HT201250 Will restoring entire system revert to previous OS?

I recently took my Mac Book Pro to be fixed since it wasn't starting up correctly. They solved the problem by re-installing the OS. The only downside is they were able to back up all of my documents, but none of my applications.
I keep an updated Time Machine backup and I would like to attempt to restore my applications that way.
My question is: If I restore my entire system using Time Machine, will this cause it to revert to the previous OS (which caused the problems in the first place)? (Note: If I rememeber correctly, the OS version from the back up was v10.5.8 and the one they installed is v10.6.8)

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

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Restore entire system from a Time Capsule backup?

Can anyone help me restore my entire system (MacBook Pro, os x 10.5.8) from a set date in time using Time Machine. I use a Time Capsule wifi for back-ups. I have found lots of tutorials and how to's that say it can be done, but none which actually spell out how to do it step by step if you're not changing Macs or using a more modern operating system. I've been to two Apple stores with all of my equipment and the instructions from the Genius Bar haven't worked when I get home to start the back-up. One Apple store wiped my iPhone and restored and synched it to a store laptop when I had my own with me, so now those don't synch or recognize each other and I've lost all my iTunes settings. The second store said I needed to restore my Mac with a snapshot from my HD, which seems like the place I'm restoring to, not restoring from.
I want to first ensure TM is backing up to the Time Capsule and not to my Mac before I do a complete restore. The store seemed to indicate that TM was backing up to the Mac. Every Apple tutorial reads that the Time Machine recognizes it is connected to a Time Capsule and after initial setup "just takes care of itself," so this is a surprise to me and I want to triple-check my files and the snapshots in time are on an external Time Capsule. The settings in Time Capsule all look fine, but I can't tell if it's the actual back-up drive. When I go into TM I see the dates on the right hand side, but none are pink as some tutorials read they should be? Is that a new addition with later operating systems.
The problem started when I was trying to synch and charge my iPhone routinely. During the synch I received a software update window that read I should update the latest iWork software updates. So I clicked yes. Then a window popped up reading I needed to download the latest iPhone software updates, so I said yes. After two hours of downloading and installing my iPhone screen went black, read I needed to plug into iTunes, which it was. And when I unplugged and plugged it back in to the Mac and iTunes it read my only option was to Restore to factory settings. I immediately shut everything down and went to the Apple store and when I got back home iTunes doesn't open on the Mac. The phone is on a different system than the Mac. My iCal and Address book files are corrupted, missing information, some records are duplicated. And all of my photos in iPhoto are all dated with the same date from 9 months ago. The photos from recently are in the Library, but the date informaton is corrupt.
From what I'm reading I can restore the computer to what it looked like in a point in time when I know everything looked and synched correctly, a few days before the problem without losing too much data? Can anybody shed some light on this? Thanks so much.

smnolmagic wrote:
Can anyone help me restore my entire system (MacBook Pro, os x 10.5.8) from a set date in time using Time Machine.
See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14 for all the gory details.
The second store said I needed to restore my Mac with a snapshot from my HD, which seems like the place I'm restoring to, not restoring from.
There may be a misunderstanding there -- effective with Lion, Time Machine does make "Local snapshots" on the internal HD of laptop Macs, so they're available when your regular TM backups aren't. But you can't do a full restore from them.
And since you're still on Leopard, the only way to have backups on your internal HD would be if you'd created a separate partition on it and directed TM to back up there, instead of to your Time Capsule.
Since Lion has been out for about 18 months, the AppleStore folks may have forgotten (or never known) the differences from Leopard and Snow Leopard.
I want to first ensure TM is backing up to the Time Capsule and not to my Mac before I do a complete restore.
Use the Time Machine Browser (the "Star Wars" display) to see your backups. You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial, and perhaps browse Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
When I go into TM I see the dates on the right hand side, but none are pink as some tutorials read they should be? Is that a new addition with later operating systems.
Yes, that's a change effective with Lion. The "Local Snapshots" are shown in white, backups on an external HD, Time Capsule, etc., in pink. But on Leopard, all you'll see is white. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #15A for details.
From what I'm reading I can restore the computer to what it looked like in a point in time when I know everything looked and synched correctly, a few days before the problem without losing too much data?
Yes, per #14 in the FAQ as above. Once that's done, you can then selectively restore more-current items from subsequent backups, if you want.
However, note that, on Leopard, doing a full system restore makes your internal HD look like it's an entirely different disk to OSX and Time Machine. Once you're running on the restored version, you'll need the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see the backups from the "old" disk.
Also, when you do the next backup, it will be a full one -- everything you just put back on the disk will be backed-up in full. That will take a long time and probably a lot of space on the TM drive.

Need help restoring entire system

Last night I decided to upgrade the harddrive in my iMac and then use Time Machine to restore my system. However, I ran into a bit of a snag. When I go to restore I have to select the file I want to restore from. Time Machine states that it only shows "complete backups", however I find this very inaccurate as the list showed every single backup for each hour they were created. If I selected the last backup it wouldn't copy anything, reboot and hang until it loaded the cd again. I then selected the first backup since I know it contained the entire system. That worked fine, however, obviously I had made several changes since the first backup. Most of my apps are missing as well as all file changes that were made. I can't find a way to simply restore my system to the last state it was in. If I reboot and tell it to restore the last backup it erases the drive and ofcourse there are no files for it to copy over. How do I get my system to look exactly like it did prior to changing the hard drive? There has to be a way to do this using Time Machine since they claim you can restore your system after a hard drive failure.

Just to clarify what I did. I booted using the DVD and can successfully restore my system from a Time Machine backup, however, I can only restore using the first backup Time Machine makes (where it backs up the entire system). What I can't get it to do is restore from the last backup point. So basically I can restore my system to look like it did on October 26th, but I can't restore it to look like it did yesterday. The problem with that is not only am I not able to see applications I have installed since the first backup, but all the file changes I have made are gone. If I try to reboot from DVD and restore from backup and select the last backup that was made on Nov 7th, it says it is "copying files" but within 10 seconds the system reboots and loads from the DVD again because the Nov 7th backup didn't contain anything (although the Backup process says it only shows "complete backups" I assume it shows more than that. I will try again tonight and select the last backup to see if it works properly the second time around.

Restoring Entire System to Earlier Backup with Leopard CPU Drop-in DVD

After some programs failed in a pernicious manner, I decided to return the entire system to a Time Machine backup made earlier today. Time Machine Help "Recovering your Entire system" seems to be the only relevant help. It says to choose Utilities > Restore System from my Mac OS X Install disc. But I was shipped two Tiger Mac OS X Install Discs and a Leopard CPU Drop-in DVD (updates to Leopard). The Leopard Drop-in does not have Utilities > Restore System and I am reluctant to use either Tiger disc to restore my Leopard system.
What should I be doing? I hope the answer provides a restore process that is relatively quick because the changes are relatively small.
Message was edited by: Butterflie14

Butterflie14,
The term "delta" doesn't really apply to Time Machine backups. Each backup is a complete "snapshot" of the entire installation. In order to do this without copying over huge amounts of data, Time Machine uses "multi-linked" files in the various backups, all pointing to the same data. That is, with the exception of any new/changed files; these represent the only real data that is transferred during each backup. Only in this sense does "delta" apply.
Restoring from a backup, at least in the context of "going back to a previous state," is an all-or-nothing proposition. That doesn't mean it has to take a long time. First, the process of erasing a drive takes mere seconds. Second, a Time Machine "Restore" doesn't include a new installation of OS X from the installer disk (which would take a long time), but rather a restoration of the entire system from the backup. As such, it is dependent entirely on the speed of the drive and connecting bus (FW 400, 800, USB, etc.). In the case of my FW 800 drive, a complete "Restore" of a 50 GB system took about 30 minutes.
I agree, to take this step seems like a waste just to recover from some "pernicious" action of a particular application. If you were a bit more specific about what application we're talking about, and just what it did, perhaps I could offer better advice. You can restore anything that has been backed up by Time Machine, but may have been deleted from your internal disk in the meantime, but you cannot really "un-modify" OS X, if that is what has happened. To do so, you must perform a complete "Restore."
Scott

Restoring Entire System with Time Capsule

Hello,
I configured my Time Capsule with custom user accounts (AirPort Utility -> Disks -> File Sharing -> Secure Shared Disks: with Accounts). I think this may be causing a problem with selecting a backup source for an entire system restore to a re-formatted disk.
I am trying to follow the steps detailed in item #14 of this forum's FAQ but not having luck. I get to step "e" and on the "Select a Backup Source" dialog I am presented with the correct ("volume" on network "time_capsule") option. The "Continue" button is disabled and the "Connect to remote disk" button brings up a logon dialog with "System Administrator" pre-populated as the user. It does not accept the password I assigned to the Time Capsule, so I type the custom user name and password and it seems to authenticate successfully but then drops me back to the "Select a Backup Source" with the "Continue" button still disabled.
So my problem is that I can't locate the Time Machine backup. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Mickey
Message was edited by: OscrDGrch
Message was edited by: OscrDGrch
Message was edited by: OscrDGrch

OscrDGrch wrote:
Hello,
I configured my Time Capsule with custom user accounts (AirPort Utility -> Disks -> File Sharing -> Secure Shared Disks: with Accounts). I think this may be causing a problem with selecting a backup source for an entire system restore to a re-formatted disk.
That's probably right. You're more likely to find someone who knows how to deal with that in the +Time Capsule+ forum, hiding in the +Digital Life+ section, at: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1253

Restoring entire system from a backup

For future use, I am interested in restoring my entire system, but I am confused with the following directions:
"With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility"
My mac book pro did not come with a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc, so I'm not sure how to go about restoring my entire system. What is a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc?

Banaple wrote:
My mac book pro did not come with a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc, so I'm not sure how to go about restoring my entire system. What is a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc?
That is the Snow Leopard installation disk used on older MBPs. It does not apply to a MBP that came with Mt. Lion installed such as yours.
Ciao.

System image/snapshot for restoring entire system.

1- I want to make "system images"/"snapshots" of my computer for a later restore.
2- Also i would like to learn more about how to restore "system images" of my system.
note: since time machine works incremental i dont want that because i cannot isolate a system image.
thank you,
Paulo

PauloGuedes wrote:
1- I want to make "system images"/"snapshots" of my computer for a later restore.
2- Also i would like to learn more about how to restore "system images" of my system.
note: since time machine works incremental i dont want that because i cannot isolate a system image.
Time machine does do just that. you just misunderstand how it works. you can do a full system restore from Time machine to any time point you have a backup for and it will give you an exact copy of your system (minus some temp files) at that time. to do a full system restore from TM you boot from the leopard install DVD and select "restore system from backup" from the utilities menu.
thank you,
Paulo
Message was edited by: V.K.

Restoring Entire System

My four-year-old hard drive (250gig) crashed. I have purchased and installed a Seagate Momentus Hybrid (750gig). I have partitioned it for the "Macintosh HD." I have booted from a USB flash drive with OSX Lion on it.
My question is, do I need to reinstall the OSX on the drive before I restore from my Time Machine backup, or do I simply select my backup for restoring? In other words, will the restore also restore the OSX operating system?
Thanks for your input.

Unless you told Time Machine not to back up the Mac OS X system, it'll be restored.
(73396)

How to restore file system of the previous backup from OSB using webtool?

Dear all,
I have some problem regarding to the file system restoration.
For example, I have backed up some files yesterday and today those files have been made change.
So tomorrow I am planning to restore the files from the yesterday backup (the original files before made changes) to other host for testing the data.
Is it possible to do that, since when i restore i can see only the latest ones and search options during restoration are not working well (as date, date range,.....) ?
Your reply to me is very important.
Thanks and regards,
Rasmey

There is no recovery partition on drives which haven't had 10.7 or 10.8 installed. You need to use a Mac OS X install DVD to restore the backup.
(82545)

Firefox was not working properly with facebook, so i restored my system to a previous version, after the restore, firefox is not working, i am trying to launch firefox but it is not opening, please help me...

fire fox is not starting.

Be careful with using system restore as it only restores some file, so you end up with a Firefox installation that has a mixture of old and new files.
Do a clean (re)install and delete the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\).
Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.
* Firefox 8.0.x: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html
Uninstall your current Firefox version if possible.
*Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall the current version or you lose your bookmarks and other data in the profile folder.
Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.
*It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall

HT201250 Will restoring a mailbox with time machine delete new mail?

I recently changed internet service provider and chaned the settings in mail to send/recieve with new provider. I removed the old account (pop & SMTP) and the items I had saved in my old mailbox disappeared.
I need to recover some items in that mailbox. I was going to use time machine to recover these files and wanted to know if doing this will delete current mailbox (information/settings).
Some additional advice would be really appreciated on how to avoid losing information in the future.
Can anyone help????

Quit Mail.
Go to the FInder, select Go, then GO to Folder. Paste this:
~/Library/Mail/V2/
A finder window will open in your Home Library to the Mail folder.
With that window active, enter TM. Navigate back in time and find the account folder you deleted. Highlight it and click to restore.
Once done, open Mail. The account you deleted should be there with the messages. Create a local folder and move those messages to it. Then, you can once again delete that account from mail.
Messages in a POP accounts are stored on the computer within that account. Creating local mailboxes and moving messages to them will move the messages out of the account. Since local mailboxes are not affected by specific accounts, they won't get deleted when you do delete an account.

Restore entire system?

I am new to Macs, but how do you restore the whole system? There were objects put on my computer at work and I am wanting to delete everything back to the way it was when I bought it. Is there a way to do that?
Thanks
Stacey

There really is no way to mess it up, so proceed with confidence.
One thing that you may want to do is a selective reinstall of the bundled apps. You probably have a few in there that you do not use, so leave them off to free up space on the HD. I did just that when I got mine and saved several GB by leaving off Garage Band and the sample loops as well as things like Quicken, and other apps.

Restoring entire system from time machine

The internal hard drive on our imac had to be replace because it died on us. The guy at the store said that I could restore using our time machine backup which is on an external drive. He said that we could do this when we turned the computer on for the first time. I tried to do this but when I went to select our external hard drive to restore from it did not show up on the "select your disk" window rather the only disk showing was our internal hard drive. Assuming I could do this later I skipped the restore option and finished the setup process. I am now trying to restore our mac from the last time machine backup. What I have read on Pondini's site is that I can do this using Migration Assistant. I tried this but I am having the same problem. When I get to the "select your disk" window my external hard drive is not showing - only my internal HD is listed. This is strange because my external hard drive is on and connected and appears in the list of devices on the Finder. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks very much in advance!

The internal hard drive on our imac had to be replace because it died on us. The guy at the store said that I could restore using our time machine backup which is on an external drive. He said that we could do this when we turned the computer on for the first time. I tried to do this but when I went to select our external hard drive to restore from it did not show up on the "select your disk" window rather the only disk showing was our internal hard drive. Assuming I could do this later I skipped the restore option and finished the setup process. I am now trying to restore our mac from the last time machine backup. What I have read on Pondini's site is that I can do this using Migration Assistant. I tried this but I am having the same problem. When I get to the "select your disk" window my external hard drive is not showing - only my internal HD is listed. This is strange because my external hard drive is on and connected and appears in the list of devices on the Finder. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks very much in advance!

Restore entire System using Time machie

Hi
I am new to Mac so I need to know how I can restore my data I backedup using Time Machine.
The backed up data is on an external Hard drive and I am going ro restore on the same Mac I backed up my data.
Thank you

See #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

After downloading new version of firefox, i didn't like it and attempted to restore my system to a previous time and version of firefox. Now firefox won't open, even the old version isn't there anymore.

I want to get firefox back, keeping all of the bookmarks.

Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.
* Firefox 8.0.x: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html
Uninstall your current Firefox version.
*Do not remove personal data when you uninstall the current version or you lose your bookmarks and other data in the profile folder.
Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.
*It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup

HT201250 Will restoring entire system revert to previous OS?

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