Continue Time Machine on a new Mac

My new iMac arrived in the mail about a week ago and I've been having a hard time getting Time Machine to do what I expected would be simple. Here is a quick step by step of what I have done:
I had an existing Time Machine backup of my old iMac with a few years of history on it
I used Migration Assistant on the new iMac to restore everything
I had a second Time Machine drive from my wife's Mac from which I only restored her user account. At this point I don't care about maintaining the history of her backups.
I made a duplicate of my Time Machine drive for safety
When I turned on Time Machine on my new machine it asked me if I wanted to inherit the backup history from the drive. I chose to do this and the backup ran for several hours.
The result is that Time Machine did not pick up where is left off and only backup the changes to my files. Instead it did a completely new backup to my drive. Also, all of the permissions of the old backups are set, so I can't even read the files. Using the Time Machine interface I can see the dates for my old backups, but it will not let me see the contents of these backups (I assume this is due to the permissions issue).
Has anyone else seen this behavior? I have a backup of my Time Machine drive from before a backup was run on the new machine, so if there is something I have done wrong I can go back. Is there any way to get Time Machine to pick up where is left off with the old machine? Should I just erase the drive and start fresh? If I keep my drive in it's current state with read only permissions on the older directories will Time Machine correctly delete the old items when it runs out of space?
I have been looking around in these forums, but haven't found anyone with the same problems. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

I did search but after posting this I found that V.K. had given the answer here:
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9928706&#9928706]

Similar Messages

I used the Migration Assistant to move data from my Time Machine to my new Mac.   Most data has been moved successfully but none of my iPhoto pictures have been moved.   Looking at my Time Machine now I find that the earliest back-up is dated after the Mi

I used the Migration Assistant to move data from my Time Machine to my new Mac.   Most data seems to have been transferred successfully but none of my iPhoto pictures have been transferred.
My Time Machine now shows the earliest available Back-up to be after the Migration Date.   My iPhoto pictures seem to have either been lost in the migration process or are locked in my Time Machine prior to the earliest back-up date now accessible.
Any advice on recovering my old iPhoto pictures would be greatly appreciated.

First go to iPhoto Preferences, look in both General and Advanced tabs to make sure that things are set to import from camera into iPhoto.
Then if that doesn't help, connect the camera and open Image Capture in your Applications > Utilities folder and see if you can use Image Capture to reset the import path from the camera to iPhoto.
Image Capture: Free import tool on Mac OS X - Macgasm
Message was edited by: den.thed
Sorry John, I didn't see your post when I clicked the reply button. Dennis

Continue using existing Time Machine backup on new mac

I just had to replace my 13" Macbook Pro through warranty. When I first turned it on I selected to restore the computer from my time machine backup and after several hours it finished successfully with the exception of Ilife which on the restore had to be updated before it would open the restored databases. The other issue I am having is that timemachine is no longer working. I would prefer to have timemachine backup to the existing archive structure it created on the old machine but right now it just says it can not find the volume. Is there a way to keep using the existing backup or do I need to delate the archives and start a new archive?

firemandan900 wrote:
I just had to replace my 13" Macbook Pro through warranty. When I first turned it on I selected to restore the computer from my time machine backup and after several hours it finished successfully with the exception of Ilife which on the restore had to be updated before it would open the restored databases. The other issue I am having is that timemachine is no longer working. I would prefer to have timemachine backup to the existing archive structure it created on the old machine but right now it just says it can not find the volume. Is there a way to keep using the existing backup
If there's room, TM can start a new set of backups for the new Mac on the same disk or Time Capsule. But it will make a new, full backup of the new Mac, so if your TM disk/partition isn't at well over twice the size of the data it's backing-up, your best bet will be to erase the drive with Disk Utility and let TM start over.
There's a downside to that, though. TM on the new Mac won't delete the oldest backups from the old Mac when it needs room for new backups.
Instead, it will delete the oldest backups from the new Mac, leaving the old backups "stranded." Without erasing the TM disk/partition, you'll have to delete the old backups one at a time, via the TM interface, which is quite tedious and time consuming. See the instructions in item #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
or do I need to delate the archives and start a new archive?
That's probably your best option.

Continuity issue after Time Machine Backup for new Mac

I restore new Mac Mini (2014) with a Time Machine backup made on MacBook Air (13', 2012). Now handoff is not working on my MacBook because iCloud thinks that Mac Mini is MacBook Air now. I disabled iCloud on all devices and Handoff and other worked well on Air before I logged into iCloud on Mac Mini. What should I do to repair this issue?

That's not how you set up a new computer.
The warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.

Using Time Machine to setup new Mac

I have just bought a new Mac and need to take all the data for 3 users from the old one. The old Mac is backed up using Time Machine to an external 500Gb Firewire drive.
The problem is that I can't do all the data transfer in one go and due to space and time restrictions I will need to take a couple of sessions to complete all this. This is what I was thinking of doing ...
Backup old Mac using Time Machine
Create a Root account on new Mac
Log in as root and run Migration Assistant and restore user1 and user 2 and user3 from FW drive
Pack away new Mac and plug Time Machine drive back onto old Mac
Old Mac continues updating this Time Machine drive until a few days later ...
I can either just plug in the Time Machine drive to the new Mac and restore back to just after the point I was on the first installation or I could just repeat the whole thing again. There is over 300Gb of data to transfer which is why I would prefer to not have to run the whole restore again and just pick up the changes.
Thanks

Trying to mate a TM backup to a new computer is an exercise in futility, IMO. See http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1872713 for caveats upgrading a PPC (your G5) to an ICBM (Intel-chip-based Mac). SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner, Disk Utility, etc. can create a bootable backup/clone of your existing system to an external, bootable FireWire (recommended)/USB 2 external HD (usable with the new machine, but won't boot the old one, and is about 40% slower than FW). Once that's finished and tested to ensure it looks and acts as the original, just walk it over to the new machine, boot it up, and use the Migration Assistant to move your stuff, as described in the above link.
What I just did with a new 24"iMac and transfer stuff from a G4 (which was running Leopard) was to initially boot the machine, enter the same username/password combo, internet settings, and finish up. When the machine pops up the Desktop, Software Update will run an offer a host of updates. DON'T install them, but go to System Preferences, launch SU, and disable its auto-check and install option. That comes later. Then, I manually transferred my G4's user folder to the iMac's Desktop. Next, I started moving stuff from that folder into its appropriate places in the new user's folder. For instance, I replaced the current login.keychain with the former (thus bringing over all previously saved username/password combos), replaced the new Safari folder with the old (preserving all bookmarks, history, etc.), replaced the cookies.plist in Cookies, all preference files (except those in the ByHosts subfolder), merged everything in the other Library folders, mergee\d the Documents, Desktop, Music,Movies, and Pictures folders.
Launched System Preferences and opened each prefPane, checking and modifying as necessary. Note that one significant change is the mouse—the iMac ships with a Mighty Mouse, which has many new functions over the previous single-button mouse. Once that was finished, I restarted, repaired permissions, launched Safari to ensure it workedjust like the old versioni, checked e-mail (I use Eudora), and when I was satisfied everything was working as intended, I made another clone, so I could forego the previous if something went wrong. Note that many Dock icons will showup as plain files with a question mark (since you haven't installed the missing 3rd-party items—just ignore that—but they will identify what they should be pointing to.
After recloning, launched Software Update and let it install everything, except the Time Machine and Airport updates, since I don't use them, and repaired permissions. After ensuring that everything worked as expected, I updated the second clone, launched the Migration Assistant.app, only selected applications, and migrated them. Next, I replaced the ? Dock icons with their real aliases, launched each to ensrure they worked, restarted, and did one more permissions repair.
The only complication I ran across was that QuickTime lost its Pro registration information, so I had to putit back in. About the only thing that ran on my old machine under Tiger runs under Leopard, but I've been updating them for the past 20 months while beta-testing Leopard. AppleWorks 6.2.9, Quicken 2005-07, Eudoira 5.2.1, MS Office 2004, TurboTax 07, and just about everything except Unsanity's haxies (nonbetas) runs under Leopard.

Issue trying to use old Mac Time Machine backup on new Mac

I've just got a new iMac 27" to replace my old 21" and am planning to restore files from the Time Machine backup I have. On the iMac 21" I used an external hard-drive connected to an Airport Extreme Base Station to back up using Time Machine. On the new Mac the external drive is connected directly to the USB port. The old machine is now about 10,000 miles away from me.
The issue I have is I cannot read the back-up from the old machine on the new.
During the first startup I tried to read from the Time Machine backup but the system told me I could not use it because it was from a different machine - it read all the back-up dates and let me chose, but did not allow to use it.
After startup was completed, I run a software update to make sure everything had the same version and tried Migration Assistant (with the HD still connected to the USB port), but the wheel keeps spinning not finding any disk.
I can read the .sparsebundle file on the external drive and I see it is intact. Disk Utility recognizes it and Status is Not mounted. When I try to open it with Disk Utility it says it is not mountable.
Any of you know how I can resolve this? I am thinking of a way of opening the file and reading it.
I really just need my music, my movies and my pictures, but I have 1.2T of that so it is not something I can download from the old Mac.
Thanks a lot in advance.

I've just got a new iMac 27" to replace my old 21" and am planning to restore files from the Time Machine backup I have. On the iMac 21" I used an external hard-drive connected to an Airport Extreme Base Station to back up using Time Machine. On the new Mac the external drive is connected directly to the USB port. The old machine is now about 10,000 miles away from me.
The issue I have is I cannot read the back-up from the old machine on the new.
During the first startup I tried to read from the Time Machine backup but the system told me I could not use it because it was from a different machine - it read all the back-up dates and let me chose, but did not allow to use it.
After startup was completed, I run a software update to make sure everything had the same version and tried Migration Assistant (with the HD still connected to the USB port), but the wheel keeps spinning not finding any disk.
I can read the .sparsebundle file on the external drive and I see it is intact. Disk Utility recognizes it and Status is Not mounted. When I try to open it with Disk Utility it says it is not mountable.
Any of you know how I can resolve this? I am thinking of a way of opening the file and reading it.
I really just need my music, my movies and my pictures, but I have 1.2T of that so it is not something I can download from the old Mac.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Time Machine backup on new Mac - but too big?

Hi,
I am the current owner of a Macbook and i use 160GB of my harddrive. I am contemplating on buying a Macbook Air 11" with 128GB "HD", but I am hesitant, since I don't know how the computer would handle having to start up from a Time Machine-back up made from my Macbook, that would of course be larger than the Macbook Air has capacity for.
Is it even possible?

firemandan900 wrote:
I just had to replace my 13" Macbook Pro through warranty. When I first turned it on I selected to restore the computer from my time machine backup and after several hours it finished successfully with the exception of Ilife which on the restore had to be updated before it would open the restored databases. The other issue I am having is that timemachine is no longer working. I would prefer to have timemachine backup to the existing archive structure it created on the old machine but right now it just says it can not find the volume. Is there a way to keep using the existing backup
If there's room, TM can start a new set of backups for the new Mac on the same disk or Time Capsule. But it will make a new, full backup of the new Mac, so if your TM disk/partition isn't at well over twice the size of the data it's backing-up, your best bet will be to erase the drive with Disk Utility and let TM start over.
There's a downside to that, though. TM on the new Mac won't delete the oldest backups from the old Mac when it needs room for new backups.
Instead, it will delete the oldest backups from the new Mac, leaving the old backups "stranded." Without erasing the TM disk/partition, you'll have to delete the old backups one at a time, via the TM interface, which is quite tedious and time consuming. See the instructions in item #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
or do I need to delate the archives and start a new archive?
That's probably your best option.

Uninstall problem in cc applications after time machine migration to new mac

Newbie to cc. Having problems with cc programs that were migrated across to new iMac via Time Machine back up when setting up new mac.
Attempting to open PS cc results in error message 86. I have now uninstalled Creative Cloud program and a PS cc program in Utilities via Adobe Installer in Ulilities however, (other copies?) of the programs PS cc and Bridge cc, the only 2 cc programs I have so far, are listed in my Applications folder.
I think I need to remove them both from the Applications folder but am unsure how to do this safely. There is no Abobe Uninstaller now in Utilities as it was empty after uninstall removal of duplicate? programs noted earlier so I deleted that too.
Should I send them to trash? And then perhaps I can start afresh with new installs of Creative Cloud and required cc programs.
Any advice gratefully received.
Thank, Barry

Hi Jakekira14,
We never suggest our customer's to move Adobe softwares using Timemachine because it causes launch/Licensing issues. I would request you to kindly delete all the Adobe folders and then install everything from scratch. To remove the left over's, please delete the following folders from your machine.
Click on Go>Go to
/Library/Application Support/Adobe
/Library/Preferences/Com.adobe.....
~/Library/Application Support/Adobe
~/Library/Preferences
Cheers,
Kartikay Sharma

HT4889 Help with migration from time machine to a new mac

My old computer died in June last year and is not accessible. I have now bought a new macbook pro, and want my files, photos, itunes etc. resored, but I don't want to go back to the earlier versions of the programmes. Any advice? Thanks.

When you import settings from another mac, or a Time Machine backup, you can select what to import. If you so choose you can import just user documents and not applications.

Time machine Restore to new mac.

I have been using Time to back up my mac. Now that I have a new Mac Tower is it possible to use Time machine to move files over to the machine.

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You can't do a full system restore, since there are differences in OSX for the two machines -- one Mac's OS won't run on a different model.
But you can "migrate" from the old one.
If you haven't set up your new Mac yet, at the end of that procedure there's an option to migrate (I'm not sure that's the exact word) from another Mac or a backup. It's probably easiest to connect the old Mac and migrate from it; but you can use your TM backups instead.
If it's already set up, you can use the Migration Assistant (in your Applications/Utilities folder) similarly, either from the old Mac or the TM backups.
You do need to be careful, however, if your old Mac was a PPC machine, as some 3rd-party apps may not work on your new Intel Mac. Take a look at Kappy's post here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7845144#7845144

Time machine - on a new Mac, how can I find my old files?

My iMac had to give way to the new baby, so I got myself an older MacBook Pro to replace it. I used the Migration Assistant to port all my music, photos etc. over, but the hard disk was smaller so had to forgo some bigger files - like my iMovie library.
As a regular Time Machine/Capsule user, I figured getting a hold of everything would be feasible.
However, now on the MacBook Pro, I can't connect to my old Time Machine volume for the iMac, and can't access any of the stuff I didn't port over. I'm certain the iMovie library is there, but I can't see past "Today" in Time Machine. Any help on how I can access my old files will be most appreciated.

Go here and read the several User Tips at the top of the topics list. You should find an answer in one or more of them. Use these tips for all your TM questions.

How can I input mails from time machine to my new Mac?

I recently change to a new Apply Air, but having a hard time to find all my mails from the time machine where it usually backup all my files. I also changed from Entourage to Outloook. Please advice how I can input all my old mails.
Thanks,
Ivy

06/2014 ChrisCA post: Restore iTunes library from Time Machine backup - https://discussions.apple.com/message/26104480

HT4413 Why can't I find the files and data I transferred from time machine on my new mac?

So I just got a new mac and I always backed up my old mac. I used the migration assistant to transferr all the stuff from my old mac to the new one. After it completed I tried to find all my pictures, music, and documents but couldn't. Where did all my stuff go and why can't I find it? Migration Assistant said everything transferred and went ok.

Peruse Pondini's Setup New Mac guide and seriously consider starting over. I'm a firm believer in only using the Setup Assistant and not creating a new account on first boot.

Time Machine Restore on new Mac Book is taking up a ton of space!

My old MacBook had 120gb hard drive - it died. Just did a restore from Time Machine ext drive and it's taken up about 280gb. Any ideas on this? And how to fix? Did it add old backups? Also, my old MacBook was setup with two users (me and my wife). Weird. Help. Thanks.

Sorry to be such a moron with this, but I just don't have much experience with this iPad. I have had it for over a year and I just keep adding stuff to it and it has worked great. Now that the memory is used up, I am trying to figure out how to free up space and not lose what I have paid for.
So, Step 1 is complete, as I have "Transferred" all of the purchases.
What is Step 2? I unchecked the concert on the iTunes library, did a sync, but it's still on my iPad.
Thanks again for the help!!!

TIme Machine Error on new MacBook

When I try to run time machine, I am receiving an error message:
Time Machine Error
Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while
copying files to the backup volume
The background is this. My wife and I had been using time machine with a MacBook on an external USB drive with no problems. Then I bought a new MacBook and used time machine to transfer my own files and folders. Time machine continues to work fine for her MacBook. When I tried to use the same external drive for my new MacBook I received the error message above. Then tried to run it manually but got the same error. Then I (I now know) made a mistake and attempted to erase fix the problem by erasing all of the old time machine backups using the finder.
At first, I thought that killed the external drive, but then I connected the old Macbook and ran time machine on the old MacBook - no problem! I then ran Disk Repair verify and it found the external drive to be fine. Oddly enough, when I then connected the new Macbook, time machine did a successful full backup of the new Macbook and later one successful incremental backup on the new Macbook. Just when I thought all was fine, time machine then began generating the error again on the new MacBook (though, so far, it still works fine on the old MacBook).
Before giving up and buying another external drive to use for time machine on the new Mac, I came to this forum, saw a post about the time machine buddy widget, and so here is the message from that:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 265.9 MB requested (including padding), 343.49 GB available
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Permission denied
Copied 0 files (0 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Permission denied
Copy stage failed with error:11
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Permission denied
Backup failed with error: 11
Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Any thoughts for something I could try?
Thanks.

I wouldn't mind re-formatting the external drive, but before I do -- is it reasonable to think that I should be able to use the same external hard drive for time machine backups for two different Macs? It sure seems as if I should be able to, but I just thought I would ask. Thanks.

Continue Time Machine on a new Mac

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