How do I restore a Time Machine backup from a newer MacBook Pro to an older MacBook Pro?

My MacBook Pro is in the shop and am using my older MacBook Pro in the meantime. I want to restore my older computer with the lastest backup from my newer computer, but I'm not able to see/access the backups from my newer computer - I can only see the backups from my old computer. Any suggestions?

That is probably due to the older computer being too old.
You can do a manual restore to a USB drive plugged into the computer. Then select the files you want.
See pondini Q14-17 on restore.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Particularly 16 and 17.
You tend to migrate from older to newer computer and OS.. and it is not going to work the other way around.

Similar Messages

How do I restore a Time Machine backup to a new hard drive in an iMac 5.1?

Hi all,
I recently had a hard drive failure in my mid-2006 iMac 5.1 and have now installed a new drive. The iMac was previously running an up-to-date version of OSX 10.7 - Lion. However I've struggled to restore the machine from its Time Machine backup, trying using both Setup Assistant which has never allowed me to overwrite my startup files with the restore, and several attempts using Migration Assistant and following Pondini's Migration Problems tutorial, which worked partially, but has left me with a series of files/folders, many of which have Permissions problems.
The most recent attempt, using Migration Assistant is giving me a new error message:
You can't transfer from your other Mac to this one because your other Mac uses a newer version of Mac OS X. You must upgrade this Mac before you can transfer from your other Mac.
I'm getting it that the Time Machine data is more current (in terms of OSX) than my desktop machine - which I have prepared using my Snow Leopard start-up disc (but wonder why this is the first time that I'm getting told this on attempting to restore). But how do I get my iMac to a state whereby I can restore from the Time Machine?
I can't upgrade the Mac using Software Update as this will only get me to OSX 10.6.8 (which is where I currently am, although some applications don't seem to want to work in this state - App Store, Safari on occasion); I can't download OSX 10.7 from the App Store as it is no longer there, and I can't install OSX 10.8 as my iMac is not compatible with this release. I seem to be stuck in an infinite loop from which I don't seem to be able to get out of.
Can anyone help at all?
Many thanks in advance for any contributions & apologies if I've omitted any crucial information that might be needed to help me out.
Paul

Thanks den.thed,
Apologies for not replying back sooner - I've been away.
Although your suggestion helped me in getting a copy of Lion that I could use, it didn't help with the restore from Time Capsule issue. I had to download the Lion app onto my MacBook & then transfer it across but it wouldn't let me upgrade my OS for some reason, so I ended up wiping the iMac completely and restoring via my Snow Leopard install disk. For some reason, this time, it let me have the option of using Setup Assistant to access the Time Capsule for a complete restore.
Now, over a week later, with various bits of tweaking and reinstalling some apps that didn't seem to come across, I have my system back.
Thanks for the help anyway.
Cheers,
Paul

How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?

I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.

ivan wrote:
How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?
I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.
Hi iVain
Fire up *Disk Utility*, click the Restore tab, then drag your old and new TM drives into the Source and Destination fields. Click Restore, and a complete copy of your old TM files will be made on the new drive. Go to TM preferences and select the new drive, and it will continue backing up just as it left off.
Hope this answers your question. See:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2595485&tstart=0

How does one SUCCESSFULLY transfer Time-Machine backup to a new (larger) hard disk drive using OSX 10.5.8

I have read a number of articles about how to transfer a complete Time-Machine backup to a new (larger) hard disk-drive. Some of these articles are specifically for OSX10.6 users, which are not applicable to me since I am operating with OSX 10.5.8.
However, I have tried several times to use the Disk Utility 'Restore' function, dragging my old time-machine volume into the 'Source:' box and my new volume into the 'Destination:' box. This works, of sorts, BUT the newly created volume on the new larger hard disk-drive remains the same size as the original volume on the old Time-Machine HDD, with no apparent way of increasing the new volume's size. So I am not really any better off:
E.g. the total capacity of my new HDD is stated by 'Disk Utility' to be 465.8 GB, of which I'm told 228.2 GB is used for the Backups.backdb folder, but only 4.6 GB of free space is actually available. Yet under the 'Partition' tab of 'Disk Utility' it tells me that there is still 236.4 GB of available space.
Does anyone know how to resolve this issue without upgrading to OSX 10.6?

First, how did you prepare your new drive? See:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
If you plan to partition this new drive then be sure you create a larger partition for TM than your old volume.
Next, clone your old TM volume:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

HT201250 when restoring a time machine backup to a new computer, does it affect the new operating system on the new computer

when restoring a time machine backup to a new computer, does it affect the new operating system on the new computer?

That depends on how you do it.
By far the best, easiest, most reliable method is to use Setup Assistant when your shiny new Mac first starts up, to transfer your apps, users, data, etc. That doesn't disturb either the OS or basic Apple apps that came with the new Mac. See Using Setup Assistant on Mountain Lion or Lion.
There is a facility to restore an entire system from Time Machine backups, including the version of OSX on the backup, but that's for use when your internal HD has been erased or replaced only. It's not a good idea to restore the full backup of one Mac to a different one. Depending on the circumstances, the installer may not allow it. Even if it does, the Mac may not start up, or may kernel panic, or not work properly.

How can I copy a time machine backup from one Time Capsule to another ?

How can I copy a time machine backup from one Time Capsule to another ? I bought a 1 Tb Time Capsule to replace my 512Mb Time Capsule. Now, I like to copy my time machine backup from the old Time Capsule to the new one so I can keep using my backup.

from this support article:
(click on image to enlarge)

How do I access an old Time machine backup from my new MBP?

I wanted to access my Time Machine Backup from a new MBP. Time machine recognized my backup drive but could not find my Backup file. What's wrong here? I use another Login name on my new MBP - could that be the reason?

Take a look on this page at item #17:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html

Restore a Time Machine backup from an overwritten partition?

I had a TimeMachine backup on an external disk.
I accidently overwrote the partition containing the TimeMachine files.
How can I retrieve my Time Machine backup? All data recovery software I have found will find jpgs, mp3s, etc, but not restore an overwritten partition or recover the TimeMachine backup.

You can try using a partition recovery tool to try rebuilding the partition tables and hopefully restoring the filesystem on the drive so it provides the system with a properly set up Time Machine drive; however, this will be a hit or miss success.
One tool that may work here is TestDisk: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
...though keep in mind that this is not guaranteed to work.
If you cannot do this, then it will be very difficult if not impossible to restore the Time Machine backup database in a usable fashion when the partition has been destroyed, as in order to do so you would need to restore a number of important files including all of their metadata that is often not possible to do with file restoration tools.
To get Time Machine running again your best bet would be to start fresh, though if you want to keep files from your lost Time Machine drive then you should use another one until you can scour this one and restore the files you've lost.

Restore a Time Machine backup on a newer version of the OS

My MacBook running Leopard (10.5.5) was recently stolen, but fortunately I have a Time Machine backup.
I'll make do with an old iBook running Tiger for now, but when I 've saved up a bit, and when Snow Leopard is released (and preferably a new version of iLife as well), I'll buy a new MacBook.
I was wondering though, what would happen if I would restore my Time Machine backup (made under Leopard) to a machine running Snow Leopard. Of course nobody can tell now, but has anybody tried restoring from a TM backup made in a previous version of the OS? For example from 10.5.2 to a Mac that came with 10.5.4 pre-installed? Do you need to update the OS afterwards?
If updating is necessary: is it easy to use the grey disk that comes with your computer to update the OS? I never needed it before...

In the situation you are talking about, Time Machine offers the option of migrating data, using Migration Assistant, from a Time Machine backup, ie the same process you use to transfer to a new computer but coming out of a backup rather than a previous machine. This process will generally work between different versions of operating system and so it's a reasonable bet it will work to transfer from a backup under Leopard to a machine running Snow Leopard. That process allows you to bring applications and settings across as well, although whether that would be a good idea would depend on how confident you were that your apps would work under Snow Leopard.

How can I use the Time Machine Backups from my Old Computer?

I have two months of Time Machine backups made using my old Macintosh computer which died and I no longer have. I have now purchased a new computer and am trying to use the Time Machine back ups from the original computer, but it will not recognise them. How can I get my new MacBook Pro to use the Time Machine Backups from my old Computer? I phoned the Apple help line and they said I cannot use them and would have to delete them. This sounds crazy if you can only use the Time Machine back up file with one computer and have to delete it when you buy a new Mac. Surely there must be some way to transfer ownership (not files) from an old to the new Mac?
Thanks
Richard

Thanks Kevin for the suggestion posted on MacOSXHints how to "Repair Time Machine after logic board changes".
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101
It seems as though I am not alone with my frustration with the way Time Machine uses the MAC address of a computer to tell one system from another. This means that if you have your Mac repaired with a new logic board, or replace your system with a new one, you can't resume backups where you left off. Reading through the readers who used the fix using Terminal, it appears that the fix does not always work. I contacted Apple again, but they were no help. Surely Apple should come out with a solution as more and more people use Time Machine/Time Capsule.
It is CRAZY that after a change computers or a switch in the computer logic board that you cannot resume your Time Machine back ups.

How to restore a Time Machine Backup from ML to Mavericks

Due to a failed install of Mavericks, I had to do a clean install. How do I restore an iPhoto Library contained in a ML Time Machine backup to Mavericks iPhoto. I'm almost to the point of opening the iPhoto Library in Preview and saving the files and re-importing them.

I think what you are saying is you have a backup that was done on Mavericks and want to restore it to an installation of Mountain Lion, is that correct? If so no that will not work as you are finding out. If I am still not understanding please tell me what version of OS X is installed on the iMac (Lion, ML, Mavericks etc..) and what version OS X you created the TM backup with.

How to restore a time machine backup from a corrupted disk

Hi.
I have quite a problem. I recently downgraded to os x 10.5.4 due to the requirements of Digidesign's Pro Tools. I did so with a clean install in order to have the most optimized computer possible without loads of unused data. I had backed up my data using Time Machine on an external hard-drive (LaCie, 1 TB) so I wasn't worried about losing important data.
However, when I inserted my external hard-drive after the clean installation it turns out to be corrupted in some way. It is only recognized in Disk Utility, it doesn't mount on my desktop.
Disk Utility is unable to repair the disk. The errors are:
+Verify and Repair volume “Kristoffer's back-up disk”+
+Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.+
+Invalid node structure+
+Volume check failed.+
+Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.+
I went out and bought "Data Rescue II" at once to try to recover my data. It works fine with the stuff I've manually dragged to the disc but the Time Machine backup folders seem compressed in some way (It's only about 86 MB). And when I click a file restored from one of the Time Machine folders it seems like it's just a shortcut to an "original file". I get this error when double-clicking such a file:
+The alias "filename" could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found.+
Is there some way for me to get Time Machine to understand the back up disk even though it's corrupted? Or some other way to retrieve my data?
I have TONS of extremely important data on the disk so it would cost me a huge amount of work to format the disk and start from scratch.
ANY help is greatly appreciated

ohnoono wrote:
Hi.
I have quite a problem. I recently downgraded to os x 10.5.4 due to the requirements of Digidesign's Pro Tools. I did so with a clean install in order to have the most optimized computer possible without loads of unused data. I had backed up my data using Time Machine on an external hard-drive (LaCie, 1 TB) so I wasn't worried about losing important data.
However, when I inserted my external hard-drive after the clean installation it turns out to be corrupted in some way. It is only recognized in Disk Utility, it doesn't mount on my desktop.
Disk Utility is unable to repair the disk. The errors are:
+Verify and Repair volume “Kristoffer's back-up disk”+
+Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.+
+Invalid node structure+
+Volume check failed.+
+Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.+
I went out and bought "Data Rescue II" at once to try to recover my data. It works fine with the stuff I've manually dragged to the disc but the Time Machine backup folders seem compressed in some way (It's only about 86 MB). And when I click a file restored from one of the Time Machine folders it seems like it's just a shortcut to an "original file". I get this error when double-clicking such a file:
+The alias "filename" could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found.+
Is there some way for me to get Time Machine to understand the back up disk even though it's corrupted?
no, that's quite impossible. you may try using Disk warrior on that drive. it's known to be able to fix the kind of error that DU is reporting. if that doesn't work your only hope is data recovery. If Data Rescue II doesn't work you can try other data recovery software like Filesalvage or try professional data recovery services (those can can a fortune).
Or some other way to retrieve my data?
I have TONS of extremely important data on the disk so it would cost me a huge amount of work to format the disk and start from scratch.
ANY help is greatly appreciated

HT201250 How can I migrate a Time Machine backup from an external hard drive to a new TimeCapsuls?

I just got a 2TB Time Capsule. I want to migrate my time machine backups on an external hard drive to the new Time Capsule. I have about 430Gb of files to back up; I don't want to wait 7-8 days for the backup, unless I have to. I am using OS 10.7.5 (forget which cat that is). I have mounted the TC drive as 10.0.1.1; I tried to drag and drop from old to "data" on TC, but I get the error "The volume is the wrong format for a backup." Any ideas how I can move my old files to the new, and bypass creating a brand new backup file?
Thanks.

Rather than do that, which means starting over from scratch, losing all your edits, organisation and so on, why not simply use iPhoto Library Manager to revert the Library to the older version? Easier, less destructive.
The instructions on that are here
If you really want to start over: you can access the Originals folder simply by going to your Pictures Folder and finding the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.

Restoring a time machine backup from a Mac mini to a new Mac mini server

Hi,
I just replaced a faulty Mac mini with a Mac mini server. I have a time machine backup of my Mac mini and want to transfer it over to the Mac mini. How do I do this?

This is a bit of a guess... But I Imagine you would have to start with the workstation OS install DVD first, and go from there at the appropriate point. Any chance you have or could make a CCC backup instead? I am assuming you could boot a mini server from a backup of mini non-server. Then you could copy it over. This is probably worth a phone call to Apple TAC

Restoring a time machine backup from an old iMac to new Mac mini

I am considering purchasing a Mac Mini. I currently have an iMac (2007) model. I would like to backup/transfer the apps from one to the other. Is this possible? I've been using the time machine function which has been backing up my iMac since day one to an external 1 TByte drive. If I can do this, what all info gets backed up? Will this also restore my e-mails and documents? I'm new to restoring on a Mac and want to avoid losing apps and having to reload everything piece meal. I appreciate any advice.
Patrick C.

Actually, you can transfer just about everything via either Target Disk mode or the Time Machine backup database. The effect would be the same. The System Installation procedure will ask you if you want to do that. Alternatively, you can launch Migration Assistant to do that. It's remarkably complete, including apps and serial numbers and passwords. A few things need to be done manually afterwards, of course, but not many.
Keep your iMac around for a few weeks in case something you need turns up later not to have been transferred.
Unrelated Note: DO NOT try to copy the Time Machine database from one drive to another. The database is composed of non-ordinary files and the procedure will take weeks.
--Gil

How do I restore a Time Machine backup from a newer MacBook Pro to an older MacBook Pro?

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