How to use Time Machine/Migration Assistant

I have a 2008 Mac Pro that died. I now have a 2010 Mac Pro. The 2010 Mac Pro only has the original Apple software installed so far (updated to 10.6.8).
I have a Time Machine backup drive from the 2008 Mac, as well as an additional hard drive that may contain all or most of the data from the now dead 2008 machine.
Presently, I must use OS 10.6.8 because of my need to run some legacy software. How do I use Time Machine from my 2008 Mac Pro to get my items on the 2010 Mac Pro?

Here is another point of view:
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC
And another speedup to consider at this juncture:
User Tip: Creating a lean, fast Boot Drive

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Error "The Connection Failed" in Time Machine, Migration Assistant and Restore From DVD

I am receiving this error when trying to connect to my Time Machine Backup in my Time capsule. I input the proper password to access my Time Capsule and It returns me to the screen with the caption "The connection failed" under the Time Capsule name in the "Select your Disk" screen. What would cause this error. I am connecting via WIFI (AirPort) and have full signal. I am using Mac OSX 10.6.8
I recently had my 1TB hard drive replaced and I am attempting to restore using Time Machine, migration assistant or from the startup dvd (tried multiple ways, no success). The initial setup of mac OSX 10.6 would not let me connect or other attempts after erasing hard drive and reinstalling OSX from disk.
Worked on it all weekend and don't have enough beer to drown the frustration, any help is appreciated.

You are correct TM is not at all easy to do a full restore.
To answer your question: Yes TM disk does show up in finder.
After my initial startup setup I was able to start TM and access all my previous backups. I migrated some files and was able grab the data from finder. Not satisfied with that I tried to do a restore to that previous date, to no success. I then erased the HD and reinstalled OSx and tried again from the setup screen. That didn't work, sulked over some beers. I then tired with Migration assistant...same result (more beer).
In starting TM after trying MA, only one backup was showing in the Star screen (today). None of my previous backups were showing. Since exiting TM it has been "Making Backup Disk Available" ( xGB of 6.29GB). Considering the size, I can only assume that these are my previous backups.
I have reviewed Pondini's posts, FAQs, and tutorials. I am a little scared to try and locate the drives through Terminal as in Pondini's TS #6 guide. If I can get my previous backups to show up, I will be happy with dragging files from Finder to restore my data and slowly work at restoring my settings/applications.

How to use time machine to back up

how to use time machine to back up files

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
See > http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
To set up Time Machine, open System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk, and choose the external disk you want to use to make the backups. Time Machine will start making its first backup just after selecting your external drive.
If you have more questions about Time Machine, see this website > http://pondini.org

Mac air with external hard drive - not being found on Finder, Time Machine, Migration Assistant

I have been using an external drive (Imation Apollo) to access only, old files from previous computer (PC) on a new Mac Air. I had not transferred them across to new computer (didn't want to do that) just accessing them from the HD. It had been working fine until recently. Each time the external drive had been connected Time Machine would come up and ask if i wanted to use this drive for back ups, and I always chose 'Decide later'. So, as yetI hadn't as yet configured Time Machine to do back ups.
Recently I noticed that the extrnal HD was no longer showing up on Finder. Slight panic as i have 5 or 6 yrs of work saved on that HD
Further investigations - it's also not showing up either on on Disk Utility, or on Migration Assistant.
I've done the following:
Tried HD in each of different USB ports - made no difference, HD still not showing up
Tested different Hubs in each port with HD attached - no difference HD not showing up
Tried USB flash drives in the USB ports - These are working fine and show up on finder
Tried the HD on other comptuters (a PC though, don't have access to another mac to do this test)- working fine, the HD is showing up and is accessable
Interrogated the Console logs to try to see if the act of attaching the HD creates a log entry - couldn't find anything
Rebooted computer via shut down, power disconnect - no difference
Reset PRAM - no difference still not showing up
Reset SMC - no differnce still not showing up
So I think I have established that all the USB ports are functioning correctly and able to access other external drive devices, using hubs with external powersource is not the issue, identified that the external hard drive is working OK, and it appears that the Mac itself is functioning normally.
What would be the reason the Mac now does not allow this specific external HD to be identified and accessed. The only possible things I can think of are
if I had in fact pressed 'Do not use' when Time Machine asked 'do you want to use this drive for back ups'. Would that mean that the Mac now totally rejects this HD from being a source of accessible files - I hope not!
I also think that my husband may have disconnected the hard drive from my computer to access some stuff and he just yanked it out rather than use the safe eject method. Could this create an issue? The Hard drive works fine on his PC.
Why is my Mac Air now rejecting this HD and what can I do to access my historical files now.
Any assistance anyone can provide would be very greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Anna

I can't answer why it isn't accessing it, but I have a slightly related issue w my back up drive starting to get noisy.
Realizing that redundancy is safety for critical data. I talked to my brother about my situation the other day & he said he has 3 small Western Digital portable HDs that he rotates for backup. He even keeps 1 in the safe deposit box.
I have read for some time that we should have multiple back ups & also have our critical stuff backed up off site. Amazon HD reviews had a woman telling about how she was very backed up on multiple computers & hard drives, but they were robbed or burgeled & all of them were stolen including her thesis that was on the computers.
Hard drives aren't that expensive. I just bought a new Western Digital 1 TB drive for $89.99. I plan to use it to back up the Seagate that is getting noisy & then maybe alternate them.
Also, when I came back to Mac, I moved practially all of my documents to Mac. I think I just dragged & dropped or something. Photos, Office, & pdfs do fine that way. & then you could back them up to a couple of different external drives & remove from your MacBookAir.
Unfortunately I think most of us do not back up until crisis & then it may be too late.
Also use Time Machine. For the 1st time in my computer life, my computer is well backed up--although now realizing the need for redundancy so will start backing up to at least 2 different HDs alternatly.
So, not sure why it isn't working & hopefully you have come up w a solution by now.
I think what I would do in a situation like this, since you can access it on the Windows machine would be to transfer the data to the Windows machine & then transfer it back to a different back up.
I'm looking into backing up what I still have in Windows using a thumb flash drive. I think it should all fit ok now that they have the larger drives & I don't have very much left in Windows format.

I have a LaCie external hard disk. I do not know how to retrieve photos from iphoto that have disappeared. I do not know how to use Time Machine

I have a LaCie external hard drive. I also have Time Machine. I somehow have "lost" almost all my 5,000+ photos from iPhoto 8.1.2. I would appreciate someone giving me directions on how to retrieve the photos from the external hard drive or Time Machine.
The last thing that I did that is different from my normal routine was to trash duplicate music tunes from iTunes. I cannot figure out how that would have caused my photos to disappear.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Marilyn

I remember being cautioned to never do anything with the iPhoto Library. Should I have clicked on the iPhoto Library and then Restore?
I do not know "how" items are being placed in the LaCie external drive, just that it shows a backup running about every hour. I have taken a snapshot of the Time Machine Preferences I would you to see. Maybe that would answer this question.
In March 2011 I had to have hard drive on my iMac replaced. I had been using a Seagate external drive for backups. However I was not using Time Machine. When the Apple guru was helping me restore all my files etc on the new hard drive he was not familiar with Seagate and recommended I purchase this LaCie and use Time Machine. I never had any problem retrieving items from the Seagate backup. It was very straightforward. As I mentioned previously, I just don't have a clue with the LaCie and Time Machine.
I hope this is not TMI.
Marilyn

Restore from Time Machine / Migration Assistance Utility

Sorry if this is obvious, but just want to restore wo further user complications.
_Back story:_ 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot. Genius Bar determines HD needs reformatting. Reformats and installs OS v10.5.7, not Snow Leopard. Explained to follow new setup and when prompted select from Time Machine (external HD) and restore. At home I do, it won't. Everything is recognized (External HD, Time Machine, File), but tells me OS on machine older than Time Machine files and to upgrade iMac (and can try again from Migration Assistant Utility).
Continue with prompted new setup and created User Account. iMac now ready and like new. Installed Snow Leopard. Run Migration Assistant Utility and select restore from Time Machine.
Issue: External HD recognized by iMac but not by Migration Assistant Utility. Only selection choice is internal HD. Additionally when connecting external, always get prompted (separate prompt from Migration Assistance) if I want to setup Time Machine and I've been declining. Do I have to set up Time Machine before? It didn't require that when doing new user setup.
Thanks for any and all assistance.

Chad Krukowski wrote:
Than you! that is what I wanted to do, a full restore. Unfortunately was following the direction of the genius bar.
Yup. The Geniuses (like most Apple folks) don't actually use Time Machine on their work computers, and aren't real familiar with it, so this sort of thing isn't all that unusual, unfortunately. You could even have gotten similar advice from AppleCare, depending on the expertise of whoever you happened to get. Sigh.

Time Machine - Migration Assistance Failure

Hard drive failure on Mac... installed new drive. When using migration assistant in conjunction with time machine encountering error mid way through data transfer process...unable to create user name.. any insight is appreciated..
This event occurred during several attempts.

Chad Krukowski wrote:
Than you! that is what I wanted to do, a full restore. Unfortunately was following the direction of the genius bar.
Yup. The Geniuses (like most Apple folks) don't actually use Time Machine on their work computers, and aren't real familiar with it, so this sort of thing isn't all that unusual, unfortunately. You could even have gotten similar advice from AppleCare, depending on the expertise of whoever you happened to get. Sigh.

How to use Time machine to back up to a later date?

Recently got a new drive from apple cuz old drive died.
I could only use Time machine for a complete back-up on 8/22/12 but I can't copy or access the files from 11/21/12 in time machine..
Tried copying the specific file I needed and the computer as a whole but the files that show up are only the ones that are already there on 8/22/12.
Could this be because my newer file system is 10.8.2 and the old restore point is still 10.7.5? Please help.

I'm totally confused... sorry. What do you mean by "try to back up to 11/21/12"? Did you mean "restore from 11/21", or are you actually trying to backup new data on your Time Machine drive?
If you open Migration Assistant (located in the Applications/Utilities folder), and choose to restore from a Time Machine backup, the program will automatically pull the latest Time Machine backup and put all the data back where it was.
Alternatively, if you have your installation DVDs (if your computer came with one, or alternatively you can boot to the recovery partition) you can restore your entire system to your latest Time Machine backup. When you select the option to do so from the Utilities menu, you're given a choice of dates, which correspond to valid restore points in your backup drive. So, in this case, you would choose the one from 11/21. Hope this answers your question!

How to use time machine to replace the current iMovie for one a few weeks ago?

I have a movie in iMovie that somehow became unusable. The size says it is 10GB when it should only be about 1GB. I have been to the Genius Bar for a total of 4 hours and the only solution we can find is to REMAKE the entire movie. They say that one or more of my movie clips must have imbedded data that it shutting the whole iMovie program down. They say there is no way to know which clip is causing the problem. I really don't want to remake the entire 2 hour movie. I tried to use time machine and found my movie from about 3 weeks ago (before it ballooned to 10GB--so I guess before I added the bad clip) and I just wanted to replace my current one with this version and just fill in the last 3 weeks of data. However I can't seem to do this. Does anyone know how to do this using iMovie '08?

sheri69 wrote:
I tried to use time machine and found my movie from about 3 weeks ago (before it ballooned to 10GB--so I guess before I added the bad clip) and I just wanted to replace my current one with this version and just fill in the last 3 weeks of data. However I can't seem to do this. Does anyone know how to do this using iMovie '08?
You don't do it with iMovie, but with Time Machine.
Quit iMovie, then locate and select the file you want to restore in your backups via the "Star Wars" display and click the Restore button. See #15 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

How to use Time Machine before and after installing a new hard drive

So basically I'm buying a new hard drive for my Macbook pro and I have a lot of files on my computer that I would like to save. I have never used Time Machine before so I need help on how to set it up before AND after installing the harddrive so my files get transferred onto the new hard drive. Thanks in advance

wjosten wrote:
Me, I would never use Time Machine to do this. What I'd suggest you do is get an exterior enclosure for your new drive. Then use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your existing drive to your new drive. Once done, verify your clone is bootable & all of your data present. Then swap drives & use your old drive for Time Machine backups(after erasing it). Then get another drive & exterior enclosure to regularly clone your new drive to.
Unless he was swapping for a lower capacity HDD or to a lower capacity SSD, then the old drive would make a lousy Time Machine disk. However, whenever I swap out a disk I do exactly what you do. CCC to get the ol drive onto a new one. Test by starting up to the new (but still external drive). Then replace the internal drive.
I usually just sell the old drive on eBay. My Time Machine backup is always 2X the size of the internal drive, which I believe is a bit above recommendations, but works for me. The price of large external drives is almost the same as smaller internal ones.

TS3161 how to use time machine to reconstitute old iPhoto library

In moving photos in other files to the Pictures Folder, I somehow changed the iPhoto Library. How do I use Time Machine to put the iPhoto Library back in the right place with the picture data for iPhoto prior the the additions to the Picture folder.

Open Home/Folder/Pictures/iPhoto
Click the Time Machine icon in the toolbar and enter...
Go back in time and click restore...

How do use Time Machine to back up to my network drive?

I have been dealing with this issue for days. When I had bought my MacBook Pro a couple of weeks ago I figured Id try and back it up to my 1.5tb Western Digital HD that's plugged into the USB port on my router. I Have connected to it through finder and can access it fine however my main point in getting to it is to back up my MacBook with Time Machine over the air to the external HD. I have researched and tried many tricks such as running codes in finder to create a "sparsebundle" using the code " hdiutil create -size 100g -fs HFS+J -volname "Time Machine" COMPUTERNAME_XXXXXXXXXXXX.sparsebundle " in Terminal. I was able to succeed in creating one but my problem comes when I want to transfer it to the network drive. I use the code " rsync -aE COMPUTERNAME_XXXXXXXXXXXX.sparsebundle /Volumes/NETWORKDRIVE/ ". However I get error codes such as "file could not be transferred (23)" and "no file or directory (2)". Also before I did all of these steps I made sure to make network drives discoverable in Time Machine by running the code " defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1 " in Terminal. However without using the trick that I keep getting errors with Time Machine gets error message 45 when attempting to back up to the Network Drive straight after making the Drive discoverable. I know Apple niched Time Machine back ups on network drives after or toward the end of Leopard and thats why it is so hard to do it now but I was hoping someone can aid me in my never ending problem?

Hi Barney
What format is the drive on the router? It has to be HFS+ (Extended, journaled).
Sorry Barney, that's not correct in this context. The user must create an HFS+ sparse bundle and then upload it to the network drive. The network drive will be formatted as its formatted.
I also believe it has to be an Apple Airport Extreme router.
Again, that is not the case. I am successfully using Time Machine to an Iomega network drive for the last 12 months. No issues at all.
However, you are making your backup completely unreliable.
There may be an element of truth to this, however, I have used the "Star Wars" interface to recover individual files directly. If I should need to perform a larger recovery and for some reason I can't get the usual access through Apple software, I have established that I can directly access the sparse bundle on the drive and mount it on the computer. Once there, I can just copy files directly from it. The sparse bundle folder structure makes it easy to get the latest version of every file with a couple of mouse drags. This means that I will always be able to get access to my backups.
Apple nixed it because they couldn't get it to work reliably. I imagine they only support that sort of thing on their own Time Capsule because they can control the wireless transmission and error checking (and they sold TCs specifically for that purpose).
I don't know why Apple nixed it - I've had zero problems with this configuration and it is by far the most sensible way to use Time Machine. It seems completely pointless to have a portable MacBook and then have to physically connect a drive to it permanently for backup purposes.
I've only had personal experience with the Iomega drive - maybe it only works with a limited number of manufacturers?
Bob
Message was edited by: Bob Lang1

How to use Time Machine with an external drive?

Hi…I’m new to this, I hope someone can help me=)
I’m trying to back up my Macbook Pro 10.6.8 using Time Machine with an external drive Seagate Backplus Slim. I’ve tried several solutions that I’ve found through different forums but still wouldn’t work.
Every time I opened Time Machine, it has this appearance:
Then when I click “Select backup Disk”, it goes on like this:
And after I click “Set Up Time Capsule”, it has this:
It keeps saying that it couldn’t find AirPort wireless, even though I have good WIFI connection.
Anyone know what I should do? Please help….Thanks everyone

Ayuphie ~ In your Time Machine Preferences panel, slide the OFF-ON switch to the ON position:

How to use Time Machine to restore previous OS

I have a 2009 27-inch iMac, still running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I would like to upgrade to Yosemite, but the more I read on this forum, the more terrified I get. If I try it, and then run into some of the hideous problems I read, can I use Time Machine to get back to where I am now?

or maybe do a 'baby step' upgrade to Mountain Lion. Would that make any sense?
That does not make any sense - even if you could do it which you cannot.
An easy way to revert/retreat is to make a bootable clone (SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner work well) on an external drive. If you need to retreat, you can do that from there.
but the more I read on this forum, the more terrified I get.
Incidentally, I suggest you forget the anecdotal "problems." OS X 10.10 is stable and works well. This place is like a hospital where everone is sick. Here, everyone posting has a problem. None of us post "everything is working well comments" - which would be silly in any event.
IMHO, your bigger risk is to continue to run your computer on back level and unsupported software. Sooner or later, you are going to have problems.
Barry
P.S. Like everything else, the above is my opinion

How to use Time Machine to backup a disk image

I have my iPhoto libray in a disk image in the shared folder so that it can be shared by two user accounts. Is there a way to use Time Machine to backup the mounted image? I don't want to backup the entire disk image file every time there is a change in iPhoto (over 200GB!). I'd like to just backup the changes, but so far, it doesn't seem to work?

There is no way to back up a mounted, writable disk image with Time Machine. If you want to keep data on a disk image, the best option is to convert it to a sparsebundle, which consists of many small files instead of one big file. It will be backed up much more efficiently, but only when not mounted.

How to use Time Machine/Migration Assistant

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