Data Recovery from an encrypted Time Machine HD

Does anyone have eny experience with having data retrieved from a time machine hard drive that is encrypted? I've clean installed Mountain Lion and now can't get at my time machine to restore files.
Apple support recommended I posted here and explore 3rd party recovery servies.
Please please anyone!

v8r wrote:
It was my first time machine back up. Mid way I felt that it is stuck so I powered down my mac book pro. Now its not booting. I gave the details in a simultaneous thread "Gray screen, spinning cog and midway to first back up of time machine". I am assuming that if I have lost all the data on my harddrive, can I at least get some from the incomplete time machine back up.
well, it might be possible but it won't be in any form that you can retrieve automatically. so your first priority should be to get your computer to boot and after what you can start worrying about getting your data from an incomplete TM backup. I've done that it the past and it works sometimes but it really depends on the situation. I had to do it from terminal too as it didn't work from finder.
but it need not be that you lost all data on the main drive. boot from the SL install dvd and see if disk utility sees the drive. if so, repair the drive and try booting from it. if you have disk warrior it might help too if disk utility can not fix some errors.
Thanks,
v8r.

Similar Messages

Lion Recovery from a Remote Time Machine Disk

I maintain the time machine backup for my MBP on a large USB drive hanging off of my Mac Mini. Yesterday I decided to upgrade the internal hard drive on my system to a faster, higher-capacity disk.   I assumed that this would be very straightfoward given I had a complete time machine backup. Time machine has saved my bacon many times. It was slightly trickier than I expected so I am publishing this recipe in the hope that it helps someone else trying to accomplish the same thing.
The instructions below are in the context of a hard drive replacement.   Skip to step 5 if you are just looking for the recovery instructions.
One last caveat, I have not tried this procedure over WIFI. I did my successful restore over a GigE hard line.   It may or may not work over Wifi and I would bet WIFI greatly increases the odds that something unexpected might go wrong and it will probably take many times longer as well.
YMMV. RTFM.   Good Luck.
Before you start you need the following things:
     A USB Drive that you don't mind erasing.
     A tiny phillips screwdriver
     A T4 torx driver
Step 0: Run Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
     * download this from apple support http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433
     * this creates a USB stick that boots up the recover tools.
Step 1: Make sure time machine backup is up to date
Step 2: [paranoid] turn off time machine
Step 3: Cleanly shut down laptop
Step 4: Follow instructions in user manual to replace hard drive
     * you can download your laptop user manual here - http://support.apple.com/manuals/#macbookpro
     * this required a very tiny phillips head screwdriver and also a T4 torx screwdriver/bit
Step 4a: Be prudent: carefully save your old hard drive in case something goes wrong.
Step 5: Make sure laptop is on wall power
Step 6: Boot to recovery USB stick
     * insert the stick, hold down option while booting
Step 7: Select "Restore From Time Machine Backup"
     * When you get to the "Select a Backup Source" dialog you don't see your time machine share or any way to connect to a remote drive.
Step 8: Mount your remote backup
    Open Terminal ( Utilities | Terminal... )
    Run these commands:
        mkdir /Volumes/tm
        mount_afp afp://[username]:[password]@[name of host system].local/[name of remote disk] /Volumes/tm
        you need to supply all of the arguments in brackets above
             eg. mount_afp afp://fred:[email protected]/TimeMachine /Volumes/tm
        You can test if this succeeded by running
               ls /Volumes/tm
        If you see the files you expect, then you successfully mounted your remote disk.
        Now attach the sparsebundle that contains your remote system backup.
            hdiutil attach /Volumes/tm/[MyMachine].sparsebundle
        If this works when run "ls /Volumes" you should see a directory called "Time Machine Backups" in the list. Once that is done quit
        the terminal application. When you do this you should see "Time Machine Backups" listed in the "Select a Backup Source" dialog.
Step 9: Select "Time Machine Backups" from menu
Step 10: Select the backup in time ( probably the most recent one from 10 minutes ago! )
Step 11: Select destination disk
Step 12: If your destination disk does not appear, format it with disk utility
     Utilities | Disk Utility...
     Select your new unformatted drive
     Give your new drive a super duper clever name and then click Erase
     Quit Disk Utility
      Select your newly formatted and cleverly named root drive
Step 13: Go have some fun away from your computer., my system took about 4 hours to restore ~300GB.
Some number of hours later your system will reboot itself to the login screen and you will be good to go. Obviously don't do anything silly in the intervening time like
       * Unplugging your laptop
       * Turning off the system that hosts your time machine backup
       * Resetting your network router

Quick answers.
1. no
2. yes
3. no
Your only option is to install Lion onto the mini and then set up the other accounts.

Migrating content from an encrypted Time Machine external disk (will not easily work)

I recently purchased an SSHD to upgrade my Mac. I preferred not to completely restore from Time Machine, but rather to install a new copy of Mavericks on the new disk and then migrate my TM content afterwards. At the end of installation, Mavericks proposed the option to migrate data from a TM backup, which I chose.
It turns out that the Migration Assistant did not recognize any disk, perhaps because it was encrypted, nor displayed any way to select the volume and unlock it by entering its password. Despite what Pondini says the Time Machine backups disk was not seen by the Mac: as workaround I had to create a fictitious user, log in, unlock the disk (that was immediately recognized by the system) and then run the Migration Assistant from there (by the way, after 4 hours I finally logged into my migrated account and found out that apps were not imported at all!)
I find all this quite not…applish! I could have preferred to unencrypt the TM disk rather than
Is there anyone facing this same experience? Hope that this, if it's a bug, will be fixed, otherwise I'll have to make a TM backup on a secondary disk (which I don't own so big).

Well a google search would appear that disk utility will show you the disk regardless if it's mounted or unmounted. you're best bet would be to unmount the disk in finder, shut down the computer completely, unplug it from a power source, and then unplug the firewire...
I think this is your safest bet but then again, I'm not that worried about ejecting my disks.
you get no error messages when you right click and eject the disk in in disk utilty? you said you have a my disk, do you mean My Book by western digital? I know that they load software onto the machine for encryption purposes. have you tried ejecting the disk from there? I uninstalled said software so I can't tell you if there is an option for that or not.

Transfer Information to This Mac from Encrypted Time Machine?

I just got a new Macbook Pro (factory fresh) and wanted to move my data from my Encrypted Time Machine (on a USB drive). The older Mac that I'm moving of off is running the 10.7.2 and I have been back it up daily to my Time Machine disk.
I attach the USB drive but it doesn't show up or prompt me for my passphase. So I can not Transfer Information to This Mac from an encrypted time machine drive. That has to be a bug.
Has anyone else tried this and gotten it to work?

I backed up with a encrypted timemachine and needed to do a reinstall of my macbook pro OSX lion.
When I reinstalled everything I lost a lot of files on the encrypted timemachine but it is still decrypting so I hope I get those missing files back or am kinda a dead man..
Not sure if this helps.

Is it possible to have two encrypted time machines on one partitioned hard drive?

I am trying to use encrypted time machines for two macbooks (15" and 11") with only one USB hard drive. The problem is that after creating one encrypted time machine for my 15" in a separate partition, the hard drive does not work when plugging it into my 11".
What happens is that I am prompted to enter in my encryption password for the 15" time machine on my 11". I enter in the correct password but it does not work (i.e., password fail). The interesting part is that when I plug the hard drive into my 15", I am asked the same thing, but the password entry works.
This is my current setup for my 1tb usb hard drive:
1) 400gb for data
2) 400gb newly encrypted time machine for my 15"
3) 200gb unencrypted time machine (with old 11" time machine backups) for my 11"
The hard drive is formated/partitioned in RAID format.
All I want is to be able to have two encrypted time machines for each macbook on one single hard drive. Previously I was able to maintain two separate time machines (unencrypted) on this hard drive. I decided to try and encrypt both but seems like I am getting something wrong.

I am prompted to enter in my encryption password for the 15" time machine on my 11".
If I understand correctly, you want to mount the other partition. Are you prompted to do that? Does the password include any characters other than plain letters and digits? Are you using the same keyboard layout on both machines?

Retriving data from an incomplete time machine back up

Hi,
I have an incomplete time machine back up. Can I retrieve data from it?
Thanks,
v8r.

v8r wrote:
It was my first time machine back up. Mid way I felt that it is stuck so I powered down my mac book pro. Now its not booting. I gave the details in a simultaneous thread "Gray screen, spinning cog and midway to first back up of time machine". I am assuming that if I have lost all the data on my harddrive, can I at least get some from the incomplete time machine back up.
well, it might be possible but it won't be in any form that you can retrieve automatically. so your first priority should be to get your computer to boot and after what you can start worrying about getting your data from an incomplete TM backup. I've done that it the past and it works sometimes but it really depends on the situation. I had to do it from terminal too as it didn't work from finder.
but it need not be that you lost all data on the main drive. boot from the SL install dvd and see if disk utility sees the drive. if so, repair the drive and try booting from it. if you have disk warrior it might help too if disk utility can not fix some errors.
Thanks,
v8r.

HT3275 how can i retrieve information from time machine if my computer has less storage capacity? How can I access data that is on my time machine but can not be copied to a computer with less storage capacity? I used to have 180 GB, now I have 128 GB.

how can i retrieve information from time machine if my computer has less storage capacity? How can I access data that is on my time machine but can not be copied to a computer with less storage capacity? I used to have 180 GB, now I have 128 GB.

Plug an external drive into the computer and use that to expand data onto.
http://pondini.org/TM/16.html

Encrypted time machine backup freezes OS X

Been having fairly regular problems with Time Machine backup to a LaCie 5Big 10TB Thunderbolt drive where OS X 10.8.5 will completely freeze during a backup.
I've formatted 2 of the 5 drives as 2TB Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) in order to perform alternate encrypted Time Machine backups. The other 3 are part of a striped 6TB logical drive. I connect the backup drives about once a week for the past few months and have encountered a freeze during backup a few times. I currently have a situation where merely attempting to mount one of the Time Machine volumes causes OS X to freeze. Initially the mouse cursor starts to stutter as it is moved around the screen and then it completely freezes. No mouse cursor, no clock, nothing. Have left for a couple of hours and still nothing so have to reboot. There are absolutely no messages in the console for the time of the hang e.g. time of most recent hang 12:55 PM which is when I attempted to mount the drive. Most recent message before the restart 12:49:16 PM.
The thing is, sometimes the backups work fine for weeks at a time, other times I get these freezes with the same symptoms as above and the only thing that seems to work is reformatting the volume and starting again, although this can take a few attempts to work. I've run a verify disk and currently everything currently seems OK (although can't run for the backup volume as it won't mount, and I've previously had to restore the boot disk due to Disk Verify failing on the boot disk).
Has anyone got suggestions as to what could be causing this? Options are faulty LaCie 5Big, Time Machine encrypted option, OS X bugs or file corruptions.

Unfortunately the 5Big only has Thunderbolt connections and I only have the cable it came with as it is my only Thunderbolt device.
The secure erase single pass of the disk failed with the following error:
Secure Disk Erase failed with the error: Securely erasing data to prevent recovery failed.
In the console logs there was the message: Kernel: disk5s2: data underrun
I ran another erase but without the secure option and immediately got the error:
Disk Erase failed with the error:
Unable to write to the last block of the device
and in console:
Kernel: disk5: data underrun
Going to give it another go as I'm not sure if this is as symptom or a cause as I've recently had similar errors on the boot disk (internal SSD) and "Disk0s2 I/O error" occurring in the console. I had to restore the system from backup to resolve that particular issue.

How do I get back iphone app information from a DELETED Time Machine Backup disk

Hi People,
here is what happened:
I have been using an iPhone App (Audio Memos Free - The Voice Recorder) to record song ideas (I am a songwriter). I have been using it for years.
I backed up my iphone to itunes, and backed up my mac on Time Machine. After a month or so I did a fresh OSX install on my mac, copied all of my files back from Time Machine into my mac, and tried to set up Time Machine. I was not able to do so, so I had to format the Time Machine Backup disk and doing a "fresh" mac Time Machine Backup.
After a week or so, my iphone asks me something like "you do not possess the rights for one or more applications". do not know what i did, but after 1 minute my iPhone was wiped out of all my apps and app contents. I had also the icloud app sync, so i did not worry, recovered from icloud notes, contacts, and all other things. so i did another backup to itunes.
Now i discover icloud did not recover or save the "Audio Memos Free" app content. I know the data are hidden into the Time machine Backup HD, but i do not know where to search for the itunes backup in it.
I know it is in library, but library won't show up.
Any help would be much appreciated.
PS there is a chance that, even without a data recovery, my latest itunes backup was containing these songs, but i do not know how to fish that out of the Time machine drive.
Thank you in advance.

I would email iTunes Customer Service:
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/browser/
CG

Can I restore to Snow Leopard from Lion using time machine?

Can I restore to Snow Leopard from Lion using time machine? I did not make a new partition on my external HD. My reason for doing this is to import data from Quicken 2007 to Quicken Essentials and then upgrade back to Lion. Can I restart and hold down the "OPTION" key upon start up that will take me to Apple Recovery HD and recover from time machine? I'm a noob at these sort of things. I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Probably not. See Kappy's going back to SL from Lion guide.

Ejecting an encrypted Time Machine drive always prompts "Eject All"

Whenever I eject my encrypted Time Machine drive, Finder reports that the drive has more than one partition and asks if I want to eject just the Time Machine partition or all. So I have to hit "Eject All" in this dialog every time I want to disconnect my MacBook from my Time Machine drive.
Thing is, there is only one partition. I've even gone so far as reformatting the drive to one partition and restarting my Time Machine backups fresh twice, but I still get the Eject All prompt every time.
Anybody else have this issue and/or know of a solution?

I wouldn't use RAID for TM, but...
http://pondini.org/TM/2.html
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4062015?start=0&tstart=0

Cannot find deleted photos from iPhoto in time machine!

Help wanted, I am unable to recover lost photos from iPhoto in Time machine.
I can find lost documents OK, but nothing from iPhoto 08.-Chatch

Hi Larry, they were in trash, but I deleted trash because I thought that time machine went back in time and found them from an earlier date? Is this not so?-Chatch

A question about restoring from an old Time Machine backup

My computer has been acting very slow and freezing frequently lately. The spotlight background processess keep hogging the processor, and
It keeps getting catalog b-Tree corruption. I've already done one complete reformat of my drive and a restore from a time machine backup hoping it would fix things, and that didn't work.
I tried a complete reinstall and used the migration assistant to move all my files and settings from my time machine back over to it.
That worked for about a week, then had b-Tree corruption that could only be fixed with disk warrior.
I was suspecting a hardware problem, but I have done thourogh tests of my Ram with memtest from single user mode, and a disk surface scan with Tech Tool Deluxe. Everything checks out.
I am thinking there is some corrupt system file or setting that is getting reinstalled from my Time machine backup that is messing things up.
This all is a leadup to my question:
I would like to try restoring from a much older Time Machine back up (6 months ago or so before I started experiencing problems).
If I do that, can I still use Time Machine to restore individual files and directories from later backups?
I'd like my system settings and applications to be from six months ago, but my desktop files and documents to be from my most recent backup.
Thanks,
-Matt

Yeah, I usually check the FAQs before posting a question.
They do talk about how to restore from an older back up, but not about what happens to your newer files once you have done it. They also talk about accessing files from another computer's time machine backup, but its not clear if that would work on a different fork of the same machine.
I may just have to learn from experience, but I don't want to risk losing any data.
I do recommend time machine though. Its saved me several times.
If anyone else has experience with this let me know.
Thanks,
-Matt

Restore Lion OS from Lion Server Time Machine Backup?

I am running a Intel Imac 2008 clean install SL then Lion upgrade, followed by Lion Server install. I have multiple home macs, and intnded the server as a way to monitor and restrict kids internet use. In short, it has changes/screwed up multiple programs, and complicated home sharing issues considerably. Mail on the server machine has permission problems (cannot send mail, unable to sign), Spotlight in mail is non-functioning, finder spotlight searches are inconsistent, etc. I want to revert to plain old Lion.
I have done disk utility/verify disk and verified/repaired permissions, and have 'fiddled' (i'm not an expert) in the keychain/certificates areas, but I think the best solution is a clean install of Lion. QUESTION: When I backup to TIme Machine, is there a way to pull a 'Lion' version of my disk image back, and just not upgrade to Server? I understand I can disable Server and turn off applications in Server, but it doesn't fix my buggy machine. My options are to back up my 250GB of music, 100GB of photos, 100GB of movies, etc on to external drives, and clean install and then reimport everything, but even that will probably mean I cant reinstall my single user licesnse of MS office, VMware fusion, etc that I didn't buy on the App store. I'd really love to be able to do this with Time machine. Any chance? or do I need to do the dark deed of 2 days of backup?

Sorry, I don't mean to be stupid, but I want to be sure. My impresion of Time machine disk images (I'm not a computer genius, but I'm , lets say, an expert novice) is that disk images (my term for the 'total view' of a computers main disk), differ depending on the OS. I assume that applications and preferences referenced under SL could not be seamlessly imported into a Lion environment. I'm assumng that the upgrade to Lion server has irrevocaby altered my startup/main volume into a "Lion Server" volume, and that if I try to pull my applications/data/preferences/mailboxes back onto a fresh Lion interface, it won't work. Are you saying I'm wrong, and that I can simply erase my disc, clean install Lion via an internet connection, and re-import my "lion Server- altered' stuff back from aLion-server Time Machine disk image, seamlessly, into a Lion OS environment? Sorry to be so concrete, but my wife will kill me if I %$@ the bed on this. I appreciatre your help.

Do encrypted Time Machine backups work across a network?

I see that Lion offers the option of encrypting TIme Machine backup volumes, which seems like a Good Thing. After reading up a bit on this, it seems clear that it will handle the situation where the backup volume is physically attached to the machine being backed up. However, I've gotten mixed signals about whether this will work with networked clients. I have a server with a TM volume, and a number of machines on my network use that server and its disk for TM backups. Can I encrypt the TM volume in this situation, and will Time Machine be able to back up from those clients to the server? I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work, but, like I said, the overall story isn't completely clear. Thanks for any advice!

There's nothing in the Help or other documentation I can find.
Just that OSX can't do it from the Mac that's doing the backup.
There was a similar post the other day; I asked the poster to let us know whether it worked, but haven't gotten an answer yet. So if you try it, please post back with your results.
I do agree with coocoo, though -- if you want to do this, keep "secondary" backups, not encrypted, just in case. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for some suggestions.

Data Recovery from an encrypted Time Machine HD

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