. If so, will that cause any clashes when applying the time machine migration?

If I downgrade to Snow Leopard can time machine back-up my latest memory from Lion and keep it in Snow leopard?

Will only the latest time machine back-up from SL work or can a back-up with lion be suitable in SL (when downgraded)?

Just did the downgrade, but Migration Assistant don't let you rescue any kind of information from the Time Machine backup. It just tells you to upgrade your system. I'm feelling like trying to downgrade my iPhone 3G from iOS 4 to 3. Impossible. Pretty f***** up...

My iphoto library disappeared. i am trying to restore my library from time machine -- from an external drive -- but everytime it tries to copy my library it tells me it can't do it because i don't have access to my iphoto library??!!! help!!

My iphoto library inexplicably disappeared! i am panicked but i do back up by time machine to an external drive and also to JustCloud. I am trying to restore my iphoto library from a back up on feb 28, 2014 and it says it's copying but then gives me a message that it can't do it because i "don't have authorization to access iphoto library"?! what does this mean? i really want to get my library back on my mac. Also if anyone knows why this happened or where my photos might be on my computer, i'd appreciate help with that, too.

Thank you Terence for your help. I was able to restore my backup from my time machine ext drive to a new 1tb seagate ext drive. so i felt sort of ok. but yesterday that older ext drive i used for time machine wouldn't open! i called applecare and they trouble shooted with me and said it's probably a goner and data is probably corrupted. it's only a few years old and i'm very careful with it. my husband accidentally dropped my new drive last night -- i know, unbelievable, i was SO upset, poor guy -- but I'm so stressed with all of this. i have 10 years of photos and videos. so now i only have the one newer drive with a backup. i have to buy another one today to backup again so i at least have two backups. i tried to delete a ton of files last night to free up the 30 gb of space i need to get my full library back on my mac. i have 90gb free and deleted 7 years worth of photos i had on picasa that were in my "pictures" folder and also a ton or random photos and videos i had in that same pictures folder and thought that would give me the 30 gb but it hardly freed up any space at all! do you know why that is? all of this stuff is really a pain and really stressful. thank god i did have a backup in the first place but now i am panicked the one i have left will somehow crash. especially after my husband dropped the drive lastnight! it didn't fall far and fell onto a wood floor and seems fine, but after my older ext drive crashed yesterday -- and i lost my entire iphoto library a fewweeks ago off my mac -- i feel cursed. any answers you have would be great. thank you.

Downgrade to Snow Leopard with Time Machine - and then, what?

So I am making Time Machine backups on a regular basis. Almost daily.
The last one when I was running Snow Leopard, dates back from December 25th, 2011.
I have done a lot of reading and googling before making the leap back to that happy Christmas day, which I am about to do now. I have learned that I can easily re-install my iMac using that TM backup.
But - what happens to all the documents I have created and modified after that day? Do I have to select them one by one to restore them? Must be hundreds of them. Or is there an option to put back all the documents on my HD at the same time?
I realize that I can make another backup today using Carbon Copy Cloner which I can use to do so. Only, I don't have another external HD to make that CCC-backup.
And what happens to the applications I have installed running Lion?
So, perhaps it would be the best to erase my TM external HD, turn it into a bootable CCC HD which contains everything I have currently installed on my iMac , and restart / re-initialize the system using my SL install DVD…
Please give me some advice. I do want to downgrade, but I am scared to lose anything on the way…

Just did the downgrade, but Migration Assistant don't let you rescue any kind of information from the Time Machine backup. It just tells you to upgrade your system. I'm feelling like trying to downgrade my iPhone 3G from iOS 4 to 3. Impossible. Pretty f***** up...

What external hard drives are compatible w/ lion, snow leopard and time machine?

I am looking to buy an external hard drive to back up all data on my Macbook Pro that is currently running Snow Leopard, then upgrading to Lion. I want an external hard drive that is compatible with BOTH Snow Leopard (for use of creating a backup prior to my upgrade) and Lion (for daily use once I've upgraded). I also don't want to spend more than $100 if possible. Any suggestions? Thanks!

There is currently a shortage of drives due to flooding in one of the countries in which they are manufactured.
Getting one for under $100 at this point might be difficult. You didn't mention how full your current hard drive is, but for Time Machine, you should plan on two to three times the data you currently have (or expect to have).
I looked through Newegg's selection and didn't see more than a couple 1TB drives for less than $100. I recently bought a 3TB drive for $150. They're in the $200-$300 range, now.
I always buy bare drives and put them in an enclosure I buy separately. All the name-brand, ready-to-use drives come with a bunch of software you don't need and some of their software causes problems.
I had some bad luck/bad customer service with Seagate, so I've been buying Western Digital. Though, my replacement drives from Seagate have been going fine.
I've used Icy Dock and MacAlly enclosures. Both have worked well. If you do decide to go that route, you must make sure the enclosure can support the size of drive you buy (both physical--2.5" or 3.5", and storage size--1TB, 2TB, 3TB). The controllers in the cases may not be able to handle a 3TB drive, for example.
No matter how you go, you have to decide what kind of interface you want to use. USB is cheaper, but Firewire is faster. Firewire 800 is even faster, but costs more. All of that depends on what ports you have on the computer. OS X doesn't currently support USB 3.

External HDD Issues with Snow Leopard and Time Machine

Hello,
I have a 1TB WD 10EADS External HDD, and it had some files on it. I connected it the other day to an iMac I recently upgraded to 10.6, and wanted to do a complete time machine backup of the computer to it (250GB HDD). I copied the files off the external HDD I needed and then Time Machine needed to format it as it was a FAT32 drive. This went successfully, and I started the Time Machine backup. This went quite slowly and failed after ~2.5GB or so. I restarted and tried again to no avail upon which Time Machine told me I should reformat it in Disk Utility. So I did, and to no avail.
I tried this a number of times and sometimes when doing a reformat I was told that the drive could not be unmounted. I tried manually copying files to the disk which started to work but then failed promptly with error (-36) and the message "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in “ [Program/File Name]” can't be read or written." I upgraded to 10.6.1 also to no avail. I even repaired permissions and the disk, and booted Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard disc and formatted that to no avail.
I have read this is an I/O error and can be associated with bad drives, but as I stated before, the drive worked perfectly until Time Machine formatted it. I took the HDD to another Mac running 10.6, and it told me it had a POSIX error. I did some googling and found that if I format it under a Windows machine, and then reformat under the mac it might work.
What I want to know is, is this a 10.6 error or has the HDD decided to go kaput after Time Machine formatting it?
Thanks for your help

Thomas Huxley wrote:
Time Machine backup failed. I think it's a glitch with the computer, not the HDD. Going to zero out the drive now.
Any other suggestions on how I might bypass this error to get data onto the Disk eg. transfer over to another computer, so I can reformat the computer and install Snow Leopard from scratch? The whole purpose of doing this time Machine backup was to get all the files off the computer to perform a clean install of Snow Leopard.
I assume you're positive the TM disk has both the correct *Partition Map Scheme* (GUID) and Format (Mac OS Extended (journaled), but not case-sensitive)? One of them being wrong is the most common cause of a first TM backup failing.
Did you do either a +*Verify Disk+* (not permissions) or a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your internal HD, or only your TM drive? The message you got could be a result of a problem on either one.
Other options are to make a "bootable clone" via CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. CCC is donationware, SD has a free version that will do it. If you do that, boot from it, and be sure everything works before erasing your internal HD. Google them.
Note that there are many, many reports of problems here with WD drives, and that some of them are not bootable.
I would not upgrade without backups (Murphy was an optimist!), but is there a reason you want to erase your HD? It's not required, and rarely does any good. The normal install will simply install Snow Leopard and remove Leopard. Your apps, data, etc., won't be touched.

Migrating from Time Machine from old iMac to new used iMac.

So, I bought a used iMac, and want to migrate to the new one using my Time Machine backup. Problem is, I go to Migration Assistant, and it asks for the admin password, which I don't have, and the place I bought it from is closed, of course. I had Lion on my old iMac, and I imagine my Time Machine backup is in Lion, but the iMac I bought has Snow Leopard. What do I do to migrate?

Yes, you will need the Admin password. See http://www.cultofmac.com/111456/discover-the-hidden-password-reset-tool-in-lion- os-x-tips/
Then follow the instructions in option #4 of the box in the green box in Problems after using Migration Assistant. (I know you haven't used it yet, but to transfer your user account(s) properly, without losing permission to your backups, that's what you need to do.)

Error message from Time Machine: "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while linking files on the backup volume." Using Time Machine Buddy, I got the following log entries: "Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: data" ror occured while l

More from the Time Machine Buddy: "Node requires deep traversal:/Volumes/Data" and "reason: kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSibDirs"
I am using a Mac G5 with Leopard. My LaCie data drive failed and I replaced it with a WD MyPassport drive, at which time the failed backups began. The recent file updates do appear in Time Machine, but it appears to back up everything since the last completed backup.

Hi Norm,
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
(Repair both Drives)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)

How to retrieve email and contacts data from time machine from a different computer

My iMac hard disc has died and though I have everything backed up on Time Machine I am finding it difficult to access my Contacts (not on iCloud) and emails from my laptop.
I understand that they are to be found on the Time Machine backup in library/applicationsupport/addressbook and /Library/Mail/V2, but these files appear to be hidden.
From my reading it has been suggested that I use the utility Terminal, but I don’t know where to start with this – any guidance would be most welcome

Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.

Snow Leopard and Time Machine question

Running on snow leopard, trying back up files in order to upgrade OS using an external hard drive and time machine. Previously said "don't use" on accident with this hard drive; any way to reverse this?

Hello cinstar,
The following article provides steps for setting up Time Machine. The process of choosing a drive should not omit any drives that have been previously 'ignored' when first connected.
Mac OS X 10.6: Setting up and adjusting Time Machine
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH6299
Cheers,
Allen

Cannot restore Snow Leopard from time machine from an earlier backup

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for