Finder crash upon login with one account, better to copy files to new account or use Time Machine backup?

The finder crashes when I login to my old account. Briefly my problems started with iPhoto crashes and eventually to finder crashes. The finder would crash when I would try to transfer picture files from one directory to another. I'd deleted com.apple.iPhoto.plist as well as com.apple.finder.plist but these did not help. The crash is characterized by there being no menu items on the top left, but with dock icons which cannot however be clicked, and I can only resort to a hard reset to get back to the login window. I created a new admin account -- this one works -- but cannot decide whether I should just transfer files from the old account to the new account (as described somewhere in the archived support) or whether I should "go back" in time to when the system was working well (about December 2012 was the last "good" Time Machine backup -- I did a backup in February, but that was when I was already having problems). I am afraid that if I transfer certain files (especially the picture files and iphoto files) to the new account, I might cause the same problem on the new account. Any suggestion as to how to resolve this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Transfer files off the machine to a external storage drive and disconnect, that way you can do anything you like.
TimeMachine may fail to restore if your drive is corrupted and can't be easily verified if your data is truly on it or will restore.
Most commonly used backup methods
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
For Snow Leopard Speed Freaks
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents

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Can I partition a hard drive so that one partition is for windows files and the other is for time machine backups?

I have a 1TB WD passport that currently contains windows files e.g photos, documents, etc. Can I partition it so that one partition contains these files and the other partition is used for time machine backups? Also, how do I change the partition system on the hard drive so that it uses the GUID partition system?
Thanks in advance.

Yes, you can, though you need to format and partition the drive from the scratch.
1) back up your PC data on other drive.
2) partitioning your drive into 2 partitions with Disk Utility.
3) format one partition by Mac OS extended (journaling) for Time Machine, the other by exFAT for PC data.
4) restore PC data on exFAT partitioned drive.

I have chosen to fil migrate from old ibook to new MacBook Pro using Time Machine after establishing admin account. I now have two admin. accounts and wish to delete the later one and transfer files manually. I am worried I will loose both accounts. ??

I have chosen to fil migrate from old ibook to new MacBook Pro using Time Machine after establishing admin account. I now have two admin. accounts and wish to delete the later one and transfer files manually. I am worried I will loose both accounts. ??

Use the Office for Mac and ignore using Parallels for that. If you have PC only apps you have to run that are MS Windows only then consider Parallels. Just transfer your main PC, using Migration Assistant. If you don't know how then simply read over Pondini's article called Lion or Mountain Lion Setup Assistant tips and look for the section on migrating from a PC. Millions have done what you are about to, it's far from leading edge these days, if you go to an Apple Store to purchase they will offer this as a service, something you might be interested in.

I just got a new MacBook Pro, and I tried to bring across my files from my last mac using time machine. After it was done copying I can't find my files anywhere but the space (about 130gb) has been used on my hard drive. Help please!!

I just got a new MacBook Pro, and I tried to bring across my files from my last mac using time machine. After it was done copying I can't find my files anywhere but the space (about 130gb) has been used on my hard drive. Does anyone know how I can get to them? I did change my user name from 'user' while it was copying, could this have something to do with it?

You don't want to do that by copying.
Your best bet, by far, is to use Setup Assistant. If your Mac is running Snow Leopard, see Using Setup Assistant on Snow Leopard or Leopard.
If it came with Lion, it's a bit different: Using Setup Assistant on Lion

HT4848 iMac crashed, trying to use Time Machine backup. In Restore From:it only offers Macintosh HD on ..... (grayed). There are backups listed below.

iMac crashed, trying to use Time Machine backup. In Restore From:it only offers Macintosh HD on ..... (grayed). There are backups listed below. When I click on a current backup and click on continue I get a "Select a Destination" with Searching for disk, but nothing comes up.
I am connected to my Passport if that helps, but I think that is where it is getting the backup list.
Any help on how to proceed?
Thanks,

Thanks for your help on this. I was trying to restore from a new drive. The problem I have is that Time Machine will not let me do so, so far.
When I go into 'Restore from Time Machine Back up) I can access the Time Machine HD ok. But then when I go onto next page (Select a Back Up) the 'Restore From' option only has the greyed out name of my crashed HD (this seems wrong?). If I continue the process to erase starts and then stops, message says:
An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk.
it only seems to want me to back up to my crashed HD which I have no intention of using

I have a macbook retina with a partition of windows 7 and Yosemite. When I use time machine in Yosemite it wont recognise the macintosh HD, but it recognises the windows hd ( bootcamp). Does anybody know why ?

I have a macbook retina with a partition of windows 7 and Yosemite. When I use time machine in Yosemite it wont recognise the macintosh HD, but it recognises the windows hd (bootcamp ). Does anybody know why ?

Please provide a bit more detail on what 'recognize' means. A screen shot is always very helpful.

HT201250 Hi, I had updated folder on my hard drive wich was wrongly replaced with a folder from my external drive. I m not using time machine. How can i recover that updated folder? (it was done on 3-5-12)

Hi, I had updated folder on my hard drive wich was wrongly replaced with a folder from my external drive. I m not using time machine. How can i recover that updated folder? (it was done on 3-5-12)

If the folder was replaced, it was written over.
Nothing short of forensic data recovery (probably involving taking the drive apart to scan the discs seperately) is going to recover anything (if indeed even that will).

Problems with installing new hard drive using time machine

Hi,
I have a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 15" Macbook Pro (unibody) with 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 and a 250 GB Sata HD running OS 10.6.7.
It works like a dream.
However, i bought a new 1 TB HD (WD Scorpio Blue) since a) 250 GB is not enough for me right now b) warranty has expired, so new risk there and c) i read that installing it would be very easy.
I'll try so explain what i did, see if anyone finds what could be wrong...
I had some minor problem in the beginning (i didn't use the install disk of the macbook pro at first, because it was at the office, so i used the install disk of my old Alu iMac), but using the right disk, i opened "Restore Disk from Backup", selected the Time Machine disk, and waited for the target drive to appear. It didn't...
Finally i figured, maybe he doesn't find it because it hasn't been formatted yet (although it says on the HD that the Scorpio Blue is ready to use as is). So i openen disk utility from the utility folder and formatted the disk as "OS Journaled". As expected (?) the disk appeared as a target Restore Disk. I selected it and "restore" started. It took some hours and finally i receive a message: restore complete (or something like that). But then... after the restart i say the apple logo (as always) followed by the 'i don't know how you call it'-screen: a grey screen coming down like a curtain that says something like: you have to hold down the power button and then press it again tot restart (in a dozen or so languages including mandarin or japanese...). Off course i tried to restart several times, always with the same result.
I switched back to my old drive and it still works like a dream ;-)
So now i'm typing this message, can someone point out to me what could be the problem?
Some more information/possible causes:
- i run snow leopard, but the install disk is leopard. Maybe i should have used the install disk of the Snow Leopard i bought?
- the time machine backup backs up EVERYTHING including an external firewire disk (on the same disk). Maybe that could be a problem? I don't know if the backup disk will restore the content of my external disk to my new internal HD or not...
Thanks for helping me out...
Best regards,
Tom

Hold on... it seems like i missed the obvious answer: using snow leopard to re-install a snow leopard back up. I'll try that one first and if it doesn't work i'll come back to this discussion...

HT201250 My Airbook can't find my hidden network, and I can't configure it manually, so that I can use time machine. Can anyone help?

I have a Mac Airbook and was using Time machine to back up files. I hid my network SSID and put a password on it. I can find it to connect to the web but not to connect to the Time Machine, and the software will not allow me to manually configure it. So now I cannot use the Time Machine to back anything up? Can anyone help me? Thank you.

Hidden networks are not hidden to sniffing software, thus are not invisible to hackers.
It's only used to prevent confusion or in high traffic locations where a lot of machines are connecting.
When your Mac wakes from sleep or reboots, it might not automatically reconnect to a hidden network as it has to broadcast the information blindly. Hackers can sniff this and then know you have a hidden network at home, so the Mac won't keep asking if the network is there.
Turn off hidden network on your router and use WPA2(AES) with a strong random 20+ character, letter, number, symbol password that makes no sense what so ever.
Like
4kn4vTR®ƒ¥¨ô;øPgk'e4ﬂ‡°·‚·¸º·Ó¨˜¨mwy5 go59=.º“,
Very hard to crack that admin password.
For guest internet access set a easier one, but still long and enterable into all your devices.
If someone has it then you can rotate it for a new one.
Never keep the admin router password in any machine or computer, keep it on paper in a safe place.

New MacBook on old Time Machine backup-creates a new one!

I've read lots of posts on this, but I can't seem to find the anwer to my problem.
I have a Time Machine backup of the last year. However, I just bought a new MacBook Air and I need for Time Machine to inherit this new Mac to my old backup.
I used Migration Assistant to transfer evrything from my old MacBook to the new one.
But when I turned Time Machine on, it starts creating a new backup.
I need it to keep using the backup of my old MacBook.
From what I've have read in other web pages where they show how to's on Time Machine, is that once I bring everything from my old Mac (restore from the Time Machine backup) the only thing I need to do is to plug in Time Machine to my new MacBook and it would start backing up where it left of, but it doesn't happen that way. It creates a new backup file. It has the same computer name but it appends a number "1" to the name to differentiate it from the original.
Please help
Thanks

You should have used Setup Assistant, not Migration Assistant, to transfer your data. I suggest you start over by booting into Recovery, erasing the startup volume, and installing OS X. When you reboot, Setup Assistant will start automatically. Follow the prompt to import data from a Time Machine snapshot. The backup history will then be inherited. The first backup will still be a full one; that can't be avoided.

How to take os recovery with out using time machine backup

I ve just bought a macbook pro & I m very new to MAC OS. I wanna to take recovery of only Original OS with out using time machine & I also dnt want 2 store my personal files & stuffs. Pls guys suggest some tips for recovering my os If any problem occurs in future.

S@ggy wrote:
I ve just bought a macbook pro & I m very new to MAC OS. I wanna to take recovery of only Original OS with out using time machine & I also dnt want 2 store my personal files & stuffs. Pls guys suggest some tips for recovering my os If any problem occurs in future.
It's not real clear what you want to do.
Do you mean you don't want to back up your personal data at all, just the operating system? If so, why? Usually it's the personal data -- documents, photos, videos, etc., that are most important to folks, so should be backed-up.
Or do you mean, you have some sensitive data that you don't want anyone to be able to recover if they get your backup disk? If so, Time Machine can encrypt the backups, so anyone without a backup can't recover anything.
Or something else?

Using Time Machine backup from one mac to another

I had a Mac book pro running 10.7.5 and used Time Machine to backup the system. The macbook died and I want to restore the Time Machine backup to my iMac running 10.7.5.
Question 1: Is this possible and how is it done?
Question 2: Will it restore all the software and files from the macbook pro to my iMac?

It can be done without any problem and everything will be restored from the Time Machine backup.
If you want to replace the actual content of the hard drive of your iMac with the content of the Time Machine backup, press Command and R keys while your Mac is starting, choose the option to restore the Time Machine backup and follow the steps.
If you want to keep both content, use Migration Assistant to create a new user with the data of the MacBook Pro. Open Migration Assistant and follow the steps. Then, open  > Log Out, and log in the new user to access to the migrated data

Use Time Machine Backup with Akitio Network Devices

Hello,
Does anyone knows if I can use any of these two devices so to setup a wireless network backup ?
Anyone used them for this purpose ?
Akitio Cloud Hybrid or Akitio My Cloud Mini.
Thanks in advance!

A third-party NAS is unsuitable for use with Time Machine, especially if it's your only backup.
Apple has published a specification for network devices that work with Time Machine. None of the third-party NAS vendors, as far as I know, meets that specification. They all use the incomplete, obsolete Netatalk implementation of Apple Filing Protocol.
If you want network backup, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external storage device connected to another Mac or to an 802.11ac AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base stations support Time Machine, not any older model.
Otherwise, don't use Time Machine at all. There are other ways to back up, though none of them is anywhere near as efficient or as well integrated with OS X. I don't have a specific recommendation.

Using Time Machine Backup Drive with NEW Macbook Pro

I just got a new Macbook Pro. I migrated from my old MacBook Pro. Now I want to use my Time Machine Disk with this new machine.
When I connect the external drive, and select back up now, it says there is not enough space (due to the fact this is a new machine and it wants to backup the entire thing)
Also, when I go into the TimeMachine, it doesn't show me anything past today. . . all of my backups are not displayed over the past year. . .
How do I make it so that the external drive displays all my old backups. . . ??
Thank you for your help.

Turn off TM or set the backup drive to null. Rename your computer in Sharing preferences to the same computer name of your old computer. Turn TM back on and reselect the backup drive. TM will behave as you expect. Of course if the file dates on the new machine are all changed since the migration, then TM will correctly assume that they require backing up. You will then find that there will not be sufficient space on the drive for the new backups. If this occurs then you should simply erase the backup drive and start your TM backup anew.

Restoring sent email from IMAP account using Time Machine backup

I see others are having trouble with sent mail after Snow Leopard upgrades, but I think I have a different issue.
After my domain host's most recent 12-hour downtime, I shifted my domain's email hosting to Google. Everything's working fine sending and receiving, but now I'm missing a year's worth of sent email from that account. It's all backed up on Time Machine, but I'm looking for advice on how to restore the backed up sent mail from Time Machine while preserving the couple of weeks' worth of sent email that's in the Mail app's sent box for that account now.
Thanks!

Sorry for the lag time closing this question out. I eventually shut everything down, including the external hard drive, spun everything back up and tried again. (I had been on the correct, earlier backup file and not on the current day, which was why the grayed out restore button was so disconcerting.)
The second attempt worked, but it took two or three tries to retrieve all the sent emails. The first two outings only recovered about 10 days' worth despite having months of sent email selected and available to recover. The third time it grudgingly worked correctly.
The whole experience has left me very wary about Time Machine, frankly. I do thank everyone for their help. I'll post this note in the other forum and so there's a resolution to bot

Finder crash upon login with one account, better to copy files to new account or use Time Machine backup?

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