How to restore files to crashed iMac without Time Machine.

My iMac crashed and I am about to try and recover it with the Recovery partition. A month ago a pet somehow knocked my Time Machine disk off my desk and I hadn't replaced it. I have my files back up via BackBlaze as well, but don't know how I am going to incorporate (restore) those files in the proper places later.
Best practices or a utility is what I am looking for.
Thanks,
John

Reinstalling OS X is easy. But unless you have a restorable backup of your files there's little you can do to restore them. Read your BackBlaze documentation to find out how you restore a backup made with it.
Install or Reinstall Mavericks, Mountain Lion, or Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
OS X Mavericks- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Erase and reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
because it is three times faster than wireless.

Similar Messages

HT4927 How to restore photos in mountain lion from time machine ?

How to restore photos in mountain lion from time machine?

I have tried doing this but it dosen't work.
I opened time machine. I picked the file from the date needed.
I restored it (I told it to keep both).
Then when I double click on the file it opens a treminal window.
I have also tried opening iphoto while holding down the option key.
This file is not slectable.....
Any thought or ideas?

I deleted a pop email account from mail. How can I recover those sent messages without Time Machine?

I deleted a pop email account from mail. How can I recover those sent messages without Time Machine?

Thomas,
"Note that you were warned that this would happen and approved it. When you delete an e-mail account in Mail, you are shown a message like the following:"
You didn't read my problem - I said I deleted a POP email account. I always read the messages that pop up and in Mail when you delete a POP account - IT DOESN'T TELL YOU NUTHIN! It just deletes it - which *** for me. Fortunately, I had an iPhone and on that device I had about a 1000 messages that I could recover but on all my POP accounts I download them from the server onto my Mac so they were only on Mail (the really old ones that I wanted to keep.) I had to move them into another directory one by one basically because when I would move 50 some of them would move and some wouldn't and I never did figure out that problem. Basically the ones that would not move are the ones that were associated with my domain changes with GoDaddy, and there were a lot of those. Have no idea as to why only those were resistant to moving but I can get all that data from GoDaddy anyway.
This thread is now moot seeing as how I've recovered everything I can and am going to just move on - and back up more often. ;-)
Apple and Mail need to rewrite that program to include a WARNING MESSAGE when deleting an Account in Mail that says ALL YOUR MESSAGES ARE GOING TO DISAPPEAR NEVER TO RETURN IF YOU DELETE THIS ACCOUNT, SO YOU DANG WELL BETTER HAVE A BACK UP IF YOU WANT TO KEEP ANYTHING BEFORE PRESSING THAT MINUS SYMBOL! ;-)

How to restore iTunes Library from a recent time machine backup

I have to make room on my internal HD on my iMac. The HD is a 1TB and I have 391GB of music and video etc that are in my iTunes Library. So I decided to move it to a new 5TB external HD which I formatted with 2 partitions. One partition 2.5TB will be my new Time Machine Backups and the other 2.5TB for iTunes Library so I never have to worry about this again. Using the knowledge I gained (?) from a YouTube video I copied my iTunes folder over to the new partition on the new HD. However, there was no library .itl file. So I found an old one but found I am missing playlists and content from iTunes. So I was thinking maybe the easiest way was to do an iTunes restore from Time Machine.
I am hoping that someone can guide me through this as I have already botched things up and want to do it properly this time.
Thanks

One partition 2.5TB will be my new Time Machine Backups and the other 2.5TB for iTunes Library so I never have to worry about this again.
Your worry now is what will you do when the single hard drive containing both your library and its backup makes a screeching sound one day and is toast, or get stolen?
from a YouTube video
Uh-oh, those unspecific and sometimes incorrect YouTube videos. I dislike those things. I watched one once and some kid droned on in a barely audible monotone for about 5 minutes to show how to do something to which I could have typed instructions in two sentences.
Downloading (using iOS or computer) past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519

How to restore iMovie 10 events & projects from Time Machine?

Here is the scenario I am facing: I completed some projects and then moved those events & projects to an external HD that subsequently died. The question I have is how can I tap into Time Capsule's history to restore the events and projects I moved out from the internal HD and later lost because the external HD died? All of this happened in Mac OS Mavericks, running iMovie 10, so "my stuff" lives within the "iMovie Library.imovielibrary" file whose content I should not see/modify.
Thank you, eugen

Hello eugen_nw
Open up Finder and navigate to your Movies folder where the library was stored and enter Time Machine and you should see the cascading Finder Windows and you can go back an find the file and then click Restore to bring back the file. Check out the article below and there is a section for restoring files.
Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Regards,
-Norm G.

How to restore the second volume from a time machine backup?

Hi guys and gals,
I have a October 2011 MBP running OSX lion (10.7.2), with 2 internal drives (the main drive is a 120gb SSD, the optic drive has been replaced with the original 750gb HDD that came in the computer). I use the SSD for all of my system files, with the HDD being used for my user account, which has my photo and video libraries on them.
I use time machine to backup onto a 2tb external drive. In the beggining i was not sure how time machine would handle backing up two volumes, but after doing the first few backups then checking inside the time machine folder on the EHDD I was pleased to find that it was in fact backing up both volumes.
Now we get to the problem I have. This morning I booted up my MBP, and it took a lot longer than it usually does, then when it finally booted it had a error saying that the user "chris" could not be found. My 750gb drive was not being seen from OSX. I ran disk utility and it was visible, but was not able to be mounted as it had an error. I did the verify permissions which came up OK, then did repair disk and it said that the disk had errors and to backup, format and re-install. As the last backup was done 2 days ago and I haven't done any important work on it since then, i didn't backup as I would prefer to restore to a point before the issue happened.
I formatted the drive and started a time machine restore, but TM will only allow me to restore the SSD. I cannot see anything anywhere that will allow me to restore the 750gb drive. If i use migration assistant to transfer the files over from the EHDD to the 750gb drive, it won't recognise my EHDD (even though i am looking at it on the desktop and can open it and open files on it). If i try to transfer the files with finder, it says that i dont have permission to do this.
I have spent the last hour looking for a possible solution or ways of doing what i need, but keep coming up blank.
Hope someone out there can help me
Cheers
-Chris

Chris W oz wrote:
when it comes up with the "preparing to copy message" it hits ~24000 files and doesn't go any further.
That sounds like some sort of directory problem. Try Repairing the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
I tried importing individual folders to reduce the number of files it was transferring in one hit and it doesn't hang. THe problem is after doing my users folder my desktop has changed and there are a lot of things that are not how they should be.
I'm not sure what you mean.
Are you trying to restore to your user home folder while it's in use? That could be part of the problem, but usually you'll get a message about things being in use, locked, or protected.
are there hidden files in the users folder that i am not seeing?
Probably, but if you restore a folder, any hidden files should be restored, too. Mostly they're the .DS_Store files where the Finder stores the last position, size, etc., where it displayed the folder, so no big deal even if it's lost.
There are a few others at the top level of your home folder, but I think they'll be recreated as necessary.
If i transfer the whole users folder will they transfer over (even though i cannot see them)?? Is there a way to transfer those hidden files??
Why do you think there are hidden files that are causing a problem?

How to restore a deleted iCloud note from time machine backup?

The short of it... one of my kids decided they didn't need certain notes, therefore deleted them!!!!
(my fault i did not have notes/synced/off on new device!),
but they are important and iCloud is synced across all devices and those notes are gone.
Wasn't sure if a device/ restore from back up would work - didn't.
Tried some of the Apple Communities/ going to lib/ turn off wifi/ move the 3 files to desktop/ move back to lib file, nothing.
Could I get some 'really specific' step by steps? seems others have had success, and maybe i'm in TM when I should be on my Mac or vice versa?! or in the wrong library?
My TM backups just does not let me get anywhere to restore those deleted notes.
Any help would be wonderful!
Thanks
Thinking Apple should have given us an iCloud safety net or at least allow TM/ iCloud to be userfriendly.

I used this to restore my deleted notes from Time Machine, hope this helps others
closed Notes,
turned WiFi off,
entered finder/go+option/ to 'get to library': /Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/
entered TM and selected the 3 files/ hit restore/ keep both (just to make sure, then I deleted the newer file, not the 'restored' file when this worked out)
opened notes and my deleted notes were back so I copied my notes into pages as a backup,
turned on WiFi and the notes disappeared!
replaced my restored notes by copy/pasting my backups into notes/iCloud....
notes/mac would not show across iCloud.... don't remeber this being an issue prior to Mavericks when 'all' notes were selected?
Apple needs to hear from us so they can fix glitches like this. TM was created for instances like this, hopefully this is just an oversite. Pass this along to Apple Feedback/iCloud/bug. If enough of us flag such issues, hopfully it's addressed on the next update.
Dear Apple, this should be much easier than it is. We should be able to open Notes, go into Time Machine, and restore anything regardless if it's on my Mac or on the cloud.

How to restore *just one iTunes playlist* from Time Machine?

Hi all --
I'm pretty picky about my iTunes playlists. There are several main ones ("Jazz Lite," "R&B," "Jazz Traditional," etc. etc.) and these playlists can overlap in their coverage/share certain songs.
So last Sunday I realized that I had fat-fingered things and had accidentally deleted the R&B playlist.
If possible I'd like to surgically restore *just that R&B playlist* from Time Machine and include it among all of the other existing playlists.
Although I've searched around on the internet for an answer, everything that has turned up so far seems to involve:
- restoring ALL playlists from Time Machine
- older version of iTunes (I'm currently using 11.0.3)
Your help greatly appreciated!

For posterity's sake, since i had this issue too, i thought i'd post my solution.
Locate and save a copy, locally on your computer, of a library.itl file that would contain the playlist you need. I'd suggest saving to your desktop. name it so you'll recognize it as the old library file.
Quit iTunes if open, and relaunch, holding down the Option key immediately after
when prompted, select "Choose Library"
Find the file you saved in step 1. this will launch iTunes with all the old playlists and such. Don't worry, it doesn't touch the actual songs themselves, so nothing is lost of from your current library.
Find the playlist(s) you want, right click on them and export. save them as .txt file (again, suggest desktop for ease)
Once all playlists you want to restore are saved, quit iTunes.
Launch iTunes, again pressing Option immediately after
Select "Choose Library" and select the Music -> iTunes -> iTunes Library.itl file. This will restore iTunes to the most current copy of your library
Select File -> Library -> Import Playlist and find the .txt file for your playlist on your desktop. et voila!

How to restore a Note in Mail from Time Machine

I have accidentally deleted some text in a note that I had in Mail (Notes).
Trying to undo didn't work, and I can't find the file to restore it back from Time Machine.
I've tried searching with spotlight but couldn't find anything.
Any ideas of where the saved note would be stored?
Thanks in advance and Happy Thanksgiving

Don't try to restore the file; restore the Note. Go in Mail to the mailbox where the note belongs. Enter Time Machine from there and step back until you find the Note.

My Macbookpro will not start up. At first it was showing a gray screen with a flashing folder and question mark. I went through the steps to repair with disc utility and this did not work. How do I back up my data, without time machine activated?

I need to back up my files and date before erasing my drive, but my time machine backup is not coming up. How do I access my hard drive to back up my files?

A erase of the drive or boot partition is not always necessary.
Flashing question mark at boot could be a easy fix, sometimes it's the firmware that simply forgot what bootable volume to boot from.
Try holding the Option key down while booting the machine, a choice of bootable options appears, select your OS X and boot up.
When you get in, head to System Preferences > Startup disk and set it again new. This will tell the firmware what to boot from. Test it to see.
Now if you don't have a selection of bootable options, it could be that the drive is dead, or OS X is erased or corrupted so it can't boot.
You'll have to run through this list of fixes to see what's going on, if you need a hardware fix or what, I've also included links if you can't fix it and need to recover your data etc.
(If it's not remmebering your boot selection then also run through the list to reset things.)
Step by Step to fix your Mac

Macbook Air Restoring files from Trash Can in Time Machine

I have memory issues with my Macbook Air. I think casued by the fact iphoto uses so much memory. Last week I was trying to download some photos but got a message saying my start up drive was nearly full. Next think i know, the Macbook has somehow dumped about 500 of my old photos in the trash can (I didn't do this). A few minutes later I look in the trash can and find it's emptied itself.
The next morning when I turned on my laptop, about 1 GB of memory had reappeared, and the photos were back in the trash can. My plan was to restore the photos however I stupidly didn't do it immediately as I was busy.
Now a weel later, I again got the message that my start up drive was full. The photos have disappeared from the trash can. I have reboted the Mac, but they have not reappeared.
I backup using an external hard drive and Time Machine. All I want to do is go into the trash can on the back up and restore the photos from there. I don't want to restore the whole Mac, as I will lose all the work I've done since that last back up, won't I? I can't search for the specific files on the Time Machine as I don't know what they're called - they were 100s of photos, the names were numbers only and I don't know which photos they were - as it wasn't me who deleted them!
Please can anyone help me?
I find these issues so frustrating, and I can't believe my 60 GB laptop is full. I only use it for photos, browsing the web and a few documents. My previous Windows netbook was about a quarter the size and never got close to full.

Do you know if the hard drive is full, does iPhoto move files to the trash can?
No, it doesn't.
Or does it have a setting to clean up duplicate files
No. There are third-party applications that purport to do it, and if you used one of those, that would explain what happened.
Is my only option therefore to restore the entire system to an earlier date?
I don't see why you would need to restore anything other than the iPhoto library, or whatever folder contained the missing files.
You can't do a partial restoration of the iPhoto library; it's all or nothing. However, if you restore an older library to a new location, you can extract images from it and import them into a newer library.

How to restore MBP with dual drives from time machine

Hi one and all. Hoping I can get some help here. My trusty mid 2010 i5 MBP's hdd died on me the other day, which isn't really the problem, as I've got two time machine back-ups. The issue is that in my wisdom I decided to swap out my old (and nearly full) 500 GB HDD with a 240 GB SSD (Crucial M500). I then loaded OSX 10.6.3 via the dvd that came with my MBP, formatting the SSD in the process. Then promptly removed the optical drive for a Samsung 1TB drive, formatted it and started transferring all my data over via the migration assistant.
I put everything other than photos, movies and some documents on the SSD, with the space hungry images, movies and docs going on the HDD. Now I'm assuming that because my boot drive (the SSD) is smaller than the time machine back-up (about 480 GB), this was the only way to do it? Doesn't really sound like I've got much of a problem then does it? Well, I then attempted to update the OS to OS X 10.6.8 so I could update again to mavericks. I installed the update to 10.6.8 and now I'm stuck in a perpetual log-in loop. The password is correct, it starts to log-in, then blue screen and back to log-in... repeat to fade or until you feel like giving your mac a Basil Faulty style thrashing, which ever comes first.
I've ordered a thumb drive with Lion 10.7 on so that I can attempt to try again (really can't be bothered to re-install the optical drive), but I was hoping someone may have experienced this kind of issue before and have some kind words of wisdom. No worries if not, I'll just go outside and try to find a decent branch to thrash my previously loved mac with
Cheers
Rich

Right well it appears I have further complicated things for myself. Whilst I was waiting to sort out my MBP, I restored from time machine to my mac mini so that I had a machine to work from. Then I fixed my MBP by installing new drives (SSD and HDD where the optical drive used to be), and using migration assitant to copy everything over from time machine. So now I technically have two machines the same.
Only problem is when I try to update the MBP with Mavericks it tells me it cannot install on this machine. Is this because I did restored the same original mac to two new machines?

How to restore single photos in iPhoto with TIME MACHINE?

Is it possible to restore single photos with time machine instead of only the entire iphoto library?
Thank's for any advises.
Harpo

No.
Regards
TD

How to transfer files from an iMac without upgraded Migration Assistant to a new iMac that doesn't have a firewire port?

Hello.
I just purchased a new iMac. He's awesome. However, he didn't come with a Firewire port. (Bummer, because I have one from the last time (2007) I had to transfer stuff from my iBook...)
When I turned him on, he wanted to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from the older iMac; she doesn't have the most updated Migration Assistant, though. (She works just fine, but she only has Snow Leopard.)
Okay, so what I'm wondering is if I just have to use a huge external hardrive to move everything? If I do that, will my programs (Microsoft Office) move? I fear they won't move/transfer that way. Ugh.
PLEASE HELP.
Ideas? Advice?
Thank you in advance!

Firewire 800 (what the new iMac has) is 9 pin. FireWire 400 is 6 pin (what your old iMac has). Hopefully you didn't damage your new iMac by trying to insert a FW400 cable into its FW800 connector. The numbers are important in the case of the ports. They don't interchange!!! Get the proper cable or risk damaging your new iMac.

How to restore mail accounts and settings from time machine

Long story short...the day that my applecare expired my hard drive went out in my 2009 mbp. So, I bought a new hard drive to upgrade from 250gb to 750gb. Problem was that when I installed it and went through everything...my new hard drive was too large than the computer was made to handle. I called Apple Care and they made an exception and talked with me - which revealed that the hd was too big. His suggestion was to try to intall the os from the disk and see if it will work. So, I popped in my Leopard Install disc...did all the updates...then snow leopard...then all the updates....then Lion...then all the updates. I ended up getting all of my main files that I wanted, along with my iTunes account (my iCal and Address book were synced to my cloud, so they popped up quickly). HOWEVER...I'm trying to get my work email account (along with the folders of old emails) back in mail. I can't seem to find the right file (I don't see a mail plist file in my preferences folder). Can anyone help please???

For posterity's sake, since i had this issue too, i thought i'd post my solution.
Locate and save a copy, locally on your computer, of a library.itl file that would contain the playlist you need. I'd suggest saving to your desktop. name it so you'll recognize it as the old library file.
Quit iTunes if open, and relaunch, holding down the Option key immediately after
when prompted, select "Choose Library"
Find the file you saved in step 1. this will launch iTunes with all the old playlists and such. Don't worry, it doesn't touch the actual songs themselves, so nothing is lost of from your current library.
Find the playlist(s) you want, right click on them and export. save them as .txt file (again, suggest desktop for ease)
Once all playlists you want to restore are saved, quit iTunes.
Launch iTunes, again pressing Option immediately after
Select "Choose Library" and select the Music -> iTunes -> iTunes Library.itl file. This will restore iTunes to the most current copy of your library
Select File -> Library -> Import Playlist and find the .txt file for your playlist on your desktop. et voila!

How to restore files to crashed iMac without Time Machine.

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for