How long for Migration Assistant to calculate Time Machine backup file size

I have just bought a new MacBook Pro to replace one that will not start up. Consequently I am trying to migrate my user account, files and applications from a Time Machine back up - but it seems to be taking an age to calculate the Applications and "other files" sizes.
How long should I be looking at for 145GB's worth of data to be recognised by Migration Assistant?
If there is a problem with the migration, can I replace the User and Applications folders on the new MBP with those from the Time Machine back up?

it's quite safe to assume that the Migration process is stuck. there is no sense in waiting any longer. stop the migration and see what got transferred. did the home folder get transferred? you can restore just the home folder using TM and reinstall applications but that has to be done correctly. DO NOT try to copy anything from TM backups using finder.
First, make sure that your current user has different short name than the user you are trying to migrate. then control-click on TM in the dock and choose "browse other TM disks". this will let you browse TM backups. select the folder /users/username there. click on the "gears" action button in the toolbar and select 'restore to...". select to restore to /users on your main drive. you'll have to enter your admin password to do it. once the copy is complete, go to system preferences->accounts and create a new account with the same short name and password as the user you are restoring. it will say that a home directory by that name already exists and ask if you want to use it. say yes.

Similar Messages

Migration Assistant restore of Time Machine backup

I have problems using Migration Assistant to restore Time Machine backup after replacing my hard drive (the old hard drive crashed so I replaced one and installed snow leopard). During the migration, I created a new user account for the TM backup because of the same account name with my new system. The migration turned out to be incomplete. I found only the applications are transferred, all other things like preferences and settings, documents etc are not transferred; and I'm not allowed to open my backup files (no permission to view the contents). How can I have a complete migration? And can I restore all my previous personal settings?
Thanks!

Then can I transfer my previous settings especially those of Mails, Safari bookmarks, iTunes music... using Migration Assistant anyway?
You should be able to, but I'm not sure exactly what might have gone wrong in your case.
I'm afraid I may not be able to restore the entire system b/c the service center replaced my hard drive and installed the Snow Leopard, but I don't have the installation disk, I only have a Leopard I bought months earlier, the Time Machine backup is the leopard version.
If you don't have a Snow Leopard install disk, you shouldn't try to keep Snow Leopard installed. You shouldn't use a Leopard install disk for troubleshooting problems on a Snow Leopard system, so you have no troubleshooting tools. Just follow the directions at that link I gave you (at step c, you should reformat the hard drive), using your Leopard disk, to get Leopard and all your data restored from your backup.
If you want Snow Leopard, buy a copy (it's only $29) and install it over Leopard after you've got everything working.
The hard drive crashed this morning without any precaution. Do do you think I can still do the restore?
Well, what do you mean when you say "the hard drive crashed"? Seems odd that Apple would have replaced your hard drive and installed a clean system, only to have it fail again shortly after you get it back. Not that that couldn't happen, it's just odd. What exactly happened?

Migration Assistant from a Time Machine backup

I have a 2009 MacBook Pro. I recently had the hard drive replaced, and now I want to use Migration Assistant to restore settings and files from a Time Machine backup. The backup was done to a hard drive connected to an Airport Extreme. I am attempting to restore with the drive directly connected via USB. Migration Assistant does not recognize the backup as a source for the migration.
This is what the backup disk looks like:
If I mount the backup I see this:
I have the drive connected and the backup mounted, so neither is recognized for the migration.
MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10.1

Try using Setup Assistant.
Setup Assistant – How to re-run

Force migration assistant to recognize time machine backup

I was trying to reformat Bootcamp partition and it reformated an attached external hard drive with my Time Machine backup on it and my internal hard drive that I boot from. I have professionally gotten the Time Machine backup recovered but it is not recognize by Migration Assistant or Time Machine so that it will restore my whole computer or at least transfer my account folder back to my reinstalled internal hard drive. I have 20 years of stuff locked in that Time machine backup and really need it back.

ahlquist wrote:
There are a lot of extra named files broken out in addition to the main folders (which look the same) that have 0-k in them and it looks like they were "links" or something like that.
Yup. Those are (or were) "hard links" (sort of like extra-fancy aliases) that are the key to how Time Machine can back up only changes, but still have every backup be, in effect, a full one. See How Time Machine works its Magic if you're interested in an overview of the details.
I'm very surprised you could see those via the Browse option.
You might try repairing the drive, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. I doubt it will help, but it's worth a shot.
I don't know if deleting the broken links will help or not.
is it safe to assume the links are messed up and I will have to recover the files manually?
It sure sounds like it.
If so, I'd put two Finder windows side-by-side; your current system and the most recent recovered backup, in List view, so you can see the contents more easily.
Start with /Users/<your home folder> unless you know you'd put stuff elsewhere.
Compare the two, and copy what's different/missing from the backups to your system. In some cases, you'll have to delete the (probably empty) folders on your system first. Note that you can't delete the "default" folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc.), so you'll have to copy the contents instead. This will be quite tedious, I'm afraid.
Then, if you can tell that things are missing, look in the previous backup for them. You might have to go back several backups for some, and may not find all the missing items anywhere.
I am most interested in documents, pictures, movies, mail and quicken files.
Assuming you hadn't moved them, docs will be in your Documents folder, iPhoto in your Pictures folder, Movies in your movies folder. Be especially careful with your iPhoto Library. Copy it all at once; it's like a database, and can't be copied in pieces.
For Mail and some other common things, see #28 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
I don't use Quicken, and don't know where it puts things. For that or other apps whose data you can't find, either check with the maker, or start the app. See if it shows a default location; if not, create a bit of data, then go hunting for a file/folder with a name similar to the app and/or with a current creation or modified date. They'll probably be somewhere in your Documents folder, your /Library folder, or your /Library/Application Support folder.
When this is done, you'll have learned a whole lot about how OSX organizes things.
Keep us posted.

I have just taken delivery of a brand new 15" macbook pro, tried migration assistant from a time machine backup, music, photos, programs etc. They now take up 350gb of my hard drive but the files are nowhere to be found? can anyone help?

Set migration assistant to run whilst on a lunch break, given that it needed 2 hours or so, when i returned all programs and applications had moved across from my time machine backup of a now dead 15"macbook pro 2009 edition running snow leopard...When i look at my new system information it shows my new 500gb drive is full of music, movies and photos and has only 168gb free, not enough to run a new migration and i don't have any boot disks for Lion so really don't want to erase the hard drive. To compound the problem i'm in Vietnam where there isn't a genius bar just around the corner, or even an aasp within 700km - what should I do?

Is the HDD in the 2009 15" MBP dead? (The original source of your data) If not, you might want ot take it out and put it in an enclosure.
You might try spotlight on know files to see if that gives you any clues where your data is located.
You might down load from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper (free) and open it. It should show you all of the files you have on your MBP and enable to locate them.
Ciao.

In migration assistant, using a time machine backup, what is the extra data that appears after I deselect all the checkmarks under the user?

When restoring a time machine backup using Migration Assistant, I'm given a choice of what to restore. If I click on a user, and I deselect everything(Desktop, Music, Movies, Documents, etc.) there is still 40 Gygabites of stuff. What is in the 40 Gygabites?!

Is the HDD in the 2009 15" MBP dead? (The original source of your data) If not, you might want ot take it out and put it in an enclosure.
You might try spotlight on know files to see if that gives you any clues where your data is located.
You might down load from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper (free) and open it. It should show you all of the files you have on your MBP and enable to locate them.
Ciao.

Why is Migration Assistant not seeing Time Machine backup?

Had year old iMac with Snow Leopard and recently was lucky enough to have it replaced with a brand new model with Lion. Had the previous iMac backed up on external drive with Time Machine.
I know I can't restore from that Time Machine backup since I am now on Lion but shouldn't I be able to migrate my old user account from the Snow Leopard Time Machine backup to the new Lion system? The Lion Migration Assistant will not recogize or show the drive or backup from Time Machine though even though it is mounted in the Finder in Lion.
Any ideas?

I just had a similar problem to this. I have a MacBook Pro (Lion) that has been backed up to an attached USB Time Machine disk that was formatted on this same machine. I had a major crash, and had to reinstall Lion, and my Time Machine backup drive did not show up in the list. I do see several drives on my network, but not the locally attached USB drive. I rebooted and tried several time, no joy.
The backup drive passes all disk tests, and shows up when plugged in to other machines, and even shows up in the boot menu (but will not boot) when the MacBook Pro starts. And it has the secret flag file (if you do not know, the drive MUST have a zero length file titled ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" (note the leading .) at the root of the drive or the drive will not be recognized) and it should just work. It did backup to it just fine, but I cannot restore.
I finally made this work (I think) by actually getting another external USB drive, formatting it, and then using another machine to copy the Time Machine backup from the old drive to the new drive. I added the myster flag file to the new drive (see above) and connected it to the MacBook Pro. This time, it did recognize it.
I am trying to do a restore now, and looks like it should work just fine. What a pain in the butt.
I would love to hear from Apple what causes this. There must be an easier solution than to spend 6 hours copying a full back from one 2 TB drive to another! SIgh!
UPDATE: OK, it showed up as a restore disk in the "restore utility" in the energency partition, but I need to install a new OS (there was some curruption) and after installing a New OS, and getting to the migration screen, once again, this new drive does not show up. ARGHHHHhhhhhhh
Message was edited by: orubin after thinking it was working.

Migration assistant cannot see time machine backup

I have used internet backup to reinstall Lion on my early 2011 MBP, having installed a SSD drive.
I now want to recover all of my data, which is stored on a time machine backup on a USB external drive.
I ran migration assistant, but I just get the spinning logo and it does not see any data; the time machine backups drive is mounted and I can open the volume in finder.
What is the best way to get my data back? I want to selectively recover certain folders- I dont need to restore applications or the system (I purposely wanted to perform a clean install).
Thanks
Charles

I have used internet backup to reinstall Lion on my early 2011 MBP, having installed a SSD drive.
I now want to recover all of my data, which is stored on a time machine backup on a USB external drive.
I ran migration assistant, but I just get the spinning logo and it does not see any data; the time machine backups drive is mounted and I can open the volume in finder.
What is the best way to get my data back? I want to selectively recover certain folders- I dont need to restore applications or the system (I purposely wanted to perform a clean install).
Thanks
Charles

Time Machine Backup File Size : Very Small compared to MAC HD

I did my first backup and my MAC HD where everything is at is about 319.73 in capacity and Im only using 167.78 storage space. When the backup is complete the file size is only 40Gb , I find that so odd , is that normal will everything restore to its original state If I had to reinstall the OS ?

OK, here it is
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: >afp://[email protected]/Data
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Data
Running backup verification
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
CopyHFSMeta: cannot replay journal: Invalid argument
Backup verification passed!
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/Data/myname’s Computer (2).sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time >Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Dom's HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 21.02 GB requested (including padding), 889.63 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Copied 26534 files (22.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Ejected Time Machine network volume.
So, is the problem that I used Time Machine on my previous machine to backup to a different volume? Then perhaps it has just tried to backup things that may have changed in the couple of months since I last backed up on that machine?
If so, how do I get time machine to start afresh with my new Time Capsule?

Migration Assistant restore of Time Machine backup is incomplete

Some app, I don't know which one, keeps messing up the disk drive catalog structure, forcing me to wipe the drive and do a complete restore. I just had to do it again today (third time in a year), but this time Time Machine isn't restoring the user accounts, only the applications.
A random check of the user accounts shows they've been fully backed up on the Time Machine drive and they show up in Migration Assistant as accounts that can be transferred, but they're not transferring. I'm getting no errors from Migration Assistant, it just finishes with the applications and says my files have been transferred.
Any ideas?

I had the same problems when migrating from Time Machine (same computer but the hard drive crashed so I replaced one). During the migration, I created a new user account for the TM backup because of the same account name with my new system. I found only the applications are migrated, all other things like user accounts, preferences and settings, documents etc are not transferred; and I'm not allowed to manually open backup documents. How can I deal with it?

Time Machine Backup File Size

I have a macbook pro and recently upgraded to mavericks. Historically I have used Time Machine to complete my backups and haven't had problems. Every backup is of the full hard drive and takes several hours to complete. Since upgrading, Time Machine says the estimated size of the backup is 143.5GB (or whatever the size is), but the amount of data that is backed up is only about 31GB. I looked in the Time Machine preferences function and didn't see any files or folders excluded, so I can't understand why the full 143.5GB of data isn't being backed up.
Does anyone have any ideas how I can get everything backed up?
Jeff

Time Machine says the estimated size of the backup is 143.5GB
That's just what it says: an estimate. It can be wildly inaccurate. To verify your snapshots, see below.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
tmutil compare | open -ef
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
The command may take several minutes to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.
A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.
Caution: Under some conditions, tmutil may falsely flag files as not having been backed up when in fact they have been. It can be confused by multi-linked files, or by files with a modification date earlier than the one in the snapshot. This will not be an issue for most users. If the results of the above procedure surprise you, inspect your snapshots directly.

Time machine backup file size larger than size of backup hard drive. Is something wrong?

My 3 TB external hard drive (My Book Studio) is my Time Machine drive. But Finder says that backup.backupdb is 6.9 TB in size, or over twice the drive's capacity. Should I assume that the drive is corrupt or failing and that I can't rely on Time Machine now? Or is Finder measuring something other than the actual size of the file...?

I have this problem as well. I have two laptops backed up to the same external hard drive, and I would like to move just one of the laptop's backups to a new drive. The partition for both is 600GB, but the size of one laptop's backup folder is 850GB and for the other it is 3.3TB.
I would like to know the actual size of each laptop's backup folder. Getting the size of the volume is not useful because I need to know the sizes of the two individual backup folders within it.

How can I copy programs (iWorks) and files from Time Capsule to my HD manually? The problem is that the migration assistant does not recognize my backup file and the user on the TC. (If I open the TC on finder, it it there though)

How can I copy programs (iWorks) and files from Time Capsule to my HD manually? The problem is that the migration assistant does not recognize my backup file and the user on the TC. (If I open the TC on finder, it it there though)

How can I copy programs (iWorks) and files from Time Capsule to my HD manually? The problem is that the migration assistant does not recognize my backup file and the user on the TC. (If I open the TC on finder, it it there though)

How do I create more space on Time Machine backup disk?

How do I create more space on Time Machine backup disk?

since time machine in Snow Leopard stops backing up when there's no more space on the disk,
That is has not been my experience, and does not appear to be agree with this Time Machine documentation:
Backup drive fills up
As your backup drive begins to fill up to its capacity, Time Machine intelligently deletes the oldest backups to make room for newer ones (and will alert you if the "Notify after old backups are deleted" option is selected in Time Machine preferences).
from : Mac 101: Time Machine

Re: Migrating my IPhoto from Time Machine Backup to my just-installed Snow Leopard OSX... the program is there, all my photos are there..... but my photos had all been neatly arranged in folders, and there is absolutely no sign of my folders. What a mer

re: Migrating my IPhoto from Time Machine Backup to my just-installed Snow Leopard OSX... the program is there, all my photos are there..... but my photos had all been neatly arranged in folders, and there is absolutely no sign of my folders. What a mess, 20,000 photos. How can I restore my folders?
(iphoto 08)

Restore the library from Time Machine as shown in this screenshot:
Then open the library with iPhoto. No importing necessary.
OT

How long for Migration Assistant to calculate Time Machine backup file size

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