Difference in Time Machine full restore instructions

My daughter had to replace a hard drive. She called Apple for help in a Time Machine full restore and was told to first install OSX from her DVD on the new hard drive and then do a Time Machine restore from the latest backup. It seems to me the last time we did a full restore with a new hard drive, we just formatted the new drive and then booted from the Time Machine option on the OSX disk and them did a full restore from the latest Time Machine backup. That restore restored OSX and everything that was backed up. Since these two methods are different, do you still get to the same restore point with either method?

There are two approaches depending upon what you backup. If you do a full backup of all system files then boot from the OS X installer disc, use Disk Utility to erase the drive, then opt to do a full restore from a TM backup drive. If you don't backup all system files then follow the procedure recommended by AppleCare.
For more please read the three User Contributed Tips you will find at the top of this forum's topic list. Also select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine." This will bring up numerous help articles on using TM.
Message was edited by: Kappy

Similar Messages

Mac enters a deep sleep during Time Machine full restore

I have the problem listed in the subject. Here is my configuration:
Mac Pro (early 2008), dual quad-core Xenon 2.8 GHz, 10 GBs of RAM, hard disks as follows:
Bay 1: 1 TB HD System, running OS X 10.6.2, ~500 gigs used, ~400 gigs free, small Bootcamp partition
Bay 2: 1.5 TB hard disk, used exclusively for backing up the drive in Bay 1
Bay 3: 1 TB spare drive, currently contains only OS X 10.6.2 plus some utilities. This drive is not backed up.
Bay 4: empty
OK, so now for what happened. Recently, I had an issue with my main drive (bay 1); rather than attempt to fix it, I decided to reformat the drive and restore from a Time Machine backup. I booted off the Snow Leopard DVD, chose the Restore option from the Utilities menu, and started the restore.
When I returned to the Mac after a couple of hours to see how things were going, the Mac was asleep and could not be woken up by moving the mouse, clicking its buttons, or hitting any key on the keyboard. The (wired) keyboard was totally inactive (no caps lock light, etc.). Pressing the Power button on the Mac Pro didn't do anything, nor could I connect to it from my MacBook Pro by means of screen or file sharing. The only thing I could do was to hold the power button in until the machine turned off completely. Restarting from the DVD worked fine.
I looked for answers on the web, and I found a couple of posts here. One of them suggested setting the sleep parameter to "Never" (if one still had a boot partition); I did that by booting from the disk in bay 3, not quite believing it would work since I was booting from the DVD to do the restore.
Once booted from the DVD, I tried the other answer I had found, and that is executing the command "pmset sleep 0" in the terminal before launching the restore. I got an error to the effect that the write operation failed (duh!), but I thought that maybe the parameter would be held in memory. I started the restore operation again and went to sleep.
Needless to say, the same thing happened again. The only way I was finally able to perform the restore was by sitting next to the machine and moving the mouse every few minutes to keep the system awake. This process took a little over two and a half hours (which is not bad considering the amount of data involved). The operation was successful, and I was able to boot from the restored drive. Everything is now back to normal. However, I am puzzled by the apparent necessity to babysit the Mac while it is restoring from a Time Machine backup.
This clearly did NOT happen with the Leopard (10.5) DVD. I suspect (but don't know for sure) that the 10.5 DVD's system included a never sleep setting that Apple forgot to include on the 10.6 DVD.
Is anybody able to perform lengthy restores by booting from the Snow Leopard DVD? If so, how do they get around the sleep issue? Or doesn't it happen in the first place? I would also like to know what state my Mac is in when it stops in the middle of a restore operation; it is clearly not a normal sleep mode since I haven't actually found any way of waking it up.
Finally, I would love to be able to boot from my Bay 3 drive and launch a system restore operation from there since both the Time Machine drive and the target drive would be available. Is there any way at all that this can be done? Has anyone succeeded in using the Time Machine full restore from any location other than the OS DVD? This would obviously be interesting since one could continue to use the Mac while the restore operation is ongoing.
Thanks for any info anyone can provide.
Daniel

something is wrong with your system. changing energy saver settings while booted normally from an external should have taken care of this issue. I suggest you reset SMC
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
and you are right, using "pmset sleep 0" from terminal while booted from the DVD does not work. I think it was me who recommended that. that was very dumb of me. thanks for pointing that out. but it should not be necessary as i mentioned.
all that said, in response to your last question yes it is perfectly possible to run the installer and the restore utility while booted normally from another drive. beeing quite impatient (and having a mac pro with several internal bays ) this is the only way I ever install or restore. also, I don't use the DVD itself. I made a small partition on one of my internals and cloned the SL install DVD to that. it works much quicker from there.
anyway, to start the installer while booted normally from another drive run the following terminal command
sudo /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/CDIS/Mac OS X Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/Mac OS X Installer
this will let you use the mac and do other things while the restore is going on.

Time Machine full restore to new hard drive

I'm going to change the internal hard drive of my laptop and before I do that I want to do a full restore of my last backup to the new drive via USB. I restart the computer with the Leopard installation DVD and use the Restore using time machine option under the Utilities menu. I choose my external hard drive as the source and the new internal hard drive connected via USB as the destination. Then I boot via USB to check that the copy was made ok before changing internal drives and I see that many files weren't copied. The applications folder wasn't coppied, and my home directory was 6 GB less. Even when I logged in my user icon was missing (not the other users ones)
Why Time Machine decided to copy some files and not others? Is there any other solution for performing the migration?
Thanks!

The PSU and then HDD in my iMac G5 both went (cause and effect!) and so I too replaced the hdd, although in my case, out of necessity.
I fitted the new hdd, then booted from 10.5 Retail version DVD.
First I had to format the hdd via Installer/Utiities/Disk utility. Then I installed Leopard. I did not take the first opportunity to Restore from TM (this first opportunity is after you select the Language, you select Options from toolbar, then use the bottom one Restore from TM) which is what they guy did in the weblink from the previous post.
I installed Leo, then it rebooted, then it went through the Welcome/StarTrek routine, then I did the restore from TM back up, after registration when it offers you the opportunity to restore from a previous Mac and it offers TM as an option. It looks like Migration Assistant but it isn't coz at that moment, nothing has been added etc. It doesn't give the dated options, and it took overnight, but hey presto! it was all there in the morning. Mail had to re-import the messages, other than that, it was fine.
BUT TAKE CARE.....After the overnight restore, and before it all worked hey presto!, I had a nightmare moment coz it wouldn't take the Password. In the end, I had to reset the password using the Leo CD/DVD (stick in the CD/DVD, select language, then use Options menu and select reset password [NOT the Firmware password option].
So, TM is impressive. But you MUST have the 10.5 DVD too.

Not able to fix permissions after time machine full restore

After doing a full restore from a time machine backup, the permissions of /tmp and /usr/share/derby won't fix. Every time I go into Disk Utility and fix disk permissions these items show up as having incorrect permissions even after stating that they are fixed.

post the full error messages please. they are almost certainly harmless. everybody is getting the one about /usr/share/derby after the recent java update. but do post them anyway.

Reimport of mail after Time Machine full restore

I did a full restore to a different machine today. That took a few hours. Then when I started up email it said it needed to import all the mail. It's been "preparing to import" for about 8 hours now. I do have tens of thousands of emails going back more than a decade, but it shouldn't take this long should it?
doug

A full system restore? Doing that to a different Mac, unless it's nearly identical both in hardware and date built, may be a problem. See: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2186 and: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3243
Apple actually recommended this as the "method of choice" for migrating to a new system if I had a full Time Machine backup. This happened In February when my MBP motherboard died. While waiting for repair I got a new iMac 21.5". I had my full TM backup and so Apple recommended I restore from that to my iMac and it worked perfectly.
This is disconcerting though. I depend really 100% on the fact that TM's backup is whole and valid. But I've noticed two problems since doing the restore to my MBP yesterday (1) this problem with the email and (2) the last few iPhoto events have missing photos - just placeholders showing where the photos are.
In this case, both machines are Core 2 Duo machines. Maybe that's why Apple recommended this method.
But if email is not going to be safely backed up this way maybe I need a combination of backup strategies, like throwing Carbon Copy Cloner (which I use for Parallel VM backups) into the mix.
What caused you to do this? Were you having problems with the other Mac? If so, perhaps something was corrupted on it, and the corruption was backed-up and restored.
There was no problem with either Mac. When my late-2006 MBP came back from Apple repair it then went out of the 3-year warranty. So I took this opportunity to upgrade the internal HD from its original 160 GB disk to a 500 GB / 7200 rpm disk. Now I can use it even more when on travel.
So all I wanted to do was take my current iMac content and move it over to the MBP. This worked fine in the other direction and was, as I mentioned above, the method Apple recommended I use.
I haven't actually lost any data at this point. Mail on my iMac is fine, as is the iPhoto library.
But I assumed the Time Machine backup was fine also. If it really isn't, it certainly adds an element of uncertainty that I didn't realize existed before.
Right now I can think of alternate ways of getting my mail over - like directly transferring the Mail library folder and preferences to the new machine.
But this sort of makes me wonder if I truly do have a good, reliable backup of important data now with TM. One purpose of TM is to be able to recover if your computer dies and you need to move to a different machine.
doug

Macbook cannot boot after Time Machine full restore

I successfully did a full restore of my Macbook and hit the restart button when prompted, but now my laptop cannot get past the first screen with the grey apple and the spinning gear.
What gives?

Maybe I should ask a different question.
After doing this full restore would it be hazardous to my machine to force it to turn off (holding the power button for 5 secs) then trying to boot it up again?

Unable to boot after Time Machine full system restore!!

I was having some serious slowdowns with my computer. I did multiple RAM and HD hardware tests, everything seemed to be working fine. I had recently deleted a bunch of files in order to free up some HD space, so I thought that may be the culprit. So I did a Time Machine backup and restored the Powerbook to it's original 10.3 software. All was fine. Then I upgraded back to 10.5 and all was fine. Then I did a Time Machine full system restore overnight and got the message "Your restore was successful, you must now restart your computer" (or something to that effect). Now I get the start-up chime and startup screen (apple logo) but then the computer shuts itself down. I have reset the PMU and PRAM to no effect. I have tried booting up in safe made, also no dice. I have tried starting it up with the time machine HD attached - doesn't help. I guess I'll need to hit the genius bar but wanted to ask the friendly discussion forum folks first. thanks in advance.

Hi coldengray
Did you try to start from your System-CD? Hold down C-key during startup, start DiskUtility from the menu and verify/repair disk and permissions there.
If the CD is not available you can also connect your TimeMachine-Disk, select it as startup volume in System Preferences/StartupDisk, restart and then run DiskUtility from folder Applications/Utilities
Good luck P

Time Machine: Full System Restore On New iMac...

I currently use Time Machine on my 24" iMac with a 500GB external hardrive. If something were to happen to my current iMac (i.e. My kid knocks it off the desk and it breaks), and I was forced to buy a new one, would I be able to use Time Machine to restore the new iMac to the last Back-Up of the old iMac? If so, would it automati ally transfer all of my pictures, movies, music, etc. to the new iMac as well? Thanks for any help y'all can give me on this subject.

J Double DuBB wrote:
I currently use Time Machine on my 24" iMac with a 500GB external hardrive. If something were to happen to my current iMac (i.e. My kid knocks it off the desk and it breaks), and I was forced to buy a new one, would I be able to use Time Machine to restore the new iMac to the last Back-Up of the old iMac?
not using full system restore utility on the leopard install DVD. your current system lacks hardware drivers that would be needed for a newer computer and if you do a full system restore of your current computer onto a newer computer using the restore utility on the leopard DVD it will most likely not even boot.
however, during the original computer setup you'll be given an option to transfer user data, settings and applications from a TM backup of your old computer. that option does not transfer system files but it does transfer everything else including your pictures, movies, music etc.
You can also do the same thing later using Migration Assistant (it's in /Applications/Utilities).

Configuring Time machine to Restore after a failer

Hi
how to Configurr Time machine to Restore after a failer ? should i just set the time machine to backup to the external hard disk that have the backup and it will automatically detect it and can use it ? what if there is another backups for another Mac's ?

PureHeartKnight wrote:
Hi
how to Configurr Time machine to Restore after a failer ?
Do you mean you want to recover your entire system from your TM backups? If so, see item 14 in +Frequently Asked Questions+ at the top of this forum for details.
Or do you mean, once your Mac is recovered, how to start new TM backups?
When you first boot after restoring, you may want to immediately turn Time Machine off, as it's next backup will probably be a full one -- everything it just restored will be backed-up again. You cannot prevent this, only delay it. It will of course take quite a while, and a lot of space on your TM disk, so you may wish to wait until you're sure your system is the way you want it, or even erase your TM disk with Disk Utility and let your backups start anew.
what if there is another backups for another Mac's ?
That may become a problem. TM knows which backups are for which Mac, and will not mix them. But if there's not room for the first backup of the restored Mac (see above), you have two bad choices: erase the disk, and start both Macs over again with TM; or delete all the backups for the failed Mac via the TM interface (see item 12 of the same article).
If you decide to erase the disk completely, you may want to partition it before beginning backups, so each Mac's backups have their own, exclusive partition, to prevent this hassle in the future. See item 5 for instructions if you want to do this.

Backup contents not showing during Time Machine system restore

I just installed a new hard drive on my Macbook Pro so I'm trying to restore a backup of my old hard drive that was saved on a USB-connected external drive (model: LaCie Minimus). However, when I try to transfer the information during system setup, my backup is not showing as part of the external drive's contents. Only the backup information of two other computers are showing up, but not mine (my computer is called 'Hannah Mercader's Macbook Pro'):
However, if I plug the external drive into another laptop to view its contents, my computer's backup information is clearly in the external drive:
I am positive that I have been backing up my laptop properly using Time Machine. However, the last time that I did try backing up my laptop, it didn't work because my hard drive had failed in the middle of the process (hence the reason for needing to install a new hard drive). I've already tried to Repair the external drive using Disk Utility... everything seems OK but my backups still aren't showing when I try to set up my laptop.
Please help me to restore my last proper backup's contents!

Most likely, some folders were excluded from your backups as the result of a failed or aborted software installation.
Starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
You'll have another problem if this is a new computer, or if you erased the startup volume: The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of your backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set your backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Difference between Time Machine and Backup

Besides the fact that to backup more than 100MB of data using Apple's Backup software you have to have a .Mac membership, what is the difference or pros and cons of using Time Machine vs. Backup for restoring lost or damaged files to their original location? Which one is easier and better for this or are they the same? Time Machine you can go back to a previous system state in case a newly installed item has created an issue, but can't you do the same thing by just uninstalling the item?

Time Machine and Apple's "Backup" are actually quite different. "Backup" creates archives which you can't read directly, and allows you to backup to optical media and online .Mac iDisk, as well as hard disks. You create "plans" for various folders or types of data that you want to backup, such as your Personal Settings, Documents, Photos, entire iLife, whatever. "Backup" typically makes an initial full backup and then does incremental backups after that for speed.
Time Machine you would typically use to backup your entire drive, and it saves files that are directly-readable. It doesn't backup to optical media like DVDs or to the iDisk.
The two apps are actually complimentary. You should backup your iTunes, iPhotos, etc to optical media periodically and save these disks off-site, like in a safe-deposit box. If want to keep your Personal Settings, Keychains, etc handy on a USB flash drive you can do that with "Backup" too. Backup allows you to set up custom backup plans that work for you. You can choose how often you want to backup to various destinations.
It is also good to use a cloner that makes bootable clones as well, such as SuperDuper! or CCC, so that you can restart immediately from the clone if your main drive won't boot.
I use all 3 methods, and actually used all 3 methods to restore my system just yesterday (after learning that the Leopard Graphics Update causes 12" Powerbooks to crash whenever attempting to use the DVD Player.app). I recloned my internal drive from bootable SuperDuper! backup that I had made before the Leopard Graphics Update (and then reapplied the 10.5.2 Combo and iLifeSupport), used Time Machine to restore more recent files, and then "Backup" to restore recent Keychain changes.

I used time machine to restore on a formatted MAC. Now the HDD space has reduced by 100GB but I cannot see any of the files. How do I find and delete those 100GB data from the HDD?

I used time machine to restore on a formatted MAC. Now the HDD space has reduced by 100GB but I cannot see any of the files. How do I find and delete those 100GB data from the HDD?

dglenn9000 wrote:
I created a new user account just to see if it was my user Library or if there was something wrong with my system. And the new user account is doing most of the same things so I will need to do a full restore anyway.
Not necessarily. I'd suggest downloading and installing the "combo" update. That's a combination (thus the clever name) of all the updates to Leopard since it was first released, so installing it should fix anything that's gone wrong since then, such as with one of the normal "point" updates. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards.

Time machine backup restoring problem

i recently restored my mac. i saved everything through time machine on a hd. i want to restore some notes from the inbuilt notes app from mac. i know the folder is hidden and sandboxed and all and i followed the procedure, but MY PROBLEM IS that i dont have a containers folder in the backup folder. i typed in search box and everything but dint come. now the peculiar part is that when i typed com.apple.notes there was a folder. but when i opened it it dint have the data-library-core data folders. the other thing is that when i looked for the folder on my mac, it was there but the end instruction said that there should be a p18.notesexternalrecord thing in the 0 folder, which wasnt there either. somebody plz help because my very important documents are there and my job may be at stake. please help.

Quit Notes and temporarily disable iCloud synchronization, if applicable.
Triple-click the line below to select it:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with an item selected. Enter Time Machine and restore the selected item.

Time machine not restoring MacBook Pro to original (pre-Mavericks) state??

I installed Mavericks, but don't like it so want to use Time Machine to restore my computer to a version before Mavericks. When I select Restore, though, it just added files to my desktop. How do I get it to Restore to pre-Mavericks??

Pondini passed away recently, but obviously his legacy lives on. You are going to need to use the command line to inherit the backup so it is recognized. Follow the instructions below. RIP Pondini.
Time Machine - Troubleshooting B6. "Reconnecting" to your backups

My iPhoto app was digressed back to 9.5, not sure how I did it. I then went to time machine and restored it. Now when i try to open it, I get a message that iPhoto is on a disk and locked tells me that I don't have permisson to unlock it. Help ?

My iPhoto app was digressed back to 9.5, not sure how I did it. I went to time machine and restored. Now it wont accept my password. tells me it is locked. Can anyone help me?

Run Repair Permissions in Disk Utility and see if that helps.
If not, you can select the iPhoto Library in your Pictures folder, go File > Get Info (or Command-i), go to the bottom of the info window and set your permissions to Read & Write. On the Action menu at the bottom (the one with the gear) choose Apply to enclosed items...

Difference in Time Machine full restore instructions

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for