Having trouble restoring from Time Machine
I replaced my HD, on my iMac 2007 Intel 20"' model A1441. After formatting I tried to restore from Time Machine, but continue to receive error messages saying it can't restore the drive. I went over to disk utilities & restored from there, but it renames my hard drive to "time Machine Backup" so I have two backup disks. Is there a way to rename it? Because all the data transfers over. The whole thing is very frustrating! My system was running on OS 10.8.5.
That's not how you restore from Time Machine. If you followed the instructions linked below and it didn't work, erase the volume and install OS X. When you restart, follow the prompts to transfer your data from a snapshot.
OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system
Similar Messages
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Trouble restoring from Time Machine backup
Hi all,
I've reached the limits of my ingenuity trying to restore a troublesome Time Machine backup, so I'm here to ask for some guidance. To start at the beginning: I corrupted my Macbook Pro's internal hard drive somehow, possibly by jarring loose a RAM chip while the computer was asleep. I removed and reseated the RAM, reformatted the hard drive, and reinstalled OSX from the install DVD, all the way back to Snow Leopard, then re-upgraded to Mountain Lion. So far, so good.
The current problems began when I tried to restore my system from my Time Machine backup (store on a 500GB external hard drive, which was actually the original MBP hard drive which I replaced and chucked into a Transcend StoreJet enclosure). The restore proceeded for about half an hour, then failed with a SIGSEGV plus an "Error -36", data could not be read from "". This occurred during the OSX installation, where I decided to skip the restore at first, and also later when I invoked the Migration Assistant.
I began to copy the files manually, first using the Time Machine interface, and later with a straight "cp -r" on my home directory. Similar errors ensued: I got a popup error message saying that the data could not be read, and also that the Time Machine disk was removed improperly, data might be lost, etc. I ran a "Repair Disk" on the external drive, and with "cp" was able to copy about 1/3 of my data; however, after an hour, the copy operation crashed again with a "disk removed improperly" error. After two or three times removing and re-plugging in the external hard drive, the disk no longer mounted, and Disk Utility says that it cannot repair the disk.
Now, my real question is, I was able to plug the bare Time Machine hard drive into an Ubuntu desktop via SATA, and the disk mounts and I can browse the file system without error. So, can anybody help me understand (a) what exactly is wrong with the external hard drive that OSX can't deal with it, but Ubuntu can, and (b) how I might efficiently recover the files off of the external hard drive? Regarding (a), could the issue be related to the hard drive enclosure? Regarding (b), I can see all of my files in Ubuntu, but Ubuntu doesn't recognize the hard links, and so the actual files are organized randomly in thousands of Time Machine directories; sorting these would be a true nightmare!
Sorry for the novel, and thanks in advance for any help!OK, I have a partial solution. A kind fellow has written a virtual filesystem for Linux specifically to read Time Machine drives: https://github.com/abique/tmfs. Simply installing this utility allows me to browse the hard link structure of Time Machine without manually delving into the '.HFS+\ Private\ Directory\ Data^M' folders. I'm currently copying out all of the files onto a second external hard drive, and hopefully this will recovery my data. A bazillion thanks to abique!
Of course, this doesn't track down my hardware problem, but I think it's best to retire this external hard drive entirely. I think the problem is with the drive or the enclosure and not with my MBP, since I attempted to copy the data onto a different MBP and had the same errors.
Steps:
- Install TMFS, available in the Ubuntu Software Manager.
- Find the initial mount point of the Time Machine drive. For me, it was /media/<username>/<long string of random letters and numbers>.
- Re-mount the time machine drive using the virtual filesystem. I also had to make a folder corresponding to the new mount point by hand, for some reason:
> sudo mkdir /mnt/tm-root
> sudo tmfs /media/username/4be78be9-cc68-32b4-9683-72c2209d11be /mnt/tm-root -ouid=$(id -u),gid=$(id -g),allow_other
- The Time Machine partition is now browsable (read-only) at /mnt/tm-root in a terminal, instead of not recognizing the hard links. -
Hi all,
My computer had been running really slowly for a while, so I decided to erase the whole hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and then I was going to restore the files I cared about from Time Machine. The main account, which had all my documents and photos, was FileVault-protected. The last thing I did before erasing the hard drive was to run one last Time Machine backup. As far as I remember, I always ran Time Machine backups with the FileVaulted user logged in.
I don't remember whether I was using FileVault 1 or 2. I had been using FileVault 1, but I installed Lion as soon as it came out and I thought I had migrated to FileVault 2 at that point.
Once I erased the hard drive and reinstalled the operating system, I browsed the Time Machine disk and, within the Users folder, there was no folder for the main user account. When I tried to reinstall everything by restoring from Time Machine backup, I'd get the option for all the user accounts, but when I tried to log in with the main one I'd get the dreaded "You are unable to log in to the FileVault user account "User" at this time. Log in failed because an error occurred." Finally, when attempting to restore from the Time Machine backup again, I noticed something strange: After the computer got to about 10% done restoring, it declared itself completed successfully and rebooted.
I've tried a number of tips that came up from questions about similar issues on the Apple support forum, but had no luck. Is there any way to get these files back? Did they ever even get backed up?
Thanks.Hroodbwai wrote:
I can't find it! not sure what's going on but the only folder shown is the " Shared" folder.
Did you have only the one user account? If there were others, they should also be in the "Users" folder. You probably won't have access to the files inside them, but they should be there.
From what can make out, it looks like it's not backed up any of the files for the filevault account. Can't see user folder when looking through previous backups in Time Machine galaxy view.
Are you doing that from a Finder window set to your internal HD, or your computer name? It should look something like this (with the Finder in List view):
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I'd been logging out and backing up manually on a regular basis.
Scheduled backups should run normally; but they won't back up the File Vault sparse bundle, nor will any run manually.
The only time it's backed-up is when you actually log out.
You should have seen this window on logout:
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followed by this one:
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If you didn't see the second one, or cancelled it, the account wasn't backed-up. -
System Restore from Time Machine Back up and Mail
Hi
I have around 16,000 Messages in my Mail 3.2 Inbox. I use Gmail IMAP service. One thing I like about Mail is that next to all my messages there are these arrows that indicate whether I have replied to or forwarded a particular message and clicking on them takes me to my response to a particular email.
I need to reformat my MBP HD and want to do a system restore through Time Machine.
My question is, will Mail return to my current state (with all the arrows and tags) after I do the complete restore from Time Machine.
Any help on this is highly appreciated.
Cheers!Mheck21 wrote:
I replaced the internal because I need more space, I'm not an expert, but I've done it before. I wasn't having trouble I was just running out of room and decided to upgrade?
Ah, ok, that rules that out.
I think it wasn't backing up because it was showing I had files on the external but I couldn't locate them. It's my understanding that the external must be blank to back your computer up with time machine.
No, it doesn't have to be empty (although Time Machine works best if it has its own, exclusive space). Without the error message(s), we don't know what is/was wrong.
I have run the Verify Disk on the internal and it says its all good.
Ah, good. That means you don't have directory problems.
I have not run a Repair Disk Permissions. I am not sure how to do that? Is that also located in the Disk Utility.
Yup, same window, different button.
I tried to just run the update from the update software option in the apple on the top left. I also then ran the combo that I downloaded from the apple site.
With what results? Did they compete? If not, what message did you get? -
Cannot Reinstall OS X Lion OR Restore from Time Machine
With Firevault enabled, I attempted to reinstall OS X Lion from Recovery Mode. After being asked to enter the password to unlock the encrypted 'Mactinosh HD' disk, the reinstallation began. Everything seemed fine until the install process was supposedly finished, then a window popped up explaining that there was an error and to try again. I tried again and the same thing happened. I also tried to restore from Time Machine with no success (the same thing happened). I opened Disk Utility via Recovery mode and verified/repaired the 'Macintosh HD' disk and its permissions, but the reinstall/Time Machine restore still fails. Then I erased the disk with Disc Utlilty, and attempted this again with no success. My computer no longer boots into OS X at all (it didn't even before I erased the disk via Disk Utility). It can only boot into Recovery Mode or Windows--I'm basically running a pretty overpriced Windows PC.
I am using a 21" iMac with an Intel Core i5 processor, CPU @ 250GHz, have 4 GB of RAM, and am (supposed to be) running OS X 10.7 Lion. Right now I'm using Windows 8 Consumer Preview x64 bit on a Bootcamp partition on the same computer if that matters to anyone. If there's any useful information I could provide to help you help me then please let me know! This is a pretty sucky issue that I'm having a great a deal of trouble and frustration with and any help would be very very appreciated.Whenever I try to do this it says "Error trying to turn off encryption". The message does not offer much in the way of an explanation aside from that. Maybe that's simply an 'incorrect password' message? I entered my adminstrator password which works to unlock the drive, but apparently not to turn off encryption unless the error has nothing to do with my password. I opted to have Apple hold on to my Filevault restore key which I was too lazy to write down when I first enabled the feature, so if that is the password required to turn off encryption I suppose I'll need to call Apple Care to retrieve it. =/
By the way, the computer no longer boots into reguar Recovery Mode but now boots into internet recovery. Interestingly enough, another attempt at Time Machine recovery also appeared to work (saying that it was done successfully) but in fact it didn't.
Also, whenever I try to change startup disc to Macintosh HD it says "Error: Building boot caches on boot helper partition failed". Whenever I restart holding the Options key to view available drives/partitions, only Windows and My Passport (external hard drive) appear. -
User account to available after restore from time machine
After havi g to erase my hard drive and reinstall Mountain Lion I could not aces my time machine backup during the installation process. Have been able to access The drive and perform restores from Time Machine however I cannot access my User account. If I try and add the account inSystem Preferences it states that the account with that name already exists but it is not available to log in to.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
There are a few possibilities. You've posted in the Leopard Time Machine forum, but your signature says you're running Snow Leopard. If you used a Leopard Install disc to restore a +*Snow Leopard+* backup, that's the problem. Try again with a Snow Leopard Install disc (you can use either disc to restore a Leopard backup).
If not, why did you restore? If you were having, say, internal HD troubles, it's possible that they corrupted your installation of OSX, those changes were backed-up by Time Machine, and restored. If that's a possibility, try the restore from an earlier backup.
If nothing seems to work, do an +*Erase and Install+* of Leopard, if that's what you're running; or start up from your SL Install disc, select +Disk Utility+ from the +Utilities Menu,+ erase your internal HD, quit Disk Utility and install OSX.
When your Mac restarts with only a fresh copy of OSX, +Setup Assistant+ will ask if you want to transfer your data from another Mac or Time Machine backups. Do so -- see #19 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details. -
Restore from Time Machine fails
I just got a new HD from the apple store and had them flash 10.5.8 onto it so that I could restore my MacBook right when I got home.
The problem is that when I get through to the "Restore from Time Machine" screen, the mac only finds one backup available and even then it won't transfer the files to the new HD, the TM external sits and spins and then the macbook goes through the welcome video again and starts me all over again.
what did I do wrong and did I lose everything?
I just plugged in the TM external to another mac in the house and it sees every thing in TM fine.
Message was edited by: MrBackpackMrBackpack wrote:
I'm trying to use the set-up assistant.
One of the problems that I am running into is that when I get to the point where is calculates the size of the files that I want to restore, it sits at calculating then it restarts the set-up assistant.
Ah, that does sound like the backups may be corrupted.
One question and three options:
Did you get a larger drive, or was there a problem with the old one, requiring a replacement? If there was a problem, it's possible something got corrupted on your internal HD before the last backup. When the last backup ran, the damage would have been backed-up, too, and could be why Time Machine is having trouble dealing with it. If so, you probably want the first option below:
Boot up from your Install disc. After selecting your language, select Utilities, then +Disk Utility+ from the menubar on the next screen. Use it to do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your backup drive. If that finds no errors, or fixes whatever it finds, quit Disk Utility, return to the Utilities menu and select +Restore System from Backups,+ per #14 in the FAQ. The advantage here is, you'll get a list of backups to restore from. If the last one won't work, try an earlier one. Be sure to get the log window per step (h), so if it fails or hangs, you'll know where, and we can help figure out how to recover.
Boot up from your Install disc and repair the backups as above. If that finds and fixes errors, boot up normally and try +Setup Assistant+ again. Note that +Setup Assistant+ always uses the most recent backup -- you don't get a choice as with the full restore.
Skip +Setup Assistant.+ Select +Do not Transfer+ instead, and set up a temporary user account (use a different name from any that are on your backups). Then do the +*Repair Disk+* on the backups from the copy of +Disk Utility+ on your Mac. If that finds no errors, or fixes whatever it finds, use +MIgration Assistant,+ per the pink box in #19 of the FAQ. The advantage to it is, you can use it multiple times, so you can transfer one thing at a time, and perhaps bypass whatever's corrupted. But +Migration Assistant+ also uses the most recent backup -- you don't get a choice.
(p.s.: I'll be going to bed soon, so if you post back after half an hour or so, I won't answer until tomorrow.) -
Restoring from Time Machine doesn't work
I am attempting to restore from Time Machine on my 13" Late 2008 MacBook, but the restore stops about halfway through.
Some background information: A few weeks ago my computer started exhibiting some weird behaviour. It would turn the disk off or log me out after a few hours (I typically sleep with it on and use at as my alarm clock). Then, apps would crash and quit unexpectedly. It would kick in the HDD when I was not using anything that required it, and the fan would turn on for no reason. Then the worst thing happened: Some days I would get the dreaded "You need to restart your computer" screen multiple times. It almost seems like a virus. The problems persist after multiple PRAM and SMC resets. Sure enough, I tried turning on my computer yesterday and it just won't even start. It would give me the Apple logo, a spinny loading indicator, and then it would give me a very slow progress bar. As soon as the progress bar gets to about one tenth of the way, the computer turns off.
I have everything backed up to a very recent Time Machine. I opened the computer in Recovery Mode and verified the disk. It needed repair. So I repaired it, and it said the repair was unsuccessful and needed to be restored. So I tried restoring it. I ended up having to erase Macintosh HD and reinstalling Lion (which thankfully I could do over the Internet). After reinstalling that, I tried "Restore from Time Machine." It got to about 30% of the restoration and then took me back to the Utilities page spontaneously. It didn't give me an alert or an error of any kind. It has done this multiple times. I may try Migration Assistant and see how that works. I know that a 4-year old MacBook is a bit of a dinosaur anyway, but the machine has been very useful and powerful for the whole time I've had it, and this is not how I'd like to see it die.
I also have a lot of important data on the Time Machine and fear that whatever afflicted my MacBook may afflict the MacBook Pro I intend to get soon, which I will load my TM onto.
Any and all help is deeply appreciated.
-Sam TaylorI have always had problems restoring from my backups. I just replaced my hard drive and did a restore and now there are no icons in the dock (all ?'s) and I cannot click on my Applications folder in any finder window. (Oh, and the fans run constantly at top speed after being on for about 3 minutes.)
This is probably the 10th restore I've done in the past couple of years and I don't think one has worked for me. -
How to restore from Time Machine WITHOUT install discs using a second Mac
It's a question that is asked repeatedly all over the web by Mac users like me that bought in to Time Machine (TM) on the assumption that if their computer died one day it would be a piece of cake to restore from it, only for that day to come and then to be told "ahh, okay the first thing is to get your computers install discs..." (loud crashing sound of world falling around ears).
I've never been able to afford a new Mac and both of my machines were bought second-hand. Neither came with Leopard (both have Tiger and have been upgraded to Leopard via the net). This was never supposed to be a problem as I've been backing up with TM. However it appears that Tiger discs are as much use as an inflatable dart board when it comes to using TM. So I've been faced with the possibility of having to spend £130 (about two hundred Pres Sheets, Yankees) on the Leopard install discs just so that I can have the option of restoring from TM. Bonkers.
However after much nashing of teeth, a very long weekend learning all sorts of things about 'Target Mode', 'Single User Mode', 'Verbose Mode', 'Open Source 9' etc the following solution has worked without the need to go out and buy those over-priced discs...
What you will need:
1 broken Mac requiring restoration
1 second donor Mac running Leopard (or Snow Leopard so long as the broken Mac can run it)
1 firewire cable with the correct fitting at either end to attach both Macs together
1 Time Machine backup
Note: The following is for when you have given up trying to boot from your hard drive. In my case I couldn't boot in to Safe Mode etc. so was forced to format my drive and re-import everything. If you've read this far I'm assuming your at the same point as well and have tried everything else that's out there first.
Also - both my Macs are Power PC's so can't run Snow Leopard, so I can't say 100% this will work with SL (Intel) machines. From what I've read Snow Leopard will work with this procedure too, but if you've found differently please feel free to add your experiences below...
STEP ONE: Format the corrupt Hard Drive or replace with a fresh HDD
*Link the two computers with a firewire.
*If you're replacing your HDD, remove your corrupted hard drive from the 'broken' machine and insert a new one.
*Power up the broken Mac whilst holding down the 'T' key. This will start it up in Target Mode and you'll get a nice firewire symbol floating around that machine's screen.
*Power up the second 'healthy' Mac. This will be our 'donor' machine. When it starts up after a few seconds you will see the hard drive of the broken Mac appear on the donor Mac's desktop.
*Using your donor Mac's 'Disc Utility', format the broken Mac's hard drive (now's the time to partition it etc. if you want to).
STEP TWO: Clone your donor Mac
Your broken Mac is no longer broken and now needs a new OS. But you don't have the discs, right? Well get this... you can clone your donor mac on to your machine, even if they are totally different i.e. a laptop on to a tower.
*Again using Disc Utility, click on your donor Mac's hard drive. The restore tab appears as an option.
*Click on restore and drag the donor Mac's hard drive that contains the operating system in to the Source box.
*Drag the newly formatted hard drive on the broken Mac in to the Destination box.
*Click restore. Your donor Mac's hard drive will now be 'cloned' on to your no-longer-broken Mac. Once this is done, eject the first Mac's hard drive from your donor Mac's desktop. You no longer need the donor Mac.
Ta daa! Your machine now starts up happy and smily again. Time to restore all that stuff that's been sat on your Time Machine drive...
STEP 3: Restore from Time Machine using Migration Assistant
This is the really clever part that prompted me to write this piece in the first place. Time Machine IS accessible without those Leopard install discs you don't have. You need to use something called 'Migration Assistant'.
*Start up your machine as normal and you'll see it is an exact clone of the donor machine. Weird huh?
*Attach your Time Machine hard drive. It will show up as an icon on the desktop and because of it's size, you'll be asked if you want to use it as a Time Machine backup. Err, NO YOU DON'T! Click 'cancel'.
*Open Migration Assistant (if you can't find it just type it in to Finder and click). There are three options, the middle one being to restore from TM or another disc. Yup, you want that one.
*Migration Assistant will now ask you what you want to restore in stages, firstly User Accounts, then folders, Apps etc. It will even import internet settings
And that's you done. Let Migration Assistant do it's thang... altogether I had about 140gb to restore, so it wasn't exactly speedy. This wasn't helped by the fact that my TM hard drive is connected via USB (yes, I know). Just leave it alone and it'll whirr happily away...
Before I go - you don't have an option of when to restore from, and will restore from the last Time Machine save. At least then you should be able to access TM and go 'backwards' if you need to.
Also - for a Mac expert, the above will be up there with 'Spot Goes To The Farm' in terms of complexity. However, for the rest of us the above is only available in fragments all over the net. By far the most common response to 'how do I restore from Time Machine without install discs' is 'you can't'. If I'd found the above information in one place I could have saved a lot of hair pulling and swearing over the last couple of days, so forgive me for sharing this workaround with the rest of the world. Meanwhile your expertise will come in very handy for the inevitable questions that will get posted below, so please feel free to help those people that won't be sure if this solution is the right one for them. I'm no expert, I just want to help people that were stuck in the same situation (and looking at the web, there's a LOT of them).
Hope this is of use to someone, thanks and *good luck*!Most maintenance and repair, restore and install procedures require the use
of the correct OS X install DVD; be it an original machine-specific restore/install
disc set or a later retail non-specific general install disc set.
By having an unsupported system, perhaps installed via an illegal download or
other file-sharing scheme, where no retail official discs are involved and the
initial upgrade was done by other means outside of the License Agreements,
you are asking us to discuss a matter of illegal installation and use of a product.
There are no legal complete OS X system download upgrades online; only bits
that are update segments to a retail or as-shipped machine's original OS X install.
+{Or an installation where a previous owner had correct retail upgrade discs, &+
+chose to not include them with the re-sale of the computer it was installed in.}+
However, to answer the initial question. To get and use an externally enclosed
hard drive in suitable boot-capable housing, and get a free-running Clone
Utility (download online; often a donation-ware product, runs free) you can
make a bootable backup of everything in your computer to an external HDD.
This is the way to make a complete backup to restore all functions to the computer.
The Time Machine has some limits, in that it can restore only that which it saves.
It does not make a bootable clone of your entire computer system with apps and
your files, to an external drive device. A clone can. And some of the clone utility's
settings can also backup changes to an external drive's system; if that other drive
is attached to the computer correctly.
Carbon Copy Cloner, from Bombich Software; and also SuperDuper, another of
the most known software names you can download and use to clone boot-capable
system backups of your computer's hard disk drive contents, are often cited.
However you resolve the matter of the running OS X system in your computer,
derived from what appears to be questionable means, is part of the initial issue.
Since you do need to be able to fix an existing installation by unmounting the
computer's hard disk drive and run the computer from the other (install disc or
system clone) while it is Unmounted; and use the correct Disk Utility version to
help diagnose and perhaps be able to fix it. You can't use a Tiger version Disk
Utility to fix a Leopard installation, and so on.
So, the situation and replies as far as they can go (since the matter does
constitute an illegal system, if it was arrived at without correct discs) is a
limited one. And file sharing of copied Mac OS X (and other) software is
also considered illegal.
And, one way to get odd malware and unusual stuff, is to get an unauthorized
system upgrade from an illegal source online. You never know what's inside it.
The other reply was not a personal attack; the matter is of legal status and as
you have a product with a questionable system, the answer is to correct it.
And if you want to save everything in your computer, make a clone to a suitable
externally enclosed self-powered boot capable hard disk drive. With older PPC
Macs, that would best be to one with FireWire and the Oxford-type control chips.
However that works out...
Good luck & happy computing! -
Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement
I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard. It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday. Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set. It failed. I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again. No luck. I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care. Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do. (A quick sideline here: I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't. It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same).
Back to the issue. When I called apple care they pretty much had me try the same thing again with an earlier back up set. To my knowledge, it didn't work. I say this because it looked like it was working and when I came back to the imac later, it had restarted and once again booted to the OSX install. (The boot disc is still in the imac). When I tried to boot from another location, one did not show up to boot from so I assumed that the data didn't transfer and it forced another restart. So, I tried something else. I tried to re-install the snow leopard OSX without using the restore function. That appeared to work and then when the machine restarted it asked if I had another mac and I chose the option to get the files/apps/etc. from my time machine backup. The computer chose what I can only assume is the most recent backup set (It chose what I know to be a subfolder that appears under the dated backup folder - Macintosh HD--which btw is confusing seeing as that's always the name of the HD on the imac). I again stepped away from the computer so it could do its thing for two hours. When I returned, I was back to the MAC OSX screen that asks you to choose a language. There were no more options to choose DISK UTILITY or RESTORE FROM BACKUP, etc. When I clicked on English it took me right back into the screen where you say whether you have another Apple that you want to transfer data from. I realized that the imac must have restarted and I assumed maybe it was because the boot disk was still in - except how do you get the disc to eject? I also initially assumed that the backup had somehow failed again and triggered a restart. I tried to choose the option to just set up the machine without transferring data and when I got to the choose a name for your HOME folder message I tried to enter the same name I had it as before and it wouldn't allow me to do so, saying that that name was already in use. I also tried a different name and that didn't work either - got the same message (I assume if it is not the same name that it won't sync up with the time machine data from the backup set). So, I almost tried the "select time machine backup" option again until I looked at my HD space. Clearly, there is space that has been used. HD space was 997 at the start and now it's 636. My initial thought is to somehow get back into the setup area where I can use disc utility and erase the whole thing and then start over but 1) I don't think it's going to work even if I could get back there 2) I have no idea how to get this thing to reboot into that mode 3) I can't get the boot CD out to even try to restart to see if this thing did what it was supposed to, SO NOW I AM TOTALLY STUCK! I have not called Apple Care back because quite frankly they were useless the first time. I have a call into the repair guy but who knows how much help he will be. In the mean time, I have a million things to do and a computer that isn't working - Whoever said Apples never have issues needs to be seriously censored!
A few other notes: I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly. It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running. Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning.
One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted. Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it.
If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful! I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed. Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it. I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one.I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive.
This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Non-constructive rants or complaints
But here is my experieince:
Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on. -
I recently had to replace my 2009 Macbook Pro's hard drive. I had the apple store upgrade the OS to Mountain Lion while it was in being repaired. I want to restore all of my old data and files. If I perform a restore from Time Machine, with a date prior to having the hard drive replaced, will it revert back to the old OS?
No, it won't revert to the prior OS X but you you may have third party apps installed that were compatible with Lion that may not be compatible with Mountain Lion.
App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps - App compatibility and feature support for OS X & iOS
After you restore from TM, check HD > Incompatible Software -
After restoring from Time Machine to new Hard drive, system will not boot
I replaced my hard drive on my Macbook (2008 model) with a larger drive. I then put in my Snow Leopard disk, and followed the steps to restore from Time Machine backup. a few hours later it said it was restored, but when trying to boot up, I just get a blue screen with an occasional flicker to the Leopard screen. I tried an earlier back up as well but with the same results. Any suggestions??
Same exact problem here just yesterday, folks.
Got a bigger hard drive on my MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo) and installed it. Followed the restore procedures from Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/333319/the-secret-of-the-time-machine+assisted-hard-drive-swa p). Then got the blue screen immediately after the chimes.
I only managed to transfer my old disk content by using CarbonCopyCloner.
Having said that, your solution looks uselful, Portland Mac! :
Portland Mac wrote:
... But when I decided to try and just do a fresh install and work my way back through all my software, I started by installing Snow Leopard and suddenly it boots and everything from my Time Machine backup is there...
But I would not say the following:
Portland Mac wrote:
... On a new drive apparently you have to install Snow Leopard before you do a time machine restore.
Am I mistaken, or did you do a fresh install after restoring your TimeMachine backup?
In any case, I found an interesting Apple article that might confirm that there is a problem: [Mac OS X v10.6: Issues after restoring a Mac from a Time Machine backup made with a different Mac ("Restore System From Backup…")|http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3243]. Or is it a completely different thing?
And another discussion that might give some good advice: [http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12578529#12578529]. Personally, I will now do as the man says: two backups, on two different external hard drives, using different apps, the other one being CarbonCopyCloner...
For info, and I don't know whether that matters, my backup disk had been full and some past content had been erased automatically by Time Machine. But I don't think this should have mattered... -
Should I restore from Time Machine, replace hard drive, or neither?
I appeared to have a full functioning Macbook Pro, until I ran Onyx, and after scanning my hard drive, it said that there were issues and restarting in recovery mode and repairing the disc should be done. Both Disk Utility and DiskWarrior were unable to repair the damaged hard drive.
Obviously replacing the hard drive would sort out the problem, and I realise that it might be a sign of the start of a failing hard drive... OS X said to backup, erase my drive and restore, so should I do a restore from Time Machine?
Or should I just leave things now until there are more signs of failure?Alilynx wrote:
I appeared to have a full functioning Macbook Pro, until I ran Onyx, and after scanning my hard drive, it said that there were issues....
OnyX runs the same Disk Utility program that's in your Applications/Utilties folder, it uses the Terminal/command line verision. The Disk Utility program is a GUI front end to the Terminal version.
OnyX launched the Terminal version of Disk Utility in other words, and so it's Disk Utility that is telling you that there is a problem with the drive it's unable to repair.
it said that there were issues and restarting in recovery mode and repairing the disc should be done.
Disk Utility on the Macintosh HD partition (in OS X) is telling you to boot into Recovery HD partition and use that version of Disk Utiltiy to repair the Macintosh HD partition. To do this you hold the command and r keys down and boot the computer.
Both Disk Utility and DiskWarrior were unable to repair the damaged hard drive.
Yes because to be able to repair the Macintosh HD partition it can't be booted from, why you instead boot from the Recovery HD partition instead.
Obviously replacing the hard drive would sort out the problem
You don't need to go that far at this point, unless the drive is having mechanical issues.
OS X said to backup, erase my drive and restore, so should I do a restore from Time Machine?
You have software issues, when booted from the Recovery HD partition that version of Disk Utiltity says it can't repair the Macintosh HD partition then it's time to erase the Macintosh HD partition and restore from TimeMachine.
However there could be a problem if the data on your TimeMachine drive is not current or is also corrupted which it copied from the failing internal drive.
You might want to perform data recovery steps first to grab your data off the Macintosh HD partition so you have a clean copy.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
If this is all above your head, your local PC/Mac repair shop will image your current boot drive to a new extenral drive, then erase the Macintosh HD partition and reinstall OS X for you or restore from TimeMachine etc.
They will hand you the external drive with your files and everything which you can pick through to restore back to your machine.
It all depends how important your data is, because if you go and erase the Macintosh HD partition, your destroying one of your copies leaving only one on the TimeMachine drive, which might be in worst shape or outdated without your knowledge. -
Unable to restore from Time Machine
Hi
I'm having some problem restoring from Time Machine. Here are the steps i've taken to do that but it won't boot after restoration.
Macbook Pro, 2011 Model with 10.7.3.
1. My Mac have 3 partitions (MacHD, Drive A, Drive B) - MacHD has Lion and all other apps, A & B are for my stuff like music, movies etc...
2. I backed it up using Time Machine but in the option I only back up MacHD (A & B) are not backed up.
3. Restarted and Command-R into Disk Utility
4. Erase MacHD using DU. Note: I enabled FileVault so once that's done, its locked but it can be unlock from Disk Utility
5. Restore from TimeMachine, now here's the problem
Once time machine is finished, it reboots my Macbook but keeps going back to the set up screen.
I tried to change the start up disk but this is the error i have is this “you can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk. Building boot caches on boot helper partition failed”
Now i've tried these steps
6. Tried to use http://d43.me/blog/126/building-boot-caches-error-when-changing-startup-disk/ --> by going into Terminal but still doesn't work
the command in that help doesn't work, sudo nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
7. Tried Reinstall Mac OS X but the screen come up and said 103days 40hrs to dl the god darn Lion (note I have Lion installESD.dmg stored on Drive B, is it possible to access that and install from drive B?)
8. Can't seem to find the Lion Recovery partition, how can i boot into that? When hold Command-R, it boots into Internet Recovery for 15 misn then go back to the choose languague and the 4 options (restore from TM, Reinstall OSX, Disk Util and somethign else I can't remember)
Basically I want to either restore from my TM back up to current state or re-install new OS X to the MacHD without wiping out the whole drive.
Thanks for your help.Yes, but you would need to erase/reformat the hard drive to re-install Snow Leopard.
Star with Section E in the first linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems -
I can't seem to get the 10.7.4 update to work. It constantly freezing at the "moving items into place" phase. I let it run overnight and it's still frozen. I have to restore from time machine backup each time. Any help appreciated.
this is somethinng like the third post i have read about that update causing troubles...
But if I read this right- it is still in the install? Had you restarted and repaired permissions BEFORE the download? As well as emptying cache in safari first?
The other troubles I read had to do with after install, and caused by...oh what was it...it was early morning...an article at CNET news had it...google 10.7.4 update trouble and read the cnet one.
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