How to restore Time Machine multiple drives

Hey, fellow Mac-ers. I have a new situation for me, and some questions on how Time Machine works. I have a Macbook Pro, bought it from Apple, set up Time Machine, and voila, everything is awesome. But, now I have upgraded it to a second hard drive (made the Superdrive external), and Time Machine appears to be backing up the iTunes and iPhoto libraries that I moved to the second drive. Great.
A. But, let's say the worst happens - how do I restore it?
A.1. Let's say I have to buy a new hard drive, this one with double-capacity, so can I restore both drives to the one?
A.2. Or, let's say the second drive (a standard hard disk instead of SSD) dies, can I just restore that volume?
A.3. Or, let's just say I have 2 new blank hard drives, will Time Machine just restore volume-to-volume like it was backed up?
B. That takes me back to, how does Time Machine work after all? It seems to have automatically recognized the new volume and included that in the backups, but I am inferring that from the total data size it says it is backing up.
B.1. How can I tell for sure? I see where I can exclude from backup, but nowhere where I can include, or a list of backed up folders/volumes. I guess I can open Finder to a folder on the new volume, and enter Time Machine - that should show a stack of folders back through time.
B.2. On the new volume, what exactly is it backing up? Everything? I noticed it didn't back up everything from my boot volume - it probably only backs up /Applications, /Users, things like that - but not /etc, /var, or other stuff where I may have edited scripts and config files. My cron jobs were gone after restore.

Exactly what happens with Time Machine (TM) in yosemite is somewhat of a mystery to all of us.
But if you want to know some basics of how TM works.. it is here.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Read at least the first two articles.. and at least glance over FAQ and Troubleshooting so you know what is in there.
The stuff at the bottom of the home page about using TM as recovery is also very helpful albeit rather old.
TM is designed to be very automated.. and not require user intervention on any major scale. So lots of times people do not know that their backups are not working or have failed.
I think you are better reading the background than me jumping in to answer the specifics.. except to say the multiple volumes is covered in Q32 of FAQ.
You will also see that finding out the exact details of what TM is doing is not super easy.
Read Q7-8 in the FAQ.
But the guy who wrote it all up.. James Pond died a couple of years ago now so it is not up to date past Mountain Lion. Most of it is still relevant.. but Yosemite has been very unreliable.
I have taken to recommending people use an alternative.. there are several third party backups.. The first article you read from above will show you how TM is different from the clone type backups.. let me encourage you to use a cloner. I use Carbon Copy Cloner. It costs $40 but can produce a bootable clone to any external drive. The end result is a backup you can test in a matter of moments that it works. And as a clone it copies everything. That doesn't stop you using TM.. it is excellent for what it does.. (once we get past the buggy introduction of Yosemite at least).
There are a number listed.. Superduper has long been popular and Chronosync has also got a following. I find CCC works great.. but I am not connected.. and I paid my $40 and will have to pay to upgrade when I can stomach Yosemite for more than an hour, so I am not on a free ride.

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How to restore time machine from wireless hard drive?

I backed up my data to a wireless hard drive before I wiped my hard drive. But now I'm having trouble restoring it.
Can't restore it from time machine, as it was not fully complete.
Migration assistant asks for a password to the hard drive, which I don't know. The person in my family who bought the drive entered it, but then migration asssistant greys out continue and nothing seems to happen
I opened the hard drive myself and there's a bunch of blank files named 01 349 049 984 and such. No extension.
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The exhaustive list of backup devices supported by Time Machine consists of Time Capsule and locally connected and mounted volumes, period. Time Machine can use NAS devices, but there are many caveats including but not limited to the necessity for AFP to be running on the server. Wireless storage devices introduce yet another element of uncertainty.
OS X Mountain Lion: Disks you can use with Time Machine
Anything else, and you're a test pilot. Let Apple know how it works for you.

Help needed with Time Machine multiple drives set up

Hello, I need help in finding out if what I want to do is possible.
I upgraded to Mountain Lion today as I understood it can handle multiple back up drives. I see how to add a 2nd back up drive, however I do not see a way to put different folders onto different drives.
iMac - backed to a 3TB DRIVE A via the time machine
iPhoto Library original file - already on the 3TB DRIVE A - so no back up for now!
What I'd like to do is to also back up only the iPhotoLibrary file to a 2nd drive - lets call it 3TB DRIVE B
Can it be done with Mountain Lion or not really? I don't even seem to be able to exclude files from an External Disk actually.
Any other software I could use that would do the trick?
Or do I have to rearrange our already messy set up? I've put the iPhoto Library on the DRIVE A as its a faster drive. but I guess the solution would be to put the iPhoto Library original file onto the slower Drive B and only keep the iPhoto file on it?
Hmm any help or tips greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Marta

Sharlo wrote:
So here's my question: After reinstalling system TM started normal back-up procedure and I get message not enough space on external disk. I use 200Gb for around 100Gb that I have on my computer (I know not so much but works well for me). What I do not get is why does TM need around 30% more space compared to the space I'm using (wants to back-up 130Gb) and why is it not backing-up the system I've just installed but tries to back-up everything from scratch? Is there a procedure to back-up only changed files since the last version?
Ordinarily, that's exactly what TM does. But this situation isn't ordinary. Everything you restored is considered "*new to that disk"* and will be backed-up again. See #14 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum, and http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338
The 30% you ask about is actually 20%; the initial estimate of the space needed might be low, and TM needs workspace on the TM disk, so it adds 20% (see #7 in the FAQ Tip.)

How to restore Time Machine backup (2011 mini with Snow)?

I have a Mini 2011 running with Snow Leopard, and it runs perfect and stable, but when I apply the latest security update, it stops working.
It will boot into an alternating light and medium blue screen.
To fix it I want to do a full system restore from Time Machine. I have used this function before, with ease and succes, but I cannot replicate it.
Problem: the Mini has no DVD drive.
Last time, I used a Mini 2009 with the 2011 attached as Target Disk drive. If I try that now, the restore programs says the backup is not compatible with the Mini 2009 (which is weird, as the Mini was able to boot from the install before!)
How do I put back my backup? Is there a direct way to do it by pulling the program from the DVD to the 2009 mini? Third party solution?
What can cause this non-upgradability of the system? Basically it is just a Mini 2009 full install from the 10.6.3 Upgrade disk with some machine-info files and 2 Ati kexts from Lion added.

Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.

How to restore Time Machine back-up if not even Recovery Tools work?

After a hard and unexpected crash on 2012 macMini I tried everything from this list: OS X Yosemite: Ways to start up your Mac Only 2 things worked: hardware test (via Ethernet: option+D; everything passed) and detailed status mode (command+V) which listed a bunch of errors concerning booting (missing or corrupted files and/or folders). Which is probably the reason I couldn't launch Recovery Tools - neither locally nor directly via Internet (Ethernet plugged in, option+command+R). I would get the message that the Tools are launching, but after the Apple logo showed up followed by the spinning circle, the screen would go light grey 4-5 seconds into the process and the thin black progress bar would appear. It would grow to 1/3 of its length, stop for several seconds, then the computer would restart, the bar would show up again, grow to 1/3 etc., etc.
Assuming that nothing else could be done I started the mini in the target mode (T), plugged it into my old 2007 mini and re-formatted the internal drive, thinking that I could either try Recovery Tools again (no luck) or just clean install Yosemite on the 2012 mini first and then use my Time Machine back-up to restore my files. Unfortunately 2007 mini can only install Lion - even on the external drive - but nothing higher (so I can't upgrade to Mountain Lion, Mavericks and finally to Yosemite). And 2012 would not start with Lion on it. Still no luck with Internet Recovery Tools btw (same symptoms).
The only other thing I can think of is finding a newer Mac and use it to install Mavericks or Yosemite on my 2012 mini. If this fails, it's a trip to the Apple store.
If anyone has any other ideas, please share.
(2012 has no CD/DVD drive)

Your description of Internet Recovery sounded much like Safe Mode, not Internet Recovery. I don't think you will see an Apple at all. It should be a spinning Globe. Or, when you say "spinning circle" was that the globe spinning?
From the App Store on the 2007 mini, can you download the Yosemite installer?
That's about all I can think of besides taking it to an Apple Store.

How to restore time machine backup without disturbing already installed app

Hi!
My school recently reconfigured/reformatted my macbook and install the school image. Now it is filled with applications that the school help us installed. Now how do i restore the backup that my time machine backups last time? Migration assistant or what? I did not change my mac, it is just that my hard disk got reconfigured. How do i restore backup without disturbing the apps my school installs?
Please help thanks!
ALa.

alazahee wrote:
I did not change my mac, it is just that my hard disk got reconfigured.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Is your user account still there?
If not, and if you have either Time Machine backups or a "clone" as backups, yes, use Migration Assistant. See [Using Migration Assistant|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Migrate.html]. Note that you must be logged-on with a user account that's named differently from any of the accounts you want to transfer, or else be prepared to rename the duplicate.
If your backups aren't either Time Machine backups or a "clone," you'll have to drag and drop or restore using the app that made them.

How to restore time machine disk to the original one?

I am new to the mac osx world, my macbook pro has 500GB and I used 350 GB for my MAC OSX system, another 150 GB for windows system. I partition it but made a mistake when under the OSX system, I erased the windows disk( 150 GB). When I tried to partition the disk again, it said: "The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows."
Now I just wanna back the 150 GB to my original 350 GB disk so my macbook can have 500 GB disk. How can I do under the disk utility? I do not know the "erase" "RAID" " restore" mean. Thanks for help!

7enzy wrote:
I just wanna back the 150 GB to my original 350 GB disk so my macbook can have 500 GB disk.
Try using the "Boot Camp Assistant" (in the Utilities folder) to delete the Windows partition.

How do I restore the entire system from a Time Machine external drive?

Hello everyone,
Up front - I have searched through numerous threads but have not yet been able to solve my problem - even though it is presumably easy for many.
So... I had to bring in my late 2009 27" iMac to Apple to replace the hard drive - mine was one of the thousands affected by the defective Seagate 1 TB disk recall. I was told that the disk would be cloned, but nevertheless I made a full system backup with Time Machine to a dedicated external hard drive.
A week later and I now have my iMac back - but when I boot, I only see a white screen with a pointer, so it appears that the drive was not cloned - but that I now have a blank 1 TB disk, correct?
I have also tried booting with the external drive attached, thinking that the dedicated Time Machine external drive would allow me to boot directly from it and restore the system if need be - I booted with CMD+R, tried again with ALT ... no luck.
And I cannot find my Mac OS DVDs...
So... is the drive blank, or am I missing something here?
If so, how can I boot from the external Time Machine drive, or is that not possible either?
Any pointers greatly appreciated, thanks very much in advance.

Call Apple to get replacement DVDs > http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57
1. Insert the Mac OS X DVD and press C key while your computer is starting.
2. Go to Utilities menu and restore the backup.
You should have made a clone instead of the backup because Apple gives the hard disk without OS X

How do i reformat imac hard drive and restore time machine backup?

How do I reformat my iMac internal hard drive and restore from a Time Machine backup?
I have an iMac 20" Mid 2007 with a problematic hard drive.
IntelCore 2 Duo, Processor speed 2 Ghz
800 Mhz Bus speed
4 GB RAM
250 GB Western Digital Hard Drive
10.6.3
Was getting a question mark upon booting up, so I booted from a 10.6.3 Snow Leopard CD and ran disk utility. Repair disk was interrupted with an error message. 'Disk utility can't repair disk. Backup files, reformat disk and restore backed up files.'
1. Should I select Erase, Mac OS Extended Journaled, Erase?
2. If I do this, won't I lose my networkability, and therefore lose access to Time Machine backups?
3. If it were you, would you go ahead and replace the hard drive? Not sure I should trust this hard drive!
4. If I need to replace the hard drive, can you send instructions?
Thanks!

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
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         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
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Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
If you have your Time Machine backup drive connected, then you can use Setup Assistant to migrate your Home folder, application support files, and third-party applications and system preference files. I recommend doing this via the Setup Assistant when the option appears.

How do I repair a damaged time machine backup drive/remove pictures from library on locked/failing external drive

I have a WD 1TB external hard drive that I use as my time machine backup drive as well as to store a number of things including my iphoto library (due to its size of about 85 GB) as well as documents. I began using the WD 1TB external drive with my 2007 13" MacBook and when I purchased a brand new 13" MacBook Pro in 2013 I used the WD to transfer what I wanted to the new laptop. My new MacBook Pro is running OSX 10.8.4 (2.9 GHz Interl Core i7 with 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3) (not the retina display). The WD 1TB product # is WDBACX001... and it's only about one year old so I'm super bummed that it's failing and trying to take my life with it It has only ever been used with my two MacBooks, never with a PC.
The external WD was working fine until this week when I noticed that it wasn't appearing on my desktop. I rebooted, unplugged and replugged the WD drive in each USB portal, and still nothing. I ran Disk Utility to verify and repair the disk, which did force it to show up on the desktop again, though it made everything painfully slow. After running the repair function Disk Utility told me that the drive couldn't be repaired, and that I should backup whatever is on it and restore the WD drive. I managed to pull off most of the documents before it decided to freeze up my laptop (I had a couple of folders with a few documents each left), but I wasn't able to move the iphoto library over before the drive disappeared again. I got it back by running the repair option in disk utility, with the same message that the WD drive is failing and to back it up, and tried to move the iphoto library. It told me it would take 180+ days, and kept going up. I left it up anyway for about a day to see if it would change, and instead it gave an error message, and moved nothing. I can't open the library in iPhoto- it tells me it's on a locked disk. I checked the permissions and it's set to Read & write by me (the admin user) but then under that it says read only for "everyone." I can't get into the library to pull out my pictures, which I cannot afford to lose.
I would appreciate any help or advice on how to crack into my iphoto library on this failing drive to remove the pictures. I read a lot about DiskWarrior but I also read that it won't work on newer macs (anything after June of 2012 supposedly), so I'm wondering if that's true or not, and if not is that a good program to use?
I can't afford to take it to a professional right now, so any help or advice would be so greatly appreciated! Also if anyone then could suggest the best way to back up in two places (digitally and perhaps a better brand of external drive) it would be amazing.
If you need more info let me know!

If you're very lucky, you might be able to salvage the drive mechanism, and the data, by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

Unable to restore time machine backup onto a new hard drive

I recently bought a new hard drive for my mid-2010 white Macbook. I have kept this computer regularly backed up with time machine, but just to be sure I made sure I hooked up my external hard drive prior to changing the hard drive and made sure it was fully backed up. I checked my exceptions and saw that my system files and applications were listed, so I removed them from the exceptions list and let it back up again (it only backed up a further 60MB though, so that made me a little uneasy).
I successfully switched over the hard drive and then plugged in my external hard drive so I could do a restore from Time Machine. My external hard drive has 3 partitions: 2 time machine backups for each of my computers, and one partition for storing files that also has an old copy of 10.6 on it.
When I booted the computer, I held option, then selected Macbook TM. When it came to the window with 4 options, including disk utility and restore from time machine backup, I selected restore from Time Machine backup. When I did so it said "No OS X Backups Were Found." Why wouldn't it have backups listed if I have been consistently backing it up? How else do I do a full system backup?
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Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
You will find that Mountain Lion stores an invisible copy of the Recovery HD. You can boot from your Time Machine backup drive by restarting with OPTION boot:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the disk icon for your Time Machine backup drive.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.
Your computer should boot into the Recovery HD. You will be presented with a main window of options. Select the option to restore from a Time Machine backup then click on the Continue button.

Restoring Time Machine backup to a drive in a "Voyager Dock"

Restoring Time Machine backup to a drive in a "Voyager Dock"
I would like to restore a Time Machine volume to a hard drive not installed in the computer it has backed up.
I have an iMac 24” with a failing drive. It will eventually need to be replaced.
I have my Time Machine back up for this computer in a Voyager Docking station.
I would like to have Time Machine “restore” the iMac’s data to a drive in another Voyager Dock running from a computer other than the iMac involved.
What I hope to do is bring the “restored” drive and the iMac to my Mac service provider and just have them swap the old drive for the new.
How do I get Time Machine to do this?

So, You're saying I can do this from a different computer with its own Time Machine?
In other words, I have my Time Machinedrive from the dead iMac and a fresh, formatted drive both hooked up to an unrelated computer with its own Time Machine.
If I enter Time Machine on that computer won't it show me the data it backs up for that computer only?
Will Time Machine know that there are two Time Machine backups (the one from the iMac and the one from the new host machine), and allow me to select the one from the iMac?

My hard drive died. How can I start my computer with my Time Machine external drive?

My hard drive died. How can I start my computer with my Time Machine external drive?

Pondini wrote:
If you're on 10.7.2, yes, you can boot from the TM drive.
Beep, beep, beep....
Hold ON! Getting a call on the red phone.
"Yes...yes.... ok!"
It's confirmed, H.e.l.l. has finally frozen over! TM drives are now bootable!
Still it's not a real bootable clone, can't run the computer off the external drive for long in only Recovery mode, still requires the boot drive to be replaced if it not functional, and with TM backing up every hour, isn't going to offer much software protection as the TM drive is just as likely to be as messed up as the internal boot drive.
For a iMac it still requires the computer to be taken in to Apple for a drive replacement, as ONLY Apple can do it due to proprietary connections and firmware on the iMac hard drives.
But it is bootable!
The backup time factor can be controlled using TimeMachine Editor, from every hour to just when the user thinks it's necessary.
Apple lurches slightly forward! Hurray!
Question is, can one restore from earlier stable TM's or just the last one? In this bootable fashion?

Time Machine only shows the current copy of the file I am trying to restore. There is none of the time machine backup histories shown. I am running OSX 10.7.5. I see the backup files on my external Time Machine hard drive. Help

Time Machine only shows the current copy of the file I am trying to restore. There is none of the time machine backup histories shown. I am running OSX 10.7.5. I see the backup files on my external Time Machine hard drive in the Backups.backupdb folder.
Time Machine does show the history of my Macintosh HD, but when I try to navigate to the folder I wish to restore the backup history disappears. I've been searching for answers and I have not found one that works for me.

Time Machine only shows the current copy of the file I am trying to restore. There is none of the time machine backup histories shown. I am running OSX 10.7.5. I see the backup files on my external Time Machine hard drive in the Backups.backupdb folder.
Time Machine does show the history of my Macintosh HD, but when I try to navigate to the folder I wish to restore the backup history disappears. I've been searching for answers and I have not found one that works for me.

How to transfer time machine back up to new hard drive

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You may like to take a look at this thread... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4207670?start=0&tstart=0

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