Corrupted user account on Time Machine- recovered Snow Leopard

After changing the hard disk on my macbook and recovering my user account on afresh Snow Leopard installation, it seems the account got corrupted and now I can't repair permissions and some programs aren't working properly (Manga Studio can't export images, for example)...
Is there any way to fix this besides reinstalling everything and creating a new user (which would mean losing all my mail messages and keychain info)? Is there a proper way to backup (at least) the keychain info?

Carlos CD wrote:
I used the setup assistant, so there wasn't another user account when geting the old one from Time Machine
Rats. I was hoping it was the other way, which we could probably fix fairly easily.
There are a couple of possibilities:
The backups might be corrupted. You might want to try repairing them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If that finds and fixes things, a full system restore (per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions) might solve the problems.
If not, why did you replace the HD? If it was failing, it might have corrupted some things, and the damage got backed up. So Setup Assistant would have brought the damage right back. A possible fix for that would be to do a full system restore from the backups, but select an earlier one (Setup Assistant doesn't give you a choice -- it automatically uses the latest one).
Oh, and I'm really sorry if I'm a bit vague on the details: I'm an absolute noob!
Not a problem. Nobody was born knowing all this stuff!

Similar Messages

Transfer time machine data (snow leopard) to new mb air (lion)

MB Pro died. How do I transfer external Time Machine backup (Snow Leopard) to new MB Air (Lion)?

Your best bet, by far, is to use Setup Assistant when your new Mac first starts up, to transfer your 3rd-party apps, user accounts, data, settings, etc. from the backups. See Using Setup Assistant on Lion for detailed instuctions.
If the backups are on a Time Capsule, get a USB-to-Ethernet connector, so you can do this via Ethernet -- it's 2-3 times faster, and much more reliable, than WIFIl.

HT1277 Mail has gone crazy. Header's and messages are mixed up. New Mac Book Pro. Migrated files from Time machine running snow leopard. Reinstall or new computer needed?

Mail has gone crazy. Header's and messages are mixed up. New Mac Book Pro. Migrated files from Time machine running snow leopard. Reinstall or new computer needed?

Ok; I'm not sure what you're doing. 36 hours is rather long. Seems like a new migration. Not what I intended.
Here's what I intended: from the newly-migrated and apparently-corrupt environment, create a new user, not related to any existing user, nor any migration-created user, or any other user for that matter. That is, use  > System Preferences > Users and Groups, authenticate yourself by clicking on the padlock, and then click the + and create a wholly new user. Then log in under that user and establish the mail access.
36 hours? I'm wondering if there's an error or an exceedingly slow network here? Or a really, really slow disk? Or a sick backup? (WiFi isn't the path I'd usually choose, either.)
Failing the attempted second migration, I'd try a different tactic. Does your existing (old) system work? If so, I'd bypass the backup and connect an external (scratch) USB disk drive to the (old) sstem and then boot and use Disk Utility booted from the installer DVD disk or boot and use Disk Utility from the recovery partition or booted from a recovery partition created on some other external storage (details here vary by the OS X version and what hardware you have), and perform a full-disk backup of your original internal disk to (scratch) external storage. (Make sure you get the source and target disks chosen correctly here; copying the wrong way — from the scratch disk to your existing disk — will clobber your data!) In esssence, this will clone your existing boot disk. Then dismount the (formerly-scratch) external disk, transfer it over to the new system, and use it as the source of the migration, by performing a fresh OS X installation on the new system.
Target Disk Mode is also sometimes an option for accessing the disk for a migration, but that requires the right cable, and requires systems that have the same external connection; newer MacBook Pro systems use Thunderbolt for this, and older systems tend to use FireWire. And I'm guessing you don't have compatible hardware.
The details here can and do vary by your OS X versions and your particular Mac systems — if you'll identify the specific models and hardware, somebody might be able to better tailor the above (fairly generic) sequence to your particular configuration.

Backing up an encrypted drive with Time Machine under Snow Leopard

In a nutshell, my question is “Can I back up an encrypted drive using Time Machine under Snow Leopard, and if so, how do I access its data from a previous day?”
I have a 1Tb USB drive connected to my MacBook, which runs Snow Leopard. The drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). This drive is included in the drives that Time Machine backs up. I used Disk Utility to create an encrypted drive on the USB drive (998Gb), also formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The encrypted drive is not on TimeMachine’s list of excluded files/drives.
When I go into Time Machine, I can see the USB drive and the encrypted drive in the side bar. I can access the files on the encrypted drive as long as I’m looking at how it stands now. But if I move backward in time, the encrypted drive is grayed out and inaccessible. If I click on the USB drive, I get a window that tells me it is 75.9Gb in size, and nothing else is available to me.
When I open the back-up drive in Finder and navigate to Backups.backupdb > macbook name > some date and time, I see my MacBook’s hard drive and the USB drive. The encrypted drive is not shown. When I click on the USB drive, I see an entry for drivename.sparsebundle. When I click on that I’m prompted for the password for the encrypted drive. When I enter it, I get a warning telling me that the disk image could not be opened and that the encrypted drive has no mountable file systems.
Is my encrypted drive really be backed-up and if so, how do I access the backed-up data?

Having received a bunch of views but no replies over the last 5 days, I decided to venture into my local Apple store and ask this same question. The response I got from the geniuses was that you can't get a reliable back-up of an encrypted drive using Time Machine under Snow Leopard. So, my only alternative is to copy the encrypted drive's contents elsewhere, unencrypt the drive, and then copy the contents back. This is what I expected, but not what I wanted to hear.

Migration problem: migration assistant won't migrate both user accounts from time machine backup

My Mac was formatted due to some technical issues. Before handing to the lab- I backed it up using time machine ( and only that ).
I had two user accounts on the Mac before handing it to the lab.
One of them I never actually used -I'll call it the secondary.
The second one was the main one - which I used all the time - the principal account. All my data is there on that account.
The Mac was formatted at the lab.
Using the setup assistant I migrated one user from the Time Machine Backup.
Only later I realized it was actually the account I never used.
Since I never used it - I couldn't remember the login password and had to reset it, took a while.
I then tried to to migrate the principal account - the one I actually wanted to migrate, in the fist place, during the setup procedure - using the migration assistant.
At the relevant window I tick the principal account- the mac does some thinking and then in the login window my only options are the secondary account and guest account, the principal account is not to be seen.
I'm really really stressed and worried.
BTW -when looking into the actual external disk used for the Time Machine at this path: computer name--> backups-->macintosh HD -->users--> principal account - I see all the folders and files with a 'no entry' icon next to them.
clicking on the folders - I get the following notice - 'the folder xxx can't be opened because you don't have permission to see the contents''
What's going on?
I'm running on a 2.9Ghz intel core i5
16GB RAM 1600MHz DDR3
SW version: 10.9.4
would appreciate any kind of help,
Thanks
Dana

thanks,
the thing is the Mac was behaving strangely - that's why I sent it to the lab in the first place.
This Mac is just over a year old but it's content was initially migrated from the older mac.
And it (the new Mac) wasn't working properly from the get go..
It took ages for it to start up and wouldn't start up if any external disk was attached (via USB).
I had to start it up and only then connect external disks.
In the lab - They couldn't find and HW issues.
So they formatted and reinstalled the OS - I think that's all they've sone in the lab
The idea was to start afresh and slowly reinstall softwares - only those necessary.
So, having said all that- does that change your answer?

When I try to enter a time machine with Snow Leopard backups Lion I get an error code -6584 ... how to fix?

Hi.
I had a first gen time machine with backups all on Snow Leopard.
This died (power supply), and I bought a new time capsule, because to fix the old one would cost nearly the same amount.
Since, I have started using Lion, and backed up onto my new time capsule in Lion.
Unfortunately, there was a file I deleted that I really need for a Logic Audio project, that is only present on the old time capsule.
I got the old time capsule fixed, so it powers up. I even extended my current wireless network with it. I can see inside it -- all the data that I dragged onto its HD in the past is present, and the "Sparse Bundle" containing the data for the time capsule save-states is present too.
Now, when I try to "Enter" my old time capsule, I get this error message:
I tried entering the time machine via WiFi and via ethernet, to no avail.
Can anyone help me to access these old save states on my old "snow leopard" time capsule?
I was thinking maybe I need to try to access it from a machine with Snow Leopard?
Please help.
Thanks in advance.
JM

I have the same issue. Does anybody know why this has happened

How do I just backup just one user account on Time Machine?

Hello everyone,
I've moved to a new computer with Mountain Lion and didn't have my backup disc available when I first set up the computer. Now, after restoring from my backup, I have two user accounts that I am trying to combine as per instructions here. I know it's challenging and I may have to reinstall the OS and start from scratch, so I'd like to backup before I do it. Unfortunately I haven't plugged in Time Machine since I've used Migration Assistant, because I didn't know if I could or if it'd overwrite my old data.
How can I back up the new computer without creating two user accounts (the ones I'm trying to combine) on my external drive? And please don't recommend just buying another external hard drive. Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks.

Aside from starting over, losing whatever you've done on the new machine, see Pondini's Transferring files from one User Account to another. If you haven't done much and can afford to lose that data, I suggest starting over, following the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide. That should result in just one user account.

An old macbook running 10.6.8 was restored using Time Machine then Snow Leopard was reinstalled and updated to 10.6.8. Now the machine is slow and repair disc permissions results in a cancelled by user message.

Our old macbook was getting a gray screen with flashing ? on bootup. Eventually I restored it using Time Machine then decided to reinstall Snow Leopard since it would not boot. Machine now boots but is slow. Ran repair disc and tried to run repair disc permissions but got a message that it was cancelled by user.
This machine is at least 6 years old and I just want to limp it along until I can afford to replace it in the spring.

You may be smelling it because with the new OS the processor is having to work harder causing it to get hotter then it would with the other OS. I can't say there is nothing wrong, but what could be happening is just that, it's getting hotter so the fan is spinning faster and moving more air so you are getting more of the smell then you would before. I would still continue to back it up, and take it to the Apple Store at a Genius Bar and have them look at it to make sure. Was the computer ever in a smoky environment??

Migration Assistant Won't Migrate User Account from Time Machine

I am trying to move my wife's user account from a Time Machine backup using Migration Assistant. Migration assistant chugs along for 2 1/2 hours and says everything was transfered hunkie-dorie. However, when I try to log her on, I can't. When I log on as me, I went to System Prefs --> Accounts, her username is there. However, when I look inside the Users folder, none of her information is there.
thanks in advance,
tim

No Filevault on my computer and hers.
Doesn't work in Save Boot, either. That is the puzzle. Her account appears at the login screen--even the flower pic. that was migrated from from the Time Machine backup. The login screen will not accept any password. I know I'm typing it correctly. Her account appears in System Prefs --> Users, but it's not in the Users folder on my disk drive.
tim

Excluding temporary user accounts from Time Machine back-ups

I have some temporary user accounts in addition to the default Guest account on my iMac. I currently have Time Machine backing up my entire system (the default TM setup). However, I'd like back up only my admin and permanent user accounts from now on.
Having done a little research, I believe I have the answer but want to make sure I'm including all the relevant directories. I believe the answer is to add the specific user folders to TM Preferences > Options > Do Not Backup. e.g., if my hard disk is named "MacintoshHD" and I want Users 'Account1' and 'Account2' to be excluded from all future TM backups, I would add these folders to the Do Not Backup folder:
/MachintoshHD/Users/Account1
/MachintoshHD/Users/Account2
So 2 questions:
1. Are these the right folders to make sure Account1 and Account2 are never backed up in the future?
2. Are there any other folders that i am overlooking?
Is that correct? Thanks in advance for your help!

Jeff Hwang wrote:
I have some temporary user accounts in addition to the default Guest account on my iMac. I currently have Time Machine backing up my entire system (the default TM setup). However, I'd like back up only my admin and permanent user accounts from now on.
Having done a little research, I believe I have the answer but want to make sure I'm including all the relevant directories. I believe the answer is to add the specific user folders to TM Preferences > Options > Do Not Backup. e.g., if my hard disk is named "MacintoshHD" and I want Users 'Account1' and 'Account2' to be excluded from all future TM backups, I would add these folders to the Do Not Backup folder:
/MachintoshHD/Users/Account1
/MachintoshHD/Users/Account2
So 2 questions:
1. Are these the right folders to make sure Account1 and Account2 are never backed up in the future?
yes.
2. Are there any other folders that i am overlooking?
no, those are the only folders you need to exclude.
Is that correct? Thanks in advance for your help!

Time Machine to Snow Leopard not working

Ok, so this issue appears to be multi-faceted so please bear with me as I try to fully explain what's happening.
I have a mid-2009 Macbook Pro with OSX 10.6.8, and I decided to give Yosemite a try since it was free. Before upgrading, I did a Time Machine backup on an external 500GB WD drive in case I wanted to switch back to Snow Leopard.
I did the upgrade, but wasn't very pleased with the results. Seeing as how the computer was older I figured it would slow down a touch, but what broke the deal was when I tried to run After Effects and had plugins - that never gave me trouble before - crashing. I decided to restore from Time Machine and rebooted into Recovery Mode. However, by accident I selected the External Drive with the backups as my boot disk. I quickly rebooted AGAIN and selected the Recovery drive, but the TM drive wasn't showing up when I tried to access it for the backup.
I rebooted back to Yosemite and found that the drive was not mounting despite lighting up and making spinny sounds. Disk Utility could see it but was unable to repair, so I used DiskWarrior instead. Everything seemed to work out ok and the drive was reading on my desktop as a TM backup. I rebooted AGAIN to recovery mode, selected the appropriate backup, and let the computer do it's work overnight.
When I woke up in the morning and checked in on it, I got an error message saying that the restoration had FAILED at some point along the way. I tried to reboot normally, but the grey screen of death would appear after a few seconds and I'd have to shut down.
I went back to Recovery mode, tried to access the TM drive, but once again it was not showing up! So I reinstalled Yosemite and was able to login to my desktop. The TM drive was still showing up, and according to a reinstalled DiskWarrior the drive was fine. I rebooted in Recovery, selected the TM backup, and it only took about 20 minutes before the restoration failed! This time the computer appeared to be wiped clean, with no OS.
Fortunately I still had my Snow Leopard install DVD, so I managed to reinstall it from there. However, now I CANNOT login. My username shows up but the password I've used for FOUR YEARS is constantly rejected. I can't even login to the GUEST account!
If you've made it this far, PLEASE HELP!!!!

Pondini - I have an issue too. And so I went to the troubleshooting tips you listed here and was not able to find a solution. Specifically, I don't get a message. I plain ole don't get nothing. After I installed Snow my first backup failed. Funny thing is the backup on my wifes computer also failed. She does not have an Intel Mac. It's a PowerBook G4. Hence no Snow Leopard there. I have a iMac 24 Aluminum. My Time Capsule backup worked fine until Snow. My TC is wired via ethernet. There is no latest date. When Time Machine backup starts the TM preference pane says it's "Making disk available" Something to that effect. And that's where it stays. If I then try to do anything with the preference panel - like close it - I find out the Preferences are not responding. So I force quit. I try to stop Time Machine backups and it's no good. The TM indicator - that little backwards running clock - in the menu bar just keeps on it's merry little way. The only way to stop it - shutdown. Strange thing is shutdown then refuses to - well, shutdown. I end up having to hold the power button for 5 seconds. I don't get error messages. I get nothing indicating what may be causing this problem. I have been searching these and other forums looking for an answer. I had hoped the user tips you listed would have a solution, but, alas, no. I deleted the timemachine plist in the "higher" library. No luck. I have powered down everything. No luck. Those were two ideas I saw that said they worked. So where do I go from here? Where do I look for error messages that will point me in the right direction? I'd appreciate any help from anybody.

Setting up Time Machine with Snow Leopard and MyBook World Edition II NAS

I have just successfully set up Time Machine on my MyBook World Edition II NAS. It's not so straightforward, and the information on the Western Digital support site is either unhelpful or flat-out wrong, so here's a post that will hopefully save people in a similar position a lot of time and frustration.
Here are the key facts:
1. The MyBook World Edition II NAS does support Time Machine -- if you upgrade to at least firmware Release 1.01.14 (9/29/09). See http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=mbworld. Amazingly, the Level I support people at Western Digital told me that Time Machine is not supported! I had to point him to this link.
2. MyBook World Edition II comes with a built-in user, WD_Backup, which appears to be the only user that can be used for the backup.
3. Follow the instructions here: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/docs/en/appletimemachine.pdf. BUT, what the instructions don't tell you is the password for that user, which Mac OS will ask you for during the Time Machine setup. On my device, it was "admin" but other posts say the password can be "backup" or "wd_backup."
4. Ignore some of the misleading statements in the Western Digital "knowledge base." For example, it says Time Machine is not supported. That used to be true but with the firmware update, is no longer true. Also, some instructions direct you to make a partition on your drive for Time Machine using Disk Utility. This is not possible, as far as I can tell, because the MyBook World Edition II shows up as a "share," not a "device" in the system, and therefore Disk Utility does not see it.
5. The reason I wanted to set up a partition, where I could limit the disk space, is that I read that Time Machine creates daily backups, with incremental versions of documents. Thus, the Time Machine backup will eventually fill up whatever space is given to it. Since I could not partition the MyBook World Edition II, what I did instead was to enable the "Quota" functionality and then put a disk quota on the WD_Backup user. I hope this will do the trick. (I have the further issue of having two Time Machine backups, one for me, one for my wife. How our Time Machines will battle it out for the disk space, I have no idea.)
I hope that the Western Digital people will create greater flexibility for Time Machine users in future firmware updates.
Anyway, hope this helped.

You do need to know that Apple may not support this: Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733 (Leopard) or http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html (Snow Leopard).
You may be able to get it to work successfully, but there's no guarantee it will work well, or in the future.
From a post in another forum (found by V.K.):
The technical reason why Apple limits Time Machine to 10.5 AFP volumes appears to be to prevent disk image corruption. There were additional features added to AFP in 10.5 to support Time Machine. These presumably allow the disk image engine to force disk image journal data to write out all the way to the disk. Without such features, a network interruption can result in a corrupted filesystem on the disk image despite journaling. Remember, journaling relies on the journal being written all the way to disk before the changes take place. If you can't guarantee that (e.g., because of network/NAS buffering) then the journal is useless. Time Machine appears to rely heavily on disk journaling to deal with network drop-outs, interrupted backups, and the like. Take this away and your data is at risk.
If the NAS you are using supports these features it should report them to the OS and you should natively be able to choose that volume. If you have to trick the OS to use the volume it means the NAS does not support it.
To summarize: if you care about your backup data you should avoid using non-natively supported AFP servers.
That post obviously applies to Leopard; Snow Leopard appears to have added some requirements, that are also not supported by all NAS devices: some that were working with Leopard no longer work with Snow Leopard.
As long as you understand the risks, it's your call. But do yourself a favor and maintain some sort of secondary backup, such as a "clone" via CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, or some other backup app. (Many of us do that with any backup app: no app is perfect, and all hardware fails, sooner or later.)

Guest Account Bug Resets User Accounts and Deletes Files on Snow Leopard

Hi Everyone
Well basically, I hadn't used my Guest Account since upgrading to snow leopard, and I accidentaly clicked it instead of my user account this morning, to find that when I logged into my normal account ALL my files, settings, mail etc had been reset.
So I'm posting this to let people know, (and hopefully Apple if they don't know about this) what's happening.
Here's the post I sent to Apple Feedback:
Hi,
Well basically, I upgraded to snow leopard recently, everything was working fine, I've upgraded to 10.6.1 and have all the latest software updates etc, so anyway this morning I turned my computer on and accidentaly clicked on the Guest Account on the login screen instead of my normal one, so it started trying to load the guest account (which I hadn't loaded since before the upgrade).
So I wait about two minutes, and nothing atall happens apart from it loading on the logon page, so I pressed Enter to return me to the login window.
So once I was returned I logged on as my normal user, to find my Desktop reset, my Dock reset, my Documents, Music and Photos reset and all my software reset.
So I restarted my computer and logged on again, it was exactly the same, everything gone. At which point I looked in the Users folder to find that my User profile had been removed and replaced with a fresh one with the same name. So I then spent half an hour restoring everything from my Time Machine backup.
I hope Apple are aware of this issue and would greatly appreciate to hear back on the status of what's happening about it, as it doesn't seem to be an isolated issue it's been happening to other people over the last month.
Here's a few posts from other people who've had this problem, and an article on the CNET site MacFixIt about the bug:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10123656#10123656
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2157518&start=15&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2171494&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2142272&start=30&tstart=0
Reports on the Internet:
http://9to5mac.com/snowleopards_eatusers
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10346974-263.htmll?tag=mncol;txt
To clarify, I have an iMac (aluminium 20" one), with a 2.4ghz processor and 3GB of Ram, please update me on anything that's going on with this issue as I don't want it to continue happening to others who might not have backups,
Thanks,
Daniel.
So if anybody else expieriences this issue your not alone, there's a couple of other posts from people who've had problems above in the middle of my feedback letter. Unfortunately in my case it deleted my Home folder and replaced it with a new one, so if this happens to you then your only option is to restore from a backup. You can attempt to use file recovery software if you don't have one, but I haven't tried this and don't know how well it would work.
Hope I've helped clarify things for anybody who this has happened to,
Daniel.
Message was edited by: dbferrari

Maybe it will be usefull but last days I tried to login as *Guest* (because I didn't want to logout as my user). In *system preferences* I allowed guest login, then I fast switched to *Guest Account*, do some changes in profile like mouse movement and so on, then I correctly logged out and logged once more to my account. Now I affraid off rebooting macbook (I always hybernate system with changed default settings which store memory into HDD) until the fix will be released. Probably the data was not removed, because I was logged in as me and */Users/$USER* was still in use. Now I am wondering if I can reboot safelly macbook without losing my data..
For backup do I need to use some command for backuping home to windows machine through *SMB*? because unix like systems have links and so on.. (in *AIX OS* I have to use "*rsync*" command, which copy whole data exactly as it is stored on filesystem - if there is link it will copy only that link, not file which is linked...)

Time Machine on Snow Leopard just doesn't work.

So I've had huge nightmares over the past few days over Time Machine.
So I've always been a big proponent of Time Machine. I always tell everyone that you NEED a backup solution, and while Time Machine may not be the be all and end all, it's a great starter solution for those that don't want any fuss.
But perhaps not anymore.
It just works, right? Well apparently not.
So a little while ago I performed a Time Machine-assisted hard drive swap for a MacBook (not mine). That is, I install a new drive, boot from SL DVD, perform a HD wipe, then restore from Time Machine. It seemed to go well.
Fast forward to more recently, I went on a trip overseas (Taiwan). While there, I obviously took a lot of photos, and it became that time again - purchase a new hard drive with more capacity for my MacBook Pro! HD were a little cheaper where I visited, so I not only bought a new drive for my MBP, but also a new drive for my wife's MB, as well as new external drives to upgrade our Time Machine drives.
While I was there, I decided to update my own Time Machine first - following the instructions from Apple's own knowledge base on the matter:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
I transferred my existing backups to the new drive to continue my Time Machine. I didn't notice any problem at the time.
Then I returned to my home country (New Zealand). First thing I did when I got back was to perform the Time Machine-assisted HD swap after making sure the OS were up-to-date as were their respective backups, on both my own MBP and my wife's MacBook.
That's when the troubles started.
First off, I noticed that a few images from my Aperture Library were missing. The album data and everything were there, but the actual files were not. They also did not exist anywhere on the Time Machine drive and as such never made it over to the new HD. Weird, I thought. They were there, clear as day on my original drive. They simply weren't backed up.
Now I'm aware of a few TM niggles, such as the false backups after verifying a disk, but I hadn't done that.
The second issue was much more major. My Wife's MB would be endlessly stuck on the white boot screen with the grey Apple logo. As it turns out, it's exactly this issue here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2738620?threadID=2738620&tstart=74
In short, the fresh Time Machine backups I made before transferring to the new HD showed no sign of updating the /System/Library/Framework/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security package, which is REQUIRED for the Mac to boot into 10.6.7 (it had an old one from before).
Great, I thought, but maybe I can fix that by installing a fresh 10.6.7 combo update on the MB via target disk mode.
No dice. On trying, it goes all the way to the end, and then fails installation. I had to resort to copying over the correct, more recent security package just to get it to boot.
After booting, what to do? Who knows what other files Time Machine failed to update, and what consequences they would have. After putting back the original security package, I tried updating 10.6.7 again. Nope, no dmgs would open - i HAD to use the new Security package for anything to open. Fair enough, but even with that, the installation would inevitably fail.
Problem with the package? Nope. Tried a fresh download, and checked the SHA and everything.
Time to do some blitzing. I pulled out my trusty Snow Leopard DVD and did a reinstall on top. That's gotta get my problem, right? Well, nope. After resetting to 10.6.0, the 10.6.7 combo updater STILL failed on installation. Furthermore, the updater no longer worked on MY MBP either.
What gives?
As it turns out, it was related to this:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11317470?messageID=11317470
In short, some files had the user immutable flag switched on, preventing changes from being made to those files (manifests as a little lock icon on the file icon). They included (and I'm sure not limited to) the Acknowledgement.rtfs in /Library/Documentation/, as well as a majority of the fonts in /Library/Fonts.
Checking back in the backup drives, it was clear that Time Machine was the culprit - instances of those files in the backups were also locked. When did that happen? Looking back, it looks like it happened when I transferred the backups from one Time Machine drive to another. But it wasn't all at once - in the first backup on one drive, one of the Acknowledgement.rtf files was locked, and the other one wasn't, but in the second onwards, both were. It was clear that Time Machine seemed to be doing it to those files. Which files and why? I have no idea.
So removing the uchg flag with "sudo chflags -R nouchg /" in terminal finally allowed me to apply the 10.6.7 combo update without failure.
So were the troubles over then?
Nope.
While checking if everything was fine, I noticed iPhoto on the MB had all the thumbs missing - after rebuilding, they weren't back, and only a .plist trashing fixed it (I consider this pretty normal - probably looking for the files on the old UUID drive or something).
But what gives? ALL the photos taken on the trip were gone! Not just the thumbs - the actual files were missing from the iPhoto Library! The data in the albums existed, just the actual files, just like my instance in Aperture on my own MBP.
Checked the Time Machine - again, it was clear Time Machine had completely stuffed up - the files were nowhere to be found on the Time Machine drive.
So currently, I've returned the original internal drive to the MacBook, performing a FRESH on new reformatted disk Time MAchine, and will use THAT to restore.
Nightmares, indeed. It's several days of work doing all the restores, considering I have limited drives to work with. And yes, rest-assured, I was doing enough permission repairs, and PRAM resets to ensure they weren't issues.
It occurs to me there are several faults with the most recent version of Time Machine (maybe 10.6.6 or something as that's when people had some of the issues above):
1) At some point in time, Time Machine may not update a necessary Security package (and probably other files too - I believe the files around it were also not updated), meaning that if you use that Time Machine to restore, the outdated package will cause your computer to fail to boot.
2) Transferring your backups to a new destination Time Machine drive may cause certain files to become user immutable or 'locked', with one consequence being you cannot update the OS.
3) Time Machine may fail to backup image files with the Aperture or iPhoto Library. Trying to remember back, I *think* this may be related to the fact that we changed time zones, as the unupdated image files were after the zones were changed. Strangely, every other file within the Library packages were updated, as album data was updated - just not the actual image files and folders.
Conclusion? I no longer trust Time Machine. The basic foundation of a backup service is that you trust it to do what it's supposed to do. After all this, how can I?
You might think they are isolated incidents, but they were occurring on two Macs that I have, and they same errors can be found in others.I think I have detailed some root causes, but who really knows.
At any rate you should keep an eye on at least these files I have detailed. Would love to hear Pondini on the matter, as I know he knows a lot about Time Machine.

Someone has suggested just installing Snow Leopard on the machine. Will that work?
If you can find a copy of the workstation version of Snow Leopard shipped with the same model of Mac mini, yes. Apple has not, to my knowledge, shipped a retail version of Snow Leopard new enough to boot your mini.
I've also heard there is a way to install SL while connected to my old Powerbook in order to suck the entire old drive onto the new machine in an operable manner. Is this accurate, and can this be done if my old machine is the Powerbook on the old apple chip when the new machine is intel based
No, it's not accurate. The OS on your PowerBook will not boot your mini.
what are the differences between the single pack and the family pack?
If you mean single and family pack of Mac OS X, the single pack is licensed for installation on one computer only, while the family pack is licensed for installation on up to five Macs.
Regards.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

Retrieve backed up emails from Time machine in snow leopard after downgrading from Lion?

I installed Lion, but after putting up with it for the last month with problems like: computer crashes, slowing my computer to an unbelievably dismal speed and computer freezes at least once a day, I have now reformatted my hard drive. I have reinstalled Snow Leopard and restored all my settings, folders and applications from a time machine backup.
However, I am now back in my desktop (that's another story as all of a sudden it asked me for a password, even though I've never created one to log in) and on snow leopard- BUT I have no address book contacts and as for my email- well my email accounts appear in mail, but all my emails are lost (sent, received, inbox.... nothing there).
I desperately need those emails back as I run my own business and this has just been a nightmare. I thought that after reformatting and then restoring from a time machine back up life would go back to normal but obviously not.
Can anyone please shed some light on where I would find the folder in my time machine back up to cut and paste back over for snow leopard to show my emails again?
Thanks in advance.
Andrew

I'm on Lion but iPhoto 09 so it might have changed in iPhoto 11
But this is what I see
If yours is different try looking in the iPhoto Help pages for restoring from Time Machine

Corrupted user account on Time Machine- recovered Snow Leopard

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